Matt Hacker - How To Maximise Relationships With Internal Recruiters To Bill £1 million

About 2, 3 years into my recruitment career, I lost my dad to cancer. Never had any real sort of hardship or grief up until then in my life, but because I've gone through that sort of hardship, I now think like I've got such a resilience to really anything.

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 Matt Hacker. You've been in the recruitment industry for just over a decade. 2018, 220 grand. 2019, 400 grand. Last year you broke the million.

All our focusing is on high-value business and generating the most revenue.

Over the last 2 years, he is best known as the back-to-back top performer in the company. What do you believe are the common characteristics and traits top-performing recruiters in today's market have?

I would say—

what he's become world-class at, which we dig into, is account management, internal recruitment relationships and MSP relationships.

I think it's massively underrated, the relationship you have with the MSP. The MSP will actually give you the key to the house.

We discuss it all in this episode— how he manages his day, how he opens up doors, how he builds relationships, and so much more. Enjoy this week's episode. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Hello, how you doing?

I'm good. COVID obviously got in the way the first time. Yeah, we're back in on a very sunny day, so it's a lot more sweaty in here than it's ever been.

It's very hot.

No aircon. Yeah, no aircon at So, uh, we're gonna have a good old chat in the heat. It's sweaty, but there's a lot to cover, which I know, you know, a lot of people that listen to this podcast are going to be excited to learn and take from your journey. So I guess before I ask you the million-pound question, which we always like to start with, just to give everyone some immediate context— and if you feel like I've missed anything critical with this, then let me know and help me out— but obviously you've been in the recruitment industry for just over a decade. This is a quite nice moment to reflect and think about the last decade because I think you went into recruitment April 2013.

Yeah.

Right.

It's been a long time. It's gone very quick.

Yeah. And so you've been at Aston Carter the entire time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Obviously you've ended up, you know, doing different markets, these things, which we're going to get into that. But have you, you've always, have you always been dual desk or have I got that wrong?

So no. Yeah, you've got that right. I started off contract, purely contract. Okay. Moved to dual desk. When I set up a new desk, which would have been 2017.

2017, okay. So 2013, 2017 contract. From 2017 up to now, yeah, it's more dual desk.

Yeah.

So in terms of what that's looked like, I've got down here because we were, you know, trying to map out this performance journey that you've been on, but ultimately what I've got down here is 2018 performance, 220 grand. 2019, 400 grand. 2020 went back down to around 200. 2021 got back up to £580,000, and then last year you broke the million pound billings mark. Now, what that looks like— and we can go into more details in this as we have the conversation— but high-level stuff, again, feel free to correct me here, uh, how that's broken down, obviously not to the exact pound, but we've got about £850,000 that was contract, and the rest was around perm, so that was around £150,000 mark.

Yeah, I actually double-checked the figures before I come down. It's about £220,000 perm. Okay, thanks for saying that.

Yeah, perfect. So, um, and And then in terms of like, just, just quickly, because then this will help people, I think you've got here— are you in— there's 13 people in your function including you, right? And I think you shared with me you've got 3 people that do sales and they're entirely focused on the business.

Yep, that's include— 4 including me.

4 including you. And then you've got the rest are in delivery roles.

Yeah, one sort of talent lead that's managing the talent associates who are doing sourcing.

Yeah, okay, cool. So we'll go into that, but that's like makeup of where we are today, that journey. Obviously there's loads to, uh, uncover here. So actually, why don't we just add— and then let's just add markets, because this is what I think is quite cool about your story, is obviously historically started in like the banking space, right?

Yeah, so I was doing accounting and finance within financial services, and since 2017, jack of all trades, master of none.

So what does that mean, just, just quickly for people? So like, to give you as an example of different sectors that you've worked with over the last 12 months and, you know, some of the, you know, 3 to 4 typical roles that you might find yourself working on?

Yeah, so it's basically 3 main pillars. So it's sales and marketing, HR and procurement, and customer service and admin. And we deliver perm, contract to pretty much any sector, including banking now. But 95%, I'd say, of our current base is outside of banking, so commercial industries. It could be media, telco, Pharma, technology.

Yeah, real variety.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, that's that. I know that would be really helpful for people because people will be thinking that immediately. So let's start with the million-pound question because I'm sure you thought about this because something that you shared with me you're passionate about is helping people to become successful in recruitment, right? So, um, what do you believe are the common characteristics and traits that top-performing recruiters in today's market have? What are the common things that you often find in people?

I would say a very high growth mindset, so being adaptable to change and being able to step outside your comfort zone is a trait I see regularly in the top performers. I'd say that's one. Secondly, being able to compartmentalise. So what I mean by that is balancing out the lows from the highs, so not getting too excited once you've done a deal, not getting too down if you've had a dropout, for example, and I think that helps in crisis time. So you rarely see like a really top performer, you know, panicking in a crisis. Usually they can take a step aside, look at the facts, and then make an informed decision from there. And also a high-value mentality as well. So being able to target the high business opportunities, the high-value business opportunities that are going to generate the most revenue for you. And being disciplined and being able to say no to bad business. Those three things.

Are you a football fan? Yep. I was just thinking then the second one you were just describing Arsenal fans for any football fans in terms of so high, so low.

But yeah, I could say about Chelsea, I'm a Chelsea fan, I could say that about last year as well, but rather not talk about that.

So look, obviously a lot that we want to cover today. I think when we prepared for this, when we, you know, we spoke about this podcast, I think you, you said, you said to me that, look, something that I definitely do want to try and talk about, um, is, you know, an important part of your journey and your story that hopefully, you know, by you sharing, by you talking about your own experiences, it can help other people. And I really commend that. So obviously the, the year where a lot changed for you was, um, correct me if I'm wrong here, 2017?

It was, yeah, it's probably about a year or a year before that or so.

Yeah, so I might have been— sorry, 2015, about 2 years into your career.

Sorry, about 2, 3 years.

Um, so why don't you talk to us in your own words why that was a pivotal year for you, and then, you know, if there's some questions that come up that I think maybe it could be helpful for people to, um, you know, maybe listen your response to, and then we can go from there and talk about all the recruitment stuff. But, uh, yeah, I really commended the fact that that was something that you wanted to really make sure that we spoke about. So let's start there, if that's okay with you.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's quite difficult for me to speak about this, I'll be honest with you, because I'm not really like an open book. But yeah, I appreciate it.

I'll try and help with that. So you start wherever you want and then we can take it.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So yeah, about 2-3 years into my recruitment career with Aston Carter, I lost my dad to cancer, and a few months after that I also lost my nan and granddad. So it's all happened within a fairly short space of time. Never had any real sort of hardship or grief up until then in my, in my life. Um, Aston Carter really, really good with me, offered me a lot of support. I was off work for, I think it was 3 months I was off for. Um, following that, I was seeing a counselor for, for 18 months, 2 years. I was on antidepressants, so it's pretty much fair to say I was rock bottom.

Um, how old was you?

