Sam Oakes - The importance of investing in your mental well-being as a Recruiter and Business Owner.

Welcome to the Recruitment Rollercoaster podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Sam, you can't just sit there laughing at me, mate. Um, I'm joined by Sam Oakes. I'm in Bristol. Sam is one of the founders of Recruit UK, and, um, we're gonna have a good chat around your journey. Sam Oakes, you looking forward to it?

Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so As we were just saying, where I always like to start, Sam, is, uh, how you got into recruitment. Because I think obviously from what I can see online and your LinkedIn and stuff, it seems like you haven't been on the typical recruitment journey. So how did you, um, enter the world of recruitment?

Um, so I got into— I got into recruitment through, um, I was 27 years old when I first got into recruitment. So a lot older than I think most people tend to. I think most people tend to get on the graduate route. Yeah. Enter recruitment around about 21, but I was 27. And I was working for a financial services company. So Aviva.

Yeah.

And Aviva, you said? Yeah, Aviva. Yeah. So I was working for Aviva on part of a joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Okay.

I was there for about nearly 5 years. And when I was there, I was working as a customer service consultant, talking to financial advisors and customers of the bank about their pensions, investments, protection products. And from there I moved in like a team leader role. And then became a trainer. So I was a financial services trainer, so I was training out the financial products to newbies that were coming into the, into the company.

Yeah, because obviously they would sell products that you obviously— not the guys on the phones that I was talking to, they were more customer service, but the actual people out in the market would be selling products that you guys backed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the joint venture was, you know, Aviva— Aviva sold their products through the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Yeah.

So financial advisors would sell Aviva products.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So pensions, investments, and protection, all that kind of stuff. So my job was to really make that interesting for somebody who was like 18, 19, 20 years old without any experience or understanding of what, you know, certain legislations around pension transfers, A-Day, and all these different changes, and bonds, and how the FTSE worked, and all that kind of stuff. So I had a really good understanding of financial services.

Sure.

And it was really quite interesting. I really liked it. Um, it was, uh, creative. So I used to have to create training programs. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. So I was doing all that really. Um, but but, you know, it didn't really fulfill me.

So that's interesting.

Whilst I was in that role, you know, I was— you only ever are as good as— you only earn as much as the machine lets you. So I couldn't earn, you know, the 40s, 50s, 60ks I was— that I wanted to earn, that all my friends were earning at the age of 27. So a lot of my friends were starting to earn some really good money, but I felt quite restricted with it. So I felt quite sort of limited, limited into what I could, what I could actually do.

Hit the glass ceiling, as we all hear. Yeah. By candidates.

Yeah. And it wasn't— and it was just very big business. And I think my mindset and who I am as a person, and I was quite creative and I always wanted to try to change the way the training programs were put across. But if you understand working in financial services, you've got lots of people telling you you can't say certain things all the time. There's loads of red tape. So you get really kind of like downtrodden a little bit.

Frustrated. Yeah.

And frustrated. So yeah, at that point it was like, right, well, I don't really want to do this More. So I was out having a beer actually, and, um, with a friend of mine, and, um, I was whinging and moaning over the table that I wanted to work, that I was fed up of not earning enough money. Yeah, blah blah blah. Um, and that I would like to get into recruitment. And, um, whoa, where'd that come from? Where did it come from?

Yeah, well, why recruitment?

I'd always wanted— there's always something in the back of my mind that said work in recruitment.

Really?

Yeah.

So you have friends in recruitment?

No. Actually.

Where the hell is that coming from?

Bristol's full of recruitment companies.

Really?

Yeah. And the thing is, you have to kind of go backwards because I was— when I was younger, I always did sales roles.

Okay. So yeah, because I saw you as an insurance sales— yeah, that's where I started my sales career, really.

Yeah. So I was at Cornhill Direct selling insurance for a few years, outbound selling insurance, like house and contents and all that kind of stuff, which was a— it was a hard old slog, you know. And before that, I did some, you know, some, you know, some awful bloody sales jobs. I sold windows to people over the telephone when I was like 16, 17 years old. I knocked on people's doors.

Did you?

Doing door-to-door sales for like 2 and a half years. So I really cut 2 and a half years. Yeah, 2 and a half years. I built like a little team up. It's like pyramid selling basically, mate.

That's— so it's really interesting to say this. So as I was just saying, I did obviously also done a podcast with Jack Cole from Method, and he did, um, door-to-door sales for 18 months. And we're like, that's a long time because you typically, typically it's like 2 months, 3 months.

It's commissioning.

2 and a half years?

Yeah, yeah, dude, it was like 2 and a half years.

That is Yeah, fair play.

And interestingly enough, actually, the types of people that I've bumped into, um, since then have all gone on to run their own businesses.

And really, yeah, that's really interesting.

My mate runs like a personal— he's a personal trainer. And one of my mates owned a recruitment company, and then, um, that went under actually. Yeah, flips houses and stuff like that now. So everyone's kind of— who did it tended to go on to do something.

Okay, that's fair enough then. So the reason— so I guess where that came from when I asked that question was, well, hang on, actually I've had a ton of experience doing sales um, I've ended up in this training role. So then, so then literally at that point, um, you started Recruit UK?

No.

Okay.

So at that point, when I— yeah, so when I was looking at the table, the person who was on the other side of the table was Stuart.

Stuart. Okay.

And he passed over a business card. We said, well, if you want to come and work in recruitment, why don't you come and see me on Monday? I own a recruitment company and we'll have a chat.

Okay.

Now that recruitment company on his business card was a company called Viridian.

Viridian.

Viridian. Okay. Now Viridian were a, um, a recruitment agency that had appointed representatives working for them across the UK. So self-employed recruitment consultants would plug into Viridian, and Viridian had all these contracts with all the major banks. So they would just farm out all their vacancies to all these self-employed guys and take a, you know, a 30% split on everything that these guys were doing. Now, um, Stuart was, um, Stuart was originally employed by Viridian, but then set up as a— then had to set up as a self-employed AR of them. Um, downstairs. So when I came along and, and joined, um, Recruit UK was just a name on a piece of paper. So it was just a name on a piece of paper, a limited company called Recruit UK, but they took all the branding of Viridian and used their branding and their name and everything, and only really just filled the roles that Viridian generated because they had loads of financial advisor positions at the banks. Yeah, loads of mortgage advisor positions, customer advisors, all that kind of stuff. So you had loads of vacancies, you didn't need to go out. So It was a kind of beautiful little setup, really. You would just go and candidate generate and give away 30% of whatever it is you wrote.

Okay, so just to be clear then, so it's— I'm not sure.

No, no, I'm not—

well, I just want to make sure I fully understand that.

Yeah.

So when you obviously— when you was minding about, you want to get into recruitment or not, obviously enjoying your job, that was Stuart.

Yeah.

Stuart handed you a business card. Yeah, yeah, right. And then obviously you came in on Monday.

Yeah.

Met Stuart.

Yeah.

And then you just said this— the original setup was the— obviously, um, these banks had loads of vacancies. They farmed them out to Viridian. Yeah, Viridian then had people like Stuart and other people all across the UK, all across the UK, that could obviously fill these jobs. Yeah, just explain the recruit. So then where did the— where does Recruit UK fit into this? Like, where—

Recruit UK was an appointed representative of Viridian.

Okay, and that was Stuart, and that was Stuart, and another guy called Lee.

So there was two of them, it set it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and they had a couple of people that were— they started to employ within their little branch, if you like.

Okay, that makes sense.

And then started—

so they started to actually expand? Yeah, their own, obviously. AR, obviously I'm familiar with that in insurance as well because that's a similar setup. Okay, so we'll see. And how long was Stuart doing that for then? Was you obviously quite early on? Because obviously you and Stuart now own—

yeah, so Stu was doing that for about a year, I must have been about a year before I joined, but he was working in recruitment before that as well. So he used to work for another company selling sorry, doing like construction recruitment on a temporary basis, which sounded horrific. Um, so yeah, you did that.

