Building a $5M Recruitment Team in 3 Years with Ashley Jones

[Music] Ash, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, appreciate you having me on. It's been a little while since we spoke. You're joining me from Chicago, but you've had a few trips to the UK. But we're here now, we're ready to unpack this, this journey that you've been on over the last five years. Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing it. A bit of a crazy summer. I have two sisters and they both got my road in the last three months. [Laughter] So remind me, how long have you been in Chicago now? So I've worked for Hengtel for four and a half years just over now. And then how long have you been in Chicago? So I've been in Chicago since the end of '22. Okay, cool. So yeah, you're joining me from there. I know you, when we prepare for this, you said you always had aspirations to go to the US. We've made that happen. But in this conversation, we're going to look to sort of unpack the sort of classic journey and recruitment where you went from principal to now sales director. You're involved in the overall strategy of the business as well. So like really looking forward to delve into things when it comes to business development strategy, getting them more out of the team. Then maybe some other business stuff in terms of what you're seeing working, the US nuanced stuff as well. So yeah, there's a lot to unpack. I guess just to give everyone some immediate context, let me know if I'll get any of this wrong. Before you was contracting the UK, right? Yes. Yeah, okay. And then we move markets. Cool. So up till now, in terms of how things look for you today, so I think I've got here that you stopped being like hands on billing in 2023. Yep. Halfway free. Halfway free. Halfway free. And then now you're more in a leadership role, but part of your role is absolutely helping the team win clients, going on pictures, but then a lot of it is on the management leadership stuff. And then as you said, some of your weeks can be more on the business strategy stuff. But up until that point, I think I've got here your best year performance wise, individually was $850, which I thought was really interesting in terms of, I've got here 90% of that was contingent, and then the rest was retained. And you've always done like busting local business. And then now I'm sure you're probably even more proud of this team performance when we prepared for this that you've been involved in, been building, leading 2021 1.1 million as a team, 2022 2.5 million 2023 3.5, and I've got here on track to do five this year or that's the ambition. Love it. So why don't we start with then like I'd love us to start maybe more on like the specifics for people listening to this who want to get better on the new business side. Because I'm sure this is where you maybe spend a lot of your coaching time as well. I think maybe like if you don't mind like would you mind sharing to start what was some of the if there wasn't immediate differences that you picked up on from UK contract market to doing the business in the US, particularly obviously for you was busting like what are some of the immediate things that you picked up on early on looking back do you think in terms of the differences? Yeah, I think I think there was quite a few different things that made it a bit of initial challenge because I from a person I actually made a transition to doing permanent recruitment from contract as well. So I went in with a little bit of a different mindset as well around kind of the speed of things and and how quickly you could turn anything into every year. And I found that my my initial kind of section of the market is that things just go a little bit slower and the initial ramp up is less like see job, fill job, move on. It was far more of an approach of like adding value to the client and talking to him around and saying like what is I do and how I actually can help you hit your goals. So it's not just you know I need a software engineer during my team for Monday. Let me know when they are. It's more of a you know letting them understand like okay I work in the like local market I have access to a network of people who do this sort of skill sets this is what we can offer. You know how can I help you with your hiring process and there's a lot more kind of partnership to it with clients want you to be able to talk to them around like this is where you're probably going to struggle. This sort of skill set is a little bit more difficult to find or this might take this sort of time like that. They want a lot more of like a transparent partnership and I found it opened up relationships and clients that in the long term it comes significantly easier to work with than it was when I was in the UK. But that initial point was almost like my mindset had to change a little bit from being like you job fill job to the job of that. And I guess interesting to hear your thoughts on if I was a friend of yours right now I'm in contract recruitment I've got this great opportunity to join a business but it's going to be on the perm side. Like what advice would you give me like what would be good to bear in mind if I'm coming from that like you said that contract environment like anything that you'd share with me. Yeah absolutely so the first thing I always say to anyone and we've hired a few people into my team actually from UK contract so I tell them this exact same thing. Don't lose the mentality of speed, the urgency, the almost fear of missing out because there's so much competition you're going to lose if you're a moment slower. Don't lose that but then make sure that the client is treated like a genuine customer and that your adding value where it is. I always give them little examples of just call the customer and let them know about what's going on in the market talk to them around like what you see and if you've been speaking to some of their competitors and you see some information from them drop some of that information to them and it'll just be a lot more received from them. So I always advise that saying things but I say just don't lose the speed element because that helped me to separate when I first started because I'd be speaking to clients and be like look I'll get you three people in the next day and they'd be like oh that wasn't what I expected then when I did it. They'd be like that was that was great. They'd be on the shots so I always say don't lose that bit of hunger to fill roles quickly. I'm not surprised that that can almost become a bit more of a competitive advantage because you're so used to that urgency and competition and stuff. Why don't we go into this thing because I feel like this would be also part of the relationship piece and the bits that you're just saying when we prepared for this something that you really drove down on when I was talking about some of the things that you're passionate about some of the things that you really help your team with was I've got to written down here like being an expert in your market with like five exclamation points. Do you want to just talk us through what that means to you? Because I feel like this is something that won't be new to anyone. For some people it might be. Some people might perceive that they are an expert in their market but how would you define that? Why is that so important? Talk us through that. Yeah, I think for me I put the most weight into this as to what made me successful and it has helped me help people be successful is just truly understanding what you were talking about. And when I said to clients for me it was like I always say to clients like I'm not an engineer I'm never going to be an engineer I don't know how to do this stuff in itself but like I understand why you need certain people to do something and it used to help me get a lot of buy-in from candidates and clients alike. So like for example for me it was like I always wanted to know if they were working on a medical device like a surgical robot alarm. What three chips were most likely going to be used so that when I was speaking to a client I could really dig into it and like okay how are you using this? And then before they could say to me I'd be like okay does that mean using this language to do this? And it would allow me to get a buy-in that immediately put me on more of a partnership level with the clients as opposed to a recruiter level. And I always used to say this and it's maybe sounds a little arrogant at the start but I always say look I'm not your normal recruiter I genuinely know this market. So let's really get into the depths of what