The Mindset of a £1 Million 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 Mark Harris. Mark's journey is nothing short of incredible. Coming from a humble background, he's the youngest of 4 children, and in his words, I had to fight for what I wanted from a very young age. He started off his sales career as a double glazing salesman, knocking door to door, trying to sell 10K packages to complete strangers. Then he decided to go into recruitment and And by his early 30s, Mark became a million-pound biller. He then went on to start his own company and scaled it to 30 people. On today's episode, we're going to be going into more detail of Mark's incredible journey. We're going to be talking about the mindset you need in order to become a million-pound biller, and Mark's going to be telling us the biggest challenges he's faced scaling his own recruitment business. This is going to be a fantastic story, guys. Insanely motivational. Mark is a legend. As usual, grab a cuppa or a glass of wine. Depending on when you're listening to this. And let's get into it, shall we?

Oh, Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to talk about your journey in recruitment. I know this was very last minute, so thank you for accommodating us.

Yeah, you've really put me on the spot here, guys. It's all a bit off the cuff, but we're gonna roll with it and see how we get on. But you pulled through, so thank you, mate.

Um, so we're going to start off with the famous question that we start off with every single recruiter, which is what's the number one tool in your toolkit, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software?

It's an easy one. Not so— it's, it's all about mindset and it's all down to the individual. Your mind is, is critical in terms of being successful. Your hunger, your drive, your passion, your enthusiasm— it's, it's all about you as an individual.

Love that. I asked this to every single— your mindset is like the, the, the top thing we get every time, Mark, unsurprisingly. Like, without a good mindset, everything, every strategy, every tool is pretty useless, isn't it?

I'm—

I always ask this to people. I'm just curious how you developed your mindset, because I've spoken to some top billers and I feel like there's an ingrained mindset where they, they've just got a strong mindset. They haven't had to do much, they're just kind of obsessed. But other people have had to build it up. Um, how have you developed your mindset over the years? What do you think has contributed to you building a solid mindset?

Uh, childhood stems from a young, young kid. I was one of four, the youngest. I was the runt of the litter, so I had hand-me-downs as a kid, and I had to fight for everything from a young age. Didn't have anything on a plate. Yeah, and that's it, to, to have a strong work ethic from a young age, like I say. So Graduated from university and didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I was good with dealing with people. I was very people-focused, so I thought sales would probably be a good angle to go down and then hopefully work my way through the ladder. And I knew business is something that I was good at as well. So it was kind of combining people and business together, and it was just a case of potluck, really. You know, what's the right avenues to go down?

Cool. So, so from— I just got from that, um, that childhood was, was one of the biggest things that kind of, uh, developed a strong mindset. Was there one particular moment that you remember that maybe installed a particular set of discipline in you, or particular moment that, that kind of, um, helped your discipline?

Um, I think it's, it's, it's about wanting to get on, isn't it, in life. And, and when you've not had anything as a young kid and it kind of drives you that you want something out of life because, you know, when you've always had nothing, it's a case of, you know, is this the life that I want to live? That, unfortunately, they, they grew up in a couple of generations different to me. So they had me later on in their life, but they, they really didn't have a lot of money. So it's a case of seeing your parents and then recognizing that you know, you want more than what they ever had, and you want to go on those luxurious holidays if you can, and travel the world, and, you know, see all the things that unfortunately they never had the privilege to see. And the only way to do that is work your bloody ass off. It's as simple as that, you know. It's not gonna— it's not just gonna be given to you, is it, in life? So I think it was that kind of childhood, you know, struggle in terms of financial struggle from my parents' side, really, more than anything. And that obviously gave me the drive and the impetus to find a career where I could really flourish. And it just so happened that it was by luck, really, chance. I think life's a game of chance. And yeah, recruitment was a chance meeting for me, and it's obviously done extremely well for me and the business.

Love that, mate. Thank you for sharing.

On the subject of recruitment, how did you actually start your career in recruitment, Mark?

Like I said, graduated from Leeds University. I like Leeds as a city, it's a brilliant city, great vibe, great people, but I'm from Merseyside, so I went back to Merseyside initially. I had an opportunity with Carcraft or Hayes, but prior to that, in the interim, before going with either one of those opportunities, I took a role in sales, seen an advert in the paper for St. Helens Glass, which wasn't too far from my home address. And yeah, I just thought, why not? Let's give it a go. Let's sell double glazing windows. So it was a real eye-opener into the world of sales. Very different to the way it is now and how sales is done, but it was really a hard sales environment. So I would say recruitment is quite soft sales in terms of its approach. But when you're doing door-to-door or, you know, car sales and, you know, going into, you know, double glazing, it's very much a hard sell, not easy at all. And I think, you know, that kind of built me in terms of my career. And obviously it set me up on the right path to be successful in recruitment. So yeah, I started off in double glazing sales. It was very tough. I had a number of leads for the week. I had an hour to pitch the sell and I had to get the sell within an hour of the property, of being in the property and then leave the property. If I didn't get the sell, I didn't get any commission. It was a commission-based role only, so there was no salary at all. So I had to fund obviously everything myself to get to all the leads. And if I didn't get the deal, then there's no money coming in. So it was a real— Wow. Good experience. Very intense. Yeah. Because it's tough, isn't it? You've got to go into a property and you've never met this individual before, this person. You've got to walk away within an hour with £10,000 in your pocket. What kind of people give you £10,000 within an hour when they never met you before? Very tough.

I can't imagine doing that. That's crazy. To get someone to give you 10 grand. Because mine and Ben's sales process are like months of like warming people up, months and months. And of course we have outbound as well, but to just to imagine walking in and trying to get 10 grand off someone within an hour is just absolutely mind-boggling. Um, it's crazy.

