Michael Young - The power of building communities and focus on purpose instead of just billings

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Today I'm really excited to be joined by Michael Young, who is the CEO of MBN Solutions, who are an innovative, disruptive recruitment, talent, and people solutions consultancy. They operate globally and work with a range of companies throughout Scotland, UK, Europe, US, and beyond. From the very beginning of Michael starting his own recruitment business, he's been really focused on building communities within his industry. So with that approach, he's ended up founding countless tech meetups such as the Scotland Data and Science Meetup to the Scottish Blockchain Meetup. Something that I know Michael's really proud of is that his business has been involved in a government scheme where they helped companies like the DataLab Innovation Center who are on a mission to help Scotland maximize value from data and lead the world to a data-powered future with local MSc students. And I know a sort of stat that Michael's really proud of is that MBN have actually been involved in helping kickstart 350 master's students to get into the industry as part of that scheme as well, which I think is absolutely amazing. So Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me.

Thanks very much.

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

I think working throughout the years with some really successful recruitment consultants over time, there's been a few traits that have really stuck out to me and played in my mind, and I think One of them is people not just being in it for the short game, knowing that this is a career and really mastering their trade. I've seen people come around and really taking the first even year, maybe even 2 years to really get to know their markets, get to know it well, build communities and become really well known within that market, not just as someone who fills jobs, but somebody who really knows what they're talking about and can talk in depth with. Managers and companies about that. And again, back to the old cliché that the Zilgins, obviously massive, it can be a tough, tough job, especially at the start when you're really learning your trade. So yeah, and having that will to not give up.

I love that. Yeah. So having the long-term mindset. Yeah. Not being transactional. Yeah, I love that. So where we're going to take this conversation, obviously Michael founded his own recruitment business in 2007. So for the last sort of 14, 15 years now, Michael's been really focused on building NBN solutions. So we're going to really unpack that and the sort of things that you've learned along the way up until now. But very, very quickly, always interested to find out, and I know people interested to hear, like, what, how would you describe, obviously, so from what I can see, you've been in the industry from 2000. Like, how would you describe the early years of Michael's recruitment career? Like what, What did that look like? How would you describe it?

Yeah, it was, again, like a lot of others, I went back to university, actually went back when I was about 20, so kind of late learner. I was a welder before that. Really? Yeah, I went back to college and university at 19, 20, and I had never switched a computer on. So that's how far back it was. So I went back to uni and did some IT, then I was doing part-time telesales at BT. So I really liked the sales. Side of things, but I think it's probably as soon as I put my CV on job boards where I did a little bit of IT and some telesales, I had every RecDirect in the world phoning me about jobs in IT recruitment and telling me how much I was going to earn and what it would be like. So I moved to Bristol and started my recruitment career. I actually started in high street recruiters for the first 2 and a half years. Yeah, it's quite a strange journey, but when I was doing high street recruitment, I moved into a little bit of RecDirect myself. And I started, yeah, I started finding a tech engineering startup recruiter, recruitment consultants. And when I was going down and meeting them and talking to them about the job and earning potential and what it was like and environment, I really loved it, loved the sound of that myself. So I approached them myself and asked them for a job. And again, back then I wasn't their usual I wasn't the kind of fresh grad, 21-year-old football crowd, all that kind of stuff. That's what it seemed to be like back then. It was a certain person a lot of people would take on, but the company took a kind of punt on me. And I was at that kind of time in my career. I was actually getting close to, God, close to 30 at the time. So really, yeah, I was ready. I must have been late 20s anyway, definitely late 20s, but I was at that kind of stage. I really wanted to go in and try to make something of myself and really just do what I had to do to succeed. And I think they got that from the interview. So from doing a few years in high street recruitment, I moved into a company who, there was only 4 or 5 of them at the time. They're a multi-global, multi-million-pound business now, but the 2 founders had probably just left jobs where they'd probably made about a quarter of a million to start off in a small office. So it was a real hardcore environment. And I loved it. I learned a lot.

What did you love about it?

I just loved it. I probably was doing the kind of high street stuff and I didn't really, I wasn't really getting taught how to sell and close and work clients and really know what I was doing and the full kind of sales process. And I moved in, I went into a totally different environment and I really loved just the environment, how fast-paced it was, how quite, it was just, it was a real push. I had a manager probably worked with me for 3 to 6 months, more or less sitting with me, just listening to everything I was doing and coaching me and helping me. And I know a lot of people don't like that, like that kind of micromanagement, but I can say now that what I learned in that first 6 months has set me up to where I am today. And if I never had that, I don't know where I would be today. It was amazing. I love that. I learned so much in that first 6 months to a year with a great manager who was one of the founders. Of the companies. So it was, I learned how to be a good perm recruiter in that office. I was one of, there was only a couple of perm guys in a contract office, so I was getting just, I was just there. I can choose what I wanted to work.

I think that's what, I think that's one of the like greatest things about working for a small ground business, I think. And I know you'll probably partner and work with startups and stuff like that, but particularly in recruitment, in that environment. I mean, I joined the, yeah, office of like, I think there were 6 people when I joined, and it didn't end up being a massive business, but I sat next to the owner of the business who was ex-Hays, worked his way up, and like, you just learn so much. So I guess I'd be stupid not to ask, like, if you were to, like, in, like, looking back at that time, if you could maybe condense it to like maybe 2 or 3 like key things that you feel has really kept with you, that has had a really impact, a real impact on your recruitment career, what would you say the 2, 3 things you learned that you think has really sort of given you the best chance of like winning in recruitment out of interest?