But, um, and then now, how long has Recruit UK been going for?

About 11 and a half years. I've been doing it for about 11 and a half years, so maybe about 12 and a half years, something like that.

And then, so then just, just give me the sort of logistics. And when did you end— when did— because you're now 50/50 partners, right?

Yeah.

And was that a journey to get to that point then, I'm assuming? Like, how did that happen then? If— or was that straight off the bat? That's what I'm just trying to understand.

No, no, no. So yeah, so when I came into— when I came into Viridian, we working on— I came in to work on an RBS account and I can't add a load of vacancies on it. Yeah, right at that point I joined was the credit crunch.

Oh wow.

So all the banks started closing up and clamming up and saying that we're not giving any more vacancies out. So you could kind of— Stuart went white basically, just, you know, he just employed me and sort of thinking, oh shit, what we're going to get him to do now.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but anyway, I came in and I just sort of picked up the— I just kind of— I knew that recruitment was going to be tough and I knew it's gonna be hard and I knew that I had to make a load of outbound calls and all of that. And back on my history of working in smashing the telephones trying to sell people windows. I just got on the phone and started speaking to people. But we generated one client when we weren't generating a lot of vacancies off the back of Viridian.

Yeah.

And that was a big building society. And I ended up doing a load of business in my first year through this one building society.

Really?

They literally gave me one vacancy. It was a part-time role up in like North London, and I just worked the nuts off of it for like a fee of about £2,000.

Yeah.

But I really cut my teeth on that, and I really started to understand the structure of what you need to do in recruitment to be able to find really good candidates and the client relationship and all of that kind of stuff. So as I started doing that, I started getting really good at it. Um, the credit crunch was sort of starting to fade out a little bit and we started getting more and more vacancies through the banks. And I started doing a lot of work then through RBS and making lots of placements. And in my second year I did about £150 grand.

Yeah.

Um, but there still wasn't enough vacancies out there along those lines. Um, so I ended up, um, So at the time though, the business wasn't really making lots and lots of money. We didn't have loads of people employed, and there was some okay recruiters in there.

Yeah.

Um, the Stuart ended up getting 100% of the business by, by, um, uh, the other chap leaving.

Yeah, yeah.

And, um, it got to a situation where I think, um, I was probably bidding the most on the board, so he was paying me the most. So it was a bit like, well, we better make him a 50% shareholder in the business. Okay. And that's how it happened. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't like I was fighting. Yeah, I I was just, I was a recruitment consultant and, you know, I was just a couple of years in and I was just making some— and I was 11 years ago, but yeah, it must have been about 2 or 3 years whilst I got into it. Yeah, about 3 years, maybe 2 and a half. I'm not very good with dates, you have to—

that's right.

Yeah, about 2 and a half, 3 years.

But you've been a 50% shareholder for about 7 years now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's really interesting then.

I kind of fell into it. I kind of just, it just, it just, it was an opportunity that came up to me and said, do you want to be a director within this business? And I said yeah. You know, and because—

have you ever wanted your own business?

No. Uh, yeah, there's always something in the back of my mind that wanted to have my own business. I'm quite sort of that way inclined anyway. I always had in my head that I was going to achieve something, that I was going to own something. I am somebody that I quite like control, and so I quite— I always thought I was going to have something that was going to be mine.

Like a pyramid scheme?

Your pyramid? Yeah, yeah, door-knocking pyramid. Some funny stories in in that game.

Okay, so that's really interesting then. So let— why don't we— why don't we break that down a bit then? So I guess I said the first thing I always like to sort of just, just touch on before we go into the sort of last 7, 8 years of you, yeah, being a real 50% shareholder of this business. So you were talking a bit about it there, but so first 12 months in recruitment, what were they like?

First 12 months?

Yeah, what they're like. So this was literally as a recession hit, or was it just after?

Or I think you have a perception, don't you, of recruitment before you get into it, of what you think it is, and then the reality of it is completely different. Do think, I'm gonna have all these vacancies and all these people are going to walk through my door and I'm just going to sit down with them and chat with them and find them a job and it's going to be nice and easy. You don't realize just how tough and hard it actually is and how competitive it is and how you go out and source those candidates and what the candidate experience is and what their thoughts are of actually a recruitment consultant, you know. Um, so my first year was tough. Yeah, like I think first year for anybody getting in, in, in, into recruitment is tough, you know. You have to You have blood, sweat, and tears. And I would often sort of take myself out to the toilet and sit in the toilet and be sitting there shaking, thinking like, what am I doing this for? This is, this is horrible.

Like, you know, why didn't you quit?

Because I don't quit. I'm not a quitter. So, and, and also as well, I observed within that first 12 months there was a chap in there called Tom Ponting, right? And he went over to— he ended up going to Opus and he became a director there and he's got his own little business now actually. He's a good guy, bloody good recruitment consultant, and all I did was just watch him, really, because it was quite a small little office. All I did was look at him and think, what did he— what's he doing?

Was he the—

yeah, he was like top biller when I joined. So I just observed him, and he wasn't doing anything extraordinary, you know. He wasn't some sort of boffin, and, you know, he was, he was just doing a very— a job, very, you know, really simple. So I would just look at him and watch what he was doing and emulate what he was doing and copy what he was doing. Um, and that was pretty much how I then got through that, really. It's just like, look at the person who's making money, copy them, and make it better. And that's why—

what is that your advice to people that join your business now? Mm, as part of it.

Part of it, yeah. I always—

there's more to it than that, but I always think—

I think I always say to somebody, like, anybody who joins our business now, it's just like, listen, use your ears, listen to people within the office, listen to what they're doing. What are they doing well and what they're doing badly? Take a look at the people that are at bottom of the table. What are they doing? What they're not doing? Yeah, don't look at the person who's doing really, really, really well. And also, at the same time, don't be be disheartened if you're not performing to the level of, say, a top biller. Yeah, because, um, you know, it's taken him a long time to get there. It's tough.

It's a long game, isn't it?

It's a long game. Yeah.

And then how— just on that point now, because it's come up quite a lot now— how did you naturally ask for help? Was you someone that naturally would go over to him and go, you know, like, you know what you just did there? Like, I'm struggling a bit with that. Do you know how you approach that BD call? Would be great if you could talk to me a bit about why you did that.

Yeah, I look back, I, I did. Yeah, all of my training was like on job. So it was to— it was like, you know, here's a, here's a job advert, here's a job, I want you to write a job advert. So you just do it and you just get on with it and do it on the job. There was no structured training for me, so I had to listen, I had to pick up, and I had to— I didn't sit next to somebody listening. I think I did it for like a day or something.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, no, I just always— I always— I'm the experiential learner, you know, the one when you, you act an activist, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

So I have to do the job to be able to learn.

I just think that's such sound advice, and it's come up quite a lot now. So like, if you're listening and you're struggling right now, and there's people around you that you look up to, that inspire you, that you think you can learn from, then go over and ask.

Go over.

I know that can be difficult, can't it, sometimes, because you don't want to be seen as like— no one likes to feel like they're stupid, or there's a lot of—

I think there's a lot of— there can be a bit of ego in recruitment, and there can be a bit of too much pride.

Exactly.

I think people just need to loosen up a little bit and just go to somebody who's doing really well and ask, say, look, you know, what are you doing? It's really— can I listen to you for an hour? You know, can I— can you just tell me things that you're doing. And especially that works really well with us because each recruitment consultant's got their own— even though we do the same market, yeah, everyone's got their own location and their own region. So we are a culture, and I've always created that as a culture of sharing anyway. So look, you know, if you're doing something really well, I want you to talk to somebody about it. I want you to tell somebody about it. Yeah. And vice versa, make sure that you ask. And I think, I think that's the way you learn, isn't it? Yeah, we always learn by watching and listening.

So just to help me out and the people listening, then what, what's been your sort of Obviously, obviously you own, you, um, own half of the business for the last 7 or so years. But like, what— obviously I know that sort of your role and what you've been up to has obviously evolved.

Yeah.