Well, it is, it is, because, you know, obviously they, you know, there's overhead that goes with that, and you're just getting a cost of commission on you, the cost of the sale. So it's, it's a very tough game. Obviously that, that industry doesn't exist in the way it used to. It's completely gone and it was a very tough environment. But like I say, as soon as I finished, all I got, two offers on the table, graduate recruitment, graduate career opportunities, one with, like I say, the car sales or Hayes. I had to make a decision which one was the right journey to go down, which was the right path. And I accepted Hayes, you know, and I never looked back really. It was all a game of chance, you know, I didn't know anything about recruitment at all. They ushered me into a construction office in Liverpool. I didn't have an idea of sector or anything, didn't know anything about construction. And they said, you know, there's a database, there's a thousand numbers, and there's the Yellow Pages. Crack on. And you know, you're going to basically be approaching all these candidates, get to understand your market, and then, you know, you're going to have to sell recruitment to clients as well, because a lot of these companies, they don't know what a recruitment agency is, and you're going to have to sell Yeah, the advantages and the benefits of working with recruitment agency and why they should pay us fees. Yeah.

Interesting. I think I already know part of the reason. Well, you're going to tell me in a second, Mark, but from selling double glazing and trying to get £10K off people an hour and then moving into recruitment, it must have felt like, I don't know, excuse me, I'm not going to swear here, but it must have felt a lot easier. It must have felt like a walk in the park for you going from such a tough job to recruitment, um, to Haytham. All right, I'm saying that, that maybe that double glazing experience really shaped you as a salesman and taught you some of the foundations. Would that be accurate, or what's your feeling?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't like that environment. It wasn't like— it wasn't a nice environment. It's really like kind of old school, Wall Street type environment, you know. And, um, it wasn't— it wasn't good. I didn't feel good, um, leaving a customer's house I didn't feel great about it, to be fair, because, you know, I'm never going to build a relationship with that person within an hour. You know, that's, that's a one-off, you know. Yeah, rightly or wrongly, it's not sustainable, is it? You're just going in there, you're getting a deal, and you're getting out, and that's it. And then you have to do that continuously forever. You know, it's not, it's just, you know, it's never going to make somebody, um, give them job satisfaction.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's just not interesting.

I don't care who you are, you're just not going to get any job satisfaction out of it. Yeah, you know, it'll pay the bills and it'll feed you, but that's it, you know. So then going into obviously recruitment, you know, I found recruitment just as tough as the double glazing when I started. So if I started around in recruitment around 22, ish, uh, sorry, 2002-ish, sorry. And it was, it was a tough environment. It's not like it is tonight, like it is today. Obviously everyone's completely connected across the world, so on, on, uh, on social media, aren't they? So it's, it's a completely different world. I think the thing with Hayes at the time was, um, they were the best business to work for because The brand was so large that smaller businesses, you couldn't compete with the brand. And they were so well known that people were actually going in off the high street as opposed to applying to a job online because the online thing wasn't massive. So, you know, for me, Hayes was the right company for me because they were the largest, they were global market leaders. So I thought, well, yeah, you know, this is this is the right kind of path to take in terms of I'm gonna go down the recruitment route. So I'd wanna work with the biggest and the best and learn my trade. But you know, it was an eye-opener. Like I say, it wasn't any easier than the double blazing because literally, you know, I had a database full of candidates, which was great, but it was a crap database. It was old. It was, it's like any database, isn't it? You're going into it and half the stuff on it's a load of nonsense. Well, it is. And then, like I say, I was given a very small area in terms of company's client base. So my client base was extremely small. Liverpool, you know, it's probably a fifth of what Manchester is in terms of size, in terms of companies that you can deal with. So I didn't have a lot to go at. I had to make the most of every client relationship I possibly could. And, you know, those, those clients weren't easy to deal with. Um, it's not, um, it's not a, uh, cosmopolitan city, let's put it that way.

Yeah. So it wasn't a walk in the park from double glazing to recruitment? Um, no, not at all.

Not at all.

I just want to go back to— I just want to go back to one thing, Mike. Sorry to interrupt, because even though you didn't enjoy double glazing and there was elements that obviously were, weren't, um, that you, yeah, you just didn't enjoy. The fact that you were able to go into someone's house and get 10 grand of them tells me that you were able to build a lot of trust in a short period of time. So I'm just wondering, is there any lessons that you took from double glazing, maybe not even to recruitment, just life lessons like discipline or ability to build trust really quickly, or psychology? Is there anything that you learned through that double glazing that just taught you good lessons, um, by any chance?

Yeah, definitely. It's, it's, it's sales. Doesn't matter whether it's recruitment, double glazing, uh, you know, cars, whatever it is, any type of sales. You, you've got to, like you say, trust is a great word, isn't it? You've got to build trust. Um, in particular, you know, you've got a, a very short window to build that trust in that environment. So You know, in terms of getting on with the people on a personal level and understanding their motivations and, you know, what their, what their needs are, and, you know, being able to, you know, fulfill their kind of needs and make them feel comfortable enough to trust you to say, yeah, okay, this guy isn't gonna rip me off, you know, that's, that's tough. That's really, really, really tough. And I think it's dealing with people, isn't it? It's dealing with people and, you know, making them feel reassured that you're the right person that they want to buy off. And I think that's in all walks of life. Like I said, I don't think that's specific to any benefit in life. I think you've just got to be able to deal with people and, you know, be yourself as well. I think, you know, I'd like to think that I'm quite a caring person, and I think I'd like something that comes across, um, when I'm dealing with people. Um, and if you're, I don't know, quite bullish in terms of how you, how you operate and all the rest of it, then, you know, you're gonna get alienated quite quickly.

Great answer, man. Completely agree.

So it sounds like recruitment was still tough when you first moved into it. You weren't handed anything on a plate. You were working in quite a small area. But despite that, you still won Trainee National Top Biller of the Year, which is insane. So you really hit the ground running in Hayes. I'm curious, what were you doing differently? So because you obviously got to the top quite quickly in Hayes as a trainee, Mark, but what were you doing differently from all the other billers in the company, do you think, considering you were working with a smaller client base as well?

