Tom Cokill - Having the humility to delegate everything you're not good at to scale your business.

Welcome to the Recruitment Rollercoaster podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and today I'm joined by Tom Coakill, who is one of the founders of Logical Resources FMCG, who are a specialist FMCG recruitment business. Good afternoon, based in Leeds, mighty Leeds. To, uh, set the scene, we're in— it's a unique office.

Very, yeah, it's, it's— I call it the time machine because it's like going back to the 1970s.

Yeah, for those that can't see, we're in a room where in front of us we've got a sort of some sort of graffiti, which is that the Leeds football ground?

Yeah, so it's basically Leeds. You've got our office on there with a little window.

That's like, oh okay, I didn't see this.

And then you've got, you've got Ellen Road, you've got the, uh, the arena, Town Hall, and, uh, some of the other major buildings. One of the guys in the office is like, just does graffiti.

Can't see, uh, the prison on there, mate.

No, we left the prison out, surprisingly. Didn't quite think it fit with the, uh, we thought what we were going for.

But then, and then, yeah, so we're in a cool quirky room. Yeah, we've got a really cool office, cool building. First time in Leeds.

Welcome.

And, uh, for those that may or may not have listened or know, but me and Tom and Tom's business partner Sam sat down, which seems like an absolute lifetime ago, back when I was obviously at Hoxhay Media, and we was in the studio there. It was a very, very, very, very hot day.

Oh, we recorded that video, didn't we? Oh my God, we were sweating.

So, um, Tom and Sam came down to record some video content, and, um, yeah, it just happened to be like just a crazy hot day and there was fans had to be used, you had to be hydrated.

We were toweling down in between shots.

Oh my God, it's crazy. Um, so yeah, so I think obviously we've sat down before, uh, Tom, so people may have some context, but I guess why don't we just start by— why don't you just share with everyone sort of where you're at now as a business, what you specialize in, um, just make that crystal clear, and then we'll just sort of break down and talk about sort of the journey up until now.

Cool. So we recruit Within consumer. So I always say if you go into ASDA, anything you can buy on the shelves in ASDA, we recruit for the companies that make and supply those products, basically. So the big names are Mars, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Pepsi. I'm not saying we recruit for all of those, but those are the sort of your big brands, right through to Greencore and Cronswick, who make all the sandwiches you might buy at the food-to-go counter. We predominantly— well, we grew up recruiting their national account managers and marketing people. However, in the last 2 years, we've expanded that. So we look after supply chain, we can do technical, sort of new product development. We can do engineering and operations and production. Um, and we also are looking at going into heavily going into e-commerce. That's— I think that's going to be the next big step for us. Yeah. So companies that operate purely—

obviously having a big— there's a big—

it's just the next logical step really. I think it's just, it's, it's where obviously where everybody's attention is, is there's a lot of jobs in it. It, it fits nicely because all these e-commerce companies are still selling consumer products. It's just another route to market. So we need to get— we're learning about at the moment and trying to understand where we could fit in and what we could provide for these companies that, you know, the big boys aren't doing, because that tends to be our strategies.

So started the business with Sam.

Yeah.

Obviously who you met in your recruitment days, right?

Yeah. So Sam used to work for me. He hates me saying that.

Does he?

Yeah. So I was his boss. Oh yeah. I say boss, did whatever he wanted. He made more money than everybody else. He just kind of flounced about doing whatever he wanted.

So started the business with Sam. What's that, how many years ago now?

5 years last week.

5 years last week?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I know, it's crazy, isn't it?

5 years. And obviously, where— so where you are now as a business in terms of how many people do you have now in the business?

Uh, 25, um, full-time, um, and then we, we use people on an ad hoc basis that we need, basically. Yeah, we need them. But yeah, so it's 25 split up. We've just hired an ops manager. I think that's like our That was just sort of realising we were like a grown-up business now that we actually like, yeah, that we can't do it all ourselves.

You hear a lot from people where, especially when you start with another person, knowing each other's strengths, like, are you someone who's good at the operations or is it more staff or?

I would say either of us are good, really, but it all got put on my shoulders, really. And I'm like literally the world's worst administrator, so I'm not very organised.

So when did you hire that person?

About 2 months ago.

How has it been since?

Brilliant. Absolutely fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah. He's just everything. We'll get— he, he's, his goal is to move into sort of a, sort of a finance and operations leadership position in the company. So he's got lots of ops experience within recruitment. So he knows, he knows how to run a recruitment company from the internal aspects. But for his development, we're going to put him through all his accountancy exams and we're going to, we're going to support him on that. And we've known him for a long time. He's a good mate of, of our head of marketing. So, ah, also for me it was about bringing somebody in who can, who can grow with the business. Um, yeah, and I'd rather somebody who— not bring in some, you know, super expensive finance director, which we don't really need, but I want somebody who can really understand the financial side of the business. Because again, I'm not an accountant, neither Sam. We're recruiters, you know, that's, that's what we're good at. Um, so what, what we're trying to do is just outsource all the jobs that we've been doing that we're not necessarily very good at.

Yeah, yeah.

So we can continue recruiting.

So timeline, all things just happen. So I think— so when we last sat down, which is like 18 months ago, I mean 2 years ago, where was you at headcount-wise?

I think we were at 4 people. I think it was me, Sam, Aiden, Farid, and maybe Connor. Yeah, I'm not sure if Connor was with us then.

So that's like something significant.

But we came to see you because we wanted to hire people and you were filming our hiring video. Yeah. So yes, it was really early days from that point.

I mean, so like there's been some significant growth.

Yeah.

Over the last 2 and a bit years. Yeah. And how— just quickly, just for everyone, because like I don't always like to— because I think it's come up quite a lot where obviously in just today's world, headcount can easily be the thing that you talk about. That doesn't necessarily mean your business is more profitable or anything, right? So, um, like let's get to it. Was you more like— obviously 4 or 5 people, profit's taken a hit, right?

Profit per head was high. Obviously we make more money now. Yeah.

But the percentage is lower.

But, you know, we haven't got— we haven't got investors. We've got, you know, me and some of the owner shareholders. For us, it's, you know, we earn a nice living now. We have got enough money and it's not about that for me anymore. And to be honest, it never has been. I'm not— I'm not massively money motivated past the point I need enough to live off. And I like some nice things. I like decent holidays. But to me it's about growing it. So this year versus last year is probably the biggest difference. So we made a lot of money last year. And instead of taking it all, we thought, right, we're going to put it all back in. We're going to hire a lot of people. So I think, you know, sort of from April onwards, I think we've added probably like 7 people and they're all bedding in and some of them aren't built, some of them aren't fee earners. There's 3 people that we've hired this year who don't earn fees. You know, that's their administrators, the marketing. So, you know, they're always going to be a cost. And the other people we've hired, it takes time. So, you know, they're doing okay. But you've got to give them time to bed in. So our profit has gone down this year as a percentage, but again, we're making more money because all the guys we hired the year before are now at that place where they're actually hitting target rather, because they've had their year to bed in, learn the job, yeah, build their customer base, network, and everything else. So they're now making money, and I think that's how it's always going to be.

So why did you, why did you decide, why didn't you, why didn't you and Sandra decide to keep it a small business and Yeah, we always, we always thought that's what it would be because we just didn't know what we were capable of and what we really wanted.