So 2, 3 years, I would have been late 20s, 28, 29. Um, yeah, and even when I got back to work, I was taking a lot of sick days. Like, when I look back now, I was thinking I was off work a lot. I didn't even want to leave the house, let alone go to work. Um, got through that tough, tough period, and I suppose it all changed really when I was asked to set up this new desk, which was in January, I think, 2017. Yeah, it's all a bit of a blur now. I can't remember what years we—

yeah, no, that's right. Yeah, we write those things down. So no, I appreciate you sharing that. I guess Look, I said to you, didn't I, that, you know, two— I'm 30 years old— two of my best mates lost their mum to cancer. It is just such a— like, when you hear someone is like, they're really ill or something's bad happened, that is probably one of the top 3 things that you probably think, that word cancer, right? So I guess, is there anything that you found— because I'm sure you've ended up in different ways connecting with people that might have been through similar things, I'm assuming there— but have you, you know, why don't I ask you, has there been anything that you found be helpful for people that that have gone through similar things? Has there been anything that, yeah, you've shared with people or people shared with you that you found helpful for anyone listening that, you know, might be in that right now or might still be in that real— I don't feel I've— touch wood, I haven't actually had— I haven't lost anyone, I haven't gone through that proper grief, whereas my partner has. And she always says to me that she feels like grief never really goes away. There'll be moments where, just random moments where you think about your nan passing or these things, so you have those moments. So Like, I don't know if there's anything, you know, that you found to be helpful.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I was fortunate in the sense that I had a, well, a girlfriend who's a very strong person. She's my wife now at the time. They're good close friends, friends around me, close family around me too. I'm not the sort of person that opens up and talks very much about this sort of stuff, but I suppose the counseling and that sort of side, like maybe going out and speaking to people about it, definitely did help.

Um, why did that help you then, do you think?

Just because, like, as I said, I'm not a I'm not a person that speaks openly about anything. I'm not very emotional. I don't think I've— I don't think— I can't even remember the last time I cried, probably when I was a teenager. I can't remember. But, um, so I've been able to like actually speak about like having an outlet to speak about that. So I suppose, yeah, if you're going through hardship or grief or something, I'll just, I'll just recommend speaking to people about it, even though how difficult that could be. Just finding— speaking to someone. For me, it was easier to speak to someone completely outside, like a counselor who didn't know me at all, than my close, my close like friends and family.

Why do you think that is then? Because you might feel like they're— I don't know, you're protecting them judging you or making assumptions about you?

Yeah, not necessarily judging, but maybe showing vulnerability, which is something as a manager now I'm— I think is actually a good trait to show in a management role. But at that time I was looking to be strong for maybe everyone else. Yeah. And rather than thinking about— thinking about me.

Did you have siblings?

Yeah, I got a younger sister, so, so she's been strong for her. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to show any vulnerability at all.

That's what—

that was my, um, it's not like a decision, it's just my natural— yeah, yeah.

So I guess I have to ask then, because you said it already and you even said it when we're preparing for this, like you've already said, like you're not someone typically that shows emotions or opens up, but then you're saying what was really helpful was opening up.

Yeah, yeah.

So I guess what I wanted to like, there'll be a lot of people that relate to that. So I guess, is there anything that maybe you can share that— because I'm gonna— because I sat down with a guy called, um, Dan who lost his dad to suicide, and like, it took him ages to pick up the phone and say to his mom, I need help. Yeah, but that wasn't like therapy session one. So was there— was there any— was there anything, you know, looking back, that I don't know, made you feel more comfortable sharing, or just maybe sharing a thing that for people that, that seems so out of the question to even open up and be vulnerable at all, that maybe you can help them go, you know what, if you do arrive at that position, it is helpful and maybe worth trying to get there. But was there anything that helped you get to a point where you was willing to open up?

Because I'm sure it just didn't happen overnight, because you've described yourself sort of like understanding that if you don't do that, it's just gonna bottle up and it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse. So you— it's almost like you've— I forced myself to do it. So as I said, like, I didn't start that for a good few months after I was at work. So it must have been like at least 3, 4 months after everything happened before I'd done that. Um, yeah, the alternative is for it to bottle up, which is just worse, in my opinion.

Do you feel— do you feel like that was starting to happen in those first 3 to 4 months then? Was that what sort of maybe triggered that maybe I should speak to someone?

And I think all of— everyone copes with stuff differently, right?

Yeah.

For me, it was just to try and ignore everything that's happening and trying to crack on in a way. Yeah, that's not always the best thing.

Yeah, I mean, I can't even comprehend that, and especially obviously at that, that age as well, because it's— that's like what I always think about with my, um, friends is like your, your parents, like if you lose them at that age, like they miss out on so much. Like, it's sad, man, isn't it? It's tough. Like my, um, my friend who has been the first one in our friendship group to, um, have a, have a child, and like, unfortunately he's not gonna be able to share that with his mum. And they're the things that you think just happen. Yeah, we all get to experience that, right?

So same as me now, I've got like two, I've got two young girls.

Yeah. And like, that's why I really commend you talking about it because it's, it's, it's, it's fucking hard. Um, so I wasn't—

sorry, I was gonna say one of the things that that's come out of that as well, like linking it back to sort of recruitment. It's because I've gone through that sort of hardship, I now think like I've got such a resilience to really anything, especially like recruitment-based crisis. Yeah, if stuff— something that happens now, like I get a dropout or a client says this, kind of, yeah, it doesn't— like it pales in significance to what—

yeah, that you've been— no, totally. And I've heard people say that because it is so much, so much of resilience, I feel like what, what helps me, you know, have better chances of overcoming challenges is perspective. And I can quite easily— I haven't gone through the hardships that you've gone through, but I've really tried to, you know, be good at going, well, at least I'm not homeless, or this could be happening, or that could be happening. So I'm not surprised that, you know, you going through that experience, one of the positive things that have come out of it is, you know, then moving forward in your life things that maybe could really hold people back or people really struggle with, you're like, well, this isn't— this is nowhere near as bad as what I've been through.

Yeah, exactly.

And sometimes a lot of people don't have that perspective, do they, to fall back on?

It's something— I mean, it's one of the classic interview questions is like, can you tell me about a time when you had to bounce back from, yeah, some sort of hardship, or, you know, recovered from a situation? But obviously, like, what happened to me is probably more extreme of that. Yeah, similar sort of thing.

Yeah, so you've then obviously gone on to really apply yourself in, in work. So why don't we— why don't I just start then, because we're talking about this one. Like, a lot of people— because as I shared with you, like, I did a post saying that I was gonna sit down with someone that broke the million pound mark. Obviously so many people think that's not possible in their markets, so, you know, really interested by that. So why don't I just start with this, particularly with us all understanding that you've worked in the industry for a decade. Let me just start with like, what do you think from that moment you've done to ultimately, you know, build a sustainable career and not burn yourself out and not, you know, get into the performance that you've got to? Let's be honest, unless you tell us otherwise, probably involves some sort of sacrifice.

Yeah, I read those questions, by the way, and I thought they were quite funny. Yes.

So why don't we just start with that? Like, what do you think Matt has been able to do, or what have you had to get better at when it comes to, you know, not putting everything— I know you said, you know, your girlfriend who's now your wife, but like over the— this period you could have just thrown everything at work. It was all work, work, work, and then your friendship maybe suffers, your relationship suffers. So what, what do you think you've done to help maintain the, you know, over a long period of time you're still here, you're showing up, you're doing it, and over the long period of time you've actually just got better and better?

