Lessons from a £800k Biller

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 Patrick Waites. Patrick is an £800K biller, but when he first started out in recruitment, it took him 8 months to close his first deal. Patrick's journey is the definition of persistence and grit. Not only did he go on to become a brilliant biller, but he's also ended up running his own highly successful recruitment company. In today's episode, we're going to be discussing Patrick's roller coaster journey in recruitment We're going to be delving into how his BD strategies have shifted over the years, and we're going to be talking about a clever tactic that Patrick used to build a community in his niche which ultimately led to more business. Hey Patrick, how you doing, mate?

I'm very good, thank you, Sam. How are you?

Yeah, very good. The, uh, I'm really glad that you're here, mate, and, uh, thank you for joining us on Top Builders Toolkit. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for, uh, thanks for having me on.

Wicked. You've got a really interesting story on a few different fronts, I think. Um, I'll just go into it and not spoil anything for the, for the views actually. But let's start with the first question, which is what's the number one tool in your toolkit, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software? What would you say, Patrick?

Honestly, I think, um, I think mindset, uh, is probably the most important thing for anyone in this industry, sales in general. Never got the right mindset, then, you know, you can have the, a good strategy and all the, all the tools, uh, available to, to everyone. But if you haven't got the right mindset and, uh, focus, determination, then, you know, you're not going to get very far regardless. Obviously the other things are important. I think probably if he was going to rank them in order, mindset, strategy, and then software is probably last, if I'm being honest.

Yeah.

Yeah, we went through a period of time as a business when we first started of, um, not being like a magpie and adding every different, like, shiny new thing that come, come in, that come up. Every different software, video interviewing, that, you know, different chatbots, someone and so forth. And it just got too messy. Um, the reality is if you can get the right types of information— so everyone's got that LinkedIn or Zoom info, you've got your candidate, uh, pool Um, if you've got a really basic software or setup or toolkit armed with a good strategy and the right mindset, will get you much further than, you know, the other way around.

Yeah, no, I love that answer, Patrick, and I'm not surprised. It's the, the biggest pillars in our podcast have always said mindset, and it definitely makes sense. My feeling, and correct me if I'm wrong, Patrick, I feel like some, some guests I get on here, when they say mindset, they have like an inbuilt mindset that they were just born with, like there's, there's just something in them that allows them to continue hitting big numbers and being very consistent. My feeling is, hearing just a bit about how you grew up and your past, that your mindset was instilled in you in a young age by various people around you. Am I right in saying that? Is that, is that—

yeah, yeah, um, yeah, I mean, everyone's got their own different stories growing up or how they got to where they wanted to get to. Mine's not, you know, nothing too crazy happened in my youth that there was like a defining moment where I thought, well, that's it, this is, you know, there's not like a real origin story in that sense. But obviously very, very hardworking parents. Well, my mum was only young when she had me, so she was just 18 when I was born, and I've seen her work incredibly hard. You know, work, you know, she had a cafe, she worked at the airport, she, uh, run canteens and building sites. When we was, when we was kids, I'd used to go and work in the cafe, um, with her that she owned when, uh, during school, uh, like holidays and stuff. Not very well, um, uh, I just sort of hang around in the cafe. But then my dad's obviously got his own, um, it works in like doing loft conversions and building. So I've always worked doing laboring with him as well during some holidays and everything. So I always but always seen people work. A lot of my, uh, family, we haven't come— this is, you know, we're not necessarily, uh, generationally a wealthy family or anything else, but all of them, everyone, like my uncles and aunts and everything else, have all worked really very hard and, you know, made a success of themselves. And that's probably worked down into my cousins as well and myself, so, uh, my sister. So yeah, I suppose just having that work ethic sort of built in, or seeing people working hard and achieving stuff from a young age is, um, is a good place to start if you've got that around you. Um, another— well, I've been very, very lucky is a lot of my friends, um, from school have gone on to be, you know, successful in their own rights, in their own, in their own fields, and they've all, you know, all done well for themselves. So I was lucky to have a good group of friends growing up that all wanted to go places. Um, very quickly, if there was like, you know, people maybe were hanging around with when I was younger, maybe more, uh, troublemakers, probably, you know, drop them out a little bit quicker than that, you know, you know, drop them out from, from, uh, a friendship group because you don't really need to hang around with people like that because, you know, they're not— they're only going to hold you back. So I suppose I always surrounded myself with people that wanted to be successful or have had, you know, are going places And then the same in my career. I was lucky enough to join the first company I was in, eSynergy, where, um, we had a hell of a lot of good billers. But, you know, they were the, uh, this is like 12 years, 13 years ago, I suppose, maybe a bit longer. Yeah, 2011, I think. Um, I believe is when I started there. But, um, this is when that 10K a week was like top 1%, top 5%, or whatever in the whole industry got there. And then, um, that becomes sort of— there was a couple of people doing that in the office. It was only a small, smallish team. And then as we grow through, there was a big group of us that sort of all got to that level. So we was all competing against each other. So then that becomes sort of the standard of 10K a week was then what good billers would get to, rather than sort of maybe in somewhere else like the get to 2, 3, 4K a week and you're doing really well. So there was always like the, you know, setting the bar higher. Um, so I've always been lucky to be in those types of environments, um, to be honest with you, or being surrounded by people that always want to be successful, sporting background as well. Um, you know, uh, boxing when I was younger for, um, at West Ham. It was, uh, a club where it produced national champions on like a consistent basis. So then everyone that I was training with we was all getting to, you know, national finals, boxing for England, whatever it may be, winning national titles. So, you know, you had to again be at a certain level to be able to sort of, um, be in the club, I suppose. Um, so I've always been lucky enough in whatever thing I've been involved in, I've been surrounded by, um, high achievers or people that want to achieve, you know, good things. Which is, um, which has always driven me on. And then again, when you start the business and you meet other business owners and you see what they're doing, then you want to try and compete, um, not just as a bidder but as a business owner with these companies that you see expanding and everything else. So yeah, I've always tried to set my, set my standards higher, then try to do that within the business as well. So I don't know, I think that answers the question perfectly, mate.