We both— what Sam wanted to set up a business up because he's super ambitious, um, and he's, he's not very good at taking orders, you know, he's his own man, um, and he's, you know, he just wanted to get on with it and thought he could do it better than everybody else on his own, and he can. So it's a fair play to him. Mine was completely different. Mine was more of a work-life balance thing. Yeah, my wife got pregnant, they wouldn't give me any flexibility at work, so I just resigned. So um, and thought, you know, my only option is, is to work for myself. Plus I'm not a great employee, like I tend to just do again whatever I like. So I was always destined, I think, to become my own boss because I'm just not very good at doing what I'm told.

But why didn't— why— so when you, when you had a really good year last year, why didn't, why didn't you and Sam go out, buy the nice cars? Heard you bought a nice house.

I have just bought a house, but again, my wife's quite successful, so it's not like me flushing cash. Well, that's a very, very successful business.

Why, why did pull it back into the business?

Um, because we— after year 2, we kind of made that decision that, yeah, let's grow this. We're watching. Yeah, we were like, we're actually all right at this. Um, we can do this, you know, we've got the capability and we're really enjoying it. Um, yeah, and we're going to build, but we're not going to just do the old typical recruitment thing of hire 10 people, hope 2 work out. Yeah, we'll take our time. We're going to, you know, invest in our staff. I'm going to try and build a decent business. Um, You know, it doesn't have to be the biggest, it doesn't have to be the most profitable, but just a decent solid business that delivers for its customers and creates opportunities for its employees. So that is basically our mission. Those are those two principles, deliver for our customers and create opportunities for our employees. That, that's what drives this company. Those, those two things, everything else, you do those two things, everything takes care of itself.

Did you know that at the beginning?

No, because at the beginning I was just like, how can I make an income to cover my, my personal costs?

Because whenever some people I speak to people about um, a bit further down the line, and then in terms of having a recruitment business or think about starting it, obviously it's like, how much of a plan do I need? And something that came out of a conversation recently was, yeah, plan's great, but that can change. I think the most important thing is purpose and like knowing what that is.

So great, I love it, I like that a lot. No, perfect. No, we don't plan. We, yeah, we, we're doing it now. We don't plan because, you know, we're now at the point where We can't carry everybody.

Yeah. And when you say carry, you mean in terms of you and Sam being the biggest fee earners?

Yes. We can't cover everybody's billings anymore and grow the business that way. So, and to be fair, you know, we've got a good solid core of consistent billers now.

Yeah.

And we're adding to that and we're training those people up and bringing yourself in to help train our future leaders, our management team that are hopefully going to build their own teams under them. So we can't— so we've got to get a bit more, a bit more strategic, a bit more grown up, a bit more sort of commercial about how we run the business to make sure that we don't like fuck it all, basically. Yeah. And, and we've, you know, we've got people relying on us.

Yeah. I had, um, when I sat down with a guy, um, chap called Tim, he, he scaled his business over, I think, a 4-year period from him working from home to, yeah, now sort of 20, 30 people. And he said a big part of that is, is you've got to implement processes when before you didn't have processes.

I'm quite process-driven, so that's never been a problem for me. I like them. Yeah, I like a process. I like to understand how something works.

Yeah.

So I do like that. Sam's a bit more play it by ear.

Just make it happen.

Yeah, he's awesome at just making it happen. So, so, so, so the bringing in Jack to run our operations has been really good because I mean, the guy is literally like the most organized man in the world. He's got loads of good ideas and he's a good communicator. So he's getting— he's implementing a lot of processes, so he's taking a lot of work off my desk. So all the finance or the accounts or the billing, you know, credit control, you know, just even things like kitchen rotas, everything, you know, just all the small stuff that just takes up your time. So he's taken all that away so I can focus on managing my little thing.

How difficult was that to let go of those things?

Oh, not a problem at all.

Really?

No, not a problem at all. I'm quite happy to delegate.

Was there a challenge? Was there a challenge in like actually understanding what to delegate? Or not?

No, because I'm quite simple. I want to be a recruiter.

Yeah.

So I appreciate, you know, you've got the director title of running the company, and, you know, I spend a lot of time on that. And as we get bigger, I'll— I know that will take up more time.

Yeah.

But Sam's really good at that piece. Yeah. So I like recruiting. I like filling jobs. I like being— I like developing customers and bringing them in and, and growing that, the business that we do with them. So that's why— that's what I love to do. So I— yeah, the more I can do that, create a time for me to do that. Um, that's, you know, it's gonna make me happy. As we get bigger, I appreciate that's— I'm gonna have to do less and less of that.

Yeah.

Um, and run the company. Um, which again is a challenge because I think I'll just always just do business development. I really love that.

You just want to sell?

Yeah, I love being out. I like selling. I like getting to know people.

Yeah.

I'm fascinated by how all these companies work.

Yeah.

What's good about them, what they need to improve. I love going on a factory visit, seeing how a production line works. I just love it all. You know, it's what I've done. I've only ever done recruitment. It's what I've done for 15 years now. And I'm really— I am passionate about it. But there's going to become a time where I probably don't do any recruitment anymore, but I'm clinging on.

If I'm listening right now and I'm thinking, you know what, sort of delegating all those sort of things that Tom listed there, that sounds like a really good idea. But like, when do you— when would be it? I don't know. Do you wish you did that, made that hire earlier?

No, it's when you guys— for me, it's because that's a cost centre now. There's no profit.

Yeah.

I mean, it'll save us money. Jack's already saved us a couple of money, quite a bit of money on certain things. But it's— I call them— I've always said there's certain jobs that are core hires, and then you've got luxury hires.

Okay.

And Jack's my— our first luxury hire. So, because everybody else is like, you can't run the business without them.

Yeah.

But then for me, there's hires that you can run the business without them, but if you hire them, they're going to make the business better. I think you've got to get to a certain point What's that fine?

What was the point?

It's a profit level for me. You see, so much, you know, can we afford to pay salaries, you know, and, and, you know, can we give him an opportunity to develop in the business? So if I'm just bringing him in on what he's on and it's right, you're going to be doing the exact same job for the next 10 years, it's not going to stay very long, is it? I've got to create an opportunity for him. So hence the, the whole getting him to the board with the finance side. So that's his plan hopefully, and that's, you know, that's what he's working towards. And it's the same with everybody. I don't hire anybody unless I can, you know, just give them a progression plan. It's like, you do this, this, and this, everybody else achieves what they need to achieve, we can create these opportunities for you. And that's how we do it. And that's— I like that. I really enjoy doing that.

No, I just think that's interesting because I think especially as you're going through that journey of 4 or 5 heads, 10 heads, more, it's difficult, man. I feel like— I feel like that someone dedicated to those types of tasks and responsibilities will enable the people listening to spend more time on what they need to?

Yeah, I'd say it was quite easy up to 15.

Was that?

We didn't struggle. It was all natural.

What was easy though?

Just running the company, running the business. And we're really lucky that what, 5 years in, I think we've had 5 people leave in the whole time we've been working. One's gone to another recruiter, the rest have just left recruitment because it just wasn't for them for whatever reason. So 0 to 15 was, was, well, 2 to 15 was, was fairly straightforward. I can say if somebody had a bad month, the core billers had enough money to, to cover them, you know, making enough money to cover any, any sort of people who had poor starts or, you know, took them a bit longer to get up to speed. Um, now, so 15 to 25, we're now at the point where it's, it's a lot more difficult. There's a lot more time consuming. There's a lot more work you have to do outside of just filling jobs.

