John Dyson - Growing headcount, getting out of your own way, & the importance of strong leadership

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Today I'm really excited to be joined by John Dyson, who is the founder of FJR Group. John has worked in the recruitment industry for over 2 decades, and in this time he built himself a successful career, uh, progressing through the ranks to director level at Robert Half within 7 years. And before then, and he then decided to start his own recruitment business in 2011. And for the last decade, John has been dedicated to growing the FJR Group, who now have multiple brands within the group across finance, tech, HR, and executive search. They're currently nearly 50 strong with offices across the UK and soon to be in the States. And their ultimate vision is to be in 25 locations and to be doing £25 million turnover in each location in 25 years. John, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much, great to be here.

So, where we always like to start, million-pound question. So, in your opinion, what characteristics and traits do you think make up a highly successful recruitment consultant?

Um, I, I think there's, like all things, fairly, fairly varied. Um, I think the great thing about recruitment is we're selling to, uh, so many different characters, personalities, and I suppose character traits on the other side of the fence that I think there are certainly your common traits that come out, the determination, the competitive element, and all the rest of it. But I do think that one of the things that we try to have within FJR is a balance of characters, a balance of traits. Because I don't necessarily think that if everyone is, you know, has that sort of complete has to be number one competitor instinct, all the rest of it. When you start to build teams and you start to try and grow, you can't all be number one at the same time. You want to foster that level of competition. But I think, you know, one of the things that certainly as we grew the business is, you know, you need a blend of personalities. I think we always look for someone who has got that just natural inquisitiveness. I think the great thing about recruitment is you can go into most people's business regardless of what level you're operating at, and you can ask some really intelligent questions and understand what's going on in those businesses. And I think personally, for me, that level of inquisitiveness starts to then uncover, not just on the client side, but on the candidate side as well, how people are going to fit into a business. So certainly the inquisitiveness. And I think the old-fashioned working hard, determination, however you want to badge that one up. But recruitment is a tough game, and you need someone who's got that level of resilience that can keep going when the chips are down. And I think certainly the best people I've seen have had that sort of natural intelligence, inquisitiveness, But they've also got a very steely core, you know, where they're very clear in terms of, you know, what they need to do, how they need to do it, and that resilience to commit to achieving that.

Nice.

So I think they're probably the big ones that I would look for. And then outside that, you've got all the soft skills and all the rest of it. But I think then it's about blending as you look at your team.

So I have to ask you this because we're actually doing an event on it this month and I just find it fascinating. So obviously you always typically hear resilience and recruitment hand in hand. Right?

I think you possess it.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I don't think— so an example is I was at a barbecue in 2006. 2006. I was at a barbecue, maybe a little bit before that, and we were all having a few beers and it was like, right, what's the toughest thing you can do? What's the toughest thing? Lads around a barbecue. I was probably late 20s, maybe just 30 then. And it was like when someone said, right, it's the Marathon des Sables, which is like 6 marathons in 7 days through the Sahara Desert, carry all your own food and all the rest of it. And me and a very good friend went, all right, yeah, we'll do that.

Oh my God.

And so on the Monday we entered, we were like, okay, we'll enter. And I've always been fit, but not like super marathon fit or anything like this. And we were on a 2-year waiting list. So we were in for 2007. And ultimately, the Iran-Iraq War kicked off, a load of people got sort of brought in and we were on a waiting list and you get a call and you go, you're on the waiting list. Are you serious or not? And once you go, yes, I am, you sort of— and clearly 2 years of bragging. Bragging to my mates about it. I'm going to do this. I'm rocking. And then one day I got a call and they're like, you've got a place.

Oh, my God.

That was in September. So that was September '06. My son was born. My first son was born in September '06. And the race was in April '07. And clearly I turned up yeah, with, with my, you know, I can do anything recruitment attitude. We're bloody good at what we do. Um, and I think, you know, once I was there, I realized I was so far out of my depth. It was ridiculous. Um, but I suppose when I— when the race started, day one, you're fine, the adrenaline and all the rest of it. And then suddenly you realize, oh my God, I've got to do this. I've got, I've got another 140 miles to go through the desert. I'm eating crap food on a little hexi stove. I'm sleeping on the floor of a desert. I can't have a shower. Um, I've got no home comforts whatsoever because I can only carry— you're only allowed to carry what you carry.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and it's like, right, you're in. And the amount of people that had Ironman tattooed all down their legs, and they've done multiple triathlons and adonis of men and women just crashed. Day 2, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 people just dropped out. Just dropped out. They're like, I can't do it. There's nothing wrong with you. And I suppose my attitude, I started pretty well, performance went down, but it's like, I will not not finish. I will put one foot in front of the other and I will keep going. And I kept thinking to myself, well, during the war, people had their arm blown off and walked out the desert. I've got a few blisters, so just keep going. And I think that level of resilience, I didn't realize I had that level of resilience in the workplace. It doesn't come out quite in the same way.

Yeah, of course. It's extreme.