And I know you've got a question, but I just want to butt in quickly because I— go ahead— but like what you said, Patrick, is so important, so undervalued. It's like if you want to instantly up your game, just surround yourself with people that are playing at a bigger level than you. And I, and I need to remind myself of this as a business owner constantly, but the second I join a community of people who are making twice as much as me and just doing, you know, doing twice as much, it, it instantly transforms my brain to another level of what's possible. So I think it's so undervalued just surrounding yourself with people who are doing better than you. Um, so totally 100%. Sorry, Ben, you say something? That's all good. You've got a really interesting story because, if I'm wrong, um, Patrick, but it took you 8 months to close your first deal, which is, you know, I've got the amount of resilience and patience you need to have for that. And then you went on to become the company's top biller. I find, you know, absolutely amazing. So what I would love to hear is what were you doing wrong in those 8 months, do you think? You've obviously the penny dropped at some point. But what do you think was going on in those 8 months that prevented you from closing your first deal?

Yeah. It's a bit of a contradiction. So I was in a high-performing environment and then not doing a deal for 8 months. But yeah, I was, to be honest, I stayed in the job. I kept in the job because I was just doing, I was working very, very hard, but probably doing lots of the wrong things or not understanding why I was why I was hitting these targets. What was the need to get or to speak to X amount of managers every day? Or why did you need to get, uh, find out, like, you know, this X amount of information? Or whatever the, the KPIs or, or the, uh, the metrics were at the point. So I was just hitting numbers without, uh, an understanding of what that was, what the point of it was. So, um, for someone to, you know, 3, 4 hours on the phone a day, whatever it may have been, you know, doing all these different things, speaking to the pitch, but never actually about putting together what actually I need to get this information because then that enables me to pitch this person in the right way or to understand it. I never put those pieces together for 8 months, and then obviously finally the penny dropped, done a deal. Um, uh, unfortunately that deal dropped out after 2 weeks, so, uh, that must have been hard. Short-lived success. Um, and then it sort of it took me a year after that to start getting like— not a year after that, like a few months after that. So it got to the point of a year where I was then, um, started to write deals a little bit more regularly, broke into a client and started doing a couple more deals. Um, what I've— when things started to really turn was, um, I changed my focus. It was more like I was focused on a, uh, I was doing testing at first. Um, I didn't really know anything about it. Again, I didn't really understand it very well. Um, when I changed, and then I moved my focus into looking more at like project-led work. So rather than individuals and speaking to people, oh, you need a QA, or you need, you know, whatever it may be, it was like finding out where, where projects were. And then the focus become public sector. So like systems integrators or consultancies and public sector. The government at the time started an initiative where 25%— at the time it was 25%, 33% now— but 25% of the government's IT spend had to go through SMEs or smaller businesses. So then we used that as leverage to go and pitch into companies. So we basically found like a niche were, you know, was focusing on projects and then found that, found a way that we, we could then leverage our services into a client and make it, you know, appealing, um, for them to, to work with us. Then once we sort of put that together, it was slightly different to standard recruitment. Um, it was more sort of a project-led consultancy type conversations, and that suited me a lot more. And then it was from there, it was more about find out where projects were, speaking to the, you know, the leads of the projects, building relationships. And then I was much better at that than maybe a standard 360 recruitment. And then from there again, obviously if you're landing a project, then billings are gonna be a lot higher than placing an individual. So went very quickly from, you know, not billing to like 15K a week, I think the top, you know, between, and then within 9 months, the team of 4 that we'd built was bidding 70 grand a week GP. So, um, no, sorry, there's a lie, not 4, there was 4, there was 9 people in total, sorry. Cool. Um, 4 BD people and the rest delivery. But yeah, we've been in that 70 grand a week between that from, from a standing start. Um, so that would, you know, that just completely changed everything, just changing the focus and how we pitched, what we was, who we was aiming our sale at, and then how we built it. And then that sort of built from there how eSynergy is now going to know it's an actual on consultancy and they're doing fantastically well. I'm not saying it was my idea to do it, by the way. Probably was, Patrick. Yeah, it's all because of me. No, I was just part of the thing and the director I was working with, Siri, was, you know, a huge support on that. But yeah, so again, to answer the question, it was really just moving my focus from maybe more traditional standard recruitment into project-led work, finding that, as I say, like an initiative that we could leverage to be able to then sell into clients. Where we may not have been able to, you know, the actual central government departments and the larger SIs as well.

Very interesting. Sounds like that was the pivotal moment or the change. You said you were better, you found it easier or you were better at project-led work. Why do you think that was?