Yeah, so it, it didn't click for me straight away, uh, recruitment. it doesn't— sometimes it, it's, it's a journey, isn't it? Sometimes it clicks for people quicker than others. Um, and it's, it's all about the individual. Um, so you either get it or you don't get it, in my opinion. And it takes some people longer than others. It's as simple as that. But if you've got the, the right ingredients, the right characteristics, you'll make it, is what I would say. It's just, it's just bloody tough, you know. I think it took me 6 months to really let the penny drop in terms of how to recruit properly. Uh, I think I did a fee prior to that, um, but nothing, nothing outstanding. But when it did drop, it dropped, um, if you get me, you know. Yeah, it really did start to go right, okay. I get it, I understand what I need to do, I know how to do it. And then obviously I'll absorb everything like a sponge, you know, go on all the training, learn everything I possibly need to, because Hayes were really good at it in terms of the foundation. So in terms of the training and the graduate scheme that they did, you literally had a lot of opportunities to learn a hell of a lot and go on a lot of meetings to develop you as an individual in all aspects of recruitment. And I was so enthusiastic and so keen and so hungry, I just lapped everything up. I had a really good mentor, you know, at the time. Even though I didn't always agree with what that mentor was all about, he did obviously teach me extremely good traits in terms of how to be great at your job. And with that foundation, and also my own philosophy. You know, I felt that, you know, I kind of outgrown that business quite quickly. And in the end, you know, I felt like it was the right thing to set up Building Careers. Yeah. And take a big, big risk, to be fair, a big gamble, because I was relatively young. Well, I was young, you know, 24. It's a gamble, you know. Again, you know, the internet had only really started popping in terms of job boards, you know, at the time we only had Monster. Monster had only just literally come out into Hays, but Hays, because they were just advertising themselves and they were getting all the candidate attraction that way, just off their own brand. And then obviously Monster came in, they were the first job board to come in, and I was leaving just as Monster just started, I would say. But it was a massive risk, you know, if, you know, I had all my candidates written down on paper and pen and notes next to them on paper and pen. That's how— that's crazy. That's pretty much— I wrote a hazel with paper and pen, you know, and about 50 candidates. That's, that's how I, yeah, how I rocked in there. You know, it went from there. But it's, for me, it's, it's never changed. Recruitment's always and always will be, um, about the phone. I mean, maybe we'll talk about that a bit more. I don't, I don't know if we will.

Yeah. Yeah, would definitely get into building careers. I just want to go back, um, Mark, to the point where you weren't making deals for, you know, 6 months it took, and then you said things just started to click. Now I think it was a variety of different things, but are there any little, um, things that you, you remember that really moved the needle forward, whether it was your tone on the, on the phone or the types of people you called or the strategies you used? Was there anything you remember doing that was like, ah, That's it, I'm gonna do more of that.

Lesson learned. Lesson learned. You know, when you're a bit younger, you're quite naive. You're full of energy, you're full of drive, enthusiasm, but you're very naive. Like, I don't care who you are, you are. That's just life. You have to grow and you have to mature as an individual. And yeah, there was definitely one critical point, I think, where the penny dropped. So a lot of your audience might know L1, which is, you know, it's a huge kind of development that happened 20-odd years ago anyway in Liverpool city centre. So it's a massive shopping precinct. It's like the Trafford Centre, if you will, of Liverpool. And Langereach, the largest private building contractor were actually developing this project. And I had a roll-in with the commercial director and I thought, yeah, got this guy, he's great, he's got good experience, he's the right fit. I've listened to the client, taken the spec right, teed up the interview, and I was like that excited to get the client's feedback. Because I thought, yeah, you know, this is great. This is going to be a juicy one. It's on a massive project. It's going to look great for him, look great for me. And the feedback was, you know, basically don't ever send me that again. You know, don't ever, ever do that again. And it was a big lesson learned because, you know, I hadn't met the candidate. It's as simple as that. I've met the candidate. He was based a couple of hours away, and he was moving over to Liverpool. Timing wasn't right. I was told to meet the candidates. Wasn't like I wasn't trained properly, but, you know, hadn't met him. Uh, just looked at the skill sets on paper and thought, yeah, you know, he speaks fine on the phone, let's go for it. Um, and that was a big lesson learned for me on that. After getting that grilling off the clients, that kind of really sorted me out in terms of that experience, in terms of what I needed to do, um, you know, what's going to make money basically. And, and it's certainly not that. But yeah, I think you learn from, from, from your experience, don't you? And having such a bad experience obviously taught me a lot, and that obviously set me on the path really to success. That's as well as, you know, at the time Hayes had, um, 4 offices in the region of the Northwest. So you'd have Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington, and Preston. And I think we started off with 4 doing similar disciplines that I was doing, and then I think a couple of people fell by the wayside, didn't cut it. There was a big recruitment drive at the time, and I capitalized on the opportunities that, um, people left behind, basically. So when people fell off the wagon, and I didn't let those opportunities slip, and I took advantage of it. And then off the back of that, you know, it made the most of the opportunity, and I was just a bit of a shining star coming through the business. So, so that's, that's what happened, basically. Um, yeah, awesome.

That makes complete sense, mate. I'm curious what— because in my brain I'm like, you know, find the candidate, look at the skill set. Not every, not every recruiter I meet meets their candidates face to face. It's just not always, not always possible. What was the What was so wrong about the candidate, just for other people that might want to learn, that the, the client was so pissed off at? If you could say on the pod.

Personality.

Oh really?

Interesting. So the personality was just completely wrong?

Personality, yeah. I'll never forget this guy, um, you know. But yeah, per personality, um, I think the statistic is, uh, something around 70% people buy off personality, 30% skill set.

It's been interesting. So interesting. And I'm— that's really fascinating.

It's about that. So that, that'll probably give you, give you as a— some good, good, probably, uh, gold in that one, you know.

Yeah.

And I'm, and I'm guessing, so the lesson was meet the candidates after that, make sure you're matching the right personality with the right companies. And I'm guessing that was one of the biggest needle movers in terms of making more placements. Am I right in saying that?