you're looking for here. And the buy-in I used to get from that was kind of unparalleled because the ones would just spend ages talking about what they were doing. Like how you start to bring up like shares and they'd like show me what their arms were doing and if it was a robotic arm or they'd show me what their actual product was. And I could see and I actually met fam I'd done more enjoyable doing this as well because it worked on the cutting edge of technology and it was kind of fascinating stuff that I never thought when I was probably 18 years old that I'd be working with clients who were building these things that changed the world and it made it a lot more enjoyable for me. And then it also meant that when I spoke to candidates I could really go into the depths of what this client was doing and I could explain to him hey look they're using this language to do this what's your experience like with that. So then when I send candidates over to clients and I can put full details and like look they've done this this and this that matches with them but it also enabled me to fill a lot of positions where I'd find a candidate that didn't do exactly what they did. But because I understood my market so well I could find some of those very comparable in a different world and translate it across like an example I was thinking there's a had a robotic client and what they did was very much like it was robots for the warehouse but they built their product like a medical device. So when recruiters were trying to work with them they were sending the robotics candidates thinking this is a fit this is a fit to sell want to work with them. So they understood from them they actually needed someone from a safe critical industry was a different kind of skill set and I said that to them when they sent them over and then we ended up signing terms with them working together we did about 10 placements over the next year and half. And it was all because they needed something slightly different than on the surface level it looked like some really interesting points there would you mind because the thing it might be helpful at this stage would you mind just I don't know how important is it for you does this go hand in hand with like your niche focus have always been in the niche. Yes I've always done embedded software in electrical engineering and I'm sure well done just the extra for that might be helpful for people embedded software what do you say sorry embedded. I did. I'm glad it's offering electrical engineering. Okay. And that's always being like what you focused on since you've been going to Boston as well. Yeah. And then I primarily focused on a few industries. I would do mostly medical devices, robotics and semiconductors. Okay. So yeah. So there could be people that have the skillset but may operate in industries outside of those that you just mentioned. But you found yourself focusing on skillset and also those industries. Yeah. And it was more so over the industries it was kind of like I was wanting to position myself that the industries that were likely to get investment and growth because Boston's ecosystem is so led by startups and investment and the actual universities in the area spanning out startups. I wanted to be at the areas where the money was going and semiconductors are a bit of a novelty and that it goes up and down consistently as an industry that's just what it is. But with medical devices, robotics, money is always getting sent into them because there's just always going to be a need in the world that we're moving towards. So you really like the examples that you shared there. So I just want to make sure that just ask you a couple of things on that because I think it would be helpful for people. So really like that example of like when they started talking about something you said, oh, and does that mean like this? I think that was really powerful to sort of like showcase your credibility by saying, oh, like is it like insight your market expertise in that way? I think that's really smart. If like how do I start building that if I'm listening to this? Is it through more on the candidate side? Is it by being really curious and leaning into curiosity and like being like tell me more about that? And then it's then being smart with like what you remember, what you jot down, what you deemed to be important where you can then bring into these client conversations. Yeah. I think for me there's kind of a couple of things. That's the first one. Most of why I learned came from candidates and just asking questions. Really wanting to understand when they said, you know, I recently built this. I'd always be like, okay, so what did you do on that? And then when they'd be like, I use this language doing this to that. I'd be like, okay, is that normally how you do it or how did that link to this part of the project? And I'd just try and get a bit of an understanding of for me, it was all about the links of like everything always means that this used to be something else. Like if there's a certain chip there, they usually have to do it a certain way. And then it enabled me to kind of build up knowledge of like this or probably lead to this meeting this. And then when you speak into clients, I would couple that with that bit of information. I know. And then I asked them, is there anything similar to this that would work? And then once you've had that conversation so many times, you start to pick up that knowledge. Now these days, I advise people to do both of those two things, but I also tell everyone to use GPT as well. So that really speeds things up a little bit. One of the guys in my team taught me something that I'd never used it for. And whenever he's not sure on something, he writes into chat GPT and he asks it to explain it to him like he was nine years old. Sometimes it's really important to me the other day is super smart. Okay, that's really interesting. And then does this ever stop like, are you really big on this? Like are you always championing your team to be like, look, this never stops? Like if you really want to, like do you think this goes into like standing out, like being different because you said like by having this approach and maybe doing these little extra things, you're then able to showcase bit more credibility, have more partnership level conversations versus like you just said more of the, can you find this person for me? Can you feel this job for me? I think it never stops. Especially because the sort of markets you move in, working a forward move in tech markets, like there's always new stuff like, you know, I started in this market eight and a half years ago now. And some of the languages and some of the stuff that I knew was like the absolute hottest piece of technology is nearly obsolete at this point. And that if I don't consistently develop, then I won't know that. I won't know where the areas are to grow. And, you know, the opportunity is typically coming these markets from what I've seen in being in that hottest next thing. And the only way to get there quicker than anyone else is to speak to people and understand what they're interested in, what's changing there, why there's new languages being used or what the new thing that they're designing is and it can always be something different. Sometimes it's the new robot piece of technology. Sometimes it's just a new chip, sometimes a new way of designing the chip, a different language. I think you've always got to try and say in your A game there because like you said, on the partnership side, it helps. But it also helps guide you. I always say in recruitment, the market will usually tell you where to go if you just spend tight learning and sort of really get yourself in the midst of it. Like it will guide you in the right direction. Because I was just going to be my final point on this. Where else have you seen really being committed to this have like a really positive impact on the recruitment process or just being a recruitment in general? You said it, you feel like it helped you sort of stand out, elevate the conversation you could have with clients, also helped you actually understand maybe potential people that could be a better fit for them because you went in that extra mile and you understood things. So you actually ended up getting people in front of them that maybe they wouldn't have thought of or other recruiters wouldn't have thought of like where else does this show up and getting those sort of competitive edges do you think? Yeah, I think there's a few. One thing that always shown for me and I looked at someone who was on