I think it's just, I was, I'd been scarred by not doing any deals for 8 months, so I couldn't have got much worse than what I was. I am— I just prefer it, just the general— the sell, the conversations that we're having. Um, I found that a much more valuable— I'm not saying that, um, you know, if you're doing sort of standard bums on seats or like, you know, transactional 360 recruitment, I'm not saying that's not a value. Of course it's valuable. It's only recruitment or staffing business, so I see value in that. But it's just for me personally, positioning the business in as a way of not a standard recruitment agency, more of a— well, we describe ourselves as a capability partner now, but as more of that, you know, being able to deliver a project or deliver teams of people to deliver an outcome. Being out, that just felt much more natural to me, and I was just able to get my—

strangely enough, I was able to get my head around that more than standard recruitment, which is interesting because arguably you would assume it's a harder It's a hard sell kind of, isn't it? Because it's more about problems, goals, future states. I mean, I guess it sounds like you had a more valuable offering as well, so maybe it was easier to sell that. I don't know, what's your opinion?

Yeah, I think, um, as I say, for me, speaking— because a lot of the, the lucky thing was as well, a lot of the, uh, the departments or the people who were working, working with knew what they wanted to do. It wasn't like we was going in there and doing the discovery, like the full-on, oh, you want to get from here to here and this, you know, actually having that full-on, full technical discussion. They're like, we need to move from on-premise into the cloud, or we need to build this new web application, or wherever it may be. They knew they had to do that. And then we would just come in and say, well, actually, we can put the team together to be able to deliver that. It is a bit more of a technical discussion because you'll find out, you know, the different stages, you know, from discovery, alpha, beta, or whatever it may be. But In reality, it was more about— it was just a slightly higher level conversation than, here's a.NET developer, this team's going to have to deliver this, and this is the outcome needs to do. So there was a statement of work rather than a, um, a standard contract. But the actual way of selling to the business was more around the quality of people that you can provide, the speed at which you can provide the team, and the cost, obviously, because we're now competing potentially at times with the larger consultancies. So How do we, um, you know, how can we— what can we sell that's going to make them prefer to use— what benefit can we give them that's going to position us as a better option than a larger consultancy? Speed of delivery, cost, and quality. Because a lot of the time we was partnering with the larger consultancies as well, and they was taking our people and providing them to the same client. So then, you know, it was— there was— yeah, it was, um, for me it just felt like it just fell into place a lot. A lot easier, miraculously, than standard recruitment. It just did. And then obviously, as I say, the wins are much bigger because, you know, I've got teams of 5, 6, 7 on it. One central government department, we placed 100 people, like put 100 people in there in over an 18-month period.

Wow.

So yeah, it was, you know, it was a much, yeah, much more successful, obviously. And then we've just taken that and that, that way of working. Um, and that's how we sell our services at Coltect now, to say consultants, um, you know, capability partner, modern alternative to more traditional consultancy teams delivering actual business objectives rather than people and bums on seats.

Interesting. And one thing I just want to go back to, um, Patrick, because, um, I think what those project-led, uh, those project-focused clients, you know, clients that are looking to hire 10, 50, 100 people, that must be the, the gold mine for a lot of recruiters. How did you go about finding those people in the first place? How did you target companies that were looking to bring on projects? Do you remember how you did it?

Yeah, so again, we was, um, a lot of the, the work that we was doing at that particular time was, um, was for this, it was for central government.

Cool.

So we would be targeting the, uh, CTOs, like the, the tech leads, or the, you know, whoever, it's heads of department for each different sort of central government department. So we'd make— we'd have a list of departments we'd like to work with, and then we should build relationships with those different people. And then we'd find the suppliers into those departments as well, and then build relationships with the client leads of the suppliers so that we had you know, relationships, both sides. So when projects were happening, we'd be involved in it in one way or the other. And then we built like an ecosystem, ecosystem of, uh, suppliers, so that they— one client may have all the, you know, data and people that they need, but they don't have DevOps, and we'd be able to provide a DevOps team. So it become— is much, much more based on client-facing relationship building rather than sort of the candidate conversations leading to getting a lead, they go and chase it. This is much— it was much more like a consultancy type sell. It's no different to what we do now. So we're looking at projects or businesses that are doing it. We're looking at companies that are having some sort of commercial change. They may be merging, merging with another business. They may have received a lot of investment. They may have a new regulation that's coming out that means they need to change something internally. There's about 5 or 6 different sort of things that you look for in a business. And then we're targeting the sort of C-suite. Of those businesses, again, building relationships with them so that, you know, we're front of mind when they actually do need to deliver a piece of work.

Love that. Interesting. You say build relationships and you make it sound really easy, Patrick. There's probably 1,000 recruiters that called their clients and said, hello, can I speak to John? They said, piss off, or like, no, you can't speak to John, get lost. But you obviously did something different. How did you get your foot in the door to then get them to even pay attention to you and then start immediately.