I think one of the, as soon as I joined, there was a, it was a 3-page job spec, it was actually sellotaped to my desk and again, speaking to my manager, he told me it took him about 2 years to really master this, to master it in detail so that when it was like any job he would get, he would fill because the job spec would just be amazing. Listening to these people taking these at the time. So that was new to me. So kind of mastering that, which you call it a job spec, but it's everything from intro, finding out to speak to the right person. So mastering that was the best thing.

Wait, wait, wait. So just so I wasn't very clear on that. So when you said job spec, what do you mean? Sorry, as in taking a job or what do you mean?

Yeah, sorry, it was just, just that as in when you first introduce yourself to a client and they've got a job for you. I can remember doing that early days and some of my job specs were, they were being recorded at the time and I listened back now and it was just, I was an absolute robot at the start just trying to read off a script. So getting comfortable with that and being able to kind of guide calls and find as much information as possible from clients was was one of the first things that really helped me. Then again, urgency. Again, just really making things happen. Probably again, sitting in High Street, sitting in, not all High Streets are like that, so don't get me wrong, but sitting in, probably the first few jobs I was in, I wouldn't influence anything. But if the client says somebody was a no, or if a candidate wasn't interested, the conversation would finish there. There, but really allowing them to go in and influence and make decisions happen was massive for me as well. So there are a few of the key things for me as well.

Yeah, I love that. So just quickly, just out of curiosity, because I have my own opinion on this, but like, how, what are your views on like scripts out of interest? Like, yeah, what do you think?

Because I, Definitely not a fan of scripts at all, but I think maybe the first 2-3 months when people are really learning the trade, it's not a bad thing just to have a reference there in front of them when they're maybe getting a little bit tongue-twisted, mixed up, and in a difficult situation where they can maybe go back and help them guide the conversation. But again, it's about making it your own. That's why I think I mentioned when at the start that I was told to learn inside out, to know it so it wasn't like a script and I could jump from the start to the middle to the back to the front and really make it, make it my own. So I think good, good to maybe help guide some conversations at the start.

Yeah, I think the thing what I, the thing what I really like and I do this now when I'm speaking to businesses about recruitment mentors, I think there's a lot to be said to like, I think most people, let's say for example, I was, I don't know, maybe speccing out a candidate or I was trying to get hold of a particular candidate that I know has great skills and great experience. But personally, I do feel like there's a lot to be said to actually make the time to understand like what types of pains and things that you're going to highlight or talk about and communicate that in the right way. Because I think if you go into like a candidate spec call, you go into headhunting call or even a cold call, whatever, and like you're just relying on understanding what you need to say rather than just thinking about or knowing the sort of core of what you want to get across, I think you're just making it more difficult for yourself. And I think if you were to say, maybe to say to your team now, like, if you were to speak to a client for the very first time, what would be your elevator pitch? How many of them would be able to reel that off? Don't know. And that's just super valuable because you need to think about the pains the real pains that obviously you can solve and all those sorts of things. And I think there's a lot to be said to like just for maybe things that you do a lot of the time, speccing out CVs, introducing yourself, it's worth thinking of like, okay, what is my message in that? And then, I don't know, I think there's a lot.

Totally, 100%. And I know a lot of good businesses, they kind of bring that into their kind of weekly and fortnightly training and they run through things like that and go through different scenarios and really train quite heavily on that. That people are prepared to get what they need.

Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely help a lot early on as well. If you listen to this early on, definitely think about what do I typically always say on these calls and just write it down, make sure you're happy with it and have something that you can lean on before you like really master it, I think. So I guess to sort of finalize this then, obviously you've now hired plenty of people for your own business. Like what, what would your advice be for people who are early on in that sort of recruitment journey to like really maximise the opportunity that they have. So like, let's say I'm listening to this, I'm in my first year, maybe first 2 years. Like, what would your advice be to me if I have aspirations to be a top biller, be sort of do really great? What would you be saying to me, do you think?

I would, I would say really, really try and look at a niche and be the best in that niche. Don't just rely on your day job. Take time, go to meetups, set up your own meetups, learn from others, attend events, and really get to know your market inside out and get to know the people in it. Take time and build communities and networks and get to know candidates. The best people I work with now, if they get a job within their niche market, they're not going to job boards and going to A lot of their CRMs, they'll maybe know 10, 15 people who they can talk to, who they can call on straight away, who will either be good for the job or know people for the job because they've built respect and trust in their markets. I think that's so important. Yeah. And I know a lot of people early on in recruitment, there is a lot of— I've seen it throughout the years myself and others— there's a lot of imposter syndrome within recruitment. Consultants as well early on. They think they're only a year into this and they're speaking to maybe chief data officers and senior data people and they don't feel that they're in a position to really be dealing with them as well. So if you can get that out of your head as soon as you possibly can. I can remember it was massive for me for a couple of years. It was quite daunting going and speaking, going and meeting people who were like senior directors within data and analytics within big businesses. I was going to Just when I was alone in recruitment, so I think that's really confidence, yeah, and believe in what you do.

Yeah, so a couple of things and we'll go into you starting your own recruitment business, which I find really interesting what you just shared there. So, so the first thing, just always interested to hear people's opinions on this and it's come up a lot on this podcast. So having a niche, like what's your definition of like, like what would be like, you know what I mean? Like in your opinion, what is like niche enough out of interest? Like how would you just talk to me a bit about that? Because I think that'd be interesting for people.

