Lewis Gadsdon - How to master the player manager role

Many recruiters will block out times in their diaries to do particular tasks. I'm going to spend 2 hours doing business development, but what does that actually mean? For example, I'm going to build a project of at least 30 great candidates within this hour-long period, and they're all getting a first message. Set small tangible goals that will set you on your way to your weekly KPI or target. That's how we do that, and that's how I keep myself accountable moving forward.

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 Lewis Gadsden, who has built out a successful career over the last 7 or so years at Wyse Elite. Now, before that, he was destined to become an actor, but after giving it a real go, he kick-started his recruitment career with a point to prove at 25 years old and hasn't looked back since. We dug into so much on this episode, from how he's gone about mastering the player-coach role, how he manages his time to perform and get the best out of his team, how he went about holding the top performer all back to back, what good BD strategies look like, and so much more. Enjoy the episode. Lewis, welcome to the podcast.

Cheers, mate. Thank you.

Thanks for coming in.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

What do you think of the space?

It's awesome. It's good. It's like a proper professional setup. I'm not saying you wouldn't have been professional before, but this is next level.

Yeah, I mean, it definitely wasn't always this. Started on the mobile phone in the bedroom, mate. So, um, yeah, but really looking forward to this. Like, I've really enjoyed our conversations, interactions. I know that you came to the live podcast event. Yeah. Last year and these types of things. So, uh, I think really excited to talk about this journey that you've been on. Plenty to unpack, plenty to learn from. So I guess like, um, I always like to do on these, uh, episodes, it just, just give some immediate context, uh, in terms of where is Lewis on his recruitment journey. Yeah, so we're just saying that you've been, uh, in the game, the recruitment game, now for nearly 7 years.

Yep.

And I think what I find really interesting is that for a lot of that time, you've been in a player-manager role since 2018. Yeah. So player-manager being that you're someone that is still very much hitting a number, performing, but also then, uh, responsible for managing a team, getting the most out of them, these types of things, right?

Correct. Yeah.

Cool. So I think some of the key things that we, we put down here, so you've always— I know it's sort of sometimes fluctuated or whatever, but I think you've always ended up leading and managing a team of around 5 people.

Yeah. 4 to 5 people.

4 to 5 people, right? And that— is that where you're at right now?

Yeah, currently managing a team of 4, 4, 5, myself included.

Yeah. Okay, awesome. Um, and I think one of the things quite notably is, so 2019, yeah, 2020, yeah, Lewis kept hold of the top performer title at Wiser, and your best year, uh, billings-wise has been £380 grand.

Yeah.

And obviously bearing in mind that's whilst being in a player manager role.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, so loads to unpack here. We're going to talk about leadership, we're going to be talking about business development, time management, because I know that's something that you're, you're known for, building communities, because I know that's something that you guys have done really successfully. But where we always like to start is the million-pound question, so I'd love to get your take, Lewis. What are the common characteristics and traits that you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in, in today's market? Let's start there.

Well, I'll tell you what I normally look for when hiring someone. First and foremost, you need to be a bit nuts. And by that, I mean in a sense of you have to be comfortable not fully being in control. If you're a control freak, recruitment is probably going to come hard at you. So you can always have your process. You can literally nail the preparation. You can nail your messaging. You can nail your registering, you're qualifying, your CV sends, all of that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, you cannot do an interview for your candidate. Recruitment is one of the only businesses in the world where your product has emotions. It has finances, the weather, relationships, sports, pets, whatever, all of that sort of thing, which can knock it on any one given day. And it all comes down to a human impressing another human over a course of half an hour or an hour, which is madness. You break it down like that, isn't it? Absolutely mad. So if you're a control freak, you've got no hope. So that's the first thing that I look out for. Second thing I would say, and in my current team under the like current regime, everyone's got this in some capacity, they need, they need to make it work in recruitment. They need to make it work. There needs to be an underdog story or something going against them, a point to prove, a chip on the shoulder. Not to like immediately make it all about me, but when, when I started in recruitment, I was 25, so I was a bit older than most. I was a failed actor. Yeah, my girlfriend lived in London, I was living back home with my parents in Norfolk. We were on completely different working schedules because I was doing hospitality jobs to support myself, and also my degree wasn't worth the paper it was written on, because guess what, I did a degree in acting. So all of that sort of thing stacked up against me. And when an opportunity like Wiser came knocking and I managed to get that foot in the door, I was going to move hell and earth to make it work because I needed to. I wanted a better life for myself, and that was it. And then from there, God bless my in-laws, they live in Oxford, they took me in as well, pretty much rent-free. So I'll never forget that. And I commuted for 10 months from Oxford, 3 hours 20 minutes every day.

Grim.

To add insult to injury, the train times didn't really align either. So I'd either end up being 5 minutes late into the office or 40 minutes early. So guess what? 40 minutes early nearly every day. And we did that for 10 months until basically we got enough, got ourselves into a good enough position to start renting a place, me and my girlfriend, who's now my wife. So that's amazing. All worked out pretty well in the end, but Taking it back to the question, something to prove, that's what we need. There's, there's one person in my team who slept on a sofa for 9 months and he's now one of our top performers. Like, do you know what I mean? That sort of behavior, those characteristics that you need to be successful in the recruitment, because it's not easy and it's definitely not the best paid to start off with.

Love that. I'd probably say what I'd add to that, I don't know what you think, but you're not saying that you need to have that to be successful, right? But it can damn help.

If it's something that I automatically look out for, yeah, of course you don't need to be. I know some excellent recruiters that, you know, on the face of things did not need to make it work, or did not need to make it work in any way, shape, or form. But— and I'm not saying you need to be as extreme as how I did it and have everything stacked against you, but look, it helps. Sure, it helps and helps me make a decision.

So I have to ask, because when, when you said it, I was like, oh really? Like, talk to me about this acting journey, mate. Like, what, what did we learn from it? What what was most difficult, that you was most surprised by. Yeah, like, yeah, so that was like you said, I don't know what we want to call it, like the one— I guess that would have been the challenging period, right? Because I'm assuming you would have sort of been telling people that I'm an actor, I'm going to be an actor, these things. And then there would have been a moment where you're like, fuck yeah, this— I'm not sure this is actually who I'm going to be. And then obviously recruitment's ended up giving you an awesome opportunity and you've made the most out of it. But what do we learn from that acting Period.