Yeah, this might sound mad, but I work less hours now than I did when I first started. But what I've been able to, I suppose, master is like the— what I'm doing during the day, like working effectively and working smart as opposed to working long hours. Like, I get into work probably just a little bit after 8 and I'm gone by 6 most days unless something urgent, you know, requires me to stay. But yeah, that might sound quite surprising, but I might turn the laptop on, you know, a couple of hours during the week, tidy up on emails or something like that, but generally, I reckon I was working a lot longer hours. I know for a fact, and it was in the office as well, pre-COVID, than I do now. Really? Yeah, 100%.

A lot.

Yeah.

I mean, how many years do you think that's been the schedule most of the time? The last 2 years? The last 3 years?

The better I've got, the less I— the less hours I've worked.

Really?

I don't know if I'm trying to create the wrong behaviors for people just starting out, but, um, but I think what I suppose what I'm trying to say is like I think there's— you have a look at what you're doing. I suppose it links into one of the things I just said earlier about characteristics. Like, I— all I focus in is on high-value business and generating the most revenue. I will not waste time in what I consider bad business. And I'm not just— when I refer to bad business, I'm not just talking about, um, uh, commercials, like, you know, rubbish, right? Exactly. I'm talking about, you know, what's my competition, how many other agencies work in this role, how good is my relationship with the hiring manager, how well do I know this client. What's the candidate network? There's a lot of variables that go into what I consider, you know, good business and bad business. But yeah, I'm very particular now. And I think that's, uh, as I said earlier, I think that's a trait of a lot of high performers I speak to. They can turn around and say no. Whereas, you know, when I, when I first set up a new desk, started the corporate functions team, um, back in 2018, I was going after everything, everything I can find, like, from my hands on, I was going after. And it's mostly perm business. It was mostly what I'd call transactional business, like spot placements. It wasn't like going to be anything repeat business from that. Um, it's mostly perm as well. And, um, although I'm a dual desker, I hate perm, really. So it's mostly perm to start with. Um, so I've learned, I've learned a lot, yeah, since then.

So why don't we then— okay, because a lot of people, as you can imagine, wanted to know, Matt, how, how does it— how does this person set up their day? You've given a bit of a flavor of that, but with what you've just shared, you would have been describing a lot of people maybe right now with where they are in their career in terms of, like you just said, maybe working on transactional business, a lot of spot business. And you've then obviously gone on a journey to what you've just said. Look, I basically make sure where my time is being spent is in the most valuable places. And we'll get into, you know, what you always look for to give you confidence that that's, you know, like high-value business. And you're just giving us a bit of an example. If we can try and cast back to, you know, those that early on where you was, yeah, more in that transactional side spot business, what do you think was the first, you know, one or two things you started to do that started, you know, making you take a trajectory to where you are more now, which is working mainly on high-value business, not working as many long hours? Like, what was the one or two things that you started to change? Was it you started to say no more? Was it that if you found out that this job specifically had already been with 5 other agencies, you're not touching it? Like, what was the one or two things that you really started to change that then probably was the first domino to get it to where it is more now?

It's difficult in that first year because it was terrible. I think I was on my own, but I think I'd done £145K, but that was like, um, there was no clients, there was nothing. So I'd done that off the bat, purely new business. But looking back there, I made so many mistakes that I then learn for like future. So if I, if I, if I knew what I do now, I would have done it totally different. I would have like concentrated my business development, um, strategy on more what I'd call strategic BD, going after more, um, volume clients. So clients that you're going to win and you're going to get repeat business, they're going to give you roles like on a, you know, secure a PSL, for example. And I aim to get 1 of 2 of those, and that's what we adopt in my team now. We're aiming to get— each salesperson's aiming to get, you know, 1 to 2 of those per year.

So why is that?

Um, because if you— if I've got— well, currently I've got, say, including me, if you've got 8 people, salespeople in— oh, sorry, 4 salespeople on my team, we're bringing on 8 PSLs per year. That's, that's going to enable us to grow going forward. Whereas when I started, I was doing more transactional BD. I was chasing, chasing deals off the back of leads, maybe a couple of spec CVs, maybe, um, speaking to managers that are back of me referencing candidates and picking up the odd role here and there. So Ended up doing £145K, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were like, I wouldn't do one deal. I've probably done one deal.

One deal with late.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So if I was to go back then, I'd put a much better BD strategy in place.

Okay.

Proper prospecting, targeting the right clients, putting a plan in place and focusing more on strategic BD. If I pick up a few transactional stuff on the way, that's fine. But my sole focus would've been more of the strategic side.

All right. I've definitely got questions for you on that. Yeah. But like, Would you say that is the main thing, or is there maybe one other thing that comes to mind when it comes to, you know, getting into a position where, yeah, you're not just doing spot business, not just transactional? Is there anything— so you've said more strategic BD.

Yep.

Get that. I'm going to ask you questions on that. Was there anything else that you think you would have done, should have done earlier, or from what you've learned, you, yeah, have now lent into, which means you've got more repeat business and whatever?

Um, So at the, at the time, all of the, all the deals we were doing were new business, whereas I worked for a large, large company. Looking back, what I should have been doing is maybe looking at maybe legacy existing clients we maybe signed terms with at some point in the last 10 years and not necessarily done anything with. Okay. Because, okay, we'll give you an example. One of— it's actually our current biggest client— was what I'd call, like, at that time was like a dormant account. It was just sitting there. We had terms agreed, but no one was doing anything with it. And I think I discovered that in the second year. And that's now, I mean, it's 3, 4 years later, but that's now our biggest client.

So how did you discover that? Was you looking on the database? Was it just by accident?

Just taking a step back and thinking, look, we're a big company. What other— is there any clients we're working with outside of banking that I can maybe leverage from a previous relationship? Maybe someone's left or whatever. I just spoke to our legal team and said, can you give me a list of clients that we've currently got terms with which are either run out or dormant or whatever? Um, got back in touch and said, look, I appreciate we— this is, you know, we used to work with you doing this. I'm the new point of contact going forward. I really want to, you know, get back in touch and connect with you again. It just went from there.

It's funny you say that because I've experienced this recently. We had a guy called, uh, Ollie Perry on the podcast, and he says something he's always trying to remind his team is to not forget to look backwards. And I really like that. Like, it's what you're talking about. Yeah, because whoever was involved in getting to the point of signing terms did all that hard work.

Yeah.

And then like, that, that still does— if you did all that hard work and you got to that point of them signing terms, that is something that you can use immediately. Whereas if you're just focusing on net new clients all the time, you're doing all that upfront work to try and get to that point where they trust you enough to sign terms. There's already an element of trust there because you're saying, hey, look, we've done this with you before. I'm now, you know, doing this. Do you think it'd be worth having a conversation? And there's already an element of trust there because whoever has been involved in that, you know, has worked hard to that. And I think that's something everyone needs to remember is don't forget to look backwards. And I just did this exercise not too long ago and ended up signing two different companies from there. And it is just good to look backwards and follow up because you wouldn't have got to that point without doing the good work to get to that point. And then that you sort of almost can shortcut things.