this is in the three years or three and a half years that I was making placements. I only ever had one person leaving rebate and I think that was largely down to the focus I had on genuinely placing people who I thought were a fit for a role. That was one thing that always benefited me because you know, I don't like something to refill anything. And then the second one for me as well is as I was trying to elevate my billions and get up to higher numbers, I was all focused on efficiency and the only way I found I could be more efficient was by understanding everything better so I'd have to do less because I remember having a conversation looking at myself and being like look at my interview to placement ratio, I am going to need to get 40, 50 interviews a month just to be able to build where I want to build and I found it a lot easier to bring that ratio down than I did to hit those higher numbers. Interesting, right? Yeah. Okay. So rather than getting more interviews, how can I get less but make sure those aren't guaranteed but are going to be, yeah, I can look at that and go you know what, because of how good they are, how right they are because I understand things, good chance that that's going to lead to a placement. What do you think about this end? Because I feel like some people might think that they'll think this, if you're interested to get your thoughts, if you feel like this really helps you elevate how is your perceived partnership, how come you think you did so much of your work on a contingent basis versus retained? Because surely that goes hand in hand, right? Just curious. Yeah, I think for me, honestly the initial part was just the lack of knowledge around, I did, most of the retainers I did in my best year came at the back end of the year after actually went on a training course around training because the business identified that it was a weakness. It's now something that we actually do a lot more of and that I really invested into when I learned it. So that was one reason, it was just a lack of knowledge around it. And then the second one is I took a lot of my approach, even though I was very focused on work in hand in hand with clients, but I did a lot of candidate work into clients. So a lot of the time, and I think I've seen people on a lot of his books to talk about, but I did a lot of placing candidates. So if I worked with a candidate that I use a robotic example again, and I found out that designed a specific part of a surgical robotic arm, I would go and speak to every client then I knew did that surgical robotic arm or something that was similar to it and work with them. Because like my first year and I found the ramp up part of the US market is always a little challenging in this, it takes a little bit of time. But I tried to build as many relationships with companies as I could. And this wasn't always, when I said relationship, it wasn't always a company I placed, it wasn't always a company I worked on a lot of jobs, but it was someone who knew who I was. So when I had a candidate, I would go and put them in front of the three to five companies that I thought were the right fit for them, and I would do a lot of placements that way. So a lot of light spec an in, a lot of proactive spec an in. Yeah, a lot of spec an in. What I said you're saying a big like that just meant that you was doing what a lot more like ones and twos with clients. Yeah, so I think even though I had these legularized clients like I had, I would usually have a VL, I'd have two or three clients that probably turned up about 50% of my revenue. And then the other 50% came from selling candidates and putting them into companies that I knew. Now, when I said selling candidates so I was specing them, I was mostly specing them to people I knew. It was rarely was it a cold spec at that point. It was always someone who I'd spoken to and I'd had at least one, two, three good conversations with by that point. And you think then the net benefit of that is that when you do show up again and you do a good job of going, the reason why I'm talking about this person is because of what I learned last time, that's the difference, is that what you're saying. 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If you're looking for a competitive edge in 2024, then source well could be for you. You can book a demo with source well and mention the recruitment mentors podcast to enjoy an extra 50 phone and 50 email credits per user. And this exclusive offer for this community is going to save you circa 500 pounds and more and is only going to be available until March 31st. So click the link in the show notes or you can go directly to source well.com/demo. Yeah, that was like that is one of the big advantage I probably should have said this earlier. I've understand you're marking out those conversations is that when you speak to a client like that and the next time you turn up and you say, Hey, we spoke about this last time. I want to let me tell you why I'm calling today. And it's exactly what they were telling you about. They will usually have a pretty good conversation with you and it turns into a good relationship. Is this something that you're still seeing work with your team now? Yes. Because it's interesting, right? I feel like whenever I hear or read things like, I'm like, I'm like, speccing is dead or like these like that type of stuff. Like I think always the best way to think about it, rather than like, how can you make what you're doing better? And it sounds like what you've made better there is the like who you're talking to. So you're being very targeted. And then I'm assuming then in these conversations, if I was to listen to one, that person, regardless of them going, you know what? Like, I'd love to interview them. I'd love to meet them. They're going to feel like heard or listen to because you're talking about someone that you feel like potentially adding value to their current workforce or so a particular problem or has experience with what you know that they do, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's always like, the way I always think about it is like there's only a finite amount of time in the day. And when any client has a conversation with you, they want to at least feel like that was a vowel we're used to their time. And if they don't, they're probably not going to want to work with you. They're probably not going to want to speak to the next time you call them. So I always just try and make sure that they leave the theme of the conversation. If that this is something that could add value to them or their business at some point in the future, you know, whether that be an immediate candidate, whether that be, you know, let them know that I am someone who understands what they're doing and can add value to them in the future and they need me. You know, I'd always look for that, that kind of end result of just a belief that I'm going to be able to add value to them. And then like before we go into the management stuff, which I know you learned to like really put a lot of energy into improve on, like I thought it was really interesting when you just said the second I go about when you were looking at like you want to take your billings from like, let's just say 300 to 800, whatever the goal was, you really dissected like what your numbers need to look at. So it sounded like one of the things that you pointed out was if I'm going to get anywhere near my goal, I'm going to have to have way more interviews or at least having interview ratio around this. Like when you sort of maybe took a bit of a step back and looked at whatever your goal was, what were the other things that you felt like you really needed to double down on focus on that should then have the end result of whatever the sort of billings goal was, whether that was 800 or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, so there was a few different things to me and they kind of all trickle into in to each other as such. But first one was candidate qualifications to submissions, because a lot of what I did was sending candidates out to more places, I wanted to have more submissions than I did candidate qualification calls, I should know sometimes that's a little contrary to recruitment as a whole. So sorry to buy and how would you define a submission just so we're on the same page? I'm submitted to a client that I work with. So you want to have more submissions versus more candidate qualifications. Because I wanted to know that when I had a good candidate, I was sending them to at least three places. I wanted to know that I had enough