Owed £1.8M & Lost 85 Contractors: The Reality of Scaling a Contract Business with Nasar Rehman

Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to quickly shine a light on the 3 partners who are behind the mission of the podcast this year. First up, we have Atlas. This isn't just another CRM with AI added on as an afterthought. Atlas 2.0 is the first platform in our space built with AI from the ground up and at its core. Next up, we have our longtime partner Sourcewell. You may know them as a world-class outbound sequencing tool, but they fully evolved into a multi-modular system. And the best part is you can plug and play their tools from the AI note-taker to the inbox agent, all without ripping out your entire tech stack. And finally, Raise. They remain the most powerful way to fund and run your contract book if you want to unlock cash flow and scale your agency with total confidence. You have to check them out. So if you go to the link in the description below, you're going to be able to get access to exclusive offers to all 3 of our partners this year. Let's get into this week's episode. Naz, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me here, Shaun.

I know you listen to the show.

I do, yeah.

Caught you in between from being in Dubai.

Yeah.

So we've got doing this in person in London Bridge.

Yeah.

And we've been on a really cool journey.

So far, so good, as they say.

So what we're going to unpack in this conversation is we've been on this entrepreneurial journey for between 6 and 7 years.

Yeah.

There's a few things that we feel like have been important on this journey. There's a lot of things that we could talk about, but some of the things that we're going to really focus on that we think will help a lot of other people is what it feels like to lose a lot of contractors in a big account. Yeah. The experience of starting your own recruitment business with a clear track record of being successful at contract recruitment, but then taking a little while to get it going. Of course, that comes with challenges. And then because of those lessons, I think something— whenever I speak to great contract recruiters, something that they're always thinking about is protecting their book, future-proofing their book. So we're going to talk a bit about, because of the things that you've been through, how you now help the people in your business really make sure that they don't find themselves in a situation where their contract book is gone overnight, and the future-proofing, they're being proactive. And then we've also done some really cool and smart things when it comes to the actual business itself. So I'm going to talk about this offshore function in Morocco. That you've built or building. I think a lot of people will be interested in that. And then also setting up and expanding into the UAE, was there and started that in like 2023 versus like recently, right? So is it maybe a bit early compared to when a lot of people gone out?

Before it was fashionable.

Yeah. So yeah, she's gonna talk about the benefits of that, what that experience has been like, and just overall some really good lessons in terms of building this, this business. Is the plan.

If we follow the process, yeah.

So to give everyone a bit of context in terms of where we're at now. So let me know if I'm getting this right. Obviously we caught up this week. So we've got a circle of like 40 people across the business, London, Dubai, Marrakesh.

Yep.

Currently, because we, I met your very impressive and lovely head of finance, which we're going to talk about as well. But Today we're going into next year in the strongest position that you've been in, in building this business, right? So you've got 120 contractors, circa around that, 50K weekly GP, and we've also got a perm division that pretty consistently been doing 25K a month as well. And then to give other people some context, we've got around circa 20 people in the Morocco hub, that's soon to be 30. Got the Dubai office and we've got people in London.

I think that'd be 35 come January. Yeah.

And then you still have got your own contract book that's like circa 14, 15K.

The golden handcuffs, as they call it.

So why don't we start with the beginning? Because whenever I speak to contract recruiters, even if you don't go on that entrepreneurial journey, as you'll know, you've got way more to lose and walk away from if you were to go from one recruitment business to another. And that's the same if you take that leap on starting your own business. And I'm sure you was going into that backing yourself, confident, but we didn't chalk up a deal for 6 months.

No.

So why don't we just talk about that? Because you self-funded this business.

Of course. Yeah.

So there's a cost attached to it. I'm sure you thought you're gonna, you know, uh, get those big wins more quickly. But what was going through the mind at this point? Like 6 months in, I'm sure self-doubt creeped in. Like where was we at in this, in these first couple of months?

Do you know what the thing is, Hishem? I've had to train a lot of people. People over my career. So you have to get— it's called the hump, right? You have to get over that hump and then you start billing. And it's just having the belief in what you're doing, because when you leave a business, you're not gonna touch old clients anyway. It's just, it's not worth the bother. So people, you have to go out into the market and build a whole new book of clients. So that's probably why it took me that time. But the 6 months it took me, I've been in the position before, it took me 8 months to do my first deal anyway. My old mentor who, uh, brought me into recruitment and trained me he gave me the time to basically do that deal. When I finally did do it, it was like a $75K deal. So I've already been in that position before where you can't just wake up one day and do a deal, you know? Like now you do a deal, it doesn't mean anything. In those early days though, when you do that first deal, it's like the hump you have to get over. So it was just a lot of, you do have self-doubt. If every human has self-doubt, right? You're gonna sit there and think, is this gonna happen for me? Can I do it again? And I say it to all the guys in my business, the salt of any recruiter is how many times can you rebuild? Because it's just, anyone can say, oh yeah, I've actually been billing £10 million a year for, it's obviously quite a big number, but I've been billing that for the last 10 years and I've had the same set of clients. But when you have to go back and start from fresh, it shows you if you can do it again. And because I've done it before, I'd come back at my first place, I'd gone in 2017, I'd come back and I had 2 runners left, no one got extended. I had 27 contractors out. I lost 25 contractors then, it happens, you know, it's contract recruitment. So it's just having that belief. But the scale of work was a lot higher. I was getting in at 7 in the morning because we do— I was doing Europe, leaving 8 o'clock sometimes because I'm trying to basically just get ahead of my paperwork. I was having to wear every hat, the legal side of looking at the contracts, which luckily my old company, we've done a bit of that and learned about what is a good clause, what you can accept in terms of limits, etc., etc. The contracts going out themselves, you have to obviously get those out to people when they're— when the deal is actually done. The back end, the chasing, that's probably the biggest thing for anybody, right? Even though I used to sit in finance meetings, I was a manager, you never actually done the chasing and see the signs of what you have to do to make sure you get paid. So it's all of those sort of things.

There's a lot of aspects that will— about these chasing people, speaking, very much factors, pitching, which is maybe underestimated.

You do underestimate it, but the good thing is I was lucky enough to have a friend of mine who set and scaled businesses outside of recruitment before, so I had that advice. Price. I feel like a lot of new people that come into it, it's a shock because you can be an amazing biller and have the gift of the gab and speak to everyone and people want to work for you because you deliver. And then when it comes to the back end piece, you're like, it's not what I thought it was going to be.

How much of a runway did you give yourself? Like, people, I think that's always interesting. It's personal, right? But I think it's always interesting to hear, like, like, how much of a pot of money did you give yourself? Because there would have been a bit of intention in that, I assume.

I had about 12 months in the bank. Okay, but my expenses weren't high at that time, so it wasn't too bad. The problem that you have sometimes is people want instant gratification. Doesn't happen. Like, just because you think— if you're going to follow your covenants and not touch your old clients, you're starting a cold desk, and that's what it is. And I gave myself the 12 months.

And would you self-fund in— because it was always going to be contract, right? That's your— that's your background.

Yeah.

So was he also self-funding the, the book, or did you—

that's another thing as well, payment terms. When you come from a big firm and then you set up on your own, you then have to work out one I've gotta pay a person. At the end of the day, these people have mortgages, they've got kids, they've got bills in order to pay.

When you say person, you're on about contractor?

They're contractors. So the contractors still have their stuff to do as well. You setting up isn't their problem. So you need to make sure you have the backing on that side as well. So getting funding and everything else. Lucky I was a property owner at the time, so I was able to do that. But it just sort of depends on what you are doing. But you have to keep the contractor in mind as well. All it takes, Hishem Azzouz, is someone to go out to the market and say, I'm upset with X company, they haven't paid me. People always talk when they're unhappy with something rather than when they're—

Especially when it's around a lot of money.

Do you know what I mean?

Especially, right? So did you fund that yourself? Like, was you funding that yourself versus getting an invoice factoring service?

We got invoice factoring after about 12 months, yeah. So it was a sort of— we got a—

would you do that again or would you—

you have to, you have to. Listen, the main quick wins in the early days was I was able to pay people immediately. The main thing people are worried about when they work with a small company is, am I going to get paid? They're a new company.

So you'd rather be in control of that versus have a provider do that?