Yeah, I think we was really lucky, uh, well, I was really lucky that, um, from the network of— so let's just, let's use now as an example, probably, rather than, um, we can use, um, probably talk about at some point anyway, but, um, sort of start in a brand new location. So when we set up the US business, no relationships whatsoever, um, no clients that we had here that we could leverage to then go over to the US. It was, we're going to go and we're going to start, um, we're going to start working in Austin. Um, and we just done it very much like community-based. Um, we sponsored events, we, um, started webinars, hosted podcasts, expert interviews, um, wherever it may be, just to get our name out there a little bit more, build those relationships with, um, our sort of ideal client profile. And then from there, once the relationships were built, got recommendations into different businesses and then was able to use those experiences that we'd had with, with clients that we'd had some success with to then go and sell that case study into other clients that were similar to those. So it all started in terms of relationship building, separating ourselves from the market, especially in the US, was around, you know, embedding ourselves within the tech community. And we've done that all from here. Um, I fly out to Austin quite often, but, um, at the time we first started, I think COVID, like the pandemic, was an issue because we couldn't fly out to Austin obviously, or fly out to the US. But it's like at the end, so it's like back in 2021. So it was, I think, back in 2021 is when they sort of lift the flight, um, ban. But, um, we was doing that sort of sponsoring events from here. So when they had events out there, we'd still sponsor it or put up, you know, buy the pizzas or whatever it may be, or, um, and then they'll have a logo on the meetup. And then we started hosting online roundtables and then went from there. So in terms of relationship building, it was much more— yeah, as I say, community— it's much more community-led, um, based than where I think a lot of businesses— and, you know, every, every company does call in and trying to sell, sell your services immediately.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It's quite a— yeah, I love hearing about community-led approach, and it sounds like you had a few different avenues. Was there one particular avenue that you found the most successful, Patrick, out of all the things you did? It sounds like you did a few things.

I think, yeah, I think sponsoring the events was good, uh, hosting our own, hosting our own, um, sponsoring and hosting our own events was good, was probably the, uh best way about it because we, you know, we, uh, would have a deal where anyone that was at the event would get all the contact details of those people and we could ring them and say, oh, hi there, did you enjoy the event, wherever it may be. Um, so yeah, that was, uh, that was good. Obviously the expert interviews that we, that we do, um, have been great because it's like it's mutually beneficial, you know. We get, you know, because we've now sponsored off the back of sponsoring all the different meetup groups and events that we did, we built up quite a large network in Austin. So then when we speak to someone, we can then post that out to, to those, to those meetup groups. So they, whoever the person is that we've spoken to, get some exposure, their business gets some exposure to those groups. We obviously get some exposure from speaking to, to tech leaders in the Austin area or in the US in general. We learn— I've learned a hell of a lot from those conversations in terms of the differences between the UK and the US as well. So it's been like really good for like, um, learning. But then obviously, yeah, also you've now built a relationship with someone. You've got that, um, you've just spent an hour talking to them. Um, so, you know, a further conversation and, you know, speaking again and building, you know, that becomes a relationship. And then, you know, can lead on to other stuff as well, which is good. But, um, yeah, I'd say the, uh The, uh, online events, the in-person events have been, um, you know, the event side has been, it's been really successful for us.

Awesome. If there was a newbie recruiter watching, listening to this and being like, I don't know where the hell to start with this event stuff, how, like, do you have a step-by-step process that would help people to get started with this kind of stuff?

No, at least you want to touch it. No. So honestly, so You'd think then that we've now, um, with the— we've now— we've owned the business, you'd think now I just have everyone doing events and, uh, podcasts and everything else. Uh, we don't. We obviously still got, you know, that's something that we do as sort of as a whole, as a business, but individuals, um, more sort of, you know, more traditional relationship building, you know, calling clients, pitching and selling our services, whatever it may be, that using marketing or whatever else. So we haven't got like— we haven't now just completely changed the business, like, right, everyone who comes, we're going to organize events and everything else. Um, I think that the reason for that, it has to— like, for me at the time, it was very, very important to do it. And I really, um, I wasn't doing— sounds really strange— I didn't start doing the events and everything else for the sake of, right, I'm going to do this and there has to be an ROI against it and I have to get some bid-ins and Um, you know, that's it. And then I'm going to be running around like, actually, everyone who's at the event, or, you know, this is when we went out there, like, back in the 2021, beginning of 2022, um, going around and checking everyone's hand and then passing a card and selling our services, or whatever it may be. Or even when we was doing the interviews, oh yeah, by the way, this is like selling to them. It was actually about generally for me learning more about and embedding ourselves within, uh, the market so that, you know, in the future, like further down the line, a couple of years when we're actually out there, people know who we are. We're not just landing and, you know, no one knows us. So unless it's like, um, something that's more of like a, a passion, but something you're really interested in, there's actually something like a subject that you're really— so you might— that there's lots of people do like, you know, events like you know, there's, there's hundreds of different events in the, in London, but these people are specialists in that market and they're actually really, really, um, really interested in the subject. So then it comes across if you're creating these communities or creating, um, doing a meetup because it's like, I want to get my billings up, so I'm going to do that. Yeah, it also, it also comes across. So that's why I say like, it's, it's important not just to think, well, that worked there for him. So I'm gonna go and do that because at the same, at the same, same, yeah, if you're gonna try and do it and it's not authentic, people can tell and it can quite quickly backfire. People to be like, why are you, you're only actually ringing me to do this so that you can get something out the back of it? It's more like it's got to be something we was giving to out to the community to find out more about the Austin tech market. Was that an area that we actually wanted to, um, build our business? What's it actually like out here? What are the people like? What are the intricacies of the market? How do the people like to do business and everything else? There's so much more to it rather than let's do this because we're going to build loads of money. Mm, bidding's come off the back of it later on down the line. Um, but a lot of it was, um, more just like trial and error and actually finding out if we actually like the area. Um, if it's something you want to get involved in, by the way, then um, there's hundreds of different meetups in, you know, anywhere. London, for instance. I'd start going to one of those events, going to those events, showing your face, seeing how to set up, seeing what, um, you know, you might be able to bring different to it. Maybe sponsor those events as well. Um, and then if you want to set up your own one, then use the bits that you've learned from everywhere else and then, and start that. But, um, yeah, I wouldn't say that it's, uh a silver bullet for everyone who works in recruitment or talent or consulting or whatever it may be. So then, uh, let's start— let's start a meetup or let's start an event because we're going to make loads of money off it. Do you know what I mean? It has to be authentic.

