Lessons from successfully launching 40+ recruitment agencies with XRecruiter Founders Declan & Blake

Bad bosses create more businesses than entrepreneurs will ever create.

You won't lose a recruiter if you're dedicated to get them achieving their personal goals. Their professional goals are irrelevant unless they're achieving their personal goals.

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and on this week's episode, I was joined by the co-founders of ex-recruiter Declan and Blake. They're based out of Brisbane, Australia, and they're on a mission to build a worldwide community of what they like to call the next generation of recruiters who are succeeding on their own terms.

So Blake, yourself, obviously you, you started your own recruitment business, Vendito, which is still going, and you've been doing that for 6 years. Declan, yourself, you started your own recruitment business called Blender Deployment, and again, you've been doing that for 5 years.

Both Declan and Blake built their own recruitment businesses, and as we all know, there's a ton of challenges that come with that journey, and they thought there was a better way. So they've been building X Recruiter over the last 12 to 18 months, and they've now launched 45 different recruitment brands. They're all about making it as easy as possible for amazing recruiters to go out on their own, not have to worry about all of the business stuff, so they can focus on what they're great at, which is recruitment. They have their own podcast called Confessions of a Recruiter that I'd recommend checking out. and I really enjoyed our conversation and really broke down what they feel they have to offer recruiters that are maybe considering starting out on their own, but they're really fearful of what that means, what that takes, and the platform that they're building to make that as easy as possible.

What should I be really leaning into that could hopefully result in keeping my, my best performers?

Well, Matt, I think, um, Blake's a perfect example of this.

So let's get into this week's episode.

Then, Blake, welcome to the Pods.

Thanks, mate. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us, all the way from little old Australia.

There we go. Yeah, no, I've been, been looking forward to this. Obviously, Declan, I've been speaking to you, um, mostly, uh, obviously Blake, we're gonna get to know each other in this podcast, but I've really enjoyed seeing how you've approached building X Recruiter. Um, I think the way that you've marketed your proposition, the way that you've gone about your business. I've, I've really respected— also you have your own podcast, Confessions of a Recruiter, as well. So I've really, um, enjoyed, uh, seeing those. So yeah, I was really keen to, to get you both on the, the pod to talk about this, this journey that you've been on with X Recruiter. Um, so I guess just to give people some immediate context that might be helpful, and then feel free to to jump in here, but so Blake, for yourself, obviously you, you start your own recruitment business, Vendito, which is still going, and you've been doing that for 6 years. And then Declan, um, yourself, you start your own recruitment business called Blended Employment, and again, you've been doing that for 5 years. So, you know, you guys have been in the trenches of having your own recruitment business, still are. And this is what I really like, because I'm assuming then you know, how you've built XRecruiter, you've built it from a perspective of what you would have loved to have yourselves, right? Um, so now, you know, the, the short, uh, context on XRecruiter is you enable recruiters to launch their own recruitment business. I'm going to go into exactly how you do that and how you've approached that proposition. Um, so that's just some immediate context for everyone listening. But I guess where we always like to, to start, and I'm sure this is something that both of you have really thought, uh, you know, long and hard about when partnering with recruits to start their own businesses. So, Declan, I'm going to come to you, uh, first, but I'd love to hear your take on what you believe are the common characteristics and traits of a highly successful recruiter in today's market. What do you believe those are?

And I think people that can lead themselves, someone that can show up no matter what, be consistent, um, and then always, you know, it sounds a bit, bit lame, but like have that hustle mentality, be willing to graft. I think that's what everyone says in the, in the UK. But yeah, just really that, that want to rip in. They can create belief in themselves. They enjoy the wins and, and not shy away from, from doing the work. You know, it's like you start a business, there's a big blue ocean of opportunity, but the ones that are successful are really nailed down on what they're good at and focus on that. And then that's where the success comes. The opposite is trying to be everything to everyone. So that would be a few of the common traits that I would think make successful recruiters outside of everyone else when jumping into business.

Love that. Blake, what have you got to add from your take?

Yeah, I think Declan's done pretty well there. I'd probably just add perseverance. It's quite easy to get in your own head when you're a new business owner or when you're a new recruiter. So just being able to step outside from the voice in your head and just kind of stick to the basics and just follow the basics through, you should have no issues. I mean, it sounds easy as— well, it sounds like it's pretty easy, but it's actually quite tough for a lot of people to not listen to the voice in their head and just stick to what they know and stick to the process. So as long as, as long as you've got a high work ethic and you find reasons to pick up the phone and find reasons to speak to people and you don't listen to the voice in your head, you should be good to go.

Love that. Well, let's get straight into it, Blake. I'd love to hear your take on like the story around the experiences and challenges that you had as a business owner that started to, you know, plant the seeds of, you know, launching a proposition and offer a service like XRecruiter. What were some of the things that you personally faced when building Venditto that made you think, actually, you know, ex-recruiter and, and this proposition and, and, uh, um, you know, service you and Declan have built together over the last year is something I think people would really benefit from. Like, what were some of the things that showed up when you were on that journey yourself?