And that was probably the first time— and what, I was in my early 30s then— that I really realized that when I put my mind to something, it was pain, it was emotional, it was— your tent got blew away at night, so you didn't even have good night's sleep. You literally got up at 6:00 in the morning. It'd take me half an hour to get my shoes on because I had all these blisters. My toenails were coming off and all the rest of it. I will not quit. I will not quit. I will keep going. And we went— there's one stage which is on day 4, and it's a 60-mile stage, and you go through the night. And I was doing my mate, and after 2 days, I was like, look, you're much fitter than me. You trained properly. You did all the research. You're a bastard, but well done. Crack on. I'll just I'll see you at the tent at night, but don't worry, I'll always make it. And there was a stop where you could stop at night, and they'd sort of built an area where you could bed down and then continue the next day if you wanted to stop. And, um, I found a number of people from my tent, and they were all fitter than me. They were, they were all more prepared for me, and they were sitting around a little fire crying.

And I was like, oh my God, what are you doing?

What are you doing? They were just broken. And it was like, I remember it was like, just pick them up, guys. We are doing this. This is part of this. It's not about— you need to go through the night. We can make so much time. And just bringing that group through, that resilience, I was like, I wasn't ever sure demonstrating that. And I don't think you either have it or you don't. There's no— at that point when you've been stripped bare of all the other things, that's when you really know you've got it. And it's tough to find that in people. It's tough to find it in an interview because, yeah, you know, but it is trying to dig into some of those things where people have really been up against something and what have they done.

Yeah, what a great story. And honestly, that the whole sort of, um, I'm absolutely fascinated with sort of ultra runners and things like that because like it's what you're talking about, it's that sort of realization of what you're capable of Yeah. Which must just be this amazing, crazy feeling of like, oh my, like, what else can I do in my life if I really put my mind to it? As you said.

Yeah.

And it's like, wow. But I guess, I guess I have to ask, like, where, like you said, obviously you possess it or you don't. I then, I then feel like that a lot of that can be created and formed in sort of early parts of your life. So I have to ask, like, what, What was it like for you growing up then? Do you feel like your childhood had an impact on this? Or I have to ask.

I had a really privileged background, so I was very lucky. I was born in Japan. I spent my formative years in the Far East. I went to boarding school from the age of 8. So I think that level of independence, you know, I used to fly around the world on my own at 8 and a half.

Wow.

And so, yeah, I suppose that level of independence maybe came from that. But, you know, I can't point to something that happened in my childhood that, you know, adversity, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough.

I was very fortunate. But I do think probably that independence of going to boarding school which I loved. And that independence of, you're 9 years old and you go to Heathrow and it was in the days where you'd fly to the Far East and you'd fly to Germany, you'd fly from Germany to the Middle East, you'd fly from the Middle East to the next spot. It's when planes didn't go very far back in the day. But no, I can't point to something from that perspective. I mean, my father was always he set businesses up. That's what we ended up moving around. So he worked for big corporate businesses, I suppose, at the forefront of, I suppose, globalization. He worked for big UK and US corporates and he would set up their businesses in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, and then we'd move on to the next business. So I suppose there was always an element of a startup type, not startup, but there was always an element of sales entrepreneurism. My sister runs her own business and my brother runs his own business. So there's got to be something in our upbringing that we're either not very good at taking orders or something that's affected us.

But yeah, I love that. No, I was just curious. So look, I guess very, very quickly then, because I want us to focus on sort of John the business owner journey, but Obviously there's a lot to unpack here, right? Being in the industry for a solid amount of time. So like, I guess if we were to pack it all together, obviously your time at Robert Half, which is a long amount of time, there's a couple of other companies that I can see you work for before then, but like, how, I guess we always want to talk about people interested, like how would you describe your sort of early days in recruitment? Like what was John's early days of recruitment like? What was that like for you? How would you describe it?

I mean, so the early days, I mean, I didn't really understand what recruitment was when I first got into it. Very honestly, I got a job at Stansted Airport Job Centre working for a technical recruitment business, sending people out to Holland to work, petrochemical, welders, that sort of stuff. I think pretty quickly I realised that I didn't I enjoyed it, but it wasn't really that fulfilling in terms of sort of the professionalism of what we were doing. You know, I'd be advertising in the back of The Sun, you know, so it didn't necessarily feel, you know, it was a great business, great sounding. I then went and joined a finance and accounting recruitment business, a small business, 6 of us in the office. I was basically just given a senior qual desk and it was like, Speak to these people and this is what you're doing. And I think, I suppose, back at that point, you know, CRMs weren't there. You had, you know, CVs on your desk. You had not quite Rolodexes, but, you know, all the CVs there. So I think in those days it was about building the relationships. It was probably far more— you had a small amount of time, you were posting CVs, you were, you know, it was just probably less fast-paced, but I'd probably say longer because I felt that probably you were working into the evenings more because you had less time to contact people. There was no email, there was nothing. So therefore things drifted for a lot longer, I think. And it was great. Recruitment's the same. Your tools have changed, but actually what we're doing is still the same. We still meet candidates in the same way. We still do. You just got Teams to do it now or Zoom to do it now. But, you know, ultimately it hasn't changed that much. It's become more competitive. It's probably become faster. But ultimately, the service we provide and how we do it and what makes people good in the late '90s to make people good at, you know, the early 2020s, I think the skill sets are pretty much the same still. You can have all the tools we have today, but if you don't do some of the fundamentals and you can't build a relationship and you can't do those things, you're going to really struggle in our industry.