That's really— yeah, it makes perfect sense. It's like, it sounds like there's a process to it, but it's got to be fundamentally— you've got to be passionate about it.

You've got to be passionate about the subject because otherwise you quite quickly throw it away. You just quite quickly stop it and then you just wasted it. Like, it's— you've got to be— like, as I say, I was truly passionate about starting this, uh, or being involved in these events in Austin because I was open— I was planning on opening a business there. So it had to work for me, and I had to find out, um, as I say, the ins and outs of the market, what people— how people like to do business, um, how, you know, is it even worth going out there. Loads of companies have gone to Austin now, so you can sort of probably tell, have a bit of a clue that it is worth going there. But is it— is there— is this the place that you want to be in, or is there, um, is there someone else, you know? So that's why I started doing that. And then to have these, um, conversations with the Austin tech leaders or whatever it may be was again to find out more about the Austin— all that, you know, we haven't done one for ages, but how it started was, you know, to find out literally where, where, you know, how things have developed in Austin over the past few years, where you see the trends going. And it was actually more about an educational purposes for myself. Than anything else. Of course, relationships are built off that, and then later on we may have done business with some of those people, but it wasn't a case of let's do this because I'm gonna, you know, let's speak to this guy because I want to build— do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. It was— it started— what I got from that, Patrick, is it kind of started off firstly as a passion project, but also for market data. Like, that was your marketing, wasn't it? Technically, you're like 100% conversations, gathering data. Um, which is another way to do it as well.

If we're looking at like, if you're sort of changing the other side of it, is that so, how would— if you all want, because we talked about relationship building and how someone would— a recruiter or someone just starting out, what, uh, tangible bits of advice could I give someone who's just starting a new market to try and build a, build a presence and then, you know, go on to hopefully build and be successful? I think, and it probably might, it may not be much different to what lots of other people would say. You have to understand, have the biggest problem most people have is that they don't actually understand who their ideal client is and what their pains are and why they would buy from them.

Yeah, 100%.

So glad you said that. That's, it's really, really, it sounds really simple. But this is probably why I've— it took me 8 months, 12 months to, to do any types of, uh, business, because you're doing testing. Go on, get, uh, pitch 10 managers a day, tell them you're a testing specialist. Um, and this is probably happening at— well, you guys speak to a lot of different business owners or different, uh, bidders. This is probably happening, and obviously I do as well, but this is happening at every recruitment company across the whole of the UK probably, and Europe and the world. You specialize in this market and you do this. It's like, why have we then ended up being successful and building out a really, like, very, very quickly, this, uh, 70K weekly GP over a 9-month period? Was that we understood what the needs of the— there was a regular regulatory change, a legislation change that they had to spend that to go into small to medium-sized businesses from the government. And that could flow down via, via SIs or larger consultancies as well. So they have to spend money with small businesses. We as a small business, they're doing technology programs. The quickest way to spend money and to get that spend up is by bringing people in to deliver the pieces of work rather than— I mean, you can spend it on the hardware or the software or whatever else, but the quickest way to and to show that they've, you know, had success is through building teams and actually delivering pieces of work. So we was able to offer people that, you know, solve that pain. It was also saving them a lot of money in comparison to some of the larger consultancies I was using, um, and we was also having a very, very high quality of, of person. So we knew what we had, uh, we knew what the, the decision makers' pain were. In these departments. They need to deliver certain outcomes, but they had to tick some boxes, and we was able to tick those boxes for them and do that. So then all of a sudden it was, you know, it become very, very easy to have those conversations. And once you'd been successful with one area, taking that and saying, we've just done this piece of work, you're going— because if one— and this isn't just in central government, this is even now— if one business doing something. So Vodafone are implementing something, you can probably tell that T-Mobile or whoever, or EE, are going to be thinking about doing the same type of thing. So once you've done one thing here, you can quite easily take that case study and say, look what we've just done for your competitor, they're doing this, have you thought about that? And then you become, rather than a salesperson or your typical recruiter, you become someone who's got some value because you know what's going on in that market. So understanding the what, who your target, who your ideal client profile is, what their, you know, the buyer persona or whatever you want to call it, and what their pain points are and how you can solve them. Once you have that, it then becomes a lot easier to be able to pinpoint the right types of people with the right type of messaging and have those have better conversations. So I think anyone starting out, should understand those things in order to be successful. Love that.