contact points in the market and enough clients that would be interested. Now they wouldn't always be live positions, but they would at least be a company that would be like, I'd be interested if you had something like this for me, you know, not an A grade job as such. Then for me, it was all around my interview efficiency from first interviewed file interview and how efficient I could make that. Then file interview to placement and then offer acceptance ratio. I found that as long as I could control all four of those numbers and put them into, you know, effectively the green zone for me, then it would enable me to do more revenue for less work effectively. To my mind, let's just break this down a bit because I think because this will probably be an area that people could feel like they could refine. Just out of interest. So we've spoken about how can you get more out of the input on like speaking to people about the kind that you're working with, right? So we're saying, if you're firstly, are you speaking to people that maybe you've already spoken to that you've learned something about their business, about their team and then the next time you speak to them or you're submitting a CV, you're like matching that up really well, you listen to using that expertise. So I'd be interested to hear your take on this then. What about on the submissions piece? I guess what I'm asking because we've done a few bits on this and I think there's it interesting because there's a lot of people that I've spoken to that this is their like lead way into working with clients, getting business. Do you also use these submissions that you do to also like open up doors? So you know you're saying that you have like you always want to do free submissions. I'm assuming every time you're speaking to about three people that you've spoken to before, right? You're also saying that that's also one of the ways that helps you open up the door to have that initial conversation. So next time you're like more known. Is that that? Yeah, so I think there was two separate numbers. So that would be a submission and then I would just call that as a spec. So then I would define that but those the spec for me then is like, is I one of them identify in an ideal world there's not always going to be this for the candidate but I would want to identify 25 companies for that candidate to open the door. And this was more in the early days of building a market where I didn't have any chips but I would always try and look for at least 25 companies that were a fit and I would try and be super tailored on that as specific as I could possibly be with with the companies. And the reason why I bring that up is because I had this chat max on not too long ago and like I don't know how you feel about this but I do feel like oftentimes when people have a rural reluctant surround picking up the phone, you know, a part of the route cause of that is like they don't feel like they have a compelling reason why as to why they're calling someone. So if we get this bit right we can really equip people with like a compelling reason and something that Max was talking about which I think was really great was he'll you know use the the person that he's working with and he'll do like you said be specific call these companies. And if he does get through and he speaks to them like the goal isn't to get a job born or try and fill a job or anything like that. It's really just to try and learn information about that business right and really understand like if budget wasn't an issue like what would be the skill set what would be the type of people that you'd loved that you feel like you really need in the business or that would have a big impact in the business like was you using this to also help you get something to information. So the next time you show up you can be like hey you know you know three months ago when I spoke about this person you said you know if budget wasn't an issue we didn't we'd love to look at someone like that you then go I've got someone like that is that fair. Yeah it would be exactly like that like in the early days it would be a lot of send them to who I thought was relevant and then try and have a conversation with them and just find out you know am I on the right lines is this someone who you think would be relevant if not why not and because it would be so tailored to the most of the time and I'd always explain when I was sending a spec why I thought there were a fit most of the time it's most times maybe a little generous but a lot of the time they would be open to saying actually no that's not a fit I could see why you'd think that but we do things a little differently here and that's a great opportunity but oh really how do you do it and then you leave that call understanding them as a business but you also leave knowing more about the market and understanding that okay I actually thought that you could only do this that way you can actually do it this way and then it also opens up a new kind of avenue to look down and be like okay there's actually more candidates that I could be sending in this area or more I can learn about this part of the market that I didn't realize prior to that conversation then it's about the inquisitive nature I guess of like being really like almost excited to be like okay let me go down that path and see what I think is going to be doing more of that because we get more information understand more of like the companies that would look for the types of people that you're speaking to and then if we do a good job of that then you should be hopefully always being in a position where there could be free companies that you know that they should be at least curious what interested to hear about this person that you're working with which is the submission part okay love that so that's something that you dialed okay second thing then when you say controlling the interview process tell me about that what do you mean are we getting a bit more like all over like okay once you know I submit an interview a CV this is why I expect less book in you know times lots now like talked to us about that how you got that a bit more watertight yeah a lot for that was you know I'd always whenever I was first sort of having this conversation and building the partnership as such when we're actually working on an active role and we have a candidate that all we're sending candidates all we're about to get to the interview stage I would also map I would always map it out at the start and I was lucky my my first manager and recruitment drilled the sin to me in my first year and I'm very grateful that he did. But it put me in a position where I would always map out like, look, when do you want to get this person in place by, okay, great, if we get someone interviewing this week, when can we realize that you're getting them for the process? What does that look like? Okay, can we find out the times that I work on that now? And then to actually map out that process so that again, I would say to them like, okay, great, you do this, then let me tell you what I'm going to do. My part of this this deal is I will get you people by this time, this date. And then as long as we're on the same page, we can get through this process. And then I would always have check-ins during that point of calls with clients because again, I've had a lot of time people don't want to answer random calls, so I would always be really honest with a client on that first call, but like, look, I'm not going to, but that's not who I am. But I do want to just have a few call points where we can check in and we can just go through candidates here, we can go through the interview feedback here and I'm not going to make it a crazy matter time, but I just want to make sure that we're going for everything right and that I'm doing a good job for you and that this is going how you want it to go. And I always find people were very receptive to that. And I'd always say little things about, look, I'll make it work around you if you want to do lunchtime, if you want to do after hours, whenever that might, I'm happy to do what suits you. But it would enable me to control that process and my interview, and particularly my final interview place, my ratio was very close to one for a long time. And I think a lot of it was down to that part of the process of understanding and controlling every piece of it. And I'm sure you've had people, you've had to manage people that have dealt with this, but like, how do we navigate? How do you navigate when clients like Ash, like I've worked with other recruiters, they don't need this much time for me. Like, I don't want to do that, can you just send me Robotic Engineers? And if they're good, we'll interview them. Like how we navigate in that. We'll get back to the episode in just one moment, but first, I wanted to tell you about one of our partners, Firefish. In the last 12 months, data shows that the number of people working in the recruitment industry are shrunk by 16%. Meaning, agencies are challenged with doing more revenue with fewer people. That's where our partner, Firefish, can help. Firefish is the recruitment CRM that accelerates profitable growth by increasing revenue per recruiter through a number of ways. An enriched and engaged database, reduced admin through automation, improved insights and reporting, and increase in recruiter engagement. Resulting in 30% increase in revenue per recruiter and at least a 15% reduction in the operational costs. 