Building Internal Champions: The Secret to Winning High-Value Clients with Dylan Hoyle

(upbeat music) Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentals podcast. In this episode, I was joined by Dylan Hoyle. He's a sales manager for Strive in the US. His first year billing performance was 190K and his most recent year's Billings performance is 800K. He's now got his ice set on becoming a million pound billar and I have no doubt that he's gonna get there. In this conversation, you're gonna learn the power of having such an optimistic mindset. But most of all, you're gonna learn about the tactics and strategies that Dylan has used over the last five years that he feels is gonna enable him to become a million pound billar. These are the things that we cover in this episode. We talk about his internal champion strategy and why this is critical to increasing the spend of your existing client accounts and getting into new accounts. Leveraging venture capital relationships, how to do it, why it's important and how this can enable you to get into some brilliant accounts. We're gonna discuss maximizing existing relationships, how to get the most out of accounts that you've worked hard on winning and lost but not least building a market from scratch. He's helped build the US function from scratch with his colleague and we discuss exactly how they've gone about it. What's worked, what hasn't. I'm really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you all. Enjoy this week's episode. Dylan, welcome to the pod. - Thanks, Ishaam. Looking forward to a good conversation. It's weird being on the other end of a podcast for once. - So joining me today from your new home, Tampa. - From Manchester to Tampa. - Well, from the lakes to Manchester, then to Tampa. - So it's a different one. - Fair. I was gonna say, I was thinking, I should actually know that because this is probably the first time on the pod that I've interviewed someone's dad and now I'm interviewing their son. - I've got some big expectations. (laughing) - Love it. So today we're gonna really break down some of the key areas when we're prepared for this that you feel like have had a big impact on you continuing to keep growing your success over the last five years with strife. So gonna dig into a couple of things that I think everyone listening, we're gonna really enjoy. So some of those things are, we've got it called here the Internal Champion Strategy, which we're gonna go into, leveraging VC relationships, maximizing an existing account, mindset, and underpinning this is all about building a market from scratch. Before we do that, I think let's give everyone a bit of the highlight reel. Let's sort of let everyone know the journey that you're on and you've been on so far. So yeah, you've been at strife now for nearly five years. Obviously, career and recruitment has always been with strife, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. First job at 19, I didn't know I was getting into recruitment so I was lucky enough to choose strife. - Love it. First two years, you entirely focused on the German market and then the last three years has been entirely focused on the US and that's why you've now moved there. Obviously, it's always been permanent and in the SaaS space. And then I guess the last bit to mention here in terms of like performance, let me not forget enough this wrong, but first year I got here, I'm assuming this is pounds, not dollars 'cause you might be talking dollars, right? - Fount. - Yeah, nice. So first year, 190K, second year, 240, third year, 400K, fourth year, 600K, and then fifth year on Tratsuit 800, is the goal. - That's the plan. - Love it. And then along that journey, you have been a manager but currently I'm from wrong. I think right now you're really focused on being an individual contributor, is that all right? - Yeah, I got into management and then quickly dipped out a bit after, yeah. (laughs) - Cool, all right. So I think to give everyone a bit of final context, I think core responsibilities now then, just to paint a bit of a picture, is your role, what you're entirely focused on is maximising accounts, relationships and potential. So how can you get the most out of the relationships that you've built or have already in the business? We've also put, yeah, get as many roles as possible for the team and a third of your roles, probably be the third account management and then the third, the rest of the other stuff that you might be supporting with bringing the business forward for strife. - Exactly, yeah. - Love it. So why don't we start then in these core areas? I think let's start with mindset. So like talk to about this, 'cause I know when we were preparing for this, you came across really passionate about this being something you're proud of or like being really pivotal in terms of getting to where you're going and also probably gonna be behind the future success you have. So I'll leave it over to you like, where do we wanna start with like the mindset piece? 'Cause of course it's an overused thing that we probably use and talk about in recruitment, but what does mindset to me mean to you and how is it being impactful for you and your journey so far? - For sure. And I think like obviously in recruitment, when everyone talks about mindset, a lot of the things that people touch upon is like the great and resiliency piece because you constantly take punches to the face on a daily basis. So I think people focus on that. But I think for me the one area which I really believe in, I think it's something that I excel at and I'm lucky 'cause my dad is just around like ruthless optimism and genuinely believing that there is no limit to your potential on what you can achieve. A lot of people compare yourselves with others within the industry and when you set yourself out an unrealistic goal, people are bound to call you unrealistic, but in my opinion it's the best thing that someone could possibly say because you're only ever gonna achieve unrealistic things if you set out to do them. And the people who called you unrealistic at the time will probably kick themselves in 10 years because it's your job to speak things into reality and really manifest things to happen as corny as that sounds. So I think ruthless optimism is one of the top traits of like high-performing recruiters genuinely not believing that there is a limit to your potential and setting yourself some objectives which to others might see you extremely unrealistic. But in reality it's genuinely believed that you can do it and you work towards it on a daily basis. I think that's what separates the average performers and the top performers in recruitment if that makes sense. - And have you always had that ruthless optimism? 'Cause I would definitely probably describe myself like that. I'm always, I view things in the very positive lens. Maybe sometimes to my detriment when it comes to like the world and these things. But like, have you, do you feel like you've always been like that? Is that how your friends and colleagues would probably always describe you, do you think? - I think so, yeah. Like I came from a very small town. So it's like people set limits. There's got that small town of mentality where people set limits on what they think that you can actually achieve. And I played a very high level of cricket luckily enough growing up. So I always knew there was something more to what everyone else does. And like you know my dad, and if you were the people know my dad, like he believes there is no limits what you can achieve. So I always use out to do something, you can go and do it. And I think that's like pushed me. And especially as also the other side of it is like always being one of the youngest. They got into recruitment at 19. So it's like you've always got that chip on your shoulder to go improve something. So I think I've just added in grain to move from a kid to the other side. - Yeah, now that's fair. And how do you handle and manage, I know you're out of management now, but I'm curious. Not everyone is ruthlessly optimistic. So how do we manage this in like a work context, particularly in recruitment, because you're going to be dealing with people that are being negative, they've had setbacks, they've had that drop out, like it's very easy to let those things ruin your day maybe even week. So how have you gone about making sure you're not the annoying person in the office who's like always positive when sometimes people may just want you to listen and not try and solve their problems, you know? - Yeah, do you know what? That's one of the things I have stepped up on. (laughing) Because like it is like if you're somebody's coming to you with an issue, right? Sometimes, and it's about your adaptability, right? It's understanding that certain people don't want to be told that everything is