Headhunting Strategies, Future Proofing Your Career With New Business Skills and How To Succeed In The US Market with Gareth Fox from Magnifind.

A real quick one from me before we get into this week's episode. At Hector, we released our very first e-book, Masterclass. I know you've probably downloaded loads of things online and it's gavidast on your laptop. Hopefully this is a bit different. It's on something that you're probably always trying to improve in recruitment, your job to fill ratio. We've worked with four great people that we've had on the podcast to break down and understand how all of you can improve your job to fill ratio. It's packed with practical strategies that you can use and implement within your recruitment desk, your business. You can download it in the show notes. It's entirely for free. Check it out and let me know what you think. Let's get into this week's episode. Gareth Fox, Managing Director of Magnifying. After five years of building a successful recruitment career in another business, he joined his business partner, Rick, just over two years ago. He's built a successful track record in the states consistently for the past five years. Here's how he did it. Here is what you're going to learn in this week's episode. Why all recruiters should develop new business skills? How to effectively head on passive candidates on the phone? How to turn transactional relationships into a sponsor that can help you open up client doors? The difference between the EU and US markets and how to win in the US. Gareth, welcome to the podcast. We've known each other for a little while now. I'm looking forward to this. I'm packing this on the channel that you've been on. We've met a couple of times. We'll see first, met you when you said, "Find you James." We did a few things together with recruitment mentors. We did. We were using America. We met for coffee when you were in London. I think the process is getting you visa and things. And we're now here, mate. We're going to unpack this journey that you've been on over the last couple of years. I know there's going to be a lot that people can learn from. Be really looking forward to it, mate. Likewise. Thanks for having me, as I say. How many times have changed since we first met? Looking forward to getting into it with you. You've very kindly just given me a bunch of context. Let's just give everyone a bit of context on your business, magnifying your business partners with. You call them Rick, right? Yeah, Rick. Yeah. Also, mate. You also work with your brother. I do. Pretty cool. Always respects. You've worked them together. I think that's really cool. So, let me break some of this down. And if I get any of this wrong, please correct me. Yes, go for it. So, I'm going to go from 2022. And we're talking. The numbers we put down here is this dollars or pounds. G-B-P. So, you know, the issue is, you know, we do use Vincerey. So, it keeps the numbers live. And the exchange rates of 2022 are astronomically high. Yeah. So, once we've documented the numbers and moved on, we've done, obviously, looked at the average deal size actually seems like it increased in 2022, and it didn't, it was much lower because of the volume of deals. But, yeah, the numbers are reasonably accurate. Some people may try and call them out, but we know them for what they were for the period of time. It just gives people context. Yeah. So, you've got. Hey, Jan, we'll set 10 and 22, 565K GDP. And then your average deal size is around 12 and a half foot in K. Give a take, yeah. And then, Jan, 2023. So, this is life. This is for you, so that'll be October 1st, 2022. To September 23. Yeah, to. 4.76. Yeah. Across the 25 deals. Yeah, and then average fee 19K around that. Yeah. So, you've got 2022 free placements, 20, 23, 25 placements. Yeah. I mean, 2022 is the wild worst that wasn't it? I think anybody, if you couldn't recruit in 2020, you shouldn't be recruiting. And then, obviously, it's you and Rick, and then your brother joined you as well, and he's more like going to be going to this more like, I can't manage your role, but more than like the delivery side, is that fair? Yes, that's fair to say, yeah, 100%. And then, also, Kanye Shed, obviously, all perm, a good chunk of it, like 80% contingent, rest sort of it's glusive, and a big chunk of your revenues always being in the US, first year, second year, and that's going to seem not continue to be the case this year as well, in the third year. Yeah, we've made two placements outside of the US. Not from. I mean, naturally, when you're here, you do pick up more work here. Why that is, I don't know. But, yeah, just things haven't come to fruition in Europe for us as quick as we'd like. All the week, we do have work there. And, yeah, you're joining me from Chicago, which is home for you, right? Yes, now based in Chicago, as I was prior, but when setting up Magnifine, I had to do a detail about the UK. And as you said, I think actually, I met you on the day I re-secured my visa when we went for brunch. So, yeah, I've been back here now since August 31, and fully settled and thriving. Love it. So, yeah, loads to cover here and what I'm going to. So, where I want to start, is I want to start with your mindset on this, which is, you wrote down here, why everyone should be taught new business? Talk to me about that. Because I know there's a lot of businesses that don't have people that do new business tour, and they just stay on the delivery side. So, just talk me about that. Why do we think that? Why do we think everyone should be taught new business? Yeah, so I just think everyone should be taught new business from the get-go, purely for the fact that, you know, that is the toughest part of the job. So, I appreciate you need credibility with customers whilst kind of going into meetings or pitches with them. But it's where, as we've seen in 2023, it's where businesses truly got exposed and got hurt, right? You know, and if you've got people, if you've got 80% of a business that can't go out there and win business, that long term, it's going to hurt you, right? And so, I think it gets them out of their comfort zone, gets them thinking about the longer term picture of the business, but also, it stops them from thinking, it sounds wrong, but thinking a little bit about what they are. Because if you just deliver a consultant thriving on making placements, it is on paper an easy job to do, Hisha. So, I think obviously you need to give them the tougher part of the role as well from the early stages of their career. I also think as well, from all the conversations I've had, and like, yeah, like you just said, a lot of businesses were affected in the ways that you just mentioned. But also, if you're listening to this and you really want to build a recruitment career, which is probably part of why you're listening to this, but I don't know how you feel about this, but also by leaning into this, it can feature proof your career in this industry if you have that skill set. You can feature proof your career rather than being someone that, yeah, you may really enjoy the delivery side and that's something you want to stay in, and you've maybe always shied away to doing the new business or the camp management or expanding accounts, whatever. But you are going to make yourself vulnerable, I feel, like this is also like a good thing to think about, and it is like a great skill that you can take in so many different directions in your career if it's outside of recruitment, whatever. But I think it also can feature proof your career in recruitment. You can feature proof it, but not even for people, especially in my industry, Hisha, I'm like, Sassels, right? I would say the people that I've gone out there and been the most successful, I can think of a few at the top of my head now without mentioning any names, a top performer within Sass companies because of the ruthlessness and the relentlessness of recruitment business development they tore, that it seems that they've gone into Sassels and absolutely walked it. So it's, yeah, future proof I would say, absolutely. But it also leads into being self-aware, because if you are greater delivery and greater account management, and not necessarily winning new business, and it kind of deflates you and gets you down, that you've got to make 60 calls and put out 50 messages to even get a meeting booked, play to your strengths, but that also means that when you're interviewing for future roles down the line, you can be