Julian Adams - How he billed over a million pounds in just one year

I think it would be incredibly challenging to take somebody who's never done real estate recruitment, for example, and put them in a new market because they have no understanding in terms of recruitment, real estate, how they can create value for people.

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and on this week's episode, I was joined by Julian Adams from McDonald Company.

That's how you start to build up credibility. And then again, that sort of feeds into both the candidate side of things and the client side of things.

And last year he became the top performer within his company where he billed just over £1 million within the year as a perm recruiter within the real estate market. So in this episode, we uncover exactly how he did that, how he consistently sold retainers to achieve that goal, how he took his career to the States, which was absolutely pivotal, his business development strategies, the importance of building candidate talent pools and how to go about that. And so much more. Enjoy the episode. Julian, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Looking forward to this. We've got to know each other a bit. I know you listen to the podcast. I know a bit about your journey because we've been, you know, speaking over the last couple years. So I'm looking forward to, you know, dissecting, taking a bit of a step back and talking about the last 5 and a half years because I think, uh, yeah, from learning about your story, I think it's a great one. And really looking forward to everyone, you know, learning about it and everything that you've learned along the way. So before I ask you the million-dollar question, let me just give everyone some immediate context, some career highlights, the showreel. So if anything, you know, I'm missing, you let me know. But, you know, from preparing from this, what I jotted down here is started your recruitment career as a 360 recruiter in November 2017. That's when it all started. First 5, 6 months was a real struggle. I think you said to me that you did around 13K in your first 5, 6 months, but your first year billings ended up around 111 grand. Second year improvement, 215 grand. Third year, 260 grand, another improvement. And this was all in the UK market, in the regions. Then the fourth year, You started this US journey, as you just said, in your bedroom during COVID So March 2021, and ended up that fourth year doing 616 grand in your, sorry, 616 grand in your billings. And that was American market from the UK. Moved to April, sorry, moved to April, moved to America in April 2022. But in your fifth year, financial year, which just finished, you hit the £1 million billings mark, which I know is a big goal of yours. And now, I don't know, we'll see what happens sixth year, right? In terms of that, that continues in that trajectory. So, you know, I think just to frame this up, a lot of people have been sold the US recruitment story. You're living proof that, you know, this is something that can become a reality for people. Because a lot of people are being sold what you could potentially achieve in America. So really excited to dissect this with you specifically around, you know, BD, gaining traction, adapting to the market, pitching retainers that I know has been a big part of your story. So all of that. But let's just start. What are your thoughts on, you know, the characteristics and traits that you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in today's market? And then we'll start from there.

Yeah, of course. My general thoughts are intangible characteristics such as being passionate or competitive, I think, are two for me. Spent a lot of time really trying to look at different people in McDonald's and Company and the group, and really seeing what they do well, and then trying to replicate that, and really sort of pushing yourself to drive and compete with people. I know not everybody has the sort of competitive feeling, but I think just the— when we're looking at hiring people, we typically call it the why or the fear, and you really need something that is deep inside you that drives you to go and perform every day or drives you to get out of bed and make today a successful day. I've seen it from both sides of things in terms of people who we've taken on who haven't really been as passionate or haven't really had the motivation from inside them in terms of You know, it can be anything from came from hard times when they grew up through to, you know, they've got a kid, they want to provide the best life for them, uh, through to they're just money motivated and they want to be successful. So I guess it doesn't need to be a particular reason, you know, in one bucket or another. It just needs to be a reason that drives the person on.

Yeah.

Um, I've seen people that have not lasted very long in recruitment because they don't really see it as a, as a career and something you can be really successful in. So the really intangible ones, I think, in terms of passionate and somebody who's competitive or got that drive within them.

And then let's just talk about this for a sec. Like, how— obviously, clearly it's important, but how much of an emphasis of importance would you say that is to, you know, your own story and your own performance over the last 5 and a half years? How important has that been for you?

De key. Yeah, key to it. Um, I think, I mean, I think it's probably a bit of a detriment in the I'll beat myself up and push myself to the point of probably breaking to try and compete with people and to try and, uh, be number one. But that's probably what's made me successful and allowed me to get to where I need to get to. So that coupled up with, you know, working relentlessly to get to that point, um, probably the key driver or the key, the key piece to the success.

Okay, so let's just break this down a bit. So just really quickly for people listening, let's just talk first part of this journey. Just to frame up for people, you know, so your world, you can describe it to me like, you know, the world that you recruit in, it's permanent. Like, could you just give us just a real high-level flavor of, you know, the world that you recruit in, the types of companies and industries that you operate in? And I'm going to, you know, go into the questions, but I think that'll be important for people because immediately people will be thinking, okay, well, what market is this guy recruiting? What is his average deal size? All that. So just give us a bit of a flavour on that, on when you was in the UK, and then yeah, we'll go from there.

Sure. So doing the same thing in the UK as I'm doing in the US now. We're real estate specialists, so working across development, investment, and asset and portfolio management. Also other areas in terms of some financial pieces. So looking at capital markets and investor relations roles for real estate groups as well. The main groups we're partnering with are real estate developers and investors. And that can be anything from, on the investment front, a family office through to an institutional investor, different investment funds. So that's really the market that we're working within. And in terms of asset classes, it's a real range. So because we're real estate specialists, we understand different nuances and intricacies around different asset classes. So we've got a real range of coverage there.

And then, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but So in the UK, you wasn't in the London market, was you? You was doing the regions, right?

Correct. So Birmingham North.

Birmingham North. And your average deal size was between £5,000 and £6,000?

Yeah, probably some, yeah, £5,000 to £8,000 probably.

£5,000 to £8,000.

Yeah.

Cool. And then look, and then let's just frame it out just really quickly then. What's ended up being the average deal size in the US? Because if you said you've pretty much been doing the same type of skillset, same thing, but in the US, what has that ended up looking like in the US?

Uh, probably somewhere $30,000 to $45,000. Um, that's probably skewed a little bit in the, uh, I'm a bit greedy, so I'll work low-level roles as well if we'll— if they'll retain us for them. So they'll probably skew it somewhat, but I think generally the, the average probably would be around $50K.

Okay, cool, perfect. Right, so that just massively helps. So let's just, you know, start with this, like, just, just initial period, right? Struggled at the beginning, you know, um, like a lot of people do, you know, looking back at that period. And then we're going to really go into, you know, what changed, what you did differently, how you've continued to, you know, improve, not stagnate. You know, looking at those first 5, 6 months, you could have easily quit, right? Uh, did 30 grand in your first 6 months, but then, uh, clearly then had a better finish to the year. So, you know, what Looking back, what was Julian doing wrong in those first 6 months, you think?

Good question. I think it was, going back to the point I mentioned earlier, I think it was the real desire and actually understanding the opportunity that I had. I came from a sales background with Harley-Davidson doing their insurance, and candidly, that was just a bit of a laugh. It wasn't really a career. Moved into recruitment because I wanted to scale up what I could take home, and I had a few friends who'd gone and done that. And I think I was just at the point where it was probably just a job for me, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a career. And I also think that generally there's a runway where you typically give yourself 6 months for everything to click and fall into place. And, you know, the initial stuff that you're putting out people then start remembering you and coming back to you and so on. So you're trying to learn sort of different markets you're recruiting in as well as the skill set of recruitment. So that was probably the sort of runway to get up and running.

How old were you when you entered recruitment?

How old was I? 23. Yeah.