going to be okay. Some people want you to have some sympathy and some empathy for them and to recognize that not everything's all right and sometimes it is, well, it's not the best. But then it's about painting the pictures of how we can solve it. But it's like having that adaptability, whereas some people, they want that visionary, they want that someone to rile them up and believe in them and motivate them. So it's that adaptability. And I think just in like a generic recruitment sense, I think like I've probably always been guilty of being over optimistic and I think they call it half-piers or we call it half-piers, right? And to be honest, like, you know, John obviously it's drive. He's probably one of the greatest when it comes to that. He's one of the most paranoid sales people I've ever met in my life. But it's probably one of his greatest attributes because being paranoid at every single stage that something can go wrong and trying to mitigate against risk at every single stage, it's perfect. You should have to risk and tell it every single deal, every single day in a few stage. But don't also let it affect your optimism, believing yourself and your ability as to what you sell to do. But of course, there comes that other aspect that like sometimes optimism is just failed optimism. And you do have to be realistic at some point that don't let that stun your belief in what you can achieve if that makes sense. - Yeah, no, yeah, for sure. And before we move on then, I think something that you also mentioned that came under mindset that wanted to touch on, which I think is going to be key when we get onto the sales side was you said to me quite strongly, like, and a lot of people do this and I'm definitely guilty of this as well of putting people on the pedestal. So talk to me a bit about that because I think that's also part of this mindset equation where maybe you might think you're your inferior or not as whatever you think when you're calling decision makers or people that work in private equity, whatever. You was quite passionate about that when you said that to me around. It's so important to make sure that you really try not to put people on a pedestal. Yeah, and it's like it rings depends on the seniority, right? Because sometimes if you're recruiting entry level, then you automatically believe that there is equal business stature. And it's when you take that step up, so like we recruiting SaaS sales, which is like the top 1% of sales people globally. These guys or girls are earning three, four, five hundred K a year. They've done it for 15 years. And I remember at 19 coming into the office and I was like, oh my God, I've now got to try and ring this guy to pack up his bags, move jobs and change his whole life. I was like, how am I even going to do that? But I was luckily enough at the time that I had Adam Harrison and Alex, who were the founders, they really ingrained it into me as that just because someone is doing this, it doesn't mean that that person is better than you, regardless of their ability, right? They are more experienced. They've done a few more things in it, but it's still equal business stature. And I think the thing for me when I personally got over that hurdle is just by like understanding how a mass-dee a craft, study, learn, watch how the top billers operate, try to emulate their process while it's putting your own spin on it. Because only once you truly believe in your ability and you know you can genuinely impact a company by hiring great talent and you can impact someone's career by giving them the opportunity of a lifetime and you can really solve complex business problems for companies. That's when you start to believe in equal business stature. So I think tying it up, it's like it's genuinely believing that you can make an impact, whether it's on a company's hiring process, whether it's on an individual's career, like the equal business stature comes from, not because I own the same amount of money as you, or I've got the same level of experience, but it's the impact that you can make to that individual of that company's lives is promotes that equal business stature. Yeah, that's great. I think you put that really well. So just to tie that out then, only because you've mentioned it a few times, there's a lot of young people that come into our industry. Like you said, starting when you was 19, I think that can also make it easy for you to fall into like, oh God, these people, like you said, they've got a lot more life experience. I'm just a 19 year old in Manchester, give them a call up, like what should some of the self-diolog be? If I'm listening to his podcast right now and maybe I am feeling a bit of that, whatever age you are, you're dealing with, you're trying to get into more of the senior end of the market, or you might have just started your recruitment career and you're young and you're speaking to people that have a lot more life experience to you. What should we be making sure the self-diolog is more of versus not? Yeah, it starts in the morning and it's like, amping yourself, but I go back to like mastering your craft and learning all that stuff. At the start, I wasn't very good. I didn't know how to make a pitch and I wasn't confident in my ability to ring someone and get them on the phone and handle every single objection and the reality is it's start of your career. You're not going to be able to do that, right? So it starts by like genuinely being insane about learning your craft and mastering your ability and sitting there and handling objections to some of your colleagues doing roleplays all the time, getting yourself to a point where like, you genuinely believe in your ability to do what you've set out to do. And then it's about having conversations with yourself because like, I remember, this was one of the biggest things. So I made a call call in the office when I first joined and I got a 30 second pitch at the guy hung up on me and I was like, Adam next to me is going, ringing back. Now I'm going, what do you mean, ringing back? He's going, ringing back right now, ringing back straight away. I was like, Adam, he's just hung up on me. He's like, ringing back, ringing back. He was like, I've just hung up on what you want. I gave him a pitch five minutes later. I got him on a call introducing him to the client and it was like that first hurdle for me. It was like, right, I can really do this. And it's about getting the little small wins. That was the guy didn't get the job, but it was a small win, which I believe, right, this is it. I can genuinely do it. And it's like that equal business that to right now got the stomachs. We're just going, ringing back and I'm not scared to go and do it. And it's just about amping yourself up. You might get 15 knows what the 16 might be. Yes. But like everyone says it because it's genuinely true. Yeah, it's always scary calling someone back on them just hung up on you as an hour. It doesn't always work that way. Love it. Right. Let's get into this building out a market from scratch piece then, which I know a lot of people listening would have either had to do it some stage might be doing it now or might be even looking at taking their career to the states like like you have. So just give us a bit of context of like, obviously you started in Germany, but with the US piece, when did you start this and was it like, was you part of the journey from building it from the bottom up? I know you obviously John was involved in that as well. Like just give me a bit of context and then we can just talk a bit about this journey and some of the things that you feel you've done really well that have helped you grow this part of the business and grow your desk. So the 90s to the interview district, it's taken a step back from there. If you look at software as a whole, the holy grail of software is San Frant. It's the the Silicon Valley, right? So if you look at it from an opportunity perspective, the US is where the opportunity is, it's where the most amount of investment happens is where the most companies are founded and it's where you will get into a company that earliest way you can make a significant impact. So when I interviewed at Strathold, they said, this is our vision. We want to set up an office up in the States at some point and we're looking for people to build out the Manchester HQ with a viewpoint at some point to go over and I immediately was sold on that dream. I wanted to be a part of the American expansion. I said it from me in an interview and I just kept reinforcing it. Every QBR I had, every yearly wrap-up, it was like, when are we going to the States? What's the plan, etc, etc. And then for the first two years, I think 2020, 2021, focusing on the German market. And then I remember at the start of 2022, obviously we just had that boom, right? Recruitment