Yeah, so there's a few things that I, that I wish I did that I didn't do when I started Venditto. One of those things was, um, taking like systems and processes more seriously. When you start your own agency, because you're a one-man band, you can cut as many corners as you want because you know what's going on in your business. And that's what I did when I started Vendito. You know, I'd have a database— I think I used Bullhorn at the time. I'd be reaching out to clients, I'd make a placement, I'd just invoice it out. I wouldn't log it in the database. You'd never know I'd make a placement. If, if someone external, you know, audited my business from a CRM standpoint, because ultimately your CRM is the value of your business, um, to a degree, and they saw no candidate notes, no calls, no placements, nothing doing, um, then they'd go, this isn't a business at all, right? So, um, I really wish I probably took the processes and systems and doing the right thing, um, early on. I think that would have made my business scale and growth far quicker. Um, so one thing that we teach our recruiters at JoinX Recruiter is just because you're a one-man band, don't act like it. You need to act like an employee that you would pay. So if you're sitting there making zero calls and you're just sending out a few DMs on LinkedIn and you're expecting to be paid $300,000 a year, would you— from your own billings and etc., you know, would you pay a recruiter? Would you pay someone else to sit there and send out a few DMs and expect to make $300 grand a year and you have to pay them? And most of the time it's like, oh, I wouldn't pay myself for the work that I'm doing in my own business. Why should I, um, why should I pay, you know, what I'm earning at the moment? So, um, hopefully that made sense. There's a bit of a tongue twister there, but, um, ultimately it's, it's about being the person that you, you want to employ, uh, from day one rather than just, um, rather than just kind of cutting corners and so forth. So that's what I did when I started Vendito, and I wish I didn't do that. I'd probably be far better off and I'd be able to retain staff and train them far easier. In the outset. Um, another big thing is worrying about headcount. Probably a quick, um, a quick kind of pitfall that I had when I was new in business was thinking that my business was valued at how many heads I had in the seat. And I hired like 10 recruiters, 12 recruiters in like the first 6 months, and I was like, boy, I'm killing it, I've got 12 recruiters working for me. And And that was far from the case. It was chaotic, it was crazy. I was making no money, I was super stressed, and then had to swallow the pill, so to speak, and, and get rid of those ego statistics and come straight back to basics and just focus on just doing a good job as individuals. So, you know, that's one of the things that we teach our guys is anyone that joins X Recruiter, we've made heaps of mistakes, mistakes that you don't think about when you first start business. You know, when you first start business, you're like, oh, laptop and an internet and I'll good to go, and you know, how hard could it be? And whilst there's an element of, you know, it— you don't need a huge amount of resources to get started, um, there's a lot of guidance and mentorship and pitfalls and blind spots that you run into as you're naive and you've never done it before. So, um, with Execruter, we've put a big focus on mentorship, guidance, and walking recruiters through the journey of that business owner mindset that takes a long time for people to realize, especially if they've got no one to bounce ideas off, to go, oh hey, I am on— I am not on the right track. This is the track I'm meant to be on, and kind of get them back on track. So that's probably one of the things that I think is a huge value add and an intangible value that Execruter provides.

I really like the— I'm a huge advocate for systems and processes. I speak to a lot of people about that. I really like how I, I really agree on just because you're a one-person business doesn't mean that, yeah, like you should just not like treat your processes and how you'd approach things, uh, just really complacently because it's just you. Because I just don't think that regardless if you have aspirations to grow or not, I think if you take your systems and processes seriously to start, whenever you do hire maybe a virtual assistant or like just someone in the future, you're going to thank yourself for it. And also it is very surprising how many recruiters can't actually— don't have documented how they do what they do. And that's just like really, um, useful. So I really like that point. I guess, Declan, would you, would you mind— you shared with me, right? So in this past year, and let me know if any of this is wrong, but in the past year you've launched 20 recruitment businesses via X Recruiter. Is that right? So, so would you, would you mind just sharing with us— obviously Blake told us a bit about some of the things that, you know, you've built XRecruiter around that he wished he did. Um, I'm going to go more into that, but would you mind just sharing, you know, like the core proposition, what XRecruiter is like, how, how do you help, uh, recruiters exactly? And then let's, let's dig into this year, what we've learned, what we've seen, um, and all that good stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So one of the big things that's happened, even just continuing on, probably another third pillar is the branding and image of the agencies that we help create. So that would be one thing that's definitely overlooked with a lot of recruiters because you're trying to skimp out on not only your resources, systems, procedures, but also your branding and how you present online. So that's one of the big emphasis that we do, making sure that our recruiters look who they are. They don't look like a first-time business owner. There's a bit of a running joke that internally they look like they look better than every agency they're leaving. So that's paramount for us. The way their email signature comes across, their LinkedIn banner, their website, all that stuff ties in. So that's why it's super important on that front. And probably the biggest thing that we've learned throughout the years or throughout this year would be the way having luck early— not luck, but I don't know if it's the excitement or the success quickly and then realizing what it takes to back it up. And not— and knowing that it's not— it doesn't just last forever. So like, there's been a lot of, um, quick successes, and you know, they've— and then the foot comes off the gas a bit, and then for a month they're like, oh shit, I thought it was just going to continue forever. Um, so that was probably one of the big learning experiences that—

yeah, I really like that, Declan. That's so true because I think you pe— like, when you post that post on LinkedIn, right, new job, I'm starting my own business, you're buzzing, right? Everyone's like, yeah, Blake, amazing, congrats, blah blah blah. Everyone's hyping you up. 3 months later when you're in the trenches of, you know, having your first deal not come through, um, and someone still hasn't paid you your first invoice because it's 60 days late, you're like, fucking hell, I'm quite far away from, you know, all this dopamine that I had when I let everyone know I'm starting a new business and everyone's hyping me up. It's— you're completely right at the beginning. I wrote down like an idea for a post because I don't know if you've seen this, but I definitely find that you can tell when someone's just launched a recruitment business because they're way more active on LinkedIn. They're shouting about it, you know, they're doing all of that. And why is that? It's because the excitement is high. But and then whatever the time period is, as you guys will know, you know, like doing things for 5 years, 6 years, having your business, it's fucking hard. So it's like, okay, you know, you can ride this wave, enjoy it, but then when push comes to shove, when things get hard, it's like, okay, yeah, like, it's all on my shoulders. Like, it's, it's down to you, right? So yeah, I definitely— yeah, I can definitely see— I'm not surprised that you said that. That's a really good point.

Yeah.

And because I didn't have a great start in my, in my business, like, Harwell, H People, Limitless, TRG, they've all built more in their first 90 days than I did in my first 12 months. And like, obviously, you know, that's the whole— you know, that's what we envisioned for X Recruiter to do, to launch, do, do what took us 3 or 4 years, do that in the first 12 months. Like, that's the reason why the model exists. But yeah, I never had those quick wins. So it was like 2 years of just slugging it out, getting rejected, shitty everything, shitty brand, all that, all that stuff. And you're plugging away and banging out videos. But I suppose the one thing, and we've even seen it in our networks, just me and Blake were the ones that just kept showing up year after year, week after week, and I suppose that's the reason why we ended up as, as business partners. We never— we had competing agencies, so we never even thought about, um, joining agencies together or anything like that. So it's, um, yeah, it's pretty exciting now how it all comes out in the wash.