honest, right? Because I think as business leaders, what we've found interviewing, people have kind of come into saying, yeah, we win that new logo business, bloody, bloody blah, but the reality is, is that they're placing on handed accounts. So they're not a new logo hunter. So, guys, what was your, let's talk about this and what was your relationship with generating net new clients before you went on this one's Penoge, because obviously you as a fully James for a good amount of time. So it would have been very easy for you to have existing accounts. You built up over time. I'm assuming this, I might be wrong here, but that might have been a muscle that you haven't really had to like, you know, work or maybe even before. And I speak to a lot of independent founders who, that is sometimes what they're concerned about, it's like, shit, like, I've got to get within new business, I haven't done this as much for a little while. So what was your relationship with what we're talking about before you joined Rick? Exactly that. So yeah, I mean, I was literally, I was there, I was there, what for five years. So there's a lot of people that was coming to us from refer business. You know, we was prospecting. You'd spec out candidates and you wouldn't hear for three months and they just magically come back to you. Bino means of fee was I an aggressive BD. So, you know, I'll own my hands up like anyone and you know, again, be self aware. Was that an element of risk? Yes, but did I back myself completely? Yes, which is why I took the lead to go self-employment with Rick. But also on that note is, you know, myself and Rick had worked together previously. You know, so the situation was I knew I was okay at business development. Okay, but I knew Rick was a beast, right? So if all else failed, I could be the delivery guy and he could be the BD guy. So again, this case of playing to our strengths and weaknesses. And that kind of took the elimination of risk of us starting a partnership. Because again, we had that joy of spending, I think, maybe 18 months together or working together for two years. And very successfully my ad. It was kind of like a no brain of everyone was entertaining conversations. one another. But once you're in it, you're in it, you do become better. I know I would probably sound probably just as strong as Rick has on BD now, two and a half years in. Yeah, and like, like I'm not, I appreciate it being honest, because I know I've speak, I've speak to a lot of founders with their like shit. Yeah, I've got a like now really, yeah, like leaning into this isn't something because of course, like if you do progress the ranks in the company, then there's a good chance that like you've brought some good accounts, you've got existing relationships, you know what I mean? So it hasn't been something that's maybe been as required for you to do. So let's just talk about this then, because I feel like you have been on a bit of a journey on this over the last two years where like you said you actually, if you were to take a step back now and yeah, compare your skills with Rick, hopefully he'd agree that actually, now I'm up there like I'm, I'm as capable and a good performer because I've been this I, why I asked that as well, hopefully this doesn't annoy you and he won't mind me sharing this, but I remember speaking to Nick and saying like, oh, like what is Gazz world class at? I don't know, we were just chatting and he was like mate, he's like so good on the delivery side account management, so yeah, like I, yeah, maybe, yeah, like your reputation wasn't like Gazz is like great opening up doors, net new logos and then now that is something you've had to do as a founder. Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's a fair comment as well. I mean, account management leadership running a team, getting the best out of people, you know, that was my strong suit. I wasn't that hardcore BD, I mean, in that instance, you know, Nick was my Rick, so yeah, Nick was my Rick, I'm saying that the right way around. So yeah, so yeah, he is and look, we still speak pretty much every day as well, so yeah, I think even, you know, in our historic company, they both pretty much did the similar job, Rick and Nick and we're both very, very good at it. So I'd say that's a fair comment. But again, taking that leap of faith into a new company, you can't just rely on Rick, I knew I would have to up my game and level my game, which I again, I have over the last two and a half years. Let's talk about that then, because this is often for if you're someone that is listening to this, you're in your recruitment career, you're starting your own business, like everything is downstream from having good quality clients that you're able to work with. Like if you're able to consistently do that, you're going to be in pretty good shape. So why don't we just start it by framing it in this way in terms of like, if we've got a bit of a background on where Gazel's that, before you started this journey of Rick, and then where you are now, what have been some of the fundamental things that you've maybe like changed with your approach or that you now do, you know, consistently religiously that maybe you didn't do when you first joined Rick that you had to learn the hard way. What have been some of the big shifts that you've made towards your new business approach? Being consistent, I know that's a very common one, but it's like just making sure that you actually do it. Being a business owner that can also be can contradictive because you've also got a follow-your-job for it flow being a free person business rights. You've got to be consistent, even if it's, I play in simply and this sounds pathetic, it's not even on our CRM, I just have a Google doc with anyone that I've placed, spoke to, moves, just it's just all about keeping your eye on activity on an active leads and I'm just making sure that I'm very active with them and of course asking for a fur or so. It's just, instead of seeing a movement in the market and you know thinking I'll do this search and I'll go to it, it's kind of acting a little bit more on it there and then. So then you know they are seeing your face on a common basis and putting that message in and that's typically how you open doors. It's just having certain processes in place and times when you feel it's necessary to complete or in some cases times where they you know for instance thanksgiving I sent out maybe 200 text messages and it was just played and simple and I thought I'm going to put two hours aside to do this and on the back of that you know I signed three new customers so it's just like you know sometimes thinking inside the box but outside the box. It sounds like very relationship focused is your approach. It is because speaking out you of course win business from speaking out and that's the classic for a croot as right but it's dying of death. I mean there's too much automation out there and you've got to be yourself I believe in in today's markets to be successful. It's easy to build a cadence and it's easy to press play and look it does work but there's just too many people doing it. So I would say relationship focused and leaning on referrals, relationships and again following the market keeping your hand on movement people who are moving just live and acting fast and being one of the first in the door. So let me ask you this guys because I think anyone that listens to this they'll hear that word relationships a lot and like how would you to try and make this like practical for people like if there was two names in your contact book one person you'd say you know I have a really good relationship with them and then another person you like you know I'm working on them I wouldn't say like we have a great relationship but we might have spoken once or twice. What makes that different like how would you define like a great relationship do you know what I mean because I think this is helpful for people to like just think about that like how do you think about that what makes someone you say I have a really great relationship with this person do you think. Well I'll say take a short break I wanted to take a moment to chat you about one of our amazing partners source well the industry leading recruitment engagement platform. I'm using myself and I don't know what I would do without it from building personalized messaging cadences across a variety of channels to automating follow ups and data tracking straight back into my CRM. It's really