$2 Million Biller Strategies with Asher Rudolph

[Music] Asha Rudolph. His work's a recruitment for over a decade. And for the last eight of those, he's been building his career over in the States with Oscar. He joined the business in 2016 to kick start their contract division. In eight years, he's been absolutely instrumental in growing a large contract book for the organization. And every year, despite managing and leading a team since 2019, he's build consistently over a million dollars in GP. And in the last two years, combined, he's build 4.5 million GP. Here's how he did it. This is what you're going to learn in this week's episode. How to bring on large enterprise clients. How to use internal sponsors to open up huge client opportunities. The importance of committing to build relationships for the long term. Why doing the basics extremely well every single day will result in huge success. And so, so much more. Let's get into this week's episode. Asha, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, man. Appreciate it. So you're joining me from Tampa. In Tampa right now. Yeah, Tampa, Florida, baby. Love it. So we're going to go through, I mean, you've been in the game for over a decade. But more specifically over the last eight years, you've been on this journey with Oscar where you joined the business, which was a permed heavy business, which I'm sure is like fair to say. And you've been on this contract journey. So this is another fennevue listening that's in contract recruitment. This is going to be, I feel, another masterclass on how you can become world class. Hopefully that's the plan. Here we go. So a bit of context for people then. So let me know if any of this is wrong. But when you joined Oscar, was that on the US journey? Was you already there? That was when I moved to the US, was with Oscar from the get go from so from day one, moving to Houston, Texas. I started with Oscar at the same time. And you've now been around three years in Tampa, Florida? Yeah, three years in Tampa, three years next month. And I spent five years in Houston, Texas as well. So all in all, but in US all time by eight years. Yeah. And then just some like highlights here again, feel free to correct me, but just looking at my notes here. So I think when you joined, there's about six people in 2016. Is that on the contract side? That was the whole company in US. And now there's 70, it's 70, actually that fluctuates. So I think what's really cool about this story is that when you joined, it was like IT perm basically. And then you've gone on this journey to really build out the contract side of the business. And then now I was just looking at my notes. How many are in the contract team now? I think across the company, we probably have about 15, 20 people that are focusing on it. I think some of those are dual desk. I would say probably about 10, maybe 15 now actually are another scene that the benefits of contract are probably focusing on contract 100%. So that's probably what I'm saying. And then finally a bit of context. Would you mind just sharing Asha like your world? I'm sure there's been like moments where we've done more of some things than others. But what's like your like bread and butter in terms of your niche, your skillset, like what does that look like just to give everyone context on that front? Sure. So my core is networking. So networking infrastructure, digital transformation. So anything of the core, the five core networking, which is routes which wireless data center security, and unified comms and voice. And then obviously the different branches within that and anything that kind of connects itself as well. So there's a lot of overlapping with infrastructure. There's overlapping with areas of virtualization. And now you're seeing the last kind of five, six years more with digital transformation. So I do a lot of the cloud integrated networking stuff, network virtualization. Things are on a large scale. It's definitely my core. And then as networking overlaps with aspects of cybersecurity as well. So that's definitely my niche. I would say networking and kind of the security world. Appreciate that. And then just a bit of the highlight reel. Just again, let me know if any of this is wrong. But obviously the way that you described it is, you know, the first couple of years you was really building, you know, your patch. And then the numbers I've got down here, I've got a pound sign in front of them, but it might be dollars. But I think the first full year, I've got down here $385 GB. That's dollars. Yeah. Okay, so it's all dollars. Nice. Okay, cool. And then let's just go into more recent years. But basically every year you tell me every year since the fourth year you've done over a million GP dollars. Yes. From 2019 until now. Yes. 2019 until now at least one or over that. Yeah. And then the last two years you've done four and a half with Larshi, you did 2.23 million GP. Yeah. Yeah. The last two years consecutive, you had the over two million. Let's just get straight into it actually. Basically. I think what I found really interesting when we're prepared for this, which is where I want us to start, is the way that you basically described like average performance to becoming like really, really great performance. I think the way that you described this to me and this sort of made sense in terms of like the solutions that you sell, the types of accounts that you've ended up having in terms of producing those numbers, is I think you put here like average contractors, you might be doing 2-3 placements with a client. But where you can really level up is like the program elements to like be involved in the entire thing. And this is really interesting because I was just saying to you that I interviewed someone last week who has always been involved in that contract to hire space. But has been getting some opportunities to do those hiring projects, those entire programs, which are obviously a lot larger and deal size all their larger in terms of like the overall contracts that are going to get out in certain accounts. And now he's going into this role where like a bit like your job title, he's just a contract solution director. So now he's basically responsible for bringing in predominantly all the business with a big focus on winning large scale hiring projects. So I guess my first thing to you, Asher, is that I feel like this is coming up more and more when I speak to contract recruiters or this is often when I speak to recruitment companies that have been doing contract and want to like level up their game. So I guess the first thing I want to start with you is if you are this person I just described to you who's just being like promoted to. You know this client solutions director, they've maybe had along the way some you know some wins where they were involved in an entire program or a big hiring project. But it wasn't like consistent and now that's their focus. Like taught me through like how would you be thinking about those first 90 days you're in that role you're now very aligned on to being to be in the room or bringing in his big programs is big hiring projects like. How would you approach being in that seat and now that being your entire focus. Sure. The number one thing I think the changes any contract recruit going from being a transactional recruiter to a partner right and focusing those large accounts and being able to kind of land and expand and do multiple placements with customers is identifying your market as early as possible. And I'm not just talking about technology niche like I do networking. What does that mean what I want to identify is which companies do I have to work with in my market which is a company's I have to work with them out what happens I'm going to work with these companies because they are the ones are winning the largest projects they are the ones that are working with these massive blue chip companies that me is a 50 person company are likely not going to be able to get in with directly. But they're going to have to utilize outside partners to be for the project teams so identifying who are those companies that is a number one thing so market mapping I think is the best way to describe it I think people mistake that sometimes I mean I'm in my niche but being you know having a technology that you focus on isn't enough essentially you need to know who your target audience is very early on and you need direction straight away the way you get that is doing the basics extremely well and being thought. For me when I came out here all I was doing