Yeah. So let's just go into the last sort of 10 years then. So obviously you had a real solid amount of time working for other people. So as you mentioned, it sort of seemed like it was sort of, you were destined to start your own business, potentially you may say. But like, obviously there's a lot of people that say they're going to start their own recruitment business and then there's not as many people that should do it. So I guess I just always like to start like, what gave you the confidence in 2011 to take that first step and start your own recruitment business?

So I would say I was not reluctant, but it was never necessarily on my career plan. If I went back 15 years and someone said to me, this is where you're going to be in 10 years' time, I'd be like, no, not because of what we've done. I just saw myself as this corporate person. And that was really interesting. I loved my time at Robert Half. And I don't know what it was, but I think I got to a point where I just realized I was I was a passenger in this ship. It wasn't really that fulfilling. It wasn't really— you weren't changing necessarily people's lives internally, externally. I don't quite mean it, but if I got hit by a bus, the next person would be on, take on my role, and 12 months later it's John who? And so I think I think I just started to try and change things and play around with things. And obviously that doesn't work in a corporate environment. So I think, you know, it got to a point where it was like, right, okay, what do I want to do? And I interviewed with lots of smaller recruitment businesses thinking, all right, well, if I go in as MD or CEO, got the opportunity to change things, there's less risk for the family, you know, but, you know, if a company is looking for a new CEO, the chances are there's some skeletons in the closet, if you see what I mean. So I sort of went through a few of those processes and I suppose as I got to the end of it, my father-in-law and particularly my father-in-law and my brother-in-law were both like, you should do it yourself. And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And I suppose collectively we went, right, okay, if we put this amount of money together, we can have a good run at it, probably 12 months worth of decent cash and we can hire a few people and let's give it a go. I wasn't walking out of Robert Half with a bank of clients. I never had clients at Robert Half. It wasn't how our role was. I mean, it was—

Are you using the leadership position? It wasn't like— Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know, the inertia of going, wow, I'm going to have to start building from the bottom. I don't have a black book. I don't have client names. You know, it's literally I'm starting from scratch. And that sort of held me back. And then it was like, you know what, actually, I know I can do it. I know I was good at what I did. I managed to find a couple of people One person who joined me, she did all the admin and I'd worked with her at Robert Half for 8 years, so I trusted her. So she did basically everything non-sales. So it took all of that stuff away from me. She was doing the CRMs, the— absolutely everything. And all I had to do was sell. So it was sort of like in a really weird way being in a corporate, but there was 2 of us, if you see what I mean. It's like, I need this. She'd go and sort it and then I'd crack on. So, you know, I went back to my qual finance days. That's what we build. You know, I'd always looked after finance technology and we'd launched a little bit of an HR pilot at Robert Half. So it was always, I wanted those 3 brands. And I suppose then as we started to go, okay, what else do our clients want? You started to pick up I suppose, the executive positions, and that needed a slightly different delivery mechanism. And, you know, we go forward 10 years, we have multiple delivery mechanisms now for our clients. You know, and it's very clear in terms of when we speak to clients, well, what service do they need and want from us? And what does that look like? But I think, you know, certainly in the early days, it wasn't like I'm going to go and set my business up and I was prepping to do that. It was, you know, fate, whatever you want to call it. And then, you know, I suppose those around you going, yeah, no, you can do it.

You can.

The belief to go, all right, let's do it. My wife.

I also think you did it in a smart way as well. 12, you obviously, not how many people will go with like 12 months runway. I'm not sure. How many, like you've got that, obviously the hire on the ad, the support and admin side, smart. Because I think that's a lot of the things that people underestimate, the amount of other stuff you have to do if you're starting your own business on your own. So I feel like you also did it in a smart way, I feel like.

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to say all of that was planned. And I think, you know, I think this is, you know, I talk to a lot of people about people who set up their own businesses and all the rest of it. And I think one of the traits for some people is you can overthink it.

Yeah.

Just start.

First step, take that first step.

Take the first step and you'll start to work stuff out. I've always, with Chrissy, who's this person I set up with, she was always talking about, you need strategies, you need this, you need this. And I'm like, well, we do have a strategy, but I'm not going to spend a day, 2 days a week writing a strategy document for the next 12 months. I need to place more people. I need to interview more people. I need to I need to put out more contractors. I need to do this, I need to do that. It's pretty clear what we need to do on the sales side. And then, you know, the other stuff starts to look after itself, especially when you're a smaller business. And then I suppose as you grow, you then need to form your strategies, your visions, and all the rest of it. But the vision hasn't changed from day one. The vision has always been, it was by 2041. So, you know, we moved on a bit and it's now 2025 and we're about 8, 10 years into, or 4 years into that. But it was always 25 locations by 2041 is where we wanted to get to. That's never changed. It was always about this global adventure. It was always about taking all the good stuff from someone like Robert Half, taking the great stuff from previous businesses I'd worked at and going, right, well, how do we put these together where you only get one shot at a career? So let's make sure we all enjoy it. You know, let's make sure we all share in the good stuff. And yeah, I've taken some risks. So at the end of the day, I might end up making a little bit more money than everyone else. But it's about going on this adventure with people and going— I talk to a lot of people about it. It's like, there will be a day when we're sitting somewhere in a far-flung place in the earth and go, crap, can you remember when we did this podcast and we were 50 people and now we're X hundred people, or with this or with that? And just having that ability to I suppose, reflect with people and enjoy the adventure with those people. That's so important to me because this isn't the Jon Dyson show. This is about building something that many, many people can be super, super proud of their contributions and knowing that we wouldn't have been able to do it without each other. It's not a solo journey. You know, building a business is about the collective and the better the collective, the better you are.