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So I try to empower people early. I understand, again, because I was that person, if you didn't want to say no early in my career, I understand it's not as natural. But I tell me, if that's all you're going to get from a client, then don't work with that client. Because the time you're going to commit into that, it's far often not going to pay off. Whereas that time, you can't be spending on customers, you're going to treat you as a partner. It's going to be a lot more valuable. So I try and empower them to say no. Obviously before that, you want to see if you can make some way of working because not every relationship with a client that you have starts off with them being like, yes, no, that's great. Let's do exactly what you're asking us. There's no the reality we live in. So you'd always try and find some sort of way. And I think that all comes down to you really telling the benefit of why you want to do it that way and showing them that you're different. And I think a lot of that and to make sure that on that initial part of the core, when you're talking around your market, you're talking around your process and what you're going to do, that you're showcasing enough value that they want to commit the time to you versus the other recruiters that they're working with or how they've done things in the past. And make sure there's a reason that's compelling enough for them to give you that time. How do you think we can say no about like, because a lot of times people, like you said, people might feel like they don't want but in the new bridges or they don't want to piss off clients or whatever, like how do you think, or how have you seen your team say no in like a almost a way that actually gives them more credibility or in like a really graceful way? Like how can we say no? I think it's just being very transparent. Like I always say to them, like, look, I'll be really honest with you. This is how I tell people to say it pretty much, I'll be like, look, I'll be really honest with you. I'm not going to have to do my job properly if I can't get these things from you. And I'll say, look, I understand if perhaps you can't commit to all of these, like I understand you're busy. There's a lot of parts to your job. But if we can't get ex-dex or this and this or this bit of commitment that we need, like we're not going to have to do this job for you. And I'd be failing my candidates by not being out to tell them the timelines that they're for talking about. And honestly, I'd be failing you because my process doesn't work if we can't do these things. Now look, I'm very confident I can help you fill this position if we can work to get ever on it. But I'm not going to be able to do it under these circumstances. And then I've always wanted to see what they come back to most of the time. They'll come back and be like, look, maybe we can talk about this checking call here. We can talk about this so we can work on this. And you leave a position and then once you do that and let's say it's the feedback call on CVs, let's say they commit to that and they didn't want to. When you go through that and they realize, oh, you've sent me three people here who are great. And on that call, you'd like, look, I also just want to tell you this about them. They're also doing this. This doesn't shut up on the resume, but let me tell you this about them or they're interviewing here with this company at this. And and he gives them that information. They leave that call thinking, oh, that was actually worth my time. Then they're probably a lot more receptive to the next conversation that you're asking to have. And then all of a sudden, you just started to build that relationship and get it to the point where you want because they've seen the value of it. Yeah, that's class really great breakdown. That's great. And then just to wrap this up together then, just curious because we've had a few people break this down. How would you view there might be more steps to it, but like if I was in your team and I said, just sign this client, we're working together, we've got the process points agreed. What would you expect to see as like a minimum? Do you know what I mean? Is it like the job briefing call and then we've got interview slots, we've then got interview feedback slots. Like, what would you expect to see on the process planners of minimum that you sort of found to be like the most effective or like would put you in the best position to feel like more in control of what's happening and like the overall process, what does that typically look like, the checkpoints? Yeah, so my initial one would be I would always did the job briefing call, you've gone for everything, you've talked about it. Then part of what I would do there is I'm always then very, very honest and transparent with my client because I always tell my team, we obviously want to deliver quickly to our clients. But if this is a role that's like really niche and really difficult, do not tell them you're going to get in three people in 24 hours if you can't do it because you are going to fail and you're not going to look good and it's going to be the opposite of what we're trying to encourage on this process. So make sure you make an educated decision on what that timeline needs to be for you to not make your life too easy but like to make sure it's just realistic on when you can deliver. Again, market experts, right? So it's about to be there. So again, market expert teasers and that they were coming back to. Yeah. So then once you've had that kind of session, so let's just say in the case of this one is 48 hours, I would tell them this, that's my commitment to you, I'm going to get you these people in 48 hours. Let's put in our call at this point to check in on the resumes. And then I always frame this and be like, look, I'm very confident. I know what we're talking about here, but you are, this is a new relationship. We've not worked together on this. That checking call will be a good point for us just to make sure we're properly aligned and exactly what you're looking at here. Then I do that call. Then I would schedule the one for the feedback on the interviews. And in an ideal world, you've got interviews slots very close together. So you can do them all together, find it where they're at. And then what I always say on my very proposition to that is, but like, look, what I'll give you on that call is I'll tell you what every candidate thought of the interview. That you're aware how they're feeling about things. And hopefully it'll align with who you're referring the most. Then on that one, go for the process schedule. The next interview, then I always do a check in. Depending on if there's two or three stages in ideal world, this is two. But I'll do a check in call just before I know, just like, hey, just before you find an interview, just want to reconfirm everything we've talked about. This candidate is in this situation. They're there. This is the compensation to make sure everything is perfectly aligned. Then straight after the interview, I'll have a call booked in for the fine interview feedback. Usually let's say it's in afternoon the next morning. And then I'll just talk to them around that and I'll be like, look, okay, make sure that we're aligned on what the offer process is going to look like, go for all of that. And then I'll just say, look, I'll go and deliver this. Then I'll come back to you. I'll exactly how it looks. So I'll check in with them. Just like, hey, look, compensation went really well. Then ideal world, then let's step straight away. But I think more realistically, they'll probably take a day or an evening to chat to the significant