The Contract Recruiter’s Comeback: How Nick Chambers Rebuilt His Desk & Doubled His Weekly GP

Nick, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much.

I think this is what, second, third time lucky?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think, um, having a baby got in the way a little bit. We planned it out, and I think, um, in reflection, uh, organizing to have a podcast when my wife was about 8 months pregnant was probably not a good idea.

No, no. So today There's a couple of like core things that we really want to go through together. You're through and through contract recruitment.

Yeah.

So there's really two sort of pillars really that we want to cover in this conversation. One, principal strategies that you've consistently used over the years to build a contract book. We're going to cover some of those. And then two, you went on the typical journey that a lot of people go on, which is you perform well, maybe you aspire to go down the management route, maybe the company's like, 'Nicky, you should go down the management route,' but you ended up being in that typical sort of billing, leading by the front, then managing people. But then whilst that was happening, it was hard to maintain your contract book, and then we had a few realizations. And then since, uh, beginning of this year, you've gone then back to being an individual contributor and just focusing on building back your contract book and just being responsible for your performance.

Yep.

So we're going to talk about some of the lessons there because I think that'd be really interesting for people. So to give everyone some insight on your journey, let me know if I get any of this wrong.

Yep.

So you've exclusively been doing contract recruitment since 2017, always focused on the UK market.

Yep.

Started your career at G2 and then, yeah, ended up— you actually did do perm initially, didn't you? And then went into Contract?

So did with G2, that was just pure contract doing the Benelux market.

Okay.

And then, yeah, moved on to RED thereafter. That was just like, yeah, pure temp, kind of high-volume market.

Yes, I've got that completely wrong.

That's right.

And then for the past 4 years, you've been at Method Resourcing. So I know Tom that started that business and then again specialized in niche contract recruitment in the UK, and you've specifically been focused on the data market and data niche. Now you was, because we're going to talk about this, their first contract hire, although Tom has a background in contract but built the business initially through perm revenue like a lot of people do. So I think when you joined, I've got here the business had around like 13 contractors out. And then you was their first fully focused contract hire.

Yeah.

So by late 2022, you was leading a team of 5, 2 people covering public sector, 3 private sector. At the peak, you had around 76 contractors out, 16K weekly GP. And then this is then throughout that journey, I think more so last year, you was like managing billing, but mainly spending a lot of your time coaching, driving the performance of the team. Which then meant your contract book, by the time you went back to this sort of individual contributor role, your book was back down to £5.5K. So we're gonna go into that. So then over the past 3-4 months, you've really been building that back up, although you've been focused on it, uh, since Jan. Now back up to £8, um, £8.5 weekly GP, 20 contracts across 9 clients, and really feel like building momentum again, which we're going to get into. Yeah, so I think that just gives everyone a bit of insight. So why don't we just initially talk about— we're just talking about it outside before we started— when you're in contract recruitment, there's just way more for you to consider when leaving the recruitment company that you work for. There's just a lot more to leave on the table, especially if you worked really hard, got your contract booked to X, to then walk away from that knowing guaranteed revenue, guaranteed money is hard. But I think there'll be a lot of people out there that who are good get opportunities where it's like, Nick, you can join our recruitment business, you'll be the first contract hire, we want to build contract, we've got a track record in perm, this is a great opportunity for you, there'll be people you can cross-sell into, etc., etc. If we're in that position and we're getting those types of opportunities, I just wanted to ask you What are maybe some of the things that people can really consider and to be intentional about when considering these opportunities? If they've worked really hard, good contract recruiter, maybe considering going to another organization, they've got this opportunity in front of them, what would you tell them to be like, I would really make sure you ask this or you find this out, that would hopefully help them have a better chance of making the right decision versus getting there and it's like, this is a load of shit, like there's not a platform here, there's not much for me to go out here at all, I'm literally starting from ground zero.

Yeah, I think from my personal experience, it came down to understanding what the background of the other leaders in the organization was. So for example, Tom and Brent at Method, they, although they'd gone more into the permanent side of things since starting kind of pushing forward with Method Resourcing, they were both contract recruiters at heart. So I knew that there was some spot business that was coming in for through, I guess, the organizations that they'd been doing permanent recruitment with. But I knew that the questions had been asked throughout. I knew that there was some form of baseline because you can have all the organizations that you work with in the world, but there are organizations out there that just don't want to use or have strict guidelines around not using contractors. And so, you know, I guess recruitment companies could be out there saying, yeah, we've got 30, 40 different brands, 100 different brands, they could all just be looking for permanent people, not doing project-based kind of work. So when I went into Method, I knew that there was a couple organizations that they were already having appetite for contract. So it wasn't like a starting from scratch. I made hay whilst the sun shined when I came in, and I put myself in a pretty precarious situation of coming in there was a couple kind of roles where they kind of said straight away, yep, well, we've got, we've got something that's come in, you're our contract guy now, fill your boots. And then I just kind of boosted, kind of bolted from that, and then started introducing myself to other areas of the business that I knew would also hire contract because the other areas of the organization did. So some form of baseline, know that the people that you're surrounded with have some form of contract background as well. If you're coming in and you're just completely surrounded by permanent people. They're just two different animals of recruitment. And I think, I think at the time I probably didn't have a load of experience. I was about 3, 3 and a half years into my, my career. And so to go in where there was just permanent recruiters, there wasn't any contractors whatsoever, probably would have been pretty ballsy of me, I think. So I made sure that I had some form of baseline by asking a few more questions of other people in the business who've done contract before. Can I learn from them?

Yes.

Other organizations that they're working with currently where although it might have only been a couple, like ones or twos in terms of contract hires, but there is appetite and they're not against it. Yes. Fantastic. I think they were the key kind of things that made me realize, okay, this is the place where I can start a foundation and then scale from there.

And if you— because I speak to a lot of founders, and you won't be surprised to hear this, but obviously a lot of founders that have just 3 and 3 perm background and they want to grow, they want to scale, they want to make their business more valuable, they will at some point will have a conversation about, I need to launch contract. So if, if I put an opportunity in front of you where our organization is 3 and 3 perm, there's no one in the business that has done contract I'd maybe have done some of the grunt work and legwork of like, I've got the infrastructure, I can maybe talk a good game when I'm interviewing you, saying like, we've got this in place, ready to go, got the infrastructure. Maybe I've done the legwork of being like, I know our top 20% of customers that spend X with us on perm, they've told me directly that they are also contract hires and they do that. Is it like, yeah, if it is just a through-and-through perm environment, because that'll come up a lot, is there anything else that maybe you'd really try and understand or do your due diligence on or really be intentional around before you go, you know what, let's give this opportunity a go?