Yeah, I've done that myself at the time. I know there's companies that now do that, which make life a lot easier, but back then there wasn't. You have to do it yourself, right? There's a big personal guarantee you have to sign, part of what you have, etc., etc. But these things are— it's a learning curve. Like, if you pay people on time, I had people then approach me and say to me, oh, I heard you're working with my colleague and he's really happy with you guys. Um, I actually want to go and join this project, but I don't know how to get paid quickly. I've never done it outside of an agency, but I've got deals out of it, so it worked out quite well. You have to factor in what the finance cost is and everything else, but it's just sort of making your name in the market again, because people knew me as part of a big company. You're now starting all over again, and people need to— those relationships that you build matter down the line, because people will think, I can trust this guy, I've worked with him before.

So what, what was your, like, first big win? Because I'm sure you remember it, because we ended up— I got here first year. So your world has always been SAP.

I picked up a project in China and the first guy that went in was the project manager. And I remember I was sitting in the car and it came up on my screen. I was driving back, I was up north somewhere, and I literally just sat in the car. I was like, oh my God, it's actually happening. Because like when you work, it's the hump, right? When you work and work and work and then it finally comes through, I knew that was going to basically secure us moving forward, that project there. So that was the first piece of work that we actually picked up that was substantial. I was by myself at that point, there was no one with me. So listen, it's easy for people to say, like, I feel like there's a big culture now where people are like, it's great to be an entrepreneur. No one talks about the dark part of it, where you're sitting there at 8 o'clock at night thinking, is this gonna go or not? Is it happening?

You talk about the trade-offs, right?

Yeah, of course.

I think that's— that is— and, and it is— that is one of the trade-offs, like, that, that mental peace. And I'm sure like, I mean, I put a lot of pressure on myself. You're hard on yourself, so that comes with it as well, especially when we haven't quite maybe got to where we wanted to as we expected, as quickly as we wanted. But that, that is a big thing that a lot of people have to wrestle with, and it's hard. Have some good days with that, some bad days with it.

There's always good and bad days, right? You just, you got to get on with it and just keep rolling with it. But you do have those times you're sitting there and think, was it the right choice? You wouldn't be human if you didn't, Hishem. You've got to sit there and think Was it the right choice? Was it not the right choice?

So just to get practical for a second, if you think about those first 6 months, I think sometimes what's really helpful for people to really understand when maybe they're not quite getting the wins they hoped, or it's not happening as quickly as, um, they expected it for themselves, because you'll see this in your team now when you've brought on people into the business.

Yeah.

Um, there would have been a lot of things that you can control and you can do that compound, and the work that you were doing in week 2, week 3, week 4 could actually pay dividends in like month 4, month 5, right? But sometimes that's just hard to see when you're in it, do you know what I mean? So what were the bits in these first— because this probably would have been like the basics, the things that you can control— what are the things that understand you had other parts of the business that you had to learn to navigate that was new and these things, but when we were talking about recruitment, building the book, all of that, what were the bits that you really tried to make sure every single day, every single week that you was doing that we knew would compound, that would pay off at some point?

I believe that a recruiter can only have 100 contacts that they can actually be on top of. Okay, 100 to 200 contacts depending on A, B, and C, right? It's how you classify a client. And the touchpoints. I feel like I have this conversation with my team a lot because obviously the COVID boom happened and everyone was a waiter and they were just sitting there saying, what would you like today? Can I, I basically want 3, say SAP consultants in finance. It's, it was very, very easy. But when I started, it was before that period. So it was still like the market is now. You actually have to go out, speak to a client, pick up the requirement and actually work it. It wasn't as easy as there's free talent available either. So I think it's switched now. There's sort of more contractors available than there are roles in our market anyway. Now before it was, there was more roles than you could find contractors during COVID right? So my piece was just building out the touch points and making sure that I'm keeping in touch with the right people and landing and expanding. You can't be a mile wide and an inch deep. You've got to at least be able to speak to a contact a certain amount of times. How many calls are they getting a day? It's a new market right there, they don't know me. They need to know that I can deliver market insights when you're speaking to them as well. You don't just want to call them up and say, hi, Mr. Client, have you got anything available for me? You want to be having a conversation like with the market insight. Otherwise, why does someone want to speak to you? I've had people in my team before, they pick up a hot lead for a project, they've called the guy and he's put the phone down on them. I've then called them back, given them some market insights, and even though the role's filled, they've said, keep in touch.

So give us an example.

So we had a large— we had a large— so we had a large client who had a deployment in Ireland and they had the training program going on. They need 10 trainers. They needed an APO trainer, which is something in SAP. There's a specific problem with that module at the time. And I rang him up, I said, did you find the trainer had that problem? Yeah, he did. And then led on to a conversation. And 5 minutes ago he slammed the phone down on somebody else, but he's had a conversation with me because, you know what, I filled the roles. We actually managed to do it all, but let's keep in touch. And it's those small wins.

So the insight there was that you found out that they were struggling with a particular module.

I know, because I know my market, whereas the guy that picked up the lead only had 8, 9 months experience. But with anything, whatever you're doing, you've got to master your market, right? And it gives credibility when you're speaking to people, because if they're speaking to you and you don't know what you're talking about, why do they want to talk to you?

This comes up a lot when I speak to contract recruiters, so I just want to make sure that we talk about it. You've used the word projects quite a few times. Like, what— why is that? Like, from my understanding, I did perm recruitment, so everything I've learned on the contract side is through speak, you know, speak to people like yourself, meeting people, these things. From what I understand, when you get into the world of actually like being project-led, focusing on and understanding what projects are going on in different companies, those parts In really simple terms, it should mean that we can end up having more contractors per account or per client is like a simple understanding on my side. But because there might be people listening to this that work in contract recruitment that don't focus on projects or, I don't know, like projects.

Listen, if you speak to one person now, say you get a project name and you call that person up, say the Lazarus project. I know you guys are doing Lazarus project and then you've got this problem. They're going to have a conversation with you because you know what you're talking about. If I just call you up and say, have you got anything going on at the moment? I'm just going to say no. And advocates are the biggest thing. If you've had a manager that you've worked with in a company and they vouch for you, if you've done enough work with them and they're happy with the work that you've done and they vouch for you, that's going to be more powerful than any BD call because usually you just get, you get the work coming through to you, man. So it just depends on what you're doing and where. It's all about how you carry yourself into that project and how good the services that you deliver.

But why do I always end up hearing this word project then? Is it, or is that just how—

Project is basically, so say you've got a Nestlé, they have something called the Globe Project. It ran for like 15 years and it was over so many countries. That's the project. And then you've got Mars, their competitors, that was called the Atlas Project. So it's like knowing the project name, knowing what they're doing in that project, the streams. You speak to the consultants usually, and they will tell you on the market what the problems are on that project. and then we're speaking to somebody about that project, having a conversation rather than just calling up. I think the days of just calling somebody up and saying, do you need any consultants at the moment? It's over really. You need to be able to be market-led and that's why people want to work with you. I thought, what's the point of calling somebody? You're wasting your time and theirs, right? Just ask if they've got something.

And then from like a recruiter lens, recruitment business lens, if you get really good at understanding what projects are going on, where the issues are. Does that typically then lead to more contractors?

It does, but you need to have candid relationships to get that. You can't just, you can't just pick up market information from there. You can speak to people in the company and they give you an overview when you're landing, expanding, speaking to people about projects and the problems they're having. But it's the candors ultimately that will lead you to that information and tell you what's going on in that project and how they're doing it.

Yeah, that's, that's also what every contract recruiter tells me.

It's candidates.

How do you, how, because I'm sure you help your team with this.

Yeah.

I'm always curious, like, how do you do that without it being like really transactional? Because I'm assuming you can't get that information that you know is really valuable by me and you just speaking when I want something.

You have to give some like a value to the candidate. It's not a one-way street. You can't just call them up and say, hi, how you doing? Hishem, can you give me everything you know about this project? You have a relationship with them. I've had contractors that I've helped out before when they've had a problem with another agency, they've called me for advice. I'm not getting paid on time, or etc., etc. I tell them what to do. So it's like having that relationship with people, having a personal relationship with them as well. It's not just about calling them up, hi, I've got a job. You should know a little bit about your candidates, all their interests, etc., etc. I, I don't really see it as much now where people want to know about a candidate. They see— they treat candidates like they're something off the shelf. They're not. They're people. They want to know where to go. I've had a candidate that I told in 2013 to basically go and get involved in APO and EWM, and he did, and he's made a lot of money out of it. So now when I have a problem in a project and the client's saying to me, listen, we're not too sure if this is the right way to go, I've actually got an expert, let me bring him in, you can have a conversation with him for free. Now I know what that's going to do with the client. The client's going to think, that's just great, he's done me a favor. But it does lead to us then having a relationship outside of that. You've got to do people favors. You can't just be one way where you just take, take, take. Otherwise you're going to be known as a master of your market and people aren't going to know you as the person to go to. It's like fairy liquid. I know it's a really cringe, cringe saying, but my old director used to say it to me. It's like fairy liquid. When you think of it, washing up liquid, you think of fairy liquid, right? It should be like that when you've got a gap in your project.