Yeah, I look back at it as a bit of a quarter-life crisis, not gonna lie. But, um, growing up as a kid, like, it was always what I was going to do. It was always what I was going to do. I was like locally known for like am-dram performances, doing all those sorts of things in the local paper for doing it. My high school was a performing arts college as well. It was just— it was meant to be written in the stars for me. I mean, it was gonna happen. And do you know what? I literally gave it my all, put all my eggs in that basket, and obviously then went on to uni, did that, got my acting degree, and I worked for 2 years solely. Hence why I was 25 when I started recruitment. I worked for 2 and a bit years solely supporting myself with acting work. Did okay, don't be wrong. Hadn't moved out, still lived at home for the most part, but I was going on tours and doing all that stuff.

Have you got any of those? Have you got any stories?

Anyway, a couple of adverts. Really? Yeah, a couple of adverts. And, uh, yeah, a couple of theater tours, which were, which, which was great. But then I just always find myself at the end of each job just being like, I need structure. I need structure. And I expect I can be working harder. Like, in acting, it's funny, so many people want to do it, but so many people just end up waiting around for the phone to ring, their agent to call, and It was, yeah, it was fine, but I was always actively seeking work. And I got to the point where I was like, I'm outworking my agent here and trying to get myself different jobs. And I was doing jobs that weren't glamorous. I was doing jobs that, you know, might have been looked down upon by the upper echelon of actors. But guess what? I was supporting myself as an actor.

Where this job that you've done, huh? Where this job that you've done, uh, is—

I would say it's a weirdest job, but we, we, I did like— I had a, I had a steady gig in acting, which was doing theatre in education. So touring around schools and whatnot. It's quite funny, walked past Central Foundation School this morning, just near XYO over there. I was like, not only have I been in XYO, I've also taught at that school. So it was quite funny, but I did that and that was a steady gig in between the better, more glamorous job, should we say. But look, I just, I took stock when, like, it would've been 20, 2016. And like I said, I was doing hospitality jobs in the interim of not acting, um, and my girlfriend was working 9 to 5 office. I was working evening and weekends. It was long distance, didn't work. It was put massive strain on it. And I was just like, I just expect more from my life. I expect more. I can be doing more. I can work harder than this. Uh, and that's when I just had the epiphany. I'm like, right, okay. Now's the time.

Yeah, no, I really said that.

And put, put that, uh, put that on the back burner and see where we end up and focus on making sure we've got a good trajectory first.

Now, the way you talk about that, I think we can apply this to recruitment, right? And I'm sure you've had people maybe in your team or whatever, but I think there's nothing wrong with being able to look in the mirror and go, you know what, I've given it my all and maybe this isn't right or whatever. And you can, you can absolutely apply that to recruitment, but the real question is, did you give it your all, you know?

Yeah.

Um, so no, I had to ask. And it is really interesting you say that. I, um, I had a, um— I always like to have conversations in saunas at the gym, and there's a guy that I spoke to who's an actor, and I was like— we spoke about it and he said about the things that you said. And it— I feel like there's quite a lot of jobs like that. So I'd say like personal trainer. Yeah, you might get into it because you love fitness and these things, but it's fucking sales. Like you're not getting any, you're not getting any clients unless you go out to them and speak to them and go, have you got these problems, have you got these challenges? But like, if you just expect, if you think I'm going to become a pt and then I'm going to get clients, it doesn't work like that. And it was sort of the same that this guy was saying around acting, so I'm not surprised you're saying that. You, it's like, oh, I don't just like get to do amazing jobs that I really like, I actually have to do BD and like network and speak to people. And like, there's, there's a lot to it, isn't there? So it's just, it's just interesting you, you saying that. Um, So let— so just to, to frame it up then, so I think you said that early on, so you've pretty much done sort of— you've only hired and done SDRs only. Yeah, I think you put here what, from 2021, or was it before then?

Yeah, from January 2021 we solely focused on SDRs because that was when, uh, me and Lauren, my team at the time, moved across to Wiser Elite. But before that was Wiser Graduates, um, but my team was always tech sales. So we were doing entry-level positions into customer success, account management, SDRs, inside sales, all of those sorts of things. But it was always tech-focused, always sales-focused, and but predominantly entry-level.

So it's typically entry-level, right?

Yeah.

Um, so talk to me about looking back then, what, what were some of the— like, you clearly had a point to prove. Yeah, I wanted to make it work. You were committed. So you clearly got to a point where you could support yourself and, and your partner 10 months in. Yeah, like, how, how difficult was the early period? Like, looking back, like, anything stand out in terms of what was extremely difficult? What were some of the biggest challenges that you had to work through, overcome early on? What, what did Lewis have to, to, yeah, really work on to make sure that you didn't then fail at recruitment?

If you don't mind, I'll frame it as in a sense of like what I would— yeah, what I'd tell old Lewis.

Yeah, let's do that.

Yeah, let's do that. So first and foremost, you're going to bill $14K in your first month. You're not sick at recruitment, right? You're not sick at recruitment. You haven't worked it out. You're not some sort of recruitment prodigy. You're going to go the next 8 weeks and you're going to bill fuck all. You're going to bill fuck all. There's going to be moths flying around your name on the money board and all that sort of thing. But don't worry, it's all going to work out all right in the end. But The first, first tangible bit of advice that I'd probably give is build out relevant LinkedIn connections early. So your LinkedIn page is like your shop front. Yeah, if you have a couple of hundred to a thousand connections on LinkedIn, your, your shop front is effectively, I don't know, Millie's Cookies, Ben's Cookies, whatever. Normally a little stand. I love Millie's or Ben's Cookies, but they're like little, little stands, right? Whereas in actual fact we get— start getting into the tens of thousands and all that sort of thing. We're talking Sports Direct or Selfridges, like, you know what I mean? You want people browsing your shop and hopefully hoping to buy. So that, that is the first thing I wish I'd have done early doors, and that's what I tell my team to do from now on. Be on your phone. It actually works better on the LinkedIn app, like, it's actually make connections with people as opposed to doing it on your desktop. So if you want to build a search of relevant people in your market— so if you're a recruiter, obviously ours was like SDRs, sales directors, heads of sales go on the LinkedIn app, build a search there, and you can actually just hit them one-touch connections.

Really?

Yeah, one touch.

When you've got the search on?

