I Hired "SuperStar" Billers and they Nearly Ruined My Business (Advice from top CEO)

Hey guys, welcome back to yet another episode of Top Billers Toolkit, where me and my twin brother interview top billers from all around the globe to unlock the secrets to their success. Today's guest is Chris Relf. Chris is the owner of a 36-person recruitment firm very close to LA, but he has been on an insane journey. He's been through multiple legal battles and was screwed over multiple times while growing his business. There were countless moments when he could have thrown in the towel and given up. But after joining a group with other business owners who also were running their own firm, he realized this is just part and parcel of doing business. On today's episode, we're going to be going into more details of Chris's crazy story and how those most painful moments were actually his most defining. We're going to be talking about how Chris grew his business to 36 people and also maintained his happiness levels. And we're going to be discussing why Chris had to rebuild his company culture many times while growing his business. This is a short and snappy episode, guys, but we really enjoyed Chris's story, so we hope you enjoy it too. And as usual, grab a cuppa or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this, and let's get into it, shall we?

Chris, thank you so much for joining us today, my friend. I am really looking forward to speaking to you today. How are you?

I'm doing well, thanks for having me on. Lovely day here in Southern California.

Yeah, it looks gorgeous. Sam was saying, uh, complimenting your view, it looks absolutely stunning.

Yeah, it's miserable where I am. I look out, it's like foggy and dark, and I'm very jealous of your background, Chris. If whoever's watching on YouTube can see Chris's background, it's lovely.

So we're going to start off with the first question, as we do with every single recruiter who comes on the pod. What's the number one tool in your toolkit whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software?

Yep, such an interesting question. I think there's, there's so much noise with all the tools. The industry is consistently changing, um, but everyone's looking for that tool that's automatically going to make them a big producer. But I think if you look at historically in our business, bottom line production per desk necessarily has not gone up. If you talk to really old school guys, it's like, oh no, Monster came out, then it was, oh no, LinkedIn came out. My belief is, is hands down the most important tool is relationships and the ability to build those relationships with candidates and clients. I call that kind of the art part of the business. Um, I think relationships, it's, it's built through being authentic and telling the truth. And it kind of sounds simple, I guess, but I think our industry, like any big saturated industry, gets a bad reputation for all the right reasons. So one of those is, is the mindset in our industry of get this deal down at all costs because you're highly commissioned, versus the mindset I try to encourage everyone to take, which is What are you going to do on this deal to earn their business 3, 5 years from now? So again, that starts with the relationship. And to simplify it, I just say the easy way is just tell the truth, even when it hurts. So biggest tool for me is going to be relationships. And then how do you— if I was to talk about software and technology, how do you leverage those to get and build more relationships?

Interesting. And you've got a really— you're in an interesting position, Chris, because you have a team of consultants that you can look at and observe. So I'm guessing, um, what I would love to, to ask and go deeper into on the relationship building piece— what have you noticed that the top producers do differently when it comes to building relationships? Are they, are they more patient? Do they ask better questions? Do they have a more systematic approach? Are they just nicer people? Like, what have you noticed is different about those people, do you think?

Yeah, it's same kind of advice I would give candidates in an interview, right? Regardless of the fit for the role, what I think matters the most is the likability in an interview, and likability comes from humanizing yourself, being authentic. So classic example is if you're in an interview and someone says, tell me about your biggest win, people will talk about the biggest deal they worked on or the biggest project they worked on. I think your biggest win should be the time you failed, what you learned from it, and that led you to the biggest deal or the biggest project you worked on. So I think relationships, jumping to our side of the business, it, it fundamentally goes back to, again, just telling the truth and taking a consultative approach versus the transactional approach. In a lot of our industry, especially in a busy market, if a search gets hard, they'll disappear. That's always a client's complaint. I'm a big advocate for find solutions, try to serve that client more of a white glove service, because if you can do that and it's a hard search, Most firms aren't willing to take the hard search. It's just what, what you just did is build a relationship, built loyalty, built repeat business. If you can figure it out, finding solutions, not excuses, just chasing the next deal.