Yeah, well, there's several barriers to entry, right, when you break a new client. And just the less, the less barriers there are, the easier it is to break. And that's, that's one of them. If you've already got terms signed, then that's one barrier gone, right?

Yeah. So let's talk about the strategic BD thing, because that was obviously a lot of, a lot of questions came through from people on how does this person approach BD, you know, how many different clients they're working with, whatever. And I'll be honest, what you've just said, I think some people will be surprised. I don't know if you agree with that about the PSL, getting some big house, you know, big accounts, volume, because most com— you know, I'll be honest, most recruiters that I speak to, uh, when they hear the word PSL, they're like, fuck that, I want to speak to the hiring manager, whatever, right? And what you're actually saying, and we can go into it, actually what you wish you would have done sooner is actually have, you know, more bigger accounts that you work really hard to get onto the PSL with, and then do everything that you can to maximize those relationships. And you're going to be more confident that you're going to get, you know, way more repeat business, do way more deals, which should mean by the end of the year you've increased your performance, whatever.

Yeah.

So let's break down the strategic BD for a piece. So like, I guess, like, firstly, you said this is something that you're actively trying to target your team on. What would you say— because you would have had to learn this the hard way— where do people go wrong when it comes to signing big accounts? Like, where, where's typically the first most common stumbling block that you've seen that you've then helped people with, do you think? Where do people normally go wrong when it comes to trying to get in front of these big accounts and get on PSLs? Where do people normally go wrong?

Um, they can go wrong at any stage. I would say to start with, you need to make sure your prospecting strategy is on point and you're targeting the right, the right customers. I'll say that was a start point. So make sure that's backed up by data analysis, do your market research. The actual prospecting piece is part of the BD, takes a lot longer than the actual execution, in my, in my opinion, in terms of actual calling the managers or emailing. The, the longest part, it probably takes an hour and a half, maybe a day. To do the actual prospecting, make sure you're targeting the right people, customers.

Um, so let's break that down then. So what do you mean by that? So are we going, right, so these are the companies that I want to focus on because of this, these are the types of people that we need to be reaching out to? Like, what are some of the fundamental things that you do in that stage then?

So we would— I would always say in terms of targeting, look for, look for companies that are growing, maybe you've got— maybe for, um, I've got high attrition um, have, have like more than, more, a lot more than one that you're talking. I'd say to my team, look, target one. If it's a big, a big client, I'd say target one a day. A lot of people make the mistake where they maybe have a few meetings or, and then just give up and move on. Many people make the mistake they don't have enough meetings in that client and move on. With these big ones, um, they took a long time to, to break. So I'd suggest like having a meetings target in place, making sure you go in, you have to map the, map the whole company out um, find out who the key stake— or the stakeholders are, the key decision makers, who's the MSP on site. And then you're constantly linking in, um, you know, do we already know anyone with this company? And like building up maybe a network of candidates that have left there and getting some information and intelligence as well.

Okay, so that like basically the first thing, if you're not being smart with like taking time to think about the makeup of these big companies, how you can get in with them. Yeah. You're going to struggle because it is— I guess it's just like, where do we even start, right? So that, that's absolutely fundamental. So have you found then, what is the typical makeup of like— what, what is the typical makeup of like the sweet spot of the type of people that you want to build relationships with? Is it the hiring managers plus the internal recruiters plus the— like, what's ended up being the sort of recipe of like, you know what, if we've got a relationship with, you know, one person in our R&T and one person here, what's that ended up looking like, out of interest?

So yeah, that's an interesting question because I think I'm different to other people on this, different to other recruiters, because, and, um, yeah, different to most recruiters, I would say. So, um, a lot of people put an emphasis on meeting the hiring managers. So for me, within the areas I look after, might be like a marketing director, for example, whereas I'd say I also focus on the MSP and HR relationships and making sure you develop, develop those relationships.

Because when you say MSP, just so for people know, sorry to buy in, so when you say MSP, what does that mean?

So it's the equivalent of like an RPO, um, on the contract. So they might outsource?

Yeah, you might They might outsource their recruitment to another company that deals with all the—

Yeah, so they'll just look after all the, I suppose, the administration for contract hiring. Okay, we will be in the, you know, the middle person between the business and the recruiter.

Yeah, sorry to buy in, but some people might not know what that is. So yeah, so you were saying about, yeah, MSP and HR.

So yeah, I think it's massively underrated, the relationship you have with the MSP, because you might have a really good relationship in the business. Like, again, I'll give the examples of marketing director So you've got the key, you know, you've got a key to a room, but the MSP will actually give you the key to the house. They'll have all the intelligence in terms of what's going on in that company, you know, future pipeline, what the initiatives are. Again, this manager might have that as well from his area, but I think there's a lot of intelligence that could be shared with the MSP. So I do my utmost to build really good relationships with MSP, making sure everyone who's working on these roles are giving them you know, VIP treatment, making sure we don't break any of the rules, you know, in place, making sure we go back quickly on all their requests. And I just think that's very underrated. I think a lot of recruiters out there do focus so much on the manager side that they forget about the value that you can get from HR, MSP, RPO.

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You need to look at who's in, who's in the supply chain, if you like, from, you know, in the process from when you do a deal. And there's, there's all these people in the middle, you know, including that. So in that process, nothing is important that you have relationship with everyone in that process in order to make that deal go as smooth as possible.

So let's talk about that for a second then, because I'm sure there's things that you've helped your team with that you do really well. How— I guess where you're vulnerable there is you're one of many. I feel like it could be.

Yeah.

So you mentioned their VIP treatment. So that could look like you respect their rules, not trying to cut corners. When you do work on things with them, you're doing your utmost to provide quality. You know, you're really trying to stand out in that way. But what, what else have you found works when it comes to not being just another recruiter on a spreadsheet that they have that gets roles sent to them when we make them available? Like, what, what else are you doing to stand out to these people? Because I remember there was— yeah, one of my, um, best clients ended up outsourcing it, uh, to a company, and my initial thought was like, fuck, yeah, that's, that's gonna be hard. And I did— I'd like to think I'm quite good at building relationships and yeah, I felt like I did a good job, but I still felt vulnerable because like I knew that, you know, everyone else was getting them and these things. So what have you found— what have you found works when it comes to really breaking the, you know, the surface, the surface level relationship to Matt is now, you know, more than just another supplier? What have you found work on that front?

Yeah, so in terms of, yeah, tangible things, so if I was to find out some business intel in the company, find out someone's hiring, you know, putting a role for approval, I would— this is really strange, it can sound strange, but I tell the be. And people— recruiters are going to be like, wait, wait, say that again, say that again. So I have like a— I'm quite a straight shooter. I have like an open and honest relationship, like direct with managers or MSP, whoever it is. So if a marketing director comes to me and says, you know, we've got this role going for approval for a marketing exec, for example, um, I would, I would, I would tell the MSP. I would like—

so why are you doing that?

