Recruiter Bills £200K+ & Scaling Profitable Business Without Working Round the Clock…

Hey guys, welcome to yet another episode of Top Billers Toolkit, where me and my twin brother interview top billers from all around the globe and unlock the secrets to their success. Today's guest is Chris Truman. Chris has climbed the ranks at multiple recruitment companies, achieving top biller status and eventually going on to lead his own team. However, Chris's life took an unexpected turn when his body and his mind reached their absolute breaking point. He was forced to take a month-long break, and several years later, he still experiences the symptoms from the stress stress he put his body through. This life-altering experience inspired Chris to leave the corporate world for good and set up his own recruitment agency with his good friend James. Together, they vowed to prioritize work-life balance and family while also maintaining exceptional recruitment standards. Today, they run a lean and highly profitable business. In this episode, we're going to explore the myth that one must work around the clock to achieve success, and we're going to be diving into how recruiters like Chris can achieve such fantastic results without having to sacrifice their personal life. So grab a coffee or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this, and let's get into it, shall we? Hello, Chris Truman. How are you, my friend?

Well, thanks. Yeah, very well. Nice to see you both. I think, um, I'm constantly in the aura of people who want to sort of spend more time with recruiters. Usually people run a mile from us, so fair play to you guys. Nice to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, no worries, Chris. I told you that when we were first thinking of, you know, guests for the podcast, you were literally on my top 4 or 5. So I wanted you on for specific reasons because you're very experienced and you're good at what you do. So I want your insight.

Albeit that you've saved me till number 3, but I'll take that.

That's what Laura said as well, funnily enough. She's like, I'm number 2. It was an order of who responded, so I promise you there was no ill intent there.

It's all good. Cool.

We usually, I say usually, it's only 2 episodes in, but we typically have kicked off with this question just to set the scene. And it's what do you consider to be the most valuable tool in your toolkit, Chris? Whether that be a mindset, a strategy, or anything in between.

Yeah, I mean, look, definitely a mindset, I think from my perspective, I think, but it's probably a mindset on trying to remember how I've got to this point all the time. I think we could sit and talk about resilience and, you know, great efficient systems until we're blue in the face, but most of that stuff in our industry probably should be a bit of a given in my view. I think that I always, always have in my mind is what got me here, and a lot of that is upbringing as far as I'm concerned. I think, you know, from my perspective, I I'm very lucky in the way that I was brought up and, you know, the surroundings that I had and stuff like that. And, you know, various rules that I was given perhaps that I think suit me and suited me very well all throughout my career so far. But there's also an irony in some of that because, you know, to be honest, it took me days to tell my dad that I'd got a job in recruitment. You know, I kind of finished at uni, did a bit of temp work, etc. And then even then somehow knew that there was like a stigma around this industry that I'd never worked within. I don't know why or how. So it took me a couple of days. Invariably, they were absolutely fine. Of course they were, my parents. But ultimately, one of the things that they then said, which reminded me of my entire upbringing, and I think I lean on even now, is you never ever know when you're going to meet people again. So you have to care about every interaction. You know, not everyone's going to be great for you, not everyone's going to be good to you, but, you know, ultimately, as long as you are yourself and you give that to them and you treat them with respect and you empathize and all of that kind of humility piece, I think, you know, you'll never really go far wrong. And that, for me, in all of my interactions, I think is probably the mindset that just has always worked and I think has got me to this point. I also think probably our industry is more about things like candidate experience and client experience now than it's ever been. And if— well, I don't really want more people to think that way because they're my competitors, right? Ultimately, that's probably really what I lean on all the time.

That's such an interesting answer, Chris. I was not expecting that, I'll be honest. Uh, no, I think it's a great answer. It's a fantastic answer. I just wasn't expecting it. But it's such an interesting thing to default to. Why do you think when we asked you that question you defaulted to upbringing?

Um, well, because I think there's a set of morals that have been instilled from that And dare I say, I mean, look, I'm a— I was going to say a young father, but that's totally not the truth. I'm a father of young children, and I think probably those things are very fresh in my mind at the moment because those are the things that I'm trying to bring to my kids. But everything in my industry all too often defaults to things that aren't service or sort of empathy-oriented, I think. And yeah, a lot of that stigma, but a lot of it is true. And I think I'm lucky in the upbringing that I had. I think those morals have stuck and I think they probably are what separate me from a lot of people in the sector. Increasingly more people, I think, share the same views, which is great because it'll improve the industry. But, but that probably is why it's fresh in mind as well, because of my own personal life circumstance maybe right now.