overall, whatever that is. And then I'll always let them know, I'll get back to you this time tomorrow with the decision that we were at. But I'll always let them know as well. By that point of the relationship of like, look, I think we're in a good position. I think this is going well for this reason, that kind of stuff. And it's just a lot of transparency about where we're at. And I've found that every time I've done that, clients are very receptive to doing it the next time. Yeah, that's class. Brilliant, brilliant breakdown. C-A-U would hate me if I was in your team. team and you said that he should, how do you feel about this particular interview process? I know you've had a few finals and I go, yeah, I should have no idea what's going to happen. You don't want to be hearing that. I've never liked that very much. I always say, look, we want to close as much as we can possibly, but the reality is not everything is going to fit perfectly, but add your up and where we should know is we should know going in that it's not always the perfect. Delizio, the next state, what happens next? I'm going to get it from, if I'm struggling to tell you what I'm just waiting for this person to come back to me or I'm not sure I'm going to find out this, like that's maybe where you want to look at the process that you just mapped out and kind of be improved. Just hearing you break down that, how instantly you're going to feel so much more on control when you're looking at your pipeline and you're working in that way or 8% of that way with a lot of your clients, you're going to be a little more confident projecting what should land and what pipeline should become true, which is the whole point, which is why you really ended up focusing on that and honing on that. Just quickly, then on this, what did it maybe look like before? You got really good at this. Was it a bit more like this should happen or you only had maybe one of those things? What did it look like before? It was more of a like this should happen or more than anything, it was more of a, I wouldn't have a backup plan. It was kind of like, I'd be like, great, I've got two final interviews, I'll probably do two deals. It was now and once I implemented this, I could be like, okay, look, this is looking very promising. This might be the only obstacle in the way. Well, this one, look, it's not looking great. He's in four processes, whatever it might be. I need to make sure I've got backup plans there. I need to make sure I'm communicating with the client so that we've got, if they do realize it's kind of, we can move quickly, we can put everything in place, give ourselves the best chance. For me, it was all about just making sure I had the best possible opportunity to convert anything that I ever had in process by knowing everything about it. Did you always have a sort of interim ambition to go into coaching leadership? Because I know everyone has that. Yeah, I did. Initially, I think it came from just seeing people in those roles and I used to look at them and I used to think, I'd like to do that. I like helping people. I like having conversations. I really like, I get a lot of enjoyment or I did run a first starting mentoring and helping people of seeing that almost light bulb moment where it clicks and they understand what you're talking about or seeing the excitement on people when they close a few deals or they have a really great moment for their message you, which I got this month from one of my rookies from last year, message me with their first really, really big commission check and they're like, I don't even know what to do with this. One of those moments of seeing how much it means to people, I got a lot of enjoyment out of seeing people go on that journey and ever since going into management, that's just kind of amplified. I mean, let's break this down a bit because when we prepared for this, I found it, am I right and thinking up until the end of 2022, you're still billing and you're managing 13 people. It's crazy. If I was just to fly in the wall, what would you like because how are you managing 13 people when it's still hitting numbers? Yeah, I mean, obviously the numbers I was hitting were less. I don't profess to anyone that I was able to build up the same levels I was. I think, I think it came down to a few different things. One, I had a very well built market, so I didn't really have to do a ton of proactive work in terms of, I'd have candidates come into me, send me often, I'd have clients that would build so that kind of metric of, I needed a few companies where I could send every candidate when I got one was already there for me. At that point as well, I had quite a few clients that would come to me from previous client or previous candidate to move on to a different site. I've still built for the hop for the first half of 2023. It all came from a client, a place where if you were like a 20 person startup, went to one of the biggest semi-conductor companies in the world and took me with him. A lot of the BED was done naturally through the work I really put in. That only took up, you know, my own business probably took up about 35, 40% of the week and then the rest of the time was on developing and managing individuals and putting them in a position where when I did grow my team and split out into other managers, I was able to give more experience people under the managers and hopefully make their initial part of the journey a little bit easier by every manager having a right hand person as such. Interesting. And then just curious, I know there won't be like an exact scientist to it, but you know, with what you're saying there in terms of like you was able to still do the management coaching side and 30% of your job was the desk because of how established it was. Like, what does that, I guess what I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on them is like, at what point does that look like we can go, no, actually, if I was to start adding people underneath me, because I'm sure in a lot of companies happens way before they've got to the point of where your desk was. Like, what would be like some good science to go, you know what, actually, I feel like if I was to add one to have many people, my desk was still being good shape because like this is happening. Does that make sense? Sorry, like because the way you describe your desk, a lot of people would have been chucked people and their desk is nowhere like that. So I guess just be interested to hear your thoughts on it because I'm sure you think about this now when maybe you add people under other managers, like at what point do you feel confident that their desk is like more sustainable, self-sufficient, so they're going to have more time to coach effectively and stuff? 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 has achieved 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. Yeah, I think it firstly, it's a lot based on the client portfolio that they have. And I always try and look at it and I say, "Do you have the client portfolio to potentially be able to spend X amount of less time and still produce similar results right now?" And is that impossible? So for me, I just look predominantly at the client side of things and like, do you understand that bit or, "Have you got things at a point in your market or your desk where it's working for you?" And you are getting the similar results for less actual output. And I think if the answer's "Oh, you aren't ready for someone because you just don't have the time to commit to them." And when I've seen people get given someone when the desk really isn't ready, I've found that he just becomes so stressed out for them that no one wins in that scenario. So I really try and avoid when I'm making people managers and helping them in hours of giving anyone manager or responsibilities when they're not ready for their own desk. So for me, it's pretty much clients. What would you expect to see on the client portfolio? Like, I've done X number of placements with this. I don't know. What would you expect to see there which would give you confidence? It depends on the market because I think some markets are so candid led. It's more about having a ton of clients that, again, you can send a candidate when you get one to three or four or five or having a few core clients. So for me, I'd like to see at least one core client regardless of your sort of market. But then if it's a market where you need to have a lot of clients, I want to see 20, 30, 40 clients that you know you can send people to. Or if it's one where it's less than that, I just want to