was speaking to contractors as well when I want to speak to career contractors people that have their own companies people that are a hundred percent committed to doing projects to doing contracts and seeing which companies they work with and identify which companies come up time and time again because the companies that come up time and time again are the ones that I want to work with because they're the ones that consistently winning those projects that I want to be part of so for me the most important the 90 days is your market mapping and identifying. You know ideally on the list to be small right because again when it's too big we're kind of throwing a dark and the dark type thing for me I think my list was 15 20 companies across the US that was my non the go show I was going to get in with the target was at least to get in with at least five you know maybe two of those would be massive accounts and three or four would be you know my mid mid size will they give me 10 or 15 places a year so it was critical for me to map out the market identify which companies I was going to work with and the way I did that I was going to do that. And the way I did that honestly was doing the basics extremely well. I spoke to a ton of candidates in my market research. I was in my, speaking to people just in my space and then finding out what people were interviewing. What they had worked with, which companies had they worked with before in the past. Was there companies that had hired them multiple times projects and get in that information? And then essentially going to those companies, doing the classic right selling in candidates, finding out what projects are working on, selling in the right skills, reaching out for right people, networking. Just doing the basics, but I'm making sure I'm doing that with the audience that I know are going to be wanting to buy or work with me, because they're in that space 100%. So anyone I'm reaching out to is relevant people. But also when I know that this company is the company I need to work with to be successful, the motivation for me to get in there is, is surpasses anything else because that is a non-negotiable for me to succeed. I have to work with this company. These companies are the only ways for me to get, you know, a hold of these projects. for me to go ahead and get into these companies. like these blue chips, like these Fortune 100 companies is through these middlemen, these value-ended resellers, these IT services companies that own the projects. So that was my non-negotiable. So the first 90 days is crucial for you doing that and identify who and what you're going after. I think once you get that and you understand, it's a lot easier for you to go out there and attack it properly and do it intelligently as well. So I think main thing is people sometimes spread themselves too thin and they're going after anything and everything. So have a niche and then have a niche within the niche. That's the biggest thing as well. Because with the Vars, the IT services, the culture is so important. I need to find a consultant that can manage a massive bank with 350,000 employees. I'm not going to find someone who's only done local school networks. So you need to understand what type of person is going to fly within these large projects. How they've done them before. Do they need to be resilient? Do they need to be, you know, condrate-heavy? Do they need to be rich in experience of dealing with difficult customers, difficult issues, putting out fires? So understanding that culture as well, you immerse yourself in that. When you're sending candidates into projects, you know they have the minerals to be able to keep up with it. You know, you're not going to send someone who's never done contract and before into one of the largest banks in the country to go and work on a huge multi-million dollar remediation project, for example. So there's so many elements to it, but essentially that's what I would do and focus on. And that's where the game kind of clicked for me and changed for me was when I had that focus. Yeah, it definitely makes it a lot easier when you got that target list, right? Because then you can really focus on it. And I guess, Ash, would you mind? I know this might be a bit of your industry, but it still might be helpful for people. What were some of the core elements that made you think or that you feel like are important to hear and understand that makes a client go on your list of like, "I have to work with this company." So I guess what I'm asking, like, what is the makeup of those companies? Are you finding out from the contractors that they've worked with that business on a project like more than twice or three times? There might be more to it, but what have you found to be the makeup that made you go? These hire and use contractors consistently. They've got a track record of doing it. Like, if I'm going to get my contract but to a really solid place, I need to have one of these accounts because of what I've learned. What's the makeup? What are the things that was the important info? Yeah, that's good to know. I think for me is obviously finding companies that you know are partners to much larger organisations and people with what I call critical infrastructure. So if you think of someone like a bank, a bank needs to ensure that their network, their infrastructure, is consistently growing, evolving and always working. You know, you can't have a bank, have their network go down and then all of their customers across the country get affected. So companies like that that have essential infrastructure need ongoing projects. It's like never ending essentially. So if you can identify the companies that support those end clients, that's a big thing for me is understanding which company. So if I go and reach out to one of the major banks here, you can find out who it was that was supplying the staff to them, who was the integration partner. So for me, it's about who is the end customer? That's important because I know these end customers, if they're in the telecommunications industry, if they're in banking industry, financial, anything like that, broadcasting, the projects never end. You know, you have some companies like, "All right, we're going to roll out a new software, bring a contract in for six months." All right, thank you on your way. These are programs that are three to five years of consistent digital transformation. So for me, that's a big thing. It's finding out these companies, who is the end client? Does this company, are they the exclusive integration partner of that end client? You can find that fairly easily. Honestly, a lot of contractors and candidates put it on their resumes. So they might put the end client and then a slash who their contracting company was. So it's an easy way to essentially identify and speaking to people as well, I would speak to contractors and ask for them, "Hey, when you worked this, did you go through someone?" Is there a company that I'd recommend I reach out to? So for me, I'd get that information from them. But I would want to ensure that these companies are real technology companies as well. The companies that I'm partnering with, a lot of the time they have two branches to their company, is they have their own full-time employees, professional services or advanced services, where these employees are hired by the company, they're on salary, they're on bonuses, they're at 100% full-time, and they are dedicated to individual customers. And then from that, typically, you breed this different arm to the business, which is specific project support. And a lot of the time, the permanent staff are spread too thin with day-to-day support, operational support, business use, or support, they can't do the projects. So and they can't assign those people to those projects. So what they do is they come to contractors. So I like work with companies that have a large base of actual permanent staff as well, that I know are going to have to be able to be for those teams with contractors. There are companies I work with that will be called 100% consultancies, who have a much smaller base of full-time staff. And mostly what they do is they're winning projects and then staffing them. I like working with companies that have a large base of full-time employees, because typically that means the programs they're on are the customers they have on a much larger scale. And then I want to be working with partners, right? So Cisco, VMware, Arista, Juniper, you can go on their website and see who are their top partners. And essentially