Interesting. Were you around your mom and dad while they were working, and did you see this, Chris? Like, was that— how did it— how, how did they instill this kind of treat people fairly, build relationships, care, compassion? That, that's what I'm kind of getting from that. Can you tell us a bit of like how that was installed into you?

Um, yeah, my, my My dad, my dad, I mean, my dad did extremely well in his career and worked crazy, crazy hard. I mean, there were lots of long hours that he would work and things like that, but he was always a leader. And maybe we'll talk about that in a bit, but manager of people effectively. And he was always himself, you know, he was always I always felt as a child that he was probably exactly the same in work as he was with me. And I think that stuck. And yeah, you know, I don't feel like there's any need for anybody to be any different to that. I feel like there's so much, particularly if we relate it back to recruitment, there's so much around our industry which is complicated. And it's funny because a lot of what you guys have talked to other people about and talk about consistently is sales, right? But for me, a lot of my industry is complicated by salespeople. And that's a stereotype as well. I think, again, just being yourself, being a good person, for God's sake, caring, you know, yeah, you've got to be good. You've got to be disciplined. You have to be good at sales. You have to be able to influence people. But being a good person with it, I think, yeah, was certainly something that came from, from them.

Cool, that's awesome, Chris. And this has kind of set us up for the next question. Can you tell us a bit about your background in recruitment? You told us a bit of how you started and that kind of fear of telling your parents that you were a recruiter ended up being fine, so that's good. But can you tell us a bit more about your— just the history of where you've been and a bit about that, if that's all right?

Yeah, so I mean, as I said, so I came out of university and classic university graduate, I had no idea what I was going to do, fell into a few sort of temp jobs and then ultimately I don't even, even today, I don't even remember applying for a job in recruitment.

I really don't, you know, and I've heard that so many times, Chris, like people almost like, how did I end up here but end up loving it? It's really fascinating.

Yeah, well, the statement is we fell into recruitment. I mean, I don't know what the stat is, but probably a large proportion of people would say that in our industry, which is probably a conversation in itself, really, when you think about it. But ultimately, I'm still really close friends with the person who gave me my first chance, and I remember it distinctly. I just got a call on my mobile phone at that point saying, yeah, so you've applied to this role, This was with a big corporate global agency. We'd like to talk to you about it. And I was sort of stood there thinking, I don't think I applied to that. That doesn't sound like me at all. But my dad is pressuring me to get a job, so let's go. And the rest is kind of history. So I spent 2 and a bit years there. I fell in love with, I fell in love with the industry initially and certainly the day-to-day of the role and what the role was. But frankly, quite quickly got frustrated with the corporate environment, I think, and kind of what it was asking of me and how I felt that was probably not in line with the best way to do it, or perhaps the way that people needed us to do it, essentially. So I then went to a much, much smaller business, and at that point I think I was number 5 or 6 within that company at that stage. And that was a company that at that stage had, you know, a completely different way of looking at things in terms of service, honesty, you know, and doing things in the right way for the right reasons, and invariably everyone will then come and everyone will listen to you. And we grew— we, the business grew to at one point, you know, 5 or 6 offices nationwide, I don't know, 85, 90 heads at that stage. And, you know, it was a really sizable going concern. My role had changed quite a lot within that period of time. Um, over what was 11 and a half years. And there were a lot of different factors that came towards this. Invariably, it got to the point where what I was doing and the way that I was doing it in that business had changed. The business had changed a bit and started to see a bit of the thing or the stuff that I'd left the corporate environment for. Um, cut a long story short, I actually got unwell through that, um, from sort of stress-related stuff and you know, just my wife sat me down and said, why are you doing this? You know, what, what, what, what is this about in terms of you and your mental health and your kind of well-being going forward and even your success? Um, and that when, that was when StormX and the concept was born really. And, and here we are 7 years later.

Oh, I, I heard the kind of correlation there, Chris, where It seems like when recruitment companies hit a certain size, there's certain things or practices that come into place that you don't like or don't agree with. Can you tell us a bit about that? You know, from the— what was in the corporate— the first corporate job you had, what was happening that you didn't like? And then what was— what happened in the next company that you started to see trends were like, I'm not too comfortable with this?