Makes sense.

Interesting.

Sorry, Ben, go ahead.

No, it's okay. I'm going to flip the question a little bit from the— I know we've got a different question for number 2, but I'd love to ask about what it's been like for you, Chris, building, uh, is it 36 people now you have in your business?

Yeah, we're about 36 internally, right?

Yeah. God, I can only imagine the journey you've been on from being on your own to now having 36 people. Just openly, what's it been like for a journey for you? Like from, from the start to now, what's the journey been like for you?

Well, it started accidentally. I mean, coming out of the Great Recession, I was in my 20s. You know, looking back, it was funny. I thought I figured out the real world, but I learned what being a captured vendor was. We had one massive Fortune 50 client. That we were doing a ton of work with and they went into hiring freeze. And at the time I didn't even know what that meant. It was kind of a fork in the road where, what do I want to do? Do I want— I didn't love living in Orange County at the time, didn't love our business. Looking back, it was because of the transactional nature of it. But the fork in the road came to fruition working with like an executive coach I still work with today. I was being a victim and I was sitting there telling him, I might go sell software, I'm going to go do this, I'm going to go do that. I hate our industry for this. And he looked at me and goes, what would you do if you weren't afraid? And it just kind of came out. I said, well, I'd start a firm, but it'd be relationship-based. And that's kind of how it got going. Um, but the journey along the way, I think, you know, there's so many people in a hot market in particular for perm placement that think, oh, I'm going to go on my own. And there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but I, I tell a story recently, I'm, I'm in talks with a, a very big producer that's been on his own for a few years And I said, "Well, what do you like about the business?" He said, "Selling." And I said, "What do you not like about being a one-man shop?" And he said, "Well, I'm not building an asset." I said, "Okay, you're a huge producer. We have equity opportunities. What if we can take your day and you just focus on sales? And let's say you take a blended 50%, but you can sell twice as much because you have more than twice the time and you're building an asset." So I think a lot of people aren't willing to go that journey because so many people go out on their own just to make the money. And that's okay. But one thing about recruiting, you got to be tied to your desk. So in my head, I was like, do I want to be 50, 60, 70 years old, sitting recruiting all day long? And the answer was no. Okay, so what do I like doing? And then really going down and working with mentors and advisors and people in our industry I know and respect and trying to figure out what do I want. And, you know, I think it's all about being happy. And I've had a couple of big forks in the road trying to build this business and The last realization was, okay, for me to be happy, I like to coach. I don't like to manage, right? I grew up in the business when everyone was managed. And for me, when I was managed, it was like, if you had to talk to 8 people, I just talked to 10, then you're not managed. It's not that hard, right? Um, but I always had an issue with that. So number 1, lessons learned along the way, it's hiring for myself. This is kind of funny. It's ironic. Hiring for ourselves, I've talked to a lot of firm owners, is the hardest thing we do. And that makes zero sense, right?

Like you think every recruiter says that. It's like, yeah, literally every recruiter you've spoken to says that.

Yeah, if they're being open, right? And a mentor of mine kind of nailed it and he said, well, you like the business, you're good at it, so you think everyone should be and maybe it's just not a fit. So really going, okay, how do I hire for clients? And let's do that for ourselves. Really taking the time and investing in our culture and what do we really want, right? And if life's about being happy, how do we set people up? You know, it takes the right person. You got to have some self-discipline in our culture, but how do we help them to be happy? I went to this presentation by a big CEO here in Orange County years ago and basically stole it from him. But he did the classic company pyramid of money, client, employee, and flipped it. And he goes, you put your team first, they'll put the client first. You do that, it might take a little bit longer, but you're building a more sustainable business where people are going to be more purposeful in their work and feel better about what they're doing. So it all kind of started with, with that concept and just knowing, okay, what, what's going to make me happy? And one of those things is I get a lot out of watching other people grow in our business. Like, I get more excited for them when that proverbial invisible light switch goes off and they're now able to close a deal they wouldn't have 3 months ago, let's say. I love that. I get more excited than they do. I can't do that if I was just sitting on my own and not trying to build something interesting.