Yeah, I love that. So what I'm keen to do, John, if it's okay with you, is just to drill down in some practical things on this business journey, because I know that's what people really like. So if we could just like, if you could just paint a picture for us on where the business is today, and then we can go through, I guess, just sort of a bit of the journey really as, yeah, so like where is the business today then? So you said, how many people do you employ? What are you turning over? How many locations, et cetera?

So we will probably do somewhere around €10 million, something around that in sales.

Yeah.

We've got 40, just shade under 50 people within the business. Probably 7 or 8 of them are in operational roles. So support functions, finance, HR, technology. We've got offices in Manchester, London, and Chicago. We started Chicago beginning in May, and we will have our Edinburgh location live probably at some point over August, beginning of September. So yeah, we'll be 4 offices in with a view that probably we'll have another location in the US probably first half of next year.

Nice.

We've stayed true to the, to to the, I suppose, the verticals that we've spoken about. So finance, technology, HR, and the exec piece. I think certainly from, you know, when you start to go into the big metropole markets, those markets get divided down a little bit more. So, you know, within London there's specialist financial services, and then within financial services there's further verticals that drop below that. But I suppose when you start to look at an office like a Manchester business, It's probably slightly more geographical in terms of the focus.

Sure. Okay, great. So, yeah, I guess, so, okay, cool. So then I guess what would just help, I know it's not just about headcount, but it just helps paint a bit of a picture for people. So, just for context, you were describing sort of really early days. So that's where you are today. Obviously, 10 years is a long time. So like, in the first sort of 3 years, let's say, going into like the 4th year, where, like, how many people did you have in the business? Then maybe 6 years in, and then obviously the last bit, just to paint a picture for people on like how long it's taken, you know, I think it's important to showcase that.

So I think the Manchester business, so we were very Manchester-centric until we set the London business up 3 years ago.

Okay.

So I think at the peak, probably Manchester was, or the business was, so let's say after 7 years, Manchester was probably about 30 heads. We had about 30 heads in the business.

Okay, cool.

London then added in the addition, and then we've sort of grown again in both of those locations. So I suppose probably year 3, we were 12 to 15 heads, something like that. We grew quite quickly in the first couple of years, and we were 10 heads after about 18 months. So we grew quite quickly from that perspective. And I suppose the focus has always been this split between permanent and contract. And we try and make sure that 60 to 70% of our revenues are contract. It's not always the case, but certainly having that consistent contract revenue in the background and just supporting cash flow with the interims has been a massive part of us being able to grow, just because of the consistency. And I think, you know, again, that was a big lesson that came out of Robert Half in terms of the balance of your business between perms and contracts and the stability that can give you in terms of your business planning over a 3 to 6 month period.

Yeah, okay, thanks for sharing that. So I guess, look, I was saying this to you before, so let's just go into here because we're talking about headcount growth and these things. Most, um, a lot of recruitment business owners are in that sort of around that 15-head mark or, um, 10-head mark. And a lot of the questions that I get from them is just to I guess, speak to people like you who are further down the track on how you have gone from that sort of 15, 20 mark to 30, 40, 50, because I feel like more and more conversations I've had, that can be like a really difficult transition to achieve that. So I guess if I'm someone that's listening that I do have aspirations to get to that, it seems like you've just mentioned the importance of if you don't have a contract, but that's something you should be thinking about. But if I'm currently at that sort of 10, 15 head mark and I know I want to go to that 30, 40 plus, I guess what were some of the biggest pains for you that you had to go through? What would be some of the sort of key bits of advice that you'd give me?

And I suppose the first of all is finding, finding a, a very tight group of people around you that can share some of that burden.

Yeah.