So we're— so we've X Recruited then, like, just give us the, the details of how this works then. So I'm, I'm a recruiter listening to this, I maybe have, you know, aspirations to have my own business. I'm, you know, really concerned and worried about starting my own business because I don't know how all the business stuff works, whether that be setting up my company account. I've never done marketing. I don't know how a P&L works. I don't know, you know, how do I make sure that my business is profitable, whatever, you know, the things that I'm concerned about. Like, just share with us like the core proposition of X Recruiter, like how it works.

Yeah, so If you're a recruiter listening to this and you're going to have lots of questions and insecurities and questions, the first step is to just reach out to us. We've got like a 4-step process that we take recruiters through to determine whether or not they should even start a recruitment agency. Because you'll get a lot of people that, you know, some people are in the industry for like 6 months and they're like, dude, I'm way better than my boss, I'm gonna go start my own agency like now. And you know, some people are in it 10 years and they're like, oh geez, I think I need a little bit more experience before I go do this. So everybody's journey is really different. So I guess the first step would be to have a chat to us and we'll go through the 4-step process to make sure that one, are you in a good financial position to start an agency? It's important to live below your means, reduce your debt, not have lots of expenses because you will have a period of no income. So how long, how long can you last without that income? So we'll go through all these like kind of lifestyle, personal, professional type of things to make sure you're set up. But if you, you do make it through and we think we're, we're all a good fit and we're all going to be successful, the first thing we do is set you up with our accountant, set up your business, set up all your business accounts, bank accounts. You meet our onboarding and branding specialists, start developing your logo, your brand, our internal legal, get your terms of business done up. The, the reason why XRecruiters is kind of special is When, when you're an independent recruitment agency owner or, you know, you're starting out on your own, you've got to go seek all these external resources. And generally, because you're a one-man band, you get, you get, you know, taken advantage of to a degree, and you pay a premium because you're not a big enough fish to, to warrant a discount. So all these one-man bands pay a premium for their resources, for their tools, for marketing, accounts, admin, all that kind of stuff. So we've got basically an internal team that will help you out with your marketing, your branding, your technology, your accounts, invoicing. Chasing up legal debts. If you've got a client that's like, oh, I'm not paying, I didn't sign the terms, haha, tricked you. Um, you know, what do you do then when you're a one-man band and you've got no resources or support behind you? You've got, you've got to scratch your head and just trust your gut and just figure it out. Whereas with X Recruiter, you're able to like call X Recruiter up and go, hey, I've got a client at the moment, I've sent them terms, they're not paying my invoice, what should I do here? And you've got like this internal support system to make sure that one, we can set you up, and two, we can keep your business running just as you do right now when you're running your own desk at your current agency. It's no different. We do exactly what your current agency does, but instead it's your brand, your face on the door, um, and we hold your hand and walk you through every step of the process. We get two types of recruiters. Like, one type of recruiter goes, I want to be a business owner, I want to get a better commercial acumen, I want to learn this stuff. Can you like walk me through how to reconcile my accounts? Why do we do it this way? How do we submit to get like GS— well, I'm not sure what you guys call it. VAT? Is it VAT? GST? Yeah, yeah. How to get that back and like all these kind of business things that they want to learn and upskill in. So we can either sit down with them and walk them through how everything works, but the other half just go, mate, I don't give a shit about any of that. I just want to make sure that someone's supporting me. They're going to make sure everything is always in order. So I can just focus on billing because that's all I care about. So you get really two types of recruiters. One that, you know, want, want to be handheld and learn everything, and others don't really care. They just, they just want to know if they've got a good brand and we've, we're sorting them out, that they're going to be in good shape. And, um, so it's, it's pretty interesting to speak to different types of recruiters needing different things out of their business.

And then, and then, Declan, how does it work? Because most people that I speak to The main reservation as to like why I might consider partnering with XRecruiter to launch my recruitment business is that in the long term I'm going to feel you're going to become— how would I, how would I describe it? Like at the, at the beginning you might be like, yeah, they've, you know, massively helped me start all these things, but then as time goes on, as I earn more money, I might feel like that you're taking a larger chunk than you deserve, right? So I think a lot of people concerned about are X recruiter going to earn a big chunk of my business? Are they going to take a big chunk of, you know, my billings? Like, how, as the final bit, how does that work, Declan? Because I think that's also important and that's often what people are concerned about.

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, the further it goes on, the more research recruiters do, the more they find it's, it's, um, you know, you just gotta understand about business. But yeah, that's one of the big objections is everyone thinks if they send 100% of their own invoice, they make 100%. Profit margin in their business, like we all know. But X Recruiter works on having a baseline net profit in your business. So it works on a sliding scale. So the more you bill, the less you pay, essentially, because you're released of zero supply contracts. So X Recruiter holds all supply contracts. You get the benefit of premium resources without zero commitment to any of them. So you can, you know, it's a fluctuating seat. Your usage depends on, you know, whatever you want to use. And then it's 25% to 10%, changing by 5% per $500,000 in billings.

To add to that and to answer your question more directly around, you know, what if in like 3 or 4 years' time the balance has shifted, you know, Execrute is taking more money and we're not giving the value from the start. I think that's a really valid question. Just to answer that, I mean, if someone wants to leave, they can leave at any time and they can go get their own resources and back office. So there's no commitment. We don't take a percentage of someone's business. They own their business 100%. This is like a really unflattering way to, to sell XRecruiter, but we're just a resource provider ultimately. We're, we're a service provider to your agency. If you decide you want to go get a different service, you can. We've thought about what it looks like if you've got 5 recruiters, 10 recruiters. How scalable is it when you're building your agency to justify giving XRecruiter a percentage of your income? We, um, we haven't got there yet. I mean, Vendido, we have 10 recruiters in our agency through X Recruiter, and it works for us, my own agency. So we kind of walk the walk in that regard. But in 4 years' time, if you feel that you're not getting the value and you want to take everything in-house, you just take everything in-house. We'll, we'll wear that as a badge of honor because we've been able to get a recruiter to starting their own agency, to scaling it, to growing it to the point where they don't need us anymore. So that's probably something to celebrate rather than something to fear.