had just got nuts. People were making a blowload of money. Billions were through the roof. We were like, right, now's the right time. We had a good established client base in Europe, which meant that we had existing clients for them going to tap into to try and get into the US market. So it was myself and John that basically sat out, we were like, right, we've never touched the US. Let's go health-alive from the start, essentially. So that's how the journey worked. We worked for close to two years doing the US from the UK extremely late night, but knowing that the vision was going to be there to go to the States. So that's how that all came around, essentially. No, I appreciate you sharing that. So, and then just quickly on that, because I think people were interested, like what typically on average, because I'm sure sometimes it would change, like what we say, and was we starting at like 11, 12 there till 10, 11 at night, I'm sure sometimes it was later than that, but as I'm sure you've seen, I have a good friend that's recently just moved to Austin. It's a lot of graft to do it from the UK first. People might just see on LinkedIn, like, oh wow, like they're over to the US, these things, but probably didn't see all the sacrifice on late nights that they had to do before getting to that point. So like, what did an average week actually look like when you did the UK? 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 headhunting platform. At the end of last year, Sourcewell released an exciting new feature, the platform's very own live feed. You want to see this feature has been one of my favourites today because it tells you exactly who's engaging with your outreach in real time. This means you can easily tell which leaders are hot and which is not, so you can connect with the right people at the right time to skyrocket your engagement. 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And despite that awkward encounter, we're now working on a retained project with them in Boston and that wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Sourcewell. As you can see, Sourcewell is a great tool for driving better engagement, more meetings and higher revenue. If you're looking for a competitive edge in 2024, then Sourcewell could be for you. You can book a demo with Sourcewell 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 about £500 and is only going to be available until March 31. To click the link in the show notes or you can go directly to Sourcewell.com/demo. I was stupid enough that I kept on on my European accounts at the time because I didn't want to take a step back in my billions and didn't want to take a step back in my earnings. So I'd basically come in 8 to 12 of 1 o'clock, I'd work on my European stuff and then I'd start in probably my US from 1. So 1 o'clock is 8 or 9 o'clock am eastern. So literally it started the day for them as 1 o'clock. My day then would look like from 1 till 7, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock probably in office. Getting all my things done throughout the day. I'd typically then even go home, go to the gym, get some food and then log back on at night. So maybe I was logging on. at 10pm at night, doing my west coast calls, probably till midnight, one in the morning, some nights, and then sometimes you're not insanely busy, so you stop at 10 and you log off. I think the difficulty that people don't realize, and I didn't realize it at the time, is that when you work that late, and I'm constantly getting messages from hiring managers at 11 at night, 12 at night, one in the morning, it's just always on your mind. You don't ever stop recruitment, and it changed when it came to America because everyone logs off at 6pm, so it's like, right, I've got my evenings back, but people don't realize the sacrifice, it's not just working to late, it's like constantly being on your mind and getting messages and being reminded about stuff, and you're exactly right, people don't understand, probably, the sacrifice you've got to make, but it is worth the sacrifice is how I lend it. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, if you're really committed and in the trenches of building out your desk, your career, I'd probably say most of the time you might get a better at it, but it's difficult to not think about that interview that you know is happening the next day, or that pitch that you've got, or whatever. So I can totally see that. That was one of my biggest challenges in COVID was I was working still because I had my business, and I worked by the end of it, I'd worked in every room in the house, so there was no separation, you know? So I totally get that, when you're getting messages, and you've seen the hiring manager that you've been trying to get hold of in the day, come back, or whatever, it's going to be even more harder to switch off. Everyone needs to have your work right this year, because you're one of the hardest working recruiters I know, and not even exactly in recruitment anymore, but like you are here there and everywhere. Yeah, so I do tell you, get that, like that's made even more difficult when you're getting links and DMs and things happening when yeah, maybe other people are winding down. So you did it just so understand and so you really tried to build things, build traction for like two years before you went over there, was that intentional? Yeah, definitely intentional. I think we actually wanted to move over a little bit sooner than we initially planned to. Navigating the visa process, the first time is Toffy Shamp, and I know a lot of like, I paid extreme credit to McKenzie Powell, because she worked as hard as she possibly could, she's our operations director, she worked as hard as she possibly could to navigate everything. It's navigating the lawyers, it's going through the banks, it's setting up a business, understanding where to sell the entity, all that stuff is like it takes a lot longer than you initially thought, but like we couldn't come out of the states and not have a presence and not have an existing book of business going on. And I think one of the things that we, our strategy was quite good early around it, because we built such an established client base and such a good brand representation in the market in Amir, is that we basically just look to our existing accounts rather than prospecting into new business where we've never done recruitment in the US. We had no case studies at the work that we've done. So to then go prospect to new business and say, give us a shot, like it's tough. So what we did was we had an existing client base, and we mapped out every single account to see who was hiring in the states, prioritized where our key relationships were, who we had the biggest champions with, who would then be more likely to give us a shot in the states, and that's exactly how we did it. So we just went in our existing accounts, created a couple of case studies, then we got to a point where we had three or four case studies in the US of successful projects that we've completed, then that's when we started prospecting into new accounts essentially. So let's get into this internal champion piece then, because you pretty much just shared, because I'll be honest with you Dylan, I've heard, we've had a number of people on here now talk about taking their career to the US, and I'll be honest, I do feel like a lot of the time people have come up short when relying on existing accounts that they knew had a US presence. Like I'll be honest, I've heard that a lot, like they were hoping or expecting that that would generate more opportunities. So I think why don't we get into this internal champion piece then, because clearly that, and I'm sure that continues to be the way that you were, but clearly that really helped you at the start. Would you mind just, because I know this is common sort of language in the SaaS base internal champion, but why don't you just define internal champion for us, and then we can go through a bit more like what the strategy looks like. For sure, for sure. So firstly, an internal champion is someone within a company who benefits from your product or service, so benefits from your recruitment service that can advocate for you internally and has influence within the decision making. So whether that's the main decision maker, or whether it's someone who's got access to the decision maker, but they need to have access to the economic buyer or influence within the decision making cycle. So it's someone who benefits from your products and services, therefore is an advocate for the way that you work and the results that you provide and has influence or access to the person who makes the decisions. That's how I would define an internal champion, so to speak. And what would this person typically look like in a recruitment context? Is it a