Yeah, I think you need to find an individual that's built a market from scratch then. Um, it's going to cost naturally because like you said, it's hard for a contract recruiter to walk away from a book and I guess the security of that sometimes. And so yeah, I think realistically you need to find someone who— because since I joined Method, I went crazy on making sure I could just jump on any contract hiring that I could. And then I put myself in a position, then a year later I was like, shit, this isn't scalable. Okay, now I need to build a market from scratch. And then I started kind of niching down into data and then built it out from there, from the ground up. And so having someone who knows how to go about that and what they did, how they were, how they did it, whether it be, you know, running events, whether it was, um, doing it literally kind of day dot recruitment, speaking to contractors, building, you know, your top 30 contractors that you know will go places, they'll take you with them if you build enough of a rapport. Um, start tracking where the bigger projects are happening, who's making the biggest transformations, okay, who are the consultancies that are working with them, do they use recruitment companies? And once you get that idea of does this person actually know what they're talking about, do, do they know how to build it from scratch, and are they up for the challenge, that's when it's worth, I think, taking a punt.

I love that, because it's also if they understand that they know how hard it is, they know how long it might take. So it's also that, isn't it? Because we want to make sure if you are considering that, you've got that opportunity that you really press them on what their expectations are. Because if they're expecting— they've never done contract before, I'm joining that environment and we're going to get up to 20K weekly GP within 6 months— maybe possible, I don't know. But it is also that, isn't it, like you said. So if they understand all that, they should also understand what actually are realistic expectations.

Yeah, I think I said to you downstairs, I think recruitment is a 3-year investment. I think that to get the kind of return that people all talk about in the recruitment world, it can take that period of time. Yes, if you, you know, talk to enough people and are like working God knows how many hours in the day, yeah, you'll probably be able to do it sooner. Will you have any form of life? I don't know. But I think that that first 18 months, you you're figuring out how you go about recruitment, what you're doing and why you're doing it. Once you figure out the why, and then you figure out how you've gone about those first 18 months where you're going to do kind of a few different deals and you probably won't know how you did it. And then the second 18 months is then like, okay, that's the recipe, that's the method that's working. Now how do I scale that? By that point, usually the contractors that you've obviously placed in those first 18 months of finishing. And so you've got to then keep on growing and growing and growing and growing. And so yeah, I think realistically, I mean, don't maybe say that in an interview, that yeah, I think we'll get there in 3 years. But I, I do think that people need to make sure that they're not naive in that in the first 6 to 12 months you're going to start making X amount figures. I think OTU has warmed me up a little bit. I've been working in sales for knows how long. And whenever organizations come to me saying there's an OTA of X within X period of time, that's completely up to the individual and how hard they work. And I know that there's probably things that you can measure on, but I, I, yeah, I think it's too ambiguous and too many different things that could play into that.

So let's get into some of these strategies then, because the— we've pulled these strategies from really your last like 4 or so years, right? So these are have like consistently worked or have used them like now, have used them for the last few years. I guess what I wanted to ask you before we delved into some of these, because you mentioned it earlier, you may or may not see this in like the seat you're in, I'm not sure, but I think more and more people that I speak to would describe the UK market as extremely challenging, extremely saturated, really hard. There's gonna be plenty of people who are making, uh, who are achieving a lot of success in the UK market. But I don't know if, like, you see this, but I think a lot of people, like, we just do the US for these reasons. Like, nothing's a silver bullet, but the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm super curious, just before we start, just to hear your take on if we're going to be successful in UK contract, how important is it to have a niche how niche is niche? Like, let's just talk a bit about that, the market piece, because you've ended up building an ecosystem in data recruitment. Did it— did you start somewhere else and then you got to that point? Like, just talk to us a bit about how important it is to have this niche, have this focus, particularly UK market, which a lot of people would say is extremely saturated, margins have been more squeezed than ever. Just talk to us a bit about that to start.

Yeah, when I, when I joined Method, I was almost just like— because I was the contract guy I had to be almost tech agnostic across all of our different areas because if it was one of our clients came in and said, yeah, we need a solution architect, okay, I'll go and figure out what the hell the solution architect is at the start of it and then go from there. And it was varied quite a bit. And I think the first year, 2021, was obviously quite fruitful. And so going in there and just filling my boots with whatever I could understanding as I went and learning. I think that that helped a lot in terms of helping me understand tech again, coming back into it from G2 back into Method. So I think that it was really, really good for the initial stage, but it's not scalable. Like, I was not a specialist. I was a jack of all trades, master of none. And when I got to a couple years in and it was still, you know, I've got my key clients who probably come to me with things that are slightly different through data, I can never hand on heart say to them, yep, I probably know a couple guys or girls. So it's, it's not a situation where I can, I can pull people off the top of my head. Whereas when I started honing in on data, I think it started to become a lot clearer that if I focus time in one area, run events based around that area, understand who the best contractors are in that market understand which clients are doing what transformations of migrations or optimizations, anything like that, that's when I can hand on heart speak to a client and actually speak high level— because I'm recruitment at the end of the day— high level, their language. And there's been a few conversations I've had now where kind of higher senior level contractors or managers are usually a little bit kind of taken aback of, okay, this person actually understands what I actually need to deliver, and they've been able to do it before. And it's all about, I think these days, it's about actually bringing together live case studies of what you've done before, and so you can replicate it and show these clients what you're doing. And I think if you end up niching across technology, it's too big of an area. Like, even just doing data for me sometimes is too big of an area, and so then I hone in on more data engineering and architecture. Instead. So it then— I think it is more important than ever to niche down specifically on, on a market. And with the way that the UK market is, last year was tougher than usual. I think this year it seems tough, but I think it's because we— a lot of people have fallen into the trap of probably thinking it's what it used to be in 2021, but that was an anomaly. And so it's not necessarily that the market's harder, you just need to work harder. I think that's probably the easiest way of putting it, to be honest.

And when you mentioned that it wasn't scalable, just to understand that, is that you saying that it wasn't scalable because every time a hiring manager would say, Nick, need your help, need a solutions architect, or need a project manager, you potentially would be like starting from scratch or starting from like 0.5 or 0 every time.

Yeah.

And also then you couldn't scale the information that you were gathering every time, which you could then use on the next. Is that— is it that?

Yeah, yeah. I, I think you, you end up spending probably double the amount of time. Like, because I've been working in recruitment for such a long time, usually you kind of throw me a contract role and I can fill it quite quickly. But if I get a data engineering role in, uh, that is a particular cloud platform, you know, implementing a specific data warehouse, I can literally find— I will know 4 people who I know are available in 5 minutes, be able to have a quick conversation with them and double-check that nothing has changed since 2 days ago, probably when I spoke to them. And then I've finished that job and I can then crack on probably doing more business development. Whereas if it ends up being outside of that niche you end up spending potentially 1, 2 more hours than you would have if you stayed within your niche. And it's all about time management.