Because I want to, I want to be as honest as possible and say, look, I've spoken to this manager, they've got a role coming up. And then when you— I think when you're honest and you're transparent they're not—

they—

and you've got a relationship with them, they said, okay, thanks for, you know, thanks for letting me know. And they know I'm pipelining CVs in the background, which is, you know, which is absolutely fine. But also, when they get some intelligence outside of that, who are they going to go to, right? So they'll come to me. So they would say, you know, if I'm looking to learn a bit more about the company, you know, um, the particular area, so like, is there any— anyone here you think I should be reaching out to? Or from your perspective, which areas do you think is going to be busy? Because you have to remember, my coverage is quite a few, it's a few different sort of work streams of missions in the company. So, um, and they'll get, they'll, they, you know, if you scratch their back, yeah, they'll scratch yours. So then that's, um, I suppose that's the same for everyone. Yeah.

So like basically try and be transparent, share information. Idea is there that they share things with you.

Yeah.

Interesting. What do we do? Because I remember this happening to me. What you're also vulnerable to is you do all that work We have Jeremy, and Jeremy leaves from the MSP. Yeah, like, oh shit, like I've been doing all this great stuff with Jeremy, we've now got Melissa in, and I'm back to ground zero. What, what are we doing there to protect ourselves? Like, what proactive things are you doing to make sure that as soon as someone new comes in— because these companies also have a trick, like I, I found they do, can have quite high attrition rates, these MSPs. I don't know what you think. but then you're back to zero essentially. So what, what do you do there to really account manage and make sure you don't just have one relationship, or as soon as that person leaves to go to another MSP, you're back to square one?

Um, I suppose I don't really see that, because if someone I've got a good relationship with is leaving, I'd know about it.

Okay.

I'd have to serve the notice, and I'd make sure there's a handover. I'd have a meeting with that person and the new person saying, you know, this is Matt, he does X, Y, and Z for all of us, and we'll— it'll be a smooth— it's almost like a handover if I was working in their team. Do you know what I mean? That's what I would do. I wouldn't be If someone leaves, one of your relationships leaves and you didn't know about it, I don't, I wouldn't class that as a relationship. I mean, I mean, research has shown that you need to have 16 points of contact with the same person for you to class that as a relationship. And that could be an email reply, it could be a phone call, a meeting, breakfast, lunch, whatever. So I think if you look at who you would class as relationship, how many times have you met them? Are they, are they an advocate? Are they a coach? Are they just someone that will respond to you now and again? You'd like, there's different strengths of relationships, I would say.

Um, to be fair, you've just basically said that when you do get to the point where you get the relationship, they're transparent, you share things. If they're leaving, they're going to share that with you. So then you can be proactive with when they are leaving. This would be great if we could do this. Yeah. So that, to be fair, that's really interesting.

I've broken clients from the exact, exact example that have gone out and joined somewhere else and we've signed them up as a client because they've moved. So someone leaving, whether it's a manager or MSP, RPO, whatever, It's not the worst thing because you could end up signing a new client if you've done a good job.

Done a good job. Okay, so why don't we, why don't we just paint a bit of a, um, a picture then of— how should I frame this? Like, this is clearly important and the core part of your strategy. So I guess what people would probably be keen to know, like, when we think about, you know, breaking the million, I think a lot of people are asking, like, you know, how many clients did that come from and these types of things. Yeah, because what it sounds like is, look, if you do all this if this, if you do this really good work building relationships, the things you're talking about, obviously the idea is you're not doing ones and twos, you're not doing threes and fours throughout the entire year in terms of deals and placements. I'm assuming we're talking, you know, 50, 100, over 100.

Yeah.

So obviously we don't, we don't need, we don't want to know who your clients are, but we, what I think would be good for people to understand to get a bit of a picture of this is like if we do this right and our strategy is to get in with some big clients, get on the PSL, maximize those relationships, you know, be really known in that organisation as Matt is someone that delivers and supports on a lot of our roles. So we give him the opportunity and these things like how, like how many clients do you think have like percentage-wise maybe have contributed to that million mark? Has it been, you know, 3, 5 clients has contributed like 80% of that have come from 80% of that? What does that look like in terms of that client spread?

So that year that I hit a million last year that I had 18. So I had a contract base around about 125 on average.

Yeah. Towards the end.

And that was split across 18 clients.

18 clients.

Yeah.

And then the perm you was doing, was that with those 18 as well?

Um, yeah, that was included with, within that. So I mean, I've done £213K on perm, but they were across 2 clients.

Really?

So yeah, the other, um, most of it was obviously, most of it was contracts. But, um, you know, I mean, my average, I mean, our terminology is spread, but I'm sure people call it billions of revenue. But I think my, um, spread at one point was like 25 to 30. $30K, and I'd have around 7 or 8 in my top client. So it's actually, it's actually worked out quite well because I've quite diversified portfolio in terms of the clients, but not also the clients, but also the skill sets I've got, which probably sets me up nicely in a way for any external market, you know, market factors which are gonna, um, you know, for project cuts in one client, I've still got the others to fall back on. Yeah, my, my actual Um, the value of each deal is not massive, it's not massive either. So I'm not talking about, um, like really, really, really big deals. I'm talking about I've got 135 contractors in that amount of spread. So, um, it's quite diversified.

That's interesting that it was over, um, 18 clients. And then how many would you say of that 18 were like, would you put in a category of the types of companies you were talking about? You're on a PSL, different MSP. Was that, was that most of them?

No, I wouldn't say most of them, maybe half.

Yeah, so that's interesting.

Yeah, so we, I mean, we're on the PSL for accounts where, you know, it might be like 1 or 2 roles a month that we fill, but we've probably got about a core in my team, about 5, 6 that we get regular roles from. Yeah.

And the reason I wanted to share that is because I feel like the other part to this, and clearly that was a big part of the recipe for you to break that million, is like really maximizing those relationships. So why don't we just talk for a second? You've maybe given some of it away and already spoken about it, but I think, you know, we've all been there where you work extremely hard to get onto the PSL, you know, you get to that point, you're, you know, you're now, you know, you're now part of the party, you're being sent roles, you're being given opportunities. What have you had to get really good at to maximize those opportunities? Because, you know, your competitor could have been put on the PSL as well, been given access to same relationships, but then did nowhere near as much as you guys did. And I think this probably happens quite a lot where— and we've had a lot of people share on here where a lot of people work really hard to get to the point where they're in the room, and then it's like, all right, okay, now I've got a shitload of work to do to even make the most out of this. Like, I'm not going to get loads of things handed to me because I'm assuming it wasn't like, right, we have— like, you had a party internally, like, right guys, run the PSL, and then 4 weeks later it's like, here's 50 rolls, Matt. Yeah, I mean, what do you think you've done? Yeah, what have you had to get really good at in terms of maximizing those accounts, you think?

So I think it's what comes down to relationships again, relationships with MSP and relationships with the hiring managers as well. So you just get a really good understanding of what they're looking for, and I suppose that comes over time. It's difficult to say because I mean I don't know what's normal in like other companies. I worked in the same company for sort of 10 years. I mean, we've, I would say out of those, um, 6, 7 I mentioned, I think we're like top supplier now to like 4 of them out of the 6.