Yeah, no, for sure. No, I appreciate you sharing that. So let— like, I'm glad— hopefully people want to understand, understand that, right? And I think that's often, you know, what people just want to know and understand. So, Declan, let me come to you on this. Like, I think what— where you guys can now, you know, offer a really unique perspective is you've worked with 20 individual people, individuals, different businesses, and you've seen, you know, what people have done well, what people have maybe, um, you know, struggled with. So I'm really keen to sort of tap into that perspective for people listening so they can learn from that. So you shared with me, you know, I asked you to share with me some of your best success stories so far. So some of the ones that you shared with me, again, feel free to correct me, but you shared with me the company called H People did $297K worth of fees. I don't know if that was in like a year period. I don't know. But Then you had a company called Harwell that did $200,000 in 90 days. You had the Recruit Group did $126K in 90 days. Limitless did $116K in 7 weeks. So, you know, looking at these businesses, I guess first thing that I'd love to get your thoughts on, Declan, is like, you know, what, what did these companies do really well to, to achieve those sorts of figures that quickly? Because oftentimes people have covenants, you know, people have a restrictive period where they can't just pick up the phone to their clients where it could be easy money, they've got relationships with their— so these people have to lean into something that maybe they haven't had to do for a while, which is client acquisition, which is having to go out there, win business. So what do you think, you know, looking at from that perspective, what do you think these people have done really well? What do those first 90 days look like to these people and how How did they approach it to get those sorts of outcomes?

Yeah, awesome. So those results are all within the 90 days besides Lisa was 7 weeks.

Oh nice.

Yeah, yeah. So H People, they also out of that 297, they're a temp agency. So they do like contracting for warehouse and logistics and they got 80 temps out within that time as well. So plus a mix of perm. So pretty successful for 2 guys in their first 90 days. The big thing that they do well is the, that all across all of those companies is the daily activities. They took exactly what they do at a normal recruitment agency. They map their market. They knew what competitors, who their competitors of their clients were that they weren't dealing with. And they built a cold desk from scratch. So, you know, in regards to automation, lead generation, emails, campaigns, LinkedIn, text messages, like we're pretty big on that type of stuff. It helps build a cold desk really quick if you map your data correctly. So that's something consistent that all of those people did. And they also just did the daily habits every day of a successful recruiter. They're already high-performing recruiters in their previous agency. So they just took what they did well. So that's, you know, having KPIs, kept themselves accountable across meetings, candidate submissions, interviews, deal flow, pipeline, and then just repeated it across the companies that they didn't work with within their industry.

And did these— look, like, just curious, like, these, these people, I know you said they were high performing, but oftentimes if you're a high performer, you climb the ranks in your recruitment business typically. So you might find yourself managing a team, leading a team, and oftentimes that involves being hands-off. So obviously it's not always the case, but were these people, you know, before they started working with you guys, were they in the position where they hadn't built for a while, or they would like, you know, dip in and out of it every now and again because they're leading a team? Like, yeah, were their hands off before they then just, you know, dug straight into it?

Yeah, Sam. So Sam and Jory, they're from H People. Sam was pretty much hands off. I think he had 3 people he was managing. Um, Jory was a little bit more hands-on, but he had 2 people that he was managing. They had a team of 5 that they built up. Um, so yeah, they, they got pretty far into their business. Um, and they decided to, you know, do it for themselves. Fraser had 2 people reporting to him, so he went back to, to working for himself. He's from the recruit group. Adam, I think from Harwell, he was one of the directors. He was getting to the point, I think he had a candidate resource for 6 months. So yeah, they were, um, there was only, I think Harvey was the only one that, that wasn't directly managing someone out of them. Oh, and Lisa was a sole She'd always, she had 18 months recruitment experience.

Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. Because that can often be sometimes like a concern or like a limiting belief of like, can I still do deals? You know, if you haven't done it for a while.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Or even doing, building up a temp desk and being like the golden handcuffs. How am I ever going to get rid of this contract book? Or it's only me GP every single month and I'm getting paid on it. Like, how do I actually take that next step? I'll always be giving up the, the prior month or the prior quarter. So, you know, you've got to come to terms with that.

So there, there's some, there's some of the things that have gone well. Blake, what have you, what have you found yourself, maybe you and Declan, run into consistently or quite often when it comes to, you know, the challenges that these people like face? And maybe you least expected it could be like a, you know, mindset challenge, limiting beliefs. It could be I don't know, just anything that you run into that you found people have to wrestle with or have struggled with since going from an employee mindset to a business owner mindset. What have you found that people often struggle with that maybe they least expected?

Probably what Declan mentioned earlier in the call around, like, I call it the 3-month slump where you're ripping in for the first 2 months and then the 3rd month is always you shit the bed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Call it the 3-month slump. So you're like, you know, they're ripping in for 8 weeks, they've got all the adrenaline and, um, they're, they're crushing it, and then they think that this is freaking easy, and then they go through this slump period where they're like, wow, have I just made a really bad decision here? I've pulled up a donut, or close to a donut, or it's way less than, than I got for the for the first 2 months. And, you know, sometimes it happens in the second month, sometimes it happens in the fourth month, but generally, you know, around the third month area, they let their foot off the gas and then they start getting creative and cute with being a business owner. Oh, I'm going to start a podcast, I'm going to start doing lots of LinkedIn posts, I'm going to go to networking events. And whilst they all are really valuable things to do in recruitment, when you're in your first like 6-12 months of starting your business, the only thing you can really think about is just getting money in the door and sticking to general recruitment activities, the basics. And so sometimes it's just, it's really just like having a chat to someone and they're going, oh man, I've got no jobs. I'm like, okay, how much prospecting are you doing? Like, oh, none. Okay, do you think you should, you know, get on the phones? Yeah, I know I should, but I'm just not. Like, well, uh, okay, well let's just get on the phone. So let's— and like, oh look, I'm just finding it hard to focus, blah blah blah, there's so many things happening. And it's kind of like this the wool gets pulled from over their eyes and they're no longer just turning up and focusing on one thing at their desk. Well, they still technically can, but they get distracted with so many newfound blue ocean opportunities. Well, I could do this now, I could do that now. So it's just trying to keep people focused and engaged and focused on what matters and not getting them drifting off too far. Because when you start drifting off too far, you lose your results. Then with lower results, you get disheartened, and you get disheartened, and it's like this bad cycle. So half the game's a bit— we sometimes we feel like we're pts, you know, pumping them up, keeping them accountable. Um, but you know, they get through that little slump and then they're just, you know, they're firing on all cylinders and they're good to go.

