This Recruiter Billed 500k for 5 years straight! Here's how....

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 Troy Neenan. Troy started off as a perm consultant and he was doing pretty well, but it all changed when he switched to contracts. Now he's a £500K biller, and what's even more impressive is that he's managed to maintain those numbers for 5 years straight. Troy is the absolute epitome of a recruiter that just won't give up and keeps chipping away to achieve his goals. On today's episode, We're going to be discussing the main differences between contract and perm. Troy will be discussing with us some of the tactics and strategies he uses to win new business. He'll be explaining his ethos of pitching through solutions, and we're going to be delving into the mindset that Troy's developed to be able to perform at such a high level. So as usual, grab a cuppa or glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this, and let's get into it, shall we?

Troy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you?

Welcome. Very well, thank you. Yeah, I'm good, happy to be here.

Awesome.

Another podcast.

Yeah, absolutely. And you are, correct if I'm wrong, Sam, but our very first contract recruiter who has come on the podcast.

Yes, which is insane for me.

Yeah, insane. And really, I mean, that for me is quite telling in how I feel like how rare contract recruitment is compared to perm. So I'm really looking forward to this one. And as always, we'll jump into the very first question, which is What's the number one tool in your toolkit, Troy, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software?

Yeah, absolutely. So my kind of number one, um, sort of kind of tool that I use, that I've used since, since uni really, is a mixture between affirmations and goal setting. So what I mean by that is I set myself, uh, goals every, every year. So I write them down, but the key difference when I am writing my goals down is I specify the date that I've already achieved them by. So for example, this year I was looking to buy a new house. So the start of, um, of last year, I wrote down— I basically said, I've achieved buying a new house by Tuesday, 30th of April, 2024. And I guess the result of that is, in my mind, I've already achieved that goal. And also it helps, it helps me when I'm having a bit of a bad day or things aren't going, you know, the way I want it to, to be. I look at those goals, I read them through every, every morning, and it helps my mind really focus on, on sort of achieving that as well. So I've used that throughout, throughout my career.

Wow.

Throughout university as well. And I've— yeah, and I think that really helps, helps me as well.

I, I resonate with that so much. I think Sam does as well. I bought a, a book the other day, I think it was called Ask the Universe, something like that, or The Power of the Universe, and it basically says the same instructions, which is write down exactly what you want by what date and be very specific. Um, and I did that the other day actually. I had a list of things that I wanted by the end of this year. Um, and it's funny because I kind of go in and out of it sometimes. Whenever I've used it, it's always worked, put it that way. It's always been so powerful. I think it's a consistency thing with me, but I'm so glad you said that because it sounds a bit woo-woo if you don't like— yeah, if you haven't tried it, you kind of think, oh, that's not going to work, or that's ridic— kind of When I first, you know, heard of that concept, I was like, oh, surely that's not gonna make a difference. But what I realized is the key to that is you are literally programming your brain to focus on one thing. And then what I've, what I've noticed is— sorry, I'll let you speak in a second, Troy. No, no worries, not Ben's podcast. But, um, what I've noticed is your subconscious brain then starts to come up with ways to achieve that goal. Like without you even realizing it.

Yeah, that's right. And you're kind of rewiring your brain. And I think that's become quite common now. Like the whole mindset in business is becoming more popular. 10 years ago when I started doing this, the last year of university when I actually wanted to get a job in the city, my friends laughed at me because I had these goals in my bedroom and I was reading them every day. But it was a funny joke at the time, obviously. Most of my goals, uh, you know, I did achieve. So yeah, it was, it was good. When—

what was the moment when you were like, you wrote the affirmations down and then they came true? Can you tell us about that moment, Troy? Like, were you like, oh my God, this works? I just want to know how that happened. Can you, can you talk me through that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it took maybe a couple of— maybe a couple of months. Not— wouldn't say months, probably 6 months to a year until I, until I realized, okay, this is actually kind of work in. But it also helped me, like I said, when I was having a bad day. I had a habit of really beating myself up when I wasn't achieving my goals, which didn't really lead to the best results. So, you know, my kind of coping mechanism was writing my goals down like I've already achieved them, and that just helps, you know, it helps so much.

What were the first affirmations you wrote down that came true? I'm fascinated, if you don't mind sharing.

It was getting a job in recruitment, actually.

Oh, really?

Wow.

And then the second one was earning £30,000 in my first year, which doesn't sound a lot now given the kind of cost of living prices. But back then, I started on, I think I started on £18,000. So it was still a heavy, still a good amount to achieve. And I've never ever achieved that amount of money before then as well. So Yeah, that was the number one, number two.

I think the fun— the interesting about these goals, you do start small, don't you? Or you start— maybe not small, but you start with something that's more achievable, and then once you realize it works, you start to aim a little bit higher and, and be a little bit more ambitious with what you're going after, which is really interesting.

Yeah, that's right. And, and then I had, I had a chance to study sports psychology at university, and we kind of looked at goal setting. And for anyone that sort of read read up, read up about goal setting. It has to be achievable, um, as well, and it has to be quite specific. So there's no point me writing down a goal saying, saying I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 40, because there's a huge road to get to that point. But if you break it down into a year, 2 years, and live in the present almost, then yeah, that works really well.

Love that, man.

I think you were the first ex-professional footballer to come on the pod as well.

I wouldn't say— I would say semi-professional, not professional.

