8 Steps to Building a £15k Weekly GP Contract Book From Scratch With James Holder

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Puckcast. This week I'm joined by James Holder from Signify. In this conversation we do something that I think is going to help a lot of recruiters. James has collected a lot of experience over the last decade, particularly in contract recruitment. He's now in the States and recently has had to build his contract book entirely from scratch and in six months, under six months he got that to 15k weekly GP. So in this conversation expect to learn the eight steps that you can take that James took to do that. We cover things like specific LinkedIn recruits, tactics and strategies that you're going to be able to use and start implementing straight away so you can get better results. How to call candidates, how to generate leads consistently, how to attack target accounts from top down and why that's important. Solution selling. What does that mean? How do we do it? The importance of process. It's amazing margins. Building your brand. There is so many practical strategies in this conversation that you're going to be able to immediately take and apply to your recruitment desk. I'm really excited to hear the feedback on this one because there's so many nuggets in this conversation. Enjoy this week's episode. James, welcome to the Puckcast. Thank you for having me. Also I know that you do your own Puckcast. You've listened to this Puckcast. Many times. So there's a couple of things that hopefully we're going to achieve by the end of this for everyone listening. We're going to have a real good go at attempting to give people actionable steps on building a contract book from scratch specifically to get to the milestone that I often see contract recruiters celebrate. Sure. Obviously there's plenty of milestones that you can celebrate along the way but oftentimes I'll see founders leaders really celebrate their team or people in their team against that 15k weekly GP mark. With your recent experience of joining your most recent business, you've been there for under six months. You had to start from zero. You've recently hit that milestone. So we thought it would be really cool to combine everything that you've learned because this is what you've been applying and how you've been doing there. Sure. I'm going to give people, as we map it out here, about eight steps that people can take. The famous eight steps. If they want to have a real good go at building a contract desk, get into this point as quickly as possible. But I guess before we do that, let me just give people a bit of context. So ten years in recruitment, various different brands, but it's always mainly been contract with a little bit of permanent on the way. Mainly contract. Yeah. Obviously you started in Bristol. Yep. And then you've made your way to the US. You're now living in the Nosten. Yep. You know, under six months in this new journey and then I think one of the things that prompted me to drop through your note was one of your linked impulse, which I've got up here where, yeah, in four to five months, you've hit that 15k weekly GP. Yeah. And we're going to break that down. So normally I like to just go straight into it, but it is a cool story. I like it. And obviously, like you said to me, it is a big part of your life. So if that's the case, let's talk about it. Talk to us about this relationship with your dad. Yeah. It's driven you to succeed in recruitment, how that happened. Yeah. So throughout my whole schooling career, I was pretty lazy. I think I had the talent, but I never really applied myself and I kind of took that into the workplace a little bit. And so I ended up in a dead-end sales job in about three or four miles from my house. And I never forget driving back from a football game. I'd be a sports star, rovers, and we were playing Birmingham City in the cup. And it was late at night when we drove him back. And it took us about two and a half hours to get back. And my dad throughout the whole time was basically moaning about how I would never be a success if I didn't change my life. So the following day, I looked online and saw the big headlines of recruitment, how much you could earn, et cetera, et cetera. And so I said, "Dad, I'm going to apply for a recruitment job." And he said, "You won't last six months." I said, "Right, OK." So you wanted me to change my life. You wanted me to change the job, but you don't think I have the resilience. So I was like, OK, so that's why I basically joined recruitment and wanted to prove him wrong. That was my wife. It wasn't money. It wasn't success. It wasn't status. It was proving my dad wrong because he was my idol growing up and still is to this day. And to make him proud of me was a big wife. So when I got my first big commission check, I put it on his desk and said, "Have I proved you wrong now?" And he said, "OK, you're getting there." And then 10 years later, finally he's coming to Austin in a couple of weeks and he said, "He's very proud of me, so I kind of ticked that off." No, yeah. And that feels good. That feels good. Yeah. It is important that we try and figure that out. Like for me, building a business, whenever I feel unmotivated, a bit directionless, I have to come back to the sort of what I'm doing, what I'm doing. If I haven't thought about that or if I don't come back to that, you can very easily just feel like just unmotivate sometimes what the hell am I doing it for. Particularly in recruitment, it's difficult, right? It can be a really fanceless task to do. I think figuring this out for yourself and it might have all over time is key. Yeah, I completely agree. Should we get into these steps then? I guess maybe just to add a bit more context. Because you obviously started in Bristol. Yeah. How long have you done the US market for? I've done the US market for about four years. Four years, okay. And then before that. And then just UK contract, IT. So I worked with some big companies like Opus G2 was when I first started. Then I moved to America with Interex, working under Jamie Fraser. Now I work as a signifier in Austin. What industry do you now do? I do software engineering and senior leadership. The way that my market and my network has been built over the years, I've kind of got two platforms because I do my own podcast as well. But where I speak to senior leaders, I thought there was a gap in the market for leaders to come on and tell their story. So my network is two. It's CTO, CIO, CIOs, but also software engineers. So I kind of mixed between the two. Obviously there's big fees associated with placing C-suite people, but also the contract piece is the software engineers that I place, team builds and things like that. Okay. So let's get into these eight steps. Yeah. The first step that we wrote down, which I thought was quite interesting, was set up a calendar account. Yeah. It's the best way to manage your desk and it's autonomous. Like, honestly, calendar for me was probably the biggest game changer. It's free. I know the head of engineering very well. I've taken up for a few drinks in Austin for a few times and I know and personally, because in the US it's very difficult to get someone on the phone just by call calling them. It's almost impossible. So they like it when it's in their diary and you can speak to them at specific time. They know you're calling them. You're not going to hassle them. So I set up a calendar and I just send my link out. And then my calendar gets filled. Like, if I could show you my calendar now, I don't have a spare half an hour during the day. I am back to back. And my, I guess, philosophy is I'd much rather have 17 conversations. I know I'm guaranteed to have per day rather than make 150 calls and leave 140 voice emails. Like, I'm all about working smarter, not harder. So, yeah, setting up a calendar account for anyone that doesn't, you need to. Basically. So really the big driver there, of course, the goal is, can we fill our diary up with meetings versus activity and hoping it we're going to get a hold of people? 