candidate that we might have worked with at some point? Is it an internal talent acquisition person who built a relationship with what did those internal champions typically look like that helped you potentially get some of those first opportunities to work on projects in the US? Yeah, unless you do exact search, it'll never be a candidate that you place, because that person's not really got access to an economic buyer or decision maker. So in my context, for example, it's the person who is responsible for the hiring. So whether that is a line manager or whether that is a second line leader. So in my case, it's typically a VP of sales, it is the decision maker. And then you've got a founder who calls a shot to a CEO that calls a shot, but I look to build a champion in a vice president of sales, or if it's an engineering company, a VP of engineering, or it might be a line manager. But then you've tried to find a way to navigate from a line manager to the second line, etc. But it's someone who has hiring as their responsibility in their job description essentially. So if an internal champion for you would be VP of sales, how do I become an internal champion for Dylan? Like you said, a big part of it is the products and service piece. So would we have worked together potentially or like how does that typically play out? Yeah. So I'll take a little bit of a step back from there, to make people aware and why it's such an effective strategy. So I started getting very familiar with the concept. So ultimately imitate the people I was prospecting to. So software companies all over the planet, they use this exact strategy, which is champion building. So at first I did it because it gave me mutual respect. And secondly, I understood why it was so valuable. So the reasons why it's so valuable is because the individual has influence and advocacy for you. So those champions can influence decision makers. They often either have a seat at the table or influence that seat and can therefore fight your battles internally on behalf of you. And therefore can help you to overcome obstacles, which therefore helps you to risk deals, right? Because typically a champion will be able to provide you information that you wouldn't typically know throughout a deal process. Whether it's positive or whether it's negative, it'll help you basically understand information that you wouldn't necessarily be aware of. And it therefore helps to create a predictable pipeline. Because I know if there might be three people in the decision making, right? Two people love my can do. One person doesn't red flag deal might not go through. So it helps me create a predictable pipeline. And then the last aspect of why it's important is the long-term partnership. Because it feeds into maximizing an account, which is something that will go on to it, which one will lead to a bigger account more revenue from an existing. It'll lead to repeat business. And more often than not, if you're champion that you're dealing with, is at a high level of well thought of within the industry, it leads into client referrals, which for me is like a very large portion of my BD strategy, is getting referrals from one person to another company to another company, etc. So I'd say they're the reasons why it's such an effective strategy. And we can go on like how you identify a champion and how you build it. Yeah, you brought that down really well. Like I do, I think that's a really good insight on if you have that internal champion, you can get that direct honest information around something that could be potentially risking something happening, which you might not have got from the hiring manager, because they didn't want to say at that point or whatever. So that does, that does make complete sense. And also, like you said, like then also what else you could potentially do in the future with them because of the position that are in. So that does make a lot of sense. So I'm sure people are going to be thinking you can tell me where you think would be best to start. Maybe it could be like how do I go about identifying who internal champions can be in my market, but I definitely also just whilst it's top of mind, I want to hear you'll take on like do internal champions know that they're internal champions? Do you know what I mean? You like, I don't know, like are you saying, I don't know how that plays out as it's interesting. Like do these people actually know that they're being described as Dylan's internal champion? Like who you have in that conversation, it's just something that's top of mind, but you can help us understand how can we first maybe identify who these people are in my market or like how you can go about understanding who they are. Yeah, there's two things to it, right? One, the people in my industry who I work with the sales leaders, they do this day and day, they're not in it. So they know that I'm building a champion in themselves, but like it benefits them so they don't mind. But let's say so I've done some, we've there's aspects of go-to-market sales recruitment, which is sales engineering, where the engineering leaders aren't as familiar with the concept. So they might not be as aware that they are championed, they might strictly they are mate and you're posted on the inside essentially, but like I have jokes all the time with sales leaders where it's like, right, you're my champion, I need you to go do this for me, right? And it's like having that conversation and that human which helps you to build that relationship. So I'd say in my instance for sales people they They know that you can't pull the wall over their eyes, whereas for other markets, such as engineering or procurement or operations, they probably won't be as aware with the concept, so you've probably got to play it a little bit smarter. Yeah, fair. Okay. And then what are some of the most effective, because I feel like a lot of this is around building trust, credibility with them, like these people aren't going to be willing, because like when these people do something on your behalf, they're not just doing that for you. They're also putting their reputation on the line. I think that that's like such a key thing to remember. So I think if anyone is referring you, you got to really make sure that you respect that. Be grateful for that. Take that seriously, because when you ever get asked for referrals, and you say, oh, I didn't like, I'm going to refer you to this podcast editing company or whatever, when I make that referral, that's also a judgment of me, or like you're going to make also judgment of me on how good my referral is or like, so I think this, even more so, if they're in a position of influence and I go, no, I think this is why we should give them an opportunity. Yeah, like there's a lot, you can vary, like the stakes are even higher, I'd say, because it's like you could, yeah, like their reputation isn't played there as well. Like how will we get into that point where someone's willing to do that? Like how what is the most effective way there because I'm sure this is something you're intentionally doing that isn't going to happen overnight. So like what are some of the biggest accelerators of having someone be your champion within the organisation? 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So that is available for you specifically the listeners of this podcast until the end of June 2024 and you can check it out by going to www.5fishsoftware.com/RMP. Let's get back into the episode. Literally starting from the exact beginning, first that you've got a map out of the account everyone knows how to map an account who does business development right and you map out an account and you've got to understand the hierarchy within a company and understand how these companies operate. So who has influence within the recruitment cycle, who has influenced the pull the trigger on a higher in my instance, it's a VP of sales, a live manager or a founder and CEO. And from there, that's how you identify who that champion could potentially be right. So let's say that you've now identified a specific champion, you know who's got influence, you know who can pull the trigger and now it's about establishing so in sales or in recruitment, I believe there are two types of relationships. I believe you either have a trust based relationship or a credibility based relationship that the first one to trust you have to earn someone's trust by doing an extremely good job for someone right. I might have to fill one, two, three or even four roles for that person to then say right, Dylan, some man, I trust him. I can now be his advocate or secondly, you've got a credibility based relationship, which is basically about what you've done before. And how you handle yourself throughout the business development process. So like in my opinion, you've got to establish