And yeah, and if I'm, if I'm then coming up against Nick who just does solution architects in that, then actually they're probably going to be— I might be beaten to it as well. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. And then, you know, that you said, because I was going to ask you this, you said data. That seems quite broad. Yes. I was going to ask you like how Have you thought about that? So if I was to say to you, yeah, I do, um, data in the UK, that maybe isn't it. It's fairly niche, I guess. But then what you were saying was actually, is that I do data in Bristol for X types of companies. I don't know, like, how have you thought about that then? Because it sounds like that's evolved.

Yeah, well, I, I don't go like— we, we originally went in things like a RIG, so role, industry, geography. So sometimes you can hone in that much in terms of what the role is. So data engineering, industry might be retail, geography London. So mine isn't necessarily industry focused as much. However, the way that I've gone about it is much more data engineering and architecture in the London market. That's predominantly where my sole focus is. So I think it's stuck within that kind of space because when you go into— it's like anything with like development, I'm not— I'm Development's not usually my forte as much, and I'll— everyone knows I'll put my hand on heart on that one. I know where my strengths are, but there's specific recruiters that will go specifically just Golang, for example, as like a language, and that is like a niche within a niche. So I do think that we have to, although, be a little bit fluid, otherwise you'll just miss out on opportunities. And I think that there is a balance. You do have to kind of hone in specifically on, to an extent, job titles, but what the actual projects are. So most of mine end up being either migrations or optimizations and stick within that kind of alley, I think.

And then just final piece on this, from what I'm hearing then, because if you listen to this podcast, probably heard this before, but I think it's always good just to really have people explain their thought process when we hear overused words like niche and stuff like that. So I think that's why it's helpful for people, but From what I'm hearing then, the main benefit, particularly in the UK market, for you to operate in this sort of niche-focused way is it's a lot more scalable because you're— every time you're maybe working on a particular assignment, you're building networks that you can reuse time and time again. And then every single time that you're having conversations with people, you're building your sort of information knowledge bank of what you're understanding, what's going on. Who the best people they've worked with are. And again, you can— it's just like being able to reuse all the information. Is that the main thing, basically? And then if you do a good job of that, like you just said, you should be able to get to a point where hiring manager says, I need— I've got this problem, I need these people. And if you've done it in this way, you can go, I know 3 people that could probably do that that I spoke to this week. That's— is that the main benefit, basically?

Yeah. I think knowledge is key, and the way that you speak to managers these days, you have to be credible. Like, no one wants to be sold to. I don't know if that's true. I think no one wants to be sold to badly. And so if you're able to actually kind of articulate, okay, to be fair, I've actually got 3 people. One of them has completed this exact project for me working for X company. Implementing this, doing this, this, and this, using these tools. Does that probably sound like someone that you'd be looking for? You know the answer to that. So that can be so much more powerful than, no worries, I should be able to get that sorted by the end of the day. I'll just have a chat with a few different people. Like, straight away it sounds like you know what you're talking about because you actually do. And I think that, that will make a massive difference. And I find that a lot of the conversations I'm having now with data leaders, they're now recommending me to other managers outside of their business to say, oh, Nick actually did this for me, he might be able to help you with your optimization with his network. And that's where I'm starting to get kind of referrals across different, different people now, now that I'm getting, getting back into gear, figuring out how to do data recruitment again.

Well, let's start with one of the strategies which it sounded like has been definitely impactful in this particular segment of your career where went from managing, coaching other people, that being a big chunk of your time, to now just being focused on yourself. So let's talk about this, like, embracing the community approach, because I don't know what everyone would think, but I do think if we were to say run industry events, roundtables, maybe now podcasts, different things there'll be people out there that think, oh, they've already been done, they're not effective, they don't work.

Yeah.

So I'm just curious to talk about this. So I've got here, stay connected, use WhatsApp groups, run virtual events. Like, talk to us a bit about this place. Maybe firstly, just to talk to people, like, if we do this effectively, like, what are the net benefits from, like, just from a recruiter perspective? Like, what would you say those net benefits are? Is it that If I do this over whatever time period, when they need contract support, they're going to call me, and it results in that? Is it actually enables you to open up doors with people that maybe you'd find it really hard to when you're just speaking to them about contract opportunities? Or are they contract horas? I don't know, you tell us. Like, what are the actual main benefits you've experienced from a recruiter perspective in this play?

Yeah, it's definitely a proactive approach, and it's never going to get quick wins. I I get genuine enjoyment out of it. I think bringing together like-minded leaders in the same room to be able to, you know, talk about what's happening in the market, talk about the same pains that all the leaders are going through at the same time. I think one of my previous Roundtable co-founders said, he said that the higher up you get, the lonelier it can become. And so I think finding these different communities that you can build yourself to bring people together, I think that's a massive value. And if you can do it authentically, it becomes a very non-salesy approach to be able to build your credibility. And I think it isn't a quick win where suddenly, you know, the next day after the event, Nick, I need 10 contractors. That'd be fantastic. But it's very rare that that does happen. But it's another opportunity for you to build a relationship with a hiring manager. And I think in this market at the moment, it's less likely— I won't say it's completely unlikely— that you call a manager up out of the blue, never spoken to them before, and they say, yep, I am hiring, I need a contractor, when can you get someone to me? They end up going to people that they know and trust now, and that takes time. And I think that building, building that trust that you're not just there to literally just put a bum on seat, you're showing interest in the, uh, I guess the, like we spoke about before, the niche that, that you're working in. And you're giving back and giving people a space to be able to kind of, you know, express themselves, talk about the challenges that they're going through. And you're adding genuine value that's when people will buy from you. And it— I think some situations it's taken, you know, 3, 4, 5 months later for that client to come back to me and say, you know what, Nick, yeah, I actually do need something, something has popped up. Usually my conversations are continuous over the— over that period of time. I stay in touch with people. That's probably one of the things that I, I am quite consistent in, and that makes a hell of a difference. And So that's when start things to start have a ripple effect. But I think the net outcome of it really is if you can run, you know, 4 events a year, so one each quarter, because it does take time. Usually try and do it like 6 weeks in advance. For the first year, it was about— it would be about building a community of people, the ones that you know. Okay, are these people going to be adding value to the events that I bring them to. Do they, do they like me? It does actually make a difference. And are they, are they seeing the value that's coming out of it, you know? And that's usually— you get that kind of vibe from them afterwards when you ask for their feedback. Every single time I speak to every single person who comes to my event and say, can you give me some feedback, constructive, whatever it is, because I want to be able to kind of grow this. And I think that authentic side of things again just makes it a bit more human and people buy from people. And so that first 12 months, you'll probably end up, you know, winning maybe about 3 pieces of business off the back of it. But then it just starts to kind of build and grow and grow. And it's not— as long as you don't see it just as a pure business development kind of approach, and you see it as, you know what, this is another thing that I can actually genuinely enjoy doing about my job, bringing these people together, that's I think what will make the, the big difference anyway.