So I guess just, just help me understand sort of how it's got to the point where now you're sort of heavily invested in marketing and these types of things. So what— talk to me about that. So it's clearly started as a biller, was obviously doing well in terms of billings.

Yeah.

Then did you start managing and building a team underneath you or whatever? Just sort of journey that—

okay, so there wasn't any kind of clear-cut career structure for me. There wasn't a competency-based framework. There wasn't something that I had to follow. Everything that I've done since becoming like a director was like— I was, I was a director as a recruitment consultant. I didn't have any clear plans in front of me how I'm going to do it or anything along those lines of goals or anything like that. I just had to feel my way. So I, you know, I took to— right, well, I'm, I'm recruiting, so I need a resourcer. I didn't even really understand what a resourcer was. Yeah, do you know what I mean? So I just hired somebody to do the shit job, basically. Yeah, yeah. So I get a really good candidate. Um, well, this is the kind of thing as well though with— I've kind of got to go back a little bit because with, with when we were underneath Viridian, yeah, and they were hiring for all the banks, there was a big change that happened within the financial advice industry. Um, and, and what happened was it was a request called the Retail Distribution Review. But anyway, the consequences with that, of that, were that the banks had to kick out basically a lot of their financial advisors. They they couldn't no longer hire these— keep these financial advisors hired because their model for financial advice didn't suit the Retail Distribution Review.

Wasn't that because they couldn't bonus— they're like, can't bonus them as much anymore, or they can't actually give advice?

It was based around how you, how you charged for financial advice, commission-based or fee-based.

Yeah, exactly.

The time— so the banks couldn't really do that. So in that situation, what you had was all these financial advisors that were working for the banks were no longer working for the banks. We couldn't place them in there. So it was like, well, all we ever knew was Bank Assurance. They called that market Bank Assurance. So then we looked at, well, what's the rest of the world out there? And it was IFAs, it was wealth management, it was all these smaller boutiques. So we kind of visioned really that RDR was gonna have an impact, that was going to have a massive impact on the IFA and wealth management market. So we pulled away from Viridian, did no longer wanted to use their branding or anything like that. And when I took the directorship, I said, look, if we're going to do this, we need to have our own brand. Yeah. So we need to take this Recruit UK from a name on a piece of paper and turn it into a bloody company. Yeah, and we need to start looking at the IFA and wealth management market. And that's essentially what we did. So when I did that, you had a couple of people that were still having a foot in the Viridian, making sure we're making placements over there because that was our bread and butter. And I went off completely cold into the world of IFA. So I had to completely understand and brand new, a kind of brand new market, um, you know, self-employed advisors, employed advisors, high net worth ones, and all the different types of advice advisors I had to go out there and learn So that was when I kind of got into it and when I got right into it.

How did you approach that then? Because that's probably a real common thing that people ask, like how—

like reverse marketing, really? Yeah. So it was purely based on the fact that if I had a really good candidate.

Yeah.

Yeah. So let's say, for example, you know, you go on to read about that and there'll be a load of financial advisors that have been kicked out of banks.

Yeah.

So I take that candidate and I would go to market. So I would just take a really good candidate, pick up the phone, and I'd phone every single financial advice company that was there, um, and I'd sell that candidate in. A big part of what I did as well was make sure I spoke to as many candidates as possible, and I just asked them questions. But something, something that people I don't think do very well anymore is to learn their market through asking candidates and asking questions.

Sounds so simple, basic, but it's so— it's come up so much.

It's the basics. Yeah, it's the absolute basics of recruitment.

I think, I think for me, part of that is like particularly early on or whatever, like you, you get in the sort of, you know what you need to get out of that call and you sometimes you cannot hurry to make sure you get what you need to get out of. If you get what I mean, you're thinking about, right, I need to get this out of this call rather than— yeah, do you know what I mean? Thinking about, right, what questions can I ask to get even more information rather than I need to tick off job title, salary expectations, locations, travel, blah blah blah. Do you know what I mean?

People are scared to ask a question because they don't want to sound silly.

Yeah, so true.

And it's like, there is— and, and the thing is though, your phone, when you're phoning up when you're phoning up, say, a financial advisor, what do they like to do? They like to talk about themselves. Yeah, do you know what I mean?

So I think as well, having the humility to go, you know what, uh, Sam, you know what you just said, I'm not actually— I'm not actually quite sure I understand that. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Exactly.

I guarantee you they're not going to go, Sam, mate, you should know that.

Well, I say— what I say to everybody is ask, ask a set amount of questions to every candidate you speak to. Because let's say you've got 10 different candidates all working for 10 different companies. If you ask them what they like and what they dislike about the current company they're working for, because the next person you speak to works for that company, you already know what they probably like.

And this particular nonsense, what are those systems like?

Oh, well, the systems are crap, but the bonus is good, isn't it? Oh yeah, the bonus is good. Yeah, yeah. So you're just learning as you go, aren't you? You're making a note and you're just building up and, you know, building up an idea of your market and companies that are good and the companies that aren't.

Did you really start mapping out your market then through candidates? You know what, Sam, actually I've had interviews here, interviews there, blah, blah, blah.

So I started doing that. So I started doing that. I started mapping the market and understanding what these different propositions were out there, what a self-employed one was, what an employed one was. Tide, Restricted, IFA, whatever it was. I really understood the market. It was just me covering the whole of the UK, so I employed somebody as a resource. So I find some good candidates, I give them a candidate, and I'd say, right, your job today is just to phone every single company.

Yeah.

And then we started building an email marketing database off the back of it and speccing candidates out via email, as you do. And then gradually that grew, and over time I would then hire somebody to say, right, your job is to work that location, and your job's to work that location. And now we've got to this stage where I've got How many, how many people do you have? So there's 16 MacRuses now. We've got another 3 that we should be taking on, accepted, and starting in January.

Oh wow.

So, and we've got 3 regional teams. So we've got a team that looks after the Southeast and London, team that's after Midlands and North, um, and team looks after the Southwest and Wales.

Why did you do it on geography, out of interest?

Just, I think it's just for us it was easier to manage.

Yeah.

So you did it based on geography and you kind of can then place a certain amount of recruitment consultants within a geog— within a certain patch within the UK. And it meant that we were covering the UK then as well.

You know, you're talking about there, like, obviously gradually over time and stuff. How long did that take from you going, right, we need to— this is— there's a great opportunity here to take these financial advisors, they're out of a job, into a market? Because I think, again, in today's world, it's so easy to look— like, if I were to look into the window of Recruit UK now and go, bloody hell, Sam's doing all right, innit? Like, nearly gonna have nearly 20 people in his business. He's doing all right. But like, what, what was the sort of— just for like everyone's benefit, what was the timeline of you recognizing that opportunity and then building it from scratch to where it actually being pretty profitable and good?

Well, we were downstairs in this little kind of fish tank window that you could literally look through our window actually, um, that down, downstairs. And, um, it was a massive amount of trial and error, you know. Like, as I said to you, I didn't have any handbook, I didn't have any guide, I didn't have some mentor telling me, me or Stuart, what to do. We were basically feeling our way as we were doing it. So there was a period where it was kind of run like you'd have one foot in being a recruitment consultant and the next foot in trying to be a director and push the business forward.

Yeah.

Whilst trying to pay the bills. You had employees within there, paying the bills of where you were, and it was all new to us really. And yeah, um, and it was quite, quite tough. But we kind of assigned roles quite early on. Stuart quite likes the finances side and I quite like the idea of pushing the business forward. So that was, that was kind of my, my game really. But there was a, there was a lot of time, there was a big period where I was feeling my way, um, and we were running it kind of like business owners and recruiters, and it was a bit messy. There was no structure to it. So that was going for like 3, 3 years. I think we've been up, we've been up, so we moved upstairs from downstairs about 3 years ago, and it was half this space we've got now.

Okay.

And then last year I took over the rest of the half. I always said I'm gonna have those rooms because they were, they were Ven's, um, meeting rooms.

Okay.