see 10 to 15 stable clients where we can say, hey, in 2025, we're going to get X amount of revenue from this customer. Yeah. Appreciate it breaking that down. So like, when we Matt tell where you spend the lot of your time, I'm really interested to hear how you've got better at this because I feel like this is something that we should advocate here at Hector in terms of like, we really feel like a high leverage task for managers, which oftentimes don't get enough time for because maybe their desk isn't as developed as it should be in these things. Is that coaching piece and that like one-on-one time? How, what's been your relationship with getting better at this? Because I've got here, I know it's not accurate every week, but six percent of your time is one-on-ones twice a week with everyone in the team and core coaching. And I felt like when we spoke about this, there's no way that you're not doing that because there's no way that you're spending that amount of time and not feeling like having a big impact. So like, what's been your relationship with this? Firstly, just talked us a bit about that. Yeah. I mean, firstly, I was very lucky in my career at Angtel, but I had two mentors and managers who taught me this approach very, very early on and they really drilled into me the importance of spending time. And they would all say inside someone's desk, like really understanding their business and what they were doing. So I kind of sort of value immediately and it was sort of taught to me to do that. But then the question I was kind of asked myself is I was just like, look, if I want to build a team. I want to get people to the point where they have a self-sustainable desk and they know exactly what they're doing. I need to teach them that. I need to teach them how to do things because I do believe generally, giving people growth opportunities and stretch opportunities to go and try things and do them. But I think you need to teach a core level of everything before they go into those situations that they're probably not ready for. So they at least feel like they've got the toolkit to do it. And I found those one-on-ones was a really good way of doing it. And at the start of someone's career for the first four months, I'll meet with them every day, first thing in the morning to talk about the day before and to go through the day ahead and kind of give advice on the situations. And that one of the big benefits I found of that is people would feel confident going into situations that would new to them because they'd gone through it with me. They'd talked through that book to call they had with a client and then I'd gone through, "Hey, look, I think this might be your objection. You might have this or what happens if this happens." And I found the value of that was next time it happened, they felt more prepared. And then it also cascaded as well with a senior and principal people in my team who went through this would do the same for the people around them. They'd hear someone in a situation with it and they'd be like, "Oh, I've got this call with this client." And I'd hear them give the advice I gave to them at some point before. And it became a very natural process in the team where it made some of the time I had to spend on people less because people were passing the same messages and the same teachings across that I'd said to them. And just walk me through because I think this might be helpful for people. So if I'm in that early stage in your team, maybe regardless of experience, you still might have a lot of face time with me at that early stage if I'm embedding in your team. Like, what does that sort of sound like? So at the end of the day, did you say each morning we'd have a bit of time with each other? What we're saying, like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, I know it might vary but typically, like how much time and then what you're asking me, like how did it yesterday, what do you know I'm sure you've got, you've got it a bit more specific. Yeah, yeah. So when it's the twice a week, there'll be 30 minutes twice a week. When it's early in that career, it'll be 30 minutes on a Monday, 30 minutes on a Wednesday and then probably 15 minutes Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, where there's a little bit less to go. Everyone knows Wednesdays, we're all really deep dive into some stuff. And it'll be stuff around, like, you know, how did you stick to the plan yesterday? You taught me you wanted to achieve this. How did you get on with it? If you didn't do this, what got in the way? Okay, how did you handle that situation? How did the cause you go through yesterday? What did you learn from these conversations? What did you learn from that? What are the candidates you're working with? Show me what, tell me why you're working with this person. What makes them a great candidate to you and science you're checking that. And then also given them a chance, and this is a lot of the teach I do, given them a chance to see my thought process, I've like, okay, I like this person for this reason, this reason, this reason. Okay, who are the companies that you're going to work with? This candidate too. Okay, tell me why. And then again, show them your thought process of, like, this is why I would choose these companies. This is why I think they'd be fit. And I try to use those chances to sort of almost impart my knowledge through showing them how I go about things so that they start to think the same way. That's class. The key part there I took was, I think a lot of managers would go straight in with what they think, but what it sounds like. And I'm sure you've had to learn this is like, asking them tell, right? So how, like, what companies you're going to work with for you that, and you go, cool, this is sort of what I'm thinking. How do you think about that? Yeah. So all those questions are really smart questions. I appreciate you sharing that. That's really good. What about how does cool coaching fit into this? And I like, this isn't something that everyone does, which I think is wild. Like, is that, has that been quite impactful? You do spend a lot of time with that? How helpful has that been? Yeah. I think it's one of the most important things to do. Again, it's, again, it's very much based in my first year in recruitment. I got a lot of cool coaching. And I found it immensely helpful. Because I always think you just don't know what you don't know. And you get taught, objection-handedly, you get taught all the basics, which is very, very valuable. But the real world doesn't always come at you in straight lines and you have to adapt to the situation. And I think where it's been really helpful for me is when someone's having an objection or something, it's gone away that it's just a little atypical. And again, it gives me a chance to hear what they do. And be like, OK, how would you do that differently if you'd have this conversation again? And then hear what their thought process goes like. And then be like, look, this is how I'd handle it. This is what I would say in this situation. And then see, OK, how do you feel about that? Do you feel like that suits your style? Because again, not everyone is going to have the same style of you as when you're selling on the phone. And like, would you feel comfortable saying that or going down this route? OK, no. So let's work on what we could do. And you're almost kind of hand crafting a sales playbook that suits the air style in those sessions that you can't do in kind of group training sessions. Because it wouldn't really work. And I found a ton of value in that. And I would always recommend, and I tell my managers to do it with their team as well. It's really been someone I've enjoyed doing. I've sent a lot of rewards from. Yeah, that's brilliant. Have you got any-- because I feel like this is one of the funnest parts, even though I'm sure there's been plenty of challenges. Have you got any stories that you're really proud of that people have been part of this journey? In terms of, they've been with you now. They're doing this. Because it sounds like you really worked on this. You've got better air. You've got a lot of coaching, spent a lot of time at energy on that. Is it any story that brings to mind that you're really proud of? Because I think this is one of the coolest things about going on this journey is someone joining you and now they're like here, and they maybe were here. Yeah, I think for me, there's a ton of them that I've loved. And probably the best example I would have would be someone who was my first high up into team. I knew before, also