Definitely. So you can go, you can go really, really niche. Some people are doing that. Some people are doing amazing. I've heard about some companies selling their businesses recently who have been really niche, but getting 9x multipliers as well on that. Yeah, but Yeah, software development. It used to be, if you're a software development consultant, you would cover all aspects of software development. But now we've got a few people doing software development and one will just cover like either JavaScript or.NET or Java. So that will take it right down to that. I think you need to do that as well. We do a lot of, we're kind of data science recruiters as well. So really niching it down to like computer vision, which is massive. Multi-billion-pound industry on its own and really niching it down as far as you possibly can. Okay, just getting really getting to know that market.

Yeah, yeah. So I guess if we were to turn that into a lot of football analogy then, yeah, I see with it being, uh, the Euros. Yeah, well, when, when this goes out, the Euros might answer it. Yeah, be interested to see who. So I guess, so like, just to make this really clear then, so like maybe Yeah, if you're someone that's listened to this and let's say that you're someone that recruits football players for the Premier League, like that, what Michael's saying here is that potentially isn't niche enough. So actually you want to go a step further and go, I recruit football players for the Premier League and I only recruit right backs and left back fullbacks. It might just be that, do you get what I mean? And it's like taking that step further, isn't it? And, and I guess like obviously the advantage of that from what you're sharing is like that if you do that and just stay in that lane, you're going to have even more better chance of really understanding who the main players are in that market, where the talent is, where to go for the talent. So when you do— so everyone wants to be that go-to person in that space. And yeah, it's about really making sure that you're giving yourself enough. If it is that niche, then you're going to have more opportunity to really know that market inside out. Whereas if it's still too wide, it's going to be hard to really be known and understand it all.

I work with some people at the moment, they're starting to make it look easy at the moment because, but this is maybe 5, 6 years of really working in a country to start with, within a niche and really take the time to get to know people. But again, it takes trust as well. You need to really deliver on this and it could be a couple of years of delivering. Then you need to have the You need to have the personality to go on with people and build relationships. And most of them, I'm still working with. I placed my first ever analyst in 2005, and I still talk to the hiring manager and the person I placed every other month. And that's brought out— there was a small team of data professionals we placed in Lloyds in Bristol. It was a real A-team. They were a real good team. But they're all over the UK now working for big businesses. And I got on well with them all. Enough. It's just that it's about that as well.

And then just two final things, sorry. So one thing is just out of curiosity, how have you gone up? Because I'm sure you've done this with your business now. What's your thought process and advice on identifying a niche, like a profitable niche? Maybe not profitable is the right word, but like a niche that you would get excited about where you see opportunity, if you get what I mean. Like, what's your like appropriate? Like, what do you typically look for to go, you know what, if we had someone just focused on that, in 2, 3, 4 years' time, that could be a really strong part of our recruitment business?

Definitely. You can look at a lot of different market trends, market trends, what's happening in the press, look at what companies are getting bought, where the startups are coming from as well, especially around a bit like in healthcare and AI and machine learning and stuff like that. And you can look at, talk to other people, see how, look at other businesses, look at other recruiters, see how well they're doing within niches as well and just follow trend there.

Okay. So just market trends.

Yeah. But again, just, you can't just jump into a niche and think you're going to be a master in it within like 3 to 6 months.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Loads of tech recruiters came into the data market there just as soon as it really started booming and they were just kind of spraying themselves as data recruiters just because they've done IT recruitment for a while. But it's totally different as well. And at this point in time, Takes time.

Then the other thing I just wanted to make sure that I asked you, because I completely agree, because I've seen this a lot when working with recruiters on, like, recruiters that are sort of quite early on in their career on like helping them market themselves more effectively. But one of the biggest obstacles that they have for themselves is like that imposter syndrome piece, or like they don't feel like they're— I don't know if the right word's worthy, but they don't think they're credible enough. To like be talking about that yet. So just talk to me because I'm sure you've had to help obviously people in your team work through this. Like you could talk about yourself or like, like how if I'm listening to this and maybe I'm struggling with that, like how, what are the typical things that one helps you work through that to gain more confidence or two that you've been doing with your employees that have helped them work through that?

Definitely a lot of it. God, it's one of the biggest things within our businesses at the moment is trying, people are doing amazing things. Even some people are doing like podcasts and writing excellent stuff, but they still won't put their name against it and say, this is an excellent project I've been working on. A lot of it is just confidence. And sometimes it's maybe going and looking at different— you might have to go out and look at some personal development. And it's not always recruitment training that can help with this. There might be other self-development courses around about confidence and stuff like that as well. It's a very, very hard one. I know. Personally, for myself, it was, I'd been in recruitment 3, 4 years. I wasn't really into all that at all, but it was once I kind of started my own business and I had to do it, if that makes sense. I really had to. I had to go, I need to start building a personal brand here. And I think a lot of it, I don't know, a lot of it kind of maybe came with me through maybe just kind of getting maturity and a wee bit more confident within myself because it's, it's massive. Some people have really, really got it early on, day one, they'll come in, you see what they're doing. But you need to be really authentic about it as well. You need to be. It needs to sound like you and be you because people see through that as well. It's a hard one to give advice on. We just try and teach people slowly but surely, build it up. It's something I'm really looking at at the moment, is people's own personal branding.