And this was another meeting room. I was like, I'm going to take over those rooms. I had a vision of taking over those rooms and I ended up taking them over. And so I would say as a business, actually running it as a business and thinking about the growth of it and on the business. Yeah. Having the structure within it because we played around with having different people managing and setting the business up in different ways. And I know we settled on the regional side of it, but it took time to get there. So it's only like the last, I would say, 3 years where it's been running properly as a machine that I know that if I bring somebody in, I can slot them in more. That's it.

Yeah. Available.

And we've got competency-based framework and we've got great bonus structures and we've got—

so I think until 3 years ago, what's that then? Like what, we're talking 2, 3 years up until the last 3 years?

Yeah, like a good couple.

I think that's such a good thing to make sure everyone understands that, like, you're not going to have everything planned out straight away and it doesn't happen overnight, do you know what I mean? I think that's such an important thing to highlight that. And also the fact you've been honest around that you're, you're working your way out and, you know what I mean?

I hadn't— you know what, I'm not gonna lie you, I was shitting myself on a regular basis, and I was also resentful on a regular basis.

Why?

Because it was like, I just wanted to— sometimes you just want this. Because I got into becoming a director. When you become a director, you then go into like a director's salary, right?

Yeah.

When you're a recruitment consultant, you're earning a load of money.

Yeah.

You know, and I was just— I was earning— I was, I was probably at that point where I would have been earning some really good money.

Yeah.

I was going on nice holidays and all that kind of stuff, and all of a sudden I'd moved from being a recruitment consultant, all I had to worry about was myself, your own billings.

Yeah.

Yeah. To then having to worry about building a business without any experience or anything like that, but knowing I kind of had an ego side of me that wanted to do it, I wanted to build it. Um, and you've become a little bit neggy and a bit resentful because any money that you're getting, you're having to pay into somebody else's pocket as a salary, and you don't really get it, and you're unsure. And so, so it was hard. It was really, really, really hard during that period. And, um, I kind of think, like, looking back on it, I would have taken some advice Really? Yeah, I wish.

Did you feel like you could have gone to anyone? Like, was that even like an option?

Uh, I didn't— I, it— oh yeah, I suppose it was. I could have done that. Yeah, but I, I, I, it, it— I don't know, it just didn't seem to compute in my mind.

Yeah.

Whereas you look at people now, like, can you look at you guys, you just gonna met. Yeah, I've got some other companies that I'm seeing being set up, you know, they get backed by finances now, don't they, and all that kind of stuff. And if we're doing that probably back in the day when I was— but I just wasn't I was, I was quite, um, I would guess narrow-minded a little bit. A little bit like, I'm gonna do it, I don't really want anybody else to help me.

So would your advice be then, one of the—

I never took investment. We've never taken investment. We've never had investment.

But one of the pieces of advice potentially would be, Sam, seek advice.

100%. God, yeah, because it's, it's hard work and it's at times—

Because you see, as you said, you were doing loads of things you've never done before.

Yeah. And and everything I was doing, I was feeling out. Whereas if I think, you know, like James Osborne and the Recruiting Network, right? If we'd have done something like that earlier, I think we would have had a game plan.

Yeah.

So I would have got my game plan a lot earlier and stuck to a game plan a lot earlier, because there are people out there who've done this job, tried and tested it, and forged a good path. Whereas I was just forging my own path.

Yeah.

You know, I wasn't really listening to anybody else. I was just forging my own path. I wasn't out— I think it was out of arrogance. I think it's because I was just super, super busy. And also you're kind of thinking, oh my God, how much is it going to cost? And you're always trying to keep costs low and all that stuff.

And so what were some of the key learnings, do you think, then during that period? If you were to again think back before you got to the point where you're really focused on the business, how the structure is in place, like, what are some of the key learnings, do you think, that people can—

Communication is key.

With who? People internally or just—

With your business partner. Make sure that you both know what each person's responsibility is. I think looking back on that, it was quite loose. We didn't have— we were quite loose people in the sense of our— what we were trying to hope to gain from it. Neither of us really communicated that properly.

That's interesting.

So I would definitely say make sure you—

that then filter into, um, then like the consultants and stuff if you and Stuart weren't completely on the same page.

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I suspect that probably might well have happened. Um, over time you become more attuned to each other and what each person is responsible for. Because again, you know, when you're a small little business and when you're the one— let's say, for example, someone's looking after the financial side of the business and in your head you're looking after the growth of the business. Yeah, they're two very separate roles. Yeah, you know, one's a sales role, one's like keeping the ship together.

Yeah.

And then— but I'll be honest with you, I wasn't a massive fan of the management side of it. I really struggle with managing people.

Really? Because I'm too direct and people get a bit How long did it take to realize that, do you think?

Scrap that, right? I'm not a bad manager, okay? I'm just very honest and I'm very direct.

And yeah, but as you said, and some people don't like some—

yeah, I think some people don't like it because I think some people these days getting into recruitment are ultra sensitive. And I think it's not the kind of— it's not the kind of job it used to be. Like, I think, you know, Obviously, I think you can be a lot— you have to be very careful how you speak to people nowadays.

Yeah, yeah, I got you, man.

Yeah, no, I'll get—

I'll totally get what you mean.

I guess some people don't like to be told that they're doing something wrong, you know, they get a little bit neggy about it. Whereas I'm quite capable of sitting down with somebody. If someone's not doing well, my strength is I will sit down with them and I will tear apart their desk, and I'll do it in a consultative way, but I'm not very sensitive to somebody's emotions around it. Yeah. So that's why you can see why that has positive 100%, because if someone does that to me, I'm like, fuck off. Yeah, like, what are you talking to me?

If you give it, man, you gotta be able to take it, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So chat, so obviously you're talking, so, and then talking about learnings, communication challenge. So you obviously, through that process, you worked out you wasn't— obviously the, um, your management style didn't obviously click with everyone.

No, not with everyone. No, definitely not.

So what were some of the other challenges through that period? Worth thinking about or talking about that you think people could benefit from?

How you manage your personal stress and your health and well-being. Because are we talking from a recruitment, becoming a recruiter, or becoming a director of a business, or both?

You? Yeah, if that's what you're trying— that people, other people are going to be experiencing that, if you experience that.

I think, yeah, I think recruitment as a whole is a very tough job. Yeah, mentally a tough job. And then your podcast is called The Recruitment Rollercoaster. You are literally up and down on a daily basis. And I think if you are struggling perhaps with your, um, if you are struggling with your mental health during those periods, or health in general, it can be a really real drain on, drain on you, basically, your energy levels and everything like that. So my advice to anybody within recruitment or getting into it is to— and basically when I was a bit like it, it's just look after yourself, look after the— look after your health, look after your well-being. You know, I nowadays— back then I would just, if I had a good day, I'd get smashed. If I had a bad day, I'd get smashed. You know, the weekend would come, I'd get— I was just always getting on it basically, always getting drinking. Yeah. And then when you— you know what that's like, you're up and down with that, you get hangovers and all that, they merge all together. And when you're doing doing a stressful job, it then becomes even worse because like the lows are low and the highs are high, aren't they? So these days I do a lot more like— I don't, I don't drink alcohol or anything like that. I'm a complete teetotaler.

Really?

Yeah, completely.

How long?

The last 7 and a bit months.

Oh wow.

Yeah, it's taking a long time for me to get there, but I'm a complete teetotaler now. But the difference to how I am now in this job, it doesn't have such a negative effect on me if I get stressed out. I can really I'm a bit calm. I'm a lot calmer. I look at things outside of work like yoga, and I was meditating before you turned up, so meditation I do. Um, I love my running, you know, I love exercise and all that type of stuff. So I think, um, how is it—

how has that been? How has that then benefited you? And as a, as a recruitment director?

Calmer. Yeah, you make decisions without being so rash with your decisions, so you think about things more, you're a bit more patient. Um, you know, you, um, you're more patient with people around you. Yeah. Um, and, um, ultimately, you— the, the stresses and the strains of running a company and building a business, um, don't overtake your life, and that you can just place it as part of your— part of your life, and then it doesn't invade my personal space, my wife, my kid, you know. Whereas before, it was just like eating into every avenue of my life.