Yeah. Obviously there's now a massive limit. There's 100 a week or something like that. Didn't used to be like that, but still, those connection requests should be topped up all the time, making sure you're in the shop window for people to see what the hell you're up to and start, and start rating you. I'd, I'd also say The, the biggest thing you can do is actually invest in relationships early, build relationships. The best recruiters I've seen do not facilitate transactions, in this case placements. You know, you don't just take the brief, find the candidate, send it, place it, thank you very much, see you later, and don't get to actually invest in your client or know them. My first taste of this— so mum's a hairdresser, dad's a fruit and veg man, on Great Yarmouth Marketplace. If you've ever been to Great Yarmouth, I'm sorry, it wasn't me. Um, but in that vicinity, and this is, this is where I came to realize that quite early on, my dad had a fruit and veg stall, but there were 4 other fruit and veg stalls within 100 foot of each other, okay? And my dad's was always the busiest. And you rack your brains and I'm like, well, why was it always the busiest? He's not selling any different fruit, any different veg. His prices are probably a little bit higher than the rest. There's no real difference, but yet people are queuing up to speak to my dad and buy their fruit and veg from him and not go into the other 4 stalls. And it was because my dad invested in people. People didn't come to the stall to buy fruit and veg. That was a byproduct. They came to have a conversation with my dad because even when they were walking past and not buying anything, he's always shouting people, saying hello, having a little interaction with them. Ask them about them, invest in it. It's almost like therapy for some people, I think, that used to come to the stall, especially like lonely older people. They were like absolutely adamant that they would just go to my dad's for his fruit and veg. And it's exactly the same in recruitment. I encourage my team to always spend time with people that can, that can help them, not in a selling capacity. So for example, you know, and it's a little bit strange to people, especially in the beginning when they're a bit junior, and it's like What you mean, we're gonna go for a meeting? We're gonna go meet Hish, but we're not gonna have a client briefing? We're not gonna try and sell to him or all of that sort of thing? I'm like, no, we're gonna go for dinner, we're gonna go for a beer, you know, we're— or anything like that. We're just going to catch up and shoot the shit. Like, that's it, that's it. And then if you can focus on that, the rest of it comes when the time's right. The rest of it comes. People do not like to be sold to. So yeah, invest in relationships early. And probably the last bit of advice that I'd give is chill the fuck out. It's never as good as it seems, it's never as bad as it seems, what my granddad always used to say. It's never as good as it seems, never as bad as it— Ah, fuck it, I'll share it. But I've never really told anyone, but my granddad actually passed away the day before my final interview at Wiser.

Oh wow.

It was expected, it was expected, so it doesn't make it any easier, but it was expected. And then obviously it was a bit like, right, okay, what do I do here? Do I cancel this?

I'd still go.

Yeah, yeah. Do I cancel this interview? Or, you know, more out of respect or anything, like I said, it was expected. But at the same time, saying that phrase, it's never as good as it seems, never as bad as it seems, and then going back to that sheer want, that need to make it work, he wouldn't want me to pass up the opportunity. Me not going is not going to bring him back. So maybe in this case, not as bad as it seems. Hopped in my car, went to London, got the job, and here we are nearly 7 years later. So it was the right decision. So, and, and whenever it gets high or low in recruitment, whenever we're doing— like I mentioned in our prep 18 months ago, obviously things are going great, like literally it's awesome. But again, never get too high. It's never as good as it seems. And in the past 6 months where it's been a little bit tougher, we've had to work much harder. It's never as bad as it seems.

Yeah, no, I think it's so— these sort of little simple phrases, mantras, are like just so useful to have, you know. So no, thank you for sharing that. And I think that that is a great one. It's never as good as it seems, never as bad as it seems. That is a— that, that definitely can help me when I have wobbles or these types of things. It's— and I think it's just as important as you just said when it is really good.

Yeah.

You know, to remember. Because typically it's like we want to hear like, how do you deal with the bad times? It's like, how do you deal with the fucking good times? Because if you're just going out spending all your money, yeah, getting really, um, high on the highs, then you're going to come crashing down. That's even more challenging. Yeah. What I wanted to ask you on the building relationships piece just quickly was, I, I really buy into that. Like, I've sort of— I don't know what it was, but I just sort of bought into that quite early in terms of like, I just believe in, in business karma. I just do. Or like just good karma in general.

Yeah.

Like, I just always feel like if you give more than, than, um, if you, yeah, if you give more than you get, it just always plays out, right? But that can be hard sometimes when you've got a manager going, Lewis, you haven't made the goals this week, or what, you're just meeting that person and you, you're not working with them, you know? It's, it's hard to juggle. So I guess my, my question for you on that is, what are some of the lagging indicators that we can keep an eye on that can make you feel like, well, no, like, this is starting to pay dividends and it is going in the right direction? Because I'm sure this is what you maybe try and highlight with your team when you're like, no, look, this is— this will play out, and, and it will play out. What are some of the lagging indicators of, yeah, it sort of reinforcing that no, building relationships, not being transactional, is going to massively help me in the long run? Are there any lagging indicators that sometimes you sort of pick out or get a sense of, or sometimes have your team recognize to make them feel confident, no, this is going to play out in the long run?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean it's not a tangible thing, but it is a feeling. Like, you know what I mean? It is a feeling. You know full well if you get along well with someone, like, you know what I mean? You know full well if they rate you and they rate what you do and they rate your service. The key thing is always making sure, okay, looking at the long-term vision, is this going to go somewhere? Like, at any one time, can we identify a time where this will be beneficial? Doesn't always need to be beneficial. Like, a lot of my clients, I actually, you know, they've turned friends and I actually just enjoy spending time with them. I go meet them for a beer. Like, I mean, it's absolutely fine, but, you know, there always does need to be that thing in the back of your mind of, look, don't sell to them straight away. Don't think that you need to come back after one meeting, bang, rolls, retainer, or anything like that. But just know that at some point it can get there. It can get there. It's the right person. And that's, that's, that's another thing as well, which I'd probably— not to jump around a bit, but advise to, to Louis 7 years ago is identify your champions early, especially when you're placing in a more entry-level market. They are the leaders of 3 years' time, 4 years' time, 5 years' time, wherever else it may be. But for example, there's a number of SDRs that I placed in my first year that have now— are now heads of sales. They're now decision makers. They now have clout to bring us in and do that. And if you keep hold of those relationships, and don't just treat it like a fee, actually treat them like relationships, friendships. Now, and again, you're in that shop window, you're in prime position in that shop window, right? And, and that's, that's something that we definitely take forward. So yeah, that they would be sort of the indicators for me.