So let me ask you this then, like, because I think when we were preparing for this, one of the things that you said to me, you've mentioned already, is, um, because I, I said to you, what do you think Matt's most known for, right? And one of the things that you said was like providing VIP gold club treatment. To, you know, MSPs, RPOs, HR relationships, right? So I guess what, what might be worth sharing is, is there anything that comes to mind when it comes to— besides delivering, besides Matt is someone that we know if we give a job to and his team, they're probably going to find us someone— besides that, is there anything else? You've said share information, that, that's one thing. Is there anything else that you think that contributes to that VIP Gold Club treatment that, you know, these people really appreciated that maybe other people aren't doing? I don't know. Is it besides delivering, besides sharing information?

I think Regular, regular contact is definitely one of them. So I have, um, or the, I suppose, the, the, uh, as an account manager, I'll have, um, like a regular call scheduled with them to go, to go through like open recs, heads up recs, all of that sort of stuff. And that's probably like once a week, once every two weeks. Yeah, I've got some that like to do every week, some like to do every two weeks. There's some clients like MSPs I speak to literally every day, and they'll just call me sometimes just for a chat. Um, but yeah, but just having, having, I suppose it's just coming back to that relationship piece. Having regular contact, and you have to build up trust over time. This doesn't really happen overnight. So when I, when I'd done a million, um, it was the groundwork that I probably put in the year or two before that that enabled me to hit a million, um, that year. Because I mean, I came into that year already doing, I think it was like 16, 17K spread a week, um, so that got me off to a good start already. But that was, it was the groundwork that I'd done, you know, the year it was COVID, well, I'd only done 200 in the year after that.

Yeah.

Um, which really, which really helps. It's just building up that trust because I think, I do think that MSPs, HR, have— there is a, um, like they do look at agencies sometimes like just going off and doing their own thing, speaking to the business when they're not allowed, and, um, yeah, basically breaking the rules. Whereas I, I make sure, not just myself, make sure my team, that doesn't happen because it takes ages to build up the trust, but then something that happens, like they can just knock it all down straight away. So I like that.

So I think people will be interested then— don't need like the full agenda, but like what are like the core things you always go over typically? Like what is it that they find helpful? What is that they typically want to, you know, understand, find out? Is it the number of people that you guys have reached out to that week? Is it the number of CVs that you've sent over? What are the typical things that you're going over in those meetings that they really appreciate?

Yep. So I think, um, always communicating the challenges you're having on the difficult roles. So if there's like sourcing challenges, making sure you're letting them know like before the deadline. So if there's like, typically the roles we'll have in contract will be 48-hour deadline. If we're looking like we're really struggling, it might be a niche skill set, we'll let the MSP know, just so you know, this is what we're struggling on. So just that communication piece again, sharing intelligence, which we've obviously already mentioned. And I think a A lot of the time it's just if you, if you're good at sending, if you're, if you've got a good, if you've got a good source, a good delivery team that's sending good candidates, that's almost half the battle. Because that's what, at the end of the day, they, they want to hit their SLAs. That's what they want as quickly as possible. So if you're sending good candidates, you're filling the roles quickly, then that's the most important thing. Yeah.

So why don't we— appreciate sharing that. So why don't we talk about what, what does this day of yours look like then? Because I think that's what a lot of people will be curious about. We've spoken about— I think you've, you've, you've shared with us what strategies work for you, getting in with these big accounts and maximizing them. We've spoken a lot about relationships, these types of things. But I think a lot of people were really curious around, particularly with you dual-desking, like, how does Matt set up his day? Like, what does that look like? And you've said what you've got really good at is making sure that you're, you know, spending time on the things that hopefully are going to equate to, you know, the outcomes that you're hoping for, rather than spending loads of time on things that maybe aren't high value. So let's talk about this 8 to 6 then that you typically try and— yeah, that you typically, uh, have experienced. Like, what— because obviously you manage a team as well.

Yep.

So talk to us a bit about how you structure your day. Like, what does that look like?

So we have a 8:30, like, uh, like a team meeting to go over all the open recs that happens every day, like candidates that are interviewing, any deals that we're looking to close. I run like a sales meeting straight after that as well with the sales guys, looking to see what meetings they've got booked in, what they had just— what meetings they had yesterday, what outcomes of their meetings did they have yesterday, going through their like manager spreadsheet, looking who they're targeting. So that's quite a detailed one. Every day outside of like those particular meetings is different. Um, like I usually, um, plan for the day, like the next day, the day before in the evening, because anything can happen sort of during, you know, during that day. Um, yeah, so it's, it's, it's, yeah, very— and like an agile, an agile process. Yeah, like, and you can change whenever.

But, um, what, like, the, the sort of normal thing, the normal, normal non-negotiable? So you've got setting the team up, sales team overall, like, reps we've got open. But then typically, what would end up taking a bulk of your time, or what do you typically find yourself doing most of the time? Because that's going to be the things that are probably going to be the highest leverage activities you're going to be doing?

Yeah, so I'll put my sales hat on. Um, an hour and a half will be spent on prospecting every day, so looking at the, looking at the account I'm going to be targeting. Then I would spend an hour on execution, so that would be personalized outreach, whether it be calls or emails. I might have a couple of meetings already scheduled in that day. I might have some account management stuff to do as well in that day, one-to-ones, etc.

How do you, how have you helped your team because I know this is something a lot of managers and recruiters struggle with. How— because like a common sentence I think right now as well, a lot of recruitment leaders can sort of easily hear their team go, oh, I haven't ended up doing that BD, or I haven't ended up doing this. Like, how have you helped your team understand what are the true priorities and what they should be giving more time to rather than all these other things that make you feel good that you've got it done? Like, how have you helped? Because that can be difficult for a lot of people.

Yeah, I know, people get sidetracked, right? But I think as a non-negotiable for a salesperson, that is their job, right, is to do BD. So if they are, I'd be interested, I'll sit them down and say, okay, what's getting in your way of doing this? You know, what is sidetracking you away from doing your job? And I'd actually sit down with them and go through that because it's like, comes back to like KPIs, which are, you know, which are put in place, they're non-negotiable, they're based on you know, if you hit these, you should hit target, you know, that's why these were in place. So it'll just come, yeah, come back to that.

And then as a manager, curious, like, what, what are the dashboards that you're always keeping an eye on? What are they like, the key metrics that you always keep an eye on that makes you feel like you've got a good sense of you being on track or not on track to, to hit the, the targets that you've set?

Yep. So for sales, it would be meetings and recs picked up. And over the, maybe over the course of a longer period, it'll be clients broken, you know, accounts broken. Uh, for talent, it'll be, um, people spoken to, like, candidates spoken to, um, submittals, interviews, candidate meetings.

Love that. Curious, with the salespeople—

sorry, it's a bit hot.

Yeah. Um, for salespeople, obviously it's all down, it's like all downstream from from having that client meeting, what have you— what are you finding at the moment be the most effective way for your team to get that first client meeting? Because that's often the most difficult to get in.

Um, making sure their outreach is really personalized. So I'm not a big— oh, I'm just not a big fan. That's probably an understatement. I hate cold calling. I don't agree with it. I think it's a waste of time. It's coming back to working smart, and I don't think cold calling is working smart and best use of your time. Um, I would suggest to my— I suggest my sales team that they reach out to at least 20 new managers a day, whether it would be an email, personalized email, or a call. But each— even that would be to one client, but each of those emails would be personalized and different.

One client?