Really?

Yeah. God, yeah, you worry about your personal relationship, everything, every relationship, every relationship I've had, it's impacted.

Really?

Oh God, yeah, massively.

It was always— did you, did you find it hard to leave work at the door then when you left?

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, picking up the phone when you're at home, thinking about it when you go to bed, thinking about it at the weekend, you know, it, it can really, really play on you. And, um, that's why I think you should really work on yourself, your personal well-being, your mindset. How you cope with the problems, like, you know, not letting things build up. Yeah, communication, communication, and 100%, because I think again, there's a lot of pride and there's a lot of ego in recruitment, and I've been subject to that. I didn't want someone to know that I was struggling or anything along those lines, but now I talk to people, I let them know, like, my good— you have a really good relationship with Stuart where we open up to each other and make sure that we, we know where we are.

And I think it's— again, I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. This is something I'm super passionate about. I think Obviously, look, I'm obviously, um, not as much— obviously you're— you've been in a journey longer than me, but last 5 months doing my own thing, it's just me. I was someone that was always quite health conscious, always made the time to go to the gym, eat as well as I could, but always 100%, 30%, ended up getting pierced and all that, standard. But definitely what I've experienced in the last 4 or 5 months is it definitely has been more challenging to— again, it could be excuses, but it's definitely been more challenging to have that balance of making time for me and investing myself. Yeah, like, definitely. I've definitely slacked on gym, these types of things. And I think, yeah, you can very much put all your eggs in the business basket when it's your own thing.

It's managing your expectations as well, because you're an ambitious person, Hishem. I watch some of your videos and see what you're about, and you're at Hoxo.

Yeah.

You know, and I think when you put yourself out there in the limelight on LinkedIn as well, you almost become a bit of a mini celebrity. So you— an expectation on yourself and a pressure upon yourself to deliver. Yeah, and I think we all actually have that, and it's like, are we being fair to ourselves?

So true.

Are we giving ourselves enough time to recover from those ups and, and all that kind of stuff? And I think, um, yeah, I think it's just make sure you give yourself plenty of time.

I think that that's definitely one thing I realize, it's that, well, actually big part of the reason why I wanted to start my own business was to, yeah, have more flexibility in my life and these types of things. And that means that for me, I— to, yeah, have more weeks where the weeks— the, the type of weeks that I want rather than, yeah, to cater to my clients, right, and stuff like that.

Yeah.

But I think just to as well, just to, um, I think again you have to be honest with this stuff. Like, I did a post recently about, yeah, like, you obviously—

I'm—

you will experience this in your life, but obviously with you having your own business a very easy small talk question is, 'Oh Sam, how's business?' Like, you get that like 10 times more when, when you don't work for someone. Obviously the typical small chat is, 'Oh Sam, how's work, mate?' But when it's your own business, like, 'Oh Sam, how's business? How's it going? Is it going well?' Blah blah blah. And obviously I've really experienced that. And like, there's obviously some people that do ask you that question. For me, there's some people that, like, even if I was struggling and it was a really tough time, there would there would be people that ask me that question, I literally— I wouldn't want to have a conversation with them around that, struggling.

Yeah.

So there's part of that that you just want to back off and go, yes, great. But there's also a big part in today's world where you don't want to talk about like the bad times, which is why I shared in my post, like, it's just so important to me to be honest, which is why one of the things that I shared was one of the big challenges I've had is like, for me, because it's on my own, I don't— you don't have anyone to celebrate wins with, and that's been a challenge which I've been used to. Yeah, so I think I'm glad you're sharing that because it's so important to be honest.

And also this sort of stuff, it can be very lonely even if you've got a team of people because you don't want to tell your employees you're having a hard time.

Exactly.

You want to be seen as being that guy who's all like on it and leading by example and all those types of things. You hold a lot of that sort of stuff in even when you've got a team of people around you. Um, when you're on your own, yeah, I can imagine it's even even more difficult. Yeah, because then you're just bending your missus's ear or your partner's ear.

But yeah, and that's probably my final point sort of on this around what you're talking about and sharing, is that again it comes down to communication. That's something that I've had to really work on in my relationship. The, the sort of— the girlfriend I have is someone that I want to be with the rest of my life. And like, for me, what I've had to really be clear with, which I wasn't so good with previously, was communicating. So look, me, me, yeah, sometimes I may have to stay a bit late or whatever, but that's because this is what I'm trying to build for us and all that. And Actually, before, I was very prone to just like, leave me alone, I'm working, like I need to crack on, rather than communicating why I'm, why I'm doing this, why I'm putting all this effort into it. Because there's an— yeah, I'm communicating that this is for us. And yeah, it's like, you can very easily not communicate that. Like you were saying, that you just thought— you probably just take those phone calls, look, I need to do it. Yeah, I need to do this. But you need to communicate why you're doing it, and with your partner as well. That's what I've found when you're under a load of pressure. Stress. Yeah, I mean, you need to communicate what you're doing this for. Because a lot of the time, you sometimes think just people understand why you're doing it. Look, this is my— this is like, I own half this business, like, I need to do this.

So what I mean, why are you— why are you doing it? I need to be asking the questions for you now, but why are you doing it? What is your—

what should you mean? Yeah, um, honestly, sometimes I ask that question to myself sometimes.

It's different every time.

You know what, I think, um, have I got a complete concrete answer to that. Probably not. Yeah, I think for me, what I've followed my gut instinct, and where my gut instinct has always sort of led me to, is what I've become really passionate about, just for the journey I've been on, is helping others. I know it sounds proper cliché, I like it, but that's what's probably always driven me. Um, and I found my position, found the sort of myself in a position where sort of what I've ended up doing for myself and what I've learned along the way can— there's actually a— I can actually help a lot of people. Um, and I think that's just, that's just what really gets me going. And then it's that. So just that, that's sort of always driven me, really. If I think about what I do now and going into businesses and meeting people, and, and this podcast has definitely enabled that as well. I think that, that's when I feel my most alive and sort of really buzz off that. And that's what's true, that's the drive, really.

So your drive is to help other people. And I think now at the moment is a perfect time to become that teacher. I think everybody anybody out there who's, who's decent at their job are becoming those influencers. They call them an influencer, don't they? Or they become a teacher, and they're, you know, it's about educating your clients, candidates, around how to do things better and how I can help you do these things better. And I, I found that myself by doing this digital recruitment solutions side of our business, um, and about when I go into these companies and I understand the struggles that they're experiencing respective hiring, say, financial financial planners in a, in a market that— which is very— where advisors just aren't moving and there aren't that many of them. And I'm educating them and telling them about the struggles we come up against as one of the largest financial planning recruiters in the UK. Um, they start to listen a little bit, you know, and I start to tell them a little bit about the struggles, what we— you know, how we do things, what we should— you know, what we're doing and, um, how marketing impacts that. And, you know, trying to educate them you don't stand out, you know, you don't stand out in the marketplace.

Because that's, that's always— when I go into businesses, that's always one of the key challenges that in all my— in all sectors and markets is that the client will come to you as a recruiter and go, look, Sam, I need you to headhunt, or I need you to get the best person, the next superstar out of our competitors. Okay, Sam, 'Sam, tell me about sort of what you offer more than the salary and these types of things.' And you go, 'Well, we offered 20 days holiday,' all the normal stuff, you know what I mean? It's like, 'Well, guess what, Sam? Your competitor offers that too.' Yeah. 'What's your differentiator?' And these types of things, you know what I mean? So that's such a common challenge that'll be across all sectors.

Yeah.

And now, and again, recruiters will be having those conversations on a daily basis. So let's just talk a bit about that then. So obviously last 3 years you've obviously now had the opportunity to really focus on, on the, on the business.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you've obviously, you've gone, got to a position where you're playing to your strengths, which has been, as we're talking about, being a bit of a journey to get to that point.