Yeah.

Um, there's a lot more, there's a lot more cost implications, you know, our costs, our costs have gone up massively. Yeah. So those are things you've got to consider, and it's just growing pains. You've just got to, you know, you've got to put it on the ground, you've just got to push forward basically.

Um, and how, how do you, how do you ensure you— back to the point now of having some really good people around you and stuff, like the, your employees— how, um, How important is it for you to communicate what's going on and why you're getting more people in and these types of things? How have you gone about that?

Yeah, so we're quite transparent with everything, really. Yeah, I mean, I can sense that being in the office. Yeah, most of the people are a mate of a mate who work for us. So apart from, I think, 3, everybody's come through internal referral that we've hired. So that helps.

Why does that help?

Because everybody kind of feels like they know each other. Yeah, yeah. So that really helps. And because we've all been together so long and not many people leave, we're quite tight-knit, so there's a lot of trust there.

Yeah, we do.

We, we, we— but in terms of sort of things that we do, we have a, we have a monthly one, a monthly town hall. And I hate the same town hall, but it's just, it's actually a really good way of describing what it is, where basically Samurai will present the month figures, what we've done, highlights, Employee of the Month. We have a values award every month for who's like, just, you know, like, be more like them.

Basically, the award is like, they're, they're just smashing the values out of the park.

And all that sort of good stuff. And then basically me and Sam leave and they do a town hall, which one of the future leaders will run. And they basically have a range of topics every month that they'll discuss as a team and feed. And then the management, the future leaders will feed that back to us. And then it's up to us to implement the changes that their suggestion, if you know, and it's advisory, you know, we're not We can't do everything, but we leave simply because, you know, as much as we get on with everybody, there is still that hierarchy there, isn't there? And people aren't going to be as honest as they could be if we're sat in the room like beady-eyeing them. So yeah, yeah. So we leave, go have a pint somewhere or something.

And yeah, what are some of the things that have come off the back of that then that have been interesting or been really impactful?

So yes, so there's quite a few things that we've changed. So we were doing a lot of incentives. A lot of like small incentives and then one big one. So we changed that because the small incentives weren't really enough to motivate people. Nobody really cared about— yeah, we're just loving— it was cash, there's some cash. Um, so we've split that now. So we— so this year we've done two in two big incentives basically.

Yeah.

Uh, one was skiing, which we're going next week, and the other one is like a summer trip somewhere. But we, we always let the team decide where that where we're going. So last year we went to Ibiza, which was my first time. Yeah, so, so typical. I've never been to Ibiza before. It was an eye opener. Yeah, it was an eye opener. Yeah, it was good fun. Yeah, I did, I did, I did 2 days and then flew out, flew home.

Really?

And the rest stayed for 3 because, yeah, I'm too old for that. But yeah, so that, that was good. I don't know what we'll do this year.

Um, so what, so what, what, what, what, where did that come from? Did people say that they don't think the incentives are that great, or—

Yeah, basically just that we had too many.

Yeah.

A lot of the time it was all a bit jumbled up.

Yeah.

You know, there wasn't a process of consistency to the incentives. A lot of them were just ad hoc.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we're trying to get— we're currently doing it now. And to be honest, tomorrow's town hall is the big one, is about next year's incentives because our year finishes in 2 months.

Yeah.

So it's about next year's incentives and planning for that. Another thing was about sort of personal development plans.

Okay.

So the feedback was that we weren't focusing on that enough, on individual. We're really focused on team. I think we're really good at collective movement and collective development rather than individuals. So we need—

we need to come off the back of a town hall.

Yeah, basically just a feedback forum. Yeah, just, just speaking to the team and understanding more about what they need as individuals. So yeah, so that's more— so again, we're planning that now.

Awesome.

Some of the topics in tomorrow's things like dress code because we don't have one and it's been abused.

Really?

Literally people turning up in dressing gowns and slippers. So yeah, so yeah, so there's a limit I think. And I just think it's about bringing your best self to work.

And yeah, I don't, I don't—

if you're rolling out of bed, basically, you know, joggers and coming to work, I just don't think you're in the right frame. Yeah. What I don't want to do is impose my Yeah, the way I see it, it's just like something you recognize and you're just bringing it up. Yeah, but I'll let them decide.

Yeah, that's the interesting part, right?

Yeah, I just happened to set the company up.

So what happened?

I don't, I'm not, I don't, you know, we're a team, so it's got to be.

And how long have you been doing these sort of town halls?

Since Christmas.

Oh really?

So, well, last, just before, just before Christmas.

So 2018 Christmas?

Uh, no, no, so literally last year, so last December.

Oh wow.

We've always done the month end and we've always had a bit of feedback, but it hasn't been formalized. It now— and I've removed me and Sam.

And you come— that was from a— was that a learning then?

Yeah, I just think we just weren't getting the feedback. I don't think— I just didn't think we were getting honest feedback. I think people were being too PC and worrying a bit too much, you know, if I say this, yeah, I might be judged.

You want to hurt your feelings.

Yes. And so, yeah, so it's all— it's all— they know that, you know, when So Ben's running it this month. When Ben comes to us with the feedback, it's not like, who said that? Yeah, there'll be none of that. It'll just be like, right, so this is what, you know, generally we'll vote on things and, you know, I'm allowing them to do it because I just think it's like I say, we're, we're a team, so you've got to move forward as a team. And then my job as the leader is just to implement the change.

It can drive more impact though, if and things can change if it's coming from them, right? And they're driving it.

And it's rather than—

I'm happy.

People are so much more likely to do things if they think it's their idea.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, let them come up with the ideas. And, you know, if we think that— if we think they'll really work and we can make them work and we can afford to make them work, if there's a cost behind them, you know, they're much more likely to really take hold of it if it's their idea. So that's the thing.

Was it hard to do that at the beginning though? Or that just came quite naturally to light? Was you quite comfortable with just letting these people talk?

I'm not a control freak in any way. Really? I'm good at delegating. So the less decisions I have to make, Yeah, the better for me, basically.

So if I'm listening right now and I'm like, right, this sounds like a good idea, I'm a smaller business, like right now it's probably, yeah, like you said, a bit jumbled, maybe even the monthly meetings are a bit jumbled and stuff like that. What would you suggest would be a really— it's just from over the last couple of months and stuff that you've recognized?

There's little things that I'm not a good presenter. I'm not very good at presenting. I'm great at talking, but you give me a structure and you don't have to screen, I have to look at and talk about, I'm just, I'm just no good at it. Yeah. So I don't do that. I don't do the presentation. Someone does the presentation.

Okay, so no, personally, no. If you're actually decent at— yeah, communicating.

And at the end of the day, you hired all your staff, right? So if, if you don't rate them enough to help you make decisions, you shouldn't have hired them in the first place. Yeah, you know, you should— why are you hiring these people if you don't rate them? Yeah, if you're not gonna— do you know what I mean? So hire people that you, you trust to give you advice, um, and to, and to have an impact in your business other than just the small little narrow job you've hired them to do. Don't hire them for the, for the business, especially in small businesses. We're all literally sat in a room staring at each other all day, you know. It's not like, you know, I'm on a top floor and I don't see anybody. You know, we're all really close. Everybody's got the same experience here.

Yeah. So know if you're a good presenter.