Yeah, no, that's, that's fair. I know, I know sometimes it is, it can be quite hard to be, it can be quite hard to sort of have like tangible things, but I wanted to ask. So let's get into Lewis being a top performer then.

Sure.

So when— what was your— what year was your best year then, 2019 or 2020?

2020.

2020, yeah. Okay, so let's firstly talk about 2019. Um, what, what were some of the things that you think you did very well that year to, to get the top performance spot? As we all know, it's, it's very competitive externally, but it's very competitive internally, right? So getting the top performance spot is, is absolutely something to be, to be proud of. Maybe let's start with business development, because I feel like that is particularly right now, that is something that a lot of people are on a journey with, find it more difficult.

Yeah.

In 2019, get the first time to be the top performer, like, what is it that Lewis did really well on the BD side? What, what played out? Um, what do you do really well?

Yeah, good. So, um, the key thing that we did, to be honest with you, there wasn't that— there wasn't like much tangible changes that I made in 2019 on the BD front. But there were things that we started introducing, like for example, partnerships, and we started refining our messaging. Like, that's, that's been the key thing there. But with— to put it into a tangible thing with, with actual messaging, like, we always look back at— and this is Kyle Coleman, this is a tech sales thing— the 5x5x5 rule. Okay, so 5 minutes of research on a prospect, try and get 5 key insights. And then spend 5 minutes actually writing the message. I mean, don't spend any longer on it. So you've got personalization, you've got, um, key insights that they would find interesting that are probably personalized to them, and introduce us into Jottable, and then, and then obviously send thereafter. And that was pretty revolutionary in a sense of changing the how we messaged people back then, because it was just like a bombardment of full messages. This is what we do, here's a full catalog, here's our deck, here's what we do. And it's just completely overwhelming when in actual fact short, sharp, personalized messages were, were much better. But that's something we started introducing then. Whether that was completely pivotal to me being the top biller in 2019, I'm not sure, but it was something that we started.

Yeah, no, I love that. That's a great share. So the 5-minute— yeah, so like if I go on Lewis and he's in my ideal client profile, yeah, ideal customer profile, even obviously candidate as well, I'm assuming 5 minutes of looking at his profile. What insights can I get? What has he been talking about recently that I can potentially use in my message? Then you said what, 5 minutes of shit, like writing the message?

Yeah.

And then what was the other 5 minutes?

5 key insights.

Oh, sorry, 5 key insights.

5, 5 minutes research, 5 key insights as a result of that research, 5 minutes writing the message. Don't spend any longer on it, move on to the next one, because otherwise you're going to be there for ages.

Yeah, I really like that. So just to make it even more tangible, give me an example of what a key insight might be, like a common key insight that you might use in your world. One or two key insights.

Funding could well be the fact that they see that they're hiring. Could well be the fact that the person that you're prospecting has just started in a new role. Um, or it could well be on, on the other side of us bringing, bringing it to the table. Like, let's say they're, they're hiring for the first time. They're a startup that we've messaged. We can bring insights that we've seen before. For example, salespeople, especially at SDR level, are 3 times more likely to be in the same company a year later if they started with someone else at a similar level.

Mm.

Loan SDRs in small startups, especially closer to the entry level, don't tend to work out that well. So that would be another insight that we'd share, stuff that we actually have to, to prove yourself as a consultant.

Right?

Clue is in the name, recruitment consultant, whereas some people get caught up in selling too much. How—

and just on that really quickly, because I think sometimes recruiters aren't helped with understanding what key insights they can offer. So how, how have you helped to make sure that your team are aware of the sort of the consulting that they can do, if you get what I mean? Yeah, because sometimes recruiters aren't they aren't helped with that, you know. They're not equipped with, oh, we have this data and we can use that when we're reaching out to people, and that could be really helpful for people to reach out to shows that were credible, shows that were consulted, shows that were interesting. So is that something that you review on a quarterly basis where you go, hey guys, these are some of the things that we continue to find that we can share with our customers that would be valuable and useful? I don't know, how do you make sure that your guys and girls are equipped with good insights that, yeah, you actually have available to you.

The data, for the most part, isn't even ours. It isn't even ours. It's stuff that you can find online, you know, Gartner reports, uh, different— so obviously we have the sales communities, which have been pivotal for us actually listening to what's happening in tech sales right now. Like, we have trusted community hosts who are people actually in the job, which I'll come on to later when we talk about SDRs of London, but the insight that that delivers. Because at the end of the day, I'm not an SDR. I can understand it as well as I possibly can, but I'm not in the trenches doing what they're doing day in, day out. I'm doing something, well, not completely different, but quite different. So having that insight, genuine up-to-date insight, and having a tap into your market in that way, it's completely, you know, invaluable.

Yeah, no, I love that. So 2019, got the top performer title.

Yeah.

How'd that feel, mate?

Oh, that was good. Yeah, really good. It was really good. And I cherish that one more because that one is the one that actually got to go to the end of year Wiser Awards for full black tie. Got, got my trophy, got, you know, my vouchers and all of that sort of thing. 2020, even though I billed more, pandemic came, didn't it? Pandemic came.

So I had to enjoy in a tuxedo sitting at home.

I collected that one on Zoom. Yeah.

So let's talk about 2020 then, because like I've spoken to— I think we spoke about this before, right?

Yeah.

Um, it can be probably— I don't know, you tell me— but it's more difficult to retain that sort of top performer title or top performer achievement than it is to maybe get it. I don't know if you would agree with that.

Yeah, no, it was, it was. I think, you know, I said, I said when we had our prep, and you know, uh, you know, my friend Niall Simpson, me and him went toe to toe that year, and it— yeah. It was, it was spicy right until the last week. Yeah.

So talk to me about, so going into 2020, like, how— what's Lewis's mindset towards, one, how are you thinking about, right, how can I, one, improve my billings?

Yeah.

Firstly, because you might have gone, wow, I've achieved this, didn't think I could do that. And then it's like, oh no, now I like, can I do more?

Yeah.