Yeah, okay, that's still good enough for us, Troy. Yeah, I mean, to get to semi-professional is still a lot of skill, and there must have been an interesting time and journey. Can you tell us a bit about your journey, Troy, from a professional footballer to recruitment? Can you just tell us what happened?

Yeah, sure. So my journey has been a bit different to other people. So I was born in Belgium, I was raised in Spain. My mom's Polish, my dad's Irish. So when I was— so obviously I grew up in Spain, lovely weather, all very good. And then I had the opportunity to come and play football in the UK at Oxford. So I had a 3-year kind of scholarship there. And I was still studying at the side, so we did 2 years— 2, sorry, 2 days of studying at college. And so I came over at 16 on my own, which was, uh, which was quite, quite good, quite cool. Um, and yeah, played there for 3 years. Unfortunately didn't make it, like most footballers. And like most footballers, I ended up in recruitment. Uh, so, uh, so yeah, there's that journey. But then I went to university And about in my kind of third year of university, I looked at what I could do, you know, as a job. Um, I looked at, you know, kind of recruitment consultant. I saw that the kind of job description was quite aligned to my sporting career. It was very goal-oriented, you know, target-driven, quite— it seemed like quite a competitive environment. And I've learned that, well, up until that point, I learned that by working hard in my kind of football career, I got somewhere. And then actually, unfortunately, the door to being a professional footballer closed, but then the door to going to university opened for me. So I found by working hard in something that I like doing, perhaps recruitment could do that for me as well. So that's why I kind of moved into, into being a, yeah, recruitment consultant from studying sports psychology and then further back trying to become a footballer.

Interesting. And I think this is quite rare, but you did 4 years of perm— correct me if I'm wrong, uh, Troy— 4 years of perm and then you went into contract, and now you're staying in— you've stayed in contract ever since. How did you make that pivot? Why did you make that pivot from perm to contract?

Yeah, exactly, it's a good question. I think I've always looked at my, my business— well, my kind of desk— as my own business, which they tell you to do when, when you're, uh, when you're first starting out. And I saw that my kind of earning was quite, was fluctuating. You know, some, some months I was earning, you know, a lot of commission, other months it was down a bit. And I was going through peaks and troughs. And I thought to myself, well, if I'm running a business, do I want to run it in that way? Hardly not. And then when I interviewed for Proclinical, for where I'm at now, the opportunity to move into contract was there. And I found that, yeah, it did take a little bit longer to get to, uh, the level of earning potential that I wanted to get to, but it was steady. So my earning was similar or the same every month, um, and that's what really attracted me to move into contract as well.

Really interesting. And how did things change once you got that stability? Because I hear that all the time with perm it's like even if you're an amazing recruiter, it's like just the nature of perm is very up and down. And now you've pivoted to this like consistency. How did things change for you when you started to get that consistency?

I was able to save probably a bit more. Um, in my early 20s, obviously I didn't save as much, like, you know, like, like many early 20-year-olds when, when you're working in London. So yeah, I was able to really save for my goals outside of work, which was buying a house, being financially secure. So that was kind of the main change, I would say, from a financial perspective. But from a client side, I'm able now, I'm able to really become more of a partner with the client, I would say. Not to say that you can't do that on the permanent side, But I really need to have a good understanding of the projects that I'm hiring for. We're seeing a lot more clients are wanting to outsource their, their projects to consultancies as well. They want to take away the liability of those projects and have it on someone else, which is good for us because we can take ownership over certain studies and that will be looking to obviously win. And the, you know, in the result of that, if you are placing one person, the result is you can place multiple people within more of a, you know, a kind of a project-based setup, if that makes sense. So yeah, it's two ways, both client and obviously earning potential.

Interesting.

What I'm interested, um, Troy, if you went from perm to contract, what What were a few of the kind of mindset shifts you had to go through in order to become a contract recruiter? Because it is a very different environment, isn't it?

It is. I would say that the shift wasn't as drastic. I think that the same behaviors, you know, I see the same behaviors in permanent consultants and I do in contract consultants. And the only main thing that within a contract, the sales cycles are much quicker. So a company rule here, for example, for us is if you bring on a job or if a job is released to you, you have to send a shortlist within 48 hours maximum. So shortlist will consist of 3 to 5 people. So we make sure we're covering, covering the market. On the permanent side, it's typically between 1 and 2 weeks. But saying that, you know, when I was working on, on, on a permanent desk, I was working in the UK, which is typically a very competitive market. So I was finding that I was sending CVs anyway within 48 hours because I was recruiting for a specific amount of specific person that was, and they were very, very hard to find. So the behaviors I see in permanent consultants can, you know, are almost exactly like, like contracting consultants. Nowadays we do expect people to really bring in jobs consistently and that's really important. Um, and you can say that for both perm and contract consultants. So I think the behaviors are very similar. I think the only— you know, to answer your question, the only thing I would, um, I would say is that probably the speed at which you work at is, is much quicker.

Hmm, interesting. Does that make things more difficult, or does it not change it for you? Maybe for you it was less of a transition, but I'm guessing if you're faster, you've got to be on it, like You've got to have good systems, good processes. You've got to be— I feel like just that in itself makes the job a lot harder. I don't know what you think, Troy.