Once you go past 15 people, you know, you can't be you can't necessarily be on top of everyone every single day to give them support. And you also need to blend, I suppose, the individuals coming into your business. You can't continue to hire people at a mid to senior level. You have to start to train your own. You have to start bringing some of those sort of, I suppose, people who are earlier in their recruitment careers through. So I suppose, you know, first and foremost, it's having one, maybe two other people that can start to carry some of that sort of burden of bringing people through. I think that's a massive thing. And that took a while to get right. You know, it wasn't something we got right straight away. And I think it's also very important to make sure that you do have one eye on that blend within your business. Otherwise you do end up with, you go forward and then suddenly you realize you've got 4 people who are in exactly the same level within the same part of your business and two of them will go, I'm off. And because they can't all progress to being the manager of that team, they can't all. So it's about trying to make sure that you're managing those careers and making sure those individuals understand exactly what their careers are and having that mix of people within the teams. Because I think, again, we've made those mistakes where suddenly we've arrived at a point and everything feels brilliant and suddenly you have you know, a firm of 20 people, 4 people resign, you've lost 20%, you know. You know, it's, it's big. And, and, you know, we all know in recruitment it feels like resignations never come in their ones. It's like one goes and then someone goes, oh yeah, yeah, that's true, it starts to snowball. So, so I suppose that, that, that balance of, of, of making sure that your teams are blended, um, is good, fine, important. So that would be certainly the other one. And I suppose for me, probably making sure that, from a personal perspective, you understand that your business will have to change as you grow. You know, when you're, you know, whatever, when you're a team of 10 people, your business is just of a size and a scale that is so different to 20 people. And I know that sounds But suddenly you've got so many other things that take your attention away. You've got so many other things that start to happen within your business. And I think therefore having those people around and going, okay, well, what are the things that are absolute true pillars? I talk about people, passion, principle, performance. So you get the right people with the right traits, that they're passionate, about recruitment. They're passionate about going out and not selling, but they enjoy recruitment. You've got to enjoy what you do. So you're passionate about that. Principle, that gets kicked around a lot. How many big corporates have principles as their sort of thing? But I suppose principle for me is how would you like your brother or your mother or your sister or your best mate to be treated as they go through a recruitment process? And just treat your candidates like that. That's how I want you to treat your candidates. Not like they're your best mate and you have to pick the phone up all the time, but keeping them updated and all the rest of it. And if you do those three things, you will get performance. You will get, you know, if you're passionate about it, people will feel that passion and they'll come back to you. You know, principles. So I suppose it's keeping what's really core and then going, some of the other stuff, it works when you're 10 people, but when you're 15, 20, it doesn't. It may be that the guy that runs, I don't know, Team A, he might want to take his team out as a team of 6. And it's like, oh, well, where's my invite? And it's like, well, that's not your team anymore, John. You need to let go. You need to allow them to build the culture within their team. And I suppose it's having a vision of what's absolutely key to you and your business. And then what's the stuff that, yeah, it was really good when we were 10 people or 15 people, but right, okay, well, now it's your turn to carry that baton and not always be the person that comes in to solve things. Because otherwise, you never break those, cut the apron strings, whatever you want to call it. And that really does hamper growth, that if you're always the person that has to be there to to pick those things up.

How— what, what's been your journey with that? Because I was having a really interesting— and I feel like that can be like a really common barrier because like I think some people, as you said, like where you started, like you just, you just want to sell, you want to do the deals, and you want to be involved in these types of things. And that's most of the stories. Most people were recruiters and that before they obviously start their own recruitment business, right? So they've always been involved with that. And I was having a really interesting chat with a business owner the other day who is sort of a year, 18 months away from hopefully getting to a point of an event in his business and he wants to give an opportunity to his employees or other people to buy into the business, take it to the next level. And he's really had to go on this journey of like getting out of his own way because he used to be the person that could name all the contractors on their book and he was one of their biggest performers and stuff like that. But over the last year or so to make this business more valuable and make sure, like you said, you're not the person that's always solving the problems or is relied on. Obviously then all of a sudden John's got to work out what his purpose is and what, like, within this business that you started, right? I guess I'm just curious as to like, what's your journey been like with that? Has it been quite easy to get out of your own way? Is that— yeah.

No, it's not. Yes and no, I suppose. You know, what limited our growth in terms of the next location, there was a big trust thing. There was a massive trust thing for me. And, you know, Neil, who joined the business, you know, invested in the business, you know, that trust, because we worked together for a number of years at Half, there was just this trust and it's like, yeah, there are the keys, you know, let me know what you want, but crack on, you know, I'll give you—

So it's trust for you, so trust in another person to—

Trust another person to to do it. I think Manchester for a long time was, I suppose it was my baby, if you see what I mean.

Yeah.

And I think again, everyone who's been through our doors and may have left, may still be here, they all played a massive part in getting us to where we got to. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'd like to think that the majority of people that have left our business think well about business, wish us well and all the rest of it. We haven't had many acrimonious departures or anything like that. But I think it is then trying to find as you grow, right? Well, sometimes there is a 6-month transition or a transition period where it's like you just have to, as you said, get out of your own way and you might not really know what you're doing. As in, I found myself doing a load of just pure recruitment. I was like a consultant at home. I had the rest of the business, but I was just running my own assignments and I was there on the end of the phone for people that required me. But it was like, they need the space, they don't need me in Manchester. They're a good group. And I suppose I ended up just putting fees on the board, probably for about 3 to 6 months, just doing that. And I suppose that allowed me to feel like at least I've got a sense of purpose. There was parts of times where I was like, John, you've gone back 10 years. And it's like, well, you're putting your fees into your own business, John, so get over yourself and crack on. And suddenly you enjoy it again and then you realise why you did the job in the first place, if you see what I mean. So it's like, it's trying to make sure that you keep remembering some of the things and then you do, you're able to sit down with the guys in the office when they do ask for help. And it's like, well, this is what I did the other day and this is how this worked. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, the old dinosaur in the corner can still do some stuff. So it's sort of, I think it's, I suppose it gets said a lot, doesn't it? But it's like, you're never too big to do the little things in the business. So if you're struggling to know what to do, pick up the phone and start speaking to clients. Get some jobs on for the teams, go and do something that you know is gonna help the business. Might feel like you left that behind. Well, it'd be good to reconnect with certain people, whatever it might be. And I think, you know, certainly one of the things that, you know, we've always spoken about, you know, myself, Neil, now Max, is we have to be able to point to revenue. We have to be able to point to clients that we're bringing in every month. We might not be fulfilling, but we need to be able to hand and rain make or whatever you want to go, because that's really important for the team, you know. And I think sometimes in the bigger, bigger corporate businesses, you know, you said at the beginning leadership, and it's like, well, there's got to be a little bit of leadership around sort of the client side as well. And I think that sometimes can get, can get lost. Um, so I think in getting out my own way, it was probably, all right, well, just pull up a chair and let's, let's go.