So what was the mindset in terms of like, okay, so how am I now going to be able to improve on what I've just done? Um, and then also then, what was you keeping, um, what was you keeping top of mind to have the best chance of— yeah, now you've got this, uh, label of, yeah, Lewis was our top performer. How are you then dealing with that? So yeah, firstly, how— what was top of mind to go, right, how can I now continue to improve rather than this is my level and I'm staying here, you know?

Good. Yeah, no, well, obviously first and foremost, going into that, no one had ever retained top biller. Or top performer or whatever. So obviously that was something that I was determined to do now that I'm there. Okay, now's my opportunity to do that, which, which is great. But look, going into, going into year 2, going into 2020, I'm not going to sit here and say it's solely down to all of my actions. There's always an element of luck. There's always an element of luck. And in this case, we won the business one. I didn't win it personally. I was part of the process but didn't win it like single-handedly. We won a half million pound account, of which I led, and I made hay when the sun shone. That was it, that was the bottom line. But obviously I'd put myself in a position prior to that to obviously be given the opportunity to lead all the delivery on it and do so on, so forth. So I want to make that abundantly clear from the off. But tangible things, first and foremost, I think this was the year where I stopped, like I said before, being too salesy and actually became a consultant, especially in candidates' eyes. It cannot be— I soon learned the narrative from a candidate's perspective cannot be, Hish wants to place me in this job so he gets money. It needs to be, I cannot, or I am far less likely to get this job without Hish's help. And the only way that you can do that is by first and foremost coaching is the biggest thing. So I'll come on to that in my preparation point shortly, but coaching, um, and coaching candidates— sorry, coaching candidates. Yeah, coaching, uh, and by— yeah, also just setting an example throughout and being an expert in the process that you're managing them in. And again, that only comes, going back to my previous point, of building relationships and actually getting to know the businesses that you're working with, uh, a much deeper level than just being like, here's a brief, crack on. You know what I mean? So, so that's that. So that's the first thing, making sure you, you're presented as a consultant, not as a salesperson trying to get money. That's a massive narrative switch for a candidate and a massive respect thing. Secondly, and this comes into the coaching part I was talking about, preparation. I think this was the year I really nailed my candidate prep. For interviews. It's a massive problem in the industry where people just, especially at entry level when you're dealing with grads or second jobbers, basically do the interview for them in a lot of sense. You think that you need to run hour-long seminars in order to make sure that the candidate gets enough information to nail their interview, because as I said before, you can't do the interview for them, but this is as close as we can get, right? This is as close as we can get, but I, I didn't do that. My first interview, in most cases, all SDR first rounds look pretty much the same. They're 30-minute chats with either HR or a hiring manager. Cards on the table, are we compatible, that sort of thing. So as soon as the first interview is booked in, my process is obviously call the candidate, be like, right, this is booked in for then. At least 24 hours before, let's have a little 15 to 15 minutes to half an hour prep call. I'm going to send you across some bullet points, and they're always very similar. Like, they're not always completely the same because you need to adapt your process given the client, but it'll always be, I want you to come prepared to this prep call that we're going to do with a 20-second overview of the business, the product, and the problems that it solves. Not like any verbatim off the website. I want to know how he's just going to say it, you know, how you'd say it to, to your friend going for a walk. Or whatever. The second thing, I want you to come with at least 3 bullet points of why you want to work for that company specifically. Not saying why you want to be in sales, not saying why you want to be in tech. What is it specifically about that company that gets you going? You know, why you want to go— is it the fact that you've identified some awesome progression studies from people on LinkedIn that have been in a similar position? Is it the funding? Is it, you know, is it their branding? I don't know. You know, there's better reasons out there, but I want reasons specific to that company. And then lastly, of course, uh, specific personalized questions for your interviewer. Look at their LinkedIn profile, make sure you've got that. You come prepared to our prep call with all of that, and then we'll run through it and see where you're at. And that, that's it. And again, you're setting the precedent for candidates. It's not like, okay, yeah, I'm going to send you all this stuff, here you go, take a look through, and we'll have a little catch up before, and then, uh, good luck. Do you know what I mean? You've got to be like, okay, and then deliver the feedback. If their answers aren't good enough, be like, cool, we need to look at this in a different way. And that's why you do it 24 hours before, because there's still time to fix things. Then you do it on the morning of, it's too late.

That's a great insight there. So in terms of, yeah, leaning into coaching people through the process. Yeah. Anything else that, just on that coach piece, anything else that Lewis the consultant can coach candidates on, or that you would put under that sort of coach title that great recruitment consultants do? Yeah, they're coaching on their career, you know, these types of things.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think it's completely important to immerse yourself in the market that you're selling into. I, most of the time, being honest, don't feel like I work in recruitment. I feel like I work in tech sales, even though I'm not. But we are consistently doing events with that market. I know you know, a lot of the, a lot of the LinkedIn Top Voices like Tom Boston and all of those sorts of people. And, you know, Morgan Ingram's now doing the Elites for us, our awards ceremony in May. Like, these are all people that I can call upon and message at any one time. Just spending time with those people and delivering, getting the insight, and almost feeling like you work in the market that you're selling into as opposed to recruitment. That, that was a big mindset switch for me. And, and yeah, that, that coaching piece specifically for recruitment consultants.

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Yeah, that enables you to then offer the insights, right? So, so let's talk about— because I want to go into SDRs London, right? So, but let's talk about— let's just focus for a second on Lewis being a paying manager, because you've been doing it for a while, and this is really tough and really difficult for a lot of people. Um, it's interesting. I was speaking to some recruiters, uh, recently who are top performers and sort of feel like, uh, well, they sort of learned quite quickly that they just didn't like management. So a lot of people listen to this have either been forced into management or the only way at the moment in their sort of career pathways in their business they can evolve their career by going into management, being a playing manager, right? So I guess why don't we start with like when Lewis wasn't, if we're being honest, like not that great, learning as you were going, failing, not being a great player manager, but then you were learning from that to become a better one. What was you doing then that's like different, but now in terms of like you being better, are you doing differently? So let's just start with maybe what was Lewis doing that you looking back, if we're being honest, you wasn't being the best player manager or the, the greatest player manager. Anything there to share that you had to learn the hard way?