Yeah. Just like know what you're good at and just, and be honest and just be humble about what you, what you, what you crap at, basically. And then my list is very long. So I'm not a great man manager. I'm not a great direct man manager. I'm not into the detail at all. So I, you know, bring people in to do that for me. Yeah.

So I guess if you're not, if you're not having some sort of monthly communication with your business, if you're a smaller business, I think definitely start doing it.

Oh, if, yeah, I mean, anything.

I think you could even, you could even apply that to your team within the business, right?

Yeah. I mean, if you, if even if you're working for Hayes or Michael Page and, you know, I'm sure they'll have office monthly meetings, but yeah, if you're, if you're leading, managing a team of 4 people or, you know, whatever size it might be, How are you good? You know, those— but you need to feed back to them every month how they're doing, and they need to be able to feed back to you how you're doing.

Yeah.

And there's no better way to do that than either, you know, you go for lunch once a month or you sit around a screen and you do a presentation.

Yeah, I'm just trying to think of business hours. And when we was around the sort of 12 people mark, like, again, yeah, it wasn't— there wasn't much structure. Not that we needed like the perfect structure, but I think it would have been really good to sort of have a monthly sort of barometer of like guys, we did this great this month, or maybe we should think about this, or whatever. Because I think that's a great thing about working in a smaller business. I think that if I worked in your business, I have direct access to you. So if I was really passionate, I had a really strong opinion about feedback around certain something, then that's— I have the possibility to change that.

Yeah, totally.

I think that's a great— that's such a valuable thing to have.

100%.

And a lot more people need to maximize that and communicate that, especially in small businesses. That's what I mean.

You know, check your ego, mate. If you think you saw some sort of CEO when you've got 10 staff, you know, do you know what I mean?

It's like, it's good on LinkedIn though, more of you.

Yeah, CEOs and all this sort of stuff. I mean, mine's founder and it's like, I still like it, it makes me cringe, but I'm quite proud of founding a company, you know. If you, if you speak to anybody who knew me before I set this business up, I am literally like the last guy that they would have thought you know, I'm not that guy. I'm not. I shouldn't be doing this job by all accounts. You know what I mean? I shouldn't. I should have failed. You know, I'm not, I'm not the person on the top of anybody's list to have done this. And I couldn't have done it without Sam, you know, and Sam couldn't. Hopefully, I'd like to think he couldn't have done it without me. I do think there's a compliment there. But, you know, we've got to where we are. By no way, we've not made it by any, by any means. We're literally step one of the ladder. But, you know, I think we're going in the right direction. But yeah, just I think the problem with a lot of it, and especially in this, in this industry, is ego. There's just so many big egos, and I've worked with so many big egos, and it's almost like the title matters to them more than anything, that they've got this great title and they've got 10 staff, and it's like, yeah, it's like they don't, they don't see the responsibility they've got. So that's what I, that's my biggest pressure. That's what I worry about at night, is like, I've got to pay wages at the end of the month. Do you know what I mean? That's, you know, that's, that's the worry. I've got to pay everybody's wages, I've got to, you know, pay these bills, and, you know, that's what you worry about on an evening. It goes gone. I really hope that guy takes that job that you had when you were a consultant. I've still got that because I still fill a lot of jobs.

But now I've got— how have you got— how have you dealt— how have you got better at dealing with that?

I don't know. I had my best ever year last year.

Really?

Yeah, my biggest ever billing performance. I was— it's still nothing impressive, like 195.

Okay.

So yes, I've never broke 200. Um, really? It was like, for me, that's, that's legit. That's like, yeah, awesome. I've never been a massive biller. I give away a lot. So yeah, I'm good at getting the client on. Yeah, good at opening the door.

Yeah.

But yeah, I'm a little bit— because I'm a bit haphazard. I'm not great at the whole process, even though I've written the process. But yeah, no, I've never been—

what parts you're good at?

Yeah. So yes. And now, so I don't do a huge amount of resourcing anymore. So I have teams of people. I posted on LinkedIn today about Sarah helping us with these— this new client. We filled 3 jobs.

Yeah.

Competitive brief, and she's just smashed it out the park with it and filled all 3 jobs.

So how have you got better at dealing with the fact that you're now paying more wages then? How have you dealt with that? Because that's obviously gonna— that may prevent people from wanting to grow their business.

Like, you've just got to make sure— you've got to be— you've got to— you've got to be on it. You've just got to make sure that you, you're always— you're just on top of those things. And again, hiring people who are good at that. So Jack again coming in and helping us with the credit control. So we're making sure that, you know, the money we're owed is getting paid in, you know, that invoices have been sent on time. All that just is— it's that consistency of administration of the business, basically. That's, that's how you deal with that. Because, you know, if you, if you're a week before payday and you haven't billed enough to pay those wages, then you need to start really worrying about whether you're running your business properly. Our problem has never, never been that. It's only ever been the fact that The credit control is out of control.

Like, we're just getting invoices.

Yeah, just getting paid. That's— if anybody asked me before I set up, what do you think will be the toughest part of being owning a business, I'd have thought it'd be like getting a, you know, company to, to convince, you know, sales directors of big companies to use like an unknown, untested company. But it's 100% getting paid is the hardest thing. Getting companies to pay you. The big companies are the worst, want like 90-day payments.

The thing is, as an employee, you don't realize that.

You don't know, and it's educating them. But again, we're quite open with it. So everybody— so Jack oversees it all, but everybody has to chase their own debt. Really? Yeah, 100%. That's your customer. Why wouldn't you?

That's really interesting. Yeah, they've always done that.

They owe you money.

Have you always done that?

Yeah, I've always chased my own debt. Why would I let somebody else do it? They might bring them up and be really arsey with them and like ruin my relationship.

Yeah.

So I can manage that. So if I had a client owes me 10 grand, I'm, you know, I'm going to ring them like, you need to pay me, you know, I've delivered for you, I've done what you asked me to do.

It's now it's time to pay.

Yeah, 100%, that's their money. Do you want to pay any commission?

Are you not paying commission if they haven't got their—

oh, commission structure, you paid once the invoice is paid.

Really?

Yeah, I mean, come on, who runs it? What happens if they don't pay?

I'm pretty sure I got commission without the invoice being paid.

Yeah, I mean, I did it at Hayes. But Hayes is like, they're a billion quid, they can afford, they can afford that. Yeah, you, um, I think you want to hide into nothing in a small company if you're paying out commission.

Again, I think that's a good— I think it encourages people to have good business commercial understanding of the— it's not just, it's not just a done deal once, do you know what I mean? I think that's a good thing to—

there's so many recruiters out there and recruitment companies like running your own business, managing your own desk, and then basically come in and they micromanage the hell out of you, and then they, and they take all the, all the actual business from you and do it all in the background. So, you know, if you want to run your own desk, that's part of the processes. You make a placement, you agree terms, you agree payment terms, you invoice. I do— well, we send the invoices, that's all done naturally. But then, you know, you should know when that invoice is due, and you should be speaking to your clients and, and basically saying, you know, like, that, that payment's due next week, are we okay for payment? And if it's late, you know, you know, can, can we get that paid? Because, you know, that's that's on you. That's your, you know, it's your, it's your business. And we pay good commissions, so, you know, it's— people want to get paid that commission.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that's fair. It's just interesting. So that's definitely been the biggest challenge, getting paid.

It's big companies as well, all these ones that, you know, you see all their adverts and they're all about supporting little companies and bullshit. That's—

yeah, there's— yeah, there must be just so many people that you have to speak to and stuff, isn't there?

