How to Build a £50K A Week Contract Book From Zero: Lessons from Joseph Brogan

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. [Music] Joe Brogan, the Senior Vice President for InterX Miami. He has successfully climbed the ranks in four short years. But before this, he went six months without doing a single deal. He then went on another six months once he started with the InterX Group without doing another deal. Since then, he's become one of their all-time top performers in the company and just broke the 50k weekly GP mark. This is how he did it. Here is what you're going to learn in this week's episode. How to master solution calls and how to stand out amongst your competitors when delivering client meetings. How to break into large enterprise customers consistently a clue it's all in the follow-up. The power of equipping your team with a common sales methodology. The opportunities that come with moving your recruitment career to the states and why you should consider it if you ever get the chance. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Are you sure you're joining me from sunny Miami? Exactly. Where did you grow up? Where did I grow up? I grew up in South London, in Croydon. Very affluent part. In Croydon, it's really nice over there. So, did you ever think growing up in Croydon would be a Miami leading a team of salespeople? Interesting. I don't think I ever thought that. No, I don't think I knew what I would do until probably when I was actually doing it. But yeah, I think I always thought I was going to do all right for myself. But yeah, that Miami definitely wasn't on the cards. Miami wasn't on the cards two and a half years ago. Let alone when I was a kid. So, yeah, definitely a surprise. This is just what I love about a career and recruitment. It can really take you to different places in the world, different opportunities. So, I just love that. So, we want to talk about this journey that you've been on with Interax, because we were just chatting. You listened to the first episode of the "Bajame". You actually worked in that sort of office when I came in and did an interview that was like, "Yeah, eight to twelve people". So, you've really been on this journey where you're now in multiple parts of the world massively scaled. So, I'm really interested to sort of get Jo's perspective on what that's been like for you being someone that's progressed their career in that environment. As well as you've built a really great track record. So, we're also going to unpack, you know, how have you built your contract book? How you've gone about that? Because we can probably start here, but you spend a good amount of time not doing any deals, mate. Yeah, that's very true. Don't remind me. But yeah, there was a period that wasn't as busy we'll call it. As I'd say, we have been last few years, definitely. Obviously, starting at Chapman Black first, 18 months, you started in a sort of an internal role then went delivery. But you went what over a year without doing a deal? Yeah, so when I started, I started in TA. So, Chapman Black had this model where any new start that they hired had to be a TA first. And then once you filled your seat to sales, interesting model, I don't think a lot of businesses have done that since. But I was actually hired as a TA. There was two of us. I think looking back now, we were definitely sales type, highers, but that worked. And I worked as a TA for probably a year, that the first year of my career. And then I repeatedly had asked to be pushed into sales and opportunity came up. And then I was a DC for probably six months without doing a deal. Yeah, I did my funny story. My first deal I ever close was with a smoke client and I closed here. And we thought I was telling everyone in the office about it. Like I must have been walking around telling the whole floor about this deal. Max put on a post at the name of the client. He covered my desk and my chair with it. It's like my whole desk and chair, which is plasted with this client. And then that after the deal dropped out. So I did. I did actually fully go six months, no deal. And yeah, it was, it was not a good time. So you had to pull off all the post it notes. Yeah, it's a pull off the post notes. Yeah. And then when everyone was asking me about the post notes, I was like, yeah, it was a deal I'd done. I did do that. It's now drops out. I never forget that. Oh, that is what an introduction to how challenging recruitment can be. Definitely. Yeah. Why didn't you quit at that point then? Why didn't you sort of fall into the category of like recruitment is not for me? I wasn't able to get a success here. I did it for, you know, you would have been a young guy then. So like, what made you carry on? You know what to be honest? I think I was lucky I had good people around me. And I think people always backed me. But then it did come to a point definitely around the end of that period where you started out yourself. There's one thing being told, I know it will come eventually, it will come, it will come. But then when it doesn't come for so long, and I think towards the end people probably started losing faith in me. And yeah, I think I started losing faith in my own ability as well. Because yeah, it's been a long time, right? To not do a placement. So yeah, and there was a person who I was doing TA with. And we both moved into like DC roles at the same. A few deals like fair, fair