Wait, explain that to me.

So when you're, when you think, if I say to you washing up liquid, what's the first brand that comes to mind? You need to be the fairy liquid of whatever market you're in. So when someone thinks, you know what, I've got a gap, let me call Hishem. I need a perm consultant tomorrow.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Fair. How, what we were talking about this when we're having coffee, like, what do you think this is? What do you think about this statement in terms of being like great at recruitment now, the way that maybe we should be thinking about it? And I think that's always been the case, but probably even more important is being a true market expert first. And you also happen to be great at recruitment. What do you think about that versus I'm great at recruitment and my market expertise and understanding?

You need to be able to smell money, Hishem. If you're speaking to somebody for, say you've got 15 touchpoints with a client and they haven't given you a piece of work or there's nothing there, a great question to ask somebody is when's the last time you brought someone into the team that was an external? Sometimes people speak to me because the conversation's easy, right? So it's about mastering your market on one side. but it's also about being able to smell what is going on rather than just speaking to people for the sake of it. And you get a lot of recruiters that do that. It's an easy conversation. Some of the biggest clients I ever landed, they hated me.

Hated you?

Hated me.

Why?

My client told me afterwards, she's like, I absolutely hated you when you first called me. Why? I really didn't like you. She doesn't like me because she wanted to, um, take a contractor off me at the time. And I was like, no, you have to go for us. It was our first deal basically. But she goes, afterwards, the value required, you, you applied to us, was great. So it's just at the time when you first speak to people, they have to work alongside you, right? That first, that first deal is like a hump, right? Everything's a hump. You've got to get over that and then it goes from there. But the conversations I had with her after that, which is like, I hated you when I first started working, I realized the value added. So it just depends. You're not going to be liked at the start, right? They sort of seen as just a necessity sometimes. But if a client sees you as somebody who adds value, market insights, sometimes just call my client up, we have a conversation, I give them market insights. I know they're not hiring at the moment, they've got a block, but I know they do hire. So we'll have a conversation, I'll give them an insight and I'll touch base with them. It's not always about getting business out of them as well. You know, you've got to have conversations with people and that's what makes a relationship.

Blaine, in today's, like, how important do you think it is that you and your team know, like, absolutely everything that you can know about SAP? Like, how important is that?

It's important, but it's important knowing where the gaps are and where the problems come. Knowing everything about SAP, the funny thing about what we do is you speak to a contractor and you start talking about other areas, they won't understand it. So they're like, no, we don't, I don't get involved on that side. I feel like a recruiter sometimes covers most areas of SAP and we come across the niches and niche modules. So when you have conversations with people, you start talking about what they're doing in their project and what they're up to and what they're enjoying at the moment, what they're not enjoying. So it's like even the training we run internally, it has to be about what the hot topics are at the moment, what it's about them, where do they want to go with their career. It's not just about how much do you want a day and where you're going to be working, you know, it becomes transactional.

So tell us a bit about— I don't know if the correct word is like stumbled into it, but you ended up building this sort of— ended up being really focused in this particular world of SAP that's ended up being like—

for me, yeah, I've basically specialized in the HR area. So that's, that's an area that I've built, built my name in and gone out. but there was 2 or 3 areas before that. It's just, it was what it was, but this is just an area that stuck for me and I've become an expert in it.

But how'd you get good at like following? 'Cause I feel like you would've seen certain signals and then—

Knowing who the bad consultants are and who the good consultants are. Clients always appreciate it and they've got, everyone's got their own blacklist so they know who they don't wanna work with, who they wanna work with. If you know the bad consultants are, when you're having a conversation with a client, just to confirm, you don't wanna work with this guy, this guy, right? They're black. Oh no, I don't know them. Then I don't know them. Well, that's the person we won't work with. If we do get that CV down the line, but we just don't work with this person for X, Y, and Z reasons. And the client appreciates that because you save them time.

When you say consultant, we're talking a contractor.

But listen, it's very rare that you get someone that's like so bad you have to mention their name to a client. It's only in, in a sort of retrospective way to make sure that they're not going to be hiring someone that's wrong. Because listen, at the end of the day, the, the service that you provide to them, they pay us well for it, right? They should get the right consultant. That person should be able to turn up on site and do the work they need to do.

But is there anything that you feel like is repeatable around finding that? Well, because you— correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's also still the area that you really focus on now, right?

That's the area I focus on now. But there's the project work you do around here, Hishem. It's like when you're speaking to— you might— you pick a market. At the end of the day, I've never seen anyone sort of not pick a market in SAP. It's always good to have a market. Sometimes, listen, it will come up both ways. Some guys pick up be a massive client and it just feeds them work and they get on with it. By being a master of your market, you become the person people call. I got a phone call last month from someone I never spoken to in my life. I've been given your number by this person. He works at another company. Can you help me out with this? I'm really, really struggling. I've given it to two agencies.

So this is the very liquid thing again.

Again, there you go. He's given my number to him. Don't get me wrong, I've sorted him out a job before and done whatever, but he's passed my number on to the guy. And then we ended up doing the placement with him. So it's great. It's like referrals. Happens with candidates as well. In the market, when you're in a niche, another candidate starts saying to their friends, well, actually, I work with this guy, why don't you take his number? A lot of business come from that as well.

So we ended up getting 80 runners into one account, and this would stem from this HR piece.

Yeah.

Should we talk about that? So was this during this boom period?

This boom period, yeah. So we got the contractors into that account. Great account, absolutely flying. I decided, you know what, we've had a great year. I'm gonna go over to Dubai, funnily enough, and we've got the office now, um, and I'm gonna have a holiday. And my son was 6 months, I'm sitting there, we've just come back from dinner, I get a message, we're going to be moving everything into an external partner. You guys now have to work via them, all contracts are null and void with us. So basically they bought like an RPO in Now, at the time, very liquid. Everyone knew who I was. Used to come to me, and I said, can you get this? Can you get that for me? It was done overnight, basically. And I sat there and I messaged the guys in the group. I was like, listen, we've got WhatsApp group. I go, this is what's happening next year. Have a reset. Enjoy your Christmas break. We're rebuilding from next year. And everyone goes, oh, you're being a bit dramatic, aren't you? Like, it's fine, it's fine. Back end of 2021. You've been a bit dramatic, aren't you? No, I know what's gonna happen. I've seen it before. I had a colleague that, um, worked with me at my first, first place, and he had— he's been £2 million a year in account. I remember we was out at lunch, one account, lunchtime. For whatever reason, they decided to terminate all the contractors. The guy, most charismatic guy you'll meet, had his head in his hands. He's like, I don't believe what's happening to me. I've seen it before. And I saw the traits that were coming. I was like, you know what, it's gonna happen. So I go to the guys, next year, guys, just understand one thing. We are now replacing, we're not doing deals, replacing the people we're about to lose. And everyone looked at me like I was crazy for the first month. 'Cause I go, this is like a juggernaut account. It's gonna keep going. By February, we had about 20 terminations and then It just went 10 a month after that. It just kept going. They kept going, no, we're gonna move to a new partner. We found other resources, et cetera, et cetera. So it was a learning curve, but you know what it is? I don't have the emotional attachment to things. If I lose a deal, like some of the guys get really, really upset. Like, oh my God, I don't believe this happened to me. But for me, it is what it is. You just gotta replace it, right? So when it happened, it's cold logic. I need to basically replace these guys and we're gonna do it in the next amount, right? And then the guys had to step up as well, 'cause it was me doing all the deals at the start. Then they started doing all the deals and I was doing deals alongside them. We were lucky enough to have other accounts outside that we managed to expand into and go into on a couple other big projects as well. So it worked, it worked great. It's just a learning curve, but it's like when we done, we had the chat obviously earlier this week. One of my guys has 25 contractors, one account, and we had a meeting with the CIO and he turned around and goes, well, actually, yeah, we're going to be looking at moving our back office offshore. I looked at him straight away after the meeting, like, I start to replace your account. He goes, what do you mean? He goes, I've been with them like 2 years, we're doing great, so much money coming out of them. I'm telling you right now, that account, if you've got one runner left there by next December, not to be negative, but if you have, I'll be very, very surprised. Again, he spent this whole year replacing them, end of the year he's got one runner left there. So it's just seeing businesses are now trying to cut costs, take things offshore, we live in a digital world right now, right? So you've got to look at it like the cost reduction is going to come, but where's it going to come from? Putting maybe the back office overseas, the IT, because how often does a business have an IT guy apart from when they're doing an implementation? Obviously I do SAP, so if anyone's watching and they're thinking, what's he talking about? If they're doing an implementation, the stakeholders need to be in the same room. But if a guy's doing support after the project's done, it's an inbox or a phone number you call. So it's, that's the kind of way it's going. So it's just understanding that.