Uh, well, I think the corporate world is the corporate world, and I think you could probably make a a good link between that and all manner of different industries from a corporate perspective. I think, you know, small fishes in big ponds, you know, you know, big mechanical machines, like, and, and, you know, lots and lots of raft of middle management, all of these different things. I mean, the straw that broke my back in corporate, I remember distinctly being a director that came down from the top that sat there and said, you must send at least 5 CVs for each and every role that's registered. And I'm like, what's that all about? You know, ultimately, how's that a service to anybody, whether you're talking about a candidate or a client? And we're allegedly the specialists who are helping you do your job for you. If we're sending more CVs, we're adding time. You know, we're adding burden to you. You know, we're also subtly sitting and saying we don't know what we're party looking for, um, at which point we should be doing the grunt work to earn our money. Um, so that was kind of that, and then there were lots of other factors in that as well. And then, I mean, the, the middle business, if you like, the kind of the next stage, was absolutely fantastic. So, you know, make no mistake about that. For years and years and years, and I would not be here if it wasn't for that business. So make no mistake about that. I just think I think there are lots of different factors that came towards that. And I think there's an inherent danger when recruitment companies scale that they either lose or forget or, I don't know, change in ways that go against the reasons that they started in the first place, from a brand or from an ethical perspective, for whatever reason, whether that's just because the people that have been hired you know, you've had to hire in volume. So it's been very difficult to find people who share the same sort of morals or sort of methods or just in life. Or I don't know whether that was almost deliberate. You know, you wanted to be a bit more voluminous in terms of your approach. And, you know, that was the way to try and just cover off requisitions. There's lots of things, but I think fundamentally, from my perspective, in an industry that is saturated, with, I don't know, I mean, there are so many options for people to look at when they look at different recruitment agencies locally. It's like, how do they pick? What are the fundamentals of what they're looking for? And if the fundamentals have to be based on service, then if your business isn't aligned to that and everyone's not singing from the same hymn sheet, lots of reasons, then it starts to lose and it starts to lose its integrity. It starts to lose its kind of reason for existing in the first place. It certainly is reason for standing above other people in the industry and its competitors.

Interesting. And what was it like, Chris, going from that second company to then starting StormX? What was the— can you talk us through the emotions, maybe some of the initial hurdles, some of the wins? What was it like setting up StormX?

Yeah, I mean, liberating for a start. I mean, you know, I think, I think from a perspective of always playing to someone else's tune, you know, however, however, whatever your job title is, however your responsibility sits, you know, allegedly or not, if you're working in somebody else's business, you are always typically going to be playing to their tune. You know, that's, that's the bottom line. So I think liberating elements of that was just, wow, you know, actually there's now no barrier. There is no, no one else telling me what to do. Part of my business partner James, who I set up with, and, you know, frankly, again, we talk about what it felt like. Well, it felt amazing because there were two people doing something together who were really close friends and then, you know, then became business partners, which is a story in itself. But, you know, so that bit was incredible because we had some incredible times. We shaped our own destiny, you know, we made our own rules at the end of the day. And, you know, liberating is just the word I would use. It was just great. It's great.

Awesome. And what was it— you have now— I mean, me and Ben know that you— it was when we met you, it was you and James. Now you've started to scale and you're, you know, you've hired your— is it 3 to 4 people you have now?

So we're 6 in total now.

6 in total now. Yeah. And so what was that like? What was that like scaling? Can you talk me through a bit of, bit of that going from you and James to then hiring people? What was that like? Was it stressful? Was it exciting? Was it hard?

All of the above. I mean, I think there's, there's no, you'd have to talk to lots of people to work out why they scale. I think, yeah, there's loads of different reasons why someone would decide to grow a business. I think from James and my perspective, it was very much the case that we're not getting any younger, you know, from, from that perspective. We also, we want to grow something that, you know, helped to, um, allow us to step away at some stage in the distant future, albeit retirement age in this country is what it is for a reason at the moment. Um, and we also wanted other people to be able to share the sorts of experiences that we'd had you know, in that previous guise, to be fair, but then shape it slightly differently going forward. So the first person that we hired was someone that we'd known for years. So that effectively was another friend. Trust, awareness of skill and ability and relationships, quite frankly, within which in our world is difficult to quantify sometimes, were all there. Because we'd worked together and we were friends. So that, that was quite an easy hire, to be fair. And again, we knew that the kind of the mentality between the three of us was very much shared, you know, again, morally, ethically, the way to do things correctly was shared. The next hire was, I mean, the next hire was in many ways kind of the hardest because it's like, where do you go next? You know, do we go sales staff? Do we Do we bring trainees in? Do we kind of go for more experienced hires? And James and I have always had an attitude whereby we want to be, we want to grow and we want to scale, but we're quite cautious people in places to the point where we want our business to be very sustainable. So I don't want to say we're not mavericks because I think we do things quite uniquely in ways as a business. I think certainly in terms of the way that the business funds itself and the success that we— I mean, we're safe, let's put it that way.