100%. For example, next week my calendar is fully booked. So I don't need to even think about the, of course, I need to do some research on the people I'm speaking to, but I'm not, like, twilling my thumbs, thinking, okay, who am I going to call next straight away after one calls done? I'm into the next. And that way I'm always busy. I've got a mind that it can sometimes wonder that school period of my life where I was a little bit lazy. Do I still have that probably a little bit? This way I can't be lazy because I always have to be on the phone. So my call times are four hours a day. Consistently, I'm always top of the call stats because I have calls booked in. A lot of the team don't do that. And one of the things we're trying to get across on our business at the moment is work smarter, not harder. And by using candidly, it automated all for you. I've been religious with my meetings links, but obviously sometimes you've got to drive the activity to get those meetings, but for, of course, what different meetings have you got, but because you've got to be really organised with that, just out of interest, like for me, for example, I've got an integral, I've got a virtual coffee link, I've got different links. Yeah. How have you organised that if this is really part of your strategy? So it depends. So like from a candidate perspective, I have it colour coded. So I know exactly. So for example, candidates in the morning, clients in the afternoon, Jamie actually taught me to be honest. It's that having the candidate sprint in the morning, getting all your leads, getting all your hot information, and then using the afternoon to chase those leads down and those hot information down. So you send out invites, they accept them, they don't accept them, but gradually as you build the trust with the client, they'll end up booking in and then now I've got to a stage where it is fully autonomous. I don't need to, I don't need to cold call anymore. I don't cold call. For a fact, I don't think I can't be blaster, I've put it to cold call. And that's because you've done the hard jobs of building your network. Correct. Building your credibility. Correct. Yeah. You're having conversations which drives more conversations, which drive a referral, which drive leads everything. Exactly. Because it always been your experience in terms of this sort of perception of in the US, you've been in effect of a cold calling. Because I'm just curious, because I feel like from the people that I've met and spoken to, they'd probably say that from their experience doing the US, people can be more accepted to pick up the phone. Yeah, do you know what, it was weird, like when we set up InterEx Miami, there was only four or five of us, and we were bashing the phones at two, three hundred dollars a day, getting nowhere, and we had to change something. It wasn't going to, it wasn't working. And then we came up with a strategy. which enabled us to get higher managed on the phone very quickly. We didn't know they were hiring at the time, but actually proper conversations, getting in front of people. And using canedly was something that I took up on myself to research and work out by allowing someone to find their own time, rather than me pushing them to do a meeting, sending them a link, and then they can choose when they want to speak to me, not when I'm pushing it down their throats. Then the UK is very different, but for the US, I think there are a lot more receptive to just ease off. I think the UK recruitment mentality is very aggressive and very fast pace, whereas the US side, I believe, is a lot more slow pace, structure. They like to take their time and decision making and things like that. So I just had to adapt to it, and I think I had adapted it pretty well. I think when I joined Inter-X, I was non-billing. I was telling my team to do that, and they did do that some extent, and then I went back to billing, and then I just, that's all I did. Right. And that's how I've got to, I've got to in such a short space of time. Yeah, and I think it's really important. You've got to figure out there's different things, right? There's different nuances to markets or that, but you've got to figure out, like this is part of it. You've got to experiment and figure out what works for you right, and it sounds like you've found a system that really works for you and is working with the people that you interact with, and your bit of relationships with. So first bit, I think just fundamental, all of your activity, you're usually driven by meetings. So this is why we want to start with step one. Can you just be a bit more organised, you're meeting, like save the back and forth, give people a bit more autonomy to find time to speak to you? Yeah. That's something that could be really useful for people to do. 100%. So the next step is then we're more mapping out companies and people that we want to be speaking to, because we're starting from zero, so we set up a calendar, the account. Now we actually need to go out there and try and drive meetings, sure, and conversations. Sure. So we put here, you would put a specific search on LinkedIn recruiter, yep, zero to zero at current company, just to make it obvious for people. So this is something again I found out by myself, well, I'm not saying that I found this out myself, because it's on LinkedIn recruiter, I'm sure loads of people are doing this, but there's a search on advanced, if you go on LinkedIn recruiter and go on advanced search, there is a tab which says, "Years at current company", and you can put that zero to zero, which basically implies that if you put a boolean search of the job titles of the candidates you recruit for, like software engineer, or data engineer, cloud engineer, whatever that might be from an IT perspective, you bring up a list of candidates that have joined companies in 2024. So my process was okay, so if I bring up that list, that means there are those other companies that have got budget, they've got projects going on, they're in a hiring cycle, and they might use agencies, so that was warm for me. So what I did then was go okay, so let me speak to these candidates, let me find out what's happening within the project. Another Jamie Fraser, I guess term is uncover pains and problems within a project, and then use that as a solution sell to the hiring manager. So what I like to do is speak to multiple candidates within the company that have joined in a specific year. I can see a hiring trend, I go okay, so I'll look at that, I'll go okay, so clearly there must be something going on here, because there's been four people that hired a May, three in June, two in July, which means there must be a large project going on. I'll speak to all of them, I said, "I spoke to Peter." So I speak to Peter, he tells me one bit, "I then speak to Paul," and I say, "Paul, Peter told me this is happening with the project, does that the case?" He goes, "Yes, Paul, so there's this." I then speak to Catherine, who then tells me that Peter and Paul are right, but there's also this. So eventually what I end up having is a spider's web or an org chart, I have lots of different people telling me all these different things, then I go to the hiring manager with a very specific solution to what the project's lacking, and it's working. [laughs] Nice. Step through, you had cool candidates, I want to get into that, because I think that's what a lot of people are interested in. We're just talking about market mapping here and being strategic. Sure. So how often are you doing that? If you think about your week in terms of looking at companies, because I feel like when I've sat down with contract recruiters, a big part that you want to understand when you're building out your market is what companies have used contractors. Right. I feel like, I don't know, I know that's fairly basic, but I feel like this also goes into it in terms of speaking to people. You're trying to find companies that have got a history or have hired contractors, like that's a key bit of info, right? Well, for me, every deal I've done that's contract has been a perm job at the start. Okay, that's interesting, for. So I've made it. I've made it. Yeah, I've never picked up a contract job as a signify. They've all been perm. But I've converted them to contract. Okay, interesting. So contract to hire for me is a game changer, because you get two fees. You get the revenue from the contract, and then you get the, obviously, the conversion fee. So for me, I never picked up contract jobs. It was all perm. I asked them open questions about how long have they been looking, how much success that they had with an interim solution work, with a contract to hire solution work, try before you buy. It's almost like a working interview. So you can see how they integrate within the team before committing to them full time. You've got a bad mind in the US. If you hire the wrong full time employee, it costs them a lot of money to get them out. So that's a perfect sell is the contract to