I think for me, that, that kind of told me that I need to know everybody inside and out. It's as simple as that. If I don't know, you know, I wanted to deal with this business and build a long-term relationship, but they're the biggest in the market, and I wanted to be able to offer candidates the best opportunities in the market. Now, to do that, you need to work with them, and if you've got no respect and they're not prepared to deal with you, then you're going to lose. You're going to lose every day. So for me, it was a case of, right, you know, I am going to make it my business to know absolutely everybody within my specific specialism, whether it be a candidate, client. And that has never changed. And that's obviously, you know, my ethos. And that's what my ethos is for the business and the team. And it's very, very specialist times. The biggest commodity that everybody's got in recruitment And so you've only got so many hours in the day rather than try and spread yourself too thin and go, wow, like that, you know, you're never going to be able to do anyone a service, whether it be a candidate or a client. It's just never going to happen. And ultimately you're just going to end up on the scrappy. There you go. I'll be dead blunt.

No, no, mate.

Well, that's the truth, you know.

Yeah, it makes complete sense. And what I got from that is that grilling taught you to just know everything about your industry, know everything about the candidates, about the businesses, and just go deeper and have this level of expertise that people just can't ignore. Um, that's kind of what I got from that.

100%, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I, I think, you know, people profess to being like specialists, don't they? They go like, yeah, I'm a specialist recruiter, and they're specialist recruiters, and that would— they're blatantly not. You know, they use the word flippantly, but it's kind of like bullshit. It is. Yeah. And people see through that very quickly.

I remember when I—

Everybody sees through it really quickly because you're only as good as your last placement. And I believe you won't have many clients when you start bullshitting too much, you know.

I remember I used to work in recruitment marketing, if you know, like this was 8 years ago. I remember one of the main trainings I'll never forget was like, 'All right guys, make sure you always say you're a specialist on the phone.' Trust me, that's the word. And I was like, 'Hi, Sam Miller, I'm a specialist in finance.' And they're like, 'Yeah, we must be a specialist.' So it just, it just kind of, uh, that is literally training recruitment 101. Just say you're a specialist.

Exactly, mate, exactly. So it's so funny though, isn't it? It is really funny. Because, you know, they haven't got the fucking foggiest idea about what that person does or what they're dealing with, to be fair.

Well, I didn't. I had no idea, honestly. I didn't. I'll put my hands up, I knew nothing, but I just had to say I was a specialist. So that was my training, and it was, uh, yeah, that was funny. It's all right, mate.

I think it's the whole— I think it still happens recruitment-wise.

Yeah, I'm sure it does.

But yeah, I know it's, it's a flippant word, isn't it?

And yeah.

Obviously people, people obviously find you out very quickly.

So you went from Hayes to, as you say, taking a big risk and setting up your own, um, business at 24 years old from your bedroom. Um, now it's a multi-million pound business with 30 employees, so very impressive. And I'm guessing it's— it was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of stress building your business from scratch. What I'm really interested to know, Mark, is what do you think were the biggest, the toughest lessons you've had to learn going from kind of a one-man band up to 30 employees now, do you think?

Toughest lessons, um, I think, uh, dealing with people is, uh, extremely, um, you know, it's, it's amazing. Obviously it's a people-based industry and it's, it's, it's amazing to deal with people, but people are are unpredictable. And with that unpredictability, that brings extreme challenges, whether it be your customer base, whether it be employees. People is your greatest asset and also your greatest risk. So managing risk is is the hardest part of recruitment, in my opinion, managing risk, whether that be your supply chain, whether it be people. And scaling a business is extremely difficult. A lot of people think they can do it, and believe me, it's extremely hard. And, you know, I don't know what the percentage of people actually manage to build a business Well, it's like I say, it definitely, you lose your hair a little bit, start to lose that. I'm not sure if we have that excuse. Yeah, no, it's all I can say is, you know, you've really got to be obsessed with and absolutely love what you do because if you don't, then, you know, you could go down the wrong hole quite quickly. It's, uh, but it's, it's great. It's, it's like I say, I mean, I've enjoyed every minute of it. I'm still very hands-on in the company. I still love what I do. I still get immense, um, joy out watching young people shine and come through from a standing start. You've not probably had much in life, like I didn't when I started, and then suddenly you see them billing fees and getting commission and It's great. It's just great. And it's still happening today. And it's a real joy to watch them, you know, because these people would never have had the opportunity if I hadn't given it to them or other business owners hadn't given it to them, to be fair. And that's what drives me still today, you know, is watching people, you know, get on in life and, you know, realize the potential when they didn't know they had the potential and help them believe in themselves, you know. And that's That's amazing. And it doesn't matter in terms of what stage of the career they're at. It could be a trainee who's never been in the industry and come from any sector, or they could be a, a builder who's been around the block and, you know, they, they feel like they've, they've reached the glass ceiling in terms of where they're at the moment. And, you know, giving them that kind of, um, fire again in the belly to go again, but helping them get on and, um, make them bigger and better than they ever have been, you know.

Love that, mate.

Just, just going back to risk, because I just find that really interesting, and I'm just curious if you have any kind of philosophy or strategy or principle on how to mitigate that risk with people. Is it like having more interviews and just being more sure about who you're hiring? Is it hiring on personality? Is it, you know, looking at red flags? Is it hiring— is it firing fast? Like, what would you say? Is there any kind of Anything else you can give to other people who might be thinking about scaling to mitigate that risk?

Um, no, I mean, when I say no, it's very difficult because, you know, obviously you can look at all the traits, the right characteristic traits that you'd want to see in terms of, you know, to de-risk, to make sure that they've got the right motivations, that they want a career in recruitment, that You know, they're there for the right reasons. You know, they're not flaky, they're not gonna, they've made a tough skin, they've gone above and beyond, they've shown, you know, numerous times where, you know, they've gone through tough times but they've carried on going. 'Cause I feel like recruitment's such an emotional rollercoaster, you know, that the first sign of having a bad day, you know, they can't just walk out the door and go, "Oh, bloody hell," you know? "I've got a fee fall out, this is horrendous." You know, you've gotta have really tough skin in recruitment. So that's one of you, you master traits that you need to have because it is such an emotional rollercoaster. And I suppose you're looking for other things such as being curious in terms of wanting to know more because it's not all cut and dry in terms of just get this one answer out of the people you're dealing with. You've got to be really curious about the people that you want to deal with. You've got to want to partner with people. Whether that be clients or candidates. You've got to really have a passion for what you're doing. So there's a lot of things that I would ask and probe on interviews to make sure that, you know, you're getting a person that, you know, wants a career in recruitment and they're going to be successful. But, you know, like I say, mitigating the risk of people. Now, you know, people are people, people are people, you know, things change in people's lives, you know. Outside of work even, you know, and you can't control people. You know, people have got their own mindsets and unfortunately, you know, that doesn't matter any business. It doesn't matter what you are, you know, scale a business, you're dealing with people and you've got to understand and accept that, you know, at any given time, you know, things can change quickly. It's as simple as that. And that's out of your control. Well, you can mitigate the risk because you could have things in place to ensure that your service levels don't drop when people do change.