So yeah, yeah.

At that point, our fourth hire was very much someone who could underpin the whole business operationally and take stress off both of us, invariably at the things that— or some of the things that we're not good at.

Yeah, yeah.

Creatively and operationally. And she was someone that I ironically I worked with. She was a— or she is an ex-client. But also was a sort of, uh, wife of a friend I used to play football with. So there were contacts there all over the place. And again, shared morals, shared ethics, um, the fit was there. Um, I keep doing this, sorry.

Most of the listeners are on Spotify anyway, yeah, so they won't, they won't, they won't see you doing that.

So it stays that way for this one.

So on that note, Chris, of like your, um, Bringing more people on. I'm curious, I mean, you've been around the block in terms of recruitment. Sorry if that came across in the wrong way. You're very experienced. You've been in various different companies. What are you, what do you think, what are you looking for in terms of an employee that's going to come into your business? What are the top skills you're looking for in terms of someone who's going to be sustainable, but also is going to be a good biller? Because that's essentially one of the main things, isn't it? Being able to bill. Decent amount.

Yeah. So I've always had the opinion that recruitment is not rocket science, quite frankly. I really just don't think it's that complex a job when you really lay out the mechanisms. So I think ethic, work ethic, you know, if we look at— and actually I look at even the entry-level roles that I recruit for externally for my clients. I think there are a number of different traits whereby if you find the right ethic in people, that will speak for itself further down the line. So, you know, looking through trainee hires, for example, when we hired two trainees internally, I wanted to see people who had had part-time jobs through education, um, you know, people who had always wanted to go out there to better themselves, who had gone above and beyond rather than I don't know, in sort of holiday time, vacation time from uni or school, sit in front of Jeremy Kyle and watch TV or whatever it was on a Wednesday morning. No, go out and try and earn some money, frankly. But that kind of embedded work ethic, which again, rightly or wrongly, may come from upbringing, who knows, I don't know, is always something that we wanted to look at. And I think then As long as that's in place and you can near as damn it sort of see that that's in place, I think what was always very or is always very important to us is that very early on in a meeting, people share our values because our values as people and as humans is just what our business is. That, that is our company effectively. So if we sit and talk about what StormX is, it's just a desire to not reinvent the wheel because we don't believe that you can in recruitment. Honestly, it's about doing it well. It's about just being better than other people and having an innate desire to be better than them. And whether that's a case of treating someone better as a candidate and giving them a service that they've never experienced before with advice, consultancy, thoroughness, contact and communication, for God's sake. I mean, these are, these are not difficult things to provide. You just have to want to do it and then find the time to do it. Or whether it's a client relationship whereby, you know, you go above and beyond to provide them with a partnership-based approach that is like an extension to their company rather than an external supplier. And You know, those are values pieces. That's a desire piece for me. So you get that quite quickly in a meeting, I think, you know, do people share similar sort of values? I always think there's an easy question that I can ask people or I ask myself about people that, am I impressed by you and the way that you're articulating yourself, whatever you're talking about? Are you passionate? Are you proud of what you've done? Why are you proud of what you've done? But also, could I sit down and have a beer with you or a coffee with you? And it's as simple as that.

Very interesting. Two powerful questions. Two simple questions, but two powerful questions. Definitely. What's the biggest lesson you've learned during StormX setting up the business? Chris, is there one thing where you're like, bloody hell, that is something I'm going to keep with me for the rest of my days?

Um, yeah, two. I think that they're probably two keys. Um, I think, I think you have to be very aware of how everything works. I think, you know, and, and again, it's a small business, so you don't have other people to do your finances, you don't have other people to, you know, run HMRC reports, or you've VAT report, your intermediary reports, all of these different things. You've got to learn how that works and you have to be really hungry for that sort of stuff. The way that legal processes work, terms of business, you have to invest in all of that stuff. And I think, I think there was a, probably, and there were a number of different experiences early on where we probably threw money at something. I wish we hadn't done because ultimately the information's all there for most things these days. You just got to go out and be excuse me, hungry for it. So that's one. And I think the second is also to make sure that you and we really understood our weaknesses. So, you know, we could then identify who we kind of hired, how we sort of did things differently going forward rather than kind of the early days where it was like, you know, we can do everything. It'll be all right.