Yeah, sure. I think, I think the biggest thing is that in terms of eras of my team, I'm probably— we're now in era 3. Okay. So there's been 3 in, in my mind, obviously they all didn't leave at the same time. There's not like been 2 mass exoduses since, since that, but there's been sort of 3 turnovers, key turnovers with my team. The first team, and this is, comes down to recruitment, right? For yourself, for your own team. I love them to bits. We still get along today. I employed the wrong people. I employed the wrong people. My first team was effectively a team of intercepted candidates because we'd do that. Obviously we're working a market that was similar. It's an entry-level commercial go-to-market sales job, whatever you want to call it. They'd come into Wiser HQ, which as you know is pretty fucking sick. And then they just fall in love with the culture and they'll be like, you know what? Yeah, I can get down with a bit of recruitment. I can do that. Yeah, we could do that. And then it's not the right reasons. Going back to what I said at the start, a lot of my first team, love them, but they didn't need to make it work. They could walk into many other jobs. You know, they were well-educated, good grades, the world was their oyster. Obviously they were very good at recruitment as well. You know, that helped why we employed them, but like, you know, they were great, but when you obviously work in a market where you're placing a candidate similar to yourself on more money. A bit of a recipe for disaster.

So firstly, maybe got it wrong the first time around.

Got it wrong, got it wrong. And so, you know, just because they speak well, uh, you know, they, they're obviously intelligent and they like the look of what you're offering doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be right long term. And, and that's exactly how it played out. Got a year out of most of them, and then they moved on to other things, predominantly tech companies, you know, as well, into, into SDR positions and that sort of thing. Second year of my team was, was then just completely ripped apart by the pandemic. Not, not much we could do there. Some learnings, of course, um, which I'll keep to myself, but at the same time, like, yeah, it's just nothing you could do. And then we started the, what I call, third era, which was with, uh, with me and Lauren, and then we built things out from there. And then it's a mixture of experienced recruiters, not necessarily in the tech sales market, but then also the right grads, the grads that have something to prove and, you know, they can't just go anywhere else and give up when it gets hard. Like, they've proven that they can and need to make it work. And that's been pretty damn successful so far. So.

And then, love that. And then, and then Lewis as a manager.

Yeah.

What, what was you not doing, maybe not so great at?

Yeah, good, good. I think, I think initially, um, the whole— we have a big culture at Wiser of reporting down, which means in plain English, just because you're a manager, you don't sit in your ivory tower and you tell people what to do and you set them standards for them, but you, you know, you're you're in manager land, you're head of department, you're an associate director, you don't need to do the same thing as that. No, get rid of that. Balls to that. Every week, at the start of each week, and now I've given it, given the responsibility to my team to lead that meeting every week as well. So it's not just me doing it all the time, but we will set objectives or goals for the week. Nothing major, 4 or 5. And they could well be like, okay, I'm gonna wrap up this deal this week, I'm gonna get 5 first interviews, this particular client, I'm going to secure a new job, or at least generate a new client meeting, uh, 2 LinkedIn posts. And yeah, you know, for example, for me today was to come on here and absolutely smash it. And then, uh, and then what we do is we review that on Wednesday. We have our goals pit stop in the morning, go through it all, and we'll mark it traffic light system. Green, is it achieved. Amber, not achieved yet. Red, lost it. That's that. And we keep yourself accountable. And I, my goals go in there all the time. Do I get full green every time? Absolutely not. Not every week. I did last week though, and everyone knew about it. But look, reporting down, I think, is the biggest respect builder that you can do. If you're not proving that you can perform at the same or a better level than your team, then why are you their manager?

Mm.

Like, you need to prove that consistently.

Mm.

You know what I mean? Because, because that's what, that's what does it. And I'm not saying I wasn't doing that to begin with, but I probably just wasn't externalizing it as much as I could. So my advice would be to anyone who's a player manager or a manager right now, show them, show the team what you're made of. Mm.

So on this then, if we can go granular for a sec.

Yeah.

So you mentioned Monday kickoff for the week. Love that. I'm probably going to steal that. I'll do something similar. But I like the Wednesday pit stop. I think I could do that better rather than like a morning call. Yeah, I think that I really— I'm gonna steal the Wednesday pit stop. That's a good one. So just to get grounded for a second, I speak to a lot of playing managers, uh, billing managers who do find it really hard not to get pulled pillar to post. Yeah. So I guess if we— if it's cool with you, like, could we just break down a bit like Lewis's typical week? I know you're super organized.

Yeah.

Um, obviously you could— there's only so much you can plan for and like if I'm in your team and I need help, I'm assuming you're going to help me, right? Yeah. If there's like something I really need your advice on or whatever. But what— how do you try and set up your week to make sure that Lewis can lead by example?

Yep.

And you're doing, um, yeah, you're trying to lead by example and you're doing what you're doing, so hitting your number, performing. You're also being the manager, um, and you're making sure that people know that if they need help, support, Lewis is there. And then it sounds like you're doing some of the accountability stuff as a manager with what you just described. So Yeah, talk to us a bit about what maybe like a typical week would look like, where— yeah, how you try and set that up so you're not just pulled pillar to post and it's not like, Lewis, I need help with this. Lewis, I need to help with that. And you're like, fucking hell, I need to get this done. I haven't been able to, do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

How have you approached that over, over the years?

Yeah, good. Well, first and foremost, let's talk about my, my own personal performance. Yeah, right. We— you, you mentioned this in the post yesterday which we went through in the prep. So many recruiters will block out times in their diaries to do particular tasks. I'm gonna spend 3 hours resourcing for this particular role. I'm going to spend 2 hours doing business development. But what does that actually mean? Like, do you know what I mean? What I've, uh, the biggest mindset switch and, and thing that I've seen with my own team as well in getting them to do it is let's make a small tangible target for for that time frame. And if it doesn't get done, we know full well we need to make it up somewhere. Do you know what I mean? So for example, I'm going to build a project of at least 30 great candidates within this hour-long period, and they're all getting a first message. Okay, I am going to put, um, 10 excellent prospects into our CRM system, and they're all going to get a first message within this 2-hour period. You know, all of that sort of thing rather than just being 2 hours of BD, 2 hours of resourcing. Set small tangible goals that will set you on your way to obviously your weekly KPI or target. So that's, that's how we do that and that's how I keep myself accountable moving forward. In terms of the team, being a manager, I think it's important to pivot because shit hits the fan, right? You can't just— in an ideal world, you do the same thing, same schedule every week. That doesn't always work. We have the skeleton of my diary. It's very color-coded, as you can imagine. So all— everything yellow in my diary is internal meetings. Everything blue is sort of, uh, tasks that I need to do. Could well be a candidate call, could well be, um, replying to this person, chasing up this person, you know, task bits and bobs that I need to do throughout the day. Green stuff is community-focused, purple is business development, all of that sort of thing. I always make sure that there is— because you have in— I don't know if everyone uses Google Calendar, but you have like, uh, a little bar of how much time is being, being used. I keep an eye on that massively.

