From Reset to $6M: The Strategy, Standards, and Pivots That Rebuilt LHi Austin with Jack Eldridge

- Jack, welcome to the podcast. - Thank you for having me, you're welcome. - Been great getting to know you, have our event tomorrow, that you're part of as well. So you've been on a pretty interesting journey. I shared something this morning on LinkedIn around how I think a career recruitment is just one of the best careers out there. One of those factors is it can actually take you on your own around the world. - You can, from Bezzan to New York to Texas. - Exactly. - So I'm sure you've seen this with people that you speak to, but one of the things that has really been consistent over the last two years is the amount of like UK firms that wanna go into the US or already in the US or doing it from the UK. But it will probably be on the business plan of a lot of companies to try and get boots on the ground in the US. So that's why I was really looking forward to sit down with you because to give everyone a bit of context, you've been the electrician group that has a number of different brands within that group. - So you've been at that business for 10 years, joining 2016. - Yep. - During the Euros? - You've had a lot of experience in the US specifically. So started a big chunk of that in New York was part of that initial cohort there. But what we're really gonna drill into is since 2020, you've been in Austin, been building out the Austin office. So to give everyone a bit of a timeline there, 'cause that's what we're gonna drill into in terms of how that's gone, what we've learned, what we've had to learn the hard way. Came over to Austin September 2020. There's a small team of you, four, five people. And then from that point, 2021 was your first full year. Did circa 1.8 million dollars still around five people? That he was all around being very client first, client centric, how many accounts can we be working with that we're doing 10 plus deals with, which we're gonna talk about. 2022 year two, circa 3.5 million dollars around 13 heads, still all perm in terms of the brands that we had at this point and have Piper Maddox, which is a renewables brand. We had Lawrence Harvey, which is a tech brand. 2023 circa 4.2 million dollars around 18 heads. Then we also then added in Harb Harrison, which is another one of your brands, which is built environment. Also then started to think about contract. I've got here then 2024. So last year 5.2 million dollars, circa 21 heads, officially launched contracts apart that revenue number is around 500K. Contracting that's another Piper Maddox brand. And then year today, tracking run rate 6 million around 24, 25 heads, contract, have a target of 1.5 million. And that's a big priority. Got about 70% of the team who are Americans, rest is British. And we've got a few things that have happened that we're gonna drill into, but we've got a bit of a timeline there. So what we wanted to do is really just go through some of the important moments of things that we feel like is helped you get to where you are today. Is the goal. - For sure. - Do it. - So why don't we just start? 'Cause I found this interesting. And I think there might be some elements that people can learn from here, because if people are coming over to the US, this might be top of mind. So you said to me, when you went into that room, it didn't feel like an LHI office. - Do you also know office? - The Austin office, yeah. When you first got there, that's something who shared with me was like, it doesn't feel like an LHI office. So tell me what you meant by that or what were the things that gave you that feeling, because if people are successful and come over here, they're gonna wanna keep that what they feel like they've done well in wherever they are, UK, Europe, whatever. They're gonna be thinking, how can we make our, like the core elements of what makes us us in a new location? What is it that you saw? - Our ex-CEO, Jim Denny, and it was used to call it the LHI Star Dust. And it was his phrase or it right around. When you walk in a LHI office where it's in Berlin, Munich, London, Manchester, LH Miami, New York, or Austin, it should have that sense you should feel like you're in LHI office, not just because of the writing on the wall or the pictures on the wall or whatever, it should feel somewhat LHI. And I think for me, I remember when I first walked into the London office back in 2015, probably when I was interviewing. And it was night and day from the company that I was at at the time, you could just feel sort of the energy, the sense that people are all in it together. I know that's really sort of open or not really too specific in terms of what LHI feels like, but for me, when I went to Austin, it was I'd just come up through New York for five years over nearly five years, seeing it grow from zero to, it's about 60 by the time I left. And I'd seen what they had built and what LHI in the US could be. And then going into Austin, well, we launched LHI as well at that point. That was probably about 30 or 40, another pretty well established office at the time. And Austin had got what it tried to have been kicked off basically as COVID here. It was being run by the MD of the US at that point as well. So I mean, probably had bigger fish to fry as well and just kick off a small team here in Austin. So it hadn't quite, I think, got off the ground. Yeah, which is a small room, small tiny office as a re-office in the US starts. It just didn't have that vibe, well, it didn't have that feel that it should. And it was all men as well. So there was no diversity in the hiring at that point. So there was a few things there that probably had to get fixed. Is probably really worth or changed? Just out of interest then, because obviously, that isn't something that you can just change like that, is it? So like, what are the things that you've brought forward or like the real top of minor things are like, this is what we really need to just stay true to, stick to that you can control, that you want to make sure is there in the long term, because you're not going to be able to just, obviously, make it an LHI office, are you? So what are the sort of fundamental things you're like, right, we need to be doing this, we need to be doing these things, because they probably stuck with you over the long period of time. Absolutely. There's still things that we put in place then five years ago that we still do now. So I remember learning a lot of lessons from the period in New York and then being able to apply that to when I got here. But there were certain fundamental processes or LHI standards or LHI basics, I think it's we call them, four or five key things that are part of your day-to-day in part of the processes that you do in your day-to-day job that just weren't there. There was no weekly flow in terms of how you get a team together at the start of the week. You agree what you're going to try and achieve during that period. There was no sort of north star for a quarterly goal, or yearly goal. So it was basically like a rebuild from the ground up in terms of creating a team, creating a philosophy, creating a culture, and it needed some new hiring, and it needed some injection of personalities and some injection of pace as well into that room. So that initial period from, I think it was like September to March was around me scrapping it and I'm reaching still a nice thing. Yeah, we can get into the specifics of those things. Yeah, give me the four or five things. You said what we could kick off quarterly. I mean, the boring processes, these are the practical things that I know you like your podcast. Yeah, the given's the practical. I had a desk, but they're baseline things that should make your job easier. So there was periods in New York where things might be a bit out of kilter. You might have loaded jobs, but the delivery isn't there. Or you might have loaded offers, but you're not closing as many as you should. Well, certain things like that that arise during, I suppose in any business. So over the years, we've developed certain processes that we put in place to make sure that we're combating input, delivering the output that it should. So real based, I know with things like job confirmation emails that you sent your clients as a receipt of a contract before you start search, there's certain ways that you put together your client preparation email template before interviews, whether you do your candidate preparation. There's real baseline things that just weren't being done, job coverage trackers. So what process do you follow when you kick off search, things like that, how do you track your BD? So yeah, there's about five or six things there that we had to implement. And then that flow of the week was for me probably the most important thing, because actually we'll get into it, Hisham, around how? Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, because I think that'll be really helpful for people. Because some people don't have a river or maybe they're sometimes a consistent movement, sometimes they're not. So give us that rhythm, because that will make sense that then your implement-- work and maybe everyone was doing maybe slightly different things that there wasn't certain things that people should be doing. And then, like you said, this is the most important. So yeah, give us the sort of operating cadence. You want to have it as back then, or how it is now five years down the line? It's not then. And then we can talk about how it is today. Because when you start things obviously a little clunky and you learn a lot over the five years that I've been here. And I remember looking back when you and I met the other week and it was like, look back at the sales meetings and the sort of things I was driving five years ago. For me, the whole thing I wanted to create was a room that felt and is a bit cheesy, but it's fine. It was around positivity and preparation and productivity. It was a lot of the illiteration. Free peace. And you could tie in real baseline level things around those things, right? So I remember there's a place in Austin called Perris that do cheap pork chops on Fridays. So it used to be positivity and preparation for pork chops at Perris. [LAUGHTER] That was the first time I've monthly thing we used to drive. But positivity, sure, that's just what you expect to room to feel like, right? But the preparation was-- and I learned this again from New York around not leaving a week, not leaving a Friday until you go through your preparation check. So you know what you're coming into on a Monday. Have you got 15 calls booked in? We have target people. Have you got your Monday and Tuesday blocked out in advance of your Wednesday catch-up? So getting some real tight ways of working around your two-day sprint type of thing in a week and putting some responsibility on the individuals to make sure that they're doing that. That for me was always key. And the productivity made this ties into what my whole philosophy was at that time, which again, we'll get into as we discuss around being the billboard, and being the face of your market. And you can't be that unless you are being proactive in your approach. So it's-- we all know, and I'm sure you've had many people talk about reactive recruitment, where you're waiting for a response or you're-- you think your in-mouse, your emails are special. They're not your special, right? So get out there and make that known. There's around productivity and incentivizing being more on the front foot and getting out there, while being prepared, while implementing these sort of well-class basics that we called them at the time, again, cheesy. But it is what it is. Yeah, creating a room that was positive, prepared, and proactive. And that was the first six, 12-month goal you wanted me to do. And I still value those things massively. But at that period, it was, yeah, how can we make that room more of the three-piece? For now, that'll be useful for so many people that might find themselves in that position, or even if it's not in the new office, they might look around their team and feel like they're going to be able to do that. like things have got a bit stagnant, a bit complacent. And there's loads of things there where it's like, actually, you know what, we do need some clear ways of communicating what's expected, what we need to be doing. So I think that would be really helpful. And then so there's still very much the case now in terms of, because now there's like circa 20 of you, Monday kick off, goals, pop line, fulx counts, Friday sales meeting, yeah, meeting. And then monthly reviews. And then there's some other bits that you might do quarterly. Is that typically the. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And I'm still obviously on the office now, but over that period we've developed some really promising and high performing leaders as well. Rosalua runs Pyramatics. We've got Ben Reeves, the overseas high-parasin, Jordan and Kenyme, we've got another layer under Ross in Darm and Lauren and Sam Dobbins. And these people also need the autonomy to try and create ways of doing it themselves. But I still like to give a steer on, okay, this is like a blueprint or a framework for what we've seen be successful in the past. Now go and put your own spin on it. So it's I've sort of taken a little bit of a step back to allow those individuals to put their own stamp on their own individual teams, but my responsibilities I suppose in terms of maintaining that consistency is having a North Star for each quarter. To this year, for example, again, they're all a little bit cheesy, but that's fine. You have to lean into that in my experience in America. You'll find that the individuals that you hire from schools, they want to be super proud of where they're from, the school they went to, the college sports team, even where they work. Right? So if you can tie all of this in and lean into this positivity toxic, positive, you don't know, if you want to call it that, maybe not that. That's not what you're doing. But you have to, you have to get creative with it. So in this year, I think Q1 was all around untapping your potential, right? And there was a quarter one incentive. This is what I'm in charge of. If you start to get on to do a boat date, we'll go out in the lake, whatever. A part of that Q1 was being better than you were in Q1 last year and showing that you can complete your Rubik's cube. I'm talking potential in your brain. And then I think caught two and a three we combined and that was around it was preparation. It was you have to tell gone back to five years ago and dipped into my playbook from year one. And that was around making sure that each week you got at least 15 calls, puts in for the following week and you had to do your X amount of deals and you get on the boat, which we did Friday, just gone. Q3 and 4 is going to be raising the bar. I'm going to go on the one tour. So my role is leaning into things, quarterly or periods of the year to give a higher, and I think that we're aiming towards in line with how the other pods and brands are setting themselves up. Let's just talk about it because you brought it up the horror and peace because I've learned a lot from you and preparing for this and talking about it. And I think I shared with you when I started to reach out to people about sitting down with them, them podcast also promoting the event. Obviously, hopefully it will change over time with what we're doing here, but a lot of my network is you can imagine a British people that have come over here. Yeah, or UK companies that want to come over here. Yeah. So what I sort of picked up on quite quickly was the amount of people sent to me that a lot of UK companies that come over here have struggled to grow or scale effectively. Like most people here are small teams, but they have ambitions to grow and want to. So the higher in peace seems like a bit of an interesting one and you're giving some really good insights. It's a light. Let's just talk about this because you're so well positioned to just share your experience of this and you know, you're on this really great journey now where you just said that you've got some great people in your business that you've, and I know this is really the LHI way where you're, you're growing talent and you're giving great opportunities to people to grow within the business. But what would you say the main lessons that you've had to learn the hardware around hiring Americans? Because that seems to be something that a lot of people, you can talk about your experience, but you mentioned the private thing there, but just tell us a bit about for anyone that wants to effectively grow their teams here. They're a US business. They're going to have to have Americans. You want to, if you can have a good American talent, they'll be amazing. My lessons are, I don't know, I was probably into hundreds over 10 years that I've been here in the US across New York and Austin. And I suppose that one thing that jumps out, there's less like hard nose. I think in my experience in England and it might be different now. Again, I really want to be careful generalizing to speak for America. From what I remember in England, you're oftentimes leave a room and be like, yep, absolutely not. Or yeah, absolutely yes. I don't know if that's the case. Maybe. But in my experience, it was like that a good amount in America. I find that's probably a little less. I don't know why that is specifically, but what I think is that in the colleges and their education system, they have a lot more exposure to like corporate world and ways of working, maybe than we're doing the UK. So their ability to interview and articulate and impress is, I think, higher. So sometimes you go in that room and you're more inclined to want to hire these people more often than not. And you end up making quite a lot of mistakes. There is no silver bullet playbook to get this right. You got to use your own brain and run from your own lessons. You had to figure some of this stuff out, obviously, but in my experience, I, I have like four key things I try and delve into to cut through wherever I just think they're really good at interviewing or whether that's going to apply to being good at recruitment as well. So number one, I mean, every person that you've ever had on this podcast, we'll say the same thing that they're going to look for good work ethic. Right? That's obviously probably the first and foremost thing that we're looking for. And everybody has their own ways of testing that, right? Whether that's asking what's the hardest you've ever worked and how does that apply to this, that and the other. I'm not going to try and tell you how to work. Work FX for obviously. Yeah. And that's absolutely. We'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But before we do, I want to tell you about one of our sponsors, CapEx, currency. Now doing business internationally should be exciting, not stressful, but too often traditional banks make it expensive and complicated to move money across borders. That's why so many recruitment businesses are switching to CapEx currency. Every client gets their own dedicated dealer, someone who knows your business, and most importantly helps you trade your hard earned money at the right time. And the difference and the savings are real. 