hire model. You bring them in for six or 12 months, see how they integrate the team. And then also you can justify their salary expectations. You can justify bringing them in on the long term. So I'm kind of going against the grain from what other people have told you. But yeah, I have not picked up one contract job and I'm a signify they've all been put. - Fair. Right, let's put a pin on that then. So we're going to be back to that. Because I know people, they're going to be like, right, we need to understand. Okay, so how many understand that? And in terms of this step with the companies that you're looking at, the premise of that is that it's more a project led basically. So like you're looking at the tops of skillsets and the people that are getting in, which can give you an indication because you're a market expert, it's the potential things could be happening project-wise. - Right. - Okay, I got you, man. Okay, fair. So I'm just going to wrap this bit up. How often are you doing that? Because I think that's something we'll, we always hear this word market mapping. The best recruiters always do it. - Weekly. - Okay, every Sunday. - Right. - Every Sunday I send my messages out for the week. Curious, like what would be a product of market map? Like how many companies do you not mean that? How often are you? - It's the most mind numbing thing to do. But so on LinkedIn, you can, there's a tab that said hide previously viewed. - Ah, okay. - I basically have to click through every single profile. Like the thousands that are on there, until I get to a point where there's no more. And then every week I refresh that. And then that brings me up with 50 people that I've joined companies that week. So then I know they are hiring. They just literally just hired someone that week. So then I get to them. I present them with a job, naturally they're not going to take it because they've just started. And then I find out, okay, that's not a problem. Just set up for market research purposes. Yeah, what's it you're doing over there? And then I get strung to the hiring manager. So it took me hours and hours and hours to get through the thousands of profiles. But it's worth it now because all I need to do is have the safe search, I refresh every Sunday. All the people that upload there, I'm sorry every Monday, every person that starts a new job on a Monday updates their LinkedIn. And now I have all the people that have started these new jobs, so these are all these different companies. - Do you keep that just in LinkedIn or have you got like a spreadsheet? - Ah, I keep it in LinkedIn. - Okay. - Because the spreadsheet would be thousands. (laughing) - Okay, yeah. - All right. So there we've covered being strategic or where to put your focus time, energy, right? - Yeah, market mapping. Step number three, we had cool candidates in this company. She's obviously already touched on. But I think what people might be thinking, you just touched on it there. I think it might be something that I asked you when we prepared for this. But under this we've got like you've mentioned it. Understand the pain in these projects. Every project has some sort of issue. Provide a solution to this. Job's relationship, selling, building, changing and rather the next time round, something around job related. Building all charts for this business. Like you said, the spider webs piece, gaping X project, this is your cell essentially. So this is all information gathering, all of that. But what I'd just love to understand from your perspective is again, this is from the context of, we might have got some contract deals we're early on, but we're doing it from a stand start, which is what you've been doing. What's in it for them? That's what I just want to understand your perspective on. Like when you're calling these people or when you're speaking to them, when you're reaching out to them. Like what's in it for them? (dramatic 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 head hunting platform. 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So click the link in the show notes or you can go directly to sourceware.com/demo. I think from a candidate's perspective is they've seen my track record so they know I'm not a rookie. They know that I'm fairly good at what I do. So I think in the US it's very different like they like partnering up with people for the long run. So if I speak to a candidate, a really good candidate and I say look, I know you're not looking now but let's just keep in touch. He knows and I've got his back or her back for the rest of their career. So if they're not looking now, they've got me like every single corner this is another tip I'd give them every everyone is text them so they have their number saved. Like there's so many times I've seen people in different offices and different businesses try and call people who they've spoke to hundreds of times but because they don't have their number saved they don't answer the phone. So like immediately whenever I speak to someone I always text I'm saying James from signify and they say by number and then every time I call them they always answer because they have my number saved. So I think going back to answering your question, what's in it for them? I think it's the long-term partnership and knowing that I guess if you're part of a project and I can help make that project easier for you and your workload, why would they not want to give me that information if you saw it or me? Yeah, no idea. I'm just trying to think about how would you go about like that's quite hard to get that all across right? Of course. I think that's what I think is really important. I think that's what I think is really important to me. So I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me. So I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I might get 10 responses. If I speak to those 10 and I give names and a bit of I guess credibility to the call, they're more likely to give me information because they're going to be working on the same team right? And then all of a sudden, then my name gets around eBay. I'm using eBay as an example by the way, but like I get my name around and all of a sudden they then start coming to me and saying like, I know you've spoken to my colleagues. I'm not looking now, but it'd be great to connect for the future. Right. So I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think that's what I think is really important to me is that I think is really an expert in the market. I'm curious to know what's going on and how I can help. Right. And understand from a technology standpoint, you know, my track records speaks for itself. And I just want to help and find out more about what you do and how good you are and feed the ego a little bit. I mean, people love talking about themselves. And especially tech people. So if I can get just one person on the phone whether it be an architect or an engineer or regardless of the engineering level, they're willing to give information. Okay. Let's maybe actually talk about this for a sec, because I feel like this is quite central to like how you approach things. Yeah. So I think from a candidate perspective, it's really important to find out what's going because there are the eyes and ears on the ground. Right. So I can find out that it's the project behind the deadline. Do they lack the talent? Do they lack the actual technology skill set? So they lacking in a certain area where they're not going to be able to do that. So I think that's the thing that I'm going to do. I think that's the thing that I'm going to do. I think that's the thing unless you don't know what the issue is or what the need is. If I have a bucket full of pens at home and you try and sell me a pen, I don't need a pen because I've got loads of pens. If I'm down to my last pen and ink's running out and you try and sell me a pen, I'm going to buy that pen. It's just a different way of working for me. I'm going to get to the grain with a lot of people here. No, not necessarily. It sounds like the reason why that's important is because like what you said, then you're generally going to be able to sell a solution to a client. Because instead of you saying, I can see that you're hiring this person or you're looking for this person or do you need this person, you're saying, I might be wrong here, but this is what I understand about X-Project. These are some of the issues that I've learned. I've actually got someone that has an experience of a track record of solving these types of issues or has done these types of things. Is