what they would do is they would feed work into those partners. So I'm wanting to go with the highly accredited partners, they're really from the source. So those are typically kind of what I would look for when I'm trying to find my, you know, my must-have clients that I want to support essentially. Yeah, and I know we're going super technical here. So let me like repeat some of the things that Hockfrey will mean that people were following on here. But what, no, no, this is, I know for certain people, this would be like really, really helpful, right? So I feel like the first thing that I've got there is making sure the end customer, like you said, so like the bank or these types of things, are companies that you know it isn't going to be like a, like you said, like a short-term free six month project. We need to like one or two people to roll out this particular software, for example. You're the end customer likely going to be companies that like you said, like they're always going to have ongoing projects. So firstly, does the end customer look like that? And does that make sense to have that thesis that they're always going to have things go in, right? And I'm assuming then these end customers are typically like larger enterprise customers. And then I've heard this a lot when speaking to contract recruits, like you said. So that's the end customer. But then who are their partners? Who are the people that, you know, winning these projects? Because a lot of the time, they may win projects, but may not be fully responsible to, like they won't have all of the staff for these projects on their payroll. They'll then leverage like an external partner for that. So then, like you said, like targeting the end customer and then also you've got these partners and people that are involved in rolling out these projects or win responsibility for these roll out these projects that are likely going to need a consistent flow of contract, reliable contractors that potentially you could supply to them. Yes. Is that, am I getting that right? Are you banged yet? You know what I mean? I honestly do. So why don't we go into this thing? Because this is one of my questions. And I think this would be really interesting for people. So let's say we've got those 20 target customers, right? And a lot of them might fall into the enterprise category. You've already mentioned, like speaking to contractors a lot. So, but let me ask you this, like, I think a lot of people interested in, like, how you crack enterprise accounts, essentially, do you know what I mean? So, talkers through your process of taking a dream enterprise client, one of these companies that you're like, this is non-negotiable, you know, this is one of the companies that have to work with, like, talkers through your process of putting them on your list to landing your first meeting with them. Like, what does that look like? And I know it, it might vary, but like, how does that approach look like? [MUSIC] We'll get back to the episode in just one minute, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, SourceWell, the industry leading business development and the head hunting platform. At the end of last year, SourceWell released an exciting new feature, the platform's very own live feed. 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And it's only going to be available until March 31st. So click the link in the show notes or you can go directly to sourcewell.com/demo. It's definitely changed, obviously, the way times have changed, right? When I first started recruiting, I could go in London and knock on a door. You know, it's a hey, you know, whatever it means. Now it's obviously changed. I will say my principles have never changed in terms of my outreach. I believe that people buy from people and I've learned that referrals and recommendations are your best way to penetrate an account. So I would reach out to people I would say fairly high up, classic, cold calling, emailing, but I'm doing so equipped with good information, right? I'm not just calling some random person. I'm making sure the people I'm calling are in my space. I'm making sure I know the areas that they focus on, technology-wise, maybe some of the accounts they might be working on. So when I'm calling people, I'm making sure that I've done my diligence on their area and what's important to them, right? That's the biggest thing for me. So when I'm going into these cold calls, these cold emails, I'm doing so with good information. And I'll go out to people that I would say are pretty high level. So I think for me, I always sound easy to go up, start up, and then work my way down rather than just go down and work my way up. So I would go to VPs, CTOs, I would go to directors. I have a lot of success with going to salespeople directly as well. Yeah, let's say I'm trying to get in with Barclays. How many, it might not be a set number, but you're talking about their start from up to down. But how many names would you maybe have against this big enterprise client that you'd handle? Yeah, how many contacts you think? I mean, I've done everything from five to 25, honestly, even 30 people. And I'll typically spit it by region. So there might be someone that looks after the North East. So I'll call that person the North East. And they all they do is look after the North East. If I'm reaching out to someone in the Southeast, they might not overlap. So me reaching out to either one, and essentially, who can I get in with first? Right? Who can I have the conversation with first? I think if you put all your eggs in one basket, that's where people have an issue. So for me, I'm spreading my risk as much as I can. I don't think there's a number I could give you with exact data. I can tell you it's always multiple, you know, people. And I've been passed around 25, 30 different times before. But my biggest thing is I always try and keep it to direct contact with hiring managers first. I always go to direct decision makers, right? People that have the pain points, people that have are in the weeds day to day. That was my biggest thing is going to a VP of technical services, going to a VP of professional services, you know, going to them first and having a candid conversation with them, understanding what's the business looking like for you guys? Where are you looking to grow? Where are your pain points? Where are you struggling? All of that first and then being introduced from them to HR, to recruitment, to procurement, right? And having them vouch for me and push helping me push through the process much more easily when I've got a sponsor. That's typically how I do it. I won't go to procurement without a sponsor, without some sort of clout from the company. And I think people make the mistakes sometimes, they go straight to procurement, but you understand procurement, get hit up by a thousand people probably every day. You're just another person today. You need to have context. You need to have a backing. I think it's very difficult to get in any company of a large size without some type of internal recommendation or referral introduction, even an email and copying in the VP you've been chatting with, you know, "Hey, his shem told me you're the best person for me to speak to about this. I'd love to be compliant, blah, blah, blah." So for me, I always go that way. And that's been the best way for me. Obviously, there's trial and error. Are you getting at some people to tell you know what I have found as a people that are very high up? Actually, seem to be more receptive. I don't know why. I'm not sure what that is, but I think some people are maybe afraid to reach out to someone that they would deem very senior and then they would go for, you know, lower level management perspective, you know, perhaps which is fine. I'm just saying when you go to someone like a VP a lot of the time they have dotted line managers, maybe eight different managers report into them and they have different regions. Right? So then I can be introduced to eight people in eight regions and cover that from one introduction. I've now got eight new contacts. So for me, imagine like a spider web, if I start from the top, eventually I work my way down and I've got all these different contacts, all these different relationships that budded from one person at the top who simply said, "Hey, speak to Ashley about your business." So that's how I did it. I don't think there's anything crazy about this out of the box. I think I just do that very, I'm very thorough. I follow up. I try and, you know, find things that are specific