Now I know a hiring manager can be someone that you work with and you're, uh, helping them push forward their career, but if I'm listening to this and I do like the idea of this, it's something I've wanted to do, would you say that from your experience the best play if you were to invest time into it, do those 4 events in a year, for it to be really targeted on those hiring managers and those people in those decision positions versus contract, like the world-class contractors that are doing the quote-unquote job? How do you think about that? Or is there— would there be just as much benefit doing it, you know, bottom up or top down?

Yeah, mine's always been based around the leaders, um, the actual hiring managers themselves, mainly because I had a baseline to be able to actually build off it. And so I found that they were more, uh, what's the best word, uh, they were more open to the idea of events. Like, yeah, it's definitely been done before. And I usually open it up by saying that if I'm introducing it for the first time, I was like, look, I know that every recruiter and their dog are doing events at the moment. This is something that I've, I've been doing for a good few years now. I love bringing people together. I know how hard it is, um, as leaders. And even if you're from completely different industries, it seems to be the same challenges. This is the event that's coming up. Would this be of interest? Or what kind of events do you actually like to go to? And once I kind of have that conversation and start opening it in that sense, that's when it starts kind of rolling. But the— I find that the hiring managers seem to go to these events a lot more. And to be honest, that's only based on my own personal experience because that's where I run the events. I think there's also events that we're getting involved in that is more for I guess contractors who are going into these as well, but I just haven't kind of gone down that route, to be fair.

Yeah, okay. And then have you experimented a lot with like event style? Like have you done roundtables? Have you done— I guess the very, the typical one would be show up, we're gonna have like food and drinks, bit of networking, sit down, there's gonna be some subject matter expertise talking about relevant topics right now, there's gonna be 2 or 3 talks, Q&A, then networking after. I'd say that's a very like typical style of like an event that anyone could run in a playbook for that. But have you experimented with that? Like, how have you, how have you approached those? Because like you said, a lot of people, again, I do think it's maybe the wrong assumption. I think, I don't know who wouldn't find it useful despite it being done already a lot, who isn't going to find it helpful if you you're a leader and you feel like the challenges that you have and problems you have are personal to you, but you get to speak to like Nick in a different industry, different company, and you learn he solved some of these issues that I'm having. Like, I always think that's going to be useful for people. Yeah, despite people assuming that events being done, I don't want to be another recruiter with an event, but actually I just think it's about the people attending and will they find it useful. I'd say for the most part, if you do a good job of getting the right people in the room It only takes you meeting one person in that room to go, Nick, it was an excellent event. I managed to meet Pete over here who's doing something exactly what we're doing, and that's been a great connect for me.

Yeah.

How have you found experimenting with the event style? I don't know if you've experimented with that. What does that look like?

Yeah, I've tried a few different things. I think the one that I've ended up probably leaning more towards, instead of doing a big meetup where there's kind of, you know, 40, 50, 60-odd people, I find that if I can get anywhere between 20, 25, where it's a bit more of an intimate kind of environment. Everyone gets to have a say, everyone gets to probably meet each other in one way or another, and that's what's been able to, I don't know, gain a bit more interest from people. I think that is kind of where I've honed in on a little bit more, is, you know, this is much more of a— there's usually, I have kind of one or two speakers that, that will come to the events and then kind of talk about a specific matter. So last time I had the, the CDO of Allianz speak at my event, which is really cool. And so yeah, it's the, the topics will be based usually around then who are going to be in the room. I think I try and keep it relatively broad and so you can get a mixture of people, but then sometimes I'll then— the way that I experiment necessarily isn't based around kind of the structure of the event, but on the audience that is coming and who the speaker is going to be. So the first couple that I did was probably more of a roundtable where pretty much everyone in the room— there's only about 10 people, but everyone spoke. And so I just did an introduction and then just said, let's discuss this in a bit more detail. And it really just started kind of building this, this conversation, which was really, really powerful. And I think that's what motivated me about these kind of like, I'm literally sitting at a table with a bunch of C-suite individuals who have been in these industries for God knows how long, and I'm learning so much about my specific area of expertise that I can now, you know, bring to other people that I'm talking to as well and then get them involved in this too. So I think once I figured out Okay, this is what works for me personally. I don't think, like we've said before, there's no silver bullet of event. A lot of people find that big meetups work really, really well. We can get a lot of people in the same room. It does look really good as well. And for me, the more intimate, 15, 20, 25 people, everyone gets to actually have a conversation with each other and really understand how people have gone about, I guess, their day-to-day of these challenges. That, that's what ended up working for me.

And then just a bit tactical, but like, do you charge for these events, or is it—

yeah, no, no, I, I, I find that it is just a pure value add of what Method are doing. And usually it's the clients that I work with that offer their, um, their spaces up for me as well. So yeah, being able to kind of go into a place not having to pay, I mean cost enough to travel in London to get to these events. And so, uh, every— everything's completely free for, for people to come along to. But everyone is, for lack of a better word, vetted who comes along. So I won't— I won't just literally send out an invite and say, come along to this event. Every single person I will talk to, I'll do either video call or meet in person to make sure it's going to be relevant for them and make sure that it's the right thing for me to bring them to as well.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be all about who's in the room for that, for people to go, that was a really good event. Yeah, just to round this out then, where does the WhatsApp group piece come in? Is that more on the contract side with your network, or does it— if anyone attends these events, have you started to say to people, like, would it be a bad idea for me to add you to our CDO WhatsApp group? I don't know, like, how are you leveraging the WhatsApp piece?

Pretty much the latter. So it is really, I think, sometimes we take everything way too seriously. Everything's via email, or we have to have a conversation, we have to meet in person wearing a suit. That's gone. Those days are kind of, um, have changed quite dramatically, I, I think, for, for my area anyway. And so I think making things in a casual but professional way is going to get through to people a lot better. So yeah, every, everyone that comes to my events, I say, look, I've got WhatsApp group where I provide insights into what the, what's happening in the market. So we'll do all of our, you know, quarterly insights into what the salary bandings are for a lot of the roles within data, what is actually happening in the market, who are the big hitters, where, where, where are people going and what areas of the UK they're going to as well and what those, what that looks like. I also keep them up with events and it's just a much quicker way of being able to communicate. And I don't— I haven't had anyone say, no, I don't want to be a part of that WhatsApp group yet. So people are seeing the benefit of it. Anything that's easily accessible these days makes life easier. So if I, if I can make it convenient for them, and it's also convenient for me to be able to reach out to people in a less kind of— easiest way to put it— less professional environment, where everything's kind of just so rigid, and just keep it a bit more calm and casual while still keeping it professional has made a massive difference in how I'm being able to communicate effectively.