The 3-month slump.

It happened to me, mate, in my—

yeah, my—

for even when I started in recruitment, I think my first month was like $29K, then $10K, and then like $38K, and then $6K.

Yeah.

And then $6K. Yeah, coming into Christmas.

So yeah, yeah, it's— that is really interesting to say that because, yeah, I'm really not surprised by that because like you said, like, the wool, the wool is then pulled from their eyes and they're like, right, I, I literally have to show up and do these core activities every single day. Like, Blake, I'm just curious, just to make this really straightforward for people, because I'm sure you've found yourself repeating yourself consistently when someone is in that 3-month slump, you're having those conversations of like, okay, well, you know, tell me a bit about what you're doing, how you're approaching things. Like, what, what do you believe are those core activities? I know we're getting granular here, but like, what, what are the core activities that all, all I need to focus on is showing up every day and fucking doing them and being disciplined with it and just focusing on that rather than, like you said, getting distracted with maybe these big grand ideas. Now you're a business owner that basically take you away from doing the thing, you know? Um, what would you define as the thing that you need to do every single day that you've encouraged people to do?

Yeah, how many good conversations have you had with the client today? A prospective client, an existing client, a new client, whatever. Usually it's like, oh, none. Like, okay, well, can you do deals without speaking to clients? No. Okay, so should you be speaking to clients every single day? Yes. Okay, let's do that. What clients have you got in your database? I've got a brand spanking new database. I've got 12 people in here. Cool. Have you spoken to all 12 of these people this week? No. Okay, let's do that next. Who are the competitors of these 12 people? Uh, let's build this out to 36 people. Call those 24 people and introduce yourself and let them know that I do deals. I've got a client. This is my client, these 12 clients. I send them great candidates. Would you like me to send you great candidates too? And then once you've spoken to those 24, build out for 48 and then just keep calling and stringing out your network, mapping it out and stay on the phone. I know sometimes people get a little bit awkward, like, oh, hey, you know, I'm a new agency owner and I'm calling you about, you know, some candidates that I don't have yet, but I'm just trying to build a relationship. So hopefully one day I can work your live jobs. Like sometimes I feel a little bit awkward with this approach when they don't have anything backing them and there's kind of like a little bit of an insecurity there. But it's just about knowing that you've got an amazing value add that you can give to businesses if they give you a shot. So just tell them like, hey, I'm a new business owner. I'm looking for some new clients. I'm really keen to work with just a select few companies over the next 3 to 6 months. I'd love for you to be one of them. And here's my details. I can find you candidates right now. I can keep you updated when good candidates come in the market. What do you generally look for? Cool. All right. What's your, what's your email address? Sweet. Let's be in touch. Call them again in 4 weeks. Hey, no candidates at the moment. Haven't found anyone inside of what you generally look for, but just thought I'd give you a buzz, let you know I haven't forgotten about you. And I'll chat to you again in 4 weeks and then just keep having conversations and don't stop doing that until you do deals.

A very quick word on our sponsors Vincere before we get back into the episode, as they have a special winter offer that I I want to make you all aware of. This offer is only available until the 20th of December. So if you like the sound of this, then make sure you get taking action before then. If you are not happy with your current CRM, don't settle. Switch to Vincere for zero implementation fees, plus you'll get a gift of your choice. Video interviews, 500 free minutes per month, which is normally £69 per month. Timesheet processing at £1 per worker, which is normally £5 per worker per month. Or recruitment agency website, first 3 months free, which is typically normally between £735 to £3,900 depending on the chosen package. If you also mention that you listen to the podcast, you also get an additional 3 months as a listener of this podcast. So If you want to make the most of this offer, you've got until the 20th of December to get all of those benefits. Check out the link in the show notes. Go to Vincere.

Well, the thing, I don't know if you found this, the something that is really underutilized, I found from a recruitment perspective, if you're partnering with people that are typically high performers, what they should have is a track record. So although, you know, they are a new business owner, what they will have, should have, is a track record of like what they've done, you know, previously. So I don't know, that's what, like, that's, that's evidence. That's, that's something. Yes, I can't believe this, but I've got all this evidence over here that this is what I've done for these types of companies, for these types of people in, in this industry, the X number of years. So like, surely you know, high valuable conversations. But then also you can utilize your track record in that way, which I find often recruiters don't do often enough.

100%. And a good, um, a good, uh, practice or way you can do that is actually set up a table. So we give all our recruiters, we call it like how to sell, sell with stories. And you actually divide it up in a table— who, what, where, when, why, and how. Um, you know, have the, the company, the time, the person's name, what situation they were in beforehand, what objection they had, until they realized, boom, that's the result. And if you can be really specific when you're talking to, say, hey, this is Blake Thompson from Vendito. In January 2022, he thought our fees were too high until he realized that the ROI on getting a really good recruiter in his agency was XYZ. That person then brought in $400K of new business that Blake had zero relationships with. So I'd love to, you know, that's, uh, so just repeating those stories and using them as ammo in the past. And every time you get an objection, you just add them to your list. So when you're going through discovery calls, maybe reflective or cost of inaction questions, you can loop them in, um, or maybe on a BD call, oh, you remind me of Jamie at XYZ. And, you know, just having these little processes in that, you know, we bring in the external consultants, like the best people we can find in the industry, not only because of the podcast, but just from relationships or actually just paying for them to come in. And give that information to recruiters because you're, you're on your own. Me and Blake wouldn't even look at getting a website worth more than $5,000 before X Recruiter, let alone getting a consultant to come in and pay them $3,000 a month. But because there's an inclusive network, you can warrant the, the use of it, and it can be shared across all, just like every other resources. So, you know, training, technology are two of the biggest factors that's, that's going to empower the network.