So you are more interested in the coaching side than necessarily the billing side, Chris? Am I right in saying that, or do you like a bit of both?

I, I think, um, I put this together a few years ago, but the 4 roles I want to play, and I'm not there yet, but partner with our leaders, partner with them. How can I help? How can they help me? I think collaboration in our business is so important. It's how I learned everything. Number 2 is coach to the team, whether it's personal, professional, how can I help? Number 3 is rainmaker. I love doing that. I think that's probably my biggest value. And then 4, I love the bigger strategy vision, but also being self-aware and getting feedback and letting people know it's okay, give me feedback. I'm really good at the idea portion. I'm willing to fail. It's the middle stuff. It's like the example I give in college is there might be a group presentation. I'll put together the group. I'll probably do none of the work, but I'll do the presentation. Um, but so getting people on board, and I think it was like, as an entrepreneur, you go through this journey where you think you can do everything. I remember when I was looking at hiring an office manager in this, um, peer group I'm in, They were pushing me on that. I'm like, no, I'm on, I'm an entrepreneur. I'll do the dishes. I'll take out the garbage. Like that was the whole Business 101 concept, right? Is that the value of time that I am in, in realistically what finally resonated with me and it's more of an ego thing. Like I can do everything was, am I serving the team well if I'm doing, you know, that $10, $20, $30 hour activity? And the answer's no. So how do I get on that path? And it's not perfect yet. I'm not really achieving all 4 of those roles. but I know there's a path and a vision to get there.

Awesome.

Few things I want to just go back on is, um, you said you went to a conference and they said put the team first and then everything kind of trickles down from there. Chris, I'm curious, after that conference and after you came to this epiphany of, you know, put the team first, what are some key things you put in place in order to, you know, put the team first and have a happy culture? Are there some key things that you did, you're like, yes, That was really good. That was really good. This was really good.

Yeah, I think first I saw that presentation way before I implemented it, so it took me way too long looking back, but it's really taken a vested interest in people and it's just like building relationships at a networking event, right? I always tell people, if you go in and you're the cheesy sales guy, like I'll run into someone— I was at an event last night, guy walks up and goes, hey, nice to meet you. What's your name? I go, great, great to meet you. And he goes, what do you do? And I go, I'm in search. I never go deep into it. And he's waiting for me to ask. And he's like, oh, so who does your insurance? Like immediately trying to sell me. I'm like, dude, I just met you, right? But taking a genuine interest in everyone on our team on the personal side first. And we've created this culture where there's like a lot of transparency. If people are going through something personally, we all have their back. I'll literally kick them out of the office. But culturally, it happened after the biggest second fork in the road in my career and realizing like what's going to make me happy. It took us 6 months, some mentors meeting, trying to develop values. I mean, every company throws values on their wall, but no one even knows what they are. So we really hyperfocused on that and I was kind of against it, but creating a new purpose, a new how, a new why we do things. And where it really clicked was our leadership group was sitting in a room one day and someone came with the idea, let's write down everything we don't want. And there's 4 of us. And at the time, all of us said lying. At the same time. So we wrote down everything we didn't want, put them into like a word bubble, and then tried to find the values that associated with those words. And that's where we originally came up with our purpose. A little bit of, you know, Simon Sinek, his Why video.

Yes.

And then the book Why. So if we started with like, okay, we want people to be happy, of course you still got to be disciplined, you got to be able to operate with a lot of autonomy. So our purpose became to build a happy workforce starting with ours. Under the belief of that pyramid, right? And we say that— I almost say it arrogantly because it is about our team. So putting them first has big, big benefits. Again, not perfect for everyone, but I can say resoundingly, like, I think everyone in our team feels like those that are coming in, you know, the whole remote thing, you get to come to our office, you don't got to come to our office, you get to go to work, you don't have to go to work, right? And there's a difference. When you're talking about this industry that can be a grind.