in English guy. And he was kind of at 11 month mark when he joined me and he had every raw skill you could want, I think, like genuinely. I described myself as looking because he made my journey as a manager significantly easier because I had a right hand person that I trusted implicitly. And I remember going on conversations with him and he would do things he'd be like, he'd ask me to listen to his calls and he'd want the feedback. And he's growth in that first year where he had a good performance. He then was in the top three the year after, straight after the year after that. He was second by a little bit. Then he got top bill last year. And I remember being sat in the in the award ceremony with him. And I looked him and I was pretty cool, isn't it? And you could see the joy they'd want it. He'd only want it this year. And I think that was just a cool moment for me because I remember being sat in the rooms and I remember, you know, in the middle of COVID, we had an office in the UK a bunch of us working in there and he used to mess with me and be like, hey, can we come in today? So that you can listen to a few calls I'm making. I just want some feedback on them. And now I hear him do it and I see him in the office and he's constantly giving people advice. He mentors people left writing a sentence. If I ever need something, he's probably already done it before. I even realised if I'm not there and it's been a journey which I think has been great for him, but he's also made my life significantly easier and you know, seen him in that top bill last year. It was an awesome feeling. Yeah, that's a class. Great story. Honestly, I just sit time and time again like, yeah, the best people were just so committed and willing to get feedback wanting to improve and that really doesn't stop. And that sounds like such a great example. What about then this, I know you said something fluctuates, but the 20% on the strategy side, like curious just to hear a few things. So what have you seen play out this year? For a lot of companies, it's been challenging in different ways. But what have you seen this year in your markets? Is there been anything that you've been surprised that's maybe stopped working? I don't know, how would you feel about this year? What have been some of the interesting trends that you've noticed? Yeah, it's been a unique year I feel like in some ways in that. I think a lot of things have stayed very, very similar, but I've found that there has been a little bit more of a reluctance to hire than in some previous years. And that's where I would really double back to kind of the process and the control piece a little bit. And I think that has been very important. And I've spent a lot of my time this year making sure that that is being followed and working as a senior leadership team to make sure that we have this mapped out and that if people aren't doing it, okay, how can we help them get that part of the job down? Because I think when things are a little bit more difficult and there is a little bit more reluctance and challenges, that's where we need more. Control and more influence over a situation to be able to make sure that things are going in the right direction. And that's probably the biggest one I've seen this year is that. And then, you know, there's always the kind of natural ecosystem of a lot of the markets we work in, a startup. So there's always going to be that kind of natural churn of clients where some don't work out, fundings running, shorter than hiring. And you always have to kind of rebuild that. So I think there's always a natural circle and so cycle of that. Yeah, I think that first bit's really interesting. I've definitely heard that as well in terms of just really making sure that the time that your team are spending on extra that any of you are putting into it is in the right places. And when we look at the pipeline, how much of that would we put in the age of category and how have you done it, right, the goal, your category, and we've got the processes outlined versus not having any of that in place, because that's when your pipeline can be reduced massively. I mean, start looking into that. And yeah, just heard it time and time again this year being a messed around a lot of the time that you said. like having the process dialed and agreed and that commitment is key, 'cause you'd much rather have less jobs on the board, but no, the process, what's happening there, it's these things versus way more and way less of that happening. - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It's all about quality, right? - So what, and then, what do you feel like you and the team, like if I was on your sales floor or maybe some of your, like, quarterly review meetings going to the end of the year, like, what are you guys really doubling down on? Like, what are you really, you know, remaining laser focused on going into next year that you deem important, that you're putting emphasis on, that you're championing internally? - Yeah, a lot of what were really focused on is these, these, these part of things right now. Like, we are, we are trying to formalize pretty much every process that we have and, you know, making sure that it is concretely down that it works for every market. Because one thing that I think is always got to be a little nuance is like, you know, we work across different areas of the US and like, you know, my team in Boston and my team in Michigan, it is not the same world that they recruit into. And we're trying to make sure that every single one has, you know, the process mapped out and everything is put down in a structure so that we can, you know, make sure that's replicable as each of these teams is growing. - Yeah, I love that. And then to close us out, then, how would we, I'm sure you've seen it. Like, you've got friends in recruitment, like, there's been a real, definitely increase in the number of recruiters taking their career to the US. Like, how would you sort of describe it to someone? So like, if I, again, like, we were down the pub and I was like, Ash May looks like, I don't really know great things in the US. You know, I've always thought about going to the US, like, what, what's it like? Like, how would you describe it to me? - I mean, I always tell everyone that you do it. Because it's been an awesome journey. And I've had a ton of fun and living over here is an amazing opportunity that, you know, I don't think when I was younger, I ever thought would be possible. As far as I was recommending that, but I would always just say that, you know, look, it's, don't listen to the narrative that it's easier is the one I always advise people. Because it isn't easier, it's just different. That's just the reality of it is like, you know, it's got its own challenges. The fees are bigger, which is, you know, I think sometimes people are quite to the fact that, hey, I do 20 deals at the UK, I do 20 at the US, it's gonna be like, one revenue. But the work that goes into that is a little different. And I always say, look, just go over there and take into kind of the core values that you have, the speed, the earnancy, the things that you do really well. But just be really open to learning from someone or people who do the market and listen to the nuances and don't treat it the exact same. You know, find yourself a mentor, find yourself someone who knows, like, you know, I drink then and we're eight people and I worked really close to with Chris, I see you out. And he taught me more in the first three months than I could ever imagine. Because, you know, I went in a, maybe a little naive to some of these differences at the time. And I think my advice to everyone is always just, find yourself a mentor and someone who can teach those differences and then combine it with what you do well and you'll have a great career. - Love it. Ash, thanks so much for joining me. I think it's been, yeah, really cool to like see the, like, you know, learn more about you and when we're prepared for this and the journey that you're on and yeah, really excited to see where you are in another couple of years' time. So, yeah, thanks a lot for joining me on the pod. - No, I appreciate it. - I'm really glad to be here. - 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 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 the mark. The thing that's really cool about what we're doing at Recruitment Mentals 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 Mentals and if we can help you accelerate your team's performance is a semi-imessage 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.