Yeah. And a lot of these, it's like their accounts department's, you know, not in this country. It's just an email and nobody will take a call. Yeah. And it's just, it's just not— but we've got some great clients.

I mean, I'm not, not slagging our customers off, but yeah, some of, some of them, you know, but it's a challenge we don't work with anymore because it's like, well, actually, yeah, okay, you've done that deal, but when you're getting paid— yeah, exactly, do you know what I mean?

And you should— nobody should be embarrassed or ashamed of being asked to be paid for the work they've done.

Yeah, exactly.

You don't walk into Greggs and buy a sandwich and then pay for it 3 weeks later, do you? You know, it's— yeah, and nobody— the girl behind the counter or the bloke behind the counter is not having a go at you, you know, he's not embarrassed to take the money off you. It's just a transaction. You should be proud to be paid for the work you've done.

What, um, so, so on, on this topic then, so you had your best year last year?

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Do you know what, I was a bit more ruthless last year in terms of like, because we split fees. So because we all work in the same markets and we're all filling pretty much the same job with the different customers, um, we do a lot of split fees. So a fee is made of 50% candidate, 50% the client. If you own both Happy days. You get the 100%. And because I'm better at the BD side, I'm better at the client side, I generally get the job in, fire it out to everybody. They send me the CVs, you know, people they've interviewed, people they know, my candidate's great for this role, blah blah blah, and they get half the fee. Whereas last year I filled a lot more of my own jobs. Ah, and I got— I managed— I won't name the client, but I managed to take a client that I'd been working with for 3 years as one of 5 on their PSL. And over that 3 years, we, I sent them basically a breakdown that every job they briefed out to agency, I filled. So I filled every single job. So it was like, just get rid of the other 4.

Yeah.

I'll do you, I'll do you a better rate. It's like a, to give it all to me exclusive. Yeah. And I built, I built like literally half, half of my fees with that one customer.

Yeah.

So, and to be honest, they're awesome as well. So yeah, it's a great business to work with. Yeah.

So what you're talking about there is sort of focusing on what your strengths are. Yeah. And then how— so it's interesting that I think it's come up a couple of times, sort of your experience or people's opinions on the sort of 180 sort of model, which is what you're just talking about, right? So if you put that in your business then, because obviously, yeah, so it's quite flexible.

If somebody's really good at the full 360, you know, crack on, fill your own jobs. I have no issue with that. But we have a talent management team as well, so people whose job it is just to manage our customer, our candidates.

Um, how have you found that impact?

Really good, really good. So the, the, the sell internally is, is because the, the talent managers, their, their fee as such, their internal fee, they, they just take £1,000 off, off the full fee. Mm-hmm. And obviously they earn commission.

Yeah.

Per placement rather than on a fee value.

Yeah.

So, so as a consultant, you're much more likely to engage a talent manager to help you resource a role if you've got overfilled, if you've got too many roles, and you're gonna fill more roles if they're doing the candidate work for you.

For you.

Yeah, but you only lose £1,000 if you fail, whereas if you—

oh, so if I split the fee with you, yeah, you're gonna have to—

if as a consultant, you're gonna have to give me half the fee, aren't you? So you're going to lose half the fee. So that's the way we did it to get people to use the talent managers. Plus, the talent manager's job isn't just to fill jobs, it's to manage our candidates, um, build relationships with them, keep them engaged, talk to them about, you know, what they're looking for, and give the candidates a better service. Not just fire CVs at our consultants basically to fill jobs. They're there, they're there, they're there, they're there, they're our, you know, our representatives to our company.

When did you start that? When did you start that?

So I think Daisy was the first one. I think Daisy's been here 2 years.

So how many people you got in that team now?

So it's just Daisy and Sarah at the moment. Yeah. But so that's— so Daisy looks after the food, food, the food and non-food team. Sarah looks after drinks. So all they do, just to be clear, as a talent manager, They— it's the candidate experience, full candidate experience. So if I get a job on, they'll do— I mean, we headhunt, we, we, yeah, like classical headhunting, not just sending messages on LinkedIn. Uh, so they do a lot of that, they do a lot of market mapping.

Okay.

So they're constantly working for our, our sort of our core customers. So let's say I've got a client in Surrey.

Yeah.

Um, we will just constantly be mining within 25 miles. Yeah.

And that's everybody.

Yeah.

And that's obviously other things.

Yeah. So their targets are all about about speaking to candidates, re-engaging candidates. So if we've registered somebody who's not been in touch for a while, they've not been in touch, just getting back in touch with them. We do a lot of— we use HubSpot for a lot of our funnels, yeah, in re-engagement funnels. So those guys are all over that, yeah, and working really closely with marketing to, to bring in candidates.

And then how have you structured the commission? So I didn't understand that. So they get—

so yeah, so consulting gets paid on billings.

Yeah.

The talent managers, because they don't have as much control. Yeah, it's all about the placement. But if so, if you engage a talent manager on your search, so if you say, can you help me fill this job, whether their candidate fills it or not, or whether it's somebody you find, you've got—

you've got it.

Yeah, you've got to pay them. So they get— and it's an increasing scale. So one placement's worth X amount.

Yeah, two is worth X, a bit more, 3, 4, 5.

So basically, if they make 4 placements a month, they generally about £2,000, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they can earn, you know, 4 placements, pretty, pretty— that's, that's their target.

So when you— what's interesting there, so not everyone will use them, that's down to the consultant.

They do, totally. I mean, the culture is— there's no, there's no hard and fast rules. Yeah, it's all cultural with us. So it's all about ownership, um, and owning. So the whole sell on it is, and they all bought into this, is if you're using somebody else to do resourcing, you can take on twice as many roles.

Yeah.

So you make twice as many placements. And it's worth it.

So how is that— yeah, how does that actually impact— if someone's thinking, you know what, actually there's a couple people in my office that actually would actually be really good at the delivery side, and maybe if they were to focus on that, that would actually enable— like, how, how has it actually impacted getting more candidates, filling more jobs?

Oh, it's, it's, it's huge. So what we've found recently, the cup— that included with a couple of other changes that we've made.

Yeah, we're at—

we actually, we worked out this year we're making We're not getting as many interviews.

Okay.

But we're making a lot more placements because really it is so much higher. Our ratios are so much better and it's because the talent managers can spend more time with the candidates.

So because that's all they're focused on, because that's all they're focused on.

So when a talent manager comes to you and says, you need to put this person in for this job, let me tell you why, rather than you having a half an hour on the phone call with them on an evening where you spoke to 20 other candidates and you, you know, you've got your notes, but they've spent, you know, they've done a full video interview with them. Yeah, they've got that in front of them. They can sell that to you. You can then sell that to your client. So you don't need as many interviews in order to make the placement. So from a, from an internal piece, it's miles better. But from a quality piece for our customers is, well, everybody wants to— they don't want to interview— nobody wants to interview, you know, 6, 7 people. Yeah, it's 3 or 4 people's great. And as well, if you— so if you can, if you can have confidence in your recruiter that if he sends me 4 people, I'm going to hire.

Yeah.

I mean, we're just over 3, 3 to 1 now for everybody who's been here more than 6 months. So, so what if—

okay, this sounds, this sounds really interesting. If I'm looking at hiring someone to do this, what do you think of the sort of slight differences that you'd look for than a typical recruiter? Do you know what I mean? Because I feel like the type of person would be slightly different.