to their profiles. Is there anything we can relate on? Any sports team? Anything like that, right? Try and be. Try and make yourself jump out a little bit. When you're reaching on email, be specific, be personalized. Don't send out an email to a thousand people with the same email and hope someone clicks okay. You need to be specific with your approach and if you're dealing with people at a very high level, then you need to be worth their time. So take the time to be worth their time. I think it's the biggest thing for me. Oh, sometimes email with a bit of a pun. If the company has a name where I can make a pun, I'll email with the pun or make a reference to a sporting event if they're that team or something. So my approach is always specific. It's a really good report, good relationships. Sell myself and what we can do in the solutions that we bring and why we're going to be a good partner and then have them introduce me to the right people, the day to day managers. And then from there, the conversation with those hiring managers is extremely easy because I've been introduced by their boss. They're not going to say no because their boss is about to me. So then I'm in and then once that's going on, I've got the need. I can go to procurement and get become a partner through the proper channel because I've got the backing of a hiring manager who wants to work with me or wants to use the candidate that I have. So you have to have context, you have to have skin in the game and you definitely have to have recommendations and referrals from networking within. Without those things in my opinion, you're never going to be able to branch out. You're never going to grow an account. You might have one tiny area of a business, but the people that are lower level in my opinion are less receptive to putting their name out there for you or pushing you out just because they've got more on the line. The people at the top, for them, it's what it is, right? They have everything to gain and nothing really to lose if everything works out. So they're already at the top. So that's kind of what was my mindset behind it. So a couple of things here that that was really interesting how you broke that down. So the first thing I found this, the first thing I just want to underline, and you can let me know what you think about this, but I'm finding this time and time again when I speak to high performing contract recruiters, is that they are so disciplined with their information. And they take that so seriously. This isn't something where it's like, yeah, I'm not very good at time management. I'm not very good at keeping on top of my notes and following up. High performing recruiters view the information that they gather as absolutely non-negotiable when it comes to storing it, when it comes to listening, when it comes to, yeah, really utilising that information because what you just said there at the beginning, which I've picked up on from people, is that when you take that seriously, the best people then really use that when they reach out to people, right? So you're reaching out to Asha who's the VP or whatever and you're saying, hey Asha, look, I've heard that you used a number of contractors between April till June last year on 2023 on this type of project for this reason. Look, I may be wrong here, my information, but what do I need to do for us to have a conversation to make sure that when you might run into that again or that project again that I'm someone that you should be speaking to or whatever that sounds like, it might be wrong, but I feel like the information, that's when you can really showcase your credibility, right? So I don't know how you feel about that, but I just wanted to underline that because this is something I'm hiring time and time again and this is how you can use it to really stand out and show people that you know your start. Yeah, I think what you need to do and what I've done as I've matured in my career was to be fair from the early on, I think I was always going to be in personable, I think in contracting, it's all about relationships. That's all it is. You need to be very good at building relationships. To get through the door, you need to show your knowledge of all. So exactly what you mentioned, hey, I understand you hired these people, I understand you had these projects. I know this technology is really difficult to find. We have a bunch of these guys, you know, ready to go. Do you have any more projects in the pipeline because these guys, you know, they're ready to go. I know you've hired them number four. You know, so that information, even if they're not, they know I've done with the diligence, they know I know I'm talking about and they're like, okay, this guy, clearly he's done his research and he's taken the time to find out about us. I'll give him the time of day because I've taken that time and not just, hey, are you hiring? Okay, bye. The personal touch, the personal approach goes a long way. So doing other diligence from a technical perspective, coming again with information, hey, I know you guys are a top Cisco partner. I saw you got awarded, you know, Cisco partner of the year or you guys were using this tool, and then anyone else, you know, little things like that just goes a long way. And the other thing is being very meticulous with your notes after a conversation and all the things that you think might be small details, they're not small details. So I think I had one client and we were chatting and his kid just broke his leg. So it's a small, small thing, I just broke his leg. The budget was frozen. It was a very big prospect for me. I managed to get through to him. He's like, I'm really sorry, I can't chat. I've got to go my son's broken, his leg, I was okay. I wrote that down. And we had another call. The first thing I said was, how's your son's leg? How's he doing? And then that, from there, we spoke for about 45 minutes, I think about personal stuff, kids, whatever it was, we just chatted. And then five minutes of that was business at the end. And then we partnered with each other and we've been doing business ever since. So me taking the time just to write that little note down and come back to the call with something personable, something personal, went a long way to him, right? And obviously I've got kids like, generally care, how is the son? And how are you doing? But I'm just saying, I think people miss it. They gloss over there. They're like, oh, that's not relevant, but it is. It's all relevant. People buy from people that they like. And contracting is all about relationships with people doing business consistently, repeatedly with people that you like. All of my contractors, I've got a handful, maybe 30 to 50, that I've, what we call recycled over the last eight years, that reach out to me, proactive, that reach out to them with information because we like each other, we trust each other. That's all it comes down to. You have to say with your client. So everything matters and information, the technical, the market is important, but the person is key. I think people, sometimes they forget that business is personable and people want to work with people they like. And that's it. That's a big ingredient. for me, I think, throughout my career is making real relationships and friendships, essentially. You know? The second bit that I just wanted to use touch on the bit, if it's okay, is you were going through it, but I just want to make sure that for people listening, they can maybe experiment with things here or try different things. But like you said, I really like when we're talking about enterprise accounts, like how important it is to get that internal sponsor. So I guess what I feel like underpins this being a successful strategy is that, like, if you do get a sponsor, if someone puts their neck on the line and introduces you and you get to the point of working with them, like you have to fucking deliver, like you have to really show you about, so none of this is going to work unless you actually deliver, you give them evidence of like, actually someone that we can trust, he said that he could do this for us, he did. So like that underpins it, but I guess what I would like just to talk to a bit more about is particularly if we're going at the senior end, what does this sound like in terms of like how do we encourage these people to be a sponsor? I guess is what I'm asking, like what does this sound like? Are you really trying to make sure that they know that you're someone that has a track record or that they can trust as to why they're that or you need information again, so I'm like, hey, a few people tell me that this is a project they have upcoming and this was an issue last time. So, you know, I'm someone that has done multiple of these types of projects. I don't know, like what are the typical things that you really try and discuss and communicate that makes them go, no, Asha, I'm happy to introduce you. There might not be one thing, but like what does that sound like? What are the things that you try and do? 