Yeah, but I guess that's the, the key thing there is that, yeah, so you're saying you can reconnect with that and actually that's been quite a positive thing for you, but you've got to make sure if you are going to scale and you are going to grow, that you can't be relied on or you can't be— it can't be John, we call it, let's call John and he'll sort this for us. Like, you've got to get way beyond that. But yeah, okay. So what, um, couple of things. One, really interested to hear, like, in your opinion, like, what's been the most critical hire out of interest as you've grown this business? Like, what's been the glue that's made this business, you think? Has it been that sort of team that might be growing in the, in the back office? Or I don't know, out of interest for you, what's been one of the most critical hires that you think has had one of the biggest impacts?

I think the biggest critical hires for me have been, I suppose, my immediate team.

Okay.

The ones that I can, the ones that we can sit down as a group of managing partners and go, right, how are we going to tackle that? And I don't have all the answers, but to be able to, you know, I suppose if I look at the last 3 years, having Neil on the end of the phone and going, mate, I've had a shit day, and just being able to be, I've had a shit day.

To share that with people.

It's amazing how empowering that actually is. And, you know, I think solving these problems, you know, you'll see it one way, someone else will see it a different way, someone else will see it another way, and ending up with this sort of probably better solutions. So I think certainly for me, the piece that fundamentally helped us grow was the trust levels I had in Neil, the trust that I've built with Max. Those two now have enabled us to go, right, okay, you can do that, you can do that. And we're all very confident in each other. There's not a, I need to be number one, I'm pecking order here. Collectively we're a team and we go from there. I think latterly, last 6 months or so, it's probably been getting a really strong finance person involved. We had someone who was involved with us for probably 2 years, 2 and a half years, almost like a non-exec CFO. And that was almost like an overlord of the finances. And that was really useful because they'd helped scaled previous recruitment businesses. So they weren't a salesperson, but they were a finance person. They'd seen lots of different comp plans, lots of different this, lots of different that. And I suppose having that just totally external, probably non-Robert Half background, because myself and many others in our business have come through Robert Half, has been very, very beneficial. And certainly sort of going through the the last 12 months, 18 months, that's been massive. You know, having someone who I could rely on.

Yeah, sure. That was gonna be my next question. Like, have you had any experience in, I don't know, finding them? Like, 'cause it seems like what's really obviously propelled the business, but also you personally, is yeah, having these obviously, yeah, other, you can call them like co-founders later down the line, whatever you wanna call them, or other sort of directors in the business that you can really trust, that you back, and like you said, can share some of this burden with, right?

Yeah.

I was going to ask you, yeah, have you had in your journey so far, had you engaged in a sort of maybe having a mentor or an NED? So it seems like you did do that, but it was more of a— it's actually someone from a CFO background.

So she was from a finance background. It was less of a mentor. I have worked with like a business coach.

Okay.

Who actually I got introduced to at Robert Half. So, oh wow. So he's someone I've worked with for 12 years, very, very on and off, but probably someone in the early days that helped me define stuff. I've always been quite into, I suppose, business books, but like, you know, self-development, business.

Yeah.

What's Legacy by James Kerr?

Yeah, that's a great book.

Brilliant. But we got James Kerr to come and speak to us. So we do our annual big party and we had him come and speak and that was immense.

Oh, that was amazing.

This is where sometimes as an owner you sit there and you go, right, he normally does this to 300, 400 people and he's sitting in a room of 30 of you and you're like, yeah, well, you know, you can indulge yourself once in a while, but Big shout out to James Kerr. That was a brilliant day. We've had Paul McGee, who wrote The Sumo Guy. So that's a brilliant book. It's a bit more personal self-help. It's sort of shut up and move on. And it's about how do you overcome obstacles. We've had a couple of other people come and speak at the events. And I think those sort of people just help you define stuff. I have got to say, James Kerr and Legacy, there's lots of things that he speaks about in that book that have become very ingrained in us as a business. Like, there is a lot of things from that particular book that I would say if you are looking to—

Well, like the one or two things.

Yeah. What are they?