which type of relationship it is and that takes a decent level of emotional intelligence to be able to understand that and what going to like the nuts and bolts around it, but it's about establishing which of those two relationships is. And then when you go about how can I build a champion right it starts literally from the beginning so have an executive presence and demonstrate an equal business structure like like we discussed right showing this person you are an expert in what you do and it starts by taking a very, very detailed and very comprehensive job brief when you can showcase your ability to know what you're talking about. And then you can make suggestions and push back right because we've all been it where I remind you what's a needle in a haystack and some recruiters won't build that much because they just say yeah okay Mr. I'm going to do it no problem. I find it they know they can't go find it they know that like they can't so it's about having the guts to challenge the client as appropriate right so asking the tough questions making good suggestions and pushing back and challenging them based on what they think is right. Next it's about nailing you weekly sinks so I book in every single time we run in a project with the client I've run a weekly sink so I've got half an hour in his diary and then it's all that I'd hog bits of communication but I've got one half an hour sink in his diary and I nail that weekly sink I come to it with data I come to it with my process and I come to it with candidates and if I set out that I've got an SLA to hit you have to nail your SLA you've got a nail it whether it's a certain amount of candidates a certain amount of conversations a certain amount of date you've got to go and nail it without. Next it feeds into never say you're going to do something that you're not willing to do so always like always do what you say you're going to do right if you give your words to someone you've got to deliver on it and then when you're in the recruitment cycle I share it's about like being proactive so let's say that like let's say we're working a job. This job's not going anywhere the certain issues we've identified these issues and a good recruiter will address those issues right they'll say from week one to get go this is a problem and if we don't solve this problem that's how it's going to impact the rest of the recruitment cycle. So it's about identifying address those issues early and then other aspects to it feeding and this is talking right from the beginning but it's like looking after the client and their interest to like many examples of Shemwa I'm running process I'm going to do it. I've got five people in process and there's two of them who I don't really think are right and I also don't like the way that they handle themselves throughout the process they might be pushing back into the usual the time they might not treat you with a certain level of respect and I'll just be honest to a higher manager say right I think I'm going to pull Nick out of process why well I don't like the way that he's handled himself I don't think his experience is absolutely nailed to what you want and I think from a culture fit probably well be right and that's shows that you're looking after their their interest. And you're looking after them as a client and your client first business commercial accumulations always important in these things right nailing out your account plan and asking good questions navigating throughout the account speaking to different stakeholders who are involved in the interview process and then the last two things like extremely extremely simple in the industry I operate in the sales people are just. Active from six in the morning to ten at night and if you're dealing with a recruiter who will respond to six a.m. and they respond to you at 10 p.m. You know this person's committed you know this person's going to do exactly what he's out to you he's working as hard as he can to go and do it and hustlers respect hustlers are all time and then the last thing is just delivered like you've never build a champion if you can't deliver so. Alex Elliott always says deliver deliver deliver and then the rest of it will figure itself out but if you can't successfully solve this problem or fill this role or build this team you're never going to build someone is a great breakdown and then hopefully it doesn't make you feel like everything that you just said doesn't matter but can I build a champion because I feel like the things you just went through there let me know if I've misunderstood this but everything you mentioned there was in the context that mean you were working together so. Can I build a champion without us working on a brief in these things that they were great breakdowns and what you can do to really showcases is said like what you're about what you're capable of doing all those things which is why these people they're going to be willing to put their reputation on the line and be your champion but can we do the same thing without working with them. You can do the same thing without working with them if you've worked in their business so if it's a VP of sales I've maybe built his SDR team right I've then showcased my ability within his business right and I might have got a small champion within the sales development leader but he's not the decision maker he's not the big influencer so I've then got to try and get into intro me to the VP of sales but you won't be able to build a champion with someone who's not you don't do any work in the I don't want to do that. I don't believe so anyway it's because you've got no value people only be a champion for you if you provide a value and you've shown that you can do something for them like Adam Richardson is ingrained this into me from 19 years old every single conversation you ever have with someone they think with them what's in it for me. I think I think you do the same so I think unless you work with that business I don't think that you're in a position to be able to go on the champion someone yeah understood and with the us piece then what is the most effective way of getting these us opportunities of the internal champion get that but was it getting those introductions on email getting these people to like vouch for you is that sort of how went down in terms of getting those getting your hands on those initial projects. And then doing all the things that you just said like was it those email intros that you relied on the pay dividends yes and no like at the start that we didn't really get many intros that start. It was hard call business development. Call call all the typical new business stuff right what we're talking about is quite like street. strategic sales, it's not like hard-called dials, outbound emails, making things happen, indeed the broad sense of business development within recruitment, that still happens, that's not what I'm saying doesn't happen. The more time that you spend in a market, the more strategic you can get, and the more you start to operate on that level, but like the start made, it was just like to make a hundred thousand a day, and that's free to as many higher managers as we possibly can. Let's get someone to give us a shot, and one of the things that we'll go into in the conversation that I wanna go into is where I think people go wrong, when building a market around turning the nose up at continued work, and only saying, "I'm only gonna work it if it's exclusive or if it's retained." Like, you can't turn your nose up at contingent work if you build it at market. You can't, because that's your chance to have a shot. - Yeah, that was gonna be my next thing, 'cause I wanted to go into the sort of maximizing of an existing account, and I think part of that is, yeah, getting an opportunity, and then maximizing it, and doing what you do. So yeah, Juna taught us a bit about that, because I think I got it written down here, yeah, type of recruitment, contingent, and then the upgrade. This is where you have a lot of success, is what I wrote down. It's really interesting, because I least you spoke to a founder this week, where all of their work is 100% retained, but over the last two, three months, they do UK SaaS, the conversion of like, retained pictures to close just hasn't quite been there. And yeah, I said to them, I was like, "Look, I know you really want to protect the experience, "and begin to their camp, their experience, "they have like, MPS, which I know you guys are big on too, "in terms of really thinking about that." And I was like, "Look, I meet and interview a lot of people, "and although maybe you'll see them always talking about "exex search, retain these things, "a lot of the time these people still do a 34% contingent work." (laughing) And I was like, "Look, you can still deliver the experience "and value that's