I'm quite on, I'm, I've always had a fondness for marketing, um, and looking at ways to combine marketing with recruitment for my clients. And the thing that I've, the massive thing that I've noticed is they don't— clients are willing to pay a lot of money for contingency-based fees.

Yeah, because they only pay when they get the—

when they get the result. Yeah, but they're like, when times are hard, they're like, well, why aren't you finding me anybody? And it's like, well, and again, it goes out to that point where you're not really standing out, you're just another company out there in the noise. And there's a huge amount of noise out there of unbranded job adverts, you know. Every— I'm client, you know, I'm representing a wealth management German, and, you know, they're not thinking about their, their, the long-term impact that their brand around recruitment is or isn't having. So what I've done over the last 9 months is I've immersed myself in becoming a digital marketer. So I've taught myself everything about digital marketing, um, to be able— in the very, very beginning was to be able just to get Recruit UK brand out there and to try to generate some inbound leads. So I started creating inbound recruitment strategy strategies using HubSpot landing pages, you know, Google AdWords, sponsoring adverts on Facebook and all that type of stuff. And when I started doing that and I started to get some results, it was like, well, how can I now do this for my clients?

Yeah. And how long was that period? That— because I think this is clearly something that everyone's talking about, it's the world that I'm in.

Yeah. How—

let's just make that crystal clear because that's a way— that's always a conversation around this, isn't it? And that's the conversation I always had with people like you look, Sam, this is a long-term investment. It's like building a recruitment business brand. It does take time, of course, but let's just make that crystal clear. From your experience, from deciding that I'm— we need to get the Recruit UK, um, brand out there, marketing is important, we need to get that right, what was that period of where you went, you know what, we're actually getting some good results here, and now how can I do this for my clients? How long was that period, you think?

Really quick.

Really?

Yeah, say like 3 months.

Really? So how bad is it, 90 days?

Yeah. So I went from like whacking, you know, I went from looking at what we can do for us as a company to get our brand out there, um, got the process in place for that, but I used an external marketing agency to manage it for me. Yeah, I didn't do all of that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then once I did that, I then saw the opportunity to be able to say to my clients, a couple of clients that were struggling to find candidate is that, let me— why don't we take your brand, use your brand, but sell it through my, um, my channel, you know, essentially, you know. So if we're getting 10,000 hits a month on our website, right, let's look at what you're getting. Oh, you're getting 6,000 hits every 6 months. Yeah. And we're doing all this work on, on SEO to drive financial advisors to us. Let's start marketing your brand to my followers, essentially to my website.

You built leverage.

Build leverage, exactly that. So, um, at that point it was kind of like, well, I just sort of casually mentioned— a couple of guys have gone out to see some clients and casually mentioned, this is what we're doing, would you be interested? Um, and then when I went along to some meetings with some of the clients of ours and started saying, right, look, what we do is we create some blogs for you, and those blogs will be branded. So we'll be talking about something interesting within the financial advice industry, but we'll put your name in there and we sort of feature you and all that kind of stuff. So we started doing that, and then it was like, well, then we'll create a landing page on our website. It's all branded up, so anything that someone reads and then wants to click through, they'll land on there and watch a video of you. Yeah, yeah, there'll be a download on there. So we started creating downloads. Then I thought, well, I'll just create a package. So you get, you get this, you get that, you get, you know, this is all you get, and this is how much you're gonna— I'm gonna charge you on a monthly basis. And at that point I thought, if I'm gonna work with these types of companies that are struggling as hell to find candidates. They're going to need to pay me because I'm, I'm, I'm giving so much of my energy trying to help them build, build a business, but I'm only getting paid on a contingency basis.

No way.

So it doesn't make any sense.

Yeah.

And, and recruitment is without a doubt changing. I think if you're gonna, you know, contingency-based recruitment will always be there, contract-based recruitment always be there, but there's this little bit in between now, which is this what I call digital recruitment solutions, which is charge your clients a fee per month to be able to advertise their brand to your following that you spent loads of money on generating and loads of money on building and, you know, and creating a huge audience. Like, you know, their advert, for example, or their blog article that we're going to write— this can be really interesting for the audience to read, that will hopefully get a load of readers on that that might click through to their website or whatever. Um, you know, that's cost me a shitload of money to generate that audience. They might go out to like 85,000 first connections on an organic basis.

Totally.

Or I might stick £1,000 on it to, um, to advertise on Facebook or whatever, you know, and do some target marketing. Interesting.

And how has that been received in your market then?

Good.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've got a couple of— so this is, this is the cool thing really, right? So, you know, I'm charging them on a monthly basis on a, on a 12-month contract, so they have to do 12 months recurring revenue when—

yeah, before it was just contingent.

Exactly. And then also on top of that, I get full fees. So, you know, you take a— bring on a couple of clients and you're earning well over £100,000 just off of the recurring income, then you've got—

and then you obviously and then obviously also what you're doing there is obviously the problem that— where the problem that where this all came from is that, yeah, they can't stand out. They obviously— you can, you have the attention and these types of things, which is what they don't have.

Use your audience, basically.

Yeah, use your audience. But obviously the problem you're solving is, is that piece where it's like, okay, so I've got 5 financial wealth companies or whatever and they're all the same. Like, what, what makes them stand out? Exactly.

So the problem that I I have an encounter, yeah, is they want results a hell of a lot quicker.

Yeah.

And I'm like, look, it takes time to sort of building a relationship with you guys and our audience. So we've got to build that. We've got to build that.

How do you manage the expectations?

Each month I do a review with them. I go over what the performance of that article or download is and what we've generated. And we look over the interviews that we've generated with them. Yeah, I talk to them, you know, about what we're going to do next month and all that kind of stuff. And what you— what I found is that as I'm going through each month, because I'm generating content that is out there in Google, for example, and ranking in Google, and some of them rank on page 1 of Google. Yeah, they're— every month they're getting more views, more views. Like on month 1, they might be— I've only got 500 views, but they're on month 6, all of a sudden they're getting like 4,000 views of content with their name on it. Yeah, you know, and, um, I guess the thing, the thing is starting to see more direct— they see more direct applications, which does me an injustice. I don't get it.

However, that's a huge value add.

And I just, you know, if I can, if I can add— and this is the thing— and if I can just add the marketing, the recruitment marketing services for them and it costs this much money, and yeah, if they get things on a direct basis, I'm kind of okay with that because I'm making— I'm still making money out of, out of it.

Yeah, cool.

I wouldn't have made anyway. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, you're— well, you're something, mate. You're, you're actually, you're adding an actual real value to that business. You're building a real asset.

Yeah, if you had 10, 10 clients all taking out digital recruitment solutions, I'd be, you know, I'd be like an £800 grand a year biller, you know. So happy days.

It's interesting that it's—

it, it works. It, it works.

I guess for you as well, obviously, like, obviously that came from you.

I don't want to say too much because I, you know, I don't want my competitors.

The thing is, mate, look, you could, you could talk about that, you could share all your secrets. How many people are actually going to take action and do it?

And it's all— and again, it's about your— it's about understanding that you have a niche market and just working at each market. There's nobody in my niche market in recruitment doing what I'm doing, and everybody in recruitment is working in their own little niche, aren't they?

Exactly.

You know, just— and also from a digital recruitment perspective, so let's say I'm, I'm looking at hiring into this— this is what I'm going to be doing next year.

I'm going to—

if I look at some— if I want to all of a sudden cybersecurity desk. Yeah. And there's a cyber— there's a guy in around the corner who's bidding $200 grand a year doing cybersecurity. Yeah. On a contingency basis. Yeah. Yeah. I'll turn around to him and say, come and join me and I'll wrap digital marketing recruitment solutions around you and your desk. How many clients of yours will buy it? Well, I reckon probably 4. 4 people would be interested. Well, that's $250 grand of income straight away, and you can still make contingency-based fees on top of it with them. Would that be of interest to you? And all of a sudden it's like, well, no one's speaking to me about about this, you know. If I'm going to recruit, yeah, I'm getting interviewed, no one's speaking about what they're doing on a marketing aspect.