It does, it does make the job, you know, somewhat harder, definitely. And, and I've seen, um, you know, recently there's a couple of people have transitioned from being a perm consultant into a contract consultant. And yeah, I think the learning kind of journey for them is having to work at, you know, a bit more of a faster pace and get into the market much quicker. And a lot of that does depend on being proactive. Um, you know, within another difference between permanent and contract is within contract, the job flow isn't as high. Typically, you know, companies don't hire— they hire more permanent staff than they do contract staff.

So interesting. I would have thought the opposite. That's so interesting. So it's— so there's less available for contract than there is perm?

Typically, on a very general basis, yeah, there is, because if you're going to staff, uh, you know, a company, you know, full of contractors, your cost is going to be a lot higher.

Yeah, yeah.

And when you— then when you would, um, hire salaried individuals, so the job flow is slightly less, so you have to be a bit more proactive and you have to discuss projects with your candidate base ahead of time. And that's what I feel makes a good contract recruiter, you know, that's what I was pretty good at. When I was, um, uh, placing people is I would discuss projects ahead of time. And when those projects did come up, I would already have 3 to 5 people ready to go within the space of 10 minutes.

Wow, interesting. And, and out of the projects that you have won or are winning at the moment, how many of them are won ahead of time, like weeks or months ahead of the project? Is, is that quite common?

Is that Yeah, what I'm doing now, it is, and it's probably the majority of my work, um, because I'm targeting myself on not placing one contractor but placing a whole team of, of people to execute a specific project. So, you know, we're moving away from— well, I'm moving away in my role from the, the ones and twos contract recruitment. There is that part of my job um, the spot business, what I like to call spot business opportunities with my clients. You know, sometimes they need people very quickly or someone leaves, you have to bring someone else in. But the more project-based solutions that I aim to sell is looking at projects ahead of time. So to give you an example, we have— we're pitching for a project and the study is starting in October. So we're going on a journey with the client where the client is still creating the study itself in terms of how many hospitals they want to include in the specific trial, etc. And based on that, we can then create our kind of, how do you call it, our plan, our project plan to hire these people. So it's definitely done way in advance. I would say a year to 18 months in advance sometimes. But then that's 80% of my work, and then 20% is probably the spot business where it's, you know, very quick turnarounds. We need someone yesterday because someone's left or because a new project has come in.

Interesting. That's really interesting. And a bit of a silly question. Well, it's a bit of an obvious question, but I kind of want to hear what you think, Troy, for— so if I want to be a top biller, say if I want to be billing like $300K, How many— you call them runners, right? How many runners would I need out to get to be hitting about 300K, do you think? Yeah, I can do the maths.

Uh, I'm not great at maths, so I probably need my calculator.

I've got my calculator so I can help you out.

I'm joking. Um, I would say for 300 grand, you're probably looking at— you're probably looking at around 20 to maybe 30 cool active runners.

Interesting.

That's, that's just being quite general because it depends how much your average, um, contractor is, is earning for you per month, uh, depending on obviously the, the, the kind of agreement you have with the clients. Yeah, I've seen some people, and depending, depends on what market you're in as well. If you're in a market where you're placing medical doctors, for example, they're going to be earning way more than someone who's, someone who's an admin person. So you'll need a lot more runners for if you're placing admin people than if you're placing medical, medical doctors. Uh, but I would say on a very, you know, kind of general sense, 20 to 30, and then you're earning, yeah, 300, 400, 500 grand.

Yeah, that's nice. That's really nice. And, and, um, because I'm a bit of a noob with contract and I mainly deal with perm recruiters, my, my idea of what contract recruiters would do. They would have 20, 30 runners going on, and then they would sit back and relax for 6 months because they've got recurring revenue coming in, and they just go on holiday and have, have a laugh and stuff. I know that's not how it works. Can you educate me and just tell me how that differs? Like, do you get to sit back and relax because of that recurring revenue, or is it actually constantly, you know, filling or backfilling?

I don't know, I don't know what you would call it, but yeah, you You would call it backfilling. You're absolutely right. It depends how you want to run your own desk. I've seen people get to a certain level and say, yeah, that's absolutely great. Let me relax a bit because maybe they're not targeted on new business. They're targeted on how many runners they have and how they can grow that runner book. But that is, in my opinion, a bit of a sin. Because yeah, you might be fine for 6 months. You might be at a good level. Chances are that, uh, you know, those contractors will drop off because they will naturally finish within 6 to 12 months. So, and this is why sometimes some recruiters have struggled going from a high level to then dropping off because they're not replacing those people consistently. So I think that the relationship between the new business or the new deals that you're bringing in and then the amount of money that your contractors are earning, it's like a brother and sister relationship. You have to have one to have the other. So you have to keep adding new business to your contract book to be able to A, grow, and then B, maintain that level of earnings.

Interesting.

I think what we've done quite well here is getting that relationship quite, quite right. So we're targeted on new, new business for each quarter. So new deals that are coming in each quarter. But then our promotions are also tied with how much revenue your contractors are generating and how much you're growing. So I've seen some businesses do the opposite. They'll, they'll just look at how much the, the book or the contract book of each consultant is worth. But then there will be, there will be a drop-off because that consultant probably isn't incentivized to then bring in new business to then replace those, all those other people.

Interesting.

What's the average lifespan of a runner for you, um, out of interest, Troy? Like, when do you need to have a think about when, when the contract's gonna end and then start a new business or help them find a new contract?

Yeah, so typically, and it depends what kind of programs we're hiring for, if we're looking at maybe spot business opportunities, it's between 6 and 12 months. Cool. But then I have some clients who have 5-year projects and 5-year studies, so we need people for that duration as well. So it can depend, but to answer your question, it's probably 6 to 12 months on average.