Yeah, great answer. I found this quite interesting, Mark, when you told me, because it was very unusual. Normally when we speak to people who have billed anywhere close to a million, they're normally doing, you know, a very small number of placements and massive fees. But when you were doing a million and when you have done a million, you were making 13 to 15 placements monthly. Which is, is quite a high volume, especially, you know, consistently over the year to bill a million, which is an insane number in and of itself. So I'm curious, how did you manage that volume? Like, how did you— I'm curious in terms of client attraction, candidate attraction, delivery. But maybe let's start with, with how you manage that volume with, let's say, client attraction. How did you manage that on a month-to-month basis? How did you get that volume in so consistently, do you think?

Yeah, so, um, firstly, you've just got to be absolutely obsessed. You've got— it starts with your, your mindset, really, um, rather than anything else. And to begin with, it's, it's an obsession, um, in your mind that that's your target, and you have to do whatever it takes to hit that target. So if you start with your mental capacity first, and that's where you need to be. And that's why recruitment agencies set KPIs and targets, because if you don't have that in your head initially where you're going, then you're never going to achieve it because you haven't got a direction. So firstly, it starts off in your heads, whether that's for any attraction, candidates, clients, or whatever, you know, you've got to have the right mindset from the, from the outset. What do I need to, to do to get 15 placements this month. Not easy, you know, you're gonna have to work your absolute backside off, you know. Um, you know, at the time when I was doing that, I didn't have, um, the responsibility outside of work that I do now, and it was a lot to do with timing. So I planned my day very meticulously in terms of time management, um, And yeah, you know, you, you know when to do the right things at the right time. It's as simple as that because you know how people work, you know how people operate, you know, um, when is the best time to do the right stuff in recruitment. And it's as simple as that. You can't do it by chance, you know, because chance won't get you very far. You really have to understand your market second to none and, and what's the right time to do everything that you need to do to get everything over the line in such a short space of time. And it's very unpredictable because you can't just account that everyone's gonna start and everyone's gonna be happy because, you know, a lot of the time people start and they're not happy with the job that they've accepted and things like that. So you've also got to manage rebates and refills, you know, and yeah. It's, it's pretty full-on. You've got to be able to spin many, many, many, many plates at once. So if you're no good at multitasking, then, uh, recruitment's not for you.

Yeah, you must have been an absolute master at juggling plates because that's an insane number of placements.

Yeah, I always say this, I still believe recruiters have the toughest job in the world where they're the only salespeople where their product can change their mind 3 months after the sale and just decide, you know, no, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, you know, other salesperson has that, has that problem with the product. Yeah, person. But it's just insane. Um, I just want to go to your— I, I'm always fascinated. In the prime when you were doing, uh, billing a million, uh, mark and you were making the 13 to 15 placements, what did your day, typical day look like? I know it probably changed depending on, you know, if you were fighting fires or anything that went wrong, but like typically what did your day look like when you were doing, doing those numbers?

Yeah, so I mean, it's an early start and it's a late night. Like I say, you know, it's unsociable to make money. You've got to make money when people are sleeping. It's as simple as that. So when your competition is sleeping, that's when you make your money. And that's key to all this. But a typical day, there's no kind of, all right, I'm going to do this this day, this this day, this this day, or whatever. You know, obviously there's certain things you should do at certain times of certain days. Got to be that meticulous that your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, at certain times of the day you will do certain things. So it's not a case of, oh, this is what I've got on on a Monday or whatever. It's, it's meticulous to know what people are doing at certain times of the day. And then obviously you react to that and you're proactive in your approach to make sure that you can capitalize on those opportunities. Yeah, there's a lot to it. Obviously a lot of the staff that I've mentored and trained understand that and that's why we're growing again. And obviously I'm keen to mentor and give people that opportunity to move forward and learn how, if they want to do that, they can learn from themselves. As well.

That makes sense, mate. What were those non-negotiables that you had, that you did at certain times? I'm just curious, like, there were certain things that you did at specific times, it sounds like, that moved the needle forward, that you couldn't miss. What were they and what did they look like?

Um, so it's very, it's very reactive, isn't it, recruitment? So you'll have your, you'll have your day plan, won't you? You'll have your to-do list. A lot of people will recognize that it'll ring true in terms of, yeah, you've got all this set out and installed and then suddenly this awesome guy, candidate or client gives you a call and says, I need this tomorrow. And then your whole day plan goes out the window and you're like, fuck, right, let's go. So basically what I would say is you've got to be very reactive. In terms of what you're doing. For a start, you can't just have a set plan and I think, yeah, let's keep that because it's just not realistic. So I think, you know, you know for a fact that you're going to at any one given time, you're going to have to react to different situations and different needs, whether it be clients or candidates, and capitalize on that at the right time. But yeah, for me to turn around to you now and say, oh yeah, at this specific time, or do this at this specific time, or do that at this specific time, or do that, you know. I think, yeah, there are certain things, you know, that, like I said to you before, that I would, I would do at certain days of the week and things like that. And, but it's, it's been hungry. It's been hungry. It's been reactive to everything that's coming at you so quickly, and it's being quicker than your competition. It's making sure that you're controlling everything and that, you know, that client or that candidate's completely bought into you as an individual as opposed to anybody else. And it's key. And that's how if you've got the right mindset and you've got the right hunger and drive, you, you know, you can, you can achieve everything, anything in life. And, you know, you know, but I'd say you can achieve anything, but you can achieve huge, huge numbers if you really do have the right mindset.