made an impact in streamlining my workflow and most importantly accelerating my sales results. My favorite feature by far is the live feed by being able to see in real time who's engaging with your campaigns it enables me to prioritize my outreach with the most engaged prospects which helps me get way more out of what I put in so I'm going to be honest if you haven't got source well and you're a recruiter I really believe you're at this advantage to find out more and see the platform in action make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the recruitment mentors podcast because you listen to this podcast you're going to be able to get access to an exclusive offer. Free 50 phone credits 50 email credits which is at the value of circa 500 pounds per user. So make sure you mention the recruitment mentors podcast and click the link in the show notes. You probably end up speaking to more as an industry friend than keeping it overly professional all times if that makes sense so it's like that so you could call them let's say for instance they do not answer within three hours two hours one hour the detection just said look busy that's catch up tomorrow they're on it you know they don't want to let you down and they don't they don't need to feel like they've not seen or heard your approach whereas I'd say a tier two contact would be you know bi-weekly contact and as you can hear I'm very mancuny and I don't really tone it down so it's not that I don't talk to them in a different way but the level of contact on text or kind of email will probably be less casual and more formal and less frequent I couldn't really differentiate it much more than that and there's also pockets of time where these contacts you know need you more than others so it's a case of you speak to them as and when as much as you need to right it's kind of knowing how often and frequent they like to be contacted because there are some hiring managers you can make great relationships with and form a strong relationship make good money and continuous money throughout the year but if you do annoy them with two frequent contacts I'll be into controlling of a process then they lose interest and they they'll probably move on to a more relaxed recruiter so I think it's more about understanding who they are as a person as well to put them in the tier one and tier two contact to buckets so two things here then I think you'd write that down really well actually I like how you frame that so first thing if you were to look at subsection of your tier one relationships yes how does the relationship often start is it I've got a job for you guys I really want to speak to you is it you got you know an internal like a referral like you may have like you know help one of their friends was it that you actually worked on like a job requirement with them and worked on a process how does it typically start you think I'd always say the strongest relationships of referrals based 100% we have some great clients great spenders that we've done again from the typical specking in and you know canvassing or chasing leads and but referrals are king right you know someone says this guy's done a great job for me for three years you know I couldn't recommend him high enough they will listen to that person and give you a shot I mean 90% of the time I got referring to a company three months ago tried again in February and we're still not cracked it and we had the strongest referral ever but in the main I would say referred businesses key because I would also say the type of person you're dealing with is referring you to somebody that is similar to them and if you have a good synergy with with that individual the chances are you going to pick up and replicate that synergy with that other individual same happened I think it was Monday I choose the added guy at an expo in Barcelona and you got referral just saying love the way you work will certainly work for this chief sales officer why don't you guys meet we're yet to meet but my gut feeling is that will be a pretty strong relationship or a tier one relationship based on how well I know this other individual and then the second thing then is like what a view often found to be like the typical scenarios where you feel like someone's gone from tier two to tier one is it when you end up maybe eventually working on a process together is it I don't know maybe they get to a point where like gas actually you know I know we've stayed in contact a couple of times I actually need to help with my team what often makes things jump to like a tier one relationship do you think continuous talking support so I mean I think 2023 I never had so many C-suite of EPs you know sales marketing customer success you know out of work I think with especially with boards letting people go and it was just you know it wasn't you didn't have to be there daily for them all weekly in some cases it might be a biweekly catch up or a three weekly catch up but it was you know checking up to see what other processes they were in you know can there's any support of what is anyone I'm connected to who I can refer you to and it was just generally Saying look, I'm not just saying this for sake. I'm sure there's a lot of people will say Garif has genuinely said this to me I'm like look even if we don't take a fee from this introduction for 2023 I know if we pay it forward it will come backwards and that in some cases as where that tier two relationship is Got you know got into a tier one where he's going you connected to such and such you know Could you you know I did apply directly on LinkedIn? But could you nudge him and try and get my name to the top of the list? So I'd say that you know that little things like that have made tier two into tier ones Yeah, no, I think that's really helpful as I'm sure you're not surprised and no there might be some more we get into But a lot of people what's really front and mind is like the bd piece and becoming really well classed that but Something that I really wanted to get in with you like I was just looking at some of your LinkedIn content Mm-hmm things that you've been sharing. I wanted to speech about head hunting Mm-hmm, and like the candidate side. I don't think this is something that I've sort of dug into with someone for a little while Yeah, and the reason why I mentioned LinkedIn is like I'm looking at a post where you put like Cold calling spring into account executives. Yeah, 49 dollars 19 connects 12 happy not interested free coolbacks Like you're just sort of sharing the journey of like look guys you've got to show up do the reps sometimes You're gonna have calling sessions where you get some big wins sometimes you have calling sessions That was a good day. That was a good day. Yeah So do you mind if we just talk a bit about head hunting? Yeah, of course I feel like this is also where when we think about how many people listen to this would say that they're confident to pick up the phone I'm not sure I think a lot of times when we think about that we go straight to like the bd So the cell side because that's often where a lot of people struggle But I think also there's a lot to be said around You know if you can then also apply this skill at being able to connect in an authentic way with passive talent That's like a huge competitive advantage to be able to do that effectively and leave a good impression and even turn some of those Conversations into people that might be interested in having a further conversation So let me start with this like when you would say gas wasn't very good at head hunting What did that sound like and what does maybe gas better at head hunting sound like let's start with like maybe what gas When yeah, maybe you wasn't as effective at head hunting what might have that sounded like and do you want to define head hunting in your opinion Let's just make sure we come the same page like how do you define head hunting head hunting is finding passive talent right? You know, it's always easy to speak to an engage of people who are looking for work So people who are open to work on LinkedIn and You know, they're the ones who respond on your to your first in-mail with their resume, you know, respectfully or respectfully, you know, they're typically the candidates for you like You know that resumes with a hundred recruiters and it's gonna be a pretty bad first initial conversation So yeah, I mean I define head hunting is being able and confident to convince somebody to engage with You know an opportunity