that someone that wants to speak to me about or? Yeah, exactly that. For example, let's say an end customer is using Microsoft as a way of deploying a new cloud solution. I know Microsoft are a sentia. For example, massive consult and see a charging $350 an hour for an engineer. I find that out. Then I'm going to go in and low ball them by 75 percent because my margins, they're taking the mic a little bit, the sentia. That's what I'm trying to find out is the consultancy is charging too much. Can I low ball them? Can I often the better quality contract to hire again? Something massive on. Accenture won't give that opportunity. They want to keep their resources as well, whereas I allow the client to take my resource on directly. I lose that. There's those opposing cons. I just try and undercover as many pains as possible and then come up with a solution, whether that be a tailored email, really specific or a really good pitch on a call to where they can't say no. So just curious, if I was in your team and I said to you, James, I've built out this company or I built out this project or whatever, what would you expect to see? What would be like a good job of that out of interest? So from a candidate perspective. If we've done this candidate a bit well, we've spoken about the pains in the projects. We've done a good job of that. You said around the relationship building, I can help you throughout your career, etc. But then if you're doing a good job, you're learning more about who's there, who's working where. You said building this spider web almost. I was just curious to get your take on like, if I was in your team and I sort of felt like I did a good job of that on that X company. What would you expect to see if I said you've done a good job of that? I built out that account. I would expect to see team size having the team when they last recruited, when was last person that joined the team. Where are they at what stage are they at the project? Who do they use as an implementation partner? Who are their hiring managers? Who are their line managers? Well, question I always ask candidates is what could be most improved on the project? If you could have a magic wand and wave that around and say this would be the ideal situation right now, what would it be? As long as I have that, that's myself. Then naturally I have to find the person to provide the solution, but that comes down to my network. To answer your question, I think if someone on my team was marketing, I'd say find out the team size, find out the implementation partner, find out when was last time they had someone leave, when was lost on their someone join and who the hiring manager is. As long as they've got that bit of information and obviously the biggest pain in the project where that'd be a time and quality of cost issue, that gives me enough ammo to go into a manager and say, look, I know that Accenture are charging you ridiculous amount of money for an engine in. This is like 3k studies where I charge 100% less than what they charge you. Why would you not say no to meeting with me and discussing how I can offer you a better solution? The same quality for 100% less of the price. Yeah, that was a really good breakdown. I'm just touching it there, but why is Step 4 attacked top down? Why do you think about it really just starting from the top and then working your way down? What you mean by that is starting from the C-suite? Yes, you have all the information. Yeah. And we put here, you'd like to start from the top? Yeah, of course, yeah. And then work down. Yes. It's like starting at the hiring managers or whatever you really want to try and go at the top. Because I feel like if I get the buy-in from the C-suite straight away, that saves me 4 or 5 calls. Because if I speak to the hiring manager, he's going to go, oh, my boss will say no, I don't, you know, and then he has to speak to his director, who then reports with VP, who then reports to the CTO. If I go and straight the CTO, get his buy-in and he goes, yeah, James, that sounds like a really good thing. I skipped 4 processes and I save 4 hours of my time. Naturally, it doesn't work all the time. You might have to go to a VP that reports the CTO and get his buy-in. But I always try and go from the top down until I have to get to the hiring manager first. Other last sorry. Yeah, yeah. You're just trying to, yeah, just literally have the person that might end up having the final say. Exactly, yeah. From the beginning versus trying to get that. Yeah, because he holds the purse strings, right? And he holds the one, he's the one that's most likely to have control over which vendors they work with. The hiring manager, if he's a software engineering manager, will have little to no say apart from he has the need. And the CTO will have the purse strings, they'll have the control over, you know, he can probably tell HR to say, look, and board these guys, whereas the hiring manager, like a software engineering manager will probably be a little bit terrified of a HR director. And the CTO has the power to almost overrule that. So for my standpoint, I've always gone top down because it saves time. That makes sense. And is there anything worth noting on, you've done a good job of it already, but in terms of like we do all of the first steps really well, we've got the information on the pains on around the project, which could be one of those three things that you said. Yeah. In terms of like the pitch, which we'll go into, but if I'm going straight to CTO, the pitch is the same, like we're highlighting the same pains and challenges, it's not going to sound massively different to a hiring manager. No, I mean, if anything, I think it needs to have more gravitas to it because I interview CTOs on a weekly basis, right? And one of the key things that comes up from doing my podcast is having the business acumen to be a good CTO. And an engineering manager probably hasn't learned the business acumen side of being a CTO, the hence why they're out there at whether at. So if I can explain the cost I'm saving a CTO or a CIO or anything like that, then they're worried about the bottom line. They probably have equity in the company. They might want to sell the company in a couple of years. So if I can come to them with an immediate cost saving effect of solution, they would be silly not to engage in. So basically, just so I understand and everyone listening understands, you're saying this recent period that you've had of building this contract book from scratch, you're saying that you didn't do contract deals to style. All my deals have been contract, apart from two, but they've all been perm jobs that have converted into contract jobs. Right, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So is this the contract to hire people? Correct. So the deals that you've done were advertised or like the perception of like we need this person was we need the permanent employee. We need an FTE, got you. Until you highlight the problems, etc. and you presented a solution which was well, that isn't your own option. Yep. And we spoke about this contract to hire peace. That's been the most common way that you've started the relationship with people in the commercial sense. 100% because I think once you explain the benefits of contract to hire to a manager, it makes perfect sense to what the benefits. So the benefits are like with the introduction of AI and chat GBT, anyone can type in interview questions or guess what interview questions will be and sound credible in an interview. Okay. There's been a lot of times that the recruitment industries were now under having fake candidates and they have people that speak for them and they they mime and then you know people have been lying and fake candidates and things like that. So contract to hire is a great way to try before you buy. So you get them in for three to six months, see how they integrate with the team, see if you actually like them, see if you actually buy into what they do, see if they actually are what they say on the tin. Anyone can write a great resume, anyone can do a good interview if you can black your way through it. But then you're no very quickly if they're lying or if they're bit and the truth. So I always said it as a working interview, a try before you buy, integrate with the team and then you can make a decision based off the work they've done on what salary you offer them because let's say you offer them 150k salary and then after six months that you realise there are any worth 125, you've saved yourself 25k. We do