Okay, yeah, fair. It's still very much like, you know, is this what I want to carry on doing? Not too bothered if it works out, doesn't work out. You know, that's fairly normal. So when did you start to get a sniff of like, hang on a minute, this is actually something that, you know, I could earn some good money, change my circumstances, you know? Because it doesn't just happen overnight, does it? Like, you start to, you know, like, realize actually, you know, I've got a great opportunity here. When did you start to get a sniff of that, do you think?

Going a little bit anecdotal, there was a candidate interview that I did, and I met the guy for a coffee in Manchester, and we talked about different roles that he might consider in different groups, and we mentioned a few of the smaller groups that are in the same space as what he does, and he kind of mentioned to me, you know, I wouldn't go and work for one of those smaller groups because it's not as appealing. I'm at one of the best groups that do this type of work now, and he likened it to the work and the opportunities I had with McDonald's and Company, where he said, you know, you wouldn't go and work for, you know, insert large corporate group or smaller shop. You know, you're with the best group of people. And so really that day it clicked. And I think I mentioned this to you on the sort of prep for this, but I actually ended up placing that candidate as my last placement before moving to America. And I still say to him to this day, you know, I really do owe you I owe you quite a lot because that conversation was the real sort of driving piece for me where everything clicked and I thought, you know, I've got a phenomenal opportunity here to be successful. So I really owe him a lot.

So if that clicked, just casting back to this period, I understand that sometimes, you know, it takes a third party, someone out of your typical circle to go, you know, look, you've got a great opportunity here, or, you know, to give you a different perspective. So I totally understand that, but just if we can get into that frame of mind, you know, you just had this meeting, it's just clicked, you've gone, hang on a minute, yeah, I've actually got a great opportunity in front of me, I'm surrounded by great people, I could really, you know, make something of this. What was the first thing that, you know, you did differently when you got back at your desk? What were some of the things that you started to do differently?

It was just that mindset change, you know, just, it was like the cogs turned. It's like, let's work harder than anybody else. There was— I had a really great setup in Manchester, and the, the guy that runs the office, you know, I, I obviously can't thank him enough as well, um, but he really sort of integrated the knowledge and the, the sort of foundations of recruitment for me. There's a guy who was the second person on that desk, and He's a phenomenal recruiter, he is just a machine. And so he was really the benchmark for me, talking back to the competitive piece. That was the guy, and I was like, okay, he's killing it at the moment, that's where I need to be. What is he doing? How do I scale things up and go from there? So, um, really just finding those, uh, the, I guess, the intrinsic desire to, to want to better myself and want to compete. And, you know, whilst it seemed far away at that point, You know, we've got one way to do this.

Yeah. And then, and then just on there, just to focus on this for a second. A lot of people listening to this will have those people in their team, in their organization, but not everyone will maximize that. So, you know, you just described this person clearly inspirational, clearly someone you can learn a lot from. Like, you know, what, what did Julian actually do to extract some of that value to, you know, like pick up some of the things that this person's actually doing? You know, there's one thing seeing them, seeing them at the top of the leaderboard or whatever, but like, what was your actual tact to, you know, actually extract some of the things that you can learn from this person? You know, did you say, hey, look, I'd love to go for a coffee and ask you a couple of questions? Did you, I don't know, ask to listen to some of his calls? Like, what did that actually look like? How do you approach that?

Well, because we're in such close proximity in the office, you could overhear calls anyway. But it'd be asking him questions around this client or why he thinks this candidate is suitable. And then again, it's just the, just to bang on about the competing piece and really driving yourself, I'll go anecdotal again. Whenever I would get into the office, if he had found new clients on the system, I would look and I'd be like, you know, where have you found those guys from? And he'd tell me it was from one of the sort of marketing pieces that is shared regularly within real estate in the Northwest. And so I got to the point where I was checking that out sort of pretty frequently, but you get to the point where you check it in the afternoon and you see there's a new client on there that's just moved into Manchester, for example, and you go on the system on the CRM and he's already put them on. So then it's like, okay, so I'm on the right lines of things to scale things up, But how do I beat him? So then it came to the point where I'd get into the office before him, and the first thing he does every day I know is check out that publication. So I'm now doing that, and I know that if I don't get in early enough to, you know, review them, map them out, put them on the system, and do my BD email or outreach, then he's going to have them. So he's my biggest competition both inside and outside of the company. So really looking at the people that are being successful and that are doing well within the industry and trying to replicate what they're doing and pushing that a little bit harder or trying to get ahead of them and get any sort of advantage that you can.

Yeah, no, great share. And then anything just on that tangent, is there anything else that, you know, you sort of latched on to quite quickly? Could be, you know, on the candidate side, could be when headhunting people, could be managing a process, could be, you know, on the BD speaking to client side. Was there anything else that you found you know, you latched onto and it really worked well for you as well, besides that from this person of interest?

It's not really sort of rocket science. I think the key thing is just speaking to as many people as possible, asking more detailed questions to better understand the market and to connect the dots. I think the real key piece, and we'll talk about this a little bit later on in terms of the BD side of things, But in terms of connecting the dots and being able to leverage information from one person to the next, that's how you start to build up credibility. And then again, that sort of feeds into both the candidate side of things and the client side of things.

Yeah. Okay. Nice. So let's just sort of gear up then towards the US, because I feel like that's been quite pivotal for you, right? I mean, you're going through some real life changes, you know, personally and professionally, you know, it's exciting. Let's all talk about this window, because look, safe to say, like, leading up to the US piece, you know, you was on the upwards trajectory, working hard, improving year on year, which is what I'm hoping, you know, you'd be really happy for, what you was aiming for. But then it looks like, you know, particularly from the performance-wise, like, what initially gave you the inspiration to look at, you know, the US or even consider that? Because, you know, you did the UK market for 3 years. And then it was this fourth year where, you know, there's this huge spike in your actual overall billings performance. So first, you just talk to us a bit about when did, you know, the US piece initially sort of feel like, actually, this is actually something that I'd consider, and why was you considering it?

So we'd floated the idea around about opening a US business for a little while before bringing the guy on that set everything up there. And really it was just sort of growth and upward trajectory. I think that I don't say I'd achieved everything that I could in Manchester because I got a pretty easy life. We've got a lot of the market share in the regions in terms of what we do. And so I probably could have sat there and, you know, not to be arrogant, but put £250,000, £300,000 in every year and been happy. But that was really the ability to scale things up further in terms of building out a team, having something that started from scratch that can present a real ownership and yeah, just take over sort of uncovered land.

Yeah, so just new opportunities out of your comfort zone, something different. Okay, so just so we understand then, so the strategy was McDonald's and Company hired someone experienced to open that up. And then you were someone that I'm guessing put your hand up or, you know, put your hat in the ring to go, you know what, this is actually something that really excites me. So was the initial plan, okay, Julian, look, that's something that we're excited by too. Let's give it, I don't know, a year period or whatever the timeframe was where you're going to work the US market from the UK. Is that typically how it went down or what the sort of, you know, initial sort of high-level plan was?

Yeah, not far off. I sort of made it known that I was interested in the role, and then when they got to the point of bringing the guy on, I had a couple of conversations with the CEO and also the guy in the US, and we all felt like it would be a good fit. I don't know whether it was their plan to see whether I was successful from the bedroom in Manchester or not. It was right at the point where Donald Trump had had the travel ban on the UK-US travel piece. So we couldn't fly to the US because that was obviously in place. And the embassy also had a massive backlog on visa applications. So it was at a point where we were seeing how things were going, but yeah, doing it from the bedroom in Manchester wasn't that fun.