Interesting. I think this is a good time to go into the— we're kind of already talking about it, the company culture. But, um, there was a point at which— I think it was 2019, Chris, right? Where there was— I'm not sure if it was— you could say it was a fork in the road, but you spent all this time developing a company culture, and then you, you kind of shifted and changed gears Can you tell us what that experience was like and why you shifted?

Yeah, I mean, you learn lessons along the way. I'm a, I'm a big personal responsibility guy. I look at all the mistakes I made that ironically around hiring and retaining the wrong people. And, you know, you throw again the values on the wall, but no one pays attention to them. So I'm just learning, right? So I look at all the failures as an opportunity. I look at those were good things that happened, not bad things. A lot of people get sucked up, and that happened to me. But they're learning lessons and I'm glad they happened. So, you know, when I started the firm originally, it was I was going to do perm. My first business partner— this isn't common, but still a really good friend of mine— he was going to do temp. And we ended up splitting up, just kind of different visions. It's hard when you're starting, you're bootstrapping a business, you're billing more, you're managing, but you're making less money. That's a hard challenge for a lot of people. And ultimately now he runs a smaller perm shop and does very, very well. Which is ironic 'cause he was a temp guy, right? But then fast forward, I started growing, hired some people, and at the time he was like, gosh, I should have stuck with it. And then I got into some legal problems and I was like, gosh, I should be a small shop, right? So you kind of go back and forth. But what happened that led to the fork in the road that I'm happy that it happened to the culture we have today, otherwise I wouldn't have realized that, was 2015, I hired some folks that was our originally, we have 3 divisions. So our professionals divisions, accounting, finance, temp and positional perm placement, as I call it, um, from a very large firm that, unbeknownst to me, they had been fired for fraud. And I knew probably 2 weeks in, I just wasn't a fan. Um, and lesson there is trust your gut. Um, but they were big producers, so I fell for that trap of other big producers. I guess it's okay, but it absolutely decimated the culture we had at the time. And then fast forward a couple years in, they went to all the clients and temps, and they had equity in that division because we're separate companies basically on paper. And said, hey, great news, there's a rebranding of the firm. I'm out of the country at the time, so the clients and the temps, which is technically illegal in the kind of client contracts, um, they diverted the entire book of business.

Wow.

So, you know, then you get into a legal thing, and again, like, our industry gets a bad rap, and it's people like that that are morally bankrupt, more or less, that are just chasing the dollar right now, not the relationship. So I thought it was my duty to kind of defend, um, our industry per se, um, and ultimately you win, but there's big opportunity cost to small business when you get into legal issues, even if you're right. And that's where I learned the legal situations, it's not what you think is logical, right? You just got to be willing to go through that pain. And during that time, there was— the way I say it is I was working harder and longer than I've ever worked in my entire life and literally paying to go to work, like paying to go to work because the legal thing. And then the opportunity cost is if you're spending half your day as a small business person on a legal issue, You're not producing, you're not paying attention to culture. And then during that time, we also had a payroll scam happen. So we use a back office funding factoring company and we had this client, let's just say the FBI is involved because he's done it dozens of times. And that was a couple hundred grand that I'm personally guaranteed for during a lawsuit while paying to go to work.

My God.

And when it all kind of ended, that's when I really sat down and said, okay, what do I want? I, I could quit. I can go sit in my bedroom, make way more money, not deal with the headaches. I can go to another firm, start, you know, maybe the contingent division and run that, not deal with the business headaches. But ultimately that wasn't going to make me happy. So that was 2017-ish. And that really was the launch of, okay, what do I want? What kind of culture do I want? What's going to make me happy? What's going to make our team happy?