deals with clients that if they take on a contract of 12 months, we tend to almost give them a 0% conversion fee because we've made revenue out of the contract period anyway. If they take on bulk people, they do team builds and things like that but from a client's perspective and when I educate them on it, I've spoke to VPs who have been completely against it, they've taken it to their board or their CTO and the CTO has gone, that makes complete sense, let's do it. And that's never been done before. Why do you think initially they're against it? Because they probably haven't even thought about it. People have this association with the contract, there's subject matter experts, they come in, they do the job, they leave, so all the knowledge leaves that they've brought in, right? You can't train someone up over six months and they go because then otherwise there's a waste of money, yes they've done a good job but all the knowledge has gone, whereas contract are higher, you can scale quickly, you don't have to wait for long notice periods and if they're not right, you can terminate them immediately and a US law, it's termination of wills, so whereas your FTE, you have to go through a HR process and things like that and so, and for contract recruiters as well, it's brilliant for us because we can skip the HR process from a perm perspective that normally gets done for perm jobs, we can get them in, like the normally the interview process in the US is three or four stages and it's just, you know, I try and sell it as I do the vettings, why I do the first stage, so let's do two stages and that's how I've got the deals and I've done really quickly because I've just expedited the process. Okay, so let's flip it then because maybe this is also part I might be wrong here, I'm just sort of acting as if, like I'm just assuming a few things but what I want to get into is just make sure I understand your take from like a candidate's perspective. Yep. Assuming maybe a VP might be against it, maybe they've never thought about it but also maybe they might be assuming that people wouldn't want to do that, would people actually want to work that way or know that they could just leave it any point and it's a tribe before you buy them, sure maybe it's not describing that language to them. The candidates and the people that you're then placing on that basis, would they describe themselves as a contractor? We'll get back to the episode in just one moment but before we do, I wanted to tell you about one of our partners SourceWell. Let's be honest, how much of your day is spent on tasks that don't move the needle? Send in counter-seamails, clean up messy data or tweaking messages to get them just right. It takes up too much time. That's where SourceWell can really help. It saves recruiters up to six plus hours every single week and it's AI features for you up to focus on what you do best. With the rich generating, personalized outreach campaigns in minutes or using AI to clean your data, SourceWell handles the heavy lifting so you can maximize your BD and sourcing activity without sacrificing quality. By helping you craft messages that stand out and keeping on top of your data, SourceWell is going to ensure that you connect with the right people with the right message at the right time. If you're a tool curious to see how SourceWell AI powered features can give you an edge, go ahead and book a demo with the link in the show note. I use it myself and I'm constantly impressed by how it evolves with AI and automation moving so quickly, SourceWell is going to enable you to keep that edge and keep you ahead of your competition. As I said, if you want to learn more about SourceWell and get your hands on and exclusive offer, go to the link in the show notes. Let's get back to the episode. Yes. Well, it's a mixture. I don't think you can label it one or the other. I think from a contract perspective, it's the best of both worlds because we pay their insurance on our W2. So we pay them all their benefits. If they want to go on their own LLC or their own 1099, then they get the tax relief from that as well, so they get more money. They also get to see, do I really want to work for this company? When we're working with such high quality talent, a contract to hire method for a candidate's perfect because they get paid a lot more money than a company person does. Naturally, because contract rates are always inflated. They get to enjoy that. They get the luxury of being able to see if they can want to work for the company long-term. In an interview stage, we always come to an agreement that very rarely does a contractor either not go perm or leaves. They always convert and it always works out that way. But you're right. They're not contractors per sailor. I've taken people out perm jobs and put them into contract to hire jobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be varied depending on the person. But if you'd say they'd like top two, three reasons they'd be willing and happy to do that is assuming money is going to be up there. Money. How much they can earn. I guess their thing can be actually, I could go there and then if I do actually hate it, I can leave. 100%. Also, it's a remote working as well. A lot of contractors work remotely. Whereas perm people tend to want to be on site. So more and more people now, Amazon announced last week that they were turning to five days a week. I'm not as hell and I've had hunted for Amazon in the last week. So it's been incredible. Again, more flexibility. Is that what they do? 100%. 100% flexibility. And then we write into their contract at the end. You know, we make sure there's a caveat that they do have some remote working and they do a full time because the last thing you want is someone who works in California for a New York based company remotely on a contract a higher basis and then they have to relocate after six months to New York. It's one side of the country to the other. So we've had to all those decisions in. It's so weird how I have not picked up one contract job yet. Yeah, it's interesting that it's really strange. And we as a business have a lot of big accounts that are very contract focused. I'm picking up these SME type businesses that I'm doing a few big deals here and there and but like they're not contract houses. They're just people that have a really big need and they haven't found anyone and I've just provided a solution. Yeah. To be fair, you're still in the middle of this to be fair. Like if you've done these contract higher deals. Yeah. So a short period of time for me to ask you like how many of them actually converted into Perm. It's ended up in there for 12 months. Yeah. They're probably isn't going to be a sort of converted. I will give them three. But then you're saying if it's six months or do X amount percentage. Right. And then if it's three months, it'll be a bigger percentage. It'll be a percentage of their salary of their what their permanent salary. Correct. So it's a sliding scale. Got you. So it's in their best interest to have the contract drawn as long as possible. Otherwise they pay a big of fee. Got you. When we think about solution selling, what else do we want to add there? So you've generally educated and consulted companies on like there's another way that you can solve the problem with the people on skill set that you need. You don't actually need to hire a full time employee. You can do it this way. What else comes into this solution selling piece is it back to when you're talking to these companies, you're not selling people, you're selling. I've got people that can solve these issues on that project. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not so much the people. It's more about the problem. It's not the problem with any company nowadays. Harry manages hate recruiting. They do. They absolutely hate interviews. I spoke to someone today who said he'd just come out of like four back interviews and he didn't want to speak to me but because it was in the diary, he felt like he had a duty to do so and I was just like look, well we schedule for tomorrow because you're head's clearly fried and I know from doing intonate views, it's signified that your head doesn't get fried by speaking to people. It is a lot. Try and avoid that. I try and come up with a boutique offering like a unique bespoke offering for each individual company. Not every company has the same issues. So there's a lot of research involved. I think gone are the days where you are just phone bashing and just trying to sell a cart of candidate down people's roads. I don't think that particularly for the US. I can't speak for the UK because I've done that for a few years but for the US it's very strategic. And that's why we've got here what kind of age you don't like jobs. Oh yeah. That was a big Jamie Fraser saying back into it. It's been a big hit. It's game changer for me. It's been like Jamie always said if you had the best candidate in the world and you could work with any company and he was absolutely right. because my candidate portfolio has got me into some massive companies in some small ones, but some big ones as well. And that's open doors. Because they've been a contractor that they're so good and it was a perm job, they could not take him on because he was not an out contractor. So the perm job converted into a contractor, a higher job. - We've then got step six process process process. That should be curious to hear about this. You've already given us process on mapping companies you could be speaking to. - Yeah, you could potentially be adding value to. You said you break up your day typically, morning, you're doing all the candidate piece. What are the processes around the candidate side? 'Cause like you just said, that's gonna be absolutely crucial that you're someone that is building a network and speaking to genuinely great talented people, contractors, whatever. - 100%. - What's the process around that? Like how you achieving that? - So I do a sprint every day, 9/10/30 every single day. I switch my most off. I do not disturb my phone. I have a list I call through and I have goals that I want to reach and hit. So that might be conversational, that might be leads, that might be references, that might be hobbits of information. If I don't have enough information, my afternoon is kind of wasted. Depending on how many calls I've got booked in. But realistically, like the way I've worked, it's almost like I've worked three weeks in advance if you see what I mean because I'm booking calls in with leads that I had three weeks before. So they're still fresh. But yeah, for me, process, I am a stickler for process. And again, I don't want to keep using its name, but Jamie was all about that as well. And he was always like, if you have a good process, you can't fail and doing the basics brilliantly. And he was so right in saying that because you can't reinvent the will and recruitment, it is what it is. You have to speak to candidates. You're there, your product at the end of the day. You have to believe in your product. If you don't believe in your product, how can you expect a higher manager to believe in your product? It's really that simple. And so I try and aim to add at least five to 10, really, really a star candidates to my list weekly, which I can sell. I never spec, which I'm sure will come onto. I never send a spec CV. I think it's kind of pointless. How do you get in as far as 10? Through LinkedIn Recruiter. Through the zero to zero. Because if I speak to an engineer that's been at Netflix for 10 years, what else you might be a brilliant code? He's going to be a lifer. Or he's going to be someone that's not going to be wanting to move. I'm looking for people that are moving all the time and looking to find and work with the latest new technology. That's a great thing about the technology, right? And so there's always moving. And everyone wants to work with the latest like AI, for example, machine learning, all of that new stuff that's coming out now. Everyone wants to be working for those types of companies. So my approach now is focusing purely on those companies because that's where candidates will want to work. And if I can work with those companies, my attraction to candidates is going to be a lot higher than working out, I don't know, Joe Blogs down the high street on some old Java framework. So again, it comes back down to this like zero, zero piece. So zero, zero, man. [LAUGHS] Fair. Now we'll see how you're building like explaining it all. It does make sense when at the core of your strategy is to contract the higher piece. Yeah. Do you know what? It's weird. I did a training session to the whole company today on this and the zero to zero bit. No one had spotted that before. And I had spotted it a couple of months ago and it's been an absolute game changer. And I know I'm probably giving away a lot of my secrets now. But yeah, no, it's so simple because you're finding companies that are hiring or have projects happening right now. So why would you not speak to candidates at those companies, find out as much as you can about the project, be it sound more credible because you spoke to lots of different candidates in the team, build the org chart, and then go to the high manager with the ultimate solution. Why don't you quickly touch on then because of what you were saying around it being a bespoke, try and make it personalize each time and you're talking to companies and stuff? What does your sales process typically like we've spoken about all the stuff that's happening around getting the meat and getting in front of them? But I'm assuming if they book timing with you, you're not then trying to sell them on that right. I'm assuming there's probably an element of like a discovery piece. Of course. If you're trying to really make sure the pain is there and then might have waited to fix it or whatever. And then you might then go, OK, well, because of this, let's book in another time. Yeah. And I'm going to go through how we might be able to help specific solutions for this. I'm assuming. 100%. Yeah. One of the most painful things I had to do in the last couple of months is that a client came to me and said, we need a game designer on a contract basis. And the contract recruited me was like, yes, I want to do it. But I turn away business sometimes because my biggest thing is I never want to over-pomac under-deliver. And so for me, it's all about the discovery phase. I'm bigger about process. I remember the old me 10 years ago when I first started used to annoy so many managers because I would ring non-stop. And I think that was probably down to the cult drivers in at the time. Very boil of rum and like, where's your next deal coming from? Blah, blah, blah. So I had to feel like I picked up the phone whereas now it's really simple. I put it in your diary. I don't call you before then. I don't text you before then. I don't email you before then. I call you then. And then they think, I'm never James for a week, but I know I'm speaking to him on Friday. And then what I do is I lock down the job. I book a CV profile calling 24 hours or 40 hours maximum after the initial job lock down call in their outlooks. They know that's there. And I wait to see what I stay on the call until they accept it. Once that's done, I then resource the job. I send the candidates, I send three candidates per roll, 24 hours before I meant to meet them. So they have 24 hours to review them. I then share my screen. We then go through the objections they have. I handle the objections. We then either already have the candidates' interview availability. And then we book the interviews in. And then we book a feedback call after the last interview to see who they want to hire. Process. Process. [LAUGHS] And it's so simple. And when you say lock down, so like just so understanding, because I think this will be helpful for people. So you've found out the pen's running product. Correct. I managed to do a targeted approach. They said, James, you're speaking my language. Like you're completely right. Let's have a chat. On that call, you're then like I said, I'm assuming qualifying the paying for that. And then what are you then going to suggest, depending on what you learn? Let's actually have another call. Just like I mean, surely there's a bit more of a two step. A real quick one from me. And we'll get straight back into the conversation. Some of you may or may not be aware that I am also the founder of a business called Hector. Hector is an all-in-one training platform for recruitment founders to maximize team performance. The reason why I'm sharing this with you is because if you are someone that is enjoying this podcast week after week, you might even share this podcast with your colleagues. Then I'd love to connect with you. Our training platform is powered by top performers delivering practical training for today's market. We believe training a lot of the time in the recruitment industry is dated, is stale, is delivered by people that did it five, 10, 15 years ago. And we are completely going against that. So