So just so we know the timeline, when did you make your first BD call to a US-based real estate company. Like, when, what month was that and what year?

Yeah, April 2022.

April 2021. Okay, cool. So that's the timeline, right? So we're pretty much, yeah, so we're, that's 2 years, right? So firstly, you can be honest with us, you know, was there a plan? You know, was there, you know, what, was there some sort of plan on, because the US is fucking huge, what state we're going to go after, what we're going to focus on? You said obviously you know, you're going to cover the same specialisms, be known for similar things that you are in the UK, but, you know, was there a high-level plan on how Julian is going to, you know, go to market from his bedroom in Manchester? What was the initial plan?

So at the point where we brought the guy in America, he had sort of a 6-month runway until we pivoted across to the US market. We had no appetite whatsoever to look at California, no appetite to look at New York. We were going to be Texas-driven and then sort of wider Sunbelt and the Rocky Mountain region with a little bit of work in the Midwest. Candidly, there probably wasn't that clear of a strategy, to be honest. I think we knew we'd had a great track record. We've obviously got a fantastic brand in terms of offices all around the globe. And so it really sort of played into kind of sharing our track record in different locations, looking at groups that we've done work with on other continents, and then also trying to build up relationships with some of the local players. To Alex, the guy I work with in America, his sort of testament, he did a fantastic job of initially building up some track record from scratch for us when, when he first sort of came into the company. We were working things in all locations from Knoxville, which, don't know whether you know much about Tennessee, but there isn't tons going on in Knoxville, and then you've got the hardest requirements that somebody wants. We were still finding the people, so we started to build up a track record, and then probably over that first 12 months, it Again, being a bit greedy, we picked up stuff in different locations. And then as time went on, that transitioned to, you know, let zero in on a certain market or have people designated to different geographies.

Okay, yeah, sure. No, I understand. Like, you know, part of, you know, part of journeys like this, you have to— there's experiments, there's risks you have to take, there's bets you have to make. And then once, you know, make some of those bets, have some of those experiences, you know, you can then refine, learn from, and become more focused. So just with the early stage in mind, I guess there's a lot of people listening to this that might be in the trenches right now of starting. You're not, you know, you obviously, there's still so much for you to do and potential and growth, but you're more at the other side here. You've built more of this track record, you've had a ton of different experiences. So if we just focus on that initial period, like, you know, knowing what you know now, knowing what you've learned from obviously your peers and the US, team. Like, if you were to go back to that moment of starting this American journey in your bedroom in Manchester, what would your first 90 days look like? What would you prioritize? You know, what, what activities would you be prioritizing? What would you be doing? I think, what are the most important things to— for us to be doing in those first 90 days, you think?

Um, first of all, you need to build up a candidate pool. Because if you haven't got any candidates to work with, you're going to really struggle to pick up work. You know, picking up vacancies or opportunities with certain groups and then trying to drum up interest or just trying to find a reason to better understand what these people are looking for and also better understand what groups competitors to these companies. One thing which, again, I'll sort of come around to it with the BD piece, but in terms of one thing I was typically doing on every call to better understand the market, every candidate that I regged at the end of the call, I would ask who would be the top 2 or 3 companies that you want to work with or you would work for in a heartbeat. And if you think you're doing 10 candidate calls a day on the light end, it's an extra 20 to 30 clients that you can business develop with a warm lead. And additional to that, you're also building up your market knowledge, which I think is imperative to, again, be successful, to win work, to have good quality work.

Yeah, no, that's a really smart question. So really double down on building your candidate talent pool, really get to grips with, you know, who are some of the best-known brands, companies that people would love to work for. And that'd be a really good start. I guess, you know, just quickly as well, and I want to sort of ask you some questions on this BD piece, but how long did it take you to do your first deal?

June, I think. Sorry, no, the end of May. We have that Knoxdale role I mentioned to you. We placed that at the end of May, but that was something that Alex had teed up that I was working on with him. So my first deal that I picked up, The placement started in June.

Yeah. Okay. Because I think people also, you know, as you can imagine listening to this, probably thinking, you know, I'm in the trenches right now. I may be doing some of the things that Julian is saying, but I'm not, you know, I'm struggling to find traction. You know what, from your experience, I know it's only one experience, but what do you think would be a good timeframe from what you've picked up so far? And you know, the journey you've been on, what do you think would be a good timeframe of if we're doing the good work, we're doing, you know, the right activities, to give, you know, the US or that sort of part of the world a fair opportunity? Well, yeah, you know, 6 months long enough? I don't know.

In terms of if you're talking about going into a new market, how long do you think it takes until you really start to get traction? Is that the question?

Yeah, sorry, I could be a bit more clear. So just more of like, you know, like I might be sitting here right now and I haven't really gained any traction. I'm a month in. To, you know, trying to, you know, take what I'm doing in the UK but doing it into the US. Like, how long do you think I should at least give it for me to be able to look in the mirror and go, you know what, I gave that a fair crack, maybe there wasn't potential there, you know? I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

As long as it takes. There's always potential, right? Um, nice. I know that's probably not the answer that, that you wanted in terms of the time frame. Um, I think, look, if you got to the point of 4 weeks in It all depends on what you sort of quantify as traction. If you built out a really great candidate pool within whatever niche or area it is that you're looking for, you can always do things with those people. And ultimately, and I listened to a few of your podcasts prior to this to do some prep, a lot of people talk about the long game, and I can't stress that enough that, you know, everyone wants to make a quick buck now, right? But long term, the conversations that you're having day to day are going to impact what your future looks like. And just treating people the right way and making sure that you come across credible, whether it's a candidate or a client. You may not get something from them day one, but, you know, in 2, 3 months or in 12 months' time, they should remember you from a lot of the other people who probably aren't as credible or aren't asking the right questions or adding any value. But yeah, I think, I think you'd look at a 4-week period and try and not to sort of zero in on KPIs, but look at the traction that we've had. I think 3 months to try and get some form of placement, given that notice periods are 2 weeks rather than, you know, 4 to 12 weeks. And yeah, just, just I guess try and set out the goals as to what you're trying to achieve outside of fillings by way of building some sort of track record or building up relevant candidate pool or client pool. Cool.

And then just a couple of other things here, just if we're just to, you know, just zoom in on the beginning period and then we'll go into what you think you doubled down on, what you did really well, some of the strategies that worked. So like some people might be thinking, okay, so sitting in my bedroom in Manchester, London, wherever, going to the US market, I don't know, I might have had some success in the UK, now we're going to go into the US. So you've said that what would be fundamental would be speaking to candidates, building that talent pool. Obviously, that's absolutely crucial, right? So why, as a candidate, am I going to give you my time if you haven't got any track record in the US? You're someone in the UK calling me, like, I don't understand why someone in the UK is calling me. You haven't got any jobs to talk to me about. Like, you know what, Like when we speak to these candidates, like what, what, why should they give you your time? Like what, why, what value can you give them? What is it that you was leaning into? Because you know, you're, you're trying to build something. So you haven't, unless you tell me otherwise, what are some of the things that you had to offer and, and why would these people give you their time?