Well, yeah. What would you say? Like, one of the two things that have interested?

One of the big things is, I mean, there's the adage of, like, the no dickheads, but that is one of the obvious ones. But I suppose one of the things is you will have people on your— on the adventure. They're not going to be with you forever, and you need to celebrate the fact that someone was being with you for 3 years and they've done a brilliant job. And if they decide to leave, they've left your business hopefully in a better position. So thank them for it.

Don't be bitter about it.

Don't be bitter about it. And, you know, it's that sort of time in the sun sort of thing. And, you know, we're all doing this, so hopefully next year the people that join us, it's easier and better for them to come into our business. Just because we had it hard, just because I started with nothing, doesn't mean I want someone else to start with nothing. And I suppose it's that sort of vision of every day we're trying to make it better for the new people joining our business, those that haven't even joined us yet. You know, we want to try and make it as good as possible so when they do come in, they can be the best version of themselves. Again, if you see what I mean. And then it's their job is to make it better for the next group. So you're always trying to strive to make it better for the new people coming into the business.

Yeah, and I think that's definitely hasn't always been the mindset in recruitment, has it? And obviously as a business owner, you want to protect your business. If you have someone leaves that is going to do the exact same vertical and they've been a bit shady, of course you're going to act. But I think that's just the better mindset to have, isn't it? You'd rather leave on good terms and you never know what might happen in a year, 2 years' time. That person might go, you know what, John, I've tried to build this recruitment business, it's fucking way harder than I thought it was. I really enjoyed my time at FJR. I'd love to be able to come back and like, you're not even going to have that opportunity if you made it, made them just feel horrible and like it wasn't a nice departure, you know what I mean? So I just, yeah, I love that. How, so I love the fact that you said that you've been working with a business coach, I guess anything on that? I've spoken to recently another recruitment business owner that's recently engaged with a business coach and said that it's been really transformative. Anything else to share on that? I haven't heard many business owners on here say that they've worked actively with a business coach. Anything else that you feel like has helped? I know you said it helps you define things and stuff like that, but anything worth sharing that it's really impacted you on or helped you in building this business, do you think? That's worth sharing?

I think, I think certainly in the early days you had a million, a million different thoughts going through your mind about the different stuff, challenges. And I suppose where it was really useful working with Simon was you'd walk in cluttered and you'd walk out with a very clear idea of what you were going to do, but not a plan. But most of it was around communication. Most of it was around, all right, so this is what you got to— you know what you got to do. Most people in recruitment know what they've got to do. You know what the challenge is, right? So how are you going to communicate with that team? How are you going to do this? And he was super super helpful in helping me frame conversations, frame, right, okay, so how do I say this? And he would make me role-play it. I felt like a rookie again, role-playing it down the phone to him. But you know what? When I look back and I remember sort of doing it for the first time, the engagement that we got and then the, I suppose, the camaraderie and I suppose the togetherness we got from really practicing, right? What do I want people to hear? What do I want to say? But what do I want them to hear is the most important bit. That was really useful working with the coach. So it was less around probably me and how do I make my business better, but, right, okay, so how are you going to help me specifically communicate these messages? He's not going to do it. I've got to do it. But using that person as a really good sounding board and human and how the human mind works and the dog brain and all this sort of stuff. He's worked in the military and he's worked with a very high level within sport and all around that sort of sporting mentality. Not sporting mentality, how you engage the brain, how you engage not your brain, other people's brains to get people together. So certainly from that perspective, in that probably years, 2 to 8, that was really powerful when the business was growing and you just, it wasn't therapy in any way. It was, right, okay, these are my challenges, help me solve some of these and let me walk out with a defined plan that I now need to go and execute.

Yeah, nice. So a couple of things I wanna ask you before we finish. Definitely wanna ask you just sort of what the journey's been like in the last 12, 18 months as a business and where you're heading. But on this topic, like, what's been— always talk about mindset and everything on this podcast. Like, what's been your journey with your own mental health during this period? I guess don't have to talk about the last 12, 18 months, but overall in building this business, how, what's that been like for you? It seems like you're quite invested in getting help or open-minded, like, so.

Yeah, I mean, I'm very fortunate. You know, I've got 3 young kids. I've got a wife that takes no shit, and I've got a brilliant extended family in the local area. So from that perspective, I'm pretty lucky. Clearly, in the last 10 years, there's been times when you're like, crap, if this all goes wrong, you're screwed. You've got this, you've got that, you've got this, you've got that. And there have been times when I've sat on sat in my car and I've gone, oh my God. And, you know, I've had a moment, you know. Um, but, you know, during those times I've been able to pick up the phone, um, and I've, I've been lucky that I've got that, that sort of group around me, if you see what I mean. But yeah, it is, it is super lonely. Um, it can be super lonely because sometimes you're the only one that really, really knows the skeletons in the cupboard.

What's going on?