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You can access your free copy of the report and start making data-driven decisions about your business by clicking the link in the show notes. And while you're there, if you wanted to check out how Firefish could help your business grow this year, they're very kindly offered a unique offer to our community, the recruitment mentors podcast that's going to save you up to £1000 and this offer is only available until March 31st. You can click the link in the episode description and you can also head to firefishsoftware.com/rmp. I think just demonstrating that unknowledgeable, right? That's the first thing you can do without adding context or actually being able to supply a candidate. All you can really do is prove that you know what you're talking about and be relatable. It's difficult to prove yourself without proving yourself in a way right without, you know, oh here's a project, here's a great candidate awesome, they worked out really well. Let me now introduce you to the rest of the team. That's probably where I've done, where I've had most of the people introducing me. Typically is performing really well on one specific role and then having them and making sure the process is perfect. My communication is perfect. Everything about it is seamless, is nothing stressful. You know, they email me, I email right back, they try and whatever they want I'm there. So that's typically my best thing is when I can, I told you I brought you out to multiple people but when I start getting somewhere with someone then I invest a lot of time into that person and typically, ideally, you know, I'm speaking to people that are hiring managers and honestly what I've done before, I've said what is right now so I can prove myself, what is the most difficult thing, most difficult skill set that you are that you have? Is there a particular role or a project that is in the middle of nowhere that you need to find someone from? What can I do to prove myself? And I'll ask for that and set myself up and the biggest thing as well as I don't over deliver, I never have promised something that I know I can't deliver on. I think that's gone a long way as well where I had someone, you know, we tried to work on them on something and the budget just, it just wasn't right, skill set wasn't right, location wasn't right. So the honesty was there as well. I think it is situational because some people I'm working, I'm speaking to our direct hiring managers so I get the chance to maybe deliver to them directly and then they more comfortable opening up to the peers. If it's someone who is more high level and they're not really hiring directly but they're managers beneath them. Then for me it's all about market intel and proving my knowledge, talking about the market, the trends of the market, maybe having references that can refer companies I've worked with showing projects I've given examples of my work, that kind of stuff. Adding to good context where they feel comfortable enough to then introduce me to other people. So I would say it's two answers either I had the ability to work and actually provide an actual project resource and do really well on that and then ask them once we've succeed to open it up or if they're not a direct hiring manager then I just prove it as much as they can by information, references, references to work projects we've done, customers we supported, success cases that kind of stuff, that's typically what I'll do. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess like curious to get your thoughts on this and I should like when you think about the like sales process, when you think about being in the room when you know often is being considered as a program partner or whatever the terminology is, does the sales process look different if it was the typical contractor hire stuff? The reason I'm asking this is because I feel like whenever I speak to people when they're on this journey of wanting to win the bigger projects, you do have to rethink your sales process in the sense that for you to even get to that point of being considered, you do need to be having these meetings around the wider commercials of what are the issues, like where are we going here, like why is this project important? If we don't have the people on this project delivering what's the consequences of that, right? You know that isn't going into a conversation going like, oh do you need someone of React experience? Yeah, I've got loads of them, do you know what I mean? And jumping straight into that, like is that something that you've had to evolve over time as well? Because I feel like from my conversation to how there were people, it does require a different sales process and a different approach. I don't know how you feel about that. Yeah, I think it depends who you're speaking to. Again, I think, if I look at my sales process, I think I have certain things that are my non-negotiables that we cover, but some, I think the thing you mentioned is why call reactive recruitment, right? Hey, you need a React person. I've got someone great. Solution selling is the difference. And the sale, I don't think the sales process is necessarily different, but you're covering different avenues. You know, you're still doing, you still have your beginning middle end. You still have the end goal, but if you work with professional services managers, all they care, they're just reactive. They have projects that need people. If you're working with a solutions practice manager, where they're going in and they're hiring people to sit down with customers and help them redesign an entire infrastructure. You need thoughtful people, you need thinkers and you're essentially going to be selling in an entire program. So I think it really just depends on the person you're speaking to and what they need to are as well as where I would change it. I think what you need to be able to do as a good contract recruit is be able to do all aspects of contract recruiting and sell in every single different way very confidently. I think the issue is people are very good at reactive selling, but they don't understand the solution side. They don't understand long-term strategy. They're just thinking about now. Let me get someone in and then let me go on to the next. I think you've got to look at the bigger picture. If a company goes, if a technology company goes to work with a large bank again and the bank all they need to do is they want them to host their data center. What that company should be doing is, let's first start with the data center and then we can lead from that into getting all of their software projects and do all of their websites and do their applications and from there we can do the testing and then we can look at their AI and their ML and looking at all of that, looking at the whole picture. So I think for me, my fact finding the questions I would ask would be different and when I identify if this person is going to be a reactive partner of mine, when they just want me for transactional recruitment or they wanting the bigger picture, the longer scope, then my process would change slightly, but more in my approach and the kind of questions I'm asking and then the people that I'm giving to them. But I think the nuts and bolts of it are your foundations stays the same throughout, if that makes sense. You know, that does. I'm going to put you on the spot there. Yeah, gone. Because I understand what you're saying. It's the questions that you ask, the fat finding. So that's what I'm going to put you on the spot on. Like, give us an example of like, if you speak to someone that, yeah, you understand, is a lot more reactive. Like, these skillset, they've got issues. It's just more of like time to delivery or time to just get someone in. Like what does like one or two fat find questions typically sound like there compared to, you speak to someone that like you said, there's a bit more of a larger scope and it's more about like where they're going and like the wider picture. So like what give us some example of the fat finding. So reactive. I'm