Good question. I think around the sort of value piece for these candidates, it's really sort of having some form of track record somewhere and at least understanding the market you're recruiting in. I think it would be incredibly challenging to take somebody who's never done real estate recruitment, for example, and put them in a new market because they have no understanding in terms of recruitment, real estate, how they can create value for people. And look, a lot of it is persistence. You know, there are still people now, we're 2 years in, still people who aren't that familiar with us. I think that we've built up a track record, but there are still people that we've, you know, hit on LinkedIn and put phone calls into, still we haven't had any traction with or spoke with them. And so again, it kind of goes down to the persistence piece and the value that you're trying to create is, as I say to everybody, whether it's a sort of junior level analyst through to the CEO or CIO of a company, Everybody could use a good headhunter within their Rolodex or within their contacts. And so even if we're making the initial connection now and there isn't something to talk to the candidate about in terms of a role, what you can do, and, you know, to this point, I had a couple of conversations earlier where a couple of guys I spoke with weren't relevant for the role I was working on, but we want to make that introductory conversation, number one, from your side, because you can pick their brains and get better knowledge on the market, and also, you know, are they actively applying for things? If so, what companies are looking? But also, you are building a warm introduction, so the next time something does come on in 6 months' time that is relevant, you can pick the phone up to that person. They should remember you if you've done your job correctly. And then it makes it a lot easier than just sort of a cold call where you're just trying to get the person's interest because you've already spoke with them. I don't know if I answered that completely.

Yeah, no, that's fine. Look, I think, I think this would be helpful for people, just quickly, like, what does that actually look like? You know, like, let's say we're reaching out these people on LinkedIn. I understand what you're saying, you know, you said about some of the things that, you know, we want to try and portray that, look, may not be able to help you now, however, look, I've got this track record, I'm confident, you know, at some point I might be able to introduce you to someone that might be really helpful in your career. I might even be able to speak to you about a job opportunity that could be really positive for your career. I understand that, but would you mind just sharing with us early on, what does that actually look like? What does that actually sound like? Are you saying on LinkedIn, like, hey, look, building a market here, would you be against giving me 30 minutes of your time, confident I might be able to help you at some point? Are we trying to get that across in the message? What does that actually sound like? What do you actually lead with? Via, you know, on LinkedIn or on the phone? Like, what did that actually sound like?

Um, I think I started out with, with one development role in, in Dallas, and so that was the starting point really in terms of reaching out to people and trying to use that as leverage. Um, I think it's challenging. I think you would get shut down a lot more if you went with the angle you suggested there in terms of you know, we're trying to build a market out, don't have anything at the moment, but can we connect? So really trying to sort of mention or even try and get them on the hook in terms of there are tons of great groups that we're working with at the moment. I'd love to just pick your brains or hear a bit about what you guys are doing at this company. And then again, I mean, it's really looking at some of the track record we've had in different locations and being able to talk to a couple of the global groups that we work with and then dropping some of their names. I wouldn't say everything was probably right down the line in terms of, you know, you hear about an opportunity, maybe you're not working it, but you're sort of suggesting to that candidate that, you know, we know people at that company, or we're familiar with some of the work they do. And so again, you're probably doing a little bit of sort of faking it till you make it in terms of trying to just get interest and get the ball rolling with candidates. So I think really it's looking at potential roles that you may have or groups that you can leverage from a different location and sort of suggesting that you do some work with those guys just to build up that track record. And then it's a bit of a cycle then once that starts going and you've got candidates coming to you and also then sort of winning other work.

And then just on this, just to progress this a bit. Sorry, I know we're going into the detail here, mate.

That's all right.

So like, I understand what you're saying. So like, then let's just say we're on the call. How are we approaching that? You know, are we saying, you know, we worked with these types of companies, we haven't got anything on at the moment? You know, are you just owning the fact that, you know, you don't have all these live vacancies? I know you wasn't saying that, that's what you're saying as to like why they should give you time. But like, as well, what are you saying on these phone calls? You know what I mean? Are you just saying that we work with these types of companies? And these are the types of firms that we'll likely be picking up jobs with. And then you're sort of continuing that message rather than— because some people might be worried about, oh, I might get on the phone call, they're going to say, right, tell me about this job then, or tell me about that. And they haven't got the— they're not working on that job.

But you can easily objection handle that in terms of saying that you partner with X group. You don't need to mention a company. If somebody asks you about the role, you can say, we haven't spoke before. I'd be eager to sort of understand your background. Understand a little bit about what you're doing. You know, can you give me some color? And then I'm more than happy to tell you about the group. Depends on the level of role. So, and again, you need to, you know, I think whenever we're trying to go into a new market and trying to build things up, you always have the ability to use a trapdoor to get away from something. You know, it's a role that my colleague's working on. I'll get more color for you. Can I take an email after? Or, you know, I really want to understand your experience better, because if you're doing X asset class, then it might not be relevant for this. And so I don't know where short I'm talking about it. The other piece that is valuable, Mr. Candidate, is that this isn't going to be the opportunity that I'm going to bring to you. There are going to be other things in the future. So whilst I've got you now and we've made time to set up this call, I'm eager just to run through in more detail what your background looks like. What would be the kind of thing that you would want to move into? What would be the kind of role that you'd want to go for? And again, if you then go to the point of, you know, I don't know how well people will appreciate this example, but if you've got a development manager and they want to be a vice president of development, you could probably tell them that the other role that you suggested to them is probably more junior than what their expectations are. So I won't tell you about that one, but I'll keep you on the radar for the future. So that's probably the way I would do it. I think registering a candidate, if they try and give you challenges in terms of who you're working for, you always have the ability to sort of either use the trapdoor or to step back and say, you know, we haven't spoke before, I'm eager to understand your background and also your aspirations, motivations, and what you're doing, and then I can provide you with the best type of company to sort of work with or look at.

Hey everyone, a real quick one from me. This podcast would not be possible without our amazing podcast partners, Vincere, and Sourcebreaker. Because you listen to this podcast, you're able to get your hands on exclusive savings on both of these award-winning products. If you're a growing recruitment business, you have to check out Vincere, who are an all-in-one operating system for your growing recruitment business. With Sourcebreaker, if you want to make sure that all of your recruiters have the best tools on the market to stand out and beat their competition, then you have to check out Sourcebreaker. Use the link in the show notes, in the comments below, and you'll be able to get yourself exclusive savings on these amazing products. No, no, I appreciate you sharing that. And I know, yeah, I think that'll be really helpful for people. So I understand there's a bit of a journey, right? You know, like you said, you've got to not presume that you know more than you actually do, but you know, there's an element of, you know, you're trying to be what you want to become, right, before you become it. That's just the part of the game, right? So just as we were talking about this early period, and then let's go on to the BD strategies and, you know, how we went on to achieve these types of billing performances. You know, looking at that early period, what were some of, it sounds like you just went into it headfirst, clearly someone that's willing to learn, you've got the mindset, but what were some of the early challenges, maybe on the candidate side, client side, I don't know, that maybe you had to adapt to, didn't expect? Example might be, one of the ones that I've picked up a lot on from speaking to people is, they had to learn the hard way that Americans are really good at being engaged, going, yeah, Julian, sounds great, blah, blah, blah. And they'll be like that, and then they just won't hear of them and just get completely ghosted. They said that happens a lot. You know, the salary conversation is slightly different. A lot of people, you know, you either can't ask them what their salary is or they get really weird about that. So what are some of the challenges that you found, you know, you had to navigate and adapt and you came up against?