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Second thing I'll look for is a solution-oriented versus a problem-oriented mindset. I think that can sometimes cut through individuals that have been trained really well to interview it because they're going to come and say the right thing. They're going to try and show that they are XYZ. So you want to find out, I guess, what if someone has an experience that they're looking at, like it happened because there was a problem with it, that this is like, how can I solve it? I don't know, a solution or a problem. There's levels of question that you can figure out for yourself to try and identify that. Yeah. But again, it's really hard to have like a one-size-fits-all thing. But for me, I'm looking for that trait in somebody. And then the third one would be more around it's somewhat coachability and can they remember? What they've learned. Yeah. So it's oftentimes I'll try and implement or I'll try and say one or two hints and tips about recruitment maybe on the first interaction. And then I'll be remembering that on the second or third interview. So it shows an attitude and they can apply. Industry level skills to the process. And then the fourth one would be around positive, I think, communication. Those are four key things I think I look for when I'm interviewing American. And typically, I think he said, I don't know if you said to me like it's evolved over time, but obviously you've hired people that are straight out of college. And then now has that changed a bit in terms of trying to get people that have a bit of experience or working experience or I don't know how how has that been? We've had some of our most successful people and some of our most successful stories of kids that have joined the Strait From School, well they're not kids, they're 22, 23, right? But they've come straight from school and within two, three years they're managing large teams. They've hit the bar trips. They've had Rodex's bought for them and there's two or three in Austin now that are prime examples of that. And actually, there was all from Indiana and they referred each other's friends in. So they thought we were behind all of these ones from Indiana School. Yeah, for me, it was always there's enough ability in the grads coming up school in America that if you invest properly within a pretty short time frame, They can become some of your shining lights. So that is the LHI way. That is something that we pride ourselves on right versus having to go externally and look for manager or team leads all the time. It's, can we develop internally? And I think the talent port in America is really primed for that. But you've got to identify the right people. And actually, more importantly here, so this is the point I wanted to make mostly on hiring in the US versus how do you just identify who's good? Because we all have that same talent, right? It's more, there's a higher level of expectation from these guys coming out of school to the company that they're joining that that company can provide them a world that is going to develop them. So you have to, if you are a company coming out from the UK, not just in the US, we made this mistake too. For years, we didn't Americanize. You know, on all of our boards, it's still had pound signs. We didn't adapt our L&D or our programs to the US. It was still how we used to do it in London. And that's fine because that's how it's going to be for most companies that are launching here. But pretty quickly, you've probably got to try and make those needed changes. If you want to call it Americanize, that makes sense. But it's, are you providing a platform for these individuals coming from really good schools that can add a lot of value to your business? Because if you're not, they just want to join you. And there is a lot of competition. It was my first launched in Austin in 2019. There was a handful of UK companies here trying to get going. If you were still here, if you aren't, now there's probably more than ever. Sort of five, six person companies all going after the same talent. How you can differentiate yourself is by acknowledging or being aware that American talent do need a different platform to succeed, in my opinion, than UK individuals. That was a really good nugget that you gave me since it in-down with you, which I've showed of other people, which is resonated with them, which is the pride part and like the parents part. I think we spoke about it. It was like when I was starting my career, there's no way that my mum and dad would have influenced where I went. I don't think. But could you move if they wanted to? Yeah, it was just, no, I don't think so. If my mum and dad said, I think you should join this company. That was nowhere near even the conversation. I think we said about it, particularly for people that get into recruitment, they're given an opportunity. It's like, I'll take that 18 grand start and salary and get going. You'll give me the opportunity. But I think that was the really interesting insight. The one sits a bit different. I don't know why and again, generalizing, because not everybody is the same. But in my experience, the schools these American individuals are going to, are very expensive. They have a level of expectation. They go and achieve XYZ when they see, I say Z now. When they leave school. And oftentimes their parents are very much involved in that decision. So they'll research you and your business. They'll play a big factor on whether they're a kid joined LHI or wherever. So creating, again, this is something that we've done very well recently, is hiring American and indeed heads to make sure that we're completely set up for American training. We have onboarding programs that are now way further advanced than we were when we first joined. It used to be coming sit on the desk for me and I'll teach you how to do recruitment. And obviously it's not that anymore. So you have to professionalize, I think, your environment. And you also have to provide them, I think, on a week-to-week basis, a room that they want to be in. You are responsible just as much for proving to them that you were the right place for them to choose to come and work, just as much as they are for proving that you were right for hiring them. And then just to round this out, because I think there's some really good lessons in there, then the part that you said that then, I guess, yeah, will make this a bit easier, but you have to do all these bits and get to this point is when you can turn around and point to people and say, we've got these people in the business where they're exactly where you are today and this is where they now are with the business. Then that's going to massively help as well in terms of having those internal success stories. So that's key. You've got to try and work towards that, because I think it is going from zero to one in terms of no American people in your business, no entry-level talent to then having one or two people that have succeeded with you. That is going to be the hardest part and there's some great lessons in there. But then when you do have that, then you can actually point at the evidence. You can say, Jack Joindas, this is where he's at, this is what he's achieved with us. And that's going to massively again be able to help you achieve if you do want to grow your business over here, get great entry-level talent. And it will pay you back within two or three years if you get it right. More so than going and hiring another English student. That can be a short term fix and we know it again. But if you really want to scale along the time, having those six extra stories from American and Disney and Point. And we have, we involved in an interview process as well. So Bailey, for example, I believe. She'll be involved in interview processes a lot of the time. We're going talk to individuals about her story, not journey, and just be able to answer questions at like a peer level, which is, I think, a good experience for the interviews. Definitely, yes. It's one thing saying this is what can provide with you, but then coupling that with like, this is what we can provide for you. And here's an example. That's just a whole different ballgame. So gone through hiring and I know that, that's someone that people really struggle with. Let's talk about some of this journey that you've been on, particularly around just building a really robust office, really in terms of the different markets. I really like the way that you frame this. Why was there a real emphasis as you are building out this office around having five core accounts and these core accounts would be companies that you can forecast 10 plus placements with? Why did that, when we prepared for this, that seemed like a real focus in terms of strategy and what you wanted to do? And I'm sure that still plays out now in terms of people's deaths and the different brands, like how many core accounts do we have? So let's just talk a bit about this. Like, why was there a real emphasis on that in terms of the early days on building this office? Again, I'd come up in a New York office that was really successful, and we'd also made a lot of mistakes along the way, but ultimately it was a really high-performing group of people when I left. So I was quite lucky that I could look and take some learns from that period when I came home and was fully responsible for Austin. Some of the key lessons were around not running before