Well, yeah, we try and target one at one a day, right? So one— say, try and target one client a day, but 20 different people in there. Yeah, 20 different people in there, but each of those will be different because they'd each be personalized and in like different parts of the business. Yeah, yeah, it's— I suppose it's, um It might be different for myself because we, you know, we look after different areas, but yeah, that's what we were talking on.

Personalized, I feel like, is quite an overused word these days.

Yeah.

So like, for me, for me, when I— because I agree with you on the personalized piece, would definitely, would definitely argue for me with the, with the calling piece, it's more about like being smart with what you can do before you make that call, but the call, the call is, is effective. But like, it's like, what has Matt done before, you know, he's called me that could potentially give me a better chance of being given that moment to explain why I've called specifically them. So yeah, I do think, is it a good use of time to just call you and I haven't really spent any time thinking about why I'm calling you and I haven't really thought about my value proposition and these things? But if you have got an email, you know, if you emailed me and said, hey, look, over, you know, that, you know, the other guys in such and such department, we've delivered this hiring project for them, mentioned that you're struggling with a few things. Do you think you'd, you know, would you be against having a chat? Yeah, I didn't reply to you, but then you called me and then, you know, you used that to try and, you know, be part of the conversation. I think that's just a smarter way of using the phone. But I actually do think now if you're willing to pick up the phone, it actually gives you a competitive advantage because so many people are shit scared of doing that.

Do you think so?

Yeah, 100%.

Right, okay. I mean, I don't see that. I mean, I'd worry if there's a salesperson. Yeah. And that's a job to call managers if they're scared of picking up the phone. Um, that would be a worry for me.

Yeah, but it's like, let's break down, like, because you've said you don't— you're like, you're— it's an understatement to say that you don't like phone calls, right?

Yeah, yeah, I'm talking about cold calls. I mean, like, the— an intro call to a manager could be fairly similar really to a personalized email, right? So when I said I don't— I don't like cold calls, I don't like blank— it's the same thing. For some reason I don't like blanket emails going out to, you know, every, you know, head of or director in an industry. I don't think it's a good way to work.

When you say personalized, because clearly you're passionate about that, well, like, what does that mean for you personally?

So it Personalised trigger or like the first line of an email could be anything from, like you just said, you could have been introduced by someone else. You could name drop someone in the company. It could be, um, some, something that that manager posted on LinkedIn. Um, you know, shared, could have posted a role 6 months ago. Um, it could even be something about his area that you found out, you know, a bit of intelligence you found out from a candidate or in the research you've, you've done. So, um, yeah, it's quite, it could be, it could be anything, but as long as it's personalised to that person and then Um, then you would bring in, I suppose, the business challenges, like what you just said there. I understand, you know, you might be struggling with these hires, or it could be more of just a general challenge in the market. And then you'd hopefully have some sort of solution where you've delivered that for either a competitor or someone else within that company.

And then you're getting your, your team to then follow up with phone calls and stuff like that. You don't think that's a waste of time? You're thinking, you're saying, if I have a list of companies, I've done any research on them at all, and I'm just calling through a list How useful is that? How good of a time?

I suppose when I, when I think of cold call, I'm— that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm talking about sending the same email or email to everyone. It's not targeted.

Yeah, yeah. Curious, getting a bit granular here, uh, what do you think— because I'm sure you help your team with this— what do you think a good client meeting looks like?

Okay, so I think you need to have a really specific agenda on what you're looking to get out, and you can maybe have 2 to 3 objectives you're looking to get off that meeting. Typically these meetings will last, what, half an hour, maybe an hour if you're lucky. And then that agenda, again, this should be different for every meeting you have, but that agenda should be based around the outcomes that you're looking for. So it'll be tailored, right? Okay. So I don't know, you might, the outcome could be, you might know this person's got a role, for example. So the outcome could be you're looking to, you know, looking to pick up a role. It could be the outcome you might be looking to map out his team. So how is his team set up? Is it contract, perm? Does he have any consultants or whatever. So I would make sure my agenda was based around, based around that, and I had those questions lined up for that, for that meeting. Nice.

Um, you didn't— your team are doing a lot of meetings via video these days, or are you trying to push more face-to-face?

Yeah, a lot of the— yeah, to be fair, we're based in London. I mean, a lot of the, um, a lot of the clients we work with outside of London, but we do UK, UK and Ireland. But, um, where we can do, we do mainly sort of lunches and breakfast, but not Not too many coffee meets anymore, it's mainly breakfast lunches.

Yeah, curious, just because like this has obviously been a core part of your strategy now, and I'm going to hit you with some questions that people, uh, shared. Uh, how— a very common objection that recruiters say that they find hard to deal with is the PSL one. So I'm just curious to like hear your thoughts on navigating that objection because I feel like almost you're like, well, that's great. Most of our clients, we work on a PSL and we're one of their top providers. So like, when, you know, when I'm your target customer and you speak to me and I say, look, I'm sorry, mate, we've got a PSL in place.

Yeah.

Like, what are the, the typical things that you help, you, you know, your team, uh, with? And like, how do you typically navigate that? Because yeah, like, that's, that's your world, it seems.

Yeah. Well, as an objection, I would, I would ask open questions just to find out how is he finding that process? You know, what is the PSL doing for you? Because there will be a challenge in there somewhere. Um, and so you're like, how are the PSL performing? Um, what would you say they're good at? What would you say they're not good at? And try and get that business challenge out of him, that pain point, in order to then provide, provide that solution.

What's the most common one that you typically uncover?

Um, probably poor, poor quality CVs is quite a common one. Uh, yeah, the wrong type of CVs, or maybe speed to delivery is probably another one, especially in contracts. Um, they're probably the biggest two, I would say. And I think those two things are something that we're quite well equipped and quite set up well on.

And if, again, curious, because you're not going to be able to go from that phone call to, okay, Matt, sounds great, let me sign you into the PSL. It doesn't quite work like that.

Yeah.

So I'm just curious because these types of companies that you're targeting is, if I say to you, you know what, Matt, that sounds great, and that's, you know, what we want to be able to say our PSL is doing, but they're not, but we don't renew until 6 months, or yeah, these things. What is typically the thing in between, maybe the moments where you can generally have an opportunity to be considered and get onto PSL? What, what are you trying to make sure happens in the meantime? Are you trying to get meetings in with them to at least educate them on how you've helped other companies like theirs, get to know them? Are you trying to just be, you know, given at least a sliver of an opportunity to say, look, if they do continue to struggle, please give an opportunity and we can sort of show what we can do. Like, what are the typical things that you try and lean on in between the moments where you just literally can't get on the PSL? Because you'll— that'll be the case, right?

Yeah. I mean, we get that quite a lot as well with like PSL reviews. I mean, you know, sometimes there's not much you can do if that is genuine. But we would, you know, one of the things you just said, we'd ask for an opportunity, just give us a difficult opportunity that's not been filled and we'll showcase what we can do with that. We would also share, because we have regularly what we call QBRs, like quarterly business reviews with our MSPs and HR, and they'll provide us actual statistics on, you know, the deals that we're doing, how quickly we deliver. And it's got all— it's everything there. And we would, you know, with their permission, we would share that information with prospective clients. And so they can show us, or we can even say, look, we'll give you their details, go and speak to them, find out how good we are to make sure we're when it does come to the review, um, we're in a good spot.