Yeah, no, yeah, I love that, um, framework. So curious then, Declan, like, because I'm sure this is something that you and Blake have both continued to refine during this sort of year journey. So you mentioned the 4-step process. What— I know everyone's like on their own journey and it's different, and there might be some people out of like what you figured out works really well, but what What have you found to be like the sweet spot from your perspective in terms of like people that have got X number of life experience, X number of recruitment experience, they've got X like track record? Like, what have you found to be like the sweet spot of someone that you'd be very confident with the right mindset, with the other things, that they should be very capable to launch their own recruitment business and achieve some of the success that you've seen in other businesses? What's ended up being like the sweet spot that you found?

You want me to answer? Yeah, yeah. I think 3— the sweet spot on average is probably 3 years, 3 to 4 years experience. Um, they're still— they've built a solid desk between $500,000 to $1 million. Um, they're still on the tools themselves, they're still passionate about recruitment, and they're looking for that next step. Do I become a billing manager? And give up my career and only work in the sort of the top 7 to 10% of recruitment agencies that are big enough to warrant a decent billing manager and go through the career of that? Or do I get to the point where, you know, I don't do that and I just, you know, enjoy the fruits of my labor, be the front-end sales founder for another couple of years and build a team? So where being a billing manager in your own business is obviously a lot more fruitful than being a billing manager in a, in a super large agency.

Can I add to that as well?

Yeah, sure.

I think a really good addition to what Declan's mentioned before is people that recognize that they're strong individual contributors. Sometimes recruiters have a desire to become a billing manager, which is the worst job in recruitment hands down, and they don't realize it. And so as a billing manager, you've got to manage the team, you get paid on the team's performance, but you, you get very little for the team's performance. Your billings drop, you get paid on your own billings, and it's just like this really bad, like, combination of structure for a billing manager that I find doesn't, doesn't work well. And I don't know why, if I'm thinking of this wrong or I'm the only guy that's worked this out, but, um, being a billing manager, it sucks. And so, but some people need to become a billing manager to realize it sucks and then go, I would much prefer to be an individual contributor, focus on my own desk, bring in the money for myself, earn lots of money. And, you know, that's what I get a lot of value out of. So those types of people are perfect for ex-recruiter. Some recruiters enjoy like mentoring and training and putting the spotlight on others and growing other people, which is still possible and still good for obviously starting an agency. But unless you've been a billing manager before and you realize it's probably not all cracked up to what it's, what you thought it would be, then generally Execruter is perfect for those types of people as well. That's the perfect person that realizes that, yeah, I need to go out on my own.

Can I just give you my take on that? Because I'm not, I definitely, it is definitely one of the hardest jobs. So my actual perspective on it is I completely agree with what you're saying. Now, those types of people were also the exact types of people that we work with to deliver training on our platform. And my actual perspective on it is that, yes, it is one of the most difficult jobs in the industry and one of the ones where you could potentially not get the financial reward in terms of what it's worth compared to what you was getting as an individual contributor. But one of the fundamental reasons why is that often people aren't given any support or help on how to be a better manager or how to be a better coach. You're just expected to look like you're a 400 grand biller, now go and help these two people that we've just hired for you, uh, do the same. And like, you're literally given no help on how to do things like conduct good one-on-ones, how to ask not tell, um, how to, you know, set people up for the week, and how do you hold people accountable, how do you have difficult conversations with people? How do you coach? Like, these people aren't equipped with any of those skills. That, that's what I find crazy, because these people, as you know, are absolutely fucking fundamental if you want to scale a business. Like, they are the future of your business, and that's how you're going to scale. But then there's some of the most underinvested people in the business. It's a lot of sort of my take on that as well with what, with what you've said.

That's a fair point. And the one thing we've noticed is recruitment, no one invests in their recruiters. Like, it's, I don't know, they sort of just, maybe that's why recruitment has such a high turnover, but it's not something very common that, you know, maybe we see it happening more because now we're focused, we have been focused on it and upskilling actually business owners. But a lot of time in agency, it's like, all right, let's see who makes it, get the desk out and start ripping in on the phones. So I think, yeah, I agree with that. What you're saying, maybe it's disregarded.

Training, I, I sense, is very ad hoc in recruitment. It's like, oh, maybe we should do some training, and it's— there's no process behind it. It's not like, okay, let's just do a 90-day, um, you know, sales training for all the recruiters every 90 days. Yes, we'll be talking about things they already know, but I'm under the impression that, you know, 80% of everything that we learn is just— we just need to be reminded to do the same thing we've already been taught to do. The other 20%. With the other 20%, we might actually learn something. So training is not because you don't know what to do, it's because you just need to be reminded to do the basics, which is why your platform's so good. And it's a little bit more systemized where people can just log on, and if they've got a bit of a routine where they go, all right, it's time for me to get my training hit and just refresh myself on the things that I, that I know but I might be forgetting to implement, and just keep to the basics and keep doing the fundamental things well, then I think you're right, especially with billing managers. If you've got that training platform either internally or externally through a platform like yours, then it'll probably be much easier to be a billing manager for sure.

So, Declan, let me ask you, like, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this and on what we're just talking about. So if I'm a business owner listening to this, and I want to do everything that I can to keep my best people, the people that I know could be my future competitors or like, you know, future business owners. What, from the conversations you've had, what would be the things that you'd have top of mind that I could be doing or be really intentional about that could really help me retain my best people? I know that's not in your interest, but I'm interested to get the reverse thing because you're talking, you're uncovering the challenges and, you know, what these people have. And not everyone is, is right to start their own business, right? But like, I think oftentimes what, like, what Blake's talking about, like, these people that we promote, progress, can get forgotten about even though, yeah, like, they're, they're struggling, they're earning less money, they have to deal with, you know, more challenges and these things. So if I'm a recruiter, recruitment owner listening right now, what, what should I be really leaning into that could hopefully result in keeping my best performers.