Yeah, it's good, good little insight.

It is. I look— because I looked at, I looked at it 2 weeks ago and I was like, fuck me, 70% of my week is yellow, which means it's internal meetings. Yeah, they need to change that. Like, we need to change that straight away. Um, and that's just the, the way in which I can keep myself accountable moving forward and be like, right, okay, what can I do here? Is this meeting vital? Do I, you know, do I need to be in this, or can, can this be done in an out-of-room setting? And just making sure that I'm keeping myself accountable for, for doing my tasks and hitting my numbers personally as well. But that said, I used to do all of my one-to-ones on a Monday morning. Monday morning at Wiser is meeting city. There's meetings left, right. I think it is for a lot of businesses, right? You don't— I don't actually start work until Monday at half one, I would say. Yeah. But one thing I pivoted recently because I always felt like we were missing things on a Monday morning. There was— don't get me wrong, everyone's busy, heads down, but there's still opportunities out there. There's still messages that were coming in that if we respond too quickly, that we were going to win over a competitor or whatever else it may be. And I pivoted. So as opposed to just doing 15-minute, almost speed date one-to-ones with my team, I then changed that to, right, okay, because the team were like, we always feel like we're on a bit of a rush and we can't really dig into things. And I agreed. I was like, we can't delve into your numbers properly, we can't— I can't delve into your pipeline properly, I can't advise you on every sort of granular detail and what we can, what we can do. Um, so we shifted it. So now I have a half hour one-to-one every day, every day throughout the week. Yeah, wow, throughout the week. So rather than blocking out an entire— not, not every day with everyone. Oh, I mean like, for example, obviously I have 14 members.

Oh, so in 4 days you have a half an hour?

Oh, so everyone has their own? No, no, no, no, no, that is not a good use of my time. Yeah, um, God love them. Rather than it being Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, rather than it all being Monday in one block and I don't end up coming up for air until about half 1, 2 on a Monday afternoon, we'll do— yeah, we'll do someone like Darius on a Monday, we'll have Nurcia on a Tuesday, Sheldon on Wednesday, Wade on Thursday, something like that. So we'll do that and then everyone gets a proper one-to-one. And doing it that way, you don't always have to do things the way they've been done. Yeah. And I think me being that organized always, that was probably the downfall of that and something that I've recently come to terms with, that being like, yeah, just because this is how it's always done, this is how it's always worked, that it's the best way. Like getting yourself into a funk. Sometimes you've got to freshen things up and pivot a little bit in terms of your organization.

No, that's a great insight. And I think that with that being the setup, I guess the, the kickoff at the beginning of the week, super important then, isn't it, to have that? Because you don't want anyone feeling like they're not set up for the week, not if they need a bit of help on what they need to focus on, all these things. You've got that Monday kickoff, these are our goals, and then the one-on-ones are like, I'm assuming, Lewis, how are you getting on? Yeah, can I help you with anything? What more can I do to support you? And then there might be some accountability stuff going on.

Yeah, and it's good. And then just on that as well, the last thing I'd probably say that was a big struggle in the beginning of becoming a player manager was not doing the job for them.

Hmm.

Like 2018, Lewis, or whenever it was I started, mate. I think I had my first intern in 2017, but when someone just asks a question, it's easy to just go, ah, fuck it, just come here, I'll do it. Like, do you know what I mean? Write this. Write this, do this, or, you know, whereas in actual fact, what managers should be doing is challenging their team. So you come to me and be like, Lewis, obviously this is the situation, um, you know, X, Y, and Z, the, the candidate has, uh, has not come back, not confirmed the interview. What do you think we should do? I'm like, well, what do you think we should do? What do you think we should do? And then 9 times out of 10, they'll come out with the answer. It's almost like a validation thing, especially when you've got, you've got people who are early on in your career, in their careers, in your team. It's all just a validation thing, and the quicker you can break that habit, the easier your life's going to be.

Yeah, no, no, I'm always mindful of that, um, of being— yeah, not just doing it for people. I think that's a great insight. So let's spend the last 10 minutes then talking about SDRs of London.

Sure.

I think I do respect that, obviously, no jack, um, well, I do feel like I'd say most, most recruitment companies outside looking in your space will go, you know what, Wise has done a really good job of building a community. And community, there's no— Izzy's a huge part of that as well.

She is, yeah, she's great.

Um, so yeah, talk to me about— why don't we just start? Which could be helpful for people. Um, what would you say— because how long, um, SDRs of London, how long you've been doing that for?

3 years.

3 years, cool. Principles of making that success, principles of building a successful community, talk to me about that.

Yeah, sure. Just to give everyone— I'll give everyone a bit of insights to what the bloody hell it actually is first, but for people that don't know, so SDRs of London is, is an inclusive peer-to-peer mentorship community for lead generators at tech companies based in, in the capital. Although we do tend to have people that come from like home counties and here, there, and everywhere. It's very popular with remote SDRs as well because they only have teams to like bounce off or get advice from. So, so that's what it is. The— it's, it's effectively a WhatsApp group for the most part. That's how it started. Started with 15 SDRs that I'd placed 15 SDRs at companies that I'd quite like to work with, put them all into a WhatsApp thread and went, there you go, mentor each other for free and network. And that's exactly what happened. And we went from 30 members to about 120 members in a week. We now have over 5,500 followers on LinkedIn, 1,200 members either in WhatsApp or mailing list. And we are consistent. We're doing an event with Aircall next week, for example, which is sponsored event, should on track to be a sellout. Um, and that'll be a minimum of at least 100 people in our office next Thursday, all, all doing that. So, but it's not that— it's very easy when I say it that way.

It's fucking hard. Yeah, it's hard.