a lot of the people that you're able to learn on this podcast, you're able to learn even more from at Hector. So if you'd love to find out more about how we could potentially help you get more out of your people, ramp up their performance more quickly, then please connect with me on LinkedIn or click the link in the show notes where you'll be able to book a call that's, let's get straight back into the episode. Yeah, so I kind of know what they're looking for before they tell me, just based off what the candidates have told me before. Nine times that attend is a talent shortage, other skill set shortage. So for example, let's say they're doing a migration from rack space to Azure, for example, I know they're going to be lacking Azure talent. So when I get on the call with the manager for the first time, I make that as a priority and saying, is it the problem? It's more like, I know that's the problem. And they go, wow, OK, you know our project better than most. They ask me how I know that. I never really reveal it because it looks like I'm trying to take talent from their company. But I just say, I've got a good network. I understand the projects, you know, I try and do with big companies. So nine times that 10, I'll say that I've heard it on the great fine and on the news that this is what you're doing. And Microsoft have their case studies anyway, but they're trying to implement and things like that and Amazon do as well. So I already know the solution. But nine times that 10 week we on the call, that is the right path to go down. But then surely you're not in that same call saying, like you should do contact higher. You'll then have another call shortly. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yo, yo, yo, yo, see what you're saying. Yeah, so we've done that. And then we'll book a follow up call in. Once they've got what you think about it, are my right for them. I'm always big about value, value ads. I don't want to be part of a PSL. I don't want to be another vendor out of 15 vendors. I want to be somewhere where you can come to me where you can't get candidates from anywhere else but me. And I've proven it right so far. I haven't been successful 100% of the time. But then they come back to me and say, you know what James, yeah, let's do this. But we want a full time person. And I go, okay, why? It's not not cool. Yeah, this is on the second call. Okay, why? Oh, because we need the foundation to the business. Okay. So then it's all about educating them. How long will it take to find it at a full time person? Well, how about this? How about we get someone in on a working interview for six months? You can terminate them immediately. We'll put an immediate notice clause in there. And if they don't work out well for you or for your replacement, they don't, none of them say no. [LAUGHS] I mean, is this all like conversation where you haven't got like a nice fancy pitch deck about-- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't do that. I'm just straight talking. Because I felt like I believe in my product. And I kind of learnt this myself the way I pitch it. And it's very unique. And I don't think many people do it that way. And I think the traditional S3 training methods are kind of updated a little bit now. And we have to change slightly the way we go about it, like doing podcasts and being more involved in the tech scene. Doing meetups and things like that is all really good. And I think a lot of companies are great at doing that. I do things very different to a lot of recruiters. When I came into the business, it signified. I don't think even Ryan or Laura and my boss expected me to do the numbers I've done. Really? Yeah, because no one-- Is this issue you had to chip on your shoulder again? A little bit. A little bit. I feel like I had to prove-- yeah, again, it's proven people wrong really. I think that's-- I just love proving people wrong and I guess it does stem from my childhood about proving people wrong and knowing a lot of my friends went to the top universities in the country in the UK and I didn't, I went to a sales job and they were talking to me about all the money they're going to earn and then now I own more than all of them. Step seven we've got maximise margins, what do we want to communicate here? So again I've got to be careful what I say because I'm not sure who is going to be listening to this. So all we're trying to say here is in terms of like the contract to piece, be smart with it. I think for me what I want to do with the contract is I have to work to a budget. So as long as the clients happy with what they're paying, the candidates happy with what they're getting, I'm happy with the margin, everyone's happy. It's when you're taking the mic out of a candidate, you're no-borning them or you're overcharging a candidate, a client for a dickless summer money, that is when I think it's a moral. I think a great deal is when the candidates happy, the clients happy and you're happy and everyone walks away thinking they've kind of won. Little bit like the candidates got a pay rise, the clients got a discount from the old contract we had. I've made a bit of money as well and then we all walk away thinking to know what I've won and do here and that's the best negotiation. Yeah, I might be completely wrong here but I guess it's a bit nuanced in terms of your market in a sense of like if you're speaking to companies that have typically used like consultancies and they're paying an arm in the leg. Yeah. That's part of where that came from maximise margins in terms of like everyone can feel like that but the margins are good because they were used to paying like you just said like exactly. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, 100%. So step ahead you were just touching on a personal branding. You know, you strike me someone who is direct, you're very focused. It's interesting that you're also done with them on the building brand piece. I know you're saying like you don't call cool and you've got your way of doing it but like just interested here you're taken like why I think it's important you're saying that it's sort of maybe changing and it's important to be part of the tech community in these things. It's funny actually because you're probably made one of the inspirations behind it, to be honest, you know, watching you and watching what you've done. You know, I was super impressed with the layout that you do your business and your own podcast and I wanted to do something different to the rest of the recruitment industry I guess in terms of setting up a podcast where I can bring leaders on and talk about leadership and I think that gets me into a lot of companies as well because I think they don't see me as a sleazy recruiter. They think I'm actually, I care which I do. I've had some really, really big like C-suite people on, talk about the stories from like Red Lobster that went into bankruptcy. I had the CIO on the week of it. They went into bankruptcy which did really well. I had the CIO of LA fitness on another bit massive company in the States and it's kind of taken off from there and big about being different in the industry. I try and do post daily to my network, my network's growing and I just try and be different. I want to be the person that I wish I had when I first started a recruitment. You know, like I do mentorship now, I do personal coaching with a very slight few people that want to be better, some business owners and recruiters and I do on a weekly session with them and I'm very selective who I work with because they are so passionate about doing well that I'm trying to betray the person that if I 10 years ago had the opportunity to look at someone like me, what would I want to give back? I love that. Whether that be from recruitment standpoint or just general help and life and coaching. It is amazing how the whole building of Brown, particularly the podcast piece, it can open a lot of doors. 