It is— you're out of like 30 guests, you're the— you're— it's amazing how many people don't mention that, and it's such a simple thing, but it's so powerful in terms of just understanding your audience, understanding their pains, understanding what they want, and then being able to translate that through messaging or sales call. Um, so yeah, I'm really glad you said that, Patrick. Um, I have to go back to the events because, because I know you've done it. I, I know that you have to have a long-term mindset, and I know that, um, it's a, it's, it's something you have to do if you're passionate about it, and it's not going to be a quick win. But if we were used to, if we were going to use the Austin case as an example, if, is there a particular, um, event that you did that was, that brought back some kind of, not maybe ROI, but good conversations? And if so, how did you go about doing that? I'm just fascinated. Especially in another country? Like, how did—

yeah, someone even do that? Probably the, uh, the best example is probably the first one, um, because it was quite difficult to organize because obviously I was in England and, um, we weren't allowed to fly to America. Um, so we, we'd sponsored a few events, um, and, and then we'd, um, partnered with a couple of different meetup groups And I become the organizer of one particular group, and then the flight ban was lifted, uh, back in 2022. So 2021, it's not right, we're going to fly out there and we're going to do a panel, um, event, um, for different sort of CTOs. And, uh, but yeah, we're just gonna, uh, we've got a mediator and we're gonna have like, you know, we're just gonna get people there and see how it goes, um. Really, really didn't know. Luckily, a lot of people have been locked down for quite a while, so there was just nothing, any sort of event people were just willing to go to, so that the barrier to entry of how good it needed to be was, uh, was low. But, um, we were again really, really lucky, um, because I'd been doing these with the expert interviews or those conversations, you know, for a few months before, had a few people that knew us who were willing to do the panel. We was again lucky, we was working with a client who we was able to use their offices to host the event. They was looking to grow as well, so getting people into, into their office spaces to, to see it was, uh, was obviously, um, good for them. So we just sort of all fell into place. And the event went really, really well. Um, yeah, we obviously, we was working with one particular client already, but that solidified our relationship with them. Um, and then there was a couple of, um, we ended up with, you know, getting some other clients off the back of it from even people that were on the panel, ended up later on down the line becoming, uh, clients. One of them is one of our sort of advocates or tech, uh, tech advisory board that will go out and speak to clients on our behalf when they're discussing sort of their projects. So that first in-person event that we did back in 2021 really probably solidified us as an Austin business.

Wicked.

Which then sort of, you know, helped us, you know, going forward. So, yeah, that was probably, that was probably the best one, as I say, in terms of, yeah, ROI. You know, I can't say what direct billings come off the back of it, but if you look at it in terms of we've worked with all of those businesses that were on the panel, since then in one guise or another. And a few people have then ended up becoming sort of associates of ours who will go out and speak to clients on our behalf and, you know, you have the technical discussions when we're talking about projects. So yeah, it really, that did solidify us as an Austin business.

And I, that's awesome. Um, and it sounds like the, you said we, we worked with everyone that was on the panel, so it sounds like the panel was the key to, I don't know, some sort of initiation of the relationship. Can you just explain to you, to us what you mean by that? So there was obviously some people on the panel and other people observing.

And so can you just— we just— yeah, it was, um, we put it— we had a meetup group, um, there was— I think that within— because we, we took it over from someone who didn't want to run it anymore. It's about 700 people in this group already, um, and then, um, like members, um. So we then started sort of engaging with them. We'd like to see it, uh, you know, engaging with them, said we're going to run this event. I spoke to like 4 different CTOs, um, who was willing to be on a panel. And we had them— someone else who was like the mediator who would ask questions, and then they'd have, um, you know, over on certain topics, and they'd have discussions around, you know, their thoughts on it. Um, because there was quite senior people in the market, people interested to hear what they had to say. So we had lots of, lots of, lots of people come just— and again, the, the people in attendance were, you know, engineers, people from the tech community, but various different levels, grads, whatever it may be, um, all the way up to senior people. Um, and as I say, we— yeah, uh, the people on the panel, obviously with them I've now got a relationship with them. We've gone out afterwards to say thank you to everyone. So further down the line, you've now built this. You mentioned about how you build relationships. That was when now they're looking to do some sort of work, then, you know, they're probably going to speak to me about it because they know me and I'm their mate now, rather than, um, another, another recruitment or staffing or consultant. So that was key in solidifying relationships there. But then also all the people in the, in the, um, who attended would now know who Coltec are as well, so they could go and speak to someone else. So our names spread quite quickly around the town, and for a business that was London-based, and for a long time it was just me, um, we had a really good presence in Austin for such a small business because we'd done this, and there was a lot of people that knew about us from the, from the, from that one particular event. And then we've done more since then, but as I say, if you're talking about one that sticks to mind, the first one's always going to be um, it could have been a disaster, to be fair, but it turned out no one was there. Um, yeah, it went fantastically, like, it went fantastically well. And since then we do like mainly, mainly like happy hours.

Cool.

So, um, yeah, this— it's a lot easier to organize people in a pub in it than, uh, well, I feel like, yeah, that's from the groups and people that have, you know, we just, you know, as a thank you for, for, uh, for being part of the community.

I love that. You, again, you have an art of making things sound really simple and almost blasé, Patrick, but what you're doing is really, really clever because what I feel like you're, you're gathering the community around you and, and getting your name out to the community rather than like going out to individuals, which, which is what most people do I think when they're like starting a new market.