Wow.

Wow.

It sounds like everything that could have gone wrong, Chris, did go wrong.

And you went through like, yeah, just insane, insane obstacles to get where you are today. Like insane stress and pressure. And I'm just curious, like, I think you've already told us, but what was the key thing that stopped you from being like, oh, screw this. It's so much hassle running a business. This has happened and this has happened. I could just go and work for a company and make good money and be cool. Like what was that thing that was keeping you from, from doing that?

Yeah, you get a lot of self-doubt, right? And I think for me it goes back to relationships and there, there's a group that I'm in and at the time my attorney was in that group and 6 or 7 other, you know, entrepreneurial people and we all had a lawsuit going with them at the same time. And that was a realization is, oh, this is just part of doing business.

Oh, interesting.

And so when you put yourself on an island and you're a victim and you go, oh, poor me, But if you put it out there, you realize everyone's had some sort of a similar challenge that's done anything. So when I tell that story, I always tell people, like, I never called myself an entrepreneur till that happened, right? Since I didn't feel, I guess, I'd earned it. And society makes an entrepreneur super easy. I mean, there's a bunch of one-man companies that call themselves CEO. I fought even putting that title forever. And many of these so-called entrepreneurs actually have maybe a backstop with mom and dad. They had money. They we're giving clients, maybe even the business. I bootstrapped everything. I came from humble beginnings and I just believe any true entrepreneur is willing to go through things that most people won't so that you can create a life that other people maybe can't. And I preface that with if it works, of course. And by the way, I don't recommend it, but if someone's willing to do it, then go for it. But again, I look at those lessons, I'm so glad they happened. At the time, it was horrific. But I'm glad because that got us to where we're at today. Do I feel bad that it getting to this point took a lot longer than it probably should have? Yeah, absolutely. Are we where we want to be? No. But it's so clear now, um, of how we're going to get there.

Awesome.

Absolutely love that. I, I—

so I just want to—

it's not necessarily a question, I just love the fact that you were around with other CEOs, uh, other entrepreneurs, and like they were all going through the same thing, and you're like, oh, just part of being in business. I just think so many other people will probably be able to relate to that, and it was probably quite an eye-opening moment. Just wanted to go back to that.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And if you think about happiness, like, I think society tells us like happiness comes from ease, comfort, convenience. And so a lot of people tend to avoid the challenges of the difficult task. I believe like happiness doesn't necessarily come from the easy things. It's, it's really overcoming the hard things. It's, it's enjoying that journey up the mountain, not just, oh, how do I get to the top and enjoy that. Yeah, it's pushing through those obstacles, and that, that's where you really can find happiness and purpose and going, okay, this is just another challenge. How do I, how do I overcome that? Um, and how do I get there? I think everyone has life-defining moments, and what I say is don't let them define you. If you do that, that's where you become a victim, and you see that on the candidate side too.

Hmm, interesting.

Yeah, fascinating. It makes me think that actually a big part of— I mean, there's— I'm sure there's so many characteristics and things that people need, like yourself, Chris, to get to your level and to be successful. But a huge part of it is pain threshold, isn't it? It's being able to just withstand a huge amount of pain and keep moving forward. Um, which is interesting because it sounds like these other entrepreneurs were going through the exact same thing, and they kind of normalized the pain, which is interesting. So they kind of made it feel normal.

Yeah, I think it's the grit thing. Who is Angela Duckworth? Had that TED Talk that got really popular years ago, and I think she defines it as the passion, perseverance for long-term goals. Right. And in today's world, everyone wants to, oh, I'm going to do crypto, I'm going to be an influencer, like everything's going to happen overnight. And then everyone hates the Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos of the world because, oh, it must have been easy for them.

Shit.

I can only imagine the hurdles that they probably still deal with nowadays, right, to get to where they're at.