you can walk right or getting better before you push to get bigger. Part of being better for me was having core hiring triggers that we should, or we'd have to hit before we went and press play on bringing new people in. And actually looking around UK companies that have been here over the last few years, I know personally some that are making or going through those learns and those challenges now, and maybe not having those robust hiring plans or hiring strategies or hiring triggers sorry before they didn't go and lay or load the people on top. So for me, one of the key parts of that was having a people business and key accounts where we could bank. So if you've got four or five accounts where you know you're doing ten placements, so an average of 30k deals and you've got 300k accounts, you've got five of them, you've got one and half million banks. So, I would around that you absolutely can. So for us it was, can we go to market and identify companies where it's going to be higher volume business? It was as simple as that really because I knew that if we had had once we got to three we could then go scout X amount, once we got to five we could go scout X amount. And that was how I wanted to make sure we weren't going to have to take three steps forward and then two steps back and then keep doing that again. Yeah, that was awesome. We saw what held to you know being pretty small for or smaller than we could have been for a longer period of time to build the robustness that then gone long chaff. That makes complete sense because again it's going to be harder if you're trying to bring people into environment where there isn't consistency or there isn't actual full castable revenue. You're going to be put more pressure on these people when they come in more likely. So that makes complete sense as to like why you made that the focus is like before we add any more hair count. We know you want to grow this off with ambitions for it before we can do that confidently. Let's actually really make sure like we've got said here we've got full castable revenue by the amount of teams and companies that I speak to where the real problem is there is no consistency. And I'm sure you've seen this in your career is like right less forecast how many placements we're going to make over the next six months and a lot of people probably struggled to do that or it's very like not completely finger in the air but they're saying it but not with a lot of confidence. That makes complete sense on that out of interest because this is then something that you will have to help other people with what do you think is really behind recruiters just doing ones and twos and not being able to win accounts or get anywhere near 10 plus placements with an account like what do you think a bit behind that because you probably had to help people with that perhaps lack of knowing that you can again not to generalize but in the UK my experience in the UK was fun and it was successful knowing the tech recruitment market back then. It's so different from how clients perceive you I think than in the US again learning from the time in New York what I'd seen was there's a real opportunity here for clients to want to work with you as a real partner and see you as a business asset not just person is going to send you load of CVs. I then wanted to implement that into my initial BD plans we have an opportunity here to go and win five clients where we're going to do 10 plus placements because they trust us enough to do so. I didn't know that if I'd never been in New York come straight to Austin maybe that wouldn't have been the plate but I knew that it was possible because of the why I'd seen happen and why I'd done in New York and what I'd seen. So I think first and foremost it's understanding that when you're in the US when you're in the room with a client you obviously you could approve while you're in the room right or getting the room is hard in the first place but when you're in there the opportunities or the seeding for what you can do with that business or with that client or that person is I think huge. So not settling for we just work with this one business unit and this one hiring manager it's how you position yourself as a solution to their business problems not just you are going to hire you and it's honest in the week's time you know. Do you think it's fair to say because I have heard that from people that have maybe gone from like UK market or Europe markets to the US market is it fair statement to say it can be harder maybe take longer to break into accounts but when you do break into account the potential of that. It could be way larger and there's different ways to do it right so we went down the route of creating different models and different ways of working with businesses so obviously we do a bit of contingent recruitment still on a lot of retained business and we developed ways of working with clients that incentivize higher volume subscription models talent pipeline model. was one we did back in the day. We now have embedded solutions, probably the most popular one that we do, the minute it's like packaging up team builds and doing our project retainers. Slightly discounted rates, but that's not really the key cell for it. It's more so like working with one exclusive partner, trusting us with your business problems across multiple areas, not having to go to multiple different recruitment partners. We have 180 consultants across the US that we can then tap into and get more resource to focus on your project. So yeah, if you can position that correctly and meet with enough key stakeholders and also here in the US what I found it's still full contact spot used to say. You've got to meet these people, right? That's what you say. And I agree, like in America as well, it's and in the UK probably to be fair, but it's get out there and meet these people, create some new relationships, go and play golf, go and become an asset to these people. And I think if you're impressive enough and trustworthy enough for them to trust you with their businesses problems, you will, you'll just naturally open up the conversations to can we build your whole team? Can we, you pay us to subscription call to lead to run your recruitment? And you've got to lean into that because the opportunity is there. And obviously it's probably a different skill set from how you sell that to how you're just selling one candidate over the phone. It's quite a different approach. We'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first a quick note on one of our long time sponsors source well. On average recruiters lose over eight hours a week to admin, writing notes, update and CRMs, Jason follow ups and bouncing in between tools. That's an entire work day gone. And with that comes misrevenue. That's where source well comes in. 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It's basically like having an AI assistant in your inbox. Whether you use Gmail or and start their free trials by clicking the link in the show notes all head to sourcewell.com/free trial. That sourcewell.com/free trial. Let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, head to us down with whilst he's got a rule basically where he doesn't work with any company, only horror management, unless they meet face to face. Yeah, I like that. Before we get some. That's why I said some about you would be like no, like I've put that. He basically said the data look obviously is only loads of things that go into it. But it's like we looked at the data. They just had a lot of clients that they were working with that they had to work with but it just wasn't committed and they basically called a lot of their jobs and their clients and they ended up with way less but then doing way more. A bit around this sort of actually they ended up with sticks that they can do 10 plus with. Yeah, nice. And they look to the data and there's like everyone that they've met. They've just done a way better job with and better things have happened. So you just made that a rule. So it's interesting that you say that. I actually really agree with that. I think this year specifically I am because as I alluded to some real great leaders coming through in my office has allowed me to probably carve like a third of my role this year to just be kind of facing again and it's been excellent. A bit on a lot of trips my wife and two year old haven't been to have moved. I've probably gone a matter of top 20 clients in Austin, face to face, like golf days, all of the staff went to their launches and product launches and stuff and really been involved in that face to face and it's helped, obviously not just me but with the consultant who really helped us develop a better relationship with those clients that's then gone on created more of those accounts for us and that's been a really good use of my time and been fun too. You're in a really interesting position where you work for a business that has different brands in different markets. So I don't know if there's like a perfect answer this but I just wanted to ask you nonetheless because when we sat down you were like yep, hot parason, that wouldn't work, it's kind of like a pop and medics, it's very relationship led, that's how that works. How can people get a better grasp and understanding of what works in their market and industry because not everyone has the benefit of seeing that really works in that team but doesn't work in my team because a lot of people might just do the same sort of ecosystem. So I'll just, investors get your take on that in terms of how can we get better at understanding