that you're working on for your client and they're not looking so you've generated excitement and you've Convinced them to take that first step of speaking to him ever the first step is worth and are we doing that and like for me I feel like when I think of that would define that is that's typically on the phone Although obviously you can send direct messages to these people, but is that typically happening on the phone? Yeah, in the main is on the phone. I mean of course you we start with an in-mail or an email So then you're you know recognizable and at least any if you call call and say it's garrath and it's like oh the guy Like message ran LinkedIn or whatever and you've kind of got that ice breaker So you're not just getting hung up on or being told that they're in a meeting so yeah We use call calling as our second step not the first or at least it very much I do I mean some people can say no and I remember once a placement in Germany I mean he said no no no no and he just be and they one day just looked at my LinkedIn and I think this was after three months And I picked up the phone is like garrath and I was like yeah And it was like we made the placement So it's like also having that tenacity to know when you found the right person that timing is everything There's no harm in if someone's declined your in-mail Especially if the market pool is small it's having the cheekiness to you I mean it's just to just to find a reason to call them and just like look you know, hear me out Hmm hear me out, you know, what's the kind of what's the harm? But we also don't like to make bad connections. So bad head hunting What did that sound like for Gazmite? Early on what we're saying how did that sound like if you were head hunting me? What did that sound like? Yeah absolutely no idea what I was saying so like literally going into pitches Not even kind of understanding how to position a client You know my first recruitment role we all know where that was We was literally told to have a you know kind of call you know just call through the database Get used to speaking to candidates, you know, here's a job or whatever And you just use your talk to like every time someone starts new Dada Dada They they they think call me They promised me they're going to get me an interview Nothing happens is like I'm sick of it and it was just you know how they brought people on They had a very very good onboarding process, but yeah, I was And we'd have meetings right and we'll you know, I'd be talking you know, what's that? And I'd just say random words and of course it caused a laugh in the office But I just sometimes genuinely did not know what I was saying So it sounds like what I'm taking from that and I think this is the lesson But you let me know if I'm right here wrong, but you called people bad head hunting you called people and spoke about what you wanted to speak about So that could be your job who you work for Yeah, we would have a job to fill, but I would sometimes it's not I could be speaking to the wrong person Yeah, you know, I was just calling for a database So it's like we've got a job spec I'm just calling and trying to talk about a company But when you don't actually know the fundamentals of a SaaS business or you know kind of a role per say You're just calling people to get the marbles out of your mouth And you what I'm trying to say is just jump in at the deep end Because without having those conversations and with a little bit of embarrassment You don't actually learn anything, do you know what I mean? You can read as much as you want I think I actually said to Nick at one point I'm like is there like a book with all like this techling go in and blah blah blah And he's like they probably is one but they'll take you about eight years to read it Just get on the phone Right And if you mispronounce some words You mispronounce some words But I'd already been in sales for what? Seven eight years in the financial services industry So I was pretty cock sure of myself I didn't mind a bit of rejection and embarrassment It's just I didn't also mind just saying look I'm new to recruitment So yeah, I mean why don't you tell me flip it round and get them to educate you in the early years So instead of trying to sound credible Flip it on them to say look I'm new look I've got a role here I think you could be a good fit but you can tell me And what does a good head on and cool sound like now guys So like if I'm going to count it exact right now in Boston And I work at one of the direct competitors of your client How are you opening up that call me? What do these better cool sound like these days I'm just straight in I'm going to get coin to the chase head on to have painted your own LinkedIn Sticking my head above the recruiter noise Just want to see if you've got my message no Boom straight and then obviously if they say it's just just just keeping them on the phone Literally I'll tell them from the get going ahead on a one I'm calling about Of course people either make their excuses or they won It's just there's no how are you blah blah blah It's just I'm a head on a message on LinkedIn Sticking my head above the noise And typically advantageously a Britain America Most of the time they don't just hang up of course on day I have a small marginal gain on that front I would say Do you go in with like straight start talking about I've got this company I'm working with etc or do you try and lead with like Look you know it's might be the case here most account is it so I speak to Often might find themselves struggling with like I know their quotas gone up But they're getting less thing. I don't know do you try and like You know speak to them about some of the issues you think they might have rather than being not I've got this company that I'm representing that I wanted speech about Not personally I don't I mean that's a pretty good way to do it But I appreciate it selling software people try and jump into the pain points But people even love being head-hunted or they don't right I think the point is is just trying to open up lines of engagement To tell them why you calling you know the no nonsense the no bullshit approach And you know if they're open to talk they're open to talk if they're not the not There's been some instances like you know someone's like oh I just ping me on LinkedIn and you do And they genuinely will follow up and you know placements have happened from that There's some people that you know will talk to you just for the sake of talking to you But it's a case of using your own intelligence on how far to to take that I suppose Going into a head-on-ing call trying to find pain points In recruitment I mean I'd like to hear of someone who found great success from that And I'd love to speak to them because You know that person and I'd be like who the f you do you know what does that make sense It's like it'd be like okay. This could be HR calling me from my current company And I'm going to start complaining about I'll start telling you about the pain points of my current job I think that's a tough route to entry personally Okay, let's round this out with this I know you're going granular here But this will be helpful for people But no I appreciate that I was just curious some you know you recruit in the space Like you know all these things right you know it's all about the problem solution focus So I was interested in like if you bring that to life but I respect that I guess my ask here right is I just think it's to be helpful for people like so many people listen to this will have jobs at their working And they'll be selling them so my question to you is gas what does like a good Client pitch or vacancy pitch sound like to you like if we were to break it down Because I'm sure that's something that you finessed and thought about and you know what is a good one like that sound like out of interest 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 Firefish the recruitment CRM that accelerates data driven growth the problem with most recruitment CRM's is that they are just a database of records Meaning they become just one of the many tools that recruits use every day Lot of all systems the records are only as good as the data being captured Our sponsors firefish know that for agencies to win faster Data needs to be at the heart of their business making your CRM the single source of truth With over 10,000 records created and updated every day and 85% of placements from existing candidates Firefish enables recruiters