Yeah, must be insane. Um, I just want to touch upon, because you said you had an executive coach, um, at the very beginning of your career, or at some point that made the transition. You said you talked about a mentor. It sounds like you have strategically, um, put yourself around people that can help you get to the next level. Um, How did that happen? Like, have you always worked with people throughout your whole career, or was the executive coach the first person that really kind of changed, you know, gave you that epiphany to start your own business? Like, can you talk to us around that, Chris? Because I found that quite unique.

Yeah, you know, I think, I guess looking back at my life, I've always been an entrepreneur. I think second grade I was, you know, running a Garbage Pail. You guys are probably too young. Garbage Pail. There was these little cards way before Pokémon. Trading those on campus. I would take my lunch money, buy donut holes, sell them, double my lunch money. So, it's kind of always, I guess, been in me. But the executive coach came into my life through my old boss who's still a really good friend. Love that guy to death. And he tried to get me through this program. And the gentleman I work with at the time, I said, "I don't need Tony Robbins, da, da, da, da, da, these personality tests and stuff. What are you talking about?" And I put it off for a year and I'm so glad I finally did it. Because the gentleman I work with, he flies undercover, but he coaches some of the biggest names in the world. And you think about it, growing up playing sports, you get coaches in that. You got to have coaches in business, right? And I think for me, having coaches in sports, having coaches in life and in business, because his focus isn't just business, right? He had wrote a book years ago called The Happy High Achiever. And the facts and the studies show only 8% of so-called high achievers are actually happy. So, what are the commonalities with that?

Wow.

Um, but it's also just the network and the mentors and friends and going through the hard things in life. When I had self-doubt or didn't believe myself and other people did that I, I loved and respected that believed in me more than I believed in myself, that helped encourage me to get to the next level. Um, but that, that coach, he's got so many good one-liners that make sense. And one of them, going back to the relationships, and I'm sure we'll get into the referral business, he has a line, um, It's all about relationships, but more so it's about the influential relationships and the story they tell about you once you earn their trust. Right? So if you think, think about that, how do you do that, right? And in our business, it's really easy to— someone might like you, but you can burn their trust because you do crappy search work.

That is a pretty insane statistic. Only 8% of high achievers are happy. That, that's crazy. So Is there anything that this guy has taught you? Because you, again, you're probably— you've been under this insane amount of stress. What has this guy taught you or helped you with to stay happy or, um, to be in a sense of happiness in those times of hardship? Is there any kind of tips that you can give other people, Chris, that might be going through periods of hardship as well?

Yeah, you know, it's, it's, um, things you'll get that some of the commonalities, like high achievers tend to be self-deprecating, self-doubt. Um, happy high achievers, they've got a vision, they've got a purpose, they have meaningful work. Um, a little bit of spirituality. Spirituality, it doesn't have to be religious, but what do you believe in? What are you working towards? Um, and then it's a, the relationship thing. And, and another good one-liner from him is any successful relationship, both parties feel like they're getting more than they're giving.

That's really interesting.

Kind of that go-giver mentality. Because if you're— it's though everyone's heard about, you know, gratitude journals and things like that, but if you're putting yourself out there and you're genuinely trying to help people, not with self-serving motivations, it comes back to you in spades. And you actually feel good about yourself when you do it, right? Um, I look at the business the same, same way. Can I genuinely help? Or easy concepts like— it bugs me when firms say, oh, you need a CFO and a janitor? Yeah, we'll do both. And they do crappy work. Like, tell them you can't do it. Tell them you don't have the bandwidth, refer it out to another firm you may know and trust. Even if you're giving up the business, it's just the right thing to do, um, and helps all of us, frankly, in the industry.

Chris, I'm just looking at the time now, and it's, it's flown by as always, and I'm always quite surprised how quickly these sessions go. Um, but I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Um, really interesting to see your perspective, um, on growing a successful firm and just want to say it's been great speaking to you and appreciate your time today.

Well, thanks for having me.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify. Tune in for another episode next week, and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Peace and love.