Yeah. So actually I don't know if there's any difference, but they need to— so they need to have the skills like in terms of administration, organization, but they need to be engaged. Like, what have you found? Really passionate managers, actual people, and really, really good listeners. And I know recruiters need to be good listeners, yeah, but what they're trying to do is, is differentiate good from great with candidates, whereas as a recruiter, a lot of the time you're just trying to fill a job. Because you're up against 10 others, whereas they can take a lot more time. Um, but also what you've else you've got to be able to manage really well is the fact that you can't influence the process as much once you've passed that CV to your consultant and they've put it forward. So as a recruiter, you send the CVs, you can chase the client, you can, you know, you can influence, you can sell that candidate. And again, the talent managers can't do that, so they've got to have confidence in their team.

Yeah.

So you've got to be able to manage that within you, not be like kicking everybody's ass every 5 minutes, you know, and be understanding as like some clients take longer to come back and, and that type of thing. So yeah, so there's a bit of that, but I think—

so communication is key then.

Yeah, but also, yeah, just— yeah, but just being so much more good because like, as I say, a lot of it's re-engagement and it's not just about finding candidates for jobs, it's about managing that database of candidates and keeping them engaged and giving them a good experience with us. Because we were mad, mad into feedback loops. So making sure that those, that feedback is, is as good as it can be. You've got to be really quality focused. So it's not just a volume game.

Yeah.

But to be fair, our recruiters aren't like that either. But I'm just trying to sort of differentiate from other recruiters. I mean, I worked at Hayes for a long time and that was nice.

I think that's really interesting.

So it was all based on how many CVs and how many send out. So many of that.

But that's had a big impact on your business. It seems like, yeah, really.

I mean, our quality is just through the roof compared to, compared to last year, what it was. Yeah, totally. And I think that's the way we want to go. We, you know, we're very, very niche in what we do.

Yeah.

Every, every consultant recruits pretty much one role.

Yeah.

So, you know, national account managers or technical managers or supply chain managers, they all focus on that one role.

Yeah.

I'm all about specificity.

Yeah.

I think, I think it's—

why is that so important in today's, today's world?

I think because, because you've got so many online tools and stuff, you've got to build networks. And if you build a network, if I tried to build a generalist network, my message will get lost in it and it doesn't resonate with enough people. Whereas I predominantly recruit national accounts. So all the content I'm creating and all the messages I'm creating to those people, it's, yeah, it's directed directly at them and it'll hopefully it'll impact them and they'll relate to it. So they're more likely to engage with me. Whereas if I was recruiting supply chain managers and technical managers and marketers and everything, that message would get lost. Yeah, it's just I've got to be so much more generic with my messaging.

Yeah.

Whereas I like to sort of focus in. I mean, I do it. Yeah. I mean, I believe massively in social media. I'm, you know, I post a lot and I get good engagement and I believe it's the way forward. And I think where we've embraced that, but I think a niche is important. Like, the niche is super important. It's like you want to build a network and you want to be the go-to guy. So if a sales director rings me up, I can generally guarantee him I'll have a shortlist for me in 48 hours. If it's, if it's a national account manager, yeah, in the UK, you know, in one of the major population hubs, which is generally our home-based role, I will get you 5 CVs you want to interview within 48 hours, you know, because, because we know the market so well and we know the candidates, we know who's good. And we, because we only recruit that role and we've been doing it for so long, you know, you know the difference between good and great. So I know what good looks like, I know what great looks like in a national account manager. I know what they do. I get them in to train the staff on what it is their job is to do. So I think it's that, that expertise, and that's what people want.

So over the last sort of 18, 24 months, mate, you've grown the business quite a lot. How important has it been for you to sort of build that layer beneath you? Like the, the— because obviously, yeah, the people that I've been with today, the future leaders Obviously you've got another chap that's been with you longer, haven't you? He's more of a leader underneath you.

Yes, like, structure's pretty much now you've got me and Sam. Yeah, who own the company. And then within our leadership team, there's me, Sam, Aiden, and Dan. So Aiden's heads up our drinks team. Aiden was our— so Dan and Aiden, and this isn't— they're not in these positions because of this, but they're for our first number one and number two employees. Yeah, Dan was our first ever hire. He heads up marketing. And then Aiden came in, um, And they've both just smashed it. So, and they're both bought in, they're on the journey.

Yeah.

They will, they will become full directors hopefully next financial year.

Yeah.

So they'll be put on the board officially.

Yeah.

And we're just going through all those.

How important has it been to get that, have those people massive, like, like get that like concrete that their leaders, they're bought into, like, well, they're both very good at what they do, so we, we, I don't think we'd keep them Really?

As much as like we'd like to consider them good friends before they just like do their own thing. Well, they're ambitious guys. If I can't create an opportunity for them, I'd be like, you need to leave because, yeah, you know, I can't deliver what you need and you're better than the job you're in now. So I've got to keep creating opportunities to keep them here. And that's, that's the way I see it because, you know, they're in it for them, aren't they? They're not in it for me. Their life— and when the purpose of their life isn't to facilitate—

when did you start really cultivating that?

I've always been— it's, it's for me, it was It's always been that you've got to create those layers because that's how you keep people, because you create opportunities for them.

Yeah.

And we can't create opportunities for people without that layer of management.

Yeah.

I can't grow the business because there's only so many people I can manage directly and Sam can manage and Aiden can manage. So we need to put this tier of managers in now. So we've got 5 people who are on the Future Leaders program. And that their job is over this year is to take as much training as we can, we can afford to give them. We've got loads set up for them. Show us that they're ready. Lead from the front, you know, be ambassadors for our culture. And as soon as we can, we'll put people on. Yeah, put people underneath them. And a couple of them have already got, I've already got reports and we're building that structure in. But what we're not going to do is typical recruiter, oh, you had a good year, there's 4 staff, yeah, go manage them and still build me £250 grand a year. Because it's, it's just, you're just on a road to failure there. So it's, for me, it's about doing it properly, making sure that they, they can deliver in their marketplace and add that extra.

How did you identify those people? If I'm listening right now, and like, how— I don't know, obviously you've got to judge these people, but how, how have you— how do you identify those people to invest in?

I did them all individually, so they've all got different skills. So Ben, for example, yeah, he's just— he's a great coach, he's a great mentor, he's a great listener, um, he's, he's got time for everybody. So I think from that point of view, he's just an— he is a natural manager.

Yeah.

His development area is to be a bit more ruthless.

Yeah.

And he knows that.

Yeah.

Because he's just easy. He's one of those people who's just genuinely, just genuinely lovely. Sarah is just a workhorse. She's— nothing's ever too much. She's so organized, she's on it, she's bright, she's just, she's just like the perfect employee. So I need to— Sarah needs that opportunity in order to say, you know, hold, hold her up and like, yeah, that's how you should be doing it. And I know if I give her the opportunity to, to manage people, she'll absolutely smash out of the park. So everybody's got their individual skills.

Yeah.

And to be honest with you, I could have put 8 people Really? I don't think there's anybody in the business that I don't look at and think, you'll lead a team, or, you know, you won't be here next year or anything like that.

So how important was it to speak to these people about what this could mean long term? Like, besides the management and stuff, are you talking to them about, yeah, what that looks like for them in terms of being part of the business long term, 5, 10 years? Like, that's— I don't know, is that important to speak to people like that?