to enrich and engage their data equipping you with real-time time insights needed to win faster. To learn more about five fish and take advantage of an exclusive recruitment mentors podcast offer, make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the recruitment mentors podcast when speaking to the five fish team. And it's something obviously that we have to teach our new starters to try and avoid them having the, you know, the brick wall that I would continuously run into. So when people start with us, we would genuinely say, like, right, take this JD and come back and pitch to me and then we'll like look, take that out, put that in, you've missed this off. So ultimately it's, you know, high level, what that particular company does. Funding current AIIRs is always a key point and a key interest of people that we sell to, you know, what the founders have done and achieved previously. Am I going into first time founders here or am I going into basically people who've had successful exits or mergers or acquisitions previously, where their headquarters is important to some people, believe it or not, you know, some people have had some good experience and bad experiences of companies expanding into the States, you know, people even love it or hate it. You need to make that quite clear. And then I'd just say have the top two or three points of the role, you know, you don't need to run through the full intricacies of the role and ball them to death with the JD, right? It's like the role is this, for instance, you know, a regional sales manager. So 100% net new at the minute, there's no business development support. So you've got to be willing to roll your sleeves up and get hands dirty, you know, how does it sound? And you just kind of given them a bit about the company, a bit about the funding founders, current revenues to prove that they've got current customers, which most people want to see to see the product works. And then that's what tiny bit on the roll. It's not rocket science. It's a very small, sweet elevator pitch. And then, you know, it's kind of over to them. You only need the hard sell at this point. I don't think. And you just typically close out with like, what do you think? Yeah. So over to you, what are your out loud thoughts? Is a word that I used to do that he's I commonly use. What are your out loud thoughts? What are you thinking? Well, you're out loud thoughts. And then obviously, yeah, yeah, what you're out loud thoughts. And then from there, they'll just go sounds interesting. So I'm personally very processed driven from this aspect because again, from past experience, I think obviously one call closes are the ones where there's less commitment. And then you end up with interviews being cancelled. Candidates not committed. You look shit to your client. But I will always, always, always, always, always 99% of the time. There's probably 1% time where I'm like, I've tried to get hold of this person so hard. And I'll just throw them in. But I will always pitch, send them the company, client, that JD, whatever, they research. I only accept resume when they agree for introduction. Then I finish my interview. But of course, once I've given them the elevator pitch in terms of the small portion of the roll, I will basically kind of do a very small cross check to make sure that they can actually do those parts of the roll before I send the JD. So I know that if they do say yes, we've got a decent prospect to be introduced into our client. They say, no, jump on another call. Why doesn't the roll fit? Because you're a chance for a second sale. What are your actual requirements? Why is this job not a fit? And then you can just make sure that you're tailoring your approach to then the next time round. Okay, last time you said that you wanted to company with 200 people, not 50. This one's got 200 people. And then of course, you start to build a relationship over time. There we go, guys, it's had to happen process. Yeah. Just you've got to be ready. You've got to be simple and effective. I mean, people ask us to pick up the phone. I honestly think that's the best way to do it. Can that request have been pretty good for us recently? What would you mean? So what connects them to the message? Just a link to connect because people are getting absolutely bombarded. I was going to send another word at the beginning of the tea, but yeah, with with in males, it's honestly, literally, I spent what two hours last night just connecting with people across projects using the remainder of my hundred connect. And I got two or three calls booked in from that last night and maybe another three this morning. Are you saying like you can at them be like, hey, which is connecting to the service to give you a call, like as in literally, that's like the purpose of the call sort of thing. You know, this is not there's in like sending the connect request instead of you know, it's it's simple as that. It's crazy because it's never really seems to have worked before, but it just seems to be setting up quite a few conversations at the minute. And that is even from a business development front, just very cute. Just saying, look, notice your high end for this boom. We think we've got a candidate for it because again, there's that leading back to one of the points I mentioned earlier in this is, this just shitload of automation and email. You know, I know we we we you source while as and when at the moment, which is a great tool, but in males people getting bombarded emails people getting on bombarded. I think sometimes the other angles like the smallest connect requests or phone calls, they're probably the ones that are providing us the better results. Well, yeah, like you said, you said it in your sort of like opening right, I wanted to give you a call, get sort of a positive sort of recruitment noise. Do you know what I mean? I definitely agree with that. Right. So that's our focus on head hunting. So let's talk about this like business journey then because I think what you wrote down here, which I really found interesting and you can talk a bit about it. You wrote, does the initial vision match up to what it ends up being? What it is? Was that a you saying like when you know, spoke to Rick, I joined in and we were like, we're going to build like a big business. These sorts of things. And then you got in the seat. Actually, is that what we want? Is that what we actually care about? Like talk us a bit about this guys, because I think people can rely it. Yeah. So there's love in my I've got about a million and one force on this, which you get as a business owner. So of course, the initial idea and obviously I needed to go back to the UK for visa purposes anyway, but my idea was to open states, but the idea was to to build and scale out, you know, a decent sized recruitment business. I mean, I think 2023 would have hurt us anyway. If we did that, but we, you know, we opened an office, we made two hires. You know, you know, you've asked me in the before in the past, what's one of our mistakes? And it is hiring too quickly because we just didn't have the documentation or the playbooks to do that. But ultimately, initial vision is build scale and become like a, you know, a 10 to 12 person recruitment business that is efficient and effective. But then of course, having made two hires that didn't work out, you know, we will take account ability for it as we always do, but you know, he wasn't probably the best recruiters at the same time. You know, we was giving them all the time in the day, but from our part, the documentation ones and there to support them. And it just got to the point where we were like train strikes didn't help. I was losing three hours a day. So, you know, that meant we was turning up to the office less and less. And it was just like, we're both great billers. We enjoy kind of the freedom and flexibility of life. And it's kind of gone from that's building scale, this whale of a recruitment business to maybe having a, like, as a lifestyle business. And now we're kind of raining that back in a little bit. So it's like we've gone from one extreme to the other to the point now where we do, you know, having a lifestyle business sounds very nice and luxurious and you can do what you want. But we do have a commitment to our clients to deliver a service, right? And we need to make sure we do a good job. And we want to do a good job to put our brand in the best light as physical, physically as possible, but also as it is