Yeah, I love that. So let's move this on a bit. I think, like you've, like you've mentioned, and I definitely agree, this should be part of the things we're speaking about here, which that's been really effective for you, can understand and see why, but that should be part of a wider strategy.

Yeah.

So let's just talk about— I know we've got different things here. We've got, you know, be— have a really organized mindset, focus on quality relationship. There's a few different things here, but talk to us a bit about how if I'm— if I get really good at contract recruitment, I've maybe got this as part of my plan, bringing people together like we just spoke about, What are the other things that you've had to be really disciplined with? Is it the chasing leads? Is it— you tell us what the other things then that we need to combine this with that should net result in meaning that we've already got— we've always got a good, strong, healthy pipeline, or at least healthy bits of information to go, I know, I've heard about this project, I'm attack— I'm really going for them. You tell me, how do we then combine it? Because it can't be— you tell me, it can't be just this strategy, can it?

No, there's some people that will just base it purely on that, and it's like I said, it's a proactive approach. But I think that has got to be one part of a multi-faceted approach to business development in general. And I think the, the way that I approach every single day is I still do a day plan to this day. Uh, it's not as old school as when I first started that method where, you know, divide my book as Tom taught me into 4 different squares of kind of saying like what my day is what, what kind of leads I'm, I'm chasing after at the moment, what are my callbacks, and, and kind of running, running through that process. But it is understanding we work in sprints. So okay, I'm going to start my day off speaking with all my contractors, understanding how things are going with, you know, whether they're in the contracts for myself or whether they're— I know that they are just good contractors in my market, in my network, and understanding, okay, you know, if I've spoken to a contractor for the last year, haven't been able to quite work with them yet, but they know me, they've got my number saved in their phone, they're going to probably tell me, yeah, one of the other data engineers just got let go, or they've had a massive restructure in the organization and there's been quite a lot of change on their permanent side of things. So straight away for me, that's understanding, okay, there's project information here, their projects can't just stop. That means that realistically they're most likely going to need contractors to come on board. So it's being a little bit intuitive on that. But if you can get, I guess, to start the day off speaking to your contractors, understanding what's happening, that'll set your rest of your day up in terms of your business development. I always do half-half of speaking to candidates in my network, building and finding new candidates, because I will never know every single good data engineer and architect in the world, or in the UK at least. Then in the afternoon, it's then about, okay, how do I approach it from speaking with the leaders in my network that I know, for example, are looking for work and checking in and seeing how they're doing, seeing if there's any opportunities within my office that I could help them out with. So obviously I've got a permanent counterpart, Joe, who does exactly what I do but on the permanent side. And so we work really, really closely to make sure that if he, you know, one of his clients, they haven't quite been able to find the right permanent person, but they need him like yesterday and everyone's on 3-month notices, then he'll go, Nick, I reckon they're going to need a contract. Let's jump on a call with them. And equally, there's a load of situations where constantly, no, we're not looking for contractors, but we are looking for a permanent person. Fantastic. I'll pass you over to Joe. He'll be able to help you out with that. And having that person to work collaboratively with makes a massive difference, and you'll end up making each other money, simply put.

Yeah, just really— I always hear this, it just really sounds so like just information-led, connecting dots, all of that, isn't it? It really does sound— it's that. And then the, the better you get, the smarter you get at going, Nick just told me this, which means I'm going to be speaking to that person, and I'm going to speak to that person, and connecting those dots. And I guess again, this comes down to the market, the niche, the— like, that, that should become more and more second nature of, like, I didn't, I didn't even know that. Um, I've just heard that these— this organization is going to be implementing this new data infrastructure. I need to get all over that, you know what I mean? It's then you'll get better at really understanding what information you prioritize.

Yeah.

And why. Um, just curious then, because I know one of the things that you said to me when prepared for this— I always ask people, like, what would your colleagues say your exceptional at, and you said around like sort of being able to build relationships out of like nothing. And we hear this word relationships a lot. I'm just curious, someone asked me this the other day, like, how would— if I'm in your team and I'm going like, what is a good relationship? Like, how do we build a good relationship? Is— I don't know how you think about that.

It's a great question. It's probably why I moved away from management into being an IC again, because I couldn't quite figure out how to train someone in this. And being able to articulate it is really, really difficult. But I think when you get to a stage where the first conversation you have with— I'll use a hiring manager as an example because that's usually where I've kind of used my— I would say that that's the USP, is being able to build that relationship with a hiring manager out of thin air. It's what we spoke about before, asking a question then shutting up a little bit. It's about making sure that you've got a flow of conversation and you're not sitting there being robotic trying to get an outcome. I think when I started listening back to some of my team's calls, uh, over the years, it ended up being a situation where they had a number of questions in their head and instead of thinking about what the answers were, they were just thinking about how are they going to be able to get in their next question. And that ended up fogging their brain of actually listening and hearing those little kind of golden nuggets of information to then be like, oh, that person, he actually just said that they're, you know, they're looking to scale within 6 months X amount of people. But instead I'm thinking about, oh, I heard that you went on holiday. It's like, shit, I've completely missed the opportunity here. So I think if you're able to actually genuinely listen, like, we hear active listening. Before recruitment, I worked in customer service, and so it was like active listening and understanding exactly what someone's saying and, and really hearing them and then responding specifically to what they've spoken about. It's like having a conversation in the pub with a friend. You need to be able to actually just have a genuine conversation as opposed to having an ulterior motive constantly. And so if you can then nail that art of a genuine conversation, which sounds really dumb because it seems like it's such an easy thing. But as soon as you jump on a call with a manager, it's like that master-slave mentality. Suddenly you just like freeze up a little bit. You can change that mindset and start having authentic conversations and really listen, and then organize a follow-up based on a reason, and then you actually do follow up. That's what will make the difference. And then that person will be like, when you pick up and reference exactly what you spoke about, then they'll know that you listened, you acknowledge it, and then you just keep on having that conversation again and start building that trust, building those— I guess, you know, I remember a really random situation. A hiring manager said, I think I was talking about my little one, and we were something along the M4, and he said, oh, instead of going to, you know, this service station, go to this one. I was like, he's like, the kids absolutely love it. And I was like, okay, wrote that down as a note. And then next time we had a catch-up, I was like, haven't had a chance to go to that service station yet, but I will. And straight away it just completely took off any barriers that he was like, oh, this guy's calling me back again.