Yeah, I think What I would say, and it'd be good to get your thoughts, is I think, and I definitely struggle with this, so I think sometimes recruiters can get too caught up on like what they're not knowledgeable on, and I'll explain what I mean. So let's say I enter the tech market tomorrow and I want to be seen as like the go-to person and the expert. Obviously, one, I'm not going to be an expert overnight, that's just, that's just That's just part of the process. But I think sometimes what recruiters forget is, let's say that my niche is, yeah, JavaScript developers. Like, the insight and the value that you have is actually the amount of JavaScript developers that you speak to on a daily, weekly basis and the insight that you get from that, rather than you're never going to know as much as that JavaScript developer about writing code like that. And I think sometimes that's where recruiters get a bit caught up because they think 'Oh, for me to be talking about this, or for me to ring this person and be on the level with them, I need to— I'm not as competent as them.' Or— but like, the recruiters don't get paid to do the— what you're never going to get paid to do what your candidates do, right? The insight and the value that you have, which is why you should view it as you're both sitting on this at the same table, no one's harder than another, is that actually the huge value that you offer is, 'I speak to X number of people like you every single day.' How many people 'Do you speak to, like yourself?' 'Oh, you know what, boy, there's only a couple of people in my team, got a couple of friends, it might be under 10 people.' Well, I speak to 10 people a day like you. So the value and insight that I have and where I'm an expert is understanding what's going on. And I think it's that that sometimes people get mixed up on. It's like what they're like experts in.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Again, honestly, couldn't agree more. I remember at the start with this crazy data science world, thinking I had to talk about stuff like that. And it was definitely not me. But I think people are getting the value where they're talking about clients that have maybe turned around a contract vacancy within 24 hours, or clients that have maybe taken 2 weeks to make an offer. So it's talking about what you're seeing in that stuff as well.

Yeah, exactly.

It's all that kind of stuff. You definitely don't need to be talking about technical stuff, but you might know of skills. Yeah, skills that are starting to that you start to see that in the market and clients have taken on, like notice trends and stuff like that. So talking more about that rather than—

Yeah, exactly. That's the information. So like when you're saying you need to know your market inside out, embed yourself in it, that doesn't mean by the end of it, 15 years later, you're going to be able to do what they do. It's more about, yeah, like understanding the trends, what's going on, what good companies are doing and all these sorts of things. Okay.

Definitely.

Let's, let's talk about MBN Solutions then. So obviously, so started that in 2007. Yeah, obviously, uh, worked in for a, obviously, a couple of different recruitment businesses. What I, I will start here because a lot of people, and I'm sure you've been in these conversations, will be down the pub or wherever it is going, ah, imagine if I was making all this money for myself and wasn't employed, doing all that, like, what gave you the confidence to take that first step and actually start, do you think?

So probably always wanted, always had that entrepreneurial kind of thing about me, even when I was doing, I was welding and at school I used to see the kind of people on the trains going into business and always had that kind of thing about me from an early age, wanted to be an entrepreneur. So it was a good opportunity for me, I was looking in Bristol, probably could have had my 30s, and I just felt as if it was time to move back to Scotland. The situation was good for me, so after 5 great years in Bristol, I moved back to Glasgow and I had the opportunity to start on my own. I think I actually got my mum to— my mum actually got me a £10,000 bank loan at the time. Really? I didn't have the credit to get it, so she kind of got me that, helped me get a It was old colleague, I think, database, helped me get kind of set up on that.

How much of a runway did that give you?

Okay, it gave us, it probably gave us a couple of months. I had a, there was a, there's a really well-known businessman in Glasgow, absolute gentleman of a guy, who gave us a back room, just an office in there. Really? Use the office and phones and stuff and an old computer there. So we had that and It was just a few licenses and stuff back then in the days. It was totally different. It was, you would go in and my first ever deal placement was with Gala Choral based down in Nottingham. But my second and third and fourth deal were within that department, within people they had worked with. So it was more just about, it was more just networking and referrals.

How long did it take you to do the deal?

I was doing a deal, I done a deal quick. I think I was, I done my deal in the first month anyway. I was up and running quick. It was good times back then, just as it is right now. Yeah, you know, I was again, I was, I had so much kind of fear of failure. I was, I would not have, I've always kind of been that way. They talk about some of the situations I've had in starting business and some of the stresses, which I know probably 99% of people would just pack it in and go, go work for a big organization. But I was, I was on it. I was just I gave it 100%. I really want to make it. I wouldn't have failed no matter what, but I didn't have a clue what I was doing, if I'm being totally honest. I'd never managed anybody in my life. Didn't know about finance, accounts, back office, marketing, anything like that at all. So I had no real knowledge of business and running teams and running P&Ls and all that kind of stuff. I just knew how to kind of get on a phone And again, do deals. Do some deals then. So probably never grew and scaled as quick as I could have because it was just hiring a few people and getting things in place. Then after a few years of probably really banging my head off a wall with different things, I started to get out for more external help with non-execs and other things and support with accounts and finance. When I first started the business, I had an accountant someone recommended them and I used to get down, a business that was doing decent cash at the time, I used to get down, just had a one-page report. Here you go. Told me nothing. Told me absolutely nothing.

So, it was crazy. So let's break this down a bit over the next sort of 30 minutes. Let's break this down. Obviously 14 years is, and I'm sure it just feels like a big sort of blur, like this, all of this, right? So, so let's just talk about, I guess a good question to start is, that would give value to people is, I guess you've got the benefit of hindsight now, right? So thinking, looking back now, if you were to start those first couple of years again and start a recruitment business again, I guess what sort of things would you maybe do differently? What would you invest in sooner rather than later? Talk to us about maybe what you would do differently at the beginning of that journey that you think would have had a positive impact.