Well, Matt, I think Blake's a perfect example of this. Like him running the size of his agency while we're doing X Recruiter every Wednesday, we talk about, we're on a podcast talking about starting your own agency. There's the amount of followers and content going out every single day. And he hasn't had one staff member even want to sit down and chat about joining X Recruiter. So I think Um, just being, you know, I, I don't— most of it, mate, I've got to say, and maybe it's not even my saying, but bad bosses create more businesses than entrepreneurs will ever create. So it's like being open, honest, honest with your people, knowing, um, what's available to them. Obviously money is important, but only to a certain point. Giving them freedom, giving them— investing in them, knowing that there's, there's something for them. You're not just, you know, running a desk and, and that's all you'll ever be. So just like the basic fundamentals, whether there's businesses like X Recruiter or not, um, you're still— what happens if your clients take your candidates? Recruitment's a pretty low-buying, low-paying base job. Like, the client— clients I recruit for, bases are like $120K, and you know, that's way above what a recruiter would get. So I think just, yeah, invest in your people, um, obviously pay them well, be there for them, keep them a part of your vision. As long as you're— you've got to be the guiding light, be the vision. If you're getting lackluster, if you're losing, losing hope, you're getting sloppy, then you're going to lose your team regardless of if someone can get a better revenue share.

So yeah, probably to add to that as well, um, be personally interested in your recruiters. You won't lose a recruiter if you're dedicated to get them achieving their personal goals. Their professional goals are irrelevant. Unless they're achieving their personal goals. Like, I've got recruiters like Lexi, she wants a new shed. So I'm like, what do we need to do to get you a new shed? Obviously it'll tie back into recruitment, billing, saving more money. Josh, he hasn't got a license. I'm like, mate, what the fuck? Why haven't you got a license yet? You need to get a license. I will— I'll put you in my car and we'll do the hours together to get you your license, mate. So if you're invested personally into the personal lives of your recruiters you will retain them because they'll feel totally, totally obliged to support you in your journey and what you're trying to achieve. So I think it's not actually about, you know, career development and, you know, commissions and all this kind of stuff. It's, it's about understanding what their personal goals are, and if you're helping them achieve their personal goals, they'll have a gratitude towards you far beyond anyone trying to poach them. Or, now, I've sat down with my recruiters before and said 'Hey, you know, you'll earn more money with X Recruiter if you just leave my agency and go with X Recruiter.' And we all work out of the same office. Yeah, it's exactly the same. And you know what they say, 'Mate, I love working here, Blake. I think you're so awesome to me and you just helped me achieve my personal goals. I'd rather just be here and get that.' And I'm like, 'All right, sweet, sounds good.' So the biggest key takeaway— and that's obviously a really, uh, you know, I'm very blessed to have good staff as well, but, um, Being invested personally in your recruiters goes a really long way.

No, I really like that. I think that that's, that's really helpful for people, the, the personal bit. I definitely agree with that because, you know, if you feel like you're moving forward in life or you're working towards something and you're in an environment that is helping you get there, yeah, like even if you do leave, it's going to be on, on good terms or like just to keep going in that direction, right? Rather than for some of the maybe frustrations and challenges that you guys are running into a lot. Um, another, another question then, Declan. I'm keen to get your, uh, thoughts on this. What I'd like you to sort of like debunk the, the myth almost. And what I mean by that is I think oftentimes maybe people that aspire to have their own business will hear hear their bosses or hear, you know, founders say online, Declan, it's way more difficult than you think, my friend. It's a lot more harder than you think. It's not, it's not easy. This, you know, it's not as easy as just starting up, you know, doing your own billings, recruiting. Like, what— when people say that, what are the sort of myths within that, if you get what I mean? What are the things that maybe they're overemphasizing or maybe aren't as true as they sort of make out? Because I do think oftentimes people over-egg that a bit.

Yeah, yeah, definitely sometimes. Um, well, I suppose with X Recruiter, it's literally the same environment as if you would be working at a normal agency. So everything gets taken care of. Um, the hardest part would be having to upskill in multiple different areas. So, you know, you're a successful recruiter, you only do one thing, you find clients and candidates, build relationships. When you become a business owner, you've got to learn about tax, you've got to learn about submissions, You've got to learn about websites, what's built on, what CRM, what providers, are you getting a good rate? You know, we've experienced a lot of expert consultants come in and create a problem for you, then charge you for it. So shit like that is those little things that people can take advantage of. The lack of resources, just the unknown, mate. Like, that's probably the hardest part. Your recruitment was hard when you first took your first job because it was all unknown. And then getting into business, it's all unknown. Like, am I getting a good deal? Am I getting the best accountant? Am I getting the best partner for this, best partner for that? So I think that the hardest part to anything is, is unknown. Like, you know, we can go 5 years in business and build year on year, um, but like, what's it look like, you know, getting scaling to a team of 20 and all that type of stuff? So I think for me it's just a I don't know, what do you reckon? Unknown would be the biggest.

Yeah, just thinking about your question again. So, so you admit, well, like, is there a myth, or is, are we going to bust a myth to say, you know, your boss tells you, oh mate, you couldn't start your own agency, it's too hard, and you know, is it really? Is that kind of your question?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I think sometimes that, that can be like overexposed. So I understand, I understand what Declan is saying, there are a lot of unknowns to you've got to learn about so many other, like, new things. But I think sometimes I feel like it can be, like, overemphasized. That's what I was just curious to get your take on, on maybe that isn't, you know, I'm not trying to get you to discredit the service that, that you provide, but I do think sometimes it can be overemphasized. Is, is like my honest, is my honest thought.

Well, your boss can't say that anymore because of ExRecruiter, so we have busted that myth. But if, if you don't have access to ExRecruiter I mean, it's like anything, like, yeah, it's, it has its challenges, but like starting an agency, it isn't complicated. Like it's not rocket science. I'm sure if you've been able to figure out recruitment and the nuances and the little like tricks and tips that you've applied in recruitment, if you just apply that proactive perseverance type of nature to starting your business, you'll be able to do it. So, you know, yeah, I totally agree with you. It's not, it's not as hard as everyone says it is, but it's kind of, but it is harder than you think it will be. So stuff that you, there's a middle Yeah, sure, sure.

If you looked at each, if you looked at each part of the process, like going to gym is easy, right? Just do more bicep curls, do more squats, eat healthy. But then actually, actually, actually doing it and executing, it's a different thing because you got to deal with feelings, you got to deal with people's opinions. That's probably the stuff that's, that's harder to it all. Yeah, sure, you can go on a government website or speak to an accountant, open a business, you can go and build your own website, you can go and speak to, you know, if you want to use LinkedIn or find a CRM or use Seek, Indeed, whatever you start, you know, you can break it all down and work it out. But it's just the— yeah, I think people way overcomplicate it. And once you do, like, all those stages are very simple. But when you're— you've got financial pressures, you're not billing, your mates all think you're rich. It's more of the psychology.