what really works in our market, what doesn't because you really spoke about that in an interesting way where you can really see that in the different brands in the different markets and they do operate in a different way. They do and don't give a wrong amount of money in years but I'm also lucky enough that you've got 10, 15 years' worth of business here that you can lean into for advice and you've got Alex Kahn who runs Pyramatics, you've got the other office leaders that have been through these challenges as well that we speak obviously and communicating, share thoughts and data and stuff but ultimately is your decision on how you're going to shift the playbook for a brand or a team and yeah I think I spoke to you about how in Austin we recently decided or last year at the start of last year we sort of moved the LH which is the tech perm team into Pyramatics which is our Renewables brand so that was a key decision. We have then recently pivoted Harper Harrison which is our construction and engineering built environment brand to becoming more of a 180 team. This is pretty new and we're going to go all in on that engineering space with like one client facing tip at the spear and like a bit of a delivery team around that person, those two and then Lawrence Harvey I'd always said was very much a bit of a blend of both high levels, beck in high level you know to market to market and relationship driven so you've got I've got three brands that oversee that have I think three quite different approaches. That's a really good breakdown I guess maybe it doesn't happen also you've got the benefit of like seeing the data what's worked you can speak to people have you in the past say let's just take Harper Harrison as an example you shared with me the how that market works what you found is taking product to market it's very kind of that led has there been periods where like because you've seen the other top stuff that works the relationship driven and these types of things that you tried to make that brand work that way yeah definitely yeah that's what I mean so it's like I'm just curious about that so you because you've seen what also works yeah how long do you get like do you know I mean same just relationship driven is is it's very general because every every brand needs or you need to be relationship driven with the companies that you're targeting so I think how you probably can differentiate this is like I mentioned to you earlier one of my key you know ways of doing businesses that being the billboard and just developing a network of like senior people in your space they can be candidates or clients it's just a person and you should train your individuals to be skilled enough to turn that ratio into whatever we want it to be or whatever gives most benefit to them and us right that's a real holistic way I think of doing BD got Harper Harrison for example still requires a bit of that I think everything requires a bit of that being really known in your space but if you're not taking multiple candidates to market to our clients that we have contracts with on a weekly basis you just won't be developing enough interviews to do the level of the rules that we want to do I think the reason being is in that industry in the engineering space they're all consultancies they work as consultancies always partners to construction projects okay and they're all quite similar they work on the same sort of projects are working the same sort of things so the incentive for candidates to leave one and move to the other is quite small unless it's like a big pay rise or whatever so if you're lucky enough or not lucky enough the work that you put in has generated you an amazing candidate in that space you should drop everything and get that candidate five interviews so that's in my opinion and we'll see whether it works is you should your whole business model your whole KPIs your ways of work and should be geared around finding an amazing candidate this sounds so basic fun and getting them into whereas in pieper maddox for example we work in quite senior levels anyway pieper maddox less so all of your relationships could be accounted for clients so it's a more finesse more thinking I think behind what that place should be with that relationship so I mean since I've got here yeah we're getting into like market stuff here and that's being a really common thing that's come up I think I've seen each other the last six to twelve months as a business as a leader you've got to be aware of these things like you're looking at what's working what isn't you're working with your team and then that's where you've landed which you think is going to help harp Harrison achieve what you want it to achieve because the leader I feel like you've got to be close to that make decision on that or at least help build that versus just put all that owners on the recruiter to figure out or they're doing certain things and then they're saying it's not really working and it's just like down to them to figure out I do think this has got to be a hundred percent recruitment leader led thing do you want to talk a bit about obviously you had that story didn't you of from again we're getting a bit market specific but I think people can take the lesson of the plights of their own but obviously renewable is it's quite government led is what you shared with me it is is that fair yeah it's certainly just that you've got to be pretty aware of like the certain legislation and bills that the government are revoking or putting in because that will change the landscape of clean fuels versus solar versus wind versus immobility and there'll be certain tax breaks that that certain niche verticals within renewables will benefit from. So sometimes a law will be passed or a bill will be put in that means projects are not gonna be financed in that area. So we didn't know that actually there's probably not gonna be too much time. Or there's gonna be a rush to complete these projects in the next 18 months. So you've gotta be aware of that stuff. - Yeah, so don't forget. - You gave me an example where you're doing a lot of work and what like I'm, hard to do. - Hard to do. - It's just like got certain things passed as like hang on a minute, like companies aren't incentivized at all to do that. So that's gonna be. - Yeah, we had spent a good amount of time building that. Yeah, it was 45V was a tax break that companies in 106, so we're gonna get basically financial benefit from if they were producing an X amount of hydrogen. And then that was revoked. So a lot of projects in hydrogen were just null and void. And then we had to quickly make a decision what we were gonna do next. So this wasn't all me getting this data. It was fed to me by the individuals that were in that team. They'd heard a lot going on in the renewable natural gas space which is in our clean fuels. Yeah, it's found out clean fuels division. We looked at the data, we heard what we was hearing from the market and made a pretty quick call to move into that space. That was probably Marchary Paul last year. Turned out to be a very good decision, actually. - Yeah, you've got to be able to make those. Again, this is quite simple of our mind not working every sort of context, but you said, if you're seeing in your team, you've got the data, if you're seeing your team, then putting in the exact same inputs. And over a three month period, they're getting nowhere near the outcomes that you're used to. It's probably something you want to double click into and have a look. - That's on you as a leader, or your leadership group to fix that, in my opinion. Because you've hired these people, you've trained them, you believe in them, they're there for a reason, probably. And if their level of input and effort is there, and it's just not producing the results that we want in terms of whether it's activity or deals or whatever, there's obviously something that's not quite right. So you've got to take responsibility for ensuring that your people are working in a world where their work is going to benefit them. And ultimately your business. There's so much more information out there these days, and got sort of a comment on one of your videos. I don't know who it was, but it was saying that you can be distracted by too much information and etc, etc, which is true, right? But at the same time as leaders, we've got access to more of that information than ever. And to the benefit of your team, when you're doing your team with the service of things. And that's a surefire way to not be first in new hot markets. Yeah, so in my opinion, and my experience is using that information and being on top of that information and your finger on the pulse as a leader is super important. Part of the job. Obviously it's less about the exact market you're in and more about the sort of principles and what people can take into their own sort of ecosystem. But you've got a good example of that, right? In terms of, I've got here written down somewhere in terms of you making a slight adjacent move which then resulted in year one, that being a seven-figure revenue stream. That was the clean fuels. Like, was that just you kept hearing because of that world and people connected with, they're speaking with maybe senior people in the market a lot and they kept hearing like ex consistently or kept coming up? Like, was it that sort of really led to you or maybe the team going, "We need to put some resources, so we need to put some focus into this?" 