So I think I would put all my eggs in the baskets and all emphasis on just sales and doing deals and bringing in the top salespeople. They're the most important people you can have in a business because I was just so focused on sales and bringing in top sellers and getting people up and running. And I really lost track on the things that are so important to me now. I've actually been back after 13, 14 years and I've just brought in Frencheria now. So we're nearly close to getting 100% system compliance before we're looking at other systems like that. So I would put a lot more emphasis on real processes and systems and spend—

And why would that have helped? Why would that have helped out of interest? Because I feel like they're the types of things that can go out the window. You're like, oh, we'll do that when we're like 10, 15 people. Like, why would that have helped?

It would just help you get to 10 to 15 people much quicker. You would have all your kind of systems and your operations team in place to make things run a lot smoother as well. You'd be fully compliant as well. You would have a repetitive system where you could just plug new people into it as well, and it would work for you. You would know your clients better. We've invested Heavily this year, last, just tail end of last year on, I brought in a business-to-business marketer, non-recruitment background, and I believe he's going to really transform our business in terms of lead generation and knowing our customers. We're looking at a very, very exciting project at the moment based on account management, as we're looking at, let's just go and hire a big senior account manager, bring somebody in like that, and he'll solve everything. But we've worked within our marketing and our MD and client services director to say, we don't, after 14 years, we don't have our data is not in a place yet to bring somebody senior in to do account management. So we're working on a cracking project at the moment, all about onboarding, but it's marketing-led through kind of things like HubSpot and Fincherry, just to really, to get to know our customers inside out. It's been fascinating. This year's been a fascinating journey within operations, bringing in Vincere, looking at what we're doing with marketing, and I guess it's really going to— we're onboarding people much easier at the moment as well. Our systems are really in place and it's allowed us now to— we've told our staff now, look, we're a fully flexible model. We'd love you to come to our big beautiful office in Glasgow, which I'm always shouting about, but the team are doing absolutely amazing from home at the moment. We've hired somebody fully remote in London. We're hiring somebody fully remote in Cambridge, somebody fully remote outside Edinburgh, hopefully. And it's really given us a platform for growth and it's just all down to full system compliance. So we've got a snapshot of our business straight away. It's so important.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, talk to me a bit about, just to try and make this really easy for sort of future business owners or current business owners to understand.

Yeah.

Talk to me a bit about, so like the, you know, the systems and process that you're talking about. So are you talking about in all areas of your business? So if we sign, so let's say that we partner with a new business, this is what that system looks like going from signing terms to onboarding them. Or are you also talking about systems on, okay, if we hire someone new for the business tomorrow, this is sort of what they have to do. We're also talking about systems of this is how we typically bring, this is how we do new business, this is how we typically source, like have systems on that. But what have been some of the like most important systems and processes that you've implemented or spent time working out that?

Yeah, well, for 6 months I'm really looking at everything within the business. We've hired a new senior operations manager who's been brilliant, and we've actually brought in a consultant as well who's set up years and years of experience working with companies who have been able to scale country to country. A lot of it is real compliance around the contractors and stuff like that. So really all that kind of stuff, fully onboarding customers as well. You would, in recruitment, you would onboard a lot of customers and you would maybe hear, you would maybe do a placement here, a placement there. And sometimes salespeople are just focused on getting the deals done as well, which is amazing. But we're really focusing now on knowing our customers and in bringing these customers into the business. So they're sitting with a full business and as soon as they commit, they'll be fully onboarded within Vincere, but they'll also be fully onboarded on our real onboarding and marketing process as well. So we're taking them on a journey with white papers, events. But at the moment, we don't know our customers well enough to know exactly what they want. So we brought a marketing person in and said, give me another 6 months and I'll be able to tell you exactly what these people want and give them what they want as well. And that's going to really help massively with cross-selling across all our verticals. It's quite an exciting project at the moment. I thought I knew a lot about marketing and real events and stuff like that, but I've been doing so much about massive communities, thousands of people, but I don't know, I don't know my audience or my assets at all. And that's what I'm really working on at the moment. And that it'll turn this into a massive lead machine as well, where a lot of business will be coming from systems and marketing. It'll be all automated and it'll be plugged back into the sales team. Just interesting.

So what I'd be really keen— so there's a couple of things I definitely want to make sure that we discuss before we finish. So we'll definitely talk to you about the community element. Obviously touched on that in the introduction and just talk about why that's been impactful, how it's impacted your business, etc. Definitely want to talk to you about the non-exec getting support. A lot of business owners are open-minded. I feel like more and more businesses are open-minded to partnering with the right NED. It's just actually finding the right NED or like this. And then, yeah, definitely want to talk to you about hiring, culture, and those things. So let's just, let's just start with the community because you're talking a lot about marketing here.

Yeah.

So like Obviously, from what I can see, obviously you've started several meetups in your market, right? So why don't we, why don't we start by then, like, just, just making this, like, really clear for everyone listening. You may still be cynical and skeptical about doing stuff like meetups. Like, how would you— like, if I was to go, Michael, I'm thinking about doing this meetup for my market. Like what would the pitch to me be like? Like, how has it impacted your business? Like, has it generated revenue? What has it enabled? What is it? How has it impacted your recruitment business?