Got you.

So it is just that human approach and being able to smile through the phone makes a hell of a difference. Having a positive and optimistic kind of mindset and having a bit of energy about you instead of coming through and just being like you know, feeling like the day is quite a monotonous day, you're talking very just monotone, no one's going to respond or start to enjoy a conversation with you if you're, if you're going into that call and you sound like the life is drained out of you.

Yeah, I like hearing you talk about that. I can totally see it is a hard thing to really put that in a scientific way, isn't that, to other people. The way that I think about what I take from there that might be useful for people is like, be interesting versus— no, be interested versus being interesting. And what I mean by that is the way that you're talking about that is if we do a good job of those things— we're listening, we're repeating back what they said, we're generally listening, we're not just thinking about, right, I now need to ask this next question— and then you do the things that you're going to say, just downstream of those things, over time you're going to build relationships with people. Yep. And I think it is just creating— I think the way that I put it when someone asked me, that asked me about it, it's almost— and you sort of explained it there really— it's like all these little small steps that happen that just keep building and building and building. And then at some point you might be able to say, me and that, me and Nick have a fairly good relationship. But it's like all these little in the small moments where he told you about a service station, write that down, you reference it and go, oh, thanks for that, really appreciate it. And then Do you know what I mean? It's all those little things that add up. Yeah, so it's hard, isn't it? The thing that I wanted to ask you, because I always hear this when I sit down with contract recruiters, is how can I— what makes an average contractor to a great one?

Hmm, if they can articulate what they actually do in layman's terms, then usually that's going to make a big difference. So if you end up getting on the call with the contractor and they kind of end up listing off all the technologies that they use, but they don't end up actually telling you, you know, what was the outcome of that. I find the best contractors that I've ever worked with, they can say they've, you know, they implemented this, this is what the outcome was, you know, they reduced, you know, real-time data down by 30%, they saved the company X amount of money. They can put something tangible behind what they've done in projects, and if they can articulate that in a way that actually I understand as someone who's not technical. I can't, you know, code or anything like that, but I understood, and then I can actually articulate that to a manager. Usually that ends up being the, the better people. There's usually other things like, you know, your standard people who are, you know, continuously extended in their contracts as opposed to people who are just going 3 months, 3 months, 3 months, 3 months, 6 months, 3 months. That they're a lot of the time, if if a contract is good, an organization will find the way of extending them. It's very rare that, you know, even if someone goes in 3 months and they've absolutely smashed it, the organization will find a way of being able to extend.

And so, yeah, I've heard that before, what you said. So I think that's a really great— that's, that's definitely like an insight. I'd underline that if you're in contract recruitment. And from my understanding is if you've got people that can effectively communicate what the end outcome is or what the benefit is to the project, then, uh, they're also going to be able to communicate that to organizations they get in front of. But then also, I think this, this is then where your— this also comes on the recruiter, right? Because then this is your market expertise, where you're not just asking questions to Nick, who's a great contractor, about his skills and experience. You're going the extra layer and going you know, you told me you did this, what was then the result of that? Because it comes in that as well, it comes in your qualification, doesn't it? Because there'll be a lot of recruiters that don't— they just want to know, have you got, have you got experience in using this? Have you got these skills? Okay, cool, yeah, you could probably do this job. Versus going an extra layer and go, okay, tell me about what that then meant to the project. Or, you was brought on to do this, did you complete that? How come? Do you know what I mean? It's that, it's on both sides, isn't it?

Yeah. You have to be inquisitive. You have to ask the extra questions and really genuinely care. I think if I constantly just went into every single call and said, are you, are you available at the moment? Yes. Okay, what's the situation? In contract or you're about to finish? I'm literally finishing this Friday. Okay, fantastic. This is the project. Can you do it? Yes. Fantastic. I didn't find out anything about them apart from they're finishing on Friday. That was literally it. So you need to be able to— I know that we have to work at pace However, I think having the conversation and learning a little bit more about probably the last 3 contracts that they've done, if they're specific to what you're hiring for, but even if they're not, I think just actually gaining a bit more knowledge of, you know, that particular type of tool or that particular type of, you know, system that they used can then start triggering. Actually, I spoke to a manager who was looking to implement that in about 3 months' time, I'm going to write that down. I'm going to put a reminder in my calendar for when I talk to them in a few months' time. And it's just about like, it comes down to that organization piece. You have to remember a lot in recruitment in general, but in contract recruitment, I can only speak in my own personal experience, is you have to keep track of everything. I use OneNote quite a bit. I use my emails constantly. I use tasks in our CRM system to pop up. It— everything is organized. And so then I've got reminders consistently to make sure I stay on top of those little bits of information that will make a difference to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 placements each year.

Love it. Okay, so let's talk about— so if me and you sat down maybe 2 years ago or 3 years ago, I don't know exactly what time period, and I said how do you see your sort of recruitment career going? What are you sort of aiming for? What you're aspiring for? Would you have said to me, want to do really well but really want to get into management? Is that what you would have told me?

I, as soon as I started that method, I just, I literally said to Tom, I want to be contracts director, right? I didn't even know what that meant necessarily.

Just sounded good.

It just sounded good. And it was, I was a little bit, I, I probably was a little bit on like job title, job title, job title.

Okay.

And I always fancied the idea of management because I am, I am quite a people person. However, when I started kind of building my own book over the first initial 2 years and really started to, you know, earn better than I had before, really start to kind of build something that I was proud of, I then started then kind of bringing people in. And I liked the idea of being able to manage people. And, you know, be able to motivate them and, you know, get them through some tough times and be, be that kind of extra person, that shoulder. I mean, it's, it's hard sometimes to find the balance between, like, trying to be their mate but also their manager. And I think I saw the idea of it being, being fantastic in terms of, you know, scaling a team. My mentor was speaking to me about, like, you can be a high performer, but the, the next level is being able to build and create high performers, and that's a skill in itself. I think he was absolutely right, that is probably the next level. Like, it's completely up to you and whether you can build yourself into becoming a high performer, but to be able to then start replicating that with other people is really quite tough. And we were bringing people in who didn't really have any experience, and so we were— and, and they were building a kind of a market from scratch themselves as well. And I was trying to, you know, pass on some roles that I, similar to when I started, you know, a little bit of roles that, you know, house accounts that I could, you know what, have this one, you've got, you know, a couple days to fill it, you can do it, really push them. And then they would, and they've got like a couple contractors running because I know how hard it is when you first start out. But then I just, over the probably the next couple years, I saw usually what you would see is your book would slightly go down, but their books would slightly go up. And so it almost like does balance out a little bit, but it didn't quite happen. So I was like, oh, my book's going down and I can't— I'm not seeing the return on the investment that I was hoping for. There is a level of me that's really enjoying management, but I'm literally about to have a kid. And I'm like financially need to get myself in a really good position, and suddenly I'm earning like a quarter of what I was earning before, and I'm like, shit, what do I do? And it took a long time for me to kind of make it, make a decision to kind of move in a different direction for that.