Talk us through some of the, what are the other, because I think this would be really helpful for people. What are some of the other like common signals that you've seen that might indicate that your best account right now where you've, where yeah, a lot of your GP is in 6, 12 months, 3 months could be in a very different place.

If you have an account like that right now, guys, what I would say to you is follow them. Follow the news on what they're doing, stock market prices, et cetera, et cetera. You've got to have a little bit of market understanding with them as well. It shouldn't just be, this is a great account. You should look at what they're doing. Have they released a new product? Has it done well? Has it done badly? Because listen, with it, what's the first thing that gets cut on a project when a company's tight on funds? It's the projects they've got going on. If it can be held, I probably couldn't count on my hands and toes, how many, my fingers and toes, how many times I've seen a project cut when there's been a difficult return on the year, they've got end of year results. Yeah, so you've got to look at that. If they're cancelling projects, I'd say is a massive thing as well. If they've said they're going to do something, they're like, actually, we're going to wait until next year. That's another indicator, really. They start talking about offshoring. And if they just look, they're really, really heavy in a crowded market. A recruiter nowadays has to have that understanding. It's not like 10 years ago where you just do deals and then worry about what the client's doing. If you're working with a system integrator partner that does the implementations for an end customer, look at that end customer. How healthy are they? I'm not saying you're gonna do it for everyone, but say, like you said, if you've got a big account, a lot of runners that account, look at what they're doing and pivot. I would always advise people, don't put all your eggs in one basket. It can be very, very dangerous.

What do you think would be like if you were to draw up like the perfect client spread for a contract book that's like diversified, you're happy, like you'd be like, that's really strong and healthy? How would you—

I would, I would say if you can have 3 bread and butter clients. So you have clients that come to you all the time that you're obviously with, and never stop doing spot business. I think spot business— I know some people look at it and be like, but why would I do it? I've always been able to bounce back because I could pick up the phone tomorrow and do spot business. I could speak to candidates, pick up a market and go, I'm going. Even with all of the guys that now report into me and everything else, I still do it. I'll pick up the phone, I'll speak to a candidate, I'll find out about a project, I'll pick up a big name. You have to know your market.

How would you define, how would you define spot business?

Spot business, picking up market information, pick up a lead, finding out it's a big project going on, trying to pitch that client. That is going to be your next, it's always replenishing, right? Which is roof of repetition. You've basically got to go and always be looking for that next client. Because at the end of the day, if someone switches off, one of your clients switches off, then you've got someone else to go on to.

And then what do you feel like you've done consistently well to go from spot business to then key account, are you being really intentional about, you've placed a contractor, you speak to that contractor, finding out what's going on on a project, you're then having consistent meetings with the client.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know, tell us a bit about that. Cause I feel like there's always something that—

It's like I said, it's market insights, having conversations with clients and actual conversations around problems that they're having and understanding what they've got going on, looking at their pipeline. It's not just ringing up someone and saying, well, actually I understand that you might have this position open. Why is the position open? What is this person going to do? If this person could have one skill that would change your— if you could have one skill in your project, what would it be that would change the whole outlook of what you're doing? So those kinds of questions that make people think, you know what, this would be a great conversation to have with somebody rather than just talking about, well, I need 2 contractors to start Monday.

How important do you think it is to meet your clients?

I meet all my clients. I try. I make an active effort to see them once a year at least. And sometimes you meet the clients and they're like, I've never met anybody before. No one's come out and seen me. You've got to put your hand in your pocket to go see a client. Obviously, most clients have a rule where they're not allowed to have a certain amount of money spent on them, but you can take them for lunch. It's not really a massive problem, is it? As long as you don't go take them to somewhere really fancy and expensive, you can have a lunch with them and have that conversation. And that is, in my career, where I've made the best relationships. Where you sit with people, you have a meal, you have a conversation, understand what they're into. And it usually tends to be, you have a good conversation for half an hour, the last 15-20 minutes about business and what they're doing with their plans.

So that's something that you're intentional with. So you spend a lot of time in your—

so everyone in my business has to go out. They have to go and meet clients because it's that personal step. At the end of the day, it should be you go and see the client, see their offices, have a chat with them, sit down with them and give them time. It's a service you're providing at the end of the day. If you're not going out to see clients, and the thing is we do most of Europe as well. So the guys go out actively, even clients that are giving us constant business that we've got strategic partnerships with, still go out and see them. It's about having that conversation. And sometimes when you meet people face to face, it takes that relationship to the next level. And if you've already got that relationship, it maintains it as well.

Do you think there's any— like, just thinking again, trying to make it practical for people— like, when normally would be like really great— I don't know if you would be this intentional about it, I'm not sure— but when would be like the perfect time to be like suggest, like, right, I'm gonna come out and meet you.

Is it like, we've, we've had some success with them, business is done, it's a review, and you've got constant work going on with them? Or even if you see the potential there, but that comes down to someone being a little bit more senior. If you get a junior guy who's got 6 months experience, he'd probably be on the road every week trying to go see someone new. It's about seeing someone where there's reason to go see them. But it's about giving that insight and going there. Sometimes when you go to a meeting— I've had clients ask me to come in and do presentations I've had a global client that recently has asked me to look at their, their sort of salary benchmarking. I'm not a permanent recruiter, but I have the understanding of the market because I'm a master of my market. We've done that for them, and that's now shaped a multinational's sort of salary bandings. So what you do is, if you're adding value and you're good at what you do, people will see that, and then you go out from there.

Yeah, I'm glad you shared that because I think, again, I think with AI technology, one of the big impacts it's going to have is on trust. So I think doing what we're doing now, meeting people, it does just create, it just does just give opportunity to accelerate that relationship, doesn't it? And I know we hear relationships a lot, but I just think it's going to matter more than ever.

I think at the moment you can't just send someone else. I've seen a lot of it and you know what, I think AI to an extent is out of control. 'cause I get messages like from other recruiters 'cause I've got SAP in my LinkedIn. They basically think I'm an SAP consultant and start trying to pitch me either a job or business. I'm like, how are you sending like that? You're just messaging someone randomly and saying X, Y, and Z. It's not even, there's a problem that you've not even filled your data. So I feel like it's with the conver— the emergence of AI is basically sort of made the market more of, I'm just gonna basically spray and pray and hope something lands. You're never going to be an expert in your market if you do that, are you? So having that face-to-face meeting, and I'll hear from clients all the time, no one ever comes to see me. The first recruiter I've ever met.

Yeah, that's what I think also as well is the case. Just something that's popped into my head, and then I want to go into some of the things that you built into your business that I think is really smart. I interviewed a chap who I think you guys would really get on, have like same beliefs around principles around being a good contract recruiter, being a, uh, building a good book, going out. I mean, he's like huge on that. Something that he's really found also is another unlock of transparency, building trust, credibility, is being transparent with rates. How do you feel about that?

Well, what do you mean by transparent rates?

So contractors know. So I think what I found interesting, again, because I never did it, is when you're employed as a contract recruiter, you might just be told by your manager like, yep, the markup's always £100 per day or whatever, something like that. And maybe never get to the point of like being able to really clearly articulate why, like justifying that markup and why that is. So with James, you had this sort of experience where his manager told him to basically say, no, our rate is this, this is how much, um, you have to pay. And then had some pushback and basically ended up having to tell the manager that it was like £25 more than what they were trying to get James to go down to.