I think for them it is. Imagine if somebody came to you and they were like, right, we're going to put you through this program.

Yeah.

Because we really believe in you and we think, you know, you know, you're going to be a really important part of this business. And everybody knows what our goals are now, where we want to be, how big we want to be. And obviously they know what structure we've got, the structure planned out in terms of sort of what that's going to look like. So they know that, that from where they are now, if everybody achieves what they need to achieve, in 5 years' time what their role will look like and what their earning potential will be, what their, you know, what their— when do you do that role? Well, it's It's always been— we're always updating it and we're always feeding it back. And to be honest, we get a lot of input from those guys.

Really?

So yes, like, what do you want to do? Where do you see yourself going?

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. No, I just think if I'm a small business right now, how many— yeah, I think if you haven't got sort of those people in your business or cultivating that, you need to, don't you?

I think what a lot of people do is, is they, they try to be like a big company before they are a big company. So they try to have all these sort of layers of management and like this hierarchy of like, you know, I only talk to the person below me and then they talk to the person below. I think when you run a small business, you just got to throw all that out of the window.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, I'm sat opposite the most junior person in the company. You know, it's not like I'm not going to talk to them and, you know, they're as important to me as anybody else. So, you know, I want to share what we're doing with them.

Yeah.

You know, it's— there's no need to have like layers of hierarchy and layers of ego and all that sort of stuff. Like, you know, I'm more important than you. At the end of the day, we're that small. Everybody's still, you know, all the billers, we all still bill money. We've got, we've all got the same fee target. There's no sort of different fee targets at different levels. Everybody's got to make the same amount of money. We've got to make the same amount of placements. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing. It's all transparent. So there's no need for anybody to have ego. It's just some people have got different roles within that, within that family, really.

So going through obviously the last 18, 24 months, would you do anything differently, do you think?

Um, I just thought you're gonna ask me this. No, I think about the little things.

Go on.

But I'm just, yeah, I'm just trying to think. No, not actually. Probably wouldn't have spent as much money in Ibiza as we did.

Maybe.

Yeah, it got a bit out of hand on the money. We went to that Ocean Beach Club and that was so expensive. Was it like the biggest, biggest amount of money I've ever spent?

Really?

Yeah, but they deserved it. I mean, we smashed it last year in terms of sort fees, fees generated. So, um, yeah, so it was, it was, it was well deserved, but it's still, you know, I'm like a councillor, you know, spending sort of thousands on, on drinks and stuff. Yeah, it's just, it's just, it just hurts me. I'm a Yorkshireman. Yeah, yeah.

But anything you did different, anything that you think could have— I don't know. Oh yeah, anything that you think could have had a— maybe you wish you did it earlier, or I don't know, anything that's coming up for you?

No, I think, I think I don't have regrets as such, and I think, I think there's, there's things that we might change.

Yeah.

And sort of aspects of the business that we might change and different directions we might go in. But yeah, no, I'm, you know, I'm delighted with where we are. You know, thank my lucky stars every day that I'm in this position. So yeah, I don't think there's— I wouldn't— there's nothing I would change apart from one hire. Yeah, we were talking about him earlier. Yeah, he was, he was just wrong on every level.

Yeah.

And I thought I could, I thought I make something decent out of him. And yeah, and I was, I was just wrong. Yeah, it was just the wrong— so he's probably my only regret, really.

How's this journey been for you personally, mate? What's that been like? Has that been tough?

Yeah, it's been, it's been pretty mental, actually. So I, I literally, I've obviously— my, my, my little, my daughter Marty, um, her— she's pretty much like was born. Yeah, like just be like just after we set the company up. So it's like, that's why, you know, it was my motivation to do it. So That was a struggle.

Was there a factor of like, if you don't do it now, when you're gonna do it?

You've got no option. I had to deliver. So the, the where I was at as an employee of a company, yeah, from what I wanted to deliver for my family on a personal level, not like needed to, but just wanted to, you know, create for my family, just wasn't going to be— was never going to be— I was never going to be able to do that. And that's not just financial, but that's in terms of like, I drop my daughter at school every morning Yeah, you know, if I want to go hang out with her, I'll just literally just say, right, I'm off, see you later, I'm leaving at 3, or whatever it might be, and I go get from nursery. Um, so I get to spend loads of time with her, which is just— that's just awesome. Um, so that's really, really good. Really hard the first 2 years, she just didn't sleep, so I didn't sleep for 2 years. That was hard when you're setting a company up. And yeah, so I literally lived on, on Red Bull for like 2 years. Yeah, it was tough. But it's worth it, you know, it's worth it. So that was, that was difficult. But other than that, it sounds really big headed, but it's been fairly straightforward. It's largely been, you know, the hardest thing.

Don't need to overcomplicate it.

Yeah, we try to keep it simple, focus on our customers, deliver for them, stick to what you know, don't try to be everything to all men, don't sort of try to, you know, fill every job. Going, you know, focus on the jobs you can fill.

Yeah, yeah.

And just do good, do well for your customers, and just don't, don't be— don't over-egg what you're capable of doing and be satisfied with what you can achieve rather than, you know, I want to be a £10 million company when you're turning over £300 grand. You know, it's like, well, what's the next step? So we're £300 grand now, how do we get to £5 million? Yeah, you know, we're at just over— we're We're like a million and a half now. So our next goal is how do we get to 2.5 and how do we maintain the profit at a reasonable level that we can then get to 5, you know, and it's all that sort of thing. So, you know, it's, that's, that's what it's all about for me. It's just continuing it. I don't think we'll ever sell the company. I'm not in it for like a 5-year exit.

I think that makes you, that helps you make better decisions on like, like the decision to invest and put loads of money back into the business.

Yeah. We've got no debt. I don't think we'll ever borrow money. I'd rather just take a bit longer. And I know that's like, there were people out there going, oh, you need to scale your business and take loads of money off. I just don't want anybody to be able to tell us how to do it.

I mean, I think what's clear, mate, is that you're someone that you enjoy, you enjoy what you're doing. Yeah, I love it. That's the most important thing, right? I think scale, more people, whatever. Like, are you enjoying what you're building?

Yeah. If it ever gets to the point where it's like, oh right, I would, I would, if it got to like 100 people, that'd be pretty cool, I think now. But I might, I might hate it.

Yeah.

And at that point I probably would sell and just start again.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's get it to like 10, 15, 20, keep it that way. Yeah, I just, I love recruitment. I love, I love the job. I, I see myself as a recruiter. I don't see myself as an MD or, yeah, or anything like that. I'm a recruiter first and foremost, and I just do— I have another job, yeah, that, you know, is to basically help everybody else do, do what they need to do. I'm sure there'll come a time where we might be a bit bigger and I've like literally reached my, my, my level, yeah, and I might have to bring in somebody to tell me what to do every day. And run the business.

Quick one, mate, before we finish. So just on that point, I think just real practical advice, just because you've been through it. If I'm a business owner right now and I'm thinking about just that scaling period of, yeah, 10, 15, 10 to 20 heads or whatever, like you've gone through, and I know that's going to hit the profits, like what sort of, what are we expecting? What should I expect realistically in terms of what could hit, how, could that impact my profit? Like, what sort of percentage are we talking that it impacted your business?

Yeah, I'd say so. Our profit percentage is probably about 10% down.

Yeah, 10%. Yeah.

So you look—

yeah, work towards experiencing or having it between 10 to 15% profit down.

All those hires.

Yeah.