'Cause it was a brand new market within your ecosystem. It was that. There was a client that we were targeting for hydrogen that then we were pretty close with, that decided that they were going to launch, like it was like eight big RNG projects, that they wanted us to help with. - What's the RNG? - A renewable natural gas. - That's the, that's the area that we targeted. We went and met them to gather a lot of information on what this world looks like. We ended up placing a bunch of contractors in there and then off the back of that was like, "Right, this seems like a strong enough industry and there's enough excitement about it that we should bring in another two or three individuals, make it a full-person team and go it in." And it was the highest performing pod in Austin and maybe one of the highest performing pods across the whole LHR business last year because we was there very, very early. I think we only had like one other competitor that we knew, like recruitment firm, that we're operating in that space as well. We met a mere conference actually. That's it. But yeah, so the first thing there is you build a team with tangible inputs, obviously some KPIs, what are we talking this group or four on to achieve an RNG week to week? And then over like a two or three month period, there's a good enough sample size for you to analyse all of that input that's gone into this space. I've been involved in going and meeting some clients too. You've then got a solid enough sample size and level of information and data to make a proper decision on. So yeah, they're making over night, but I think that was enough there for us to be like, "Yeah, this is an area that we want to go after." - Might really vary depending on what like market, but I think straight away people might be thinking, like what are the sort of inputs that you like to track out of interest because that'll probably be a good insight for people. If you're saying it was, you went to the (audio cuts out) what is it then that you targeted with them? Was it getting X number of meetings with people? Was it CVs out? I don't know. What were the things that you really like to track that then you can use them go? Okay, because we've seen this, I think let's put some even more energy into this over the next three months versus no. - So when it was just the one individual that we moved into it and those two actually, at the beginning, I'd be talking to them on a week. So there'd be a shared spreadsheet or shared area of the database that we want to use where we just track commercial information. So there might be leads, it might be, we're in about this project, we're in about a company that has contractors, we're in about this company that'll finance in whatever it might be. So you're tracking out on a weekly basis, so we're trying to populate that. We've like 20 pieces of information each a week minimum. You're then building your PTR group, which is like your golden senior network. - PTR, what was that stand for? - That stands for these people. Well, they have potential to recruit. So they can be either candidate or they can be a client. So we're growing that by like 10 or 15 a week. We are taking one top candidate to market a week minimum. And that's it really. And then you build that enough over a period of time. - So make a decision. - Yeah. It's quality over quantity for sure. But those numbers I just said there are not anything crazy. You should be able to easily hit that. But is there the quality conversations? Are you putting quality people in your PTR group? Are we generating quality commercial information? I'd rather have 10 solid relationships than 50 of people just don't know who you are, type thing, you know? What would make you go? This has got really good potential. Is it then like you just said that the quality of the information, the quality of the people you're getting in your network. But then also what like the bites that we're getting and the return that we're getting for the input. - We'd be actually, I know you're tomorrow's event to sponsor by the way. The source well, right? - Yeah. - A big place, a big part in that. Because back a few years ago, if you were saying let's take one or two amazing candidates to market, in a specific way, take a long time. If you want to get that to 50, 100 companies, maybe a little less at that period, to be honest. But that's obviously up right if you're in the background. You can test how many bites you're getting off of that proactive introduction. You can test how many of these senior people that are going into your PTR network are hiring. Well, how many of them are told you about hiring in the space? Yeah, the bites that you get in, the level of information, the level of leads, the examine in the space, how much finance is going into it. So when all of those things are given you like green ticks, we should talk these days. - That's what I'm serious about. - Yeah. We'll get back to the episode in just a second, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, Rayz, who are hands down the best way to fund and manage your contract book. I've had countless people on the podcast over the years singing their praises. Ray's supported hundreds of UK and US agencies large and small in managing their runners. From funding placements, managing time sheets and expenses, ensuring you're invoices, collecting payments from your clients and getting contractors paid on time. They're passionate about helping you to keep more of your hard earned margin, making sure that you can focus on what's important, winning more business and growing revenue with a piece of mind that all of the admin is taken care of by Rayz. But rather here at them from me, why don't you hear from one of our previous guests on the show, Pat Waits from Coltek, on how Rayz has supported their huge growth in international expansion since 2020. Rayz have been a key partner in our success over the last four years, the 100-day or further, the second to none. The service to the offer makes you feel like they truly are an extension of your team rather than an outsource partner. We have grown significantly as a business and we wouldn't be able to move as fast as we have without knowing that our clients and candidates are looked after from onboarding to contracts out, to invoicing time sheets, payments. Rayz has got all of that covered for us and they was asked to grow the bill. They accelerate the growth for the business as we have done. I continue to do across the US and Europe. As we've grown, you know, and mature as a business, we've moved on to their new direct model, meaning we're able to tap into incredibly cheap lending and provide working capital to help us to continue to expand. There've been a great partner to us and a common recommend him highly enough and long made that partnership continue. As you can see, Rayz is a trusted invoice finance provider, hiring some of the fastest grown recruitment agencies in the market. You can book a demo with Rayz and mention the recruitment mentors podcast to enjoy 50% off your first month. You can click the link in the show notes or you can go directly to www.raistech.io/rmp. That's www.raistech.io/rmp to get access to that offer and check out Rayz. Let's get back to the show. What I wanted to ask is just 'cause it's come up a few times since it's grown for this. It's definitely, maybe it is happening as much in UK, Europe markets, it probably is, but it definitely seems a bit of a theme here from people that I'm spending time with, which is this PTR thing that you're mentioning of. Some people might call it an interview to someone this week that sort of broke this down slightly different, but similar in terms of your golden circle. Speaking to senior people in the market, Do we feel like we need to have something sort to them about to grow that? I think what I'm sort of picking up on or when I'm speaking to people is maybe people in the US are more open to networking and speaking to people at that senior level, I don't know, or networking. - I think so. I'm pretty sure. - It might just help people 'cause I think some people can do that really wrong from my view and sit down with them where I'm reaching out to people like you with like a fake job, a fake opportunity just to get you interested. There are those people that are doing that. Is that necessary? Is that required to achieve the same outcome which is a growing network with great senior people that are now connected with you that you might be able to help at some point? - No, and you're just gonna damage your reputation. Like especially if you're trying to connect with senior people, they're not stupid. You can do more harm than good if you get that wrong and there's a higher chance of getting that wrong. That being the billboard and energy right again and it's cheesy, but the whole concept was, especially in America, you see them all the time, like the real estate agents. Big face, big number, next to a highway. So why are they spending tens of hundreds of thousands of years to have that billboard next to like 35? So when anybody wants to sell a house or buy a house, they might remember the shape of space and his name's number. Like we don't have billboards, but the concept is right, but we can create billboards by what we're doing, who are we approaching, how are we doing it? And even better, we can choose the people that are seeing our billboards, right? So that's the sort of training I'll do with people that are coming on. Try and grasp the concept of the more people you know in your space. The better it's gonna be for you longer term. And you don't need a fake job. You waste a lot of time doing it that way too. Or I try and teach individuals to be confident enough to run