Definitely. So we are very much community-led with the strategy day the other week and our purpose as people, we love people. So the community is very valuable to us. So I started, I was doing events in London with eBay and ASOS and IBM, probably around about 2015. And I know a lot of recruiters are doing tech and data science events at the moment, but there was nobody doing them back then. So we were bringing 100 data scientists— they weren't even data scientists back then, but data professionals— into rooms and tech professionals and talking about real industry. The industry, we didn't ever once talk about recruitment. So really, since then, we've run a number of events in London, all over London, but in Scotland, about I started Scotland Data Science and Technology. It's probably got about 4,500 people in it, well over 4,000 there the last time I counted. But I started this in 2015, summer 2015, and I haven't missed a single month ever since it started. And any advice to anybody who wants to start a meetup, you need to be consistent with this. You may get 5 people, 4 people, 3 people turning up at the start, but the key is consistency, getting good speakers. And being consistent. Since then, we've got a cloud one and a blockchain one. We've got over 7,000 people, but the community has been massive for us. The amount of revenue and new clients. We actually, we work with startups and scaleups, and part of our offering is actually bringing them into our communities and letting them talk about their product to audiences on our platform. I've got Scottish government now phoning me in a monthly basis now with new businesses moving into Scotland for us to help bring them in to come into our communities, tell them about Talent, the place, what it's like, and ultimately get the jobs from them as well. It's just, it's getting us in front of people every month. So everybody, especially in Scotland, everybody knows about NBN and data now. We also do an exclusive roundtable month, every month at the moment, there's maybe 20 people on it, they're like 25, 30, depends. The last one was about data strategy and it's invite only as well. We don't do a lot on LinkedIn about it, but it's bringing us in front of the key people. Clients we've worked with for years and years. So it's just helping cement relationships. It's the best thing I've ever done within business and I love it as well. I set it up, I speak to people every month for coming and talking and It's the amount of candidates and clients. We may be able to measure it a bit better now we've got a really good marketing person, but it's been phenomenal.

So just really quickly, like, so like final thing on that, and I totally get this, but I want to make, I just really want to try and, like, and I still think there's so much opportunity for recruiters to start things like this. There will be people that start and then, like you said, won't be consistent. But I think with I feel like the modern-day recruiter will be super niche. So if you're able to serve your niche by bringing people together, regardless of how many other recruiters are doing stuff like this, that'll be so valuable for your niche, right? So just really quickly, just to like, I just want it to make this sound like really as simple as possible. So talk me through a typical journey maybe where there's, I don't know, let's say that there's a scale-up or startup that you've identified or someone in your team has identified in Scotland that you want, that you think that you guys could work with, right? Talk to me about how, like, how the events would help, like, that person or that business become a client. Is it they then get approached to go, hey, may or may not know, but we run, we're actually the founders of Scotland Data and Science. Wanted to reach out to let you know that this is a community you can be part of. We've partnered with, like, so like helps with the BD, we speak, and then they maybe attend an event, get involved, they find out a bit more about you. I'm assuming you then maybe follow up or whatever, and then there's a recruitment conversation at some point. What is the typical journey of going not a client to being a part of the community and becoming a client? Just to spell this out for people, like how it actually could work.

So you're building that relationship from the first call. You're really showing them you're credible within your market. You're talking to the communities you've built. So first of all, if you're looking to find them people, you're talking about the people you know within that community. There's 4,000 people within Scotland within data. We know a lot of them. So that's massive to them as well. Yeah. And then, and then lots of the, if they're a typical startup scale-up, that they will have a product that they want to get out to the market as well. So we can allow them a bit like the way We allow them to come in and talk at the meetups and talk about— we tell them, 'Sell yourself.' It's not a sales pitch, but we let them— we bring them into the community. So that gets their business known much quicker, much quicker than it would in any other circumstances. But you're just cementing that relationship straight away. You're showing them you're credible. You're showing them, you know, people within that industry. And it's— you're telling them that you don't need to go anywhere else to find the best talent within this niche market, because I've I'm working on it, I find people in it, I build events in it, I know speakers. It really helps massively.

And then, and then do these people, can these people then literally at some point go, oh, hey, like, what does MBN do? Or can MBN help me with this? Or like, does it just end up organically going that way? Or like, do you direct? Do you direct and say like—

A lot of the calls are actually, a lot of the calls to get them into our community and get them on our events is led by a a first conversation where they're going to be looking to build and scale and hire anyway. Okay. A lot of, a majority of them is led from that. If they're going to be one of our clients, an add-on for us is we can bring them into that community. But again, if we're really targeting people and there's, we've been able to speak to people for a long time and we can't get any inroads into companies, a good way is to get them to come and speak at an event because you're having a conversation for an hour about the event and what it entails and what it's going to be like. So there's an instant relationship built straight away and it can lead to that.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that a common— we've had people like talk about this where it's really impacted their recruitment desk or business. And I think what I really take from what you're describing there is like, if you take a potential client through a journey like that, you're giving them so much before you take anything. Do you know what I mean? If that's giving them a platform to tell them about their product to their target audience or other people that could help them, or giving them direct access to all these people that could potentially be great employees for them. Yeah, there's just so much that you can give before you take.

But, and a lot, a lot won't ever become clients as well and might use a competitor. But on the flip side of that, we are bringing these great business case presentations to the audience as well. So on the flip side of just the client side, we are bringing this to the candidates, the potential candidates, the community. On a monthly basis as well. So you're in their minds as well. And if they're looking, they'll usually give me a shout or give one of my colleagues a shout if one of their colleagues is looking to hire a senior data person. A lot— I can sit on a weekly basis and get 4 or 5 key-level hires emailed into me through the community I've built, which can be passed down on our team to go and help fill that. It's really— it's making it a lot easier, but I kind of love what I do as well. So there is a difference. I'm quite passionate about it, enjoy it, and it gets me out and about speaking to people, and I just enjoy that type of thing as well. So you need to be, again, it's like everything, you need to be in that for the long game as well.

Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not, yeah, you can't just start if you think it's gonna help you, yeah, like build 100 grand more a year, like it's got to be more than that, obviously. Talk to me about Talk to me about your journey with sort of NEDs then. Yeah, non-exec directors, or getting support. Like, talk to me about one, I guess, how did you find one? What's been your overall experience? How has it actually helped you grow this recruitment business? Like, just talk to us a bit about that, because I know there'll be a lot of business owners listening, or future business owners thinking about, oh, there'll be a lot of things that I'm— I haven't done before and I'd love to get help. Like, talk to us a bit about journey with that?

I think the main thing I could say is really take your time with this. Please don't jump into the first person that comes to you and maybe sees you're a young startup recruitment business is starting to do well, because there'll be a lot of people out there who really try and hook on to you then, who might not be the best person for your business. So take your time, research them, look at their background, speak to people about them. Please do that before you engage with anyone. That's so important. But A good advisor, en, es, de, can really transform your business. For me, again, it was for the business side of things, the kind of scaling side of things, the strategy. I took my time, found somebody who was a Scottish-based non-exec who had some good recruitment experience, but also found a real London-based guy who He's a kind of a management consultant, a real strategy kind of guy who helps work on capital events and exits as well. So he's really helped us kind of transform the, just the look and feel of the business. We actually moved a little bit from the MBN Recruitment, MBN Recruitment to MBN Solutions, but that was a well kind of thought-out strategy. We looked at the, and it was just all about the events and the white papers we were putting out. It was a lot of really industry stuff. As well. So we've got a lot of advice on that. But again, unless you've been here, done it before, and really built and scaled something, if you've not got that experience or you've not hired anybody with that experience, go and find somebody who knows how to do it. It can really transform your business, definite. But it needs to be the right people because it's so important. You hear so many horror stories as well.

Yeah, yeah. Do you have any— did you go into to speak to anyone that you're like, I don't know, not having any good experiences with?

I went to speak to a couple of people at the start and it didn't feel right. It wasn't right.

What didn't feel right about it? Was it that you just, did you feel like they were just trying to sell you something? I don't know what.

I think it's like I've got 2 non-exec directors who I've been on holidays with them now. I've went on endurance events with them. I've got on with them kind of personally and professionally as well. I think it's quite important. It was quite important to me because I'm a people's person to really kind of find people who I got on with. But again, you can find amazing people who can help you with certain parts of your journey. Then you can look at other people for different journeys. I think it just depends where you are at the moment. If you're looking at processes and systems, find somebody who knows, who can do that inside out. It doesn't need to be a big entrepreneur strategy strategic consultant. It could be somebody who was a high-level ops person within a business before. We're speaking to somebody at the moment who's been absolutely amazing for us. I can tell you that right now. It's like, wow, some of the stuff they're bringing because they've done that in their job for 5, 6 years. Just find people, just find out what you need, where you want to take the business. You might need, maybe a couple of years of solid work with them to get to here. Then you might look at a different journey. I think that's quite important.

I love that. So before we finish then, talk to me about what's been your journey, what's been your, I guess, let's start like, what's been your biggest challenge in growing this business from a hiring, like bringing people on the bus and having them in the right seats? Like what's been your biggest challenge there? Because I get sort of messages all the time on sort of people who may be at that sort of 5, 10, 15 mark and really struggle to get anywhere past 20. They're always sort of yo-yoing. Like, talk to me a bit about what have you had to learn the hard way in terms of hiring the right people? Talk to us about that.

Yeah, I've learned the hard way. Definitely. Really, really learned the hard way. Like most, like a lot of people can be, I think. You always used to always be a massive emphasis on people's balance and what they could build and what they could bring in. Financially and a lot of the other characteristics and traits were great, and that can be a recipe for disaster. So I think for us it's been a massive learning curve, honestly. I could sit and talk about this all day. I've really, over the past while, really trying to kind of find people who are quite purpose-led people as well, people who have got a real kind of passion for people and a passion for what they're what they do and are looking for a bit of longevity within a career.

What did you find yourself looking at before? Was it just—

I just thought about 200, about 300, get them in, don't even really need to interview them, they'll be fine as long as they can bring in numbers. That was probably what I was kind of brought up with back then, which is it didn't work well for me. It has as well. I've hired different people who have got really good kind of family morals as well. One of our kind of top ballers at the moment is a young guy, tried football, professional football, but he kind of fell into recruitment. He actually wrote me one of these letters, 'Mr. Young, can I— I'm interested.' And I was like, caught my eye, and I brought him in. But he's really motivated with his family. He's getting really good paychecks at the moment. He went down, gave his mum a car there and all that, and looks after his kind of grand— stuff like that as well. I'm starting to really look for people who are quite similar-minded. And I know it might not be the be-all and end-all for massive— I know companies are looking for like hiring 30, 40, 50 people and scale, scale, scale. But the way I'm looking to kind of do it at the moment is bringing in good professionals, decent people who are good with clients. I'm not going to mess with clients about and really go on well with them and deliver. Or if they don't deliver, they'll talk about why they're not delivering. I think it's so important.

Have you experienced typically more people that have recruitment experience rather than not?

Most of our kind of, a lot of our kind of top people at the moment are people I brought in without any recruitment experience at all and we're going to train them. But recently this year, I've been focusing on experience. I'd love to take on grads and rookies at the moment, but we're just fully remote in Scotland still at the moment and trying to work out the best way to bring on people with no experience, but I've hired a few people who have been experienced. I really took my time.