really important to you, "if it's exclusive, if it's contingent." Like that's down to you. And also, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a product suite, right? Like at least saying that this is how we're gonna work together, but like making sure that they also know that these are the other ways that they work with organizations and companies. And it, like, because a lot of recruits I speak with, they just have one way of working. Like they don't have, you know, the different services, how you wanna do it. So do you wanna tell us a bit about this, because you can share your experience with this, but I just thought I'd share that, 'cause that's something that I was chatting about this week on that. - Yeah, everybody wants exclusive and retain the show. And everybody who's listening to the podcast now, I'm like, "I only really wanna work "sclusive and retain business because it's less race, "and now I'm gonna get paid." And that's the be-all I end up, if you ask me, "I work 100% exclusive and retain, "I wanna work any contingent." But in a recruitment company's infancy or in a market's infancy, I think people go wrong by turning the nose about it, because if I look at my five top accounts now, three of them started, I've continued, three of them I was battling against other agencies, and I try it exactly as I would, and it's exclusive or retained accounts. Like, let's say like, I'm opening a market and I haven't got any compelling case studies to go after. It's gonna be tough to go at school if you're returning straight away, right? But if I've got any contingent account, or somebody's give me a shot, 'cause like for a company, it's a lot less rest to bring on a contingent recruiter. It's pay-on-success, I can still use my other agencies and my other model, perfect. But I try and a contingent account like it's exclusive, only if I believed it was high potential, right? If it's got hyper VC backing, they've got some extremely high credibility, high caliber sales leaders in the business. The products is really good, and they've got some really good team. I think that's a really good ICP account. So I'm gonna treat this as an exclusive account, and I'm gonna follow the same processes and the same level of commitment as I would. Again, you might fail, right? It's a contingent account, somebody else might spec in, you might fail, but some are gonna come up. And in my opinion, that's the risk that you've got to take when building a market. So what is the most effective way of upgrading then? 'Cause how do we make sure that the framing and perspective of these hiring managers, of these VP of sales, of when working with Dylan is that we pay-on-success. Dylan, you've done a really good job of finding this business development manager for us, or this BD leader, whatever. Yeah, we'd love to work with you again on this. Let's just do it, how we just did it. You did a good job. I'm sure you run into that, or that's often sometimes the expectation, or assumption that people listen to this, is like, you don't wanna be putting that box. How do we make sure that, yeah, their perspective of working with you isn't, he's a contingent recruiter, and that's how we work with him. Yeah, two things to it. One is setting very, very specific upfront contracts, right? So it's, every single time that I always go into a conversation, or it's a new business meeting, to try and sign a contingent account, I set an upfront contract. If I do a good job for you right now, how happy would you be to make me a more exclusive recruitment partner? Some businesses do not go exclusive, right? Yes, it's detrimental. We believe it's detrimental to the way that they work, but it's worth it for them in the past, and they might not wanna go exclusive. Sometimes you waste the near time, where those are, I'll say, right, if I do a good job, can I become your exclusive partner? Yeah, I'll think about it. Okay, well, let's set some specifically objective requirements that I need to achieve in order for me to upgrade this account. Okay, what if I fill one job? If I fill two placements on this team right now, can you give me your commitment that I'll become an exclusive recruitment partner? And there's occasions where it's a gentleman's agreement, or there's occasions where it's genuinely written in the contract, right? I might sign a terms with someone, and in the terms, I'll say, right, if we do a good job, we will go from contingent to exclusive, what's the benefit for them, or the exclusive salient and all that stuff, but the benefit to them is I'll reduce my terms, right? I might sign them up at a high percentage, contingently, and willing to drop two and a half percent to go exclusive. That's the benefit to them is a cost save, and also they've now showcased. So I guess, does that all make sense before I go into the next bit? Yeah, I make sense. So upfront contracts, out like really asking that direct question of like, what needs to happen for us to get into this position for us to work with each other? Probably a lot of people aren't doing that and being that direct and asking, and they're least trying to find out like what needs to happen for us to work in this way. I was going to say to you, like, let's go through the what's in it for me if we work in this exclusive, so it sounds like you were just going through that. 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 recruiters achieve their potential by providing world-class training delivered by today's top performers. If you're a growing 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, well, that's a different topic, but I'm happy to go into it. So what's interesting for them if they go exclusive, right? Is one you've like, you've showcased your ability, and I always say with a continued account, I'm gonna treat this like an exclusive account, I'm gonna give you my 100% commitment up front that I'll do everything that I can to build this role. And for any of my contingent accounts, you will get a drop in service. But what we're able to allocate is much resource because we internally, it's too busy as a company with exclusive work, where we can only allocate resource to the things that we believe are gonna get good ROI from it, we're speaking the same languages they are 'cause they do the same with their sales rat. But the things that I do is I'm very data driven. So the information that I will collate throughout a hiring project, I will feed back to you. I will feed back to you on what people think of your employee value proposition, what people think about your products within the market. I will talent pipeline for you, right? There'll maybe 20 people that I speak to are perfect for the role who aren't ready to move right now. But they've said that in six or 12 months time at the end of their fiscal year, that them willing to make a jump. So one of the biggest things I offer is I've got a talent venture for you. In six or 12 months when I know that that head count's gonna open, I've got a bunch of people ready to plug in straight away, they know about your business, they know about you, they're ready to go straight away. And that's like a really big thing. The other aspect of it as well is that like, I'm protecting your brand within the market, you employ 10 different recruiters who are pitching the same 100 candidates, you burn in the market. Nobody is gonna wanna work at your company, Mr. Howard, might as well do because they've been heard about it from 10 different people. And if you're being that aggressive with the recruitment, it tells me that you don't really put that much time and value in respect in spring in the right people on board. I protect it, you know how well I work? You know how good my network is. You know how compelling I am when I sell your value proposition into the market. That's the experience that I'm giving you is the exact same experience that I give to candidates. Or you can stay at contingent, you can be one of my other 20 accounts where they don't get the same amount of allocation of resources and time and effort put into it, but you aren't gonna fail the recruitment if you do that. And I'd say like, they're the things I offer from an exclusive perspective, which is the big whiff them for a higher manager 'cause they get it a lot of the time. - Did you do anything around like, first refusal on candidates out of interest? I don't know if you don't think they're in terms of like, I will be sending you this person and I won't be sending them to your competitors for the first two weeks or something like that. I don't know. - 100%. It's something that we didn't use to offer and then we started offering it because, because one of our competitors, you've got to sell against your competition and not badmills, but understand where they fall short. And a lot higher managers didn't like one of our