But there's definitely a mixture I mean, that's, that's definitely a big part of it as well. As I say, yeah, if it was like a silver bullet, then probably people were watching it would be like, well, why haven't you got everyone in your whole business doing that? It's not going to work for every single person. I'm like, unfortunately, there's still a formula of doing it. And again, the main, the biggest thing is understanding the, the market, that the people that you did, the clients that you want to target, or the type of people, what their, um, and what their pains are, being able to solve those. That's always going to like over you know, that's always going to be more important, or that's going to be, that's going to be more repeatable. Yeah. Than hosting events. And if we're going to build a really successful business, I have to have— we have to have a repeatable process that anyone can come in and do. And, you know, I'm quite lucky in the sense that I'm probably quite an outgoing, I'm an outgoing person. I like, um, doing those types of things. Um, as I mentioned, even like back in the day when we first, when we first started becoming successful, I've never really been, uh, the most technical of, uh, the most technical person. And understand that, uh, you know, an okay level, but I've always been really good at building relationships, um, and getting people on side or, um Yeah, like, I don't know, I don't want to sound like blowing smoke up my own ass, obviously.

No, we get it, that's all right.

My thing has always been that, you know, people like me for some reason. I don't know why. But, um, that— so that was a good— using that sort of the events and the community-led approach, what— and the sort of the relationship-led approach has worked much better for me than— don't get me wrong, if we're sitting in a sales meeting And, um, I've got to say, that solution is probably— I'm, again, without blowing smoke, I'm very, very good at that side of things as well. Yeah, yeah. But, um, that worked much better for me. That was just interesting. And it's not going to be the same for every single person that comes into the business. So again, on one hand, saying you have to have a repeatable process, there's ways that you can build, um, consultants to get to it, to a good level, or to be successful. Um, easier than that. If we had someone— some people just don't really like that type of thing, or being at networking events. It doesn't mean they're not going to be a good salesperson, a good consultant. They just don't really feel comfortable walking around and shaking loads of people's hands, being— and they just couldn't think of anything worse. They'd rather be at a desk on the phone and do messaging, you know. So there's that a lot. There's a lot of people like that. So if you try to get everyone to do that, then it's just not going to work. So, um, getting a more, um, standardized process. And then if someone then becomes, you know, again, when we open up a new office in a different location, that might be the time we go, oh well, we're going to Virginia now, let's do that because it's worked really well here. And then once you've got the relationships and we've got a bit of a presence, bringing people in to then have the standardized process of, you know, finding the right information, having the right cell, right messaging and everything else, we then bring that in after. So yeah, that's, that's why it works.

Awesome. So I can I just mention something then? And then remember your question, but I just want to say something really quickly because what you said, Patrick, reminded me of a conversation I had with a guy called Anto who uses podcasts to— he generates like hundreds of thousands of new clients on his podcast. And what he does is he invites them on to the podcast, has a conversation, and then invites them to lunch the day afterwards. And then just builds relationships from there. But it sounded so similar to your CTA process of the events, and I just wanted to make that connection because it's very similar to that, which is just interesting. You've repeated it in a different way.

Yeah, but again, so in, in the case of this, that, that guy, and so, um, I bet you not everyone in his business does that. Yeah. And it's not because, um, it's because that's worked really well for him. Now, there might be time, other businesses where you might speak to someone else, someone on these podcasts, and they're like, you know what, what's worked really well for me is speaking to my candidate, uh, call, getting information, and then chasing that information, um, and chasing those leads. That never worked really well for me ever. Um, or it might be, you know, speaking— there might be people that are like, well, actually taking a reference call has worked really well for me because it's a warmer call when I'm able to flip it into relationship later on. Again, works extremely well in some businesses, has never been amazing for me. So, but then, you know, again, that's why the normal standard recruitment part of it didn't really work for me. But then finding out project information or building relationships with senior people and then selling teams into, into those businesses, it has worked really well for me. Not every business does it, so there's no silver bullet for any one person. There's like a And this is why it's probably called like the Top Bidders Toolkit. There's a toolkit, you've got that utility belt of all different things that, that you can use, and it's about finding the right thing for the individual person. And again, without contradicting saying you need a repeatable process, but if you know that that one thing works, then here's the process and here's the playbook of how to make that, how to leverage that for success a lot more. Um, so yeah, that, that, that's, um, and then like you say, that's a process that he's got. Make a relate, have a conversation, that then have the, the pre-call interview, lunch, and then there's probably follow-ups further on from there. It's no difference to, you know, have an initial sales call, build a relationship, follow up, like, you know, move them into sort of prospect level or whatever you want to call it, a bronze manager, and then go through there. It's no different, it's just a different way of getting to the same thing. Yeah. So as long as you've got that, a process, you can then follow it and build upon it.

Yeah, really good point. Um, just curious as well, uh, coming towards the end of the pod, I think, Pat, so we've got a couple more questions left if that's okay with you. But, um, yeah, of course. Just curious from— so you said you, you've got the, obviously, the podcast and the main events, which is something that you're very good at. And you've got the more repeatable processes that maybe your consultants use. What do those more repeatable processes look like? Is it speccing in CVs? Is it cold calling? Is it a mixture of everything? Like, what does that process look like?