Yeah, but what I would say is, going back to finding those people you can trust, when you find those people you can trust and you can talk about those skeletons, they sort of— you work out how to get rid of them. Whereas when it's just you and that skeleton and, you know, you're facing off, it's a lot tougher. And that's why I really encourage people, and that's why, you know, I think certainly from my perspective Bringing Neil into the business was awesome. It really was. And latterly having Max in the business for the last couple of years has been awesome. Just that pool. And then I suppose right now Nieves, who's joined as the CFO, you've got 4 people that we've all got different ideas and we can share them. So, and I think we're good at trying to look after each other's mindsets. And you can tell when each other are down, but it's nice now. Yeah, we can jump on a call and every Monday we have our kickoff call and there's always a good bit of banter and you've got that team piece. As for the last 18 months, I mean, I put something on LinkedIn, I'm staggered how well most people have sort of the resilience of people. Everyone's had their moments in the last 18 months. I think anyone who said it's been a walk in the park is probably being a little bit disingenuous. But how different people have bounced back at different times, how other people have sort of picked each other up, how good everyone was when it was like, you know, you go back to last March, we were on a ski slope on the big adventure. We had the top performers away, we were in Val Thorens, We were at the top of the mountain, we were king of the world.

Oh wow.

It was phenomenal. And we got back on the Saturday night and it was like, you need to be out of the hotel by midday tomorrow, otherwise you're being impounded. And it was like, oh shit, Geneva Airport was crazy and all the rest of it. But not necessarily that group because that group were just amazingly hungover and weren't able to do anything. In the weeks after that, how quickly people came together and how quickly you saw people accept things, deal with things. You had the first bit, if you have asthma, you have to work from home. If you've got this and suddenly someone put their hand up and go, I've got asthma. And then you're like, well, could you leave the office please? And it was some of these things, you forget how draconian suddenly it became. But I'm massively proud of how the team developed. I don't think we did anything massively different to a lot of other people. The Zoom calls, this and all the rest of it. But like many people, just really proud about how they looked after each other. We tried very hard, but it's certainly from my perspective, it still feels like there's more chapters in the COVID pandemic to run. Doesn't feel like it's quite going to be this nice serene exit from the pandemic that we're all hoping for.

I mean, I can, I don't know what it's been like the last quarter. How's it been for the last quarter for you guys? Because I continue to hear how busy everyone is and people, I'm sure you've seen on LinkedIn, record-breaking months, quarters, all these things like how has it been now? I guess, yeah, coming, start of coming out the other side and what are you excited about?

Yeah, it's, you know, clearly there are businesses that are hiring now and, you know, I think everyone sees it, you know, all the data is there's a lot going on in the market and it's super exciting. I think probably the market over the next 12 months is probably as good a market as we're going to have for a long, long time. You know, it's going to temper off, you know, as I suppose we get back to sort of a bit more business as usual. I think the really exciting thing is we've, over the past 18 months, We've solidified what we've got in London. We've managed to keep that going during the pandemic. We're then on the front foot. We've got Chicago now going. We've got clients in Chicago. We've got Edinburgh. And suddenly you're like, when you start to break down our 25 by 25 by 25, it's like we're on track. This is— we are going to do this, guys. And I think the fact that we've broken the first, you know, I don't say international place because we've done lots of international placements from the UK, but like we've done that, we're on that, you know, that cherry has been popped. You know, we are active, we've got our own business in the US and suddenly you're like, you know, oh man, this is so exciting. I mean, when James called me on Wednesday evening to tell me he'd done his deal, I was like hopping around the streets like a madman. It was just brilliant. And, you know, I think it's those little milestones that you sort of, you know, I'll remember that forever now. You know, that's one of the baked-in moments of FJR history. I mean, and, you know, there's not many of them. And as I get older, I probably forget some of the earlier ones. But, you know, it's really, really important to celebrate those milestones because You know, there are the things that, you know, everything starts with the first step, the first deal, the first this, but suddenly you can get that momentum. And I think, you know, certainly the moment it feels like we're on the front foot with a ton of really good stuff about to happen.

Yeah, I love that. So I've got a final question for you is, if you could change the industry, what would you improve?

If I could change the industry, what would I improve? I would love everyone to have a little bit more respect for what we do. I think we've done a really good job over the last 20 years in some of our pricing for a race to the bottom. And I think therefore we get treated as an industry how we price ourselves, if that makes sense. So I think sometimes we've ended up giving ourselves a bad reputation by not valuing the service. And I think certainly one of the things that I've noticed very quickly in North America is how much more respect they have for staffing people. Yeah. And I would love to be able to correct that because people give their heart and souls to their clients and candidates. But I think whether it's through pricing, whether it's through behaviors, but certainly I think I'd love to have that level of respect where you know, you don't sit at a dinner party and go, what do you do? I'm a recruitment.

Yeah, yeah, great.

Uh, whereas, you know, it's, it's, it, you know, speaking to clients in the US, they're like, yeah, yeah, you provide a service and they're prepared to pay for it, but they also want their pound of flesh for it, if you see what I mean. So it goes both ways. But I, I, I love the fact that there's a better level of respect, um, and I think that's one thing I'd love to have changed.

Love that. John, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for being so open and honest. It's, uh, excited to— we definitely have to get you, uh, back on when, yeah, on the other side of this 25-25-25 or another. Yeah, it'd be amazing. Well, um, John, been an absolute pleasure and thanks for coming on.

Perfect.