guy before I did. And yeah, I was getting wound up about it on the floor. And I remember it bothering me. That proper bothering me. I was starting to lose faith baby towards the end. But a lot of that come down to just people telling me that and yes, sticking it out. So when you interviewed at InterEx, how did you sell it then? Like, you're like, yeah, I did this deal once. It was a good deal, but then it dropped out. Like, what did you lean into? Because you didn't have a track record to say, yeah, Chapman Black didn't work out. Yeah, and I'm not at all. I think like to be first of Jamie, he, like he interviewed me and he took it on his merits. Like I was a sales consultant that hadn't been in sales. Like InterEx, we didn't have that resource or into sales route. It was out and out. You've got hired as a sales consultant from day one. So I don't think he actually put much value on the fact that I hadn't built as a DC. Because that wasn't what you were tired of me to do. Like he wasn't hire me to come in and really see what hire me to come in and be a sales consultant. And obviously Jamie had even at that time had a reputation for being like a very big billar and someone who could train big billers. And yeah, I think I had a good interview with him and Chapman Black folded on the Wednesday. I interviewed on the Thursday and InterEx were doing their end of year awards from the year prior on the Friday. And Jamie invited me to the end of year award. So before I'd even started work the day after I interviewed, I went to there and the year awards met everyone and then I started on the Monday. So yeah, no rest for the wicked, they say, but I did nothing right between that last job and the new one. And then complete different story. So you know, definitely correct me if I'm wrong here. But what I wrote down when we prepped for this was first year you did 285 K and sales. And like you had a record in terms of like, what was it? How quickly you got to that? Best first 12 months, yeah, best first 12 months at the time. That's good. That's being beaten. Second year 450 K, third year 6 150 K, fourth year, 1.3 mil. Yeah, that's right. Last year I invoice like 1.6 million dollars about 1.3 pounds. And then right now again, credit me if any of this is wrong, but you do weekly GP. So your weekly GP right now is just on the 50 K USD. Yeah, I've done three deals this week. So 51 500 from 11 to March. So I'm set to invoice this year. I'll bill over 2 million pounds this year. And then what, let's just give the final bit of context here because I think people are always interested in like the make up of this book that you've built just really quickly. So we're talking about the end point here. We're going to talk about how Joe got to this point. But how many so how many contractors have you got out the equates to that? And like how many what's the client spread look like people always interested in that? So at the minute is 51 runners across five or six clients. And I've got one primary client. This probably responsible for I'd say 70 75% of my book at the minute, but wasn't always like that. But yeah, definitely has his picks up over the last year and a half and gotten to these big, big numbers. Yes, I've got a very big enterprise relationship that I guess we'll touch on at some point on this. But yeah, 51 contractors, six or so different clients with one main account. And then like ones and two's a few other places. Cool. Appreciate that. So let's just because of this initial journey, I really like the way that you said that. I think that's completely true, right? In terms of Jamie was hiring you as a sales consultant. Now is the model. So actually, you know, does he have the energy? Does he have the mindset? Does he have these other things that's from sure he was looking at? But like you said, you were starting to doubt yourself. So there'll be a lot of people listening to this that might have found themselves in that situation, right? They started out themselves. They're being told to keep doing the things that you're doing. Joe will pay off. What was the mindset going into that first year? Like what was you going to do differently? Like how did you approach that first year in inter-ex? Because I'm sure you really had a point to prove to the maybe people that used to work with, but mainly to yourself. Like no, I can't make this work. So like what was the mentality going into that first year? And how did you approach it? Yeah, I think it was that proving yourself peace. Like ended up getting set up off the back of chatroom that folding. And they hired a couple of people like from that old business. is to no one asked me, no one, no one reached out to me. And like I was quite close with a few of them boys, but when that happened, no one reached out to me. And I think part of it was that, like wanting to prove myself on that front, billions wise, like Jamie gave me a massive opportunity. And I bought into him from my interview and wanting to like demonstrate my capability within Interex also wanting to prove myself. Yeah, it was definitely a fresh start for me. I've always loved to change and like fresh starts, like my whole career, whether it's moving desk, new headset, new screen, like just anything that will be fresh or new I like. And that was definitely a big opportunity. Fresh start, start from zero. And the opportunity to prove myself, like you say. Yeah, that must have