You know yourself, you know yourself. Um, it wasn't always that way, and along the last 3 years it would have been very easy to sell out at some point. So in the beginning, everyone was like, well, I'm putting all these SDRs in this WhatsApp thread, inviting them, and everyone's looking at me like The fuck's this guy up to? Yeah, what's this recruiter trying to put us all into a WhatsApp thread? What the fuck's he playing at? Anyway, um, and it took time. It took time to build trust, um, and it took a lot of willpower to not just be like, oh my God, I've got a goldmine of candidates here. I would love to just run this, run this little roll past. Should be good, that'd be great. Um, I didn't. Stayed strong. We didn't sell out any point. I've never posted a job in there ever, and, and I think that's what built the trust. The other thing— so first and foremost, just to summarize, don't— do not sell out. Do not sell out. Don't, don't take the easy transactional win. You need to build something cool. You need to build something that's respected, that is going to add value to people, not just your own personal gain. Um, secondly, you need advocates of what you're doing. Like, for example, I know with Recruitment Mentors and sort of the platform that you have, you have, um, you know, hosts or people that come in and do particular things. Exactly the same for us. I am not an SDR. I cannot— even though I understand pretty damn well, I'd like to think, about the day-to-day of an SDR, there's still certain nuances and things that I can't do. And at the end of the day, I've never been one. I can't relate to their problems. I haven't sat in the seat. I haven't walked a mile in their shoes. So from that, pretty early on, I realized that we need some advocates on the ground, people that understand Wiser, people that know that we're not in this for the wrong reasons, that we can put as leaders within the community that the wider SDR community can come to. And obviously they're experienced SDRs. The first ones we had were Ben Smith at ReachDesk, Jack Nikot at Salesloft. Will Gay at Cognism, all of those sorts of people. And they just well, well respected him on the community. And that was a game changer as well. And that's really what then set us on a trajectory because there was then that extra layer of people that fully understood, backed Wiser, knew I wasn't there just to try and, you know, make the world's best talent pool. But that was it. They were the two key things I would say were super successful and then set us on the right trajectory.

And then let's just be real though, right? You've, you've, you've thing, good, like revenue, um, revenue can be attributed to Echelon's London. Of course.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Of course. And, you know, you know, we did, I didn't like, don't be wrong. First and foremost, it's there to help the SDRs.

Yeah.

But what's the byproduct? Yeah. Goes back to my shop window analogy. Hmm. We're always in the shop window now. We're in the shop window for, for, for most of the, the tech market because people, especially among the sales functions, people know us. We've got, um, we've got so many people in our communities now across— because it's not just SDRs of London.

Yeah, you've got different ones.

The SDRs and SDRs of London started getting good and getting promoted to AEs, so we have to create AEs of London and start addressing issues about emerging account executives, people transitioning into that role. We had the Elite for sales leadership and go-to-market leaders, and we've now got Making Moves, which is less so helping you along your career, more so a catalyst for change. It's our women in tech sales community. Did an event the other week around, um, well say the other week, it was just before Christmas, around maternity leave and being an individual contributor. Because obviously when you go on, on mat leave, you lose your OTE, which is like madness. So it's more of a catalyst for change, that one, and trying to educate the industry. But yeah, with regards to doing all of those sorts of things, you do something good for people, they will want to do something good for you. But your heart's got to be pure.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. But like, let's just be real, right? Like, that's It's good. So like, I'm assuming— I'm— you can tell me, but I'm assuming you would have had moments where people would have reached out to you and gone, Lewis, I've actually been part of the community for ages and I actually would love some career advice, or actually, I might be— and then you might work with them, right? So that's one thing. And then also it's going to impact BD. It's a differentiator. It's, Lewis, I've seen what you guys are doing with SDLs in London. Like, like, you're the type of recruiter that I want to sort of partner with. You're probably going to be really close to what it is that people want. So I'm assuming it's going to help with BD, right? And then, and then you just said that Aircool are sponsoring, so then there can potentially end up being, if the partnership's right, some revenue-generating opportunities.

Absolutely.

That can be directly attributed. So yeah, cool.

Yeah, no, we're not just doing it completely— obviously, you know, it, it makes commercial sense to do so, but it's been a long-term build to get it to this stage. Not selling out early, not selling out early, being in the shop window, being seen to be doing the, the, the— doing the right things for the right reasons. And then obviously, yes, of of course, it's an unrivaled referral network for work and candidates as a product.

Yeah. And then before we finish then, just on that, because I'm gonna make it clear, because I, I do really think what you guys are doing is great. So it started with a WhatsApp group.

Yeah.

Like, now what has it become? From outside looking in, it looks like you create intentional learning events, or yeah, events if it's like virtual or in person. Obviously, I know you guys utilize your office space, which is absolutely awesome. So if you ended up basically, obviously besides the WhatsApp and getting other people to speak to like-minded people it's then you're putting on some sort of learning events for around things that a lot of the community want help with. Yeah, is that pretty much it?

Gotta be current to the time, it's got to be relevant. For example, the Aircall event is doing more with less in the current climate around SDRs. So we've got, uh, heads of sales development, SDR managers speaking from some great brands like FreshRelevance, Cognism, and obviously Aircall as well. Um, but, uh, and also Sourcewhale. You'll know, got Lucy from Sourcewell speaking as well. But, but it's just all about— it's got to be relevant, it's got to be in the time, and it's got to be there to service the community and help them with what they're doing. If all of a sudden, you know, a company came to us and being like, we want to sell more subscriptions, so we want to sponsor you for an event, we're like, yeah, it's not going to work, unfortunately. We'd love your money, of course we would. But that's just— that's not going to wash with the team. That'd be selling out. You know what I mean? We're not going to do that. It needs to be relevant. It needs to help. Its audience. That's, that's sort of the, the key thing. But we'll do an in-person event every quarter per community, an online event every quarter per community. And then, yeah, if anyone else wants to step up— we get people from the community all the time that want to improve their personal brand and do all of that sort of thing, and we're more than happy to give them that platform if they want to take a chance and do it. And that's, to be honest with you, that's how a lot of people come community host for us.

Love it. Well, look, Lewis, absolutely loved going into all that. I think, um, Just to round it off, I think 25-year-old Lewis would definitely be proud of what you've built and no doubt what you're going to continue to go on. Yeah, love your energy, mate. Love your passion. And thank you so much for coming on the pod.

Mate, thanks for having me. Been a blast.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode.

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