We don't really spec in CVs because, again, where we position our business isn't as you— more as a traditional sort of body shop or, um, uh, recruitment business. It's not selling, uh, a person. It's more around the service, like more professional services is where we position it. So it's not dissimilar to how I would have started out back in, uh, my eSynergy days. It's around understanding, finding again the, an ideal, your ideal client profile. So who are we, who's going to buy our services? Probably C-suite or VPs, budget holders of some type. Um, what are the types of projects that we're going to be good at. So let me list out, well, these are the, these are the case studies that we've had in the 5 years that we've been running. They're all not dissimilar, they're all similar pieces of work. So what types of people are going to be delivering these types of projects? Um, and then going, um, just going to speak to those, those businesses and telling them what we do. Um, and then there's, from there, it's that, that comes into play of like cold calling is a massive, massive part of what we do, as I think it is for, for most businesses. We've got marketing, you know, that goes out through socials, and I'm quite active on LinkedIn. The company page is quite active. Everyone's got their own sort of social media campaigns, and we've got email campaigns as well. So it's always a blend of everything, really. But, you know, there's a certain process or workflow that we build in terms of how we, how we get in touch with people and when they get the certain messages at a certain time. So To answer, probably to answer the question slightly better, it's just again, as I say, the 4 steps of it would be finding the right people and the right information and the right types of clients and people whose problems we actually solve, hitting them with messaging around how we've solved this problem for other people, or, you know, and then sort of hitting them with a call of, you know, introductory. And then from there, once you've had a decent call, they go into that, you know, a more, you know, follow-up piece. Because you're not always going to get hold of— or— and one of the things about, for me, is it's important for everyone to understand is that you're going to be really, really lucky to call someone and they go, oh yeah, yeah, we need this, that's exactly what I needed right now, and we've got a project, we need 10. But that's not necessarily going to happen. But what, what you want to do. And one of our biggest targets is around ending the week with more people that know you and would potentially buy your services and don't think you're an idiot than the week before.

Yeah, that's good. It's a good mentality.

So if we— if that, that's how we try to— that, that's how we, that's how we, uh, sort of, you know, that's the mentality that we, that we have. And obviously, um, there's all the other sort of KPIs around, like client meetings and so on and so forth. But if you can finish the week with knowing more people that have the issues that you solve, know who you are, don't think you're an idiot, and potentially work for you in the future, then that's, you know, you're in a good place.

Awesome. Uh, one last question, Patrick. Hopefully, uh, we've got like 5 minutes left, but I know that you, you obviously have a team beneath, like, you, you've got a team, you're working, you're growing, scaling company. Are you more lenient on recruits that come through and don't do a deal in like 8 months to a year? Is that something that you kind of keep in mind? No, I'm just curious how you perceive that because you went from 8 months to like 700K biller.

And so, you know, I think you'll probably find— I'm just— this is just going to be a proper sweeping statement. I bet you a lot of people that you speak to none of them come in and hit the ground running in their first few months and then went on and on and on and on. Yeah, a lot, a lot of the people that you, that you had struggled in their first, first year, first year, and then sort of got into it. So yeah, for me, as long as— and it goes back to the first thing that we said— the mentality is right, um, then, and you're putting the effort in and we're getting there, like As a business leader, I have to like, and there's a lot, and leaders out there and team leads, whatever it needs to be. If someone's hitting all, there's 3 different things. So if someone's doing all the, doing loads of deals but not hitting any of the numbers that you want, but they're banging in deals every week, then you're probably all right with that. You're going to be all right with that, aren't you? If someone's hitting all the targets that you set in terms of your KPIs, meetings, conversations, working into the processes that you've set them, and it's not working for them, then you probably need to look at the processes that you've set. Um, because it's not the person's fault. There'll be some indications as to maybe where they can improve, maybe their conversations to meeting or meeting to projects, wherever it is, those ratios you can look at. But if someone's hitting all the numbers that you set them and it's and it's not coming through, then you probably need to look at it. I need to look at myself. But then if someone's not hitting any numbers you said, they're not doing any deals, then they can leave. Um, you know, that's— you don't need those people in your business. So I was in the position of hitting all the numbers but not doing any deals. So, you know, and working very, very hard and, and whatever else. So I was given, given time. So I always look at that for myself as well, is that if someone's doing everything that you're asking them to do then you've got to give them as much time as they need. And, um, you know, there's obviously a point where you're like, you know, it's not going to work anymore, or whatever else. But, you know, it's not— for me, 100%, as long as the, you know, the effort's there, the mindset's there, um, and that's the, uh, that, that's the main thing. You teach all the rest of the stuff, but you can't teach someone to want to be successful. You know, it's just simple as that. And just all the different behaviors, being on time, you know, dressing appropriately for work, wherever it may be. I just do things off the top of my head, not, you know, not going to lunch and in turn coming back 10 minutes late from lunch or whatever it is, or having just simple like coming, being at your desk on time and then not getting up 5 minutes later and then going to get a coffee and then another coffee. Do you know what I mean? There's certain characteristics or behaviors, someone sort of meeting all the right criteria of someone that could be successful, then you've got to give them as much time as possible. But, um, you know, yeah, that's, that, that's my, that's my thoughts anyway on that.

Yeah, good answer, Patrick. Good answer. Thank you, mate. I can't believe how quickly every, uh, every podcast goes. This is no exception. Um, but really appreciate you coming, mate, and sharing your wisdom. Thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, I wouldn't call it wisdom, but, um, yeah, I'm happy to share. I'm sure you share my thoughts. But yeah, thanks for having me. I really do appreciate it. Hopefully there's some value in there for, for people who listen.

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.