And it's starting to shift now because those guys are now starting to bed in and they're starting to be— they're starting to be profitable rather than the—

but if you've had a great— if you had a really good year, you're like, right, I want to really put, put a lot of this back into the business, going to involve hiring, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, plan at least 10 to 20%.

Yeah, for at least 6 months. Yeah. But also don't panic and fire the people you've hired because they're not making you enough money. And yeah, you know, you've got this profit number in your head. I've got to make 50% margin, you know, net margin or whatever it might be, whatever that number is in your head. Like I say, you know, as long as you've got a goal in mind in terms of sort of where you want to be, you know, from in the long term, You know, focus on that goal rather than on month by month. Oh, you know, last month we made 56% margin and this year we've made 42% and this month we've made 42% compared to last year. Does it really matter? Does it really matter? You are not Procter Gamble. You know, you've not got, you know, you're not on the FTSE 100, you've not got shareholders, it's not going to affect your share price. And unless you're planning to sell, it's like your house. If your house goes down in value, it only matters if you want to sell it. Yeah, do you know what I mean? It's about— so if it's about investing in your company and your people and hiring the right people and then backing them to deliver and yeah, and expecting and accepting that that might cost you a bit of money over—

yeah, no, I think that's really good advice. It's like, know where you want to be with that investment and what you're putting in over the next 3-5 years. So then yeah, when you do notice that there's a bit of a hit, like, that's not hitting you hard and you're not just focusing on the short term, do you know what I mean? It's going to help you see it through, right?

You know, who's ever hired anybody? You hear stories, don't you? Like consultants coming first year, they bail quarter of a million, and you're like, how?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I've never met one. You know, your first year, if you make 50% of your annual target, you're laughing, are you? If you've got no experience in recruitment, you've got to expect that they're going to make 50% of the profit that you want them to make. Yeah, they're only going to build 50% of them.

I shared, um, an episode of a guy, chap called Tom is it a property recruiter? And he, he did, uh, 200 and— oh, is that 250?

I saw this one.

Yeah, maybe like 215 in his first year, right? But he's like, he's like, he's like nearly like 6 years in now. That's been his best year. As that is just mental, isn't it? He's your first year, crazy, your best year.

I think I did 94 grand in my first year, um, at Ellis Fairbank. Anybody old will remember this. Fairbank.

So look, one or two questions before we finish, mate. Final questions. Have an event coming up with the podcast all about resilience. What does resilience in recruitment mean to you, mate?

I've always got it bounce-back ability.

Bounce-back ability.

Yeah, that's, that's just an old term I was taught when I first started out. It's almost like you've almost not got to care. It's like you do, obviously you care.

Yeah.

But you've almost got to be in a position where you know, you know, it's, it's something's gonna go wrong. Yeah. Who's ever had a recruiter— all the recruiters are listening to this— has anybody ever gone from, you know, job in to fill with no hurdles? Yeah, it just doesn't happen. There's always something. There's something in the contract, you know. Yeah, they can't make the interviews and you've got big gaps. There's always something. And the thing I try to explain to everybody else is if you've ever, like, ever got one job on or one chance to make a fee that month and it doesn't come in, you shouldn't be surprised. You know, give yourself the— it's really easy to build resilience if you've got 10, 10 things at final interview and, you know, if you land 5 of them, you're laughing. Some months you might land 10, you know. So in terms of sort of building that resilience, it's like you've just got to expect the worst.

Expect, yeah.

And you've got to remember we're dealing with like so much out of our control.

Yeah.

You know, we can't, we can't make people hire people. You can't make people take jobs, and we should never try. Because that's not what people are paying for.

What can people do to sort of start instilling that in their teams? Anything that you do? Or—

I don't think you can make somebody resilient.

No, I think—

but what I think you can do is help them reduce the amount of resilience they need by, yeah, having more in their pipeline. So if that— if you've got— everybody knows that recruiter's only ever got one candidate in for a job. Oh, you know, there's one candidate wonder.

So they've got 10 jobs, he's the one.

I've got 10 sendouts this week, and it's like, yes, to 10 jobs. So they've got one candidate in every job, and it's like there's a really good likelihood they won't make any fees that month. They won't make any placements. So first of all, they're giving their customers a crap service because it's like they're literally one candidate wonder, but they're just always setting themselves up for failure. So it's like that person, their focus should always be half the number of jobs you're working and put more, more good people into the jobs. Focus more on getting more quality into less jobs.

Yeah.

You know, until you're able to fill 10 jobs with 3 great candidates or 5 great candidates in each one, So then you don't need to be as resilient. You don't need to deal with disappointment as much. But I think it's natural, isn't it?

Yeah. Anything that you're excited about, mate? Obviously going into the new financial year very soon, but anything you wanna shout about?

Yeah, so I think the biggest thing for me is Grocery Aid at the moment. So I was really, really chuffed last year. They asked me to sort of join the Northern Branches Committee. So I've sort of bedded myself in now and I'm, currently like tasked with arranging our annual golf days, which raises money for the charity where we are. Big, big bet this year is Barcode Festival, which is the grocery industry's run by Grocery Aid. It's a big festival, one-day festival. Loads of the big suppliers, Heineken and people like that, come in, do massive activations. The whole industry has got 4,000 people going this year.

Oh wow.

We support the festival. It's in London, it's down near the docks. Hawker House was last year.

Okay.

But they've moved it to a bigger venue this year.

You're involved with that?

So yeah, so we, we, we support Grocery Aid by basically doing all their social media for them. Yeah, sort of free of charge. So we do all that for them. So we shift a lot of tickets for them, but we, we've sponsored the event this year and got ourselves a big, big tent area. So we're going to take— use that as our big client, client day. So we've got 50 tickets.

That's exciting.

So if, uh, if there are any FMCG Sales directors listening, yeah, on a ticket to barcode, give us a vacancy. Um, so yeah, so that's our big bet this year, our big marketing bet. Um, so that's, that's really important to me. Um, but this Future Leaders thing, I'm just really excited about where they're going to be in like 6 months' time. We've got some great— so obviously you're supporting us on that. I've got, um, we had Mr. Benjamin Denner here, the UK's most hated sales trainer. We took a team to see him recently. That was That was amazing. I've never come out of a training course like knowing that I'm a lot shitter than I thought. Because before I went in, I was like, yeah, I'm a good salesman, I know how to sell, I've been on the— yeah, yeah, that guy just ripped me to pieces.

Okay.

Um, so yeah, and then we've got loads of sort of leadership training and everything else. So yes, I'm really excited to progress. Yeah. And I've just got loads— I just— yeah. And I'm just like, what they're getting out of it, like everybody's been buzzing today when they come out there and was with the— after the session with you. So that's— I think it's just— I think So that's going to be really the next step for me is more how can I turn consultants into leaders and give them opportunities. And you know, down the line, who knows if they want their own businesses, we might be able to help them out with that as well.

Wicked, mate. Final question. Tom could communicate to every single recruiter out there, business owner, phrase, word. What would you say to these people, mate, if they'd listen and take on your advice?

Just focus on your customer. Deliver. That's— that's— this is deliver for your customers. Stop worrying about how much money you're making.

Yeah, nice.

Just focus on filling jobs with great candidates and you'll literally have nothing else to worry about. It's that simple. It is the simplest job in the world.

Tom, it's been a pleasure, mate.

Yeah, I've enjoyed it. Cheers, mate.