What was it like when you hit your first million mark? Were you just like 'Oh my God, this is amazing,' or were you kind of like blasé? Did you go spend it on a bottle of champagne? Did you go on a holiday? What was it like?

Um, no, not really. It wasn't a case of— it was just, you know, a particularly particular year. I just thought, you know, this is the year that I think it was excited at the time because I was doing some really strong fees coming into 6 months, and I was surprised at how well I was doing. I was probably doing half a million or just shy of half a million. I thought, you know what, if I get 3/4 of a mil this year, that's fucking brilliant. Like, you know, be ecstatic, you know. Bearing in mind the average person does 4 placements about— sorry, you're deemed to have been really successful if you do 4 conversions a month in recruitment as a senior consultant. So to triple that, you know, it's— or even quadruple it, it's ridiculous, isn't it? But yeah, no, just going back to what you asked me there, really, well, how did I feel? I think it just— when I realized that it was a possibility, yeah, I just just went all out and I just worked stupid insane hours. Bit of a freak in terms of my obsession, in terms of, of doing it. So yeah, but it wasn't easy, it was, it was bloody tough. And you know, like I say, um, you're starting off the standing start on paying billing. So I think what, what was particularly difficult is, you know, when you've got a temp business, you've got a residual income So you've got, I don't know, £20K recurring revenue a month. It's easy to just top that up with perm fees and achieve a bigger number in terms of an overall fee for the year. Whereas if you've not got no perm fees and you just start from the start and start every month on zero, you know, and you've got to, you know, bill £70K, £80K in a month. And then start again the next month and do the same again, and then do the same thing, do the same. It's fucking, you know, it's ridiculous in terms of, you know, where you need to put yourself and in terms of your right frame of mind and how you need to go about your business to do that. But it's— you've got to be extremely selfish in terms of how you operate. It's as simple as that, you know. And you make a lot of sacrifices to do something like that. And anybody who says, oh yeah, you do it and I can sit at home, I can have more time with my family and I'm doing it 3 days and just sat there on a belly like a belly, but it's a load of nonsense. Absolutely crap. It is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely bull. You know, anybody who goes, oh yeah, I've gone into recruitment to spend more time with my family and chill out is absolutely full of crap.

I'm interested, at the height of your obsession, in the height of your obsession, Mark, what hours were you working? I'm just, I just, For other people that want to know what it actually takes, I, I'm just fascinated. Were you up at 5 AM finishing at 11?

Like, what were the actual hours?

Yeah, that was— I was really looking after myself as well. So, um, you know, I had to have the right, right frame of mind. So I was exercising, um, at least twice a day, whether that be cardio. Oh wow. Um, just to keep my— to keep my mind on the game. But then obviously the timing of of, like I say, you know, when your competition's sleeping, you know, that's when you, when you wake up, um, and that's when you, you make it, make it count. Um, and it's not just 5 days a week, you know, you'd pretty much be on it the weekend as well. Um, you know, obviously I played football and stuff like that as well, but when I wasn't, I was, I was, I was on it, you know, absolutely obsessed. You know, like you say, 5 in the morning was was the norm, you know. And then obviously, you know, when everyone's walked out the office at 4 or 5 o'clock, that's when you really start to make it count. That's the goal.

Interesting. So you ramped up when everyone was leaving, when everyone was leaving the office, that was like, okay, this is go time. This is what I'm going to maximize and monetize.

Yeah.

Interesting.

100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They must have thought you were nuts, Mark. But some of your colleagues were looking at you like, or some of the people were like, this guy is crazy. Did you ever get that?

They didn't really know, to be honest with you.

Okay, fair enough.

They didn't really know, you know, obviously to do those type of numbers, there's only a few people who know that I've done those type of numbers. It's never really been announced, you know, in a great fashion. I'm quite— I'm not like the guy going, oh yeah, look at me, I've just done this, done that, you know, I'm not about that. It's, it's, it's it's more of a personal thing for me and quite a humble individual in terms of how I operate. But ultimately, you know, I'm at a stage where the business wants to grow and it wants to expand. You know, we're taking it to a new level, you know, and I think what I've learned and, you know, the skills I've developed, you know, I can mentor and bring people through at any stage of their career. And make them better and earn them more money if they wish to earn that. And that's what I really want to do. I want to make this business a national business. It was one of my dreams when I was going into recruitment is to have a leading UK brand and have offices all over the UK. And I feel now is the right time that we can really establish that. I think we're really well placed. I think I've got the time. To the right people, the best people, the ones with the right attitude to help them and get them on in life and be part of something which is great. You know, our brand is, you know, second to none in terms of how it's established in the Northwest and we want to replicate that across the UK. I want to bring people on the journey. I want to, you know, really, you know, get a load of satisfaction in watching people and stupid amounts of money and give them the lives that they never thought they could really have. That would make my day. And everyone's a winner then, aren't they? That's what it's all about. We're all in it together, aren't we? One common goal to be successful. And let's be part of the journey.

Love that.

I just want to go back to the— because what I really am fascinated in is the amount some people bill and how they are able to do it. Now, from the conversation we've had, Mark, I think one of your superpowers was your utter work ethic and obsession, and I'm sure that drove like a huge percentage of it. But I'm also fascinated for maybe someone else listening who, who has that same obsession and drive, maybe to the similar level that you do, but isn't doing the numbers. What strategies were you using that moved the needle forward the most? Was it just an insane amount of cold calls? Was it speccing in candidates? Like, what were you doing specifically that you think moved the needle forward? If you were to put your finger on a few activities, so to speak.

Yeah, the biggest one, I'm never off the phone.

Interesting.

You'll never see me off the phone ever. I love that. Well, you won't. Yeah, you just won't. A lot of people try to get me to send you most of the day. I don't know, he's on the phone. Just, that's really interesting. You'll never catch me off the phone and that's it, you know, if you want to take one thing from this, it's, I'm a big believer that, you know, if you can multitask, you know, one of the major things I did was when I bought my business partner out last year, I bought in headsets because all my employees were, or the majority, sorry, I should say, would just use the handsets there. And when you're just using your handset there, you can't type.

Yes, it's simple, but it's quite a big thing, isn't it?

Well, it's time.

Yeah.