Yeah.

And he said that, and like he just said, it was a really challenging experience. And ever since going out on his own, he said one of the things that his contractors really appreciate, and even, uh, his clients, is he understands what the budget is for the project and they map that out together. And he's got really good at our articulating and communicating, my rate is this and justifying that, versus a lot of contract recruiters that I've met would never speak to their contractors about what their markup is. They wouldn't want them to know. I found that quite an interesting dynamic.

I'll be completely honest with you, strategic partners, okay, you can know how much I'm charging because I know how much I'm paying because you know what the market rates are anyway. But I've got clients I work with that either work with me or consultancy. I'm going to be 30 to 40% cheaper. And that consultancy, because they're going to put their bench into it and whatever else. But of course, if you're charging a client €1,000 a day and you're paying the candidate €500, making €500, you're scalping the client as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I just find— I do, I do find it— I, I have this when I meet other recruiters, we have this sort of disagreement because there's a price for a service and they're scalping a client. So I know what you mean, but if a client— I've got— I'm quite open with my clients, to be honest.

Your contractors, are you open with them?

Contractors know, they know what the market rates are. So I have contractors call me and say, 'Nasir, I'm getting offered this for a project, like, do you think that's fair?' I'll tell them if it's fair or not, right?

Because I think it's interesting.

It is, it is interesting. But the problem is, you know what it is? It's like the old 1990s mentality where I'm going to make as much margin as possible, put this guy inside, I hope it works out.

I'd rather—

I've had it before, I've made next to nothing for a contractor to go inside because I know my strategic client needs that guy. Without it, they're not going to deliver. I say to them, I'll make up for the next one, that's fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not running a charity, but that is the difference between them using me exclusively and using somebody else. They don't go to anybody else, they'll call me exclusively and they'll go and work with me exclusively for that reason. And we've had it before where if that person is so important to the client, we'll basically give it so we're not losing money but we're not making anything either. I've done it before. Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing it every month, but If the client says to me, Nasser, it's very, very important to get this person. We can't go up on the budget. We're fixed with the client. And this is like the centerpiece to our project. We're going to do it. So where you have that relationship with a client and they've done it for them before, they'll never ask you about your rates. Because it's not always about, I'd rather put a good candidate on a project that delivers a project than put a mediocre one on there that makes me €500 a day for a month. It's not the way you want to work, is it?

Yeah, I just found it really interesting when he spoke about that.

If you had to ask any other contract recruiter, they'd probably lose their mind about Hishem. Why would you ask him that question? But it is— I understand why you're saying it, because clients are very cost conscious at the moment as well.

But from what I understood, there's also the like contractor piece. Again, I'm not in the trenches, never done it, but I can imagine there'll be a lot of contractors out there, consultants, who like you said, sometimes feel like it's a necessary evil to work with you because you get the projects, you get the work, but might be thinking, how much money is this guy making off me, right? And rather that being a question, it's a double-edged sword.

What I'm saying is if it's a strategic partner you're doing a lot of work with, then of course you want them to deliver, you want them to win, and you win in turn, right? But for someone you're doing the first piece of business with and they go, well, how much is your margin? And they're a consultancy, how much are they charging their client? I'm never going to ask you that, am I? But at the same time, I'm not gonna try and make crazy amounts of money on you. There's a business at the end of the day with a service to provide. We pay all of our contractors before we're paid. There's a cost to that. We also have contractor care. The guys are available if they need anything. We also help the guys with any setup problems that they have as well. If you've got a contractor that's got a problem, we usually got people in each country that can help them out and we put them onto our partners to sort them out. So there's a service that we're running as well. And you gotta remember, we are only paid on successful placement, right? So there's a balancing act. But I understand there are some bad actors in the market that just want to make as much money as possible and shout about how much money they're making a week. And I get it, that's great for you, but at the end of the day, you want to have a relationship with a client. It's not just about how much money can I get out of you.

You're just talking about the, the service there, because that's like you articulating what— yeah, the service, why the margin is what the margin is. Do you want to talk to us about— so I feel like, didn't you have a period where you was like owed a lot of money and then you brought in your head of finance that I met here, like really shit hot? So like, talk to us a bit about that because I feel like when you're building a contract business, this piece is— and I met her, she, like I said, she's super impressive. Yeah, came across really well. We went through like the numbers together. I feel like, wasn't that a bit of a catalyst in terms of like, right, I need to get all over this?

A good finance person I wouldn't have scaled the way I did without the finance. And anybody who's watching this who's got a business or thinking of setting one up, the finance piece is very, very important. The most important bit, of course, is selling and making sure you have contractors and revenue. But it's important to understand, are you making money or not? And the amount of businesses that I have— I talk to a lot of other people that own businesses, and like, they just don't have the controls in place. You need to know if you're making money, what your cost per desk is. Um, where I came from was quite one of the biggest recruitment companies in the world. They owned us, so we learned a lot about budgeting and forecasting and having a P&L. A lot people don't know how to run a P&L. So having her was great. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot more hair when I— before that £1.8 million. But you know, it is what it is. I was owed the money.

Well, tell us about that.

What's—

you owed £1.8 million?

I was owed the money. So basically what was happening, and this is— it has to scratch my head about it sometimes. We were doing so many deals, we couldn't keep up with paying the contractors in terms of on time and everything else. So we had to work out what we're doing. It's like what I come back to on earlier and said, you have to pay people on time, right? So when it started, the alarm bell started ringing that I couldn't pay people on time, I was like, I'll get an industry accountant in. And it wasn't about getting someone in who needs to basically come in and just do my back office and send invoices out. It needs to be someone who's got a financial mind that can do budgeting, forecasting, and set up a proper system. And that's what we did. We brought her in and within the first month we knew exactly who owed us what and where it was. Luckily, I had quite a good finance partner at the time, so they sort of tapered as we went along. They understood that there was obviously invoices owed, etc., etc. So we came and we sorted out. They came and sat down with us as well, and we got the money back within 3 months, everything that was in the backlog. So Sham is, uh, she's a bit of a master of a dark art. But that point was, I was sitting there, and I think it was probably the only time in my career I was sitting there going, no, another deal. Sorry, not another deal. Because you've got the clients still coming to you saying, yeah, we need this, we need this and this, and you're like, not another deal.

Just to understand, so you owed £1.8 million and that was because you wanted to stick to, like you said, made sure that you was paying your contractors on time.

On time.

But obviously that meant money was leaving your business and you was getting, they were getting paid. I didn't take, I didn't get them waiting to get your invoices paid and that.

I didn't take anything out the business to do anything with that. We had to stay at the heads we were at to make sure everyone got paid. You have to make sure that you pay your contractors. It's as simple as that. You've got to realise as well, these people have got mortgages, kids, they've got bills to pay. So the worst thing you can do is somebody's— it's a partnership, right? They're working with you. It's not just for the contract, right? They're a brand ambassador. What's the worst thing a contractor could be doing when they're on site? Thinking about are they going to get paid and where the money is. So it's just making sure that you have that. But I was very lucky. I came across Sham and she basically came in. Took over that whole piece, and I haven't looked back at it since. I have a meeting with her once every 2 weeks, where the numbers— where are we at? But she's like me, she loves everything about recruitment, she loves looking at it and going through things, you know. So it's like, it's never work. We always have a cook— have a laugh, and then we'll go through the numbers, basically. So we're both equally available if it needs to be, and you have to be like that if you want to go on this entrepreneur journey. You don't just leave the office and then it's all sunshine and rainbows, you know. You have to go and think about, well, actually, tomorrow I need to make sure this is done. You're always constantly worrying about the next thing that needs to be solved.

And how do you think you would, like, for people listening, how do you think you could have prevented having that much money owed? Does it just creep up on you?

So I'll tell you what it was. POs. The POs. So basically these guys decided to offshore our main client. They offshore all their stuff overseas and the POs just weren't valid.

What does PO mean?

A purchase order.

Oh, sorry, right.