competitors because they will send a candidate to them, that candidate will get to off the stage and then they accept another offer. - That's what I mean. - And it happens consistently 'cause he's sent into five of his best clients. So if bio's offering that as a good civility, he gives them more chance to get the talent that they wanna hire. - Yeah, yeah, nothing, I think it's a good point. - Is there anything else that you wanna add on maximising an instant account upgrade when talking about there before we get onto the VC piece? - Yeah, I think the biggest thing I always say with this is that small and show them how good you are are absolutely nailing one or two roles because people have offered me five or 10 roles to start off with. One, I know I can't deliver on them. So I'm not gonna set on realistic expectations and I don't think that's how you foster a positive business partnership. To start off small, start off by nailing one or two roles and within those one or two roles, it gives you an opportunity to network within the account, get your contact to introduce you to the other people in the hiring process. Let's say you've got four different stakeholders within the interview process. Make sure you speak to every one of those directly. It helps you out because you have more control and you have more influence within the process. And then the last thing that I'll put on maximising account is that like, you have to understand their business objectives. So what is that business outside of recruitment? What does that business wanna do over the next 36, 9 or 12 months? What does that look like? And then you've got to figure out how hiring feeds into those objectives. Which departments they need to hire for? What does the quality of those hires need to be? What is the negative business impact made if those hires don't happen? And that's how you position yourself as a strategic partner. You're just gonna help the overall business achieve the objectives. Just about understanding what those objectives are but how recruitment feeds into those objectives and that's how you become a strategic partner. That's what the last thing I'll mention about maximising account. - Yeah, no, that's mega. I love it. I just love 'cause you know how it is. You can be scrolling on LinkedIn and people shitting on contingent works and like only work retain these things. But I just love how honest you've been there on like, one of the best ways you can turn an opportunity into an account or client that is spending six figures with you in a year is by grabbing that opportunity with both hands and like standing out that way and then doing all these great things that you've said. So yeah, like you said, like I think you pull it really nicely. Like don't look down your nose on contingent work. Particularly, I think if we put an asterisk on there, particularly when it's with organisations that have great potential that are in your like dream client bucket that have the potential to be some really great players in your space. It'd be silly and maybe naive to do that. So let's get on to how does this? I think this has come up quite often when I interview people that operate in your space. Obviously, as you said, when it comes to SaaS, currently from wrong here, but you said most of the investment or the most amount of investment in this space will happen in the US versus anywhere else in the world. So of course, it makes sense that if Dylan, if strive can be perceived as a brilliant talent partner to a Peef that backs SaaS companies, that's going to be a potential great partnership, right? Because as we all know, despite what people think about recruiters, companies will not achieve their business objectives because they don't have the right people in the right seats. It really does boil down to that. So if you don't nail recruitment or you don't get very good at recruitment, are you going to go public? Probably not. Are you going to IPO? Probably not. So regardless of what you think, recruitment is a real fucking problem. And it's why so much money is spent on it. So a Peef, I'm having a talent like a partner that they trust that they can say, hey, you know, we've congrats. Series A, it's in, I want to introduce you to Dylan. You know, you know, a big part of this raise is going to be about getting this go-to-market team, whatever, et cetera, et cetera. Like that's going to be a pretty important introduction that can generate a lot of great things. But how the hell do we get there? Because from the conversations that I've had, it takes a lot of work where, again, we've got to build trust, credibility. Probably got to stand out. These people, you know, smart people operate in this space. So probably understand that these people could potentially unlock like crazy potential and revenue opportunities. So they're probably, you know, always being asked for time and people are trying to get in front of them. And then also, I've had a lot of people say that, if Dylan becomes like a preferred supplier, the gates do not open. Like you have to still, there's a lot of work. Like you might get signed as however it works. And you know, oh my god, like guys, we've just been signed by this Peef, we've won. Like you asked, we've completed it. We've completed it. And then it's tumbleweed. Like you still got to make sure it happens. So yeah, give us like, yeah, anything that where you want to start with there. But I guess like for that, how's people listening? Like why having some solid relationships in the venture capital space would make sense for someone like you? Mate, I came on this, I thought you were going to tell me. (laughing) No, listen, it's something that it's constantly evolving, right? We haven't, by no means have we nailed it. I don't think, I don't know many recruitment companies that have nailed it, right? It's something that's an extremely complex challenge. The why, behind leveraging VC relationships, the biggest thing to firstly say is that it is a long-term strategy. You are not going to get quit wins by adopting a VC business development strategy. It's just not going to happen. The BVCs that we spoke to two years ago that I now only started to pay dividends. We had one recently where we'd been hammering them for 18 months, well, Adam had been hammering them for 18 months constantly. I met him at an event in person face to face the next day we had an intro. So it's so weird how the whole world works. But the why behind why you do it, ultimately you get more ROI for your input. Like, I don't have to prospect if I have a good VC relationship. I don't have to prospect 20 different accounts. I can theoretically, prospects want account for which is the VC and get five intros to five different vendors. So one of the aspects it's more ROI for your output, but also it's a stronger endorsement because if one of your investors suggests to you that you should use this recruiter to much more positive endorsement than me just approaching the direct state and I can solve one of your problems. So I'd say for me, that's the why you would use it if you want to dig into anything there. - No, I think that's bang on. Like you said, I think you shared again, it's a longer term, like things can take a while. So yeah, you can talk to us a bit about how you've been able to get in front of some of these companies or what's worked versus not worked so far. - Yeah, I think firstly, you have to have done successful work within their portfolio. Maybe you've successfully completed a project in one or two of their portfolios that they've invested in. And your champion in one of those companies will happily introduce you to the investor if you're operating at a sea level or a VP level. Or maybe you've got a fantastic case study within their portfolio where you've completed 10 hires for one of their investments. You've got a really great case study, marketing that made it look all pretty. And now I can approach the investor directly and say, this is the work that I've done for your portfolio. There is no promise that that person's then going to take a meeting. There's no promise. Like you may take it, you might not. But it's just about continuing and then that grind that hustle. And let's say then you've got that meeting with the VC. It's nowhere job done. I'd say it's job start. And going back to my previous points, it's then about having that executive presence within that meeting and it impresses that investor. So talking in curious specific focus, VC's like to know that you've got a niche, right? My niche might be cyber security or my niche might be developer tools or DevOps hiring. VCs like to know you've got a specific niche rather than being a generalist. It's about talking in three specific focus. Talking in three in niche, being extremely compelling when you're talking in through your value proposition