Time. It's time. Everything's time. We've only got so many hours in the day, you know, it's as simple as that. So, so time is, like I said to you before, um, don't want to sound like a broken record, but it's our, it's our commodity in recruitment, isn't it? So you've got to make the most of your time, got to be on the phone, you've got to be networking, you've got to be multitasking, you've got to be always at it sending CVs, dealing with people, networking, making the most out of everything you're possibly doing. And that's it. You can't just expect to do those type of numbers just by doing one thing at a time just does nothing.

I, uh, saw a post the other day of a, uh, a guy that just hit a million, and I think he made like 6,300 calls for the year. And it just, it just reminds me of you, Mark, that you've hit that number and you're just never off the phone. And it's the sheer vol— you can't make up the sheer volume of calls that you need to make. To, in order to get hit those numbers, which is just interesting.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. You know, I think there's a lot of people that just spec out all day, or, you know, whatever they, whatever they're doing, and talking at the coffee machine, talking shite, you know. Well, yeah, whatever it is, they're not, they're not doing it, you know. And, you know, they're having a nice time, nice jolly time. But yeah, that's fine. You know, do that, but, you know, don't expect your results to change. You know, your results are only going to change if your activity changes, you know, it's— and that's it. So, um, yeah, obviously there's a lot of tips, tricks in terms of how you can, you know, increase that activity, productivity quicker, you know. And a lot of it for me is, is down to how you operate on the phone. Um, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's me, my my key ingredients, and it will always be my key ingredients. I think that's, that's where you make your money.

Interesting.

So this kind of nicely, uh, we hope you're all right, Mark. I know we're going over a little bit of time, but I feel like we like to keep guests that are particularly engaging. Do you still have time for a couple more questions?

Go for it. Awesome.

Um, so that kind of puts us nicely onto the next question. You talked about the phone, but when we had our pre-call, I got that genuine sense of passion for helping other recruiters, like the best in their field, and recruiters who are passionate want to do better, to take them from where they are now and take them to another level. Yeah, that's billing, mindset, you know, helping them to reach their goals.

Yeah.

I'm curious, when you are mentoring someone and you're trying to get them, you know, to that next level, yeah, what are them— and I'm sure this differs— but what are the most essential things that you focus on? What are the key things that you teach them and/or go through to help them get to that next level, do you think?

So And we're all different, and everybody's different, and so you've got to not have a standardized approach with anything that you do, and it's what I would say. So you've got to treat each individual, each desk, um, in its own isolation. And if you standardize anything across recruitment, then it's a load of nonsense, basically, because, you know, that's, that's not going to do you any favors in terms of it might not suit some people, what you're trying to achieve, and it might not be the right thing to do with that individual as well on that particular day. Temp and perm are very different in terms of how you have to operate anyway. So you've got to look at what that individual's doing, why they've reached the glass ceiling in terms of where they're at at the minute, understand their processes, how they operate, what they do day to day. Times they do things, what does their typical day look like? And then you put a plan in place to make sure that they, you know, they change and you, you know, you give them some tips and advice in terms of, you know, giving them the right kind of structure so that they can push on and go to the next level. But it's very much based on the individual. You wouldn't just go, right, the reason why you're doing this is that, or that, or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I got that.

It's, it's very industry specific as well. Like, if you look at, if you look at the tech industry, for example, at the minute, all right, okay, it's, it's struggling a little bit in terms of the sector, but you know, the fees they can produce, you know, that's one of the, the most, um, the best sectors to make money in recruitment. And then if you went into another sector, which is got a lot of red tape, then it's not as easy to make money, to get me, in terms of margins and red tape and managed service contracts, all the rest of it type thing. So what I'm trying to get at is you can't just go, right, this is the reason why you're shit, or this is the reason why you're great, do you get me?

Yeah, I got it. It sounds like it's so bad.

You're not just gonna go straight into, all right, You know, you're only betting 100 grand because of X or Y. You know, you're looking at the individual, you're really going into a lot of detail about what sector they're in, what's the constraints in the sector, or how lucrative the sector is. And then you're looking at the individual, the characteristics, the mindset, how they go about the business, what they do day to day, what they can change, why aren't they delivering. And you obviously, you listen to them, you understand them. You know, it's all about people, isn't it? And I go that with your clients and your clients. It's all about people. Yeah, everything about recruitment is people.

I'm interested because I completely understand that, Mark, and I have very little experience training people, so you, you definitely have more of that than me. But, um, I'm sure speaking to each individual, there'll be specific things that you need to change with each individual because, as you said, it's market-specific, person-specific. But is there any, is there any kind of universal things that you've spotted amongst all your people that if they do more of this, they'll typically get better results? Or is that— is there nothing? Is it maybe volume of calls, or is it maybe the quality of the CVs they're sending? Is there any kind of specifics that you've noticed amongst all your—

yeah, yeah. So temp and perm, like I say, is completely different. So yeah, um, You've got to drive activity around those, those particular specialisms. It's activity. It's as simple as that. If your sales are down, right, and you're listening to me right now and you're wondering why your sales are down, you know, if you're making, I don't know, 20 calls today or Monday or whatever it is, whenever this gets aired, you know, up that to 40, up that to 60, up that to 80, up that to 100. You know, the reason why you plateaued, you know, it's as simple as that. That's on, on attempt, whatever you need to be doing, whatever you need to be doing more visits. It all really depends on your activity. But whatever I would say is, you know, you need to increase your activity, whatever you're doing, you know, that's, that's probably a good start. And then obviously you can fine-tune that in terms of how, how you're actually going about your activity and how to make you more time efficient in terms of what you're trying to achieve.

So I'm guessing based off that, because my next kind of question to follow on from Sam was, would you see the kind of biggest mistakes that if you were to meet— if you're going to a room full of recruiters in the UK and you were to speak to a lot of them, maybe you would notice some common mistakes in terms of, or if you were to observe them for a day Is it fair to say that maybe a lot of recruiters that aren't billing what they're, what they're billing, they're just not putting in enough volume? They're not doing enough?

No, not at all.

No.