kind of a recruitment consultant to myself, Jordan and Rick, but that is now also leading out to kind of burn out and fatigue. So now we do need to grow and scale, but not massively. You know, we're not think talking as astronomically here. And then we that we've also kind of had to swallow our pride on the first topic that you brought up. You need to do business development. So you kind of mature as it is a business owner and you feel your way through things. And it's like, right, we've spent the last 12 months looking for a unicorn. And I think a lot of recruit, you know, I still seem recruitment people posting out of business owners posting out. We need you to be able to do business, but the reality is most people are uncomfortable doing it or can't do it. So yeah, again, we've swallowed our pride and said we should always weigh everything towards business development, but we're looking for an account management at the moment. So we've decided that is the best way for us to successfully grow and scale efficiently and effectively, but also again, not to to make it a lifestyle business, but just so that everybody understands their role, which is great for growth, but also great from a work life balance perspective because at the minute, and what we've been doing for the last three years is great job flow. Let's obviously fill the jobs, which means no new business. And then it's like, right, we filled 60% of the jobs. We need to start doing business development. And then you just either one end of the pendulum either at one end of the over, it's never kind of like as a three person business, it's never in a sweet spot, let's say, it's a learning curve. I appreciate it being really honest with that. As we're saying before, like my world is speaking to founders like yourself and like that would be relatable for so many people. Do you think I'm just going to ask a bit of like a direct question? I might be completely wrong here. Like, you know, haven't got to know your stuff. You've wrote it like self-awareness a lot on and these things, but do you feel like there's any like external pressure of like, should I be growing this and like, did I go out, you know, did I leave my previous job and then go on this journey to for it to be quiet and quite just a lifestyle business? Do you think is there any like, or even just the pressure you put on yourself of like, hang on a minute, like, no, we should be growing this. Does it any, only that stem from there or not? No, no, we have zero external pressure. Myself and Rick are very ambitious people. So it's all intrinsic. I couldn't give two monkeys what anybody thinks. What other business owners think about magnifying from being honest, you know, the who we serve and who we do give a monkey's that think about as our clients. We can do as we work with and of course our employees, you know, so other than that, we don't care. I think this is more from a perspective now that we know we need to grow to keep those people happy. So not overloading Jordan, you know, serving as seeing our clients within a timely manner. And then also making sure that myself and Rick don't burn out, which is happening quite frequently because of them, you know, we took quite a lot of work on and delivering, but you can do three weeks of absolute magic and you don't mind putting the hours in, you know, six a.m. starts 10 a.m. finishes, but week four, you're nonexistent, right? It's not consistent and you'll never survive in business doing that. You know, what if you want to take two weeks PTO, who can you rely on? You don't really get to take two weeks PTO because you've got to, you got to deliver. So I think there's just always realization and it's being self-aware and being, you know, again, speaking to other people in the industry and either they know the right things are the wrong things and it's making sure that, you know, you're not just, you've not got your blinkers on. So yeah, we're always open to what's going on in the market. We're happy to swallow our pride. We're happy to be challenged and I think, obviously, this has been a, we're talking three, four weeks ago, I think we first posted for the account manager. It was a big kind of swallow your pride moment because we've been looking again for this BD Unicorn for the last year and fortunately not founding. The amount of found that I spoke to, like, yeah, we're not high in grads or like, trainees because of that exact thing. They're like, I want someone that can come in but, again, I really appreciate you sharing that and I don't know if you can relate to this a bit around what you're saying around you can have like two, three weeks of like really sort of productivity and then it can be challenging just because I think people can often feel like, yeah, like, you know, I'm billing like good numbers for this company I'm working for, I just go out and learn a bit for myself like and I'll earn ton of money but whatever you do, there's always a cost, right? And I really appreciate you just sharing that because I don't know if you can relate to this but with what you were talking about, definitely what I always wrestle with is like, whenever I have downtime, I'm always almost feeling like, oh, should I be doing this instead or should like, there's like, I know there's work I can do. It is just hard and like, you have to show up, you have to do what you do, you have to sacrifice but then even when like, Gaz might be like, right, okay, I'm gonna have a bit of free time or these things, that voice in your head been like, Gaz, like, you've got five live vacancies, like, shouldn't you be head hun then? It just understands the stocks, you know? That's the reality of it. That is literally the reality of it and it's like, the good thing is, as you say, Jordan's my brother, I mean, Rick have known each other now for five, six years, maybe longer. We're just very honest with each other if we're like, I'm full. I'm not kidding. I'm literally adding no value to this company at this hour. I'm gonna log off at noon or, you know what I mean? It's just, yeah, I'm gonna be done early today and it, our value is health, family work. Do we treat it like that? No, because again, we're all kind of very ambitious people but that's what we live and breathe by. So if someone's saying I'm knackered or I'm not feeling well, it's like, literally, just look after yourself first, everything else. You know, if you don't look after your health, that's where things start to kind of go backwards. I think it's like the chimp paradox, right? Everyone has that little voice in their head telling them they could be doing something better and different. But you burn out. It's like they say, as you grow older, you need to be able to say no to certain things in life. And I've been, I've been guilty of being a yes man in the past, of course, but sometimes it feels good to say no, right? And that's it, you know, again, internally and externally in work life and and out of work life. Yeah, for sure. So you spoke about this pendulum, which I know a lot of people relate to. How are you and Rick about solving this pendulum issue then, right? So talk about this because I think this would be interesting about how, how are you thinking about you mentioning the account manager, about how are you thinking about solving this pendulum issue? Towards that is the answer. If I'm being brutally honest, so we know we do want to, again, we're not going to go to a graduate. We do want somebody with recruitment experience that can maybe do the the gas box of four years ago, right? You know, winning business through existing relationships. So as business owners, we don't want to be seen as the guys who are sat in like, you know, in every tower, giving instructions or plays that are 15 years old, we're actually going to be the business development guys. So we're going to purely BD, unless of course there is times of need where we need to help them fill the jobs. So the idea of the account manager is they will between, obviously Jordan and whomever we hire will once in this person before April 1st, before we do the switch for H2, but is the account manager will basically have house accounts that they will basically be able to work roles with pretty much immediately and they can upsell and cross sell. So if that, you know, the POC that we've handed to them, they refer them into another business. That accounts that's okay. So that's kind of their cross sell but that their new business in inverted commas, but the