Cool.

I'm guessing every contractor is trying to find the 5-year projects because that's, uh, yes, absolutely.

Yeah, the multi-hire. Yeah, 5-year long-term. Yeah, long-term projects, that's obviously ideal because, um, uh, yeah, because obviously you don't have to then replace them. But saying that, you know, we're also dealing with human beings here, and human beings change their mind all the time. Things come up all the time, um, people have kids, etc. So they might leave the project early as well because something's changed in their personal circumstance. So yeah, it's all and well having a 5-year project and you're thinking, okay, I'm going to place one person. Chances are that person probably won't stay for the 5 years. You'll probably have to replace them as well. So constantly speaking to your contractors is very important as well. And this, you know, going to your earlier kind of question, what's the difference between permanent contracts That is one of the main differences as well, is on the permanent side, you've seen, place the person, and then we obviously make sure within 6 months or 3 months that person's doing, you know, doing well at their new company, they're liking kind of what, you know, what they're doing, etc. That aftercare is very, is very important, but you have to do that on contract. On perm, you can— some would say you can kind of forget about them because they're, they're not your employee. Whereas on contract, you constantly have to speak to them because you're dealing with timesheets, you're dealing with performance as well of these contractors. So I sit in on a lot of kind of performance meetings with my clients to understand how my contractors are getting on. Because if the contractor isn't working correctly, that client's going to come to us and say, that's your contractor, they have a contract with you. You're payrolling them, so it's your responsibility to a certain extent to make sure that they're delivering, uh, what's required of them.

It's a lot more pressure for recruiters.

It's like a constant— they're like your employees, kind of.

Yeah.

And you're kind of watching over them, and you've got to manage the client. I can imagine it's a lot more pressure than, than perm.

It is, yeah. And we're able to, to onboard, um, contractors, uh, what they call labor leasing, where you are employing the contractor, and across, um, you know, various different countries in Europe and also in the US. So yeah, they do become your employees, um, and you have to, you have to be aware of that and make sure that you're connecting with them on a, you know, on a weekly, biweekly basis.

From what you said, um, Troy, I have a feeling that aftercare is a massive part of keeping runners, keeping people happy. Can you tell us about your aftercare process? Like, what— do you have an idea in your head of how many times you're going to follow up? How do you follow up? Like, can you tell us about the process for other people that want to understand the aftercare?

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, the process is very simple— is speak to them and speak to them on a regular basis and almost treat them like you're— like they're— you're like you're their employees, or then you're their kind of employee, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

So when I, um, when I was looking after, I mean, my highest was 42 contractors. So typically I would do that on a Friday when people maybe were a bit, you know, had a bit more time, they were a bit more relaxed. So I would connect not with all 42 in one day, I'd spread that out across the week. But Fridays typically was a good day to speak to them because it was also a business development opportunity for me as well because that contractor would have been approached by other recruiters for other projects. So I'd ask them, you know, what else have you been approached for? You know, what are you seeing in the market? Because they are our kind of eyes and ears, you know, on the ground, so to speak. So you can get a lot of information from your contractors by speaking to them on a regular basis. Because we've grown quite a lot and because we've grown our contract book by, you know, by a significant amount since I've been here, we do have a separate contractor care consultant who speaks to our contractors on a weekly basis, etc. But we'd still really encourage people to do that as well because that person won't necessarily understand kind of the nuances between the kind of the projects that you're contractor is working in, um, because you're the vertical expert, so you shouldn't, you know, know a bit more so you can gather a bit more information.

42 runners, God, that sounds insane, uh, um, Troy. That's quite a high number. So you must have been billing, correct if I'm wrong, between £300 and £542? Am I right in saying that?

Yeah, so average of the last 4 years is over £500, and that's—

that's amazing.

That's net fee income. So that's money brought into the company. To be honest, it's probably— I've seen much higher than that.

Still, man, that's impressive. Very impressive.

Um, yeah, thank you. It's not bad. I would say I've been— I think the, the one thing I've done very well is I've been able to maintain it over 4 years.

Yeah, that's right.

I've not seen many people maintain a contract book for over half a million for, for 4 years. And in that 4 years, if, um, Uh, yeah, they've kind of delved into that a bit more in a bit more detail. We've had a pandemic and we've had a cost of living crisis.

Crazy, man. So what were you doing differently, Troy? Because it sounds like that's quite abnormal. What were you doing differently from like your competitors and the other people in the business, do you think?

So I was able to, to replace my contractors, uh, on a regular basis. And you know what I sort of said before, between understanding what your new business value is, what you're bringing into the business versus how much your contractors are billing I, I really understood and really understood that relationship, and I kind of understand it now, you know, very well as well. So I knew exactly coming into each quarter, I knew exactly what I needed to do, how many contractors I had to place to be able to grow by 20-25% each quarter. And that's where sometimes some people get stuck, is they don't understand the value. And it is, it is tricky. It's very, you know, it's a very difficult market sometimes to be in, especially when you're on a high contract or run a book, you have to replace more people more and more. So the one key sort of way I did that was by bringing in clients consistently on a consistent basis. I wasn't just, I wasn't just relying on one or two key accounts. My client spread at the end of last year, before I transitioned into this role, was about 13 different clients.

Interesting.