Yeah. I think really just learning the market and knowing where to go, you know, where to go fishing, I guess. Really sourcing the right levels of people and the right candidates. I remember when I first started, one of the first contingent roles that I worked on was for an investment associate with an investment fund in Dallas. And it was my first sort of crack at trying to build up the Dallas business. And I think I, you know, went through LinkedIn Recruiter sourcing people. I think I registered about 150 people in a 3-week period. So yeah, every day was long hours trying to find the right people, pivoting LinkedIn certain ways to try and get the best people, interviewed all of those people, and then shared probably my best 10 people with the group. And this, as is the case with some clients, they're just incredibly hard to please. And so they took a few people to final and then didn't progress them and then decided to put the role on hold. But obviously it's means to an end. So probably the success piece from that was I ended up picking up another investment associate role a week later, sent my best 8 people and got that job turned around within a week from shortlist to offer and acceptance. I don't really know about the people not coming back with Americans. I think that is an American thing where they are incredibly polite and friendly on the call, but they probably won't be as direct to tell you that they're not interested. So I think there are a lot of pieces around qualifying people. And again, going back to asking difficult questions or hard questions, because you don't waste your time and you don't want to chase people if they're not interested. But yeah, I'd probably say just learning the market and trying to build up that knowledge being the sort of key piece and the most challenging early doors.

Yeah, nice. No, I appreciate you sharing that. So let's go into the BDP thing, because you're not hitting the type of numbers you are without consistently bringing on great client opportunities, great jobs that are fillable. So let's just talk a bit about this. So you can go into the past year, last year, but if we were to talk about Julian's business development strategy, we've spoken about the importance of, you know, candidate talent pooling and not just having your candidate hat on, you're asking smart questions like, you know, what 1 to 3 companies would you love to work for or you think are amazing? That's obviously, you know, you're building your market mapping there and you're building companies that you can obviously go after. So obviously part of the BD strategy is, you know, ask good questions, use the candidate conversation, use information to my advantage. But what else, you know, in this BD strategy for Julian, what else did it consist of? What else did you find, you know, really worked for you 2 years?

I mean, I think everybody said this more recently in the past 12 months, just given how hot the market was when you were speccing out candidates, you know, that was probably the main driver for a lot of people. Our aim, our aim wasn't necessarily with that piece to place that candidate. That was more of a tool to get a client on a call who had a requirement and then we would then pick up the work and go through that process. There are obviously tons of different routes into BD, whether that's looking at different ad chases or again leveraging candidates in terms of, you know, where else are you interviewing, or I don't want to make sort of duplicate introductions. So, you know, where would be, you know, where would you look at as a group and How far along are you in those processes? And I guess trying to leverage them to the point of understanding who they're working with in those processes, whether that's a recruiter or whether they're doing it all direct. Outside of that, I mean, again, cold calling pieces. I think with the whole cold call piece, and this was something I was discussing with one of my colleagues earlier, people don't necessarily like to be sold to. So I think that really the key piece when picking up the phone to various individuals, I don't like the idea of somebody sitting behind a spreadsheet and ringing one client after another for 100 calls because you can't have any sort of value or build up any sort of talking points with these clients. So one thing that we always try to do alongside looking at the target pool of clients we wanted to work with was also if we are going to try and business develop different groups that we've picked up leads for, looking at their website, looking at any sort of information on Google in terms of the news or anything else to see whether if they're doing development, they've got any projects in the market and relating that into the conversation because people like talking about themselves, people like talking about, you know, some of the stuff they're doing and some of their accolades. So it's really trying to show you've got market knowledge and credibility and then talking to those pieces and trying to take the conversation from there. I think a lot of the time people get a little bit displaced with trying to build rapport with somebody on a call when they didn't really want the call initially. They probably don't care that you've got a dog called Bubbles. They don't want to tell you about their dog. They're not interested in any of that. What they want is to better understand what you've got going on, what you know is going on in the market. And people love free things, right? So whether you then present them at some point with salary benchmarking or intel on the market or what the competitors are doing. But it's really trying to strike up a chord with somebody with useful intel, opposed to, how was your weekend, mate? You know, what are you— what do you do? Do you watch football? But they're not interested, they're busy people. So looking at different routes into, into sort of starting a conversation that way.

So it sounds like showcasing candidates was pretty pivotal, like that was a big part.

Yeah, initially, I mean, trying to spec out good quality people, and then as soon as we sort of got on a call with them, we could talk the track record and requirement and qualify the job properly and then position ourselves the way we wanted to.

Has that worked in the last 6 months?

I mean, I sold 3 retainers so far this month, and I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks, and the same last month. So it's been slower, the appetite has been slower in terms of the responses from specs. But again, the, you know, probably at a luxury point where, well, I could pick and choose what work I picked up. And so if I've got the bandwidth to service it, then I can, and if not, then, um, yeah, you know, somebody else can pick it up, I guess.

We're going to go into the retainer piece, but just clearly that that's been, you know, a really important tool. And everyone listen to this, will be speccing out fucking candidates regardless if you like it or not. So many recruiters will be doing it. Some recruiters do it great, some recruiters not so great. For me, when we say not so great, I just feel like it's just super unpersonalized. It's, you know, send out however many emails, not even thinking about the person receiving it. And I'm sure there'll be, if we send it to enough people, there'll be people coming back, right? And I do feel like that is definitely one of the activities and habits that you know, does a good job of tarnishing our reputation. So, you know, let's talk about how does Julian approach speccing? Like, what does that look like? What is a good spec from Julian? Are you calling me and, you know, you've got your pitch ready going, hey, look, haven't spoken before. Looks like you've got some good projects on the go. Spoke to this investment associate person at the moment who said that they'd love to work for your organisation. Look, don't happen to know if, you know, you have anything going on at the moment or, You know, are you mainly emailing people? What are your principles to doing exceptional specs that actually get responded to?

A combination of those pieces. So first of all, they need to be, you know, one thing I think sort of worth talking about is looking to build out your database and making sure that it's clean in terms of coding people with the right sort of code skill level. Competency, because yeah, I'm sure, you know, the track record of people sending out specs for completely irrelevant candidates is not going to be very high, I'm sure, in terms of return. So really looking at different asset classes and then also different competencies and trying to bucket people that way, it means that we spend longer in terms of trying to pivot all of that data and making sure that we're not hitting the same people. With sort of multiple specs and also just making sure it's relevant, it's at least in the right wheelhouse. There's nothing worse than obviously receiving something unsolicited where it's not even relevant to you. You don't really put a good account of yourself in terms of those people receiving those sorts of emails. So really looking to splice it and make it relevant to however many people you're trying to hit. Additional to that, picking up again, going back to the piece about trying to get information from candidates, if you know that there's a hiring manager in a certain company and you've done a similar search or you've got good candidates that cover the same thing that they're looking for, then obviously you can tailor it much more directly to that individual. But honestly, just given the— looking at the US market, given the amount of people and just how broad it is, it is too challenging to try and splice absolutely everything and just, you know, dumb it down to the point of putting 50 to 100 people into a hotlist because that'd be a full week and nobody's got time to do that. I also typically like to anonymize a resume to go on there or a CV, and the email should not be incredibly wordy and detailed because people just delete that. Should be pretty brief and to the point, probably 2 sentences. Um, I think that typically gets more traction than doing a bit of a write-up on an email as well.

So what might those 2 sound like, Julian? 100%, bro. 2 sentences. What, uh, what might that sound like?

Um, you know, first name, uh, enclosed here is the resume of A talented development manager that I'm working with, they're currently doing industrial projects within the DFW market. If of interest, let's set up a call.