Hmm. Really interesting. What were the areas that you think you could improve on, Chris? I noticed that you said the first person you hired was kind of operationally, that was what they were going to kind of double down on. Do you mind just going into a little bit more detail about what that is?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think the challenge when you start a business is that you have to do everything right, but ultimately you're also the key salespeople within the business, you know. So operationally, if you're thinking about dealing with external suppliers, you're thinking about kind of internal policies around sort of wellbeing or kind of events and stuff like that. I think James and I are— I mean, particularly me, I probably shouldn't speak for James, but I am a notorious control freak and I have a desire to do everything. And that's just fundamentally not possible, but it's also not very honest, you know. It's not, it's not very honest to sit there and say you're the best person at doing everything when you're, you're just not. Um, so yeah, she, she came in and really helped to organize us and is continuing to help to organize us going forward on so many different fronts, which then provides the platform to go away and do what we are best at, selling the company, talking to candidates, you know, getting out there and building new partnerships with businesses.

Wicked. Love to speak about BD now, Chris, because I know lots of different recruiters have a completely different perspective on BD, the best way to BD. Firstly, do you think BD has evolved since your beginning, you know, when you first started your recruitment job and you were telling your dad, I'm going to be a recruiter? Do you think BD has evolved since then or do you think it stayed the same? And if so, how do you think it's evolved?

Yeah, it's definitely evolved. I mean, you can't argue that really. And I think anybody that would is probably going to be left behind. I mean, my first day at a corporate was an hour in an induction. I've done it again. Sorry. And it was, you know, really good guy, good manager who I, again, I'm still in part contact with today. He talked to me, told me a little bit about the job, a little bit about the company, and then sat me in front of a computer and a database and said, okay, go and introduce us to new clients, you know, and honestly, simple as that. And the rest of the day was completely cold calling from no background in sort of selling. Really no knowledge around recruitment. And how stupid is that when you think about it? You know, how unaware of brand perception? Maybe they don't care, I don't know. Maybe they're too big to care anymore. But that was the first day, and I must have made 20, 25 completely uninformed, completely cold, you know, introductory calls that were, I mean, You know, we're on a podcast, so I can't tell you what I really think of that. It must be shocking, absolutely awful in quality. Um, and that probably was the pattern for BD up until— I mean, look, certainly up until StormX. I mean, you know, James and I had a different strategy with StormX, and, and we were lucky, make no mistake about that, because we by that stage had come from, uh, 12, 13, 14 years worth of recruitment experience. So, you know, I think we had the confidence to start a company with a really good, you know, background of relationship building and contacts and a network that, you know, while sat on LinkedIn and at that stage notoriously under-tapped, you know, we had mobile phones with people's numbers in that we could call on and start a business with. Quite frankly. So, you know, had BD really evolved by that stage? I don't know. I mean, I'd like to think yes, but we probably didn't even need to test it. I think COVID changed everything, really, because, you know, let's be honest, almost overnight no one was in an office anymore. So that concept of cold calling someone just from a database, which had existed for the history of, or my history in recruitment, wasn't possible. So what did you do with that? And COVID changed our business almost overnight. I think it was almost light bulb, really, in terms of where to go next. And I think we didn't have an option to put our feet up. We were at that stage a 3-person business. COVID hit, the world was really worrying as a place, but we still despite being in lockdown at that point, had to do what we could to sell our company to the masses because it was what our lives depended on. And it's as simple as that. It really was that black and white. So we embarked on LinkedIn, you know, pretty much straight away and brand building and really trying to put our reputation out there, you know, via consultancy pieces, by content, by, you know, proactive messaging of people that either were already in our network and we just hadn't spoken to for absolutely ages or were, I don't know, local businesses that we could sort of try and befriend. So again, that probably was at that stage still cold, but it's a different method. And LinkedIn and COVID frankly changed our company at a time where I think our industry was obviously inherently tougher.

I'm going back to your, your— because I just had a, a thought, Chris, when you were saying, uh, calling 25, 30 people a day. When I, I was in recruitment for a short period and I did exactly the same thing, and one thing I will say— and I agree with everything you said, by the way— but one thing I will say is the amount of confidence that cold calling built up for me was crazy. And that's one thing that I don't think I give enough credit to during that time. Could there be other ways to do that? Maybe. But I just remember the amount of comfort because you were being told to fuck off by some people— excuse my French— and you had to learn how to manage emotions, random people on the phone in the space of like, you know, 10 seconds to a minute to grab their attention. So for me, it definitely built up confidence. And I could see this trickle in to some of the conversations I had outside of work as well. So whether or not it's the most effective thing for BD is another question, especially in today's day and age. But I guess it was just something I just wanted to point out because it came back to me that the amount of confidence it brought me was quite amazing.