Whereas I've seen, um, you know, I've seen recruiters, and there's— you'll probably speak to recruiters who are billing over a million per year, and we have people here who do that. Um, but some, some of them might have, uh, key accounts where they only deliver it, but those, you know, that revenue make— makes up the majority of their contract book, so their exposure is very high.

Interesting.

That makes sense. If one client decides to, you know, to terminate 20 contractors, you might have, you know, lost X amount, um, you know, in your book.

Just spreading your eggs is a smarter choice by the sounds of it.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes, yeah, you have to spread your risk. Absolutely.

Cool. Well, I'll let you have a drink, Troy.

Yeah, sorry, mate, I asked you the question as you were trying.

No worries, no worries. I'm gonna sound croaky, that's all.

Yeah, it's all good. That's really interesting. So I guess what I got from that is a few things, but number one, you knew when you need to replenish, um, your, your clients and candidates. You knew exactly when that was meant to happen.

You did a lot of business on that. Then we just touch upon that because I find that really interesting, Troy.

The—

you said that one of the most difficult things is understanding the relationship between current runners and when you need to do business. How did you understand the relationship? Was it intuition? Did you have an Excel spreadsheet out and you knew your numbers to a T? But can you tell us how you understood that relationship?

Yeah, so the way I understood that relationship is that each quarter I would sit down, you know, with my team when I was managing the, you know, managing a team or myself, and I would, and I would look at, okay, I, I'm losing £10,000 worth of revenue because I have, let's say, 4 or 5 people that are finishing. So I know I need to make up $10,000 in kind of net fee income. So that means on average, that means if my average deal size is $15K, I'll probably have to, I'll probably have to do 4 or 5 deals in the first 2 months of the quarter. So I need to, I need to let myself, I need to let them start and bill in that same quarter. So in the third month, those people would have to start and they'd have to bill, you know, the revenue that is going to replace those contractors. So it's working out what your average deal size is and what your average revenue is per contractor. And then you just calculate that and that's your plan for the quarter. Because then you can go into each quarter and say, okay, I'm losing X amount, but some quarters I'm not, you know, I'm not losing anything. And that's what happens when you first start off, you know, you have less contractors that might be on a year contract. So there'll be times where you don't, you're not losing anything. So when I was managing, you know, people, that acted as a really good kind of motivation tool. So I can say to the guys, I can say, look, you have no people that are finishing, so you're able to really increase your book pretty dramatically if you perhaps, you know, get to 100,000 new business. If you do that, you'll probably double your book. So it's, it's an easy message then. It's an easy message.

Yeah, interesting. I know that it's a very blanket statement, but I know that if you put two recruiters who are the same skill level and one of them is dealing in the US with larger deal sizes, the average deal, they're probably going to bill more than the other recruiter. Is there an equivalent in contract in terms of somewhat— if you put two people in the same environment, or sorry, different— two recruiters in two different environments but same skill level, that one of them would outperform? If that was a very long-winded question, but yeah, absolutely.

And then that is— that's, that's a really good question because in, in the US, the the deal sizes are much, much bigger. Typically, contractors per head would earn more. So yeah, that person would have to do less placements to get to the same amount. The Nordics is a very good example as well. The Nordics have a very high cost of living, which means that contractors will, you know, look to earn more. So I looked at— I brought in someone to do the Nordics, for example, and that person did really well because his contract deals were double mine were.

Wow.

Because the cost of living is much higher and each contractor earns way more. The average is $100 an hour, whereas in the UK it's probably half that. Wow. So yeah, you are right. But then there's nuances in each market as well. In the US, typically knowing that it takes a little bit longer to bring clients on board. And also in the Nordics, people want language skills, they want to work with local people. And luckily we had a Swedish guy who was here and really understood the culture, etc. So there's nuances in each kind of market. But yeah, to go back to your question, if you have one person doing the Nordics, average deal size is 20K, versus someone doing the UK, that person in the UK will have to unfortunately work a little bit harder. Or it depends what kind of agreement they have with the client as well in terms of what margins they're going to, you know, be, um, be, uh, be asking.

Yeah, makes sense. Can you take me to a— I want, I want to know, um, Troy, so let's imagine uh, some runners are coming to an end, you've predicted that you need to bring in X amount and BD needs to start again. What's your go-to BD strategy method? What do you start doing on that day or that week to start bringing in more business?

Yeah, sure. So I do— doing— and when I was a consultant, I was doing business development every day. So I treated every, um, every conversation, even with candidates, as a business development conversation. So it wasn't the case that I had to start doing BD at, you know, on a Wednesday or a Thursday or towards the end of the quarter. So I'm consistently doing business development because I see a BD opportunity in every, in every single call. And that's why I was saying that becomes back down to the kind of the mindset as well, is my mindset is I'm doing it every day. And if I'm doing it every day, then it's— I'll be getting way more opportunities in, and then I won't have to start all over again if that makes, makes sense.

Yeah. And you are probably— a lot of recruiters don't do that every day. I think a lot of recruiters, when they get busy, that's why there's so many peaks and troughs. It's like the— they get busy, BD falls by the wayside. How do you manage to continue with BD even when you're managing 42 runners? Like, how do you consistently stay doing BD? Out of interest.

Yeah. So for example, if, if I'm speaking to, you know, 42 runners, for example, and I'm speaking to, let's say, 10, 10 of my contractors per week. Those 10 people might have been approached for 2 different projects each. So I have now, just by speaking to my contractors, not— I on average may have 10 to 20 new leads or pieces of information with new companies that I can, that I can use. That's just off the 10 people that maybe I'm speaking to.