You speak to— obviously I sit down and have these conversations. You speak to anyone around the future recruitment, future-proof your business, these sorts of things, and a big part of that, a section of that, definitely is providing real solutions that isn't pay for each person that we place and each bum on seat, do you know what I mean? And that's where that stemmed from. It's like, do you get what I mean?

Yeah. And you're managing the expectations of these clients. Go back, going back to that, you can't make guarantees. It's not like like an RPO or something like that. It's not an RPO, you know, it sounds like it almost, but it's not. You, you, you've got to turn around to them and say, I can't guarantee placements into your business. What I can give you is some feedback on how many people are seeing your brand over what you're doing on your own recruitment page. So I logged into their— one of my clients' pages, and they had like— I, I made more— I had more views of content in a month than they had all year. So it was kind of like, yeah, you're getting value here. The content is out there.

People—

we phone somebody up, speak to them about that client. Oh yeah, I've seen some of that stuff. I've seen, I've seen, I've seen the articles. It's really good. You know, they get more direct applicants. There's more things for them to talk about. It's just— and it's better content for us to share, um, through the other recruitment consultants as well, because we do that. We share across the whole network.

Yeah, because like, how, how is all of this— just to sort of finalize this— how, how, how was that—

how has that—

how has that enabled your recruiters to work? Like, has that impacted sort of what your recruiters do with these businesses? Has it been easier for them to recruit for them, or do you know what I mean? Has it enabled them to get more traction from the— on the consultants that have been working on these accounts?

Yeah, it's how you use the content. So if you create a little bit of content and you go out and send a message via— if you— let's say I've got a self-employed proposition in central London, or another one. Yeah, you know, instead it's like, hey Chris, how you doing? Look, I've got a recent article about how to to attract high net worth individuals. It's a really good document put together. I don't know if you want to have a quick look at it. So if they click on it and go, oh, brilliant, they land on there and they start seeing some stuff about Foster de Novo on there. Yeah, it's just another— it's a different type of angle and a different type of conversation piece.

Yeah. So you're using the— all the sort of digital assets that you're creating to engage with candidates, and that's what it's about. 100%, that is what it's about.

Use that content. And last, like, two weeks— um, in the last two weeks, I've decided to just be a social seller. Myself just to see how good having content is to be able to draw somebody in. You know, it's amazing. But, you know, I just go on to someone's, you know, something like, um, women in financial advice, right? I find all the female people, women that are in financial advice, and I'll put an article on there around something that's relevant towards them. And they'll click on the article and they'll send me a message because I'm asking them to feature on a blog that I'm going to do next year around females in financial advice. And then bang, you've got a conversation piece because you're talking about something that isn't I've got a job, you know, you're talking about something of interest to them. And I got a lot of inbound leads from it. And you send a message via LinkedIn, LinkedIn Recruiter, send some content, send something of interest to them.

Yeah, so that, that's my whole thing of it. And obviously this is what I do for a, um, living now. And that, that's my whole thing of it. Obviously the, the whole goal with doing more on LinkedIn and sharing your opinion is obviously we want to drive more people coming to you because I can see Sam, oh wow, he knows what he's talking about. However, a huge thing for me, which what I do for myself and what I used to do when in my previous job, was use the people that are engaged in the content and these types of things to actually drive sales conversations. So if I put a post out there around, yeah, women in financial advice, and Susie comments on it saying, Sam, this is really interesting, like, thanks for sharing, Well, guess what? If I have Susie's number and I call and say, hi Susie, thanks for engaging my content, you might have seen I'm trying to do more on LinkedIn, um, by the way, do you know what we do here at Recruit UK? And you can also do that in a message, and I guarantee you that's going to drive results and it's going to enable you to have more of an opportunity to go, hi Susie, this is why we're different. Because that's, that's what a lot of recruiters need these days, because at the end of the day, something to make them stand out. Yeah, something that makes them stand out, but just recruiters need more of that opportunity to go, this is why we're different, do you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, a candidate or client right now, they probably have the perception they know what you're doing, who you are, and you're not any different.

Every— everybody I'm talking to about this recruitment solutions, even if they can't afford it— and I'm going to make it affordable for everyone next year, um, it's going to be affordable for everybody, um— even if they don't— I think if they think, oh, it's a bit risky, that they're all interested, they all just think they can all see the benefit in it. They can all see the benefit of branded advertising on a regular basis with good, strong content that's going to drive traffic to them. They just, you know, it's, it's—

Do you think a big part of this that's helped you get to this point is that you didn't come from a typical recruitment background?

I don't know, I guess so, maybe. But then again, sometimes I think that might have been a little bit of a disadvantage.

Yeah, of course.

Because I, I must admit, you know, I'd like to have been part of the team, like, you know, recruitment team, and, you know, you know what I mean? Yeah, a bit of a lad around recruitment. Although I, I think I would quite— and I— there's a lot of recruitment consultants I hang around with that are a lot younger, and, you know, I look at what they're up to in their business and it's great. And I didn't really have that. Yeah, you know, I've just been full nuts into running a business. I didn't have that little bit in between. So kind of like a little bit like, well, it would have been really, really nice. But at the same time, I just haven't really ever stopped trying to evolve.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, just a quick one, they'll be like— I'm sure you've seen the stats out there, but there's loads of stats out there to back up the majority of the UK recruitment market is sort of sub-10 staff. You're more than that.

Say that again? Sub-10?

Yeah, so like there's loads of stats out there. I mean, there's loads of stats out there around sort of 70 or 80% of the UK recruitment market employ under 10 staff.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so what, what's been— because I think again people listening, I think the sort of value that you can have and experience you've been in— how, how, what's been your journey in hiring people for your business? What's that been like? And what are some of the sort of learnings around that? Because I think that's always a huge challenge for a lot of people.

Trial and error in it. Um, I don't think there's any magic formula for hiring big billers or the right, the right people.

But what are some of the sort of key, I guess, the, the, the— during this period of building this business, like, what are the sort of non-negotiables in terms of hiring people for your business that we're finding now?

Yeah, that we're focusing more— we didn't focus on the grad market.

Oh really?

So it's only now that we're starting to focus on graduates.

Okay. Um, so why is that, out of interest?

Why didn't we?

No, there's— what, how come you're going to spend a bit more time or thinking about—

because we've hired a few grads and I— we quite like their attitudes.

Okay.

And we like the fact that they don't know anything about the industry, and they haven't been tainted by another company or worked in sales or anything like that. So you can kind of mold them to how you want them to be.

Yeah.

But also they have a, a kind of drive, I think, when they leave university— well, some do, not everybody— to want to earn money. And there's a natural competitiveness to outperform friends, um, who've got other jobs and everything. Yeah, um, but also there's a bit of debt there as well, and they want to prove to people, oh shit, I've been to uni, yeah, finished now, I need to go and get some money, I need to earn some money, mum and dad need to be proud of me. Yeah, so there's an element of that there, and I just think they just, they do. I don't know, and that's not putting anybody else in because I didn't, I wasn't a grad, I left school at 16. So it's like, that's just been your recent experience or what's worked over there. I just, yeah, I just, I think we do, you know, we're seeing more grads and we're more— we're using a rec-to-rec agency, whereas we didn't do that before. So when you didn't have a great deal of time, you— and someone walked through your door, you take a punt on somebody.

Yeah.

Because you're thinking, I didn't really want to have to do all this again and spend all this time and energy in recruiting whilst I'm trying to build a business at the same time. Um, so, um, yeah, does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Culture. Yeah, culture, such a big topic, is it? But I mean, it's a topic that— I mean, if you own a business, the culture of the business. Yeah, like, I think it's always an interesting one. It's obviously— there's such a vast topic, but clearly an important one. There's so many recruitment businesses out there. Like, do you think you have a unique culture?