idea is for them to be the face of the account. It's like a customer success manager, right? That's for house account. With new business one, the idea is the fact that me and Rick will work with them as like a transition period. So me and Rick will win the customer. We will then obviously at the time of execution say, look, this is your account manager, but we will be involved for the first three months and you can kind of pull us in if needed at any point. It's all the first three months of the first three placements. So the idea is that the split is that at this point is shem favorable to the guys brought their business on. Splitting terms a lot, the deal you're talking about, like the commissioners. Yeah, as in terms of the deal, because we've done the hard job of bringing the job on, but then after the first three placements are three months, it's then favorable to the account manager. So the idea is then it's the the account manager wants to make the first three placements as quick as possible. So then the splits go in their favor. So they make sure that they get a good job. And then in terms of the, you know, then the pendulum is everybody has a certain job. In terms of, you know, we're business development, their account management slash delivery, we get pulled in when necessarily or if there's an overload. And then from the opposite side of that, it gives the account manager a chance to again, if they're self aware, we've all seen people going to leadership and hey, it's like, right, if we get, if they get to a point where they're overwhelmed, it's like, right, mean Rick, then have a decision to make. Do we hire another account manager, or do we hire a delivery consultant under them? So then they feel like they're moving forward in their career. So it gives them the opportunity to go, right, I do want somebody to fill my jobs as an account manager. Great. Well, the delivery consultant is your responsibility. Oh, not that me and Rick will not have any involvement of the onboarding or training, but ideally, you know, if you're going to get the kickers from their placements or from the leadership of this person, you can. If there's somebody that says, absolutely not, I just want to come in and do my job and go home, I'm not spoon feeding our babysitting. Then of course, we'd look to hire another account. We think this is the answer until we do it in experiment. We don't know, but the idea is that just people are playing to their strengths. You know, me and Rick can win new business. Pretty good. We can feel job jobs pretty good, but again, it stops it having the, that again, one side of the pendulum or the other. Yeah, yeah. Now, I like it. I appreciate it breaking on that down. I think that'd be really interesting for people. So let's just break this down a bit. You did a really good job of breaking on with that down, but again, I know you're like going to be experiment with this, but I don't know if you thought about this. So a couple of things. One, how many net new clients do you think you and Rick will have to like, like what does like, because to avoid that pendulum, you need to keep doing that, right? Yeah. Because then you could have people in your business that go gas like, I've got no jobs, like what's going on, right? And then you've got someone that isn't, let's just say like they, like house accounts are cited, whatever, right? But have you thought a bit about that? Like, how what would be like yours and Rick's goal? Is it like, you know, five new clients a month? Is it free? If you consistently did that, you think you'd be really healthy before about 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 recruits has achieved their potential by providing world-class training delivered by today's top performers. If you're a groundbreaking 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. In terms of how well we deliver on the work that we pull, I mean, I think if you put us to pull three new low goals a month, it'd be an absolute doodle. I mean, I think if you pulled five or even if you pulled five new accounts or quarter, you've been in a tough position. There's a three or four person business. We'll be in a good position. We're trying to, you know, the goal is to do 850/1 mil between three of us this year, which is, you know, with a low P&L, is going to leave us with a great profit, right? So it just gives us a good scaling model. And the idea is, is that again, if we perform better than that, we hire somebody else. But, you know, the idea is, is the business development person and the account manager needs to get tracking out of that account to make it attractive for you both, right? So there's an old point passing on a client to an account manager if the client ain't going to spend. That's why the business development person will work with the account manager for that three month period to make sure it is a successful account. Once it's a successful account, it's handed off. So it should be easy for that person to maintain that relationship on paper and that's our theory. So it's going to be an interesting model and interesting proof of concept. So again, it's just like starting, joining Rick with Magnifangio, that says it's about having no doubt in your ability and capabilities. We know we can go out there and win the business. It's just obviously now then experimenting with that model to see if it works. I appreciate that. As this then affected your strategy on the types of companies you're on the partner with because you're talking about clients that this isn't just spot business. These are accounts that we're trying to win that are doing one, two, three, four, five placements and you're going to know these people are going to be incentivized by increasing the client spend per client, right? So is that also affecting the strategy of like your targeting companies around like, talking me through the next 12 months, what your hiring goals, what the issues and let's work together on the hiring project, like what is it affected that? I would say no. I mean, we're too small to do that. I mean, at the end of the day, if we pull a client and we place two or three, three roles with in a year, that's still a good account. So it's right. It's a six figure account with the roles that we typically place. I'd say that would be now. It's just making sure that that it is a spending account. We're attractive to work with startups, startups and joy working with us. We don't pull core parts. I spoke to Lewis. We both know Lewis did the day and we're speaking about one of the accounts that he's working on. It's an absolute whale and I'm like, we wouldn't even consider prospecting intents. So he's at the other end of the spectrum. So the answer is no. As long as it is a well-funded startup, good story with good growth plans. I mean at the end of the day we're not going to start to be vertical specific, we're vertical agnostic but it still needs to fit the model of the typical companies that we work with, of course. Why wouldn't this work? Why wouldn't this work if we were chatting six months time ago? Yeah, I didn't work. Why don't you think it'll work? Why wouldn't it work? Steven Barler question. I can't see it not working. I genuinely can't. It's just jumping in and doing it. Maybe the initial split of the account between the two account managers may cause a little bit of a bit of a stir, especially with Jordan being in the business now for 14 months. The other person we're looking for minimum two, three years of recruitment experience. But we're going to aim to be as far as possible. You can't predict the future. The issue with being a services-based business issue, especially in technology, is you can't predict what's happening. Even if that customer's exclusive, you could wake up tomorrow and that client's been acquired, right? By a big player and that big player's eye, we've got our own recruitment team. We could hand the best accounts to an individual and within two months of time, those accounts could be dormant because they've been acquired. I think that's the only brick wall we could run into. But if me and Rick do our job well enough by winning the new logos and helping service them for the first three months, we just need to find the right people who take pride in their work and give a shit about pleasing the customer. Without people, please, doing a good job for the customer, doing what you said you are going to do when we sign them on. Whereas if we hire someone who doesn't give a shit, then