with just an intro call, right? And you probably send out an email first and you would follow it up, but this person picks up the phone. It's how you, within the first sort of like 10 seconds, wanting them to know that there's value to be had in this conversation. And I've found a lot of success in doing it this way, which is you're sort of opening that call by telling them that I run a, I have specialised in running searches in renewable natural gas. We're approaching new for a specific reason. So glad you answered. There's three things I want to talk to you about actually John. There's one, it's I run searches for some of the biggest companies and best companies in the US, some of which you might be interested in. I'm building teams for companies that highly david some of X, Y, Z. I'm doing the same for you. And three, a bit of a weird candidate market out there this year, isn't it? I'm really interested in how you've approached those challenges. So I've swapped some notes. Which one would you want to talk about? You've got 15 minutes for me tomorrow. And if you get that call right and you give your grads from school, the ability and confidence to run that call, they will book in meetings. And then you've been honest at the beginning that you're trying to talk about all of these three things, which where do you want to start? And then it just tees up for a better conversation. Yeah, that'll be really helpful for people. That has just come up so much. And I know there'll be people listening, they'll be looking around the office right now and there'll just be people that will just be doing like fake job candidate flips. Like you've said, I can just talk from my position. I just don't think that's beneficial in the long term. I don't think it's required when you can approach like that and probably still get the same outcome. You can. And you can just create other reasons to call as well. Like you know, use conferences, use, we share so much information in LHR across all of our brands because we're employing them. We're working towards our next like financial event, right? The big thing for us is collaboration and we call it being Goosey until you're why later. But it's so we'll often see last week. I had a bit of free time wanted to start connect to move some sea level people getting renewables. I saw a COO role search sent around from one of our guys in New York, Harjit. I can then take that COO role just to approach COOs if they're good old send them. But it's not fake job. It's given me a chance to use that as a conversation star. So I'd also say that sharing them information like that across your business can lead to giving people more reasons to create a reason to call. Yeah, I think that's really good. The feeling that I'm getting is like, I think a lot of people, this will be one of their core strategies, if I'm honest in terms of what we're talking about here. So just wanna just double click on it for a sec because you'll be helping your team with this. If I did what you just said there and then I booked a call with X person, how do I make sure that that's a really good call versus a bad one? Yeah, you can waste a lot of time. Well, you waste all time doing fake jobs. Yeah, so let's just talk about that because there's one thing I think you give some really good examples there. That'll be really useful for people. But then how do we really make sure me and you have time in? I feel like what would be in my head is I wanna really deliver on my promise because I feel like that's a way to build trust in the long term. And from what you've said, look, we get these good people in our corner, like really great things happen in the long term. What do we need to make sure we do to make sure that you jack, the person I'm speaking to gets off that corner, that was a good use of my time versus that was just recruited trying to get information from me and grow my network. And it was a lot more for them than me. What's important? Don't rush. The trains I do as well is on the benefits to them versus the benefits to us. We'll go over this quite regularly. So people know what they can give on these calls, even on initial sort of conversations. But there's multiple ways that you can waste time with this strategy. One is you just talking to the wrong people. So first and foremost, the people that you're trying to have this conversation with, they've got to be intelligently thought out. All these companies actually hiring other people that are in a space that have influence. Are they in a company that we know we want to work with, et cetera? Why are you just talking to random people for the reason? And trust me, to be fair, when we train it, I'm less concerned about the-- - Get the reps. - Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. But you've got to be intentional with it. That's a really good plan. - For sure. And then that's where you just still generate your lead. Just still utilize all of your sources to gather information. And then you might find to see how out of that company that this leads to the higher end, then you just go in at the top level, rather than free notches down. So and then you run this call, then you can get off that call and you might not have picked up the level of information that you need to pick up. So we have six or seven key questions, commercial information gathering questions. And I will say that if you get five of them answered, you can log it as a client call. It can set so it'll show as a new business call 'cause you're generating enough information from it. I'm not gonna go forward to those questions. - That's fun. - You can think of them yourself. But it's things like who runs the PNL? How big was the team when you're doing the rest of the things in now if you ever work with recruiters? Barbara, blah, blah. So you can get enough of that information. You're building a good enough sort of case about that business and that person that you know next time you call them, how you're gonna go about it. And what we're giving them, so for me it's just name dropping. As a leader of a business, that person you're talking to, they're gonna care about what their competitors are doing, what hiring is happening in that space. We've all got LinkedIn insights now. You can see growth and decreased growth of companies. We can talk about that. You can talk about conferences coming up. You can talk about placements you just made. That's enough benefit that that person's gonna be like, "Oh, this Hitchem knows what it's talking about. That's good information for me to have." So leading with relevant name dropping information, showing that you're abreast of what's going on in terms of yeah, legislation to be in past, conferences coming up, talking about somebody that they should know, you know, that all of those sort of key things that, if you're doing enough of that, that person's gonna get off the call and know that Hitchem is a good person to know. And that is enough. I think that's the situation as well, it's like, bare minimum is they had a positive experience. So throughout your life, I say this when I'm training it too, is you've had forced interactions with so many people. Yeah, you've met teachers, coaches, dentists, whatever, that you've had to have interactions with. Which ones do you remember? Do you remember the ones that made you feel happy or was a bit different or gave you something, you know, be that one that they remember? Yeah, so true. I really like that frame then. That's really helpful. And if you do that enough times, all of a sudden, I've got 10, 20 people that can senior in your space that like you, that you can then call them and be honest and be like, look, you've got a candidate that I really want to choose to do business or I'll see that area of business is hiring. Did you know that we do project retains or subscription services? Then we come see you and talk you through it. And then it's easier to put those meetings. No, that's really helpful. I sat down with a guy called Elliot involved with Hubscale and they've created like a bit of a community in the cyber security. And it simply came out of this where he spoke to like two execs in the same industry working for direct competitors and they didn't know each other. And he just thought that was mad. So again, if you have any conversations, then it's also recognizing that, yes, I can connect these people. I can make sure these people do know each other and then there's loads of different things that you can do with that. Let alone the outcome of potentially working with these organizations and companies. There might not be a perfect answer to this, but just curious from what you've seen. If this is one of my core strategies as a recruiter, what's like timeline of getting the outcomes that we want? Like working with companies. Do you know what I mean? I know that might be quite hard to answer. I'm just curious. I mean, it doesn't always have to be the strategy. It should be always be your underlying strategy. It still applies to it if there's an amazing lead. You've got an amazing candidate for. You might just not worry about that in trickle. Just go in with a bit more front. And this is why I'm calling you because I know you're hiring. I've got kind of just run that sort of call. That you just got to make the decision based on the information you've got. But I think running PTR or being the billboard type, strategy, you get quick wins and you get long term place. So it just depends on the time and it depends on the skill level of the person having the call, depends on the need. So there's not really an answer to that. It