Okay. No, it's not just, it's not just about that. I mean, if I look at how people are being trained at the moment and how they're advertising, for example, using social media, I just think it's really ineffective. And you know what, the marketing, they're never going to get the right traction in terms of engagement, what they need. It's quite bizarre. I find it all quite funny really that they've been trained so poorly in terms of their approach. And it's sad as well. It's sad because a lot of people are wasting their lives, you know, spending 5 years with a business and, or whatever it is, you know, and they're never gonna, they're never gonna achieve anything because they can see straight away that what they're actually doing online is, is a load of nonsense. So if they get doing that online, there's no doubt, you know, in the office they're getting sort of no better in terms of their approach, you know. Yeah, activity is a massive one for me, but you've got to be smart as well, isn't it? It's not just working hard, it's working smart. So you've got your activity is one side, your work ethic, you're working hard. But then you've got to work smart as well, haven't you? And a lot of recruiters don't work smart. They— and it's not— sometimes it's not down to them, it's down to the faults of the management, the people that should really have the responsibility to train them properly and, you know, give them the right tools, training, skill sets to be successful. But they don't. You know, that's criminal, isn't it? It's, you waste people's lives and all of a sudden, you know, you're not going to build a successful business if you're not getting, if you're not training your troops properly, you know, which is where I feel like, you know, we've had massive success in our business in terms of training and development and, you know, why we've made people unbelievable amounts of money and we've changed people's lives in terms of what they've achieved with us, you know, because I'm a firm believer that I've had the best training coming from a multinational PLC, you know, and that's ingrained across the business because ultimately the people that we brought in came from that background and we instilled across our business the right training development program so people could be successful. And that's why, you know, I firmly believe we, we always, you know, if people have got the right attitude and the right Yeah, the, the right desire, then they will be successful in our business. It's as simple as that. I wouldn't bring anyone into the company that was, was gonna fail. They will be successful, simple as that. You know, I'm not going to set anybody up to fail who comes into Building Careers. Love that.

Perfect transition to get into a story, um, of one of your consultants, Mark. You said that, um, someone that used to work in food retail is now billing £20K a month in her first year. Can you just tell us a bit about her and her journey and what happened?

Yeah, I mean, she's just reached that level, to be fair, in terms of just billing 20K. But it's still remarkable in terms of, you know, where this person has come from. Because ultimately, you know, what is the right makeup of a recruiter? You know, is it a graph? Is it Is it somebody who's been amazing at sales from a different industry? Is it, you know, a senior guy who's got a load of experience in a particular area? You know, what is it? You know, and I don't believe that, you know, it's any particular background you're particularly looking for. I believe, yeah, you know, you're looking for obviously key criteria in terms of work ethic and how they've achieved things in life prior to coming into recruitment. But ultimately, I don't believe you should judge a book by its cover in terms of, yeah, they've got to have X, Y, and Z. So when I started in Hayes, I couldn't have started in Hayes if I didn't have a 2:1 at university. Wow.

Oh, really?

That's not— I didn't know that. Didn't know that.

Yeah, so, um, that's the only reason why they took me on is because I was a graduate with C1, and that was their prerequisite to getting into the graduate scheme. Um, now that, that was their philosophy at the time, so, you know, I took that on board. Obviously, you know, I've learned a lot in terms of the people that I've brought into the business, um, and the characteristics, but there's no particular background that I would say that couldn't make it in recruitment. You're looking for certain types of— you're looking for the individual. It's all about the individual. So it's this person, just obviously going back to, to what you said in terms of, you know, uh, a specific example. So we were interviewing for a resourcer in terms of data entry. For one of our business units. And this person had been on interview, our first interview, and I came in briefly for just a second meeting just to catch up, just literally just to introduce myself and say hi. So it was literally a 15-20 minute hello, will she fit in with the culture, you know, that we've got, you know, you're looking just to make sure that that person seems like personable and she's going to fit in with the team because it's data entry, isn't it? At the end of the day, it's not like you don't have to go into depth, do you? Yeah, yeah, that person. So, so yeah, so she wasn't working, she wasn't working too far away from me, to be fair. And, and, um, you know, from an early stage, she wasn't frightened to pick up the phone, answer calls, as well as do the data input. Probably what I thought initially was, if anything, I was a bit concerned that that person may, you know, probably talk a lot and maybe distract people. I thought that would be my only concern, but I was— couldn't have been far from the truth. That person just literally sat there, got on with the job, put the heads down, cracked on. Exactly what you'd want to see. Didn't didn't do anything about, want to just do a job, pick up the phone, be nice, personable, people liked her. And I was like, you know what, you know, within a month I was like, you know, you're not just going to be doing that, it's no chance. Wow. Yeah.

So interesting.

We had a chat and then it went from data import to resource. And then it went from resource quite quickly to, you know what, just see how you get on doing this, that, you know, with candidates and stuff like that. Try and fill that job if you want. And then it was a bit like snowball effect. Just take, just take your armbands off a little bit, you know, let's see how we get on. And then, you know, you could just see every day somebody getting better and better in terms of more confidence, in terms of the phone and stuff like that. And don't get me wrong, you know, it's, it's still a very early stage in this person's career, but, you know, watching that person grow every day and want it more and more from coming from, you know, um, food retail background, you know, literally is, is phenomenal. You know, I'm amazed like that person's just done a 10 grand fee without me knowing about it. You know, I got a text the other day just saying, oh, this has just come in, and I'm like, didn't even know about it.

I love that.

Yeah, I was just like, this is, this is, this is exactly what you want. You know, you've given somebody the start that they could never have had before. You've shown them what to do. You've You've guided them, you've mentored them to a level so they understand the processes, right? The foundations, how to recruit, and they just kind of start just believing in themselves.

That's amazing.

That is, that is, that is, and that for me is great. That gives me real satisfaction in terms of, you know, why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because, you know, it could work for anyone with the right belief systems and the right hunger and drive.

I feel like that is the perfect note to end on, Mark, with that story. And I have to say, I've really enjoyed this podcast, and I just want to say thank you so much for spending the time to talk to us about your journey. Um, I've really loved it, and I'm sure the audience will really enjoy listening to this. So thank you.

You're welcome. All good.

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.