Oh yeah, I mean, make no mistake, I don't think— again, it's one of those things that has shaped me to understand who I am and how I apply myself to my business right now. You know, without cold calling, and that absolute need to build resilience and to build understanding of the fact that someone's not putting the phone down on you or shouting at you because it's you. It's because it's happened on another 20 occasions to them that day by another 20 recruitment consultants, for God's sake. And that sort of resilience then starts to protect you from other things that happen further down the line to you.

Yeah.

Building up that. I mean, you asked me that question to begin with, and resilience is absolutely essential in our industry, but I just don't think it's— I think it has to be a given, so it can't be the mainstay, if you like. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think without cold calling, I wouldn't be able to write the content that I do. I wouldn't be able to approach people in messaging or or on meetings, whether it be online these days or in face-to-face, increasingly, thankfully, because it is— I can say what I say about recruitment being too salesy, but it is sales. It's a sales job. You have to have— yeah, people are your product. That sounds cold, but it's true. People are our product. Business is my product. And if I can't convey what makes that or what makes that stand out and sort of better, dare I say it, than other people, then I won't be able to do that on behalf of my candidates, and I won't be able to sell my partner clients to my candidates either. So yeah, that all stems from cold calling and knowing what gets through to people, knowing what's going to trigger someone to give me another 10 seconds.

Yeah, definitely. Can we speak a bit about work-life balance now, Chris? Sorry if I'm jumping around subjects a lot. I'm still learning how to podcast properly, so. Um, because we had a conversation, uh, about this previously, and I was fascinated. And I think it's a very controversial topic in the sense that lots of people believe that you need to work your ass off every minute of the day, every hour of the day, in order to achieve top-biller status or get to a, to a good point in, in business. That's subjective, of course, but, um, what's your opinion? Do you think you need to be working ridiculous hours every single day to, to be able to achieve top-biller status, to be the best in your industry? What's your opinion on that?

Um, so I'm going to caveat what I'm about to say by going back to the point that I made a minute ago, which is we came to our business with— I mean, I've done this for 20 years now, and that's, that's a long time in, on balance. Most people are 20 minutes and they're out the door with fairness in our sector. But ultimately what that brings is a good black book, you know, a good reputation, hopefully, and a good brand in itself. However, I hate that kind of influencing stuff that we see on LinkedIn. These people who have worked in their sector for 5 minutes or 2 years, whatever, it doesn't matter. You know, they'll sit there and say, oh, I'm working 8 till 8. I'm like busting my balls and I'm kind of, I'm a grafter, I'm hustling. I hate the word hustling. I hate it.

I hate it as well. I think Gary Vee put me off the word.

Oh God, it's just like all of those sorts of things now are, I just don't, I don't get it. You know, I think there are lots and lots of ways that you can build a successful, profitable business. And we just talked about our industry because I'm going to have done it in another, but without, you know, without not seeing your family, without not looking after yourself from a well-being perspective. I mean, you know, I've already said this, but I— part of the reason we came to this in the first place was that the previous guys had taken me to a point where I was out of action for 4 weeks. I, I still suffer with symptoms now 7 years down the line from what happened then, and they'll never leave me. So, you know, when we started the business, it was very, very clearly an agreement between the two of us that sat there and said, okay, we want to do really well here, we want to work really, really hard, make no mistake about that. We're happy to do that, we're committed to do that, but we are not going to not see our families. We're not going to, you know, work 50, 60-hour weeks unless there are some damn exciting reasons to do so for the sake of it. Because my argument's always the same. It's like, and again, I don't really buy the kind of work smarter, sort of not, you know, harder or whatever that I can't even remember the analogy, but you know what I mean. I just think that you You have to be careful how you define success in that instance. And I think there are lots of ways, whether it be through prioritization of clients in our industry, whether it be through only, you know, or being very selective with your partnerships, making sure that you only work exclusive business, you know, only work with people who really want to work with you, for example. You know, you've got to have a supportive family around you for a lot of these things. You have to appreciate stuff. But equally, yeah, I mean, we've got a highly profitable company, but we've got a business that I love working for because I don't always have to work 5 days a week, 12 hours a day. I couldn't do that now. I'm too old. I've got 2 young children. You know, an hour ago, I had maybe not an hour, an hour and a half ago, I had to go downstairs and I work from home Mondays and Fridays, but I had to go downstairs to decide to defuse World War III. My 4-year-old was going absolutely ballistic because she was asked to tidy her crayons away. You know, now if I, if I was in a business that wasn't, that I couldn't go and do that and then maybe, maybe not even come back for 2 hours or something. What's the point?