It's also the time. No, I get it. It's also the time, right?

That's the part that we—

yeah, yeah, like the time, the time you could lose to all that stuff, which is away from the core activity that Blake has said that's gonna help you, you know, get closer to getting, you know, your invoices paid and getting invoices out. So I do get it. I just think, um, yeah, sometimes it can be, uh, over, overemphasized. Um, but I do— I think, you know, back to retaining people I think the best recruitment companies also, in for their leadership team, I think sometimes what they miss is they don't actually really help Blake the director develop his commercial acumen. Like, I think oftentimes people can be in that leadership seat and they don't know how the business makes money. So they think that the numbers on the board is them making money, but they don't know that they don't get paid for 60 days, and they don't know how that then goes to gross profit and how they generate net fee income and how that affects the EBITDA of the business. Like, I think that that's also something that's often missed, is if you're just treating people to be recruiters and just worry about those basic metrics rather than help them develop their understanding of P&L, how they actually make money as a business, how they— what levers they can pull to make more, um, money in these things. I think that's often overlooked and can also help you retain your best people if they think— if they feel like they're also developing their commercial and business understanding, because that can help them, you know, maybe start their own business at some point. But I think that's also often overlooked.

100%.

Um, so where— so you just hit the year mark, got some, uh, got some awards under your belt. Where, um, where, where are we, where are we, where are we heading then, boys? Where, where are we going? What are some of the big objectives?

We're going to the moon now, mate. We're going I want to go to the moon.

Have you seen our astronaut suits? When we get you over here for an in-person podcast, we'll give you one.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, no, that looked mega. So like, yeah, talk to me about, you know, you've just hit the year mark, which is awesome. Like, where are we going? Where are we heading?

Yeah, we'll let Blake have a go. He likes telling us.

No, come on, mate, you go, you tell me.

Go, mate, you have a go.

Okay, so So we've got a, a, a goal that we want to change the lives of 100— Mission.

Our mission.

It's not our mission because we'll do our mission by 2025 and then we've got to, what, get a new mission? This is just our goal, short-term goal. All right, back to me. Okay, so, okay, so we've got like, we've got a goal that we want to change the lives of 100 recruiters by January 2025. So short term, uh, what's that, like 15, 16 months? We're going to help launch 100 recruitment agencies.

So, so you're going to work with 80 more people by then?

Yeah, exactly. Probably a little bit less.

Yeah, we're—

what are we at the moment, like 23, 24 at the moment? So pretty much 80. Um, so that's kind of our short-term goal. Once we hit 100, I think we want to officially go to the UK and the US. So we're already speaking to UK partners, US partners that are interested in starting up a division in the UK and the US. But, um, short term, yeah, 100 lives changed is what we're calling it, um, and helping 100 recruiters start their own agency. We eventually do want to branch out, so to speak, and help micro agencies be better placed for systems, processes, technology, that kind of stuff. So I think there's a really big market for existing agency owners with 1 to 3 staff that probably are working their ass off and not making much money. If they just had a bit more support, they could probably do the things that they're good at. So we definitely want to start going a little bit harder with our message to market around, are you a small agency owner? Do you want to earn more money? Do you want a bit more freedom, time, flexibility in your life? Let us handle all the back office stuff and we'll make you look pretty and make you more money.

Love that. Declan, anything to add?

No, I think that, um, that sums it up. It's, um, yeah, it's an exciting journey. I know you, you have, yeah, you have ambitions and stuff, but sometimes you're, I don't know, saying it out loud.

But he feels silly by saying our goals out loud sometimes, right? Yeah, so sometimes you got to give him a bit of a razz up. That's why I give him a little nudge from time to time. I don't know if you're going to edit that puppy out.

No, I, I can definitely relate to that, but I think I'm just too humble, mate, right? Like, I'm watching, um, I'll definitely recommend it. It's called, um, a series called, uh, We Crashed, which is about the story of WeWork. And the guy that started it, honestly, this guy is like, he's personally, I feel like he's over-indexed the way of like, he's basically walking into, um, you know, a business meeting saying that we're gonna be a multi-billion company and they haven't even got like one office space yet. Yeah, but like sometimes you need that energy, right?

Oh, we've got that energy. Yeah, yeah, we've got that energy.

I get what you mean though. I know sometimes why you might be reluctant to sort of, you know, really pump your chest and say this is what we're doing. I get that because sometimes I feel like that, but I think it's important.

Oh, okay. Well, to be open—

no, Declan's a little bit more reserved. He's trying to be a little bit humble on the podcast, but if you talk to him in real life, he's like, we're getting 1,000 agencies, baby. Let's go.

Building a $100 million company in 5 years. But yeah, yeah, there we go. So starting to envision that. But yeah, the goal is to, yeah, obviously build a $100 million company, empower thousands of recruiters across the world to work for themselves. And, and, you know, there's a great, great story of Andrew Banks and, and Morgan. Morgan and Banks. Obviously the first billion-dollar company sold out of Australia, recruitment agency. So No, we just want to etch our name in history in recruitment. Reimagine it.

Love it, boys. Well, look, keep doing what you're doing. I think, um, you know, what, what you're offering is, is very much needed for the, the right type of people, right? So I think, um, for the right type of people, this is gonna like, like genuinely, you know, give them the opportunity to change their lives, which would be really difficult to achieve or just a lot more harder to do without the type of service and support that you provide. So yeah, keep, keep doing what you're doing, boys, and thank you so much for joining me on the pod.

No worries. And I think that's one of the biggest— just quickly to, to add to that— the actual feel-good moments, whether it could be, you know, a single mom getting into business for the first time, inspiring her two young kids, or, you know, a 25-year-old realizing their potential early on, that compounding effect of what could happen in the future. That's like those types of stuff, it just, you know, that's what gets you so g'd up and excited. Um, so mate, really appreciate you letting us share a little story.

Love it, boys. Thanks for joining me.

Thank you. Thanks, mate.