But again, any learnings there? Because you do hear the challenges in that.

Top learning is do your homework. Do your homework. Go and speak to people who've maybe worked with in the past. Look at some clients they've worked with. Get them to talk about some of the clients they work with. You might know some of them as well. I know you can't always do those reference checks before you hire them, but please do your due diligence. Do your diligence. I've hired some really good people who have really took my time and I've actually, we've even gone after them. We've identified who they are and went after them ourselves and really tried to come and persuade them to come and join us because we know that they're good. But again, it's hard. I've had a few really good experiences lately, but who knows what the future will hold us. I've been using this SPQ SPQ tool at the moment as well, which has been really, really good.

What's that?

The personality assessment? It's a recruitment-specific one.

What's it called? SPQ?

SPQ. I'll find out because it's quite a good one. I'll give the guy a plug on that.

What's good about it?

Why? It's a real recruitment one and it's been right so many times for us at the moment. It's made us maybe not hire people just before we've been ready to pull the trigger. It showed us some small concerns with people before they've joined, which helped us really, really do a training round about it.

Yeah, like help on that.

Yeah.

So what sorts of things are of interest? What sorts of things can it unearth?

Maybe like right around about sales. It could be stuff about imposter syndrome, about proving, you know, not the real sales level stuff, but it's really identified some key strengths within like customer experience and professionalism and stuff like that as well, which has been key for us in Recently, a recent one was where we have hired somebody and we went back after them being with us for a while and did the test. This one must have failed through the day. I don't know why we've never done the test, but we did it after they started, and it really, it was a great report, as I knew it would be, but it did show a real, like, it could be a great start, but this person could start getting overwhelmed if they're too busy, they could have too much on, and the daily 2 days later, the guy, they phoned up his manager, I've got quite a lot on it, and I will— there is a real science behind this. And again, it's something I'm just starting to— I think his name's Dominic Walters, SPQ. But it's been, again, it's a recruitment one, and it's something— the science behind this, that's the beauty. We're really learning the science behind everything at the moment.

Yeah, I'll definitely, I'll definitely find out what that tool is. We'll get it in the show notes because I know Stuff like that people are really interested in.

Yes, thank you.

So, so as we finish then, talk to me about how are you feeling about continuing to cultivate the MBN culture in this sort of— it seems like you're going down the part remote, in the office. Like, how are you feeling about as a business owner? I'm interested, like, how are you— are there any, are there any things that you're doing on a weekly, monthly basis to ensure that that culture is still there. I don't know, how are you feeling about it?

So nervous a little bit as well, but I'm quite excited about the future at the moment. Honestly, I've done a lot of kind of work on myself probably over the past 18 years, 18 months to 2 years. I've done a lot of— I've really myself can handle my kind of pressure and stresses. I've got right into like crazy ultra runs and big challenges, and I've done a lot of the cold water exposure. So I feel as if I'm pretty calm into meditation and all that, probably done a bit hippie these days, but it's really helped me run the business more kind of purpose-led and looking at the people and seeing what good we can do with our organization to help other people as well. So we're really looking closely at our people. We will be fully remote, but we're looking at doing a lot more kind of days together when we can and bringing people together. And again, it's something I don't know, I've just really We've always, again, I've always been looking at sales, sales, sales, and it was company lunches and it's salespeople, it's top sellers, top sellers. But I was on a kind of company lunch there, this might be quite controversial for the recruitment industry, but a company kind of sales runners lunch there and there was 8 of us on it. And I thought, I really feel as if our business and NBN's in a position where it's much more than just the sales at the moment. Our ops is really leaning in, our finance is leaning in, our marketing is really leaning in. I feel as if it's time now to bring the business into one, and I guess, I don't know if that's maybe other recruitment leaders and business people taking a listen to that, there's so much more than just the sales within a business. You do need that, but to get the clock working, it's got to be one company and one team. And I'm really emphasizing, I'm pushing on that at the moment, trying to bring people together, look at our values, our strategy, what we're doing moving forward. And leaning in because there's people, you know, who you just keep an eye out on. People, there's people who are quiet, maybe the odd days here and there, the odd week here and there, and it's really leaning in to make sure they're okay at the moment. Like, it's so important.

I love that. Come a long way since never managing people, doing all that, right?

I'm very fortunate to love what I do. I still get as much passion today as I have when I first started. It's just changing yearly, monthly, weekly. It's good things. The market is so busy at the moment, and I feel as if it's— the tides are turning now. Good quality recruitment businesses and recruitment consultants can now pick and choose who they want to work with instead of it being the other way about. And I think that's so important to be in a niche and really, really master your trade, because if you do, You will be able to pick and choose the companies you want to work with based on their values, how they work, the hiring process, all that kind of stuff. It's really strong emphasis on quality over quantity and looking at more can I retain stuff. And if you are an expert in your field, you should be getting paid for what you're doing from the start as well. For years we've been really contingency and busting our chops doing a great job and getting cracking people through a process, maybe a month's work to not get paid. So that kind of mission at the moment is really looking at how we can change that and what the companies that share our kind of values and work ethos as well.

Yeah, I love that. So look, final question for you, Michael. What's the ultimate goal for your recruitment career?

Yeah, just keep building at the moment, take the business more international, hire some real quality people, get into a position where we've got good more of a real solid structure across sales processes and start bringing on more people and see what else we can do to bring about a good in this world as well. Well, we're all being successful, I guess, important. Well, share some of the success with less people and more less fortunate than yourselves.

Love it. Michael, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Okay, thanks very much.