But how come it took you a while? Just because what, you didn't want to seem like a failure, or you felt like you could do it?

Yeah, a mixture of both, I think. For a while I kept on telling myself I want to do management because I can't be arsed doing day job recruitment again. And I'd lost a bit of the love of, you know, finding the beauty in monotony, which is what I had to do when I first started doing contract recruitment because it is quite monotonous. You know, you speak to your contractors, you try and understand, you know, what you're going to be chasing. You speak to hiring managers, you get told to piss off every second call, every call sometimes. And, and it is like a genuine grind until you start kind of getting a bit of momentum. And I was like, well, if I do management, I don't have to do that, so that's great. But I, I think that kind of coming to maybe midway through, must have been last year, I was kind of like, this is really taking it out of me, and I don't have the time and capacities to be able to keep on managing. And try and get my book back up because I was always a billing manager. So there was always, there was always me wanting to be able to win as much business as possible. But if suddenly the guys are doing well, then my billings would just kind of go, go down. But then the guys, you know, would start having a couple tough months, and it was so hard to build the momentum back up for myself. So it wasn't the case where it would kind of fluctuate between the two. Mine would go down, they would then go down a little bit, and I didn't know how to help them. Because I was still trying to figure out how to be able to replicate what I did myself. So I was, I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place a little bit.

Do you think, um, I'm just thinking out loud here, but do you think, did you maybe think that your contract book relationships were more established than maybe they were before you started adding more people in?

Yeah, I, I think that I had probably about 2 or 3 clients that are continuously giving me work, and that would be enough to be able to maintain or slightly grow.

And that was a wrong assumption, you think?

Yeah, I think I, I stayed above $10K for about 3 years straight, which is quite tough to do, and, and whilst they're managing as well. But then when it got to a stage where one of those 3 clients just didn't end up kind of coming through with as many roles as I usually would kind of get from them. I still maintain the relationship, but it's just the case that sometimes, you know, they have peaks and troughs just like you, just like we do. So as soon as that happened, I was like, okay, I, I actually need more organizations that I need to work with that aren't— well, I guess multi-contract hiring organizations. Okay, how do I go and find them? Funnily enough, I have to go and do day dot recruitment. So balancing everything was just— it was— it just became really, really tough.

And I appreciate being transparent because I know a lot of people can relate to that. And then was there like a specific moment, or was it accumulation of these things happening, and then you being— just having the courage to go, you know what, Tom, I don't actually think I'm enjoying this, I think I want to sort of pivot and I want to just focus on this, these are the reasons why?

I think it was probably in the back of my mind, but Tom had spidey senses, probably about October time.

Okay.

Because I think there must have been some form of language that I used and he said, what do you mean by that? And I was like, I don't actually know what I mean by that. And he's like, let's have it, let's have a chat. What, what, what's going on in your head? What are you thinking? And I just kind of just said, I was like I'm finding that it's— my book is going down and it's really making it quite tricky. I'm about to go on paternity and finding that balance is— I don't know if I'm enjoying it as much as I did before. And there probably was a level of me that I didn't want to, you know, disappoint him because it was always in our plan. Like, I was, I was one of the, you know, I was the first person to come in and do contract. It was pretty clear career plan and progression for me to go in the direction that I was. And year on year, I was kind of moving in that direction. And so to come in and then say to him, yeah, I'm— I don't really want to do that anymore, um, I was, I was shitting myself a little bit. And so I think when, when I did decide and say, you know what, if I can come into the new year and it is just me, up to me to be able to do what I need to do. It's completely within my control. Um, it— there was a level of relief that came off my back when you said that out loud. Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people, they end up falling into management based on the success that I've had as an IC, and that's kind of what happened with me. Like, it was, it was great. I built a fantastic kind of foundation, a really good book, um, really good network and some really good connections. Then that made sense. Okay, cool, we're just going to management then. And I didn't even picture that there was a different ulterior career path, but Tom kind of spoke about, okay, this is what it could look like then. And that kind of just gave me a really clear sense of understanding of, okay, I can see where my career is going now. Um, and, and that kind of was, was that. And I just went cracking on from, from January, really.

I just, I just think that's just such a great insight for people Like, I really respect that. Yeah, you work for a business, work with Tom, where they were able to like at least show you that there's another path here. Because as I'm sure you appreciate, there'll be a lot of people that would have been in that spot that you was in, and it'd be the reason why they left. Yeah, I think great leadership is seeing that, understanding it, not only being willing to have the conversation and try and have those harder conversations. You go, actually, are you actually enjoying this anymore? Is it sort of what you expected? But then to have the foresight to go, actually, that doesn't mean your career stopped. Actually, we can go down this path and this is what your future looks like. Because I think if you're going to keep your best people, they've always got to feel like they're on that journey, right? Or what's next, or they've got a destination that they're aiming for. Yeah. So I think that that's really cool that they're able to do that, because like I said, as I'm sure— I'm sure you've interviewed people where they've gone, I've ended up in management, I hate it, I just want to crack on, I want to learn from some people, So that's great that they've ended up carving that, and I think that's a great lesson for any leader business to consider that.

Yeah.

The other thing that I loved about this was then when you went into this, I don't know if it was Tom that asked you, but was it him that goes, right, what do you need from me then? Yeah, right. And then I just love the transparent— I love this honesty. All right, damn right, it's like, stay on top of me and make sure I don't get complacent. Just tell us about that. Why was it that you needed that from someone. I think that would be a quite cool lesson from people. Why is it that you said to your— to Tom, like, you're clearly capable, been doing it for a long time, you can hold yourself accountable, he's holding other people accountable. Why is it then you said to Tom, I just want you all over me, mate, like, I want to avoid complacency at all costs? Why is it that you asked him to do that?