probably is one of your underlying principles behind your desk and bonus successful. Should be saying you're always doing that. And it's like is the work that you're doing benefiting you this time next year? And doing that means that you in 12 months are generating this network that will benefit you down the line and hopefully quicker. I love that. We're on a pretty good run here in terms of what we're doing when they're sourced in office. So we've touched on different things. I think you've shared a really good account of the different music you made, different strategies that you have. I think it's really clear in terms of how your teams and what you're building in that office with the way that you're talking about how you can win in your markets. But I'm just curious to hear what are you really doubling down on. Now work that we're doing today that we feel like we're going to benefit from in 12 months' time, that is going to keep you going in the right direction because we'd like seeing you in your growth, don't we? So what? Sure. Probably it might just be more of the same, more of the couple of elements that really played out. I don't know, like, how? Because you'll be thinking about this stuff. What is it that you're really doubling down on to really make sure that we're in an even bet position 12 months from now in your sauce and office with this business that you've done? I'll share a bit. I think if you ever do a podcast with Ben and Barty Hanoo, Cocio, they'll talk about their vision for the group a long time. But for me in Austin Houses, we've been through a bit of change actually. Throughout that change, we've managed to still continue at Green Arrow every year for the last five years, which I'm really, really proud of, and even with less people last year than the year before. This year, I'm, I think I'm happiest with the foundation that we've built and the leaders that have come through. So it's about Ross Lewis and some of the level under him that are super talented and high potential leaders as well. So we have a real clear thought out plan of like four or five key areas in mathematics that we're going all in on. We have the new 180 model in Harper Harrison, that I'm feeling super confident about. And then we have a contract booking tech that is excellent. And it's just one person turning out. I don't know if we need to double down in that or not. I just couldn't keep doing this thing. That's Jordan. He was the top leader of the whole relate. So for me, it's how do we continue to introduce more about new solutions? We are looking at becoming more of a talent solutions provider than just a contingent or retained recruitment business. So I want to continue to try and play a key part in introducing our embedded model, a subscription model, and wrapping more clients up or benefiting more clients across more holistically their business than maybe just five or ten placements that we're doing in there right now. So I'm doubling down on that and I'm doubling down on the development of the leaders that are here. You would say a great leader or a really good leader should get to a point where they're making themselves redundant. I don't think I'm there yet, but I think the team that we have on our track definitely could. Like there's some really talented people in there and I'd like to get to a point where that might be the case. But yeah, for now it's continuing. So we've probably got ahead of next year's plans early. I'll be normally worried to talk about this stuff in November. You've made all the changes and structural changes and it's a bit of time to go back now. So it's the audio in place now. They're going to have all of Q4 to have a run at next year. I'm assuming that's because you've just seen what's happening in the data. If anything, it's going on. It is just execute. Yeah. I say that this is all me. It's not like it's information and decisions that are a lot of time offered to me by Ross and others. And then we think about it and we collaborate and we make these things happen. So this is a team effort for us to be in a position where we're on now. And it's by far the healthiest and the most exciting I've been about Austin in the five years that we've been on some journey. Like, like you said, going into that small room for five people, being like we don't have the LHR, start us to like how are you talking about it now. What's ever been is you've gone, had to go through a lot of iterations, a lot of learnings, a lot of lessons. But I think that's what we're always trying to work towards, right? When we're leading businesses, leading teams, like just having clarity on, like, right, if we do this, it should play out and then it just come down to execute it. Yeah. So it's the hard part, but like it is really great to hear that. And I've said it to a few people now, but like all the stuff that you're talking about, as a recruiter, if we're talking about a recruit with their career now, if you join the organisation, if you join the team, if you're joined the business that has this stuff, clarity on it, like what we're doing, where we're going, this is what you're going to be doing, versus Jack, join the business, you'll be surrounded by high performers. Like we'll just support you wherever you want to do, make sure you succeed. But I think the former is where you're going to stack those in your favour to really achieve a lot of success, achieve your goals, because I just feel like I know I'd rather be in an environment where the leadership team would be like, this is what I would double in the end like this, what we're doing. And then it is just on me to execute. Always I would communicate as a leader and just be honest and be genuine. And it doesn't matter how big you are, if there's just five of you in a small industrious we work room right now, still have that Friday get together, be the focal point for the group. I think add so much value and clarity is what you're saying to the people that are around you. It's more value than I think than you know is my experience from that, because yet it's been period to maybe when I haven't been as good at that and upon reflection three, four years ago, probably one as good at that as I am now and I think it adds so much to the room and the culture and the goals of the office, the motivation. Yeah, and I do really think this is on the leadership team and on the business personally. I've met a few leaders recently, even some over here where I just had to take stock and they've looked around the office and they've realised they've got like five different individual businesses under the same banner. So we're talking about strategy here leading by the front and the market, what we're going to be doing. Like I can tell when you're talking about there, like there's some real conviction on that. And I just know I'd rather join the environment like that versus you're just going to be in the silo. We'll support you. Yeah. Don't you run there's a place for each pod, each team, each brand having their own goals and certain things for sure. But as a leader of a group, it's your responsibility to tie that all together. So one thing I think we do very well at LHIN general really is into trying and sort of the goals of the global business, which is now an obviously an employee on trust. We have certain goals that we're trying to achieve as a group versus the goals of the US, versus the goals of Austin, versus the goals of Paparamax or Harper Harrison, versus the goals of clean fuels, versus the goals of the individual. So it's like, how can you intertwine all of those things? And again, you've got to lean into, in my opinion, having individuals share their own goals and motivations with the group. So again, it's cheesy, maybe. Don't get end of month's sales meetings. I'll have a theme for the year this year is one person will come up and they'll talk about when they followed live screen lights, which is Mafia Mekona. And found themselves in the situation where they had to be better and had they step up to it. So someone will come up and talk a bit about that once, twice a month and sometimes it's quite personal, quite open. But I think when you have individuals come up with enough sharing, those sort of stories, those sort of personal goals and feelings, it does intertwine that group. And it makes it way easier to layer on your recruitment. It's about returning what we're doing. Yeah, yeah. So we've always lent into that side of it. On what these days. And like I said, I think water journey and probably feel like just getting started really, and that can always feel like that. But from where you are now, got real clarity on where you're going, what you need to double down on, what you need to execute on. I think it's class. Yeah, come a long way. It's on the road. No, it's been good. But yeah, no, it is just beginning. I think, again, I don't necessarily look at pure head count, but it's probably in a position now where we can introduce a lot more people into that business. So the next couple of years and make it even more exciting. Yeah, it's good. It's fun. And I get a lot of satisfaction and feel good from looking at the people in that office guy and doing great things and stepping up. And that's what we've been doing more of now. Well, I appreciate general of the lessons because I know you've had to learn them all the hard way. Yeah. And I think you've never learned that out and thanks for joining me on the pod. Appreciate it, man. Talk about it more tomorrow. 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. 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