Yeah, so just super direct.

Yeah, because at the end of the day, you know, you don't want to waste your time, you don't waste their time. If they like the look of that resume, they're going to get on a call with you or they're going to show interest. If they don't or they want to mess around, then you're just not interested. Your time is very valuable.

Yeah, and clearly this has been one of the most effective ways for you to open doors and then consult, getting them on the call. All of that.

Yeah, exactly that.

So, all right, cool. So let's, let's move this on to retain. We're gonna go a bit over the hour mark here, but that's fine with me if that's cool with you, because I think there's more, there's more to dissect here. So, okay, so what, what I want to know then, because you shared it with, with me, uh, shared this with me on, on the prep call, was going into, you know, the year that you just had, you shared with me that, you know, you set your size on, you set your eyes on becoming the top biller. Which you then went on to achieve, right? Which is where you've hit, you know, over the, just over the million UK pounds mark within a year. So firstly, what I'd love you to just share is how did you make sure you wasn't overwhelmed by that? Because like, did you know that you're going to have to build something around the million? Or, you know, what, being the top biller, what was like the initial figure that you knew you had to get in and around?

I thought it'd be high hundreds of thousands. So there's a guy who, um, was sort of competing against for the last few months, and he's been the top biller for the past, you know, 4 or 5 years since I joined the company. We joined at a similar time, albeit he has a lot more recruitment experience, um, and as far as I sort of would see it, he's like the, the GOAT in terms of what he's been doing. Um, I think he finished last year on like $825,000.

Sorry, right?

The year prior. Yeah. So I figured it would be high. Yeah, high hundreds of thousands, maybe a million. But I wasn't— I didn't really have a number in sight. I kind of thought, let's try and do $1 million and see how that goes first of all. And then once we got to that point, it was like, okay, let's see if we can do it in a different currency.

Yes. So what I'd just love you to just share, because I think, you know, basically I guess what I'm interested in is how you sort of broke down, broke that down, because I find it speaks a lot to top performers that this is what they're really good at. Because, you know, you were, you know, so basically earned, yeah, $840K in the fourth year. So I guess, yeah, it's an extra like 20% basically you're like aiming for, you know, to get an extra 20% out of what you did in that first year in America, right? But, you know, beginning of the financial year, we're at fucking zero, you know, starting again. What, like, how did you break down that target, $1 million, to make sure that you— because looking at that, you know, writing it down, you're like, how the fuck am I going to do that? You know, it's a big number. So like, what's been your, you know, process to— if you do have a process on breaking that down so you don't become overwhelmed by it and, you know, you focus it on chunks, if that's something that you do.

I mean, I'm always overwhelmed. So probably not the, not the best question. I mean, look, it's just like taking accountability at the end of every day. You know, I'll always check my KPIs or my stats for the day to recognize whether I've had a good day and equally sort of a good week. And if you're— it's like putting ingredients into a cake, right? If you put enough of each thing in, it should turn out okay. I didn't really have a set number that I needed to do each month. It was mainly a case of just working relentlessly, and honestly, going back to the competitive piece, kind of keeping an eye on anyone that was ahead of me and just making the decision, you know, work harder, work longer, just try and deliver for clients, and ultimately, you know, it should work out okay. And then obviously you get to the point, as we get closer to the run-in, where you're keeping an eye on what they're doing, and again, sort of trying to push as much out as possible in terms of of business development, picking up work, and then finding ways to try and service that as well as trying to keep plates spinning.

So I think what people would be interested in is what were Julian's key ingredients, the KPIs? What were some of those? And they might change in certain parts of the year, but you said that, you know, I'd look at my key KPIs and that'd be an indication to me that, you know, I had a bad day rather than a not so great day. So what are some of those key KPIs? Are you always looking at 'If I've registered 5 candidates per day, then I should be on track,' or, you know, what were some of the key ingredients?

Yeah, so candidate calls, typically I'm in for 10 a day, and they have to be relevant as well, right? It's not a case of just registering somebody that isn't really relevant to what we've got going on or wasting time on that. Client calls, typically trying to do 2 or 3 a day. I mean, my specs target was, yeah, in the thousands every month. I couldn't tell you what That was meant to be, but trying to get specs out consistently. Again, good quality CVs. So a lot of the pieces around sort of BD, being a consultant to the group, so making sure every resume that we're sending or every CV we're sending, if the client picked me up and asked me why I've sent that person, making sure that I could talk to the reasons why and my thought process. So sending good quality CVs, not just trying to hit a target. And then obviously converting those to interviews and again consulting the clients too, if they're on the fence about somebody, the reasons why we should consider having that conversation.

What do you aim for your CV to interview ratio typically to be?

Probably 2. Yeah, should interview probably 1 in every 2 people. It depends on the group and depends exactly what they're looking for, but You know, we're trying to put together a shortlist of probably 8 people. I'd expect half to have the— to get the opportunity to interview. And there have been shortlists where I've shared 8 people and they've wanted to interview 6 or 7, sometimes all 8, which is sometimes great. Sometimes you're thinking, I don't really know if you know what you're looking for because I give you a bit of a range of people. But yeah, you know, a large part of the role is consulting clients through the process. A lot of them are hiring a certain individual as a new hire that they haven't done before. And so you have to kind of work with them to help find what they like and what they don't like in candidates.

Yeah, so I know we're talking a lot about quantity here, but as Julian said, if you're listening, quality is just as fucking important. But I think what I love hearing here is we're talking about quality, but also the quantity required, the inputs required to get anywhere near the million mark. So we're talking 10 candidate calls per day. At least 2 free client calls per day. I mean, you mentioned the number of thousands of specs, so, you know, good number of specs and like that's really helpful for people, you know, because there's a lot that you could be doing. You know, if you're getting in around there and you're asking good quality questions and you're using information to your advantage, then, you know, then we can really be building traction and moving forward. Juno, let's talk about this retain journey then. 'Cause you know, you told me last year, yeah, you told me last year, every single deal that you did was retained, right? Is that correct?

Correct, yeah.

So talk to us, mate, 'cause the fourth year, how many retainers did you sell in the fourth year?

So I made some notes just for the prep. So I sold 18 retainers in the fourth year and did 42 placements in total. You know, that was inclusive of the retainers. And then last year I did 58 placements and 33 of those were retainers.

33 retainers.

So there are a few still falling into this year.

So let's just talk about this and, you know, we'll talk about this and then we'll sort of, you know, wrap this up. But so, okay, 33 retainers. So you went from 18 to 33. So you doubled basically. And then prior to that, you hadn't ever worked in that way, right?

Uh, I checked before, I sold 2 in the previous 3 years.

I sold 2 in the previous— okay, cool, sweet. All right, so let's break this down then, right? So, okay, let me first start. I guess a good question to start would be, if you sold 2 in 3 years and you sold 18, um, in that 4th year, what the hell did that pitch sound like when you sold 2 compared to what it sounded like when you sold 18? What were the main differences in that pitch? If we were sitting on that pitch on retained?