about how you go to market, how you build a lead teams, right? So I'd say that's one aspect. When you get the meeting, have that executive presence really being compelling in the way that you taught them through your strategy and why you do things and how you do it. And then the other aspect of it is as well in terms of like constantly proven value to these investors, introduce senior leaders to them. Like I might have a couple of VP contacts that I know are confidentially looking for a higher. Typically the investors will only get involved in like C level or VP level or high level recruitment, right? They might endorse go to market recruitment or level level but they only really get the board get hands on when it's like a really high level position. So keeping introducing senior leaders to your contacts, this person's looking confidentially, not sure if there's any appetite or he can fit into your portfolio, but just wanted to put him on your radar. Wow, Dylan really is well networked. He knows the space, he works some great people and yeah, I think he's someone that we can really seriously contemplate. Yeah, the give equation is probably, you've got to give a lot. A lot, yeah, a lot. And then if you've got any stories or examples of so far in terms of like, you did all that leg work, that hard work and then what have been some of the like wins so far? If any, I don't know, I'll see it didn't come up when we prepared for it. Have you had any like stories of wins so far or still on the journey? Yeah, I don't want to say it's luck. I believe in what we do in life, you create your own luck. Luck is for people who give the output and people are said are lucky, but you've done everything to get that result. I remember recruiting in Germany, probably, I don't know, 18 months into recruiting and I had to admit a woman to get in process. She was unbelievable. She was great. She was good-looking, great at sales, carried herself really well at executive presence. I was like, "He is getting the job." There was no way she doesn't, right? She got to offer process. She declined the offer. So, got to that. I knew she was getting the job. She declined. She was too good. Anyways, I was speaking to her and she was, "Oh, I was thinking the other day. I was like, "Oh, I might introduce you to my boyfriend." I was like, "Right. I'm country." She was like, "Yeah, he does a bit of investment here and there." I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm always happy to chat to people." This guy was the founder of one of the biggest VCs in Germany. He's been just investing a few things. He was literally what. That's how I built the market in Germany because I got in with this one investor after about 18 months. He turned out to be an absolute hitter. He managed like a billion-dollar fund. He invested in all the leading startups in Germany. Because I got endorsed from his girlfriend, again, good champion in his girlfriend, who then endorsed me into him. I think we probably signed eight clients in the space of 12-18 months of the back of that. And they were some of our highest performing clients in 2021 and 2022. That's just like one example. There's numerous examples in the US. But that was the first one for me where I was like, "The strategy pays off if you do it well." I love that. That's class. So round us out then, I want to hit you with just some US pieces. I know there's plenty of people listening to this that maybe being spoken about by the current company about taking their career to the US, there might be as excited as you are about it or might be being hit up by a reterex and we can take your career to the US while I do it in rainy Manchester when you could do it. I just want to hit you just some quick fire on the differences. Maybe bust any myth. I want to hit you with this common assumptions that I hear. I guess firstly, how much has your average deal size increased on the recruitment side from German to the US? Has it increased much? Because a lot of people say, "Yeah, that tends to be a lot larger." It's gone from between 20 and 25 to between 30 and 40 on average. Nice. And then how about typical terms that you're agreeing? Again, that's a common one. Typically, people can secure better terms in the US versus Europe, definitely in the UK. Have you found that? 25%. That's like the average is 25%. Yeah, okay. There are instances where it's 30, but in the market we operate in in South, there's so much competition. And certain companies now are saying the drop in the pan is saying we'll do 15%. We won't do that, but they're having a negative impact on the industry. I'd say on average it's 25% is 30%. And then you mentioned competition now. I think you'll see Slides on the amount of UK recruitment agencies versus how many of you in the US. Do you find yourself, is there more competition? How do you find that? Yes, more competition. I don't know. The chart in recruit is that recruiting in the US or in your age? So there is more competition, but like in terms of ease of recruitment, I don't want to say it's easier, but it's much easier when I start off the conversation with an English accent away from from this ban rather than a conversation. So and that's true in personal life as well, by the way, it's not just recruitment. Your ability to pick up friends and build a network in your personal life. A lot easier if you come with a different accent and you can have those types of conversations. I was listening to, I don't know if you're a fan of modern wisdom, but that's my favourite part. So yeah, so yeah, Chris was talking about the UK accent in the US. How it's very valuable or highly useful. Say no more. Say no more. I was going to say what about in terms of what's actually so we mentioned average deal size, the terms, the competition. The way that I've been framing it to people, you can tell me if you agree with this or not as well is like sometimes I think people will perceive the US from how people talk about is that they say that it's easier. I don't believe people are saying that the way that I've framed it to people is that it's just as hard, maybe even harder to land that first client, get that first opportunity to get in with someone. But when you do, you can really triple your income opportunities from that client and the potential spend could be a lot larger in the US, maybe versus Europe, the UK. But actually it's just more about being just as hard, maybe even slightly harder, but the payoff could be free 5x than what you're used to. Well, if you just look at it on a map, it's a bigger opportunity, there's more jobs, there's more candidates and Americans love to buy. They love to buy anything. I mean that like personal professional, they love to buy and they also love to be sold to. So like it's just a bigger opportunity and they're just a different culture. They respect recruitment and sales people. Whereas I think in the UK, you're still, sometimes seen as a pretty low level sales person. Whereas over here, you're trapped with a different level of respect to be honest. Love it. So look, round us out there, what's the big goal? You know, we're on the US takeover now. So what's the big goal for you over the next six to our months? I need to cross the million bill on mark. Yeah. That's me personally, the biggest goal is the million bill. I'm insanely focused on that one objective. Love it. Well, when you do that, let's jump back on and we can hear all about it. So Dylan, thank you so much. Be the next week pleasure. Appreciate it. I hope there were plenty of golden nuggets for you to take away. As you know, I'm your host here of the recruitment mentors podcast. But I'm also the founder of recruitment mentors. We're 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, there's a good chance that you value self development, personal development. You're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement. But we've partnered with a number of grown recruitment companies who were struggling to understand how they can invest more in their people, how they can upskill them more quickly without spending more time, without having to spend thousands of pounds of external trainers, and we've ended up being a really great fit, modern fit for recruitment teams. We can ultimately help you get more out of your teams by giving your people access to modern and engaging online learning which they can access on demand. The thing that's really cool about what we're doing at recruitment mentors is that all of the people that your teams are able to learn from and the people that are delivering the learning content are people that are in roll right now. They're billing. They're actively facing the challenges that your teams are and the lot of the time they're amongst the top performers within their companies. 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