Yeah, completely, completely agree with that, mate. Definitely. Um, on that note, I— you kind of already answered this, Chris, but I'm— you've got a highly profitable business, you've got a family, um, so there's something you're doing in order to maintain this profitable business. There's— without having to work silly hours of the day. I'm sure you've already touched upon it, but what are a few tips you would give maybe another recruiter who was in your shoes who was working silly hours of the day, what could you tell him or her that would say, okay, listen, if you change these few things, you can still be highly profitable and you can still have a life and be with your family and not completely burn yourself out. What would be a few things, words of wisdom you could give them?

I think, I mean, organization and prioritization are absolutely the key within that. I think not being afraid. I think, I think you have to be able to say no.

That's interesting.

And I think I've always, I've always thought that top performers in our industry are a mixture of two different types of people, you know, and you just jump on a recruitment network or something and you'll hear people talk about these two different types of people. You've got relationship builders in one hand and you've got challengers in the other. And for me, I think if you're going to really achieve this sort of talent or whatever it is, you have to be both. Challengers are people that can say no or people that ask extra questions. You're taking a job briefing, for example, and you ask more questions to get more information to make your life easier. To streamline your vetting or your kind of sourcing process with candidates so that you only give the client 2 or 3 CVs because you really know what you're looking for, you know, which saves you time, which makes you better for that client, which makes you better for those candidates because you, you know, treat them better, you give them a better chance of getting that job invariably. But also relationship building. Because then those people come to you and only you. You know, you're not in a bunfight every single time you're, you know, taking on a new role, which in this world is not good business, quite frankly. You know, the minute that you look at a job board or your current live vacancies and you've got 10 competitive vacancies, you know, you're going to be working 60-hour weeks, and dare I say it, 30 of those are going to be wasted.

Great advice, Chris. Great advice. I love asking this question. If you were to stop, if you were to, let's get rid of your network, get rid of everything, you're going to start StormX from the ground up tomorrow. How would you build a pipeline? What would be your go-to kind of strategy to build a pipeline? This is more for the, for the recruiters who want to build a pipeline like today and don't really know how to do it. Maybe they've been relying on their network and they want to start fresh BD activities. What would you do from tomorrow if you were setting up afresh?

I mean, I would, I would revert straight back to LinkedIn. If I, if someone destroyed my profile and if there is anyone hacking, please don't do that. If someone destroyed my profile overnight and I lost everything in contact terms and including my mobile phone, which of course is a database in itself, obviously at this stage, I think Yeah, writing content, getting engagement with people by showing that I know what I'm talking about. And, you know, I'm an HR recruitment specialist at the end of the day, so I talk on LinkedIn about things that matter to that community, but things that I also believe in myself, you know, diversity, engagement, you know, good hiring processes obviously are inherently important to HR people. So, so those are bits of content that I center on most of the week, unless I'm ranting, which could be about anything. And looking at those people that engage with me and invest in me, I think, because at that point, again, that goes back to what I said before, those are the people that are showing intent that warrants me investing time in them to build that relationship. And Yeah. And then look, frankly, as I've said, reaching out, I would do it via messaging and direct kind of LinkedIn messaging, probably to sell, you know, and that could be for a multitude of reasons. But for me, again, good sales now has got to be for a reason. You have to solve someone's problem. You have to be relevant because that concept of, hi, I'm Chris and I'm calling from another recruitment company. How are you today? It's like, Don't ask me how I am. You know, what's that? You know, you're not my friend. You know, get to the point. What are you here for and what are you going to help me with? Now, that's not to say that that can't be done in a human way, because again, that would be my method. You know, my method has always been to, you know, be myself. I'm quite self-deprecating in sales terms. So I'll take the mick out of myself in those circumstances, try to build rapport, which with some people doesn't work. But with my sorts of clients that I partner well with, has always, has always been quite a good mechanism. That's just who I am. You know, I don't, I don't take myself too seriously. So, so that would be the process. It would be, you know, write the content, show the expertise, you know, give things back. Because again, I think people buy from those who at the moment are prepared to give them something, you know, that's valuable to them without asking for something in return immediately. And then, you know, following up on those interactions, but also introducing myself by messaging.