I think we do. Um, sometimes I think it's a little bit too laid back. Um, we've always allowed people to pretty much work their way that they want to work, and we we haven't ever been that start work at 7, finish at 7:30, 8 o'clock type mentality, and we've been quite loose around that. Yeah, because I think as well, me and Stuart quite like our lives to outside of work, so we want other people to experience that as well. But you want those people to work really hard within that shorter period of time.

Cool.

Um, so that's kind of like that looseness and allowing people to be themselves, but at the same time people kind of don't need that. People need a little bit of structure within the culture.

How long, how long do you think it's taken you to sort of build the sort of Recruit UK culture?

Yeah, it's always kind of, uh, I think it's gotten— it's become— it's always evolving. Yeah, for sure, it's always evolving, it's always changed, it's always changing.

Because like, is it just a constant process of you working out what— yeah, like someone— yeah, you think someone—

because again, you want to be light. Yeah, so you want people to come and work for you, so you talk about things that you think that they you want, you know, like, so you're thinking like, you know, um, flexible work, flexible working hours, mobile phones, you know, yeah, um, Netflix, Netflix, yeah, got bloody, you know, if you've got mental health problems or anything like that, we've got a counselor you can phone. And we've always been like that, and we are, we are a company that's open, honest, um, fair, um, you know, we don't create this horrible competitiveness in here. We don't have a beer culture, drug culture, or anything like that. We, we try not to create that kind of classic like, yeah, wide boy type recruitment. Recruitment. Yeah, we're not into that and we never really have been. Not to say we don't have a laugh and go out and have a good crack because a lot of people in here do, but we just don't encourage it.

Yeah, we have a bar in here or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. Um, I might make you stand out though, mate.

Would it? Maybe. No, I like what I like people to— it's like, okay, right, so recruiting's pretty stressful. Yeah. Do you want some time to go to the gym at lunch? Well, yeah, I'd love that. Or maybe go to yoga. Yeah, I love that. Then we do that.

Yeah.

Now you make your time up at the end of the day, you know, but, you know, it's your responsibility and it's your— you've still got to make some billings because at the end of the day, if you don't make any billings, you haven't got a job. That's the reality of it, isn't it?

What do you think, mate? What do you think are some of the key things that sort of attribute to making a great recruiter in today's world, mate? Obviously a lot of things have changed and will continue to change in your time in sort of the recruitment world. What makes— what, right now, some of the best recruiters in your business do?

Or— I think it's about going back to basics. So, um, I know it's pretty cliché, cliché, maybe you might have heard it a few times, but, um, to make it right now, you've got to do what other people aren't doing. And what people aren't doing right now is the basics that people did 10 years ago, which is pick up that telephone. Yeah, go out and meet people on a face-to-face basis. Build relationships. Yeah, stop looking at what others are doing and start doing. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally.

Don't hide behind LinkedIn, don't hide behind email, don't hide behind WhatsApp. These are all incredible tools that can aid and help you, but they will absolutely rinse your time. You know, nothing is more effective, I believe, than, um, having a good conversation with somebody.

Totally.

Having a good chat with somebody. So it's about—

couldn't agree more.

If you get into recruitment. Just get— make yourself as uncomfortable— do the most uncomfortable thing, which is pick that phone up and speak to people, ask people questions like we were saying earlier. Yeah, really build that relationships with your audience. Understand what the— what people are talking about, because people are far more honest over a telephone call with you or face-to-face with you than they would be sending a little message or whatever. It's all so quick and so short at the moment. It absolutely works brilliant. You can get all of somebody via WhatsApp or whatever, Um, but I think, um, yeah, you need to be— to make it right now, just, just do what other people aren't doing. I think 80% of people are just— it's just so easy to hide behind an email, hide behind an email, you know. Absolutely. And I think, um, go back to those basics and sales, you know, learn some goddamn sales, you know. Be— understand how to ask open questions, close questions, and features and benefits, all the things that we kind of you can forget a little bit. Um, marketing and everything like that is massively important in this day and age, you know. Absolutely, you need to have a good strong presence out there. So absolutely look at what your competitors are doing and, and try to stand out. So again, like what you do, I think it's great. Like, don't be afraid to get yourself on video and put some content out there.

Yeah. Um, but I think, I think it's come back to your initial point. It's that though, I think aided of all the things that you can do in today's world. Yeah, I think if you really combine both, but yeah, I think you'll absolutely nail it.

You can procrastinate really easy in recruitment. It's because there's so much. It's not as simple. It's not like, here's a, you know, sometimes you kind of want someone to give you 100, a list of 100 names and say make 100 phone calls. I mean, like, that's so simple, but okay, I guarantee you at the end of that 100 calls you make, you've got some, some business.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

But people are scared to do that now because, well, I've sent 100, I've sent 1,000 messages on InMails and it's like, yeah, like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry does, you know.

So look, before we finish, mate, Recruit UK, where, where's this, where's this going, mate?

Where are you going?

Yeah, where, where, where would you like to see the, uh, business in the next couple years? Or what would you see, what do you see on the horizon in this, uh, recruitment world?

In respect of Recruit UK, where I see us going is we're growing. So we are hiring and we're growing, we're growing next year. So we're aiming to take on sort of 15 people next year.

Oh wow.

Yeah. So there's enough—

what gets 20 to 30 heads?

Yeah, so there's enough business for us to really dominate our niche.

Wow.

Um, continue on with the digital marketing to support it, to get our brand out there as much as we possibly can. And start to really work with clients closer on their digital recruitment solutions.

So that's where the big play for you guys and just what you see, digital recruitment solutions, and continue to be niche.

Don't— I'm, you know, I'm not— there's so much business for us to go after, we don't need to go anywhere else. So we just need to dominate. You just need to dominate our niche.

Yeah.

And stick, and stick to that and not be sort of skewed by perhaps a little bit, something a bit shiny somewhere else. Just have the confidence that, right, just build a really good recruitment company in that market and be known as the go-to experts.

And what do you think people should be thinking about in 2020 and beyond in the recruitment— yeah, what do you think people should be thinking about from a recruitment perspective going into next year and beyond?

What they should be thinking about? Yeah, individual recruiters Yeah, they should be thinking about what motivates them.

Nice.

What motivates them. So, and align what motivates you, align your goals basically. So whatever your financial goals are, whatever your personal goals, goals are, align yourself to it and be true and stick to it. Um, and that's what I think they should be thinking about. And they should be thinking about, like I said before, just going back back to basics, you know. Can I— how many more people could I speak to? How, you know, should I get in front? Should I— because people like, oh, you don't have to go and meet people anymore face to face. But every time I do, I have a great time.

Yeah.

And I learn a lot.

Totally.

So get back to basics basically in 2020, because there's a lot of dipsticks out there doing a, you know, a real— it's a simple job. It's a simple job, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's a simple job, you know, complicated by, by idiots, really.

So look, last question. I think you just touched on it there, but— sorry, what are you excited about, mate? Am I excited about— yeah, what, what are you excited about?

I'm personally—

well, for recruiting, whatever.

Yeah, just what are you excited about? I'm really excited about Christmas right now.

Nice.

Yeah, and spending it with my, my daughter, spending it with my wife, having complete and utter clarity around enjoying a Christmas without getting pissed up and off my head or anything like that, and really being close to my family. I'm going to my brother's and really looking forward to that. Um, I'm incredibly grateful for everything that I have, um, right now, and I'm very well connected, if you like, to that positive energy.

It's amazing.

And like, I've had a really, really good like final part of this year, and like next year I'm so I don't know, blessed if you like, and happy to move into that, into that new year in, in a real positive mindset that I, that I've worked really, really hard to achieve. And, um, and from a business perspective, you know, I just want to get a load of good guys in here. I want to get a lot of motivation. Or girls. Yeah, anybody, you know, I just want to get guys and girls in here who are happy, motivated, want to make money, get that— make sure that we can embed that digital marketing solution into some more companies and establish ourselves as being the, the number one financial planning recruitment company in the UK.

It's exciting, mate.

Yeah.

Sam, it's been a pleasure.

Cheers, buddy.

Thank you.