the model's going to fail, right? Because the client's just going to come back to us and say, "Such and such isn't delivering. Can you help me?" Guys, how much leverage do you think it's given you being boots on the ground in Chicago? So it's a weird question because we never felt trading from the UK into the US was a problem, but just naturally we win more business and our revenues are up. I don't know what the answer to that is, Hisham, and I've asked myself a million times, but with you just having a physical presence, you just naturally, you know, we're just, the contracts get signed quicker. I don't know. It's not like anybody ever said to me, "Garrett, I know you're back in an office in Manchester trying to work at the US. I've know you work at the US market, so we're going to go with another agency. Nobody ever physically said that, which is naturally the volume has increased." Did I get here at a right time during the uptick of a market? I don't know. But I did also see that on my previous journey, right? Mine, Billings, naturally increased. My revenues naturally increased when I went to San Francisco and then moved to Chicago the first time round. So I don't have a secret source or a magic answer for you there, I show me just naturally seems to happen. Do you think it might be a personal thing? Like you're there, you're in the country. Yeah. Do you not mean? Like because I'm, like I speak to some people that they're confident they'll hit their goals from the UK, they don't have aspirations, but then, you know, I speak to a lot of people that do want boots on the ground and stuff, which is why I just wanted to ask you that, but like you said, like you don't have someone actively saying, like, well, you're in Manchester, like I don't really want to do work of you. That hasn't been a huge blocker and so many people do it from the UK. But yeah, that's what my mind went. It's like you're in the culture, you're in the country. It's like, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, maybe it happens without us knowing it, but obviously at Big Sports Guy, I'll literally watch anything, you know, in a bar or in the evenings. It's always, there's always a game on in the background, baseball, NFL or whatever, because do we have more familiar areas that way? I don't know. Do you want to join the game of the weekend? You know, what game? Man you and they'll be like, fuck a man you. And everything's regional, right? Apart from people who follow franchises, so that could be a part of it. That's not research to me. You know, I'm actually kind of watching that and I'm using that as a conversation style. And they'll go online to that. I like baseball. Cool. No, it's, it's conversation we talk about, the baseball team in that area. So yeah, I mean, there's maybe things that you don't naturally pick up on that, you know, you're doing in your lifestyle that is kind of building naturally building relationships, but it's, it's not forced. So potentially that, but again, I don't have a hard response for that, I'm afraid. And then do you think I'm sure you've seen this right, like more and more recruitment companies going to the US. You've been doing this solidly for a good number of years, now, right? Like, how do you feel about, to be fair, I'm not going to be something that you think about, but like do you feel like in terms of the, if you've got the right strategy, you've got a good value proposition, you deliver a great service, all these things and the markets, like right for you, whatever. Do you feel still like the story of the US, there's still less competition, people more open to working with, staff and agencies, you're going to get paid more for the same way that you're going to do in maybe the UK. Do you still feel like that's like a fair story, a fair perception of the US, do you think the US market, do you think? I think it's a fair perception, but of course, people have caught on to it much more. So, you know, people who got here in like 2018, 2019, I think they had the best ride. People before that even better, but yeah, I think a lot of people have kind of caught on from networks in London and Manchester and, you know, people have seen that success and they've wanted a slice of the action, right? So, I think we've seen a lot of people relocate to the States, but you've just got to look at the size of London and you've got to look at the size of, you know, one state of America. There's so much to go out, you know, and there's so many different markets and verticals. So, I think, yeah, the story still does remain and I think it is a positive move and action to take within the recruitment industry, but we're certainly picking up on a lot more competition in technology alone. I think it's more competitive and I just think there's actually more UK presence physically in the United States. So, yeah, I mean, I think more people have been willing to move people over here and people who are hiring in the UK are using it as an incentive, right? I mean, I think Oscar, for instance, I haven't seen so much of it these days, but that's all used to advertise 12 months. We'll get you to the States and everyone's just going boom, boom, boom, boom, in and out, but I think it's good to be present. It's working for us for sure. Again, we've noticed an astronomical increase in our revenues and client sign up. Along make continue. I just wanted to honest take on that because I think it's easy to, it came up in a conversation recently, but the stats around the GDP of California is the same or if not bigger than the UK. That just puts things into perspective, do you know what I mean? The amount of business and opportunity per state, let alone, yes. I just think, yeah, I appreciate being honest there and always beats a lot of people that really like the opportunity there. Of course, you have to work as hard, it's difficult, it's challenging, but certainly there's some big positives to be had if you can, you can do it well in the States. But look, guys, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for, you know, sharing your BD method, your head hunting methods, use very upfront around how you're thinking about solving some of the issues in your business, which I know a lot of people will relate to. So, yeah, excited to see where the businesses in the next 12 months, hopefully we'll have the successful team of the camp managers and we'll hit that million mark mate. Definitely got to hit that. Yeah, enough. Thanks for having me. I'm confident we will hit that mark, which will be the first time for us and you know, we've got obviously something pretty planned if that comes to fruition, but yeah, we're confident we're moving in the right direction. We're very interested to see how the new model works and yeah, I'll keep you posted. Love 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 a online subscription based learning and education platform. We're on a mission to help thousands of recruiters achieve their professional goals and successfully progress their careers through modern and engaging online learning. So if you're a recruitment business owner listening to this has a good chance that you value self development personal development. You're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement, but we've partnered with a number of grown recruitment companies who were struggling to understand how they can invest more in their people, how they can upskill them more quickly without spending more time without having to spend thousands of pounds of external trainers and we've ended up being a really great fit, modern fit for recruitment teams. We can ultimately help you get more out of your teams by giving your people access to modern and engaging online learning, which they can access on the mark. The thing that's really cool about what we're doing at recruitment mentors is that all of the people that your teams are able to learn from and the people that are delivering the learning content are people that are in roll right now. They're billing, they're actively facing the challenges that your teams are and a lot of the time they're amongst the top performers within their companies, which means your teams are going to be way more confident to learn and spend on their learning when they know they're learning from people that are doing it right now have been there and done it. There's nothing worse than feeling like training is not relevant and not current. 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