Wicked. Lots of little nuggets in there, Chris. That's a wicked answer. We are coming to the hour. So this is the last question. That we typically ask. We have spoken about cold calling, but the question is cold calling, yes or no in your eyes? Is it— would you still use it today? Is there a place for it at all, or is it a hard no, you don't need to do it anymore? What's your opinion on cold calling in today's market for recruiters?

I think there's a maybe. I think there's a gray area in the For me, you know, I think in its traditional form, um, I, I mean, I, I know how I feel when someone cold calls me. I don't know how you guys feel, but I suspect it's the same because I never pick it up.

I hate it. I, with a passion. It's funny though, but I haven't received any good ones. Saying that, there was one guy who made me laugh very quickly, and there was something about his energy. I mean, his service wasn't good, but the cold call was good, so But that is, I think I've received, I don't know, 500, and that was the only one I remember. Yeah. So it's like— and this is the ongoing debate I always hear, that cold calling does work, but you have to be very, very good to make it work. And the, I think the level is, you know, you have to be extremely good, in my opinion anyway, to warrant a cold call in the middle of the day, interrupt my time.

You know, I think you, I think you have, I think it's a really fine line. And because what I'm about to say again almost doesn't fit the tag of sales in, in lots of ways, but I think very quickly you have to show empathy. Um, and I think if you're going to do it well, you have to put yourself in that person's shoes, to sit there and say, well, I don't want to hear from me, but if I'm going to listen to me, what, what would I want to hear? You're right. I mean, I even posted content about this a couple of days ago, you know, that I'd had like 10 calls in a day or something, of which within 10 seconds I knew I didn't want to speak any further to that person because the approach was traditional you know, BS, frankly. And I hate the matey approach. I hate the 'Hi, how are you?' You know, it's overly positive, overly enthusiastic rubbish, quite frankly. The other thing that I've noticed, there's still so many people who kind of almost announce their business as if you should know who they are. It's like, I'm calling from such and such. It's like, okay, but what do you do? You know, why are you here? Yeah, so I think it's dead for me, thankfully. I think there is still a place, and I think it, you know, business development is still a necessity in this world. It's probably more important now than it's ever been. But I think the tone of it, and I think the method behind it, is now something that has to be fundamentally different to the traditional methods of days gone by.

I agree. I think it's— I agree. I think cold calling isn't dead, but as Sam said, I think you have to be very good. You have to be very good at it, and your pain threshold or resilience has to be really high because doing it, even if you're good at it, is really painful. And I think my— our argument is there's an easier way with a lower pain threshold that's still really successful, which is really what you're talking about, Chris, which is giving value and messaging people and doing it in a slightly the way.

I think if you're not providing a service now that adds value in our industry and quite quickly can identify what that value is, then I don't know what the future is. I don't buy into all of the AI stuff in my industry at all. I think there'll always be a place for people in recruitment, you know, always. I have to think that, right? Because ultimately I'm nowhere near retirement age and I've got a lot of bills to pay. So, but I genuinely think that the kind of the understanding of the way that humans work will never ever be done better by a computer than it will a really empathetic human-oriented recruiter, you know, someone who cares. I don't think it'll ever be done better than that. And I think sales is the same. I think, you know, if you, if you're applying those sorts of principles to the way that you sell and adding value, and again, it comes back to content on LinkedIn, offering value, then people see that you're not the norm. People see that you're in it for the right reasons. You know, you're not that classic recruiter or estate agent or whatever other stereotypical salesperson that we can find. And that for me is where not only we differentiate ourselves, but I think the recruitment sector has to differentiate itself these days. What is your solution? You know, are you a recruitment or talent solutions business, or are you a high street volume-based, bums-on-seats, kind of 10 TVs where one will do type recruiter, because the latter probably can't exist for many more years.

I think that's a perfect, uh, time to end the podcast. Chris, this was epic. Thank you for coming, mate, and thank you for being on the podcast. I had a blast.

Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it. I've enjoyed it. And, uh, never before have three bald guys been on the same podcast.

Yes, for anyone who is watching, I am bald. I'm just wearing a hat. But you don't look quite as bald as us, uh, Chris, to be fair. You look like you still got a fair amount. 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.