Yeah, I love that. So many recruiters don't do enough of that because there's what I can sit here and feel your passion and have you say like with the things you can do for me, but then there's a whole nother thing, a whole nother— like it's a no, it will feel completely different if I've got another MSP saying this is what they did and here are the sort of case studies of what they've done for us over the last 6-12 months.

Yeah.

See, if you're listening to this and you haven't got any case studies wrapped up, you're not using them, like you seriously are missing a trick.

Yeah, I think that's, yeah.

So I'm not surprised you said that. That's a great way again. And you've got more chance of having these types of things, I guess, potentially, because like you said, these MSPs have to hit their SLAs. That's what they really care about. So this is all going to be measured on their end, let alone not just your end.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you know what I mean? So to be able to showcase that. So let me hit you with some quickfire questions then, because I want to make sure I've covered the things that people have asked. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you around. I'm going to ask you some of the rogue ones that were on there. So I think we've gone through a lot of the ones where people wanted to know, you know, breakdown of perm contract. I quite like this one. Like, why, if I was to say to you, why do clients work with you and your team? What, how would you answer that? I think a few people were curious on that one. Like, why do you think they give you the work? Why do you think clients work with you guys over others?

Yeah, I think it's probably some of the stuff I've already mentioned in terms of like just Being good at what we do, making sure we're delivering, delivering on the roles we say we can deliver on, not over, you know, overpromising and underdelivering, making sure we have the regular contacts. I mean, this is the feedback that we receive when we do our, you know, annual feedback to clients. That's the sort of stuff we receive in terms of just doing what we say we're going to do.

This will be an interesting one. So you've spoken to us about the breakdown of the client's repeat business. Are you doing any sort of productisation of your service, like, or is it just, you know, like with the, you know, the contractor spread that you spoke about, are you sort of saying, well, look, why don't you work with us to, you know, deal with helping you find these 15 contractors, or you're always talking about the individual, like, do you know what I mean? Have you done anything like that?

Yeah, we have done exclusive business on contract as well, like outside of the, what would say, the usual usual methods or usual programme. And then that's obviously what we class as very good, good business. I've got like a repeat project that probably brings me about 10 deals a quarter that I get from, which is good. I mean—

But is most of it contingent then, is that fair?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's mostly contingent. I mean, yeah, from a contract perspective. But I mean, on average last year I was doing probably about 25 to 35 deals a quarter. So probably about 2, 3 a week. My biggest quarter was, I think, Q3. I'd done like 45 deals and I think maybe 10 of those were on exclusive. Really?

Okay. So I think you spoke, a lot of people are interested in, you know, what's been the most effective way for you to win business. I'm right in saying I feel like from today it's about really doubling down on that personalised approach, really doing the upfront work of understanding who you are contacting, understanding as much as you can about their business, mapping out the people in the stakeholders in that organisation and then being really smart with of, you know, how you're reaching out to them and then just being consistent, you know, one, you know, one company a day, 20 people. That's what it seemed like you shared today.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, um, just coming back to that strategic BD versus more transactional, like when you're prospecting your clients, you— the last thing you want to do is like book one meeting in 30 different clients in a quarter, you know.

That's not good.

You're not going to break clients from doing that. So make sure you're smart with the time that you're, yeah, that you're using and going off to Better Business.

And I think a lot of people would be curious about this, and then, um, I'll have one more question. But I think, how, how is it set up in terms of like your, your like team then? Because a lot of people be like, okay, yeah, Matt's done the million, but how many, how many split deals is he doing? How many, you know, how many people has he got supporting them? Because you obviously spoken about the structure team, you've got sales team. How— obviously we don't need to know the percentage of like what, you know, delivery people get to you. I'm not bothered about that. But like, what does it actually look like? Have you got you know, you're bringing the clients, you're spending time on the account management side. Are you doing any of the candidate fulfillment? Do you have, you know, one or two people specifically just work with you? Like, what does that typically look like?

So yeah, so we used to be a 360 model and we moved to 180, and I'd say just from my experience, I think that's the right thing to do if you want to grow your business quickly and aggressively. Um, I've always been a, I suppose, an advocate of having the, you know, the, the best people. If you're really good at sales, you should be focused on that and not worrying about sourcing. And if you're really good on the candidate fulfillment side, you should be specialise in and become a master in that and not worrying about anything else. Since we moved to that model, it was only recently, it was like halfway through or towards the end of last year. We're still in the sort of transition phase, but we can see the potential benefits from that now. In our team, we've got, so we've got 13, so you've got 1 talent lead and we've got 8 recruiters, so 8 talent associates which do the sourcing. So we've got like 2 um, talent associates per salesperson. Yeah. And they're more specialists in, say, HR, procurement, sales and marketing, and customer service and admin.

Right.

So you potentially have like 2, yeah, 2 per salesperson, um, on that side. Yeah.

So that's how we're selling. So basically you're, you're producing that with a team of ultimately like there's 3 of you ultimately, it seems.

What do you mean?

So you, you creating, you know, you doing a million, that's you and then 2 other people supporting you achieve that, right? Yeah.

In terms of what you would say split deals, it's not necessarily the same 2 people though, because—

No, no, but yeah, but like in terms of like guys, how has Matt done that on his own? You haven't done that on your own, that's been a team effort, right? But obviously a huge factor of even getting to that point is having the opportunity and having the companies to do that with. But the way you've set it up is you've always got two people or people that you can lean on to help you fulfill those jobs.

Basically look after the sourcing. Yeah, so it's quite rare. I mean, sometimes now and again I'll have to get involved in sourcing to try and support on the more difficult roles, but But yeah, that, yeah, their job is to find you. It's my job to go and pick up the roles. It's their job to, to find the candidates.

All right, well, let's just end with this then. Like, decades, a long time. A lot of people, you know, listen to this podcast, would love to get to the opportunity to, you know, break a million, achieve their goals, or get into this industry to achieve big things. So what, what would you, you know, be your parting advice for anyone that wants to, you know, aspire to be, you know, as successful as they hope when they join the industry? Like, what, what would you say is the, the sort of one thing that maybe you continue to find yourself giving the advice to the people around you and your team, what would you want to leave people with?

So I'd say, um, uh, yeah, to just make sure, um, it comes out to like, I suppose, comes out to accountability. I'd say, I'd say when you make mistakes, make sure you learn from them. And if something hap— if something happens, like, as I know you've got to drop out on a candidate, for example, um, don't blame everyone else for it. Don't blame the candidate, um, don't blame the client, don't blame the recruitment gods looking down on you. Like, what could you have done differently in that situation? So if you've had a drop why is that dropout? You know, did you qualify that candidate properly? And if you have— if you go into that, everything that you do in recruitment with the right mindset in terms of learning from your mistakes and not, not, um, blaming everyone else all the time, which, which unfortunately is like a natural reaction sometimes when something goes wrong, um, I think you would always learn and develop. And I'm still doing that now when I make mistakes. Now it's like, okay, what should I have done differently? Did I handle that correctly? And I'd say that's probably one of the important, most important things I would say.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

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