100%. It's crazy. You're actually the main reason why I did it. I do think the most important thing is the intention has got to be right. Yeah, for sure. People can smell that out very quickly. I'm sure you've been intentional about who you're getting on and who you're reaching out to. Yeah. That's where I think a lot of recruiters go wrong with it. Whenever I speak to anyone in terms of like advice on it, I've got like a document on it that I've given to people because it's just the same advice. It's a lot of the time why you wouldn't be doing your podcast in 12 months time if we were to meet again, would be you didn't really see the time that you put into it and the return that you got. Yeah. I know that isn't the main reason why you're doing it, but of course, if you're spending time on it, you need it to see how it's helping your recruitment death. Of course. In your career, right? Yeah. So I always say to people, just be intentional about who you want to get on. So start always start with your existing clients because then you're going to help them build a unique asset that you can use when you can go to the market or with it and stuff like that. But then also it's relationship building time. It's account management time. Then the second 10 guess should be target clients. Obviously, like you're going to get more yeses. You're going to be able to open up the doors and all you need to do is say, "I'm James and this is what I do. This is what I specialize in." And it's about opening, right? It's just about opening relationships, opening doors. 100%. And then the next 10, if it's possible in your market is just who can you get on that has a big brand in your space that you can piggyback off? Yeah. Just because, like, I'll listen to your pull costs, not because it's James, but because someone's on there that I would expect. Exactly. So if you do that in the first 30, you've got existing relationships that you're spending time on. You've got BD time. Yeah. And then you're growing your network and you're building your brand. It's a good use of time. No longer, it's like, "Oh, I've got all this time on the pull costs." It's BD. Sure. Do you know what I mean? 100%. It's you've got to be intentional about who you're getting on. Yeah, that's the game of it, really. Yeah, yeah. I've learnt so much. I remember listening to my first one I ever did. And when I was sat in your chair and my voice was quivering and I didn't know how to ask the questions the right way, I mean, obviously you're a pro now. I feel like now I'm getting a lot better, but practice makes perfect, right? And I think a lot of the guests are nervous when they come on. But for my perspective, again, it's about giving back to the community. I have changed so much in my career from being this guy that wanted to wear a pinstripe suit when I was 21 starting a recruitment. And now, like, if you ask me to wear a pinstripe suit now, I'd be like, dude, just no thanks. I'm all good. I'm all good. Like, we have to move with the times and, you know, doing the podcast, you know, I want to write a book on leadership. Nothing to do with recruitment, but for the people that I've spoke to and they're willing to help me with that. I want to do different things and I want to help leaders in my industry, but also help recruiters. And off, I guess, a wide range of services because I love the company I work for, but at the end of the day, people buy from people. And they don't buy from me just because I work at Signifier, I work at Inter-X, I work at the Open or G2. They buy with me because they, my name's James and I've often been a service and that's why they buy into you, right? Because if you're branding, I mean, you've got like 40,000 followers on LinkedIn. So clearly, they buy into you. So I've looked at what you've done and I've tried to make, obviously, I'm not on your level. Yeah, hopefully I will be one day, but yeah, just trying to learn from the best and take bits and try and mold it my own style. Yeah, I think what I've learned this week and interviewing everyone, I do feel like I sat down with someone yesterday who's in the trenches of building the US business of the recruitment business that he's involved in. He's just saying like in the US, he just found that what's a lot more debate in the culture is just like more of that giving mentality. Great recruiters in the UK or Europe, they do get it. They don't just always give and expect something in return. Yeah. They play the long game, something like a pit top on this week when I was speaking to people about how you found the different cultures adapting. What have you noticed is what you're talking about there is like giving more than you're taking and helping others giving. I think that's also something that a lot of people maybe do here a bit more naturally in the US because they want others to succeed. Whereas I think in our culture, it's like we love seeing people get to the top and then we want to drag them down to the US. That's what I've been. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. Like typically they're like, yeah, James, I want you to succeed. Yeah, write the book like do that. Rosie, you've sent it to UK mates. They might be like, fucking, I'm like, I'm done. Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that actually because like when I want like a bean here and obviously I've propelled quite quickly to the level I have and I don't think anyone as I said, like Brian and Lauren, I don't think anyone expected to and then now it's kind of really strange because I have people come up to me that I've never met before in signify. And I don't know how they feel about me, whether they want to learn, whether they're a little bit on the fence about me because I've come in and I've kind of done my thing that this is like they've never been taught before and I'm not knocking anyone as signify for this because I think I've helped the ad and D team teach this and deliver this now and we've seen so much more improvements and as a business where we're doing so much better. But like even coming in doing so well, that can be a disadvantage to you also because now I've got to target my back and everyone's kind of hunting me down a little bit. This is you just getting again, you just want a point to prove and over the next six months thinking about this first year, with signify what are you just remaining laser focused on what you're doubling down on? Out of interest. Yeah, I think if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I was non-billing for two years and I hated it because I feel like you're not in control and I feel like you're judged based off your team's performance and no matter, like the famous phrase, you can take a horse to water but you can't make a drink. You can literally tell your team to do this and if they don't want to do it, they wouldn't do it. So you can't pick up the phone for them and I really like the fact now that I have the autonomy and I've known if I've had a good day or not by my output to my inputs and I really enjoy that. So yeah, to answer your question, I think it's more about doubling down. I want to hit the 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 K weeks. I know there's some really big recruiters out there that have hit those numbers. Naturally, you have contract, you have finishes, you need to replace those finishes. But as long as you have consistent pipeline, I'm confident I'll hit definitely. I need 25, 30 by this time next year. I've got no doubt. James, been in pleasure. Thank you for being so transparent. Thank you very much for your time being yourself and really excited to just see from afar having to continue for you. But yeah, really appreciate coming on. You've shared a lot but I just know again, it will really tie into what you're saying in terms of there'll be so many people out there that are struggling, aren't getting much help at all. Yeah. So conversations like this, like you just said, the reality of it is you can share all these things, there'll be very small percentage of people that actually do it, right? So I really appreciate you coming on sharing it and I know that it will just help a lot of people that write right now we're looking for answers, we're trying to figure out how can I get more I want my putting in like one to achieve the goals that they want but may not be getting all the help. So that's what this is all about, so I appreciate it. - All right, thanks for your time mate. - Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I hope there were plenty of golden nuggets for you to take away. As you know, I'm your host here of the Recruitment Mentals podcast. But I'm also the founder of Recruitment Mentals. We're an 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 is 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 are recruit mentors, are 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 their learning from people. They're 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-message on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn directly. And I'd love to connect with you and find out if we can help you get more outwelled to your people.