I mean, the two that I had sold retained had been existing clients previously. It was more a case of talking about the time that I had to put into the searches to make it worthwhile. So again, it was sort of nominal amounts upfront, probably £2,000 or £3,000. And yeah, I probably felt a little bit cheeky asking for money upfront. It's certainly changed since then, I guess, sort of pivoting to now, really just expressing that my time is valuable. I think that, you know, it sounds incredibly sexy when you talk about exclusively retained work and everybody wants to do it. The reason we do it isn't because it's sexy or because we can say, you know, I've got retained jobs on. You really look at the contingent model and the retained model, and when you're doing contingent work, that money is never guaranteed. And so typically what you see is recruiters will pile themselves up with as many contingent jobs as possible. They'll probably send 3 or 4, you know, low-hanging, low-hanging fruit, you know, candidates. and then that probably doesn't get that much time because there are other recruiters working on it, or they're just not sure that they'll get a fee. The key piece around how we're positioning this and why we're doing it isn't to get money up front, because that doesn't really mean that much to us besides commitment from the client. It means that we're working on an exclusive basis. We have the ability to map out and vet candidates properly. It's guaranteed money, so it means that we can put as much time into it as possible. And ultimately build out and provide the best shortlist of candidates. So that's the reason that we do it, because we cover our own back and it allows us to do a proper job, opposed to, you know, I'll send 4 candidates and somebody else will speak to 1 person and they'll send them. It's just not of interest. And so it's really having that mindset that we want to do the best possible job and consult to these clients. And so we're not just taking money off them and kind of doing nothing with it. You work relentlessly to provide results.

So, okay, so let's just talk about this then, because I think everyone listening, Julian, will go— there has been nodding. They're like, yep, definitely agree, all these things, right? But all those things that you just said is how it helps you and your team. Not because it's sexy, not because you're getting money up front, but because your time is then— is that you're actually putting a value on your time. And as you said, you can really commit to delivering a great service. But that's all the benefits to you. But obviously, in order for you to sell these consistently, the other person you talking about them has got to feel like, okay, well, that makes sense for me and my business and how that's going to help me. So, you know, let's just talk about, let's just talk about this process. Okay. Because, you know, people might be like, okay, well, how does it, how does this actually work? Is it different? Is it not different? We'll find out. So if, you know, I become a client that you speak to about, you know, pitch and retain to. Are there, so what are the steps firstly? You know, you might have sent me a spec CV. I've gone, Julian, this candidate, mate, this is someone that I'm excited by. We get on a call. Yeah. You know, talk to me about the process. Are we going to go straight into, you know, a bit of a discovery call? Are you then going to book another call where we then do a proper pitch on the retainer? What's the typical sales process?

No, we're just in one call. Um, one call and we'll go through. Yeah, yeah, one call.

Okay.

If they want to do a follow-up to understand terms or any other pieces, then we can do that. Um, but I'll typically try and make it 30 minutes, or it might overrun, um, slightly depending on the level of detail we get into.

Um, okay, one call over video. Yeah, over video.

Phone call? No, I don't do video.

Okay, right, right. Let's break this fucking phone call down then. Come on, because that's surprising to me, I'm not gonna lie. I thought there would be, but this is why I think this is helpful for people because I thought there'd be a bit more to it. You know, you might put a presentation together, you might have found out a bit more around, you know, about their challenges, their pain points. But this is great, you know, because this is unearthing, you know, people might be overcomplicating this stuff. But why don't you share with us what is important that happens on this 30-minute call?

I'll run into that now. I think just to your point about there probably being a lot more to it, video call, presentation, whatever. I don't think they really care. Like, honestly, I don't think they really care. I think the key pieces that they want to know are, what does your track record look like? Does this person ask the right questions and understand what we're looking for? But also giving them the confidence to, you know, believe that you will deliver for them. In terms of the— I'll give you an example. I play a lot of poker. I'm not going to show you all of the cards, but, uh, yeah, let's give you one of the frameworks.

You know, people listen to this, does it— we want the frameworks, you know, what, what are some of the key things that, you know, we're gonna go for it.

Yeah, I mean, definitely do your due diligence on the company first of all. Take a look at some of the material, take a look at what they're typically doing, have a look at, uh, people within the group to see whether you know anybody or are familiar with them. Maybe you've got some as candidates, and so you'll have insight into some of the stuff that they're working on that you can relay, you know, in the market. About the group. And then look, really, I let them lead the call by way of, do you want me to give you a background on McDonald Company, or are you familiar with us? Or why don't you tell me about what you guys have got going on? You know, why did this development manager interest you? What did you have in mind for this person? Typically, they'll give a high-level overview, and they'll probably go into as much detail as they think is required. I think then I will talk to them on a much more technical level in terms of different pieces around the role and, you know, probably make recommendations or suggestions as to why I think would this person coming from this background or, you know, um, you show credibility with your questions and you're honest.

Exactly, yeah, I understand, get that, yeah.

And also talk to any sort of track record or, um, whether they know people at another company that you'll be familiar with. I think that's a key one in terms of how close a lot of these markets are. I think providing you can mention a name and you could happily say to the person, yeah, give Dave a call now, he'll say great things about me. They won't call Dave, but if you're willing to be that sort of, you know, brash and out there, they'll probably think, okay, this, you know, this guy probably knows what he's doing. So go into technical detail, understand the role better, really deep dive into the company's culture, growth trajectory, really talk to the ability to understand everything so that we don't waste their time or our time. And again, sort of talking through the whole candidate journey piece, because people want to have good reputation in the market, and so, and you also want to work with groups that aren't going to dick your candidates around and give you a bad name. A lot of other pieces I think that we sort of leaned on, particularly through COVID, would be our ability to manage candidates' expectations. You got to the point where you had 3 or 4 opportunities per candidate, you know, and you weren't representing them on all of them. So really sharing with the clients that we manage our candidates closely, the percentage that we typically lose to counteroffer or to another opportunity was incredibly low, and talk around those pieces and how we do that. Then go into what I would like to think is a very fluent or fluid pitch of the company and some high points around why we're specialists in what we do, talk a little bit to the track record. I heard somebody mention on a call the other day that they use pitch decks, or sorry, on one of your podcasts, they use pitch decks. I think that's useful for people. I've got a pretty good memory, so I usually know competitors I can talk to and people I've placed and so on. So I'll drop a few names there in terms of those pieces. And then I'll typically then ask them, you know, do you want me to run through what our contract looks like? And it's just, you know, straightforward. This is how much you pay up front, this is what it looks like. Um, you know, we have cancellation clauses in all of our contracts as well, so if they don't make the placement, obviously we'll charge a fee on top of that. So it is sort of real, um, exclusively retained work opposed to just taking a little bit of money up front and then kind of leaving it open. And look, I think the other piece really is just trying to close them. I think that we've had this a few times where some of our guys have done what they think are really good calls, like, yeah, I've just sold a retainer. And then a week goes by, two weeks go by, client isn't coming back to them. So I think, you know, providing they want to talk to it, you ask them around, you know, from the contract, is there anything that stands out to you there? Is there anything that you feel uncomfortable with? Or 'What are your thoughts on that?' And there have been calls where I've sat and talked through different parts of the contract and where we can probably add some flexibility or the reasons that we have that in there and how it's beneficial to them. And it's really just making them feel comfortable with what we're trying to do. But again, I think the key piece, going back to it, is just market knowledge and credibility. If you can talk credibly and ask high-level questions, and reference people that you know in the industry that you've done work with, then that's probably as good as it's going to get in terms of, you know, you should pay me money up front to do this because I've done this search 10 times in the past 3 months and there are, you know, we've got pools of people and relevant bits. I think one of the things, and look, I'll overshare here a little bit, I think when people are pitching retained work, usually there's always this emphasis that we have to bow down to the client, you know, your company's great, you do all of this really good work. That often goes against people in that, you know, they think, all right, well, if we're great, we'll post it on LinkedIn, or, you know, you should be privileged working with us, whereas you have to have the confidence in your mind, number one, that they should be privileged to work with you because of the value that you're going to add. But number two, I wouldn't say diminish what they've done, but I also think that you probably over-egg, even though you've done this search a few times, you know, you probably over-egg that it is challenging because, you know, there aren't tons of these people that cover this area in the market. So you've got a small pool of people to work through. This is the reason that I think that you need to go on this approach, because if they think it's easy, why can't they give it to, you know, another corporate group that will do it for 15% and no retainer? So it's really trying to suggest that you'd have the ability to pick the work up and do it because of your track record, but also, you know, not fluff the client up too much to the point they think, ah, this is going to be pretty easy, and actually they'd be really lucky to work with us. You need it to be the other way around.