So they were giving us the wrong PO numbers. So every invoice we were sending, It was just— wasn't being registered or wasn't being registered because they were in between a transition period. And the funniest part about it, because we were their largest vendor at the time, we ended up solving a lot of their problems for them as well. We were jumping on weekly calls with these guys and they were asking my head of finance, what do you think we should do to solve this problem? And she's giving them advice. And I actually got off a call once, I looked at a guy, this is like, we should be sending them an invoice for consultancy fees. Literally, these guys are asking us, how would you do it? So we got it all back in the end and it was solved. But at the time, deals were coming in. I was sitting there going, great, another deal, but it's adding to the problem. So she came in, sat with me for half a day, looked at it, because she said to me, she goes, listen, I've got to look at the task before I take it. I'm always going to take the work on. I need to know I can deliver for you. And she came and looked at it, and then we just never looked back since, really.

So yeah, yeah, that seemed to be— so into the a guy called Michael. He, um, he again, real contract-heavy business in the healthcare space, particularly like the mental health care space. He did a lot of work with like public sector.

Yeah.

And again, like payment terms are absolutely terrible.

Yeah, friends.

So like the ledgers built up, it like crept up on them. But then it wasn't just this, but a big learning was like there was the way that they're sending it invoice didn't work on their end and their system. So then again, it just accumulated. And then what saved his business was getting a really shit-hot finance person who just turned it around. So it is really important, this, isn't it?

It's the centerpiece to anything. And I'll be completely honest with you, as much as I like to think that I'm a great recruiter and everything, that is a very important piece. And when you're trying to scale something, you have to have finance. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I sit there and I go, oh, I want to do this, I want to do that. Is it costed? Can we afford to do X, Y, and Z? Is it financially responsible to do this? And we've always sat down and we have that conversation. Ultimately, it should come down to finance whether you do something or not, right? That's how most large businesses work. They have to go to finance, get the approval, and then they come back and say yes or no. If you're just gonna do something off a whim without following up with finance and having that sort of process in place, you got problems. Because businesses don't really stop doing business, right? They run outta cash. And they have poor, poor cash management. They don't know if they're going to make payroll, etc., etc. We've never had that problem.

Should talk about Morocco. So you said to me in your career, sometimes what you found really hard is just doing every part of recruitment, 360 recruitment, to like a really consistent world-class level. Like, it's hard to do every aspect of it really good every single day, every single week. So like, I think I mentioned to you outside, when I've met successful contract recruitment businesses, this delivery piece and having this resource function does seem to be really critical.

Yeah.

Um, so where, where did, where did this Morocco piece come from? What's your, your wife's Moroccan?

My wife's Moroccan. So, um, because a lot of people got South Africa, Philippines, India, they're obviously common This is the thing, I stumbled on it. It didn't— it wasn't just I woke up one day and I was like, let me go to Morocco. Well, we sort of were out there on holiday. I'm sitting in like, uh, there's a French cafe in the middle of Marrakesh that does like unlimited steak and whatever, so we used to go there every day. And a waitress caught my eye because she spoke German, she spoke Spanish, and she spoke French. Don't get me wrong, I don't speak the languages, but I know what they sound like, so I'm like Okay, I'm looking at the guy, I'm thinking, she speaks a lot of languages, perfect English as well. So we keep being— we're there for a week, we keep going there to eat because it's really nice. I get to know him, I go, excuse me, don't mind you asking, you speak a lot of languages. He goes, yeah, yeah, I speak all these languages. I go, what do you do here? Like, I go, it's quite weird that someone speaks all three. You don't usually come across someone that has every language, right? Like trilingual or even quadlingual, if there's a word for it. But She goes, yeah, I've just completed my PhD. I was like, sorry, PhD? She goes, yeah, I've completed my PhD. Okay, so you've got a PhD and you're waiting tables? She goes, yeah.

How does that work?

I go, I understand, obviously if you're a doctorate, you end up usually having a place to go. She goes, the problem you have where we are is you either work for the government or you go into hospitality. I'm in hospitality now. She goes, I'm gonna have to go to Casablanca. 'cause that's where all of the work is if I want to go there. Like, okay, cool. So I sat there, I looked at my wife, I go, she goes, what are you thinking about? I go, she speaks 3 languages. I go, do you know how much I've struggled in the past to actually get someone who speaks the languages? She goes, yeah. Like, you know what, I smoked at the time, she made me give up, but, um, I've gone outside, I've called Sham. I'm like, Sham, listen to me first before I say it. What do you think about opening an office in Morocco? She started laughing. She goes, you've been there a little bit too long. I've only been there a week. I go, but listen, I just— and I told the story. She goes, really? I go, yeah. I did that at the end of the conversation. I said to her, because there are a lot of people— she goes, yeah, most of the universities just had people that we have to work in call centers here. And I was thinking, you've got university-trained talent, people with master's degrees that are basically— because at the end of the day, the kind of recruiting that we do is very, very technical, and they need to understand the market to have a conversation and understand the technical aspect of it. I was like, let's see then. I'm going to be completely honest with you, it's been a white-knuckle ride setting it up, having to do everything. I was quite lucky, one of my, uh, contractors was based out of Morocco. He used to do a lot of projects, so he put me in touch with the right people. So it's a complete minefield sometimes when you're trying to set things up out there. So we set it up, and 6 weeks later, me and the lads were in the office, and we've basically done the English from that story. From that story. We started the interviews 3 weeks later and we hired a load of people that come and started on the first day, and the rest is history. We just kept, kept going with it. It's been very, very time intensive because you have to have somebody out there. You can't just have— we even had a manager out there at one point. Oh, unfortunately left the business for, um, personal reasons, like wanted to go off and have a family and whatever else. That was a different story. Living in Marrakech probably isn't the, uh, the prime of the sort of greatest location for that, but Yeah, it just, it worked out great and it's gone from strength to strength. But it's not just you open an office and everything goes great. You've got to imprint yourself on what you're doing. You've got to take those processes and make it repeatable there, right? So we've had to do that. From time to time you have things slip. You just have to basically keep applying.

It's everyday training, right? And what do you— so is it like strictly— just tell us a bit about what part of the process do they really own, these people? They like market mapping? Are they zoning out their messages?

Are they headhunting?

What are they doing?

They're headhunting. But what we found is a lot of the guys are very, very good at building relationships, and that's something that we taught them because they now speak to the guys on the market and they have great conversations and they're very friendly with them, you know. So even some of them, when they come to Marrakech, they come visit the office when on holiday because they've made great relationships with them. I said, that's a sort of statement to how we train them to have those conversations, speak to people. It's like The people that always used to light up the room when we have our morning focus, even when in my previous company before I set up, was people who were excited about speaking about candidates in the market. And I see in the group sometimes, I sit there, we've got a big WhatsApp group, all of us in all the offices, and it can be 6 o'clock in the morning in the UK, I'm on a treadmill, and everyone's arguing over who the best candidate is in Dubai. And then we go into the office, everyone starts arguing, saying, no, this person's the best for that project. And it's a testament to the the business you've built, because it's about quality. It's not just about let's get any CV out and try and get them placed. It's about this is the best guy for this market and this best guy for that market. And the guys are obviously structured in locations as well. So if you need something, you go to a person who's a language speaker in that area and they would know that market and they'd be able to tell you the best candidates. So if I haven't got the knowledge now, I can go to them and their level of understanding in some markets is even surpassing mine, basically, because they've done so well and learned about their market. It's just, it's good to see.

Can we just break it down? I just want to make sure, because I think this is the bit that people can learn. So you've got people in your business that would be what's called salespeople, client development, account management, all of that. And then where the Moroccan team comes in, delivery, this is that. But like, where, where does that start and end? I think that's what's helped.

They walk the whole process. They book the interviews of the candidate, they keep the candidate. The whole candidate experience should be from start to finish with the same person, right? Because that person should— it should be a familiar person that you deal with. When it comes— if there's something at the end where the sales guy needs to have a conversation, they do have a conversation with them anyway, to have a chat and see that they're happy to present them to their client. But it should be that there's one face that you speak— see and speak to all the way through to the end. That's the experience, right? I think a lot of, a lot of people sort of— if you're handing people over, it sort of dilutes the experience, right? Because you are— at the end of the day, the next job you take is one of the most important decisions you're going to make, right? You're gonna have a familiar face while you're doing that all the way to the end.

And then do you— so like, if I'm in your business and I'm client-facing, am I pitching that as part of my service? That we've got this excellent team in Morocco, they— we always work alongside them. If we, you know, work with you on this project, then we've got this. Like, it's, it's part of you.