Love that.

Then I'm speaking to new candidates, you know, every day. They'll obviously have— be looking at new projects, they'll have their own pieces of information. And then I'm doing reference calls. So aim to do 5 reference calls per week. That's what— that was my average. Obviously, that's a very warm way of doing business development, very easy to do when you're, when you're first starting out. And then in the afternoons, I'm looking at new projects that are coming, coming ahead of time. So if you build all that together, you know, that can easily be 50 to 100 pieces of information, you know, every week or every 2 weeks that I can use.

Really interesting.

Really fascinating.

Would you say that the majority, like the most consistent way of bringing in more business would be from candidates or would it be going straight to the client? Could you, could you put a nut— could you put a number on that, do you think?

In terms of what is most important, you mean?

Sorry, yeah, in terms of what, what was the most consistent way of getting new business on board? Was it mostly through candidates or going, you know, to a net new customer?

It really depends. I think I found that bringing in— looking at researching new projects or new studies that were initiating, I, I found that when I was, when I was approaching those companies 6 months in advance, I was able to sell more project-based solutions because that that study might have not started.

Yeah.

So I was able to then bring a, bring in a project team that was more cost-effective and better for that particular study. The information I used to get from, from candidates was, yeah, I have an interview tomorrow, it's with X company. Then I might reach out to that organization if we're not working with them, etc. So the quick wins I would have maybe got from job boards as well, LinkedIn, candidates, etc. The more longer-term, um, project-based, uh, wins, multi-hire, uh, projects would be from pieces of information I get from, yeah, from the internet, um, from available data.

Interesting. So, um, let's imagine, Troy, you, you've spoken to a candidate, they've said, uh, they've given you a lead, and now you know that there's a, there's an opportunity to to, to, to delve into, how would you approach that, that client?

What's your go-to?

Is it cold calling? Is it send them an email? Is it send them a video? Like, can you tell us your process for starting those net new conversations once you've got a lead?

Yeah, sure. So I always lead with some value. So for example, if I'm getting a, you know, piece of information from the internet, etc., I'd first— firstly, I'd email them with my product, which is my, my, my candidate. So I'd send a bullet point, bullet pointed email. I'd highlight and say, look, I'm working with two of your competitors, etc., etc. Then have a bit of, have a paragraph of some market information and something I know about the company because then they know I'm not just spamming out the organization and then I'm targeting my candidate to be very specific to what they're looking for, to their needs. So it's a very specific targeted email. I'd send that out and then if I get a response, I'll then try and speak to them on the phone and then repeat that process until I get some sort of response. But even the cold call isn't really a cold call because I'm gathering some pieces of information from from the client and then tying that into what they, what they're looking for. So if it's a new study that's starting out in the US, I'm leading with that information. I'm saying, I know you're starting a new study and based on that information, I know you'll need 2 project managers. So a cold call doesn't really become a cold call. It just, it's, it's a bit, it's a bit more warmer and you have to then go into a cold call with you have some pieces of information.

What would you say is your conversion rate from those calls having that, you know, that valuable information at hand? Do you know that?

From having booked in calls or cold calls, I would say 80% of the time.

Wow, that's mad. That's so good.

Yeah, I, yeah, I, I mean, for, for most calls, most business development calls I have, I mean, obviously I'm doing this for 9 years So I've been doing this for way longer, but most of my, you know, business development opportunities, they do lead to either a job or some sort of positive next steps in the process. So I would say 80% of the time.

Yeah, that's amazing. And for the 20% that don't convert, what's the main reason, do you think?

Hmm, what is the main reason? That's a good question. You know what, I was thinking about this the other day. Because I found myself— because obviously I'm, you know, fairly— I'm moving to a new role, fairly busy, but I'm having way more BD calls than probably I've ever had.

Wow.

Because that's all I'm doing. But I'm— I was going into calls and maybe— and I'm being very critical here of myself— maybe I wasn't as prepared as I should have been, and maybe I didn't take a step back and say, okay, what does this client exactly need and do, and can I articulate this in a very you know, very good manner, uh, and can I do that, you know, quite, quite confidently? And I think that's probably where I went maybe a little bit wrong in some of these calls, is I was just, you know, delving into it a little bit too, too quickly because, you know, been really busy, etc., etc. So I think it's probably that, it's lack of being prepared, probably.

Even with that, 80% is insane.

Yeah, I think you're being hard on yourself, Troy.

80% is a brilliant conversion rate. Like, yeah, it's all right.

Um, I'm interested, Troy. So you sent this really detailed email. Um, some— I'm guessing there'll be a portion of people that will reply to you straight away and be like, Troy, great, love this, want to jump on a call. There'll be some that don't. What's your follow-up process after that? Do you send another email? Do you cut—

do you call them?

Like, can you tell us what happens after that?

Really, if they don't reply, is that right?

Yeah. If they don't reply to that specific email, what do you do after that?

So then I call them. So I'll give them a call. If they don't answer, I then follow up with another email. Cool. But then every step I'm just adding some, some value about what I know about the company, about the projects that they have, etc. So I'm just giving them some information about I know what you're doing here. Oh, interesting. I understand.

Sorry, Troy, I just interrupted you there, mate.

Yeah, no worries. And yeah, so I'm just— yeah, sorry, sorry, go ahead.

No, I was going to say, at every touchpoint you're giving value, and is that a different piece of value or is it the same thing worded in a different way?

No, it's giving some value. So, you know, maybe the third email I'd say, look, I've placed, you know, X amount of people within your area. I understand that's a really hard skill set to hire for. Um, you know, when are you free to speak, etc. So yeah, it's, it's doing it, it's, um, sort of adding value in different ways. Either it's outlining what I, what I can do for them, or outlining what, what I know about the company and how I can help, basically.

I love that.

So important for people listening to add value in those, uh, touchpoints you have with people, because it's easy not to. But it's like, it's, it's a great point, Troy. Um, out of all the value little touch points you have, out of all the value you give Have clients expressed what value they like the most in terms of what you've said? And if so, what is it? Uh, Troy, if you want to mention it.

Yes, it's really, really good question actually, because I've had some feedback from clients before. And I think starting off, I had this one person, um, one client of mine who, uh, when I had the call with, she said, the reason I replied to your email is because they're very specific to, to what I'm looking for. So the client, the candidate was spot on for the role because I knew exactly what they were looking for. And also as a bit more of a senior, senior person, probably a bit more senior than what they were looking for. But I knew that if I'm presenting more senior people, then they can kind of trust me and say, look, that person is working with some really good senior individuals. But to answer your question, I would go back to that point. It's really being as specific as possible with, with your outreach.

Interesting. Yeah, sorry, Ben, go ahead.

I was gonna say, and for that particular person that you— that, that said, um, love your kind of specific approach, Troy, did you gather that's that information from candidates? Is that how you were able to become so specific, or was it a number of different, um, ways, a number of different avenues?

I mean, that specific example, the, the person was— the company was starting a study, a new study, so Um, yeah, I made sure to reference that, that project. And then the person I introduced, I was working with, that person was, you know, there's a project manager for a very specific trial, and I knew he'd be good at that because I was just matching the two together, really. So I knew that information from publicly available data as well. But even when I was first starting out, I would ask I would ask candidates and say I'd be quite honest, like, I don't— I'm new to this role. Can you just ask— can you just tell me what, what you do and how— why a client would perhaps, you know, place you into, into a role? So I'd almost kind of put it back on them.

Yeah, interesting. Um, I would love to get into you because I have a feeling you're a very organized person, Troy. I feel like you need to in order to not only handle that many runners but also be consistent with BD every single day.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, sorry to cut you off there, Sam. I sit in the same spot every day and it's a bit of a running joke in the office. Um, so yeah, sit in the same spot. I have very— yeah, same behaviors as well. And I think with hot desk— now with hot desking, um, cool. Yeah, so we moved into an office. I know we're going a bit of a tangent here, but go ahead, it's still quite relevant. We moved into a new office last year and hot desking started which meant, well, they told us, look, you have to book your seat so you don't have a specific seat. So I had a bit of a moment, but then someone told me, look, you can book your seat 12 weeks in advance. So I was really happy. So now people that know me know not to sit in my seat. I have to book my seat 12 weeks in advance because there'd be nothing worse than sitting in one place the other day, sit in another place the next day. For me, I can't, I can't do that. It has to be quite consistent, and that's how I keep quite sane.

Does that have other effects? Does that— is that like, if you look at your life as a whole, Troy, is, is everything quite consistent in terms of how you act? Is everything like— that sounds like a theme, and that's, that's like a mindset, isn't it?

That's like a—

yeah, a comfort of consistency, I think, which is a really good thing. That's how you become so successful, I think.

I also think most humans don't like changing desks. Like, I don't know about you, but I used to— when I was working recruitment, they tried hot seating, and I was like, no, like, I like— a lot of people like, um, consistency, especially throughout the day. Like, you want to sit in a desk and know that that's your desk, and you get comfortable with it. So I think that's a normal thing as well. But what I was going to ask Troy is your day plan. Can we understand, you know, from the morning to the evening, what is it— what does a typical day look like for Troy?

Yeah, so now in, in my BD role, it's In the mornings, I'm really gathering as much information as possible from new clients. So I start— you typically start work at 8, and then 8 to 9, I'm looking at new leads or new pieces of information I can reach out to clients. And then, you know, first 1 or 2 hours of the morning, I'm sort of organizing my current processes with other, you know, with my clients, because I have other people that deliver CVs into those clients. So, you know, sometimes you have 20, 30 processes ongoing within this role, so you have to be very, very organized. Um, some of the, some of the, you know, the people in my, in my team, they have 10, 12 different clients. They've got up to about 50 processes ongoing at each time. So you have to be extremely organized because, as you can imagine, um, you can, you potentially can have the whole sales floor delivering into your accounts. There's no limit in terms of how many clients you can bring in or how many jobs you can have. So you have to be really organized in those mornings. I aim to do that within 1 or 2 hours and the rest of the morning I'm then looking at bringing in new clients. So whether that's reaching out to my hotlists and going through conversations I've had last couple of months, or reaching out via email. And then after lunch, probably 1:30 to 2, or 1 to 2 o'clock, I'm either sort of doing, completing RFIs, so new, new information for clients for new proposals. I'm doing that either, you know, between 1 and 2, or half 1, half 2, or, you know, 5 o'clock, for example, 4 PM if I'm, you know, working with the US client. And then in the middle, yeah, maybe going following up with different people internally. But I think the key here, what I'm trying to do every day is making sure I've got— I'm consistently doing BD every day because I don't want the opportunities to dry up because I can easily, you know, you can easily sit here with, you know, 10, 20 jobs, those jobs dry up and then there's not really— you don't have to start again. So again, my behaviours on BD are quite consistent every day. So It's been a bit of a challenge, to be honest, moving into a role that's fully BD and you're also account managing and then being— and then you're responsible for new proposals as well. That's quite challenging. So time management for me is really crucial. That's something I've really tried to work on, you know, this quarter and when I've stepped into this role, which is start of this year.

I love it, mate. In terms of time management, do you map out your day in the morning, a night before? Do you just write it down on a piece of paper? Like, how do you plan your day out?

Yes, my day plan. So I have a day plan on my— in my calendar, but then after every day, I make sure that I do a day plan and a target list for the next day. So typically, in the last 20 minutes of every day, I sit down, assess my day, and then I write down what I'm going to do, what I'm going to do, what I'm going to do the next day. I also have daily targets as well, so I aim to, depending on, on the day, I aim to have a set of daily targets I can just, um, I can just aim to achieve. Because it's very easy for me, I found that it's very easy to come in on a Monday and before you know it's Wednesday and you've not really achieved as much. Yeah, it does go very quickly.

Unbelievably quickly.

I feel like you're very— to be that consistent, I feel like you're very driven, Troy. Like, there's not many recruiters— I say not many, there's a lot of recruiters that aren't consistent, still very good recruiters but aren't consistent, especially with BD. What is driving you? Like, what's motivating you to stay so consistent all the time and work so hard?

Yeah, so I'll probably go back to kind of the initial question you mentioned and why I moved to the UK. I moved on my own So everything I've done is without my parents being in the country. So I've learned that I have to be, um, you know, I have to work hard and I have to be consistent every day if I want to achieve what I want to achieve. Because there's no— at some point, you know, when I was university, when I was, um, looking for a job in London, if I didn't have that job in London, I would have nothing. You know, there was— I'd have to go back to, you know, back to Spain. Which is fine for a summer, but I didn't want to do that. Um, so I think, yeah, the, the kind of drive to, uh, be successful is kind of based on having to do myself. And also my parents, when I, uh, when I grew up and before, obviously I was born, they were musicians, so classical guitarists. So I saw them practice every day, 12 hours a day on the guitar. So I've seen, I've seen that example from early on.

That's so cool.

Um, so that's— yeah, that's kind of the two, two main things.

I love that.

So it's less about what is getting into your brain, Troy. It's less about maybe what you're— what you're visioning in the future and more about what you've learned in the past that's kind of drilled into you just to continue doing the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm also terrified it'll all fall apart one day as well, so I want to stay consistent. I'm joking, but Yeah, there is that kind of, yeah, kind of drive really.

Yeah, I love that, man. I think a lot of high performers think the same. It's like they don't want to lose it. It's a, it's like the fear and pain that's sometimes a bigger driver than the, uh, pain of losing something.

It's far more powerful, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely.

Gaining something you haven't had, something that you haven't got yet. Um, Troy, thank you so much, my friend. This has been—

I've got one more question then before you end.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

This is the last question, then we'll wrap it up. Um, for a recruiter who's been doing perm, let's say for 4 years, Troy, and then they want to get into contract, what are the biggest mistakes you've made along the way that you can say, okay, shit, I'm not going to do that again, and guys, you should watch out for that? What would you say?

That's a good question. I would say not being as consistent in my behaviors every day. And I think— and I probably sound like a broken record here, but Getting outside the mindset that BD is separate to your candidate work. It is all one thing you have to be doing every day and you have to treat every, yeah, every, as I said, every call as a BD opportunity. I think that's, yeah, that's where I went wrong, you know, uh, before, uh, before I moved into the, into this role and even, you know, in my, you know, before I came into contract. So that's what I've learned is to be really consistent. Interesting.

Love that, man. When did that click? Uh, sorry, just one last question, Troy. When did that click when you were like, oh, this is what I should be doing? Did you just see someone do it, or did you do it one day and like, oh wow, I should really be doing this? Like, how did it happen?

Yeah, it's probably during COVID actually. Uh, COVID was obviously quite challenging the first quarter. There weren't that many opportunities. Um, you know, if obviously clients didn't know what was going to happen, uh, with, with, uh, with COVID the economy, etc. So it kind of forced us to be really proactive in our BD approach and think of really different ways of bringing new business on board. So I think the environment, COVID really, yeah, was kind of the, the kind of driver to making sure we're really proactive and also the kind of the daily targets I touched upon. That was for me just to keep sane during COVID because I wasn't in the office, I was working from home, which which I don't really like doing. Um, and when, you know, we've obviously discussed, uh, consistent seeing behaviors, I was doing 5 days a week in the office, then I was doing 5 days a week at home. So the, the kind of targets came from me just keeping sane and me keeping to a day plan, and it kind of works. So I've, I've, um, continued that since, since COVID Awesome.

Troy, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. I've learned so much, honestly. I've learned so much about you and about contract recruitment and about what it takes to be a top biller in your world. So thank you so much for joining us.

And I feel like I want to be more consistent just speaking to you, Troy. So thank you. Yeah, like, I want to be more consistent now. So that's, uh, other viewers feel that as well.

Yeah, I hope so. Brilliant.

Thank you, dude. Pleasure to have you.

Thank you, guys.

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.