No, I appreciate you sharing all that, Julian. And look, I think what I actually take from that, and this is something I always think about because I'm always someone that's willing to learn on sales and wanting to improve, is Obviously there's so much power to understand this. It's often not what you say, but how you say it. So for me, what I take from that, Julian, is if I was listening into one of your calls, you know, the way that you would speak about McDonald's, the company, your track record, how you work, it would just be with, you know, conviction, you know, directness, confidence. And this is how we work. You know, there's no element of like, Yeah, like, it'd be like, it'd be great if we could work this way. It's like, this is how we work.

It's like if you wake up one day and decide you want to go buy a new car, you go to the Mercedes garage and you pick out all of the extras, they don't start saying to you, oh well, you know, we like this white leather or this cream leather that you've picked, you know, it's going to be $12,000 to add that on, but you know, well, we can try and move around. Like, that's the price, that's what it costs for what you want. So If you want to do this and do it the right way, then let's do it. We can service it and we can make it happen. If you don't, then that's also fine. Just don't waste our time. Yeah, it's just having the confidence, you know, this is the way that we're doing things. And if you want to try it out, you know, we'll do the work for you and there's no problem with that. If not, completely fine.

And then just a couple of bits. So typically when I speak to people, how they would structure this would be, you know, and I know it might vary and you might have some flex, but as a sort of core product, core service, typically when I speak to people, it's like, you know, they'll ask for X amount of the, you know, overall fee upfront to come in to sort of commence the partnership, commence a project. Then it might be broken into thirds, you know, then the next third might be when you know, you've presented a shortlist, initial shortlist, and then the other third would be when that person has then signed a contract. Are those typically been the same milestones that you've, you know, used to break down your service typically, or?

So we don't split into thirds. So we'll have an upfront fee and then there'll be a completion fee.

Right.

Again, I think that's probably another piece that depending on who it is you're pitching to, plays into your hand a little bit in the, you know, some of these groups could have paid out two-thirds of the overall fee at shortlist or interview stage, and they might not like any of those candidates. So they're already 66% out of pocket, and the person's got to start again. So yeah, it's just an upfront fee and then the completion fee with the retainer deducted off that.

What was typically the average upfront fee you charge?

Some of my clients are going to be disappointed, probably.

Okay, yeah, nice. And then do you not have any milestones? You don't have any, like, you know, agreed milestones? Like, okay, okay, we'll commence this and then by this period I'm going to probably give you this, or is it not? Is it just then we're going to go through the process, rest on the completion?

Yeah, rest on completion. I mean, that's what I get out of bed for. It's, it's— I don't say it's easy to sell retainers, but it's, you know, it's within the wheelhouse. And then The hard work is finding the right candidates and putting the shortlist together. But again, talking about quality of resume shared, you should have it done in the first sort of go.

And then your track record comes into play, right? It's like, look, typically this is what it would look like. This is what we've done in the past. Mate, honestly, like, I know the way this is going to be really helpful for people because, you know, I think a lot of people can overcomplicate this and you're just owning how you work. This is the best way to work, you know, and everyone benefits. And then on this, because, you know, everyone talk— I'm sure you picked up on this as well, but everyone says, you know, the fees are bigger than US. You shared with us the average deal size compared to the UK. But have you typically found yourself negotiating better terms as well? What's ended up being the average sort of percentages that you managed to negotiate in the US? Because a lot of people say it could be 25-30%, but we don't know how true that is.

The higher end that you quoted and higher is what I'll say.

All right, sound. Cool, man. I appreciate you over-sharing here, right? Um, okay, so I just wanted to share a text with you, um, which I think you might find interesting, from your good friend Nick Kamen. He's a friend of the— friend of the pod, right? And, um, he said he is without doubt the nicest guy you could ever hope to out-bill you.

I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know.

Um, why, why, why would he, why would he describe you that way?

I don't know, man. I don't know. Uh, I probably, I mean, some of the guys in America probably think I'm, I'm super intense because when you, when you come in and you're locked in, then, you know, that's it. We're here to make money. We're here to, to do the job. But, um, I don't know. I always I will always try and give people time or always try and share some gems of value. Yeah, Nick's a good guy, spent a lot of time trying to—

He also said how he grinds at work and who's building so consistently without a pomp and ceremony always impresses everyone around him.

Yeah, well, that's nice to hear. Yeah, like I say, I spent a lot of time trying to copy Nick and learn from Nick, and he gave me some really good pieces in terms of building out the desk and doing business development and so on. So, yeah, I couldn't be happier to have that sort of praise from someone that's achieved so much with McDonald's and Company.

You know, so look, we've covered a lot in this conversation. People listening that want the US success story, What would be your parting advice, my friend?

Work ethic. Just, I mean, it's the boring one, right? It's the one that everybody says, but if you have a look at anybody that's been successful, whether it's in recruitment or any other industry, you know, from sport through to anything else, try and do the best possible job that you can for yourself and for your clients, candidates. Make sure to act with integrity and advise people because we're playing the long game. And there'll be conversations that you have, and I think that you really need to, I think that you really need to treat every single conversation as one that you can get value from, whether it's today or in 6 months or in 12 months, because people will remember how you conduct yourself on calls and in situations. So try and be, try and act with integrity, and more than anything, just Awesome, let's get it.

Love it. Um, look, Julian, been an absolute pleasure. Kudos to you, my friend. Your work ethic, what you've created. Um, what's, uh, what's the billings goal for this year, my man? Are we, uh, what are we aiming for?

Um, conservatively, $1.5 million, so that's probably about £1.1, £1.2 million. Um, I don't know where the ceiling is.

There's some more juice we can squeeze. There's no You know, it's— for me, I'm a big, you know, what, like, you're not— I think the best way to view it is like, you know, you're not playing a finite game, you know, like, you're paying— you're playing an infinite game. Like, the, the goal is to keep playing at the highest level, and why put like a cap on anything, you know what I mean? That's why I sometimes try and remind myself is like, why would you say, look, I've capped it all out now, you know? There's— why wouldn't there be more? And like, just better for you, and there's probably more that could be done.

100%. I mean, I don't think that market is slowing down. I think as you continue to build relationships and scale things up and learn and get better, that things should continue to increase until they get to the point where you're just killing yourself and you can't do it anymore. But yeah, I think I just need to— I need one thing you didn't ask me, which I'm awful at, so thank you for not— time management and organization. I'm just, I'm horrible at it. So I probably spend more hours working than I would need to if I just plan things out better. So maybe that's going to be my success route to 1.5 or 2 million.

Love it. Julian, thanks so much.

Ciao, man.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it and got value from the conversation. If you did enjoy it, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next episode.