Yeah, when I first started the method, that's exactly how I wanted him to approach it. Like, I don't need sugarcoating. I need someone to just be like If I say this is my plan for the day, I just need them to be like, no, that's pretty shit. So if I don't get someone to push me to actually be genuinely better, I don't need a yes person. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. All right, crack on. Like, that's not going to elevate me to my next level. And especially coming in back into being an IC, if I didn't have someone doing that, I'd probably fall into the trap of calling the same managers over and over again, hoping for a good outcome, when it probably wouldn't happen if I don't start kind of opening back out, the kind of expanding the space that I'm working in and talking to new people, building new connections. And so whenever I just said to him, I was like, yeah, just be really, really blunt. If I come to you and say this is my thoughts and my plans, just say no, just stick to this. And he needed— he, I guess, he, he wanted to go through the process because since going into management, he was kind of letting me crack on. So he just wanted to almost remind himself of how, how he managed me before as well and what, what I needed from him. And that's exactly what he did. He kind of just stayed on me where I needed it to be, checked, checked me just to be like, okay, we did our, you know, we do our daily stand-ups. What's the plan for today? This, this, and this. Cool. Go and do it. Like, don't, don't say things for the sake of it. Actually go and do it. If you're going to go and speak to X amount of managers and, and be able to build, you know, X amount of relationships and build and kind of book in that many meetings, just go and do it. We'll catch up at the end of the day, and if you haven't done it, what do you need to do differently for the next day?

Nice.

And just stay on top of that. And that wasn't every day. That was literally for the first kind of couple months. I just needed him to kick me back into gear. A little bit because it was just me relearning recruitment a little bit of what am I going to do with all this time again.

Well, it also sounded like from what you shared, also really falling back in love with it as well.

Yeah.

And like just accepting like, actually, I'm, I'm getting back to the grind. Obviously you're doing it in ways that you enjoy. You're, I'm assuming, spending more and more time with people in an industry, in a space that you're curious about, that you're enjoying working with people. But it almost sounds like that as well, like you've really had to just— because you've been doing it a good amount of time now, right? But you've had to fall back in love with the process.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely have. And I, I think I've— it took a while because I think it was— and I think I mentioned to when we were, um, having our first chats about this, it was a bit of damage control because I did have a pretty significant dip. And even though when I started back kind of getting back into it in the first couple months, I was placing contractors back in. But just as fast as I was doing 3, 4 deals a month, I had 3, 4 finishes. And so I was literally just constantly just battling with myself now. And so the finding, like I said before, the beauty in monotony, finding my rhythm again did take a bit of time. But once you, all it takes is like a few different wins. And a few different really good solid conversations, and suddenly you just start to kind of get on a bit of a roll. And I think having that optimistic kind of mindset and just actually coming in with a bit of energy, even if you are like a little bit of a facade sometimes— most of it you have to be obviously authentic— if you have to put like 10% of it, a little bit of a facade of like, okay, this has been a shit week, but I'm going to be going, I'm going to go at it, I'm going to make a massive difference then that can sometimes make or break the month.

Do you think that is one of the hardest things about contract recruitment, the how painful it can be when you weren't able to like replenish those finishes and you go from X number to 30% less, or you have that big client go, Nick, we're gonna have to actually pull these contractors out, projects come to a close, or whatever? Is that the hardest thing? Yeah, like not, not letting that— I guess, is it just not dwelling on it too much where then it just affects, like, the impact of it is just longer?

Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's the actual act of it happening. I think it is all in your head. Um, it is how you respond to it will make the hell of a difference. So I always think, think about my starters, not my finishes. If I'm continuously thinking, okay, how many people am I— have I got starting this month and when are they starting, as opposed to dwelling on, God, I've got 3Ks worth of finishes literally in the next month and a half. Where am I going to get that from, right? If I get in my head with that and I constantly look— I've got an Excel spreadsheet that I've created from day one that I still use to today that literally has all my contractors' names, what they're doing, their rates, and then obviously what, what, what we're kind of building from them. And I'm looking at my, my book thinking oh, I've got this many contracts finishing, I'm just going to get stuck in my own head. Instead, I've started to kind of— I think it was after March when I started to get on a bit of a roll again, March-April time, that's when I started only opening that Excel spreadsheet up when I was adding someone onto it.

Oh, okay. So just thinking about it in the inverse of like starting, not finishers.

Yeah.

Because then I think the other challenging part— you tell me— is you've got that, and then the other really challenging part is the reverse, where you've got to that 16K weekly GP, you're feeling good, you're complacent. It's then that— that's the hard part, right?

Yeah, it's, uh, it's a long way to fall.

Avoiding complacency.

Yeah, yeah. I, I think you're, you're at your most vulnerable when you're at your highest. It is, it is so true, and it's you, you think like, you know what, you're untouchable, and you start to kind of just get a little bit complacent because you're sitting on these, you know, you've probably got 4 or 5 accounts that are continuously giving you work, and then suddenly a few of them start dropping because one reason or another, you know, and you haven't done anything from a PD perspective in like a month and a half, and you're like, I— it takes 6 weeks to be able to kind of build up some form of pipeline again, I think. Realistically, if you're literally like, if I come back from holiday, sometimes I know I'm like, okay, I've got nothing really to kind of come back on. What do I need to do? Okay, it's going to take me X amount of time to be able to actually start building a bit of a pipeline again. Where do I start? And then go from there. And yeah, it— if you— I think Brent actually said to me one time, he said, he's just like, what's your limit? What are you aiming for? Everyone's got a name. And I was probably only about, I think I must have been like 5, 6K on the board at this point. It was like kind of late 2021, and I said something like, I don't know, 15K, 10K, or something like that. And he's like, whenever someone gets to that level, that's when they start to get complacent, and it's hard to be able to maintain that and get past that. But once you get past that, that's when things start really flying. And he was bloody right, um, because I think that mine was more not necessarily based on complacency, it was probably more time management and going more into management.

Yeah, tick them all the boxes. Yeah, being performing in all areas, trying to do too much.

Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people have been able to balance it really, really well. Uh, it just— I, I just couldn't. Yeah, simply put.

No, look, I really appreciate, like, you've been super transparent, super honest, and that's what these conversations are all about. Because I think what I love about your journey is obviously you had this sort of big build-up, come where it did really well, was you know, building a team. I'm sure you really helped those people, but then you really had the vulnerability and courage to be like, actually, I don't know if where I'm at right now in my life is, is this actually what I want? I think being willing to do that versus starting interviewing in all these different places and going, I hate it, method, like I'm in management, like, do you know what I mean? I really rate that because that's just like personal responsibility. I know it sounds like maybe Tom had to get out of you a bit, but Again, that's like good leadership, right? But then you was willing to own that, and I just love the fact that you've then gone on this journey this year where, like we've said, you've really had to then just get back to the grind, back in the trenches. And it really sounds like, I'm sure, having tough days, but for the most part, you've really got back to enjoying the journey again.

Yeah.

And when you're enjoying that journey, it just makes everything else a lot easier, all the knockbacks, the hardship. But that's what I really like about this story. So just massively appreciate you coming on and sharing it.

No, thank you for having me, mate. Appreciate it.