like, essentially, I'm asked the first thing is what's the project? What's the need? Why do you need this person? And it's like, okay, we're doing, we're doing a VMware upgrade, for example, and we don't have the expertise with the NSX or something like that. So for me, that's essentially the biggest thing for me is asking why, why do we need this person? How originally do we need them? You know, how big is it team? Where's the skill gap right now? Oh, we're just filling a skill gap or is this person going to come in and train everyone else? Those are my questions I would ask for reactive consulting essentially. And then from there, I guess if I'm on the on the solution side, the biggest thing for me is what's the long-term goal here? What are we looking to achieve? You know, are we looking to save money? Are we looking to clear some technical debt? Are we potentially going to be going through an acquisition? For me, the question would be what's the long-term goal? and understanding where they're trying to get and what they're trying to achieve, why and how, and how these people are going to change that, and what other people they don't have right now, why they don't think the people in there roster right now can get them to that point, and why do they need to go there? So for me, I think the why is, is honestly the question I ask mostly, and that question kind of leads on to the spider of other ones. Yeah, nice. Now that brings it to life, so that's really helpful. I think someone who'd be interesting then, because again, I'm sure you've fought about this, because it sounds like you've been like over time, there's a lot more strategic with the touch of cancer you want to bring on, and these touch of things. So again, feel free to create a fun wrong here, but just to frame out this question. So I think this might have been like last year when you had one of your biggest years, I think what was in terms of like this spread, because I think that's often what people are interested in. And if Ash is doing over two million in GP dollars, how many clients does he have in these touch of things, right? And I think this sort of feeds quite nicely into what we've just been talking about, and how you've been able to produce the numbers that you have. But on here, I've got this spread look, you had six core different customers, one very large customer, and five solid repeat customers. Is that right? Like one company you've been doing business with for like seven years. So that's quite interesting, right? And is that right? That's like the core elements that make up your contract book and what that looked like. Has that changed over time? Or is it always when you've done your best years? Has it sort of looked like that in terms of like six to maybe eight core customers and then you maybe have one to very large ones? Is that fair or like what's like the make up look like? Yeah, that's essentially been my the last 10 years. So just before I came out to the US, where I was strong at and where I'm good at is large accounts and growing those accounts and growing those relationships and managing them and being consistent and never letting the quality drop. I'm not the best, I would say, I'm not the best cold cooler. I'm not the best at spot business, essentially. You know, people who don't know what that means is calling someone up, doing a, you know, doing a quick place for moving on to the next one, having 50 different clients. I was never the best at that. I think I recognized earlier on the relationships with my way forward. And I think some people would say, you put all your eggs in one basket. You put in too many, you know, one eggs and not in two few baskets. But the thing is, if you're going off these large enterprise companies, they almost have like 10 different companies within the company. You know, you have different business units, you have some company that just does the banking sector, a company that just does the telecom sector, the healthcare sector. So if you can get in with all of those, essentially, you're kind of working with 10 different clients with it under one umbrella. And I think it's identifying those companies that have different business units. And I can work with all of those where having one company isn't the same as having one large client and one contact. I have one large client at about 50 different contacts at the client. You know, I work with pretty much every aspect of that client. So yes, I think the spread that you are absolutely right. But I think the context is important that it's, I think something where they get clocked maybe is they have one really gay client, but they only have one contact. And when that contact lead, they're building from scratch. And a lot of the time the person takes over has their own relationships, you're left with a dog. So for me, what I'm very good at I think is growing out the account and having multiple different relationships and managing each relationship like it's its own company, it's its own sub company in a parent company. And then I think what's really important as well as having those mid clients, the ones that come to you consistently, you work with them. You know, at my clients, I mentioned I've been working with for at least four or five years. And then I've got newer customers who the company name is new, but the manager contact is not. You know, they've moved from my old client and they brought me into their new company because of relationships I've had. So really, I've worked with one company consistently for about seven or eight years, but I've worked with different contacts that bless that company. They brought me on and I've maintained the relationships with the other company while growing the new companies as well and going through that way. So for me, I think volume, I've managed to grow out the volume, but I'm not spread too crazy right having 25, 30 different customers. I'm focused on the quality and growth of these smaller groups where I can really control the outcomes and ensure that my relationships last no matter who leaves and who comes and goes, I can still work with this company. So that's going to be my focus and I, you know, I was going after the first few years of my career, I was honestly just trying to get as many companies I can, but I couldn't build proper meaningful relationships and I thought, and for me, just, I'm just not a spot business guy. So, well, I think this is going to be my next thing which you've sort of just been going through, but I've interviewed people in here, contract recruiters who had that maybe fell into that trap of like, I've got this one huge client had an absolute mega year, like had a ton of placements that year, but like you said, it was one huge client but also one contact, and then next year something happened and their contract but got like slashed in half. Obviously, that's not always the reason, but my next thing that I was going to ask which I feel like you're just touching on was, but yeah, how, because I think I'm sure you've been around people where like, they got their weekly GP up to 20 and 25K and then they had a moment where that went down to fucking 10K or 5K because one client cut like a huge project or whatever, but it seems like, you know, with your track record, I'm sure there's been some moments where you've been like, fuck, they're cutting all these contractors and then there's been those up and down, but really, if you look at your track record, it's been like consistent, right? And I feel like you've had to be really smart with how you feature proofed your book and then I feel like there's a lot of touch on it. So, this is what I was going to ask you and like, you know, how does Ashley think about protecting his book, right? From going from again, yeah, like, you could, like, because it's that work and place and see, isn't it? That's what you could easily creep in for you. So, how, I feel like you're just touching it, but how do you think about protecting your book from having those big hits and then you're starting from scratch? Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. As you know, I'm your host here, but I'm also the founder of Hector, an all-in-one training platform powered by current top performers. We're on a mission to help thousands of recruits achieve their potential by providing world-class training delivered by today's top performers. If you're a grown recruitment business that wants an alternative way to upskill and develop your team that doesn't involve having to spend more time doing it yourself or pulling the responsibility on your already time-port billing managers, then you should check out Hector. After successfully implementing Hector in several recruitment companies, we've helped them reduce the time it takes for their consultants to do their first 360-deal, improve important performance metrics like jump-to-fill ratios, and even increased the average billing per head by 20% for multiple recruitment teams. You can check out Hector and learn more about how we can help your business and book a call directly with me in the link in the show notes. So, mitigating the risk by spreading the relationships to ensure that you're supporting all the different markets out there, right? And that's what I mentioned, I said that the companies you work with, they have almost different businesses within the business. When you go through recessions or layoffs and things like that, if you look at it, typically it's certain industries. Some industries get affected in some thrive. If you think of COVID, for example, a lot of industry struggle, but some absolutely thrive. During COVID, I think it was hospitality food drink. I mean, it was probably the worst time to be in that industry, but IT communications, anything to do with anything virtual, anything to do with Zoom, all of these hosting, they absolutely thrived, right? So, understanding where the market's going and being able to be flexible enough to follow that market and double down on the areas of market where it's going. For, I think stocks are a good example I could probably use. I have a stocks account and my spread is quite widespread. It's across many different industries. When the oil and gas industry is doing really well, I'm doubling down there, but keeping, still keeping a good trickling in tech and telco and things like that. And then as it starts to shift, I bring it out and I go back again. So, it's just about ensuring you're staying on top of the market, seeing what the trends are going, but ensuring that you don't do all or nothing. I think people do that like, oh, I'm just going to do is manufacturing because that's really heavy right now. And then you essentially forget about telecoms and you've done nothing there. And then manufacturing goes down and slows down, and telco goes up, but all the relationships are gone because you left it and now other people are capitalizing. So, ensuring that you've got an insurance blanket spread across all the different markets as much as you can. I think that's helped me stay afloat and being flexible moving with the times and ensuring that I understand where it's going. And the way you do that is obviously you get your information you're speaking to people, but having those relationships in place and keeping in touch. I have relationships where they haven't been able to hire for 15 months. We're still chat regularly. I still treat them like they're buying client. They just can't right now, but they might in a year. They might in six months. They're going to call me eventually. So, that relationship is key. I think people, what they do is they follow the money where it is at the time. And it's all present. They're not looking at the long term the future. They're just like going to right now and they put these blinders on, and they're just there. And then that's gone. And then they've forgotten about this whole pipeline. So, for me, I think what I've done well is I've made sure my future pipeline is consistently growing. My relationships are staying consistent and up to date all the time. So, when this market goes like this, my relationship come back and it's all there and I'm staying well if it. That's I think what I've done. I'm proud of it. I think I've done well. It's just ensuring that. And I think people feel it as well. If you're like, oh, where have you been for last 12 months? I haven't heard from you. Now the market's good. You want to reach out. People know what you're doing. You know, say those things go a long way. And I think that had a positive, a really good positive effect on me that I didn't disregard any relationship just because the market wasn't going to allow them to spend loads of money with me right now. But instead they could spend loads of money with me in a year and a year from now that might money is still going to be extremely important to me and relevant, right? Because, you know, that business, you know, whatever it is. So I think people need to have that long-term vision. And I think too many people have two short-term, two just present-only and not thinking about the bigger picture and then they get caught, you know, in what you've seen. And so there are things that are on for scene. You might have done everything well and you have a client who just shuts his doors or gets acquired or they just, you know, they lose a contract. You see that happen all the time. That happens. But if that happens and all of your contractors go and you've got nothing else, then you haven't done enough, you know, critical planning in my opinion. And you haven't thought about what could go wrong. I think that sometimes thing, you know, not to be negative, but you've got to think about what happens if this goes, do I have other relationships? When, where can I go? Am I going to be starting from scratch? And just ensuring that no matter what happens, you're never going to be starting from scratch. And you've always got a base level to build off. That's I think what I've done is maintained a consistent level of relationship of communication with those people to ensure that as the market goes, you know, so does that. And I'm never caught left with nothing essentially. It's interesting, right? Because it like sort of looks back that round, like you said, at the beginning of that, like the information, right? You're going to be making the smart decisions. If you're listening, you're asking good quality questions, you're being diligent with your information that you were getting. But now that that's really helpful. So I guess we round out here then, like talk to me about like you've been in this game for a long time, like clearly you think about what you're doing a strategic way methodically, like how, when I say to you, like what has Asha had to continue to really focus on when it comes to his craft? Like I feel like you've mentioned principles a lot. I think you gave me the analogy when you're prepared for this, like you can't just rely on the protein shake to get big, right? You got to eat correctly. You got to stay consistent. So I'm just curious, like when someone's done it for as long as you had, you know, you've had some consistent high performing years, like what's your mindset towards like what have you really had to remain sharp with and focused on? You might say relationships again, but like what have you really had to stay focused on and make sure show up every single day that you do to make sure that, like you said, you don't find yourself in a situation where you're like, fuck, I dropped the ball there and I've now paid the price. I'm a big believer of the eight broke. Don't fix it. My processes work for me. So I follow my processes on everything, right? The same candidate, you know, candidate qualification candidates resume my formatting, you know, my company team will tell you, they'll send me a resume and I'll reject it. If it doesn't, if it's not uniform, I'm not sending it. You know, I'm like that. I like, I've made sure from the beginning, I'm uniform and everything I do. And I've stayed with that uniform. I've stayed with that code of conduct. This made me successful. And I stick to that every day. I don't differ or stray from the path. I do the basics. And I use that, again, my team are probably going to hate me to send this because I drill it to them all the time. I don't stray away from my foundation. And I didn't forget what made me, you know, what made me good in the first place was like my first company. They would came me with KPIs man. And I'd like, oh, what is this? But now I get it because it made sure that repetition just became automatic. You know, it was a reflex. So I do all the same things meticulously, right? And I follow my process like a uniform. My resume submissions are always the same. The resumes look tight. There's no typos. It's a uniform. I don't stray too far away from the path, double down on the areas when I'm getting success. Always be willing to learn and to listen, I think as well has been a big thing for me, understanding that I'm not always even if I've got 12 years experience, someone with two years experience could be, you know, could be, could be