been a real kick in the bollocks, mate. Not being asked. Yeah, we'll listen to that. I think if we put some of the numbers, there's someone's taking a kick in the balls in an A.B. But yeah, that was definitely a put a fire under me, I'd say. 100%. So why don't we get a bit tactical then, like, so I know there's been a bit of a journey with like US, then Europe. So again, help me out here, but I've got written down here. So from the start, you approached, you was doing the US market, right? Yeah, yeah. For from the first couple of weeks, I was doing the old, and the other things like some burgundy, then like Jamie wanted to do the US. And he put the questions to the floor almost, like who would be willing to do it. Because naturally, the hour was on exactly for everyone. And there was three of us that said we do it. So it was me and two other consultants. And then from probably my third or fourth week, we were doing the US, we were doing back 11 a.m. starts, working till, I think it was 11 a.m. till 9 30 p.m. was like the contract here, hours, but they didn't actually look like that, probably for the first, the first year or so. So did that. And then basically there was a period, but and then you was unsure if he was going to end up in the US, which is like a big reward for doing those, you know, working that way. And then you went back to Europe and then when did you then get back onto the US? Got back onto the US probably end of 22. Like if we moved here, end of 21, we moved here June 22. Yes, at end of 21, I got back onto, onto US until when we moved to Miami, the hours back on US. OK, so from 2021, you've been dedicated to the US. And then the goal was, as Jamie mentioned, like we're going to get you over to the US. Yeah. And then how long have you been in Miami now? Year and or coming up on two years, it'll be two years in June. It's flown by like scaryly flown by a bit. It'll be two years in June. Love that. So why don't we break this down a bit? There's, I'm sure I don't know if you spoke into any of your peers about who work for other companies in recruitment, but I'm sure you've picked up on that there's been more and more people look at the US as, you know, somewhere that they can build their success. So the way that I've been describing to people, you can tell me the way that you had maybe described it to people having done the Europe market and then US, etc. Is that, firstly, I feel like this is picking up for some of the people I've spoken to recently, but, you know, to really grasp, like, the opportunity in the US, like there's states in the US that have the same GDP as the entire country of the UK for start, and obviously comparing it. So in terms of like opportunity, the amount of clients and new business, etc. that you can acquire as a recruiter, it's probably going to be not as competitive if you're maybe working the UK Europe market. And then the other thing is then you may work just as hard, you have to deliver a great service to all those things, but the reward can be 30, 40, 50% more in terms of like revenue. How would you frame it? That's sort of normally how I've said it to people. Exactly the same. Yeah, exactly the same. Like everything's bigger, salaries are bigger, the margins, we charge are bigger. Just in general as a market, it's bigger. There's more opportunity for sure. And I think one thing as well, I always frame to consult with it. It definitely takes longer to crack a client in the US, I would say. Like I thought like in Europe, you can do quick turnaround deals, you can pick up the phone and do a contract deal within a few days and it happens in the US. But the US is definitely a relationships game, and it's definitely a building up relationships over time, particularly with some of these big customers. But yeah, opportunity is huge, everyone knows it. Yeah, so this isn't about, because sometimes I think people can feel like, "I, like you're saying it's easier, it isn't about that, it's just like the rewards are much higher." Like you still have to work as hard as you have to do what you need to do, but the rewards can be a lot higher in terms of what we're talking about, numbers and revenue-wise. Yeah, 100%. It took me, I started the US market in February in August. So even when I started the intract, so I didn't raise this to the other day, I started the intract, took me six months of my first deal sales after started the intract, and then I did nearly 300K in Q4 that year. So yeah, it wasn't a quick pick up and for the free of us that started the market, it was the same for all of us. A lot of us weren't doing deals until the back end of that year, but when they came, they came and they came in hand-forks. I think that was what he was all looking towards and when it finally started kicking on, it was great to see. So you said you didn't do a deal from February to August? Yeah, February to August. Louis Berman at E-Pam Systems, some of you's watching this, but he was the man and that was the first deal I ever did. And then Jamie put loads of post-it notes on that or we didn't want to do one of James's. No, we didn't do a post-it notes. We avoided the repeat of the post-it notes, but yeah, I remember when, yeah, there were some cool stories around that deal, but yeah, at the time I was the Interex had just set up that group doing the US and we had the US bank account, but I don't know if Jamie's not banking or whatever, but I was checking after four weeks, but I was going to the cash point to check if we'd been paid into the business account, yeah, and then obviously the day it came in, I was like, absolutely beaming. Yeah, obviously not that it was mine, but that obviously sure, he's trying to trust me a long time ago to be sat at the ATM looking at that. But yeah, there's some cool stories around that deal, but that was also that year and no post-it notes, no post-it notes, drinks out one. So let me ask you this then, and I'm sure this is something that you've had to help other people with. February to August, that's a solid amount of time. With hindsight now, and you've now continued to build a track record in the US, you've been doing that for a solid amount of time. If I'm listening to this right now, on the contract recruiter, this might have been applied to being a pun recruit as well, but you've set yourself a goal, your building a market could be US, whatever. What are the lagging indicators that you're keeping a close eye on that's gonna make you feel like, right, I'm doing the right things, it's gonna pay off. What were those things that made you feel like, no, we've had some good meetings or we've had some close deals that we need to go out there. I don't know, what are the lagging indicators of like, then it really going well, do you know what I mean? 'Cause I'm sure you would have had to feel like there's some momentum building or some things that you are doing well, if we keep doing it or pay off. Well, obviously take a short break, I wanted to take a moment to chat to you about one of our amazing partners, SourceWell, 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 gonna be honest, if you haven't got SourceWell 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 gonna 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. - Yeah, it's a good question, I think, back then, it probably would have come down to like having jobs on. I remember the first few jobs that we wanted, not close, and I remember that for a while. We were winning jobs for starting winning jobs with bigger, like more enterprise customers. And I think at that point, we were really like, it was a lot of firsts. There were a lot of firsts happening. And like we were the first to be doing a lot of things and remember having jobs on with big customers having interviews happen and then camera to offer and the onboarding process was gonna take two months and we were missing out on things. But I think mainly back then, it was productive meetings, like, well, we having scheduled calls or we were having good conversations, whereby there were needs or there were gonna be needs or potential needs. Like, bear in mind, that first year doing the UX, that was during COVID. I was working remotely in my dad's barber shop that whole year. So like, that was, I was working remotely from my dad's barber shop in a barber chair. So like, that was obviously not the ideal set up, but I think back then, it was where you like, winning jobs in general, like jobs getting produced or where you're having conversations around requirements was actually thing for us. And we started seeing traction like that. Yeah, there were definitely some lessons we learned that first four or five months. And once the focus shifted, that was when we started winning jobs and then the revenue came shortly after. - So really focusing on productive meetings, jobs on, even if some of them don't quite convert, just that's like a good indicator that, yeah, it might be one of. - Yeah, are you qualifying opportunity? Are you able to sell? It's like a big thing. - And then sometimes I feel like people can get a bit caught up on this or unsure, like, obviously you didn't have a track record. Why would I listen to Joe? What was you leveraging to say, like, look, I'm someone that can deliver this for you. Was you at the same time really trying to make sure that you had a solid network of contractors that you'd been building over time? Like, what was you leveraging in these early meetings when you can't go, we did this for this US client, like you, which is why you should trust us give it a shot. opportunity. Yeah, I think there was a few things like first one I say to all the new stuff, but if you can't sell yourself, you always sell the business like sell on the brand. We had big partnerships in Europe and we had been a successful partner to big engagements for brands that would be recognised globally. So it was name drop in clients in Europe that we'd worked with to make ourselves more reputable. And then also alongside that it was marketing candidates and using the candidates as you're in, I think a lot of people overlook the value in that. Like at the end of the day, it's our products. You can sound as good as you want to sound on the phone, but clients are buying candidates off of us. Like you say, you've not got that track record to necessarily sell your sales. It's got to come down to leaning on your business's brand, leaning on relationships that you have as a business, and then also leaning into your candidate. If you're working with someone who is the best at what they do, and if you sound passionate about that person, then that's going to be what gets you by and over anything else in my opinion. So you spoke about this quite a bit with a lot of passion when we prepared for this around like pitching, selling effectively. And how if I was to walk onto your Miami Salesforce right now, you're going to hear people pitching like a similar way or you know, have a core message that people would deliver. Why did you think that's so important? It's about branding. It's huge, dry. Like you've got everyone pitching a slick and effective way. How we're representing ourselves to customers. I do a lot of QA calls with customers. So if we are making placements or we're partnering up with a business, particularly a new client as a director of stepping four, five weeks after the contract has started and getting an overview of how we handle the engagement. And it's consistent across the board that clients will say things like yeah, consultant was very passionate from the officer like managed the process effectively was really big on value and impacts. We've got a lot of sort of consistent messages throughout our pitch. And that's not to say everyone sounds robotic, but you would notice common themes throughout the messaging that we're having on our calls. And I think as you scale a sales floor is so, so key. When you get to principle level, there may be slight differentiators in how you come across on the phone or how you deliver things. But yeah, generally it's a scale of sales. I think it's key that people are following a general message, a general outline on how they're pitching the my whole floor. Like I said, pitching the same if you pulled anyone in and out. It's interesting right because I think I do really feel like this is overlooked because if I was to walk into bank and walk into a random recruitment agency, there'd be plenty around there. Yeah. And I walked onto a sales floor and I lined 10 people up and I said, guys, girls, talk me through your two, three USBs. Why would a customer partner review and why should they partner with you over others? How many people are going to execute that? Yes, it's not a big number. But I think that's the difficulty and I think that a lot of consultants left to their own devices. And that's something that gets in the way of development. And I mean, we'll come onto this in a bit in terms of like, interactions in particular and how we work and where the bar is at. But yeah, pitching is so key. If you can't sell, you're not going to build big numbers. That's it in the day because as much as we are adding a lot of value to these customers, when you pick up the phones or someone, they don't trust you, they don't believe in that. So it's about are you able to create enough of an opportunity for yourself to demonstrate the value and the impact you're going to have about business. And then from there, it's plain sailing. But if you can't open, then yeah, you're putting a cap on what you will do as a consultant, definitely. What's the QA call? Quality assurance, quality assurance. So, sound of how we've handled engagement, clients buy into it. Again, it's another opportunity to understand what else might be ongoing within the business. I think that, yeah, like what, particularly early on in partnerships, clients can be quite naive to how you can support them or what you can do. I think because obviously, staffing or resource and is such a small percentage of their role, there's so many times you'd be surprised where like a small nudge to a client on the phone or a suggestion will open up a whole other area of the business that they wouldn't even have thought to bring up to you. So, yeah, QA calls are a big thing that we're doing. Again, it's just about improving your service. Like, what could we have done over the last four weeks that maybe didn't hit expectation or if we could have streamlined any part of our interaction, what would that have looked like to you? So, yeah, I think they're definitely a valuable thing to be doing. I think that's really smart. So, that's something that normally, if you started to work with a new customer three, four weeks into that contract to be an onboarded, you'll make sure that you've got time at the hiring manager, the decision makers there and go and write, talk as free how we did the process. Do you think it could have been improved? How's the contracts are getting on, how's the project looking, etc? All those things on that call? Yeah, 100%. 100%. It's so key. If you're that or some form of that, you're missing out massively. It's about the care piece as well. I think one thing that recruitment has been going towards and it's good that it has been is maintaining these strategic partnerships and to set yourself apart from other businesses, you have to be operating as a partner. That is one example of dozens of things that you can do to present yourself in that way. When you look at growing enterprise level accounts and really selling enterprise solutions, that's what businesses are looking at. Body shopping recruitment is dead, is dying and businesses expect a particular level of service to partner up with you and is expected. We get paid a lot of money to find these people resources. I say it to people on the floor all the time, this is a more difficult search, of course it's difficult. They're paying us X amount of money. It's not going to be easy. I think delivering that level of the only way to grow big relationships and to justify your role in businesses, businesses start from a business project, so that's so key. Before we move on, I wanted to because I wrote this down and we're talking about selling, having a compelling pitch. QA calls. You