So if we pick up a big— if we pick up a big piece of work, there's a pod that looks after that. If you've got open market, which is sort of open roles that come in, there's a team for that. So you're not dealing with people that are spread all over the place and doing anything and everything. So it's good to have that sort of separated because when you get a team, the problem is if you've got a load of open market guys and you just give them a load of work that is sort of, for want of a better word, a retained search for a client, you know, it's guaranteed business, they treat it like open market. It's not gonna be as important.

Open market.

So open market's like if you pick up a piece of business of a new client, et cetera, et cetera, that goes there. The way we've structured it is we're going to deliver for a client. If a client comes into us, it has to be delivered on. It can't just be left out and someone might work it and it might not get— right, you know what I mean? It has to be okay. The clients work too, they're allocated to that. And then even with one of our biggest clients, there's a whole team allocated to them, right? Because they know the ethos of the company. If you're doing a large project for a client and you've got an ongoing relationship with them, should be strategic, right? As you understand what the company offers, what the benefits are of working there, what they've got in the pipeline. And having that conversation with somebody who calls you for a job is a lot better than having a conversation about, oh yeah, I can pay you this much a day and this is how long the project is and it's remote.

And then there's also like commercial benefit, right? So cost per head is a lot less than it is in the UK.

Yeah.

What's been, just honestly, like what's been the hardest parts about it? You said a white-knuckled ride earlier. What's been hard?

It's the legislation. The legislation going out there, you have to, every contract you sign has to be stamped by somebody. It's the old colonial French system. So everything has to be stamped. You have to go and stand in banks and whatever else. In the UK, it's easy, right? You get your relationship manager to come out and see if something needs to be done. Whereas there, you're standing at a bank for an hour waiting for someone to speak to somebody. So it's just the whole process of it is very, it's not digital yet. So you have to do all that. Then you've got all the labor laws that you have to go around. You have to have a full-time HR and employment lawyer in the office as well to make sure everything gets covered. Like in the UK, if you're driving to work and you have an accident, it's not your boss's problem, right? It just happened on the way to work, it's your commute. There, if it happens on the way to work, you're now liable because you're an employer. You have to give them a certificate basically for them to claim on insurance. If you don't do that, then you're liable. So it's like, there's a whole breadth of different things. That's probably why a lot of people don't set up a marca. I understand it is, very difficult to get around the issues. I'm quite lucky that I've got native speakers with me. I've got people that have got relationships in the government there, so it made it a lot easier for me to understand how to do X, Y, and Z.

But really talented people, which is sometimes a shame that maybe the system, as a central, you know, that's from Algeria, so I've seen that firsthand where you can get really talented people, but in terms of the, sometimes the system can hold people back, right, in these countries, right, in terms of the opportunities and what they have access to. So cool you've been able to, like, yeah, gonna have nearly like, yeah, between 30, 40 people that you're giving a really great opportunity to, paid well after, and then also being able to probably feel like they're using their skill set and the things they worked hard for in their life to actually use that in their job. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Very. So I touched upon it earlier with you regarding the automation business where we build tools for clients. We've started doing that now. We've got a large project out Saudi Arabia that we're working on at the moment, and the talent you have there is amazing. The guys that work, like, it's the problem that you have is the sort of skills in the market and the jobs that are available don't match. So you've got a lot of guys out there that are very, very skilled. Like, if they came to the UK and became recruiters, they'd do very, very well as well. It's not just that they're out there, it's the same level of what they're doing in the UK and over there. So it's just having that skill set there and it has actually a channel to work rather than just doing menial tasks like working in a call center or Facebook or something like that. It's like the guys actually learn their market and master it and they go on.

Do you think you would have got anywhere near where you are today without that delivery team and Rocco?

I don't think we'd have scaled now as quickly as we did.

No, no, that's a big— that is a big aspect to like, if I join your business tomorrow and maybe one of my challenges has been like, yeah, maybe the delivery team that I have in my business, I have one person that I work alongside. Yeah. That is like, that is like not only a great proposition to like your clients, but also a great proposition to anyone that really enjoys that client-facing piece, is really world-class at it. And if you are, then you're going to bring in a lot of opportunities having a dedicated team you can work alongside that are really talented.

It's been able to cover, it's been able to cover, cover quality as well. And as you have someone that goes through it, because there are other offshore locations in the world, I'm aware of them, and I've seen the quality that comes out of some of those places. Because sometimes people don't— people look at it as, let's just get a load of people and see what happens. You've got to have the process, and they've got to understand. If you're not got the same standards that you'd have in the UK, what's the point of doing it?

Yeah, it's a big thing.

It's no point, right? You're just, you're just adding people.

It's like, yeah, you don't— I think the people that get it wrong and think of it as like, oh yeah, it's like a cheap resource, don't have to pay them that much, can just— but like, you haven't thought about that one. So whether you've been talking—

listen, there's, there's, there's no sort of There's no sort of balance within the business where anyone's better than anybody except in one office or the other. Everyone is equal and everyone delivers and everyone's accountable. That's just the way it works. It just happens to be that these guys are very, very switched on.

So why did you set up an office in the UAE?

I've done that before. It was fashionable, to be honest. I sat there and I thought, because when my old mentor left in 2014 to go, to go to a business in the Middle East, and he offered me at the time to go. For various reasons, I didn't go. Now, I sat there and thought, if I was a recruiter and I wanted to leave a business now and I want to join a company in my size, what would attract me? An office in the UAE would attract me. Being able to move out there and live out there. Before, when I was a single man, 5 children, and I was married, great lifestyle, right? You wake up, you finish work. If you're doing European hours, you start late, You finish a little bit later, you go out to the beach, whatever you want to do on the weekends. It's a great lifestyle. But I thought that when I set it up, a couple of guys in the business looked at me like, you sure? I think it would be great. So it was about putting a person in that office first to help with delivery, because I'm going to be honest with you, no one wants to be the first sales guy on the ground somewhere. It's just, it's, you got to put the flag in the ground, right? So I managed to get somebody in who's now basically, uh, one of our team managers. He come and joined, done amazing. And then we added another permanent recruiter, and yeah, it's gone from strength to strength. It's mainly for senior hires. We bring people out that want to go out to Dubai, want to live out there, have the lifestyle. Obviously with the media and everything in the last 6, 7 months, it's like England's the worst place to be. I don't believe that, but it's, it's just if you want to have that lifestyle, you know, and it's offering people, uh, ways to lift up your desk from here and you can just go there and basically start again.

You don't The guys that don't recruit in the UAE market, obviously you said you just had that project that you've got, but you do great market from that.

Great market. But like I said to you, there's a lot of offshore models there and that's not really what we're going after at the time.

How hard is it to set up an office there? Like, again, that can be—

depends if you're mainland or free zone. Mainland or free zone.

What does that mean?

So mainland is when you are on the mainland, you're not in a free zone. A free zone is like an economic area where you basically don't have to pay tax, etc. But we tend to have the guys sitting out there, they service some of the market, like Saudi's a market that we do look at out there. We have clients from Europe that usually come to us for Saudi and they've got a big project they need help. So we do look at that as well. Um, but it's just having the different setups basically. We've got a mainland company out there. So the guys basically sit on the mainland. If you sit in a free zone, it's like you can only work in that specific free zone, et cetera, et cetera.

Like, is it like, do you need to know people there? Is it like, is it hard? To get it.

It's not, it's not as easy as everyone on TikTok and Instagram says, like, yeah, you just turn up there one day and you've got a, you've got a, a company the next day. You've got rules. So listen, I'm going to be completely honest with you, it is a very, very easy place to do business. It's great, it's set up for people to do business, but you've still got to go through the motions. The Emirates are very, very smart in the way they've set it up to make sure there's control. There can't be someone that's doing something uncoming in their country. So you have to go there, you have to have proper processes, you have to have— so even the salaries, basically, there's something called WPS there. You have to have that WPS run or your whole company gets blocked. You can't get visas out. The WPS is like PAYE.

Okay.

But if you don't pay for somebody and it doesn't get recorded in the system, then you get blocked. Basically, you can't give visas out. They've also made it so you have to have a certain amount of employees once you hit a certain headcount. I'm not at that level yet, so it's not really an issue, but it's just having that office there for the guys to work out of, basically.

And is it hard? How easy is it to, like you just said, for someone to move their life there? Is it like, because again, is that everybody had to figure that process out. So if I want to join your business and I'm working in the Dubai office, well, what you do is usually you start the process before they land.

They land in Dubai, they start their Emirates ID straight away, they get their medical done, um, and then they basically, they just start. Without an Emirates ID, you can't do anything here, like you can't get an apartment You can't get a car. You basically—

Social Security.

Yeah, you need to have an Emirates ID. Basically everything is connected to that.

Is it like expensive to get going? Like, so have you got to pay for the companies?

Yeah, the company has to pay a substantial amount. That's why we only use it for senior hires, basically. But you get people out there, there's a lot of companies that bring people out and don't give them that. They say, what, for 2, 3 months? That's illegal. So you have to make sure you follow the process.

When you say substantial, we're talking cost of business roughly.

That's what the business— the desk cost is, the setup. It can be anywhere for the company with health insurance and everything because £3,000 to £4,000 just off the bat. Like, it's just straight, like, just straight up front, basically, to pay for all that stuff. But it's also making sure people have the best medical cover, because what people don't realize is private healthcare out there, right? What you see on Instagram and TikTok, it can get expensive if it goes wrong. Having the right policy, and it's up to the employer to make sure that person has the right policy, because if they don't, imagine something goes wrong with you and they go, we're not paying. How are you supposed to cover that, you know? So it's just, it's just having everything set up in the right way.

But you think it's been a good decision?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. The guys out there are very happy. Whenever I go visit, they always, they always say it's great and everything. So yeah, really good.

Yeah, because it has been— it has become like a place that a lot of recruiters have ended up going or are talking more about.

The, the trap I would say to anyone who's listening to this is thinking of moving to Dubai. Understand that the big basics that you get paid out there is a different culture. They want you to deliver in 2 or 3 months. I need to ask yourself, can you deliver in 2, 3 months the market you never worked in if you're not doing your old market? And can you adapt to the way that the market works out there? It's a lot slower. It's not like here where it's interview, offer, and the guy starts. You then have to, anyone, if you're doing the local market, they have to get visas. And if the person doesn't turn up for whatever reason, then you lose that money. So you're putting GP up before you even get it. The cost I just told you about hiring somebody, you have to do that for a contractor as well if they're inside the UAE. So it's just, understanding what you're trying to do. It's a great market if you're doing perm because you understand this is going to be a long process. Whereas if you're doing contract, it is a lot more sort of intensive of what you need to do and all of the sort of requirements.

So as we said at the start, going into end of this year, next year, in like strongest position that you've been in since you've started this journey.

Yeah.

You were saying to me, outside, like, something that's always kept you going is just that fear of, like, losing it all, or every day was enough.

Every day.

So what is it that, that's really top of mind for you going into this next year? Like, what are you really doubling down on? What are you staying laser focused on? Because oftentimes it isn't big moves, big changes, it's like more of the same but better, just remaining laser focused. What comes up for you there?

I think moving forward into next year, it's about the consultancy piece that I told you about, going out to a client, actually working with them as a partner. And the reason my process is so good, and it's always been good, it's not to blow my own trumpet, I know a lot of people like to, but I just, I'm very, very selective for who I work with. And it's about keeping that, but doing it at scale. So it's just making sure the clients that we're working with, we're partnered with, rather than just, we're going to send you a CV and see how it goes. So that's sort of what we're moving into next year in terms of what we're trying to do. I want to do that in a way where we're going out and strategically working with partners rather than just being out there. I think— I don't know, it's unpopular opinion, but I think the days, the days of just doing contingent recruitment are sort of numbered in terms of I'm just going to send you a CV when you need it rather than not partnering with somebody. So it's just making sure that our journey— the new guys that are starting, we're setting up pods for clients that have already given us intention this year to work together next year on big projects. Like I said to you, um, downstairs as well, we've got a few, few big things in the pipeline and working on.

So it's just keeping that guy really making sure that he's getting really sticky with our clients, understanding, yeah, like the value that you can bring, why they're— yeah, like all of that.

Being ingrained with a client is very important as well. Not just, I'm going to send you a load of CVs. We have reports, market insights, salary mapping that we do with clients as well on the perm side. Like I said to you, I picked up a massive permanent project. I wasn't even looking for it. The client approached me and said, can you do this with us? There's been a 2-year global agreement we've had because they've come out to us and they want us to benchmark and do X, Y, and Z. And we've done that with them. And it's actually affected their, the way that they're offering salaries and what they're in terms of how much remote work they're allowing. We've benchmarked all of their competition and that's a big thing for them. So we're known internally across the board. So now those conversations when we're having with a partner, on a recruitment agency.

And to ask you like the opposite of what I just asked, what, what would be the things if we were to sit down in 12 months' time and be the reasons why you missed the mark or things didn't quite go the way that you wanted? Like, what would be the reasons why you wouldn't continue to have a good year next year? Is it again like the, the client sticky piece and getting close to that, or what would be the—

it would be work with you.

You're thinking about these things.

We all think about it, but it's just— listen, I've always said— I said to everybody in my business, and if I could give everybody one piece of advice to take away from here: choose your clients. Okay, choose them. I actually like— they don't— not every piece of business is good business. You want to work with somebody, be a partner to them, not just be somebody that sends them a CV and hopes for the best and be one of 8 suppliers. That's not the kind of work you want to be doing. There's no value in that either. The reason that I have— and my guys in my business have got some great relationships— is because partner with them, make sure that we're doing something that actually add value to them rather than just sending them loads of CVs. Anyone can do that.

Yes. If you look at your client roster and there's too many of them, too many.

The only reason I could see this going wrong next year is if we don't replicate what we need to replicate and make sure these new people are coming in. And what we've done with the one client that I was talking about with you earlier where we've done loads of business with them and become their strategic partner, that's only happened in the last 6 months with a new client. Doing that again with the other clients that we've got. I think a lot of people sit here with people on their books and they don't expand on those relationships. You can work it with it to an extent. So it's just having those conversations about being strategic, what they're planning on doing, and how you can be part of that journey.

Love it. I think you should be— I was saying to you downstairs, like, you should be— I know find it hard, but you should be super proud of what we built to this day. I think it's— if you think of like how it started not doing a single deal for 6 months.

I sent, I sent the guys a video the other day on my first day when I first got my first office. It was probably about this big, basically, with one desk. And they were like, is that where you started? And I used to— I didn't have, I didn't have a whiteboard. I used to write— there was a glass sheet behind me in the office. I used to write all my deals and all the interviews on there. So listen, this is— it's all, it's all the work of the team, really. It's not just— you can't put it down to one person. It's having the right sort of understanding. People want to come to work and they're happy where they are. They'll always do well. If they're not happy and they think that it's— they don't understand the journey, they're not born into it, you won't be where you need to be. But I'll be completely honest with you, I'm going to come here and say I'm the greatest recruit that ever lived. That's why I am where I am. It's a team. The team, they all contribute, they put in endless hours, and I've got a great team. That's what I would say.

Yeah. And but again, like, you've built that, right? So that's— they've been—

this is that old piece of the team. It's that old piece that we talked about downstairs. I come from an era where you don't talk about your wins, you just do them, basically. People. It's the team at the end of the day, of course.

But still, like, what we built over the, you know, last 6 years, yeah, made some really smart decisions. I love the fact that obviously happened really organically. You shared the story, but I think this is one of the really— comes with its challenges, right? But being an entrepreneur, you can take action on an idea that you have.

Yeah.

And you've now got, you know, part of your business is giving, you know, over 30 people an opportunity, a career. And I think that's pretty cool that he was able to do that. Obviously, given people that join the journey an opportunity to move their life to Dubai. I think that's pretty cool. And then like we've said, like you've really committed to this world, being a market expert and clearly just getting more and more opportunities to work even more closely with your clients, your partners. And again, like you've, you've been able to make that happen. I think that's what's really cool about this story and it's going to continue.

Do you know what it is, Hishem? It's about when I started, It wasn't about— if you start a business, and this is a piece of advice I'd want anyone to take away, just thinking about doing it— if you start a business with the idea of GP and I need to make X amount of money, it won't work as great as you think it's going to work. If you focus on making a change for a client in their project and actually delivering something that adds value to that client, the GP is a byproduct of that. And that's always been our mantra. I don't let anyone in the business do a deal that doesn't benefit a client, and everyone knows it as well. I just won't hold my tongue off on it. It has to be the right person for the right project.

And that's a perfect place to end. Appreciate you coming on.

Perfect, thanks.