right. It's sometimes a tough pill to swallow. But I think my biggest thing, honestly, to summarize and not go too far for the answer is just sticking to my principles and my foundation and hitting the basics really, really well, you know, making sure when we speak to a candidate, we hit all of the interview questions that we need to ensure that they're a viable candidate. Never panic send anyone. I would rather not send a candidate than send three shitty candidates. That's a, I am massive on that. I would rather send no one than hitting hope. My brand is on the line. And I protect my brand and my reputation at all costs. So I've never done anything I'm not sure of. I've never put someone in the mix that I'm not that I haven't been diligent with. I haven't taken, you know, too many crazy risks. If someone was like, ah, 50/50, I'll just throw them in and see what happens. I never do that ever. I don't honestly rather not send someone. I think me sticking to those principles has helped me maintain 11 of quality because clients appreciate that way more. If they come to me with something and I can't do it, I tell them, hey, I can't do this. It's not in my remit. We don't have anyone. I don't overpromise. I deliver. I stick to what I'm good at. Double down in those areas, triple down. You know, if I need to, essentially, and adapt with the times a little bit with the technology stuff, but I think about, you know, 20 years, 30 years, I think the foundations of recruitment will always be the same. You know, the same way you build a house, you need a good structure first. And I think for me, that structure has hasn't changed essentially in 10 years. And I think it's important for people to have their uniform and have a really good code, right? A formula that they follow and they can easily teach to people as well so their team can become successful. So I know it's a bit of a long-winded answer, but honestly, that's. No, because what I hear there as well is like the. Whenever I have these conversations, when people have performed at a high level for a consistent amount of time, it is, yes, doing those things that you mentioned, showing up, doing them and sticking to them, but also not letting your standard slit is like the other elements that, right, you've really. You've maintained your standards, like you said, like, and that's just as important, as well as showing up every day and treating those contracticals as if, like, you've just started out, you're asking those important questions, you know, you have to, you're not getting complacent, but then you're also really maintaining those standards and holding yourself to those standards. And if you do that for a long enough time over a long period of time, you build a reputation, you build repeat customers, and that's something that you can, like you just said, build a repeatable process around. It's just about sticking to it, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Well, I think actually, I think. Well, I don't know, it's hard because I always have this argument with my wife, I'm someone I just get up and I just do it, you know, and we can be opposite there. But I think people make it harder than it needs to be, in my opinion. I think people over complicate what we do. I think the foundation, the basics, have to be the strongest thing that you do. And yet, that has to be air, watertight air, you know, that has to be just perfect, essentially, right? And then, on top of that, like you mentioned, the protein sheet, you can do your extras. You can go out networking and do your, you know, join the groups and do Twitter and do all those cool stuff, which is, it will help you grow. But if your foundation is weak, all those things won't matter. It doesn't matter. If you can't deliver, then, you know, a lot of the time you only get one chance, okay? Most clients, maybe they'll give you two max, but you can do all that stuff. If you don't have a good process, you don't have a good product, which is everything. I think as well, people of what they do, one thing I've noticed is people have a pedestal where they put the client first over the candidate, which is crazy to me. It's a 50/50 partnership. The candidate, the contractor is everything. They are your product, essentially, right? They are, they represent you in your name, and you want to ensure that what you're putting out there is as perfect as you can get it. And understanding that the candidate and the contractors that you have are equally as important as the clients that are buying from you is your first step to understanding the form of being successful in contracting. And never, I tell everyone, I don't ever promise, I'll have five resumes to you by another day. Don't say stupid shit for the sake of it, right? That's not impressive to anyone. What they care about is that you are delivering. So never sacrifice, you know, sounding good for actually being good. Stick to your guns and commit on what you know you can deliver on. Don't stray away from those things, and I think people will be fine. But that's why I've done very strict with my team, man. I make sure, honestly, we're uniform if they don't, if they get off the phone and ask, I've had someone call a candidate four times in a row. I'm like, go and get it. You know, I will do it. It's repetition because I, without that information, you need to know your product and sign an out. You're selling a car. They, you know, they need to know everything, right? It's the same thing. You need about the people with a personality. What have they done? How do they deliver? It's not just what they, how much money they save people in the past. Where are their strengths? All of it. When they ask me questions, I don't want to have to go, oh, let me, let me call them back on. Let you know, I know everything about that person. So that's for me coming down from those meticulous things, having a good uniform and throwing that process always. Stick to that. And honestly, I don't see why no anyone could have been successful in contracting to be honest. Actually, there we go. That's our masterclass on BD, the important as standard basics. Ash, thank you so much, mate. And, you know, Kudo, stay everything that you've built, mate. Like, I think, to do what you've done for a long period of time, consistently showing up. I think it's a lot about you, what you're about. So, yeah, amazing work, mate. And thanks for coming on the pod. Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate you, dude. I hope there were plenty of golden nuggets for you to take away. As you know, I'm your host here of the recruitment mentors podcast, but I'm also the founder of recruitment mentors. We're a online subscription based learning and education platform. We're on a mission to help thousands of recruiters achieve their professional goals and successfully progress their careers through modern and engaging online learning. So if you're a recruitment business owner listening to this, there's a good chance that you value self-development, personal development. You're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement. But we've partnered with a number of grown recruitment companies who were struggling to understand how they can invest more in their people, how they can upskill them more quickly without spending more time, without having to spend thousands of pounds of external trainers, and we've ended up being a really great fit, modern fit for recruitment teams. We can ultimately help you get more out of your teams by giving your people access to modern and engaging online learning, which they can access on demand. The thing that's really cool about what we're doing with recruitment mentors is that all of the people that your teams are able to learn from and the people that are delivering the learning content are people that are in roll right now, they're billing, they're actively facing the challenges that your teams are and a lot of the time they're amongst the top performers within their companies which means your teams are going to be way more confident to learn and spend on their learning when they know they're learning from people that are doing it right now have been there and done it there's nothing worse than feeling like training is not relevant and not current. The best place to find out more about recruitment mentors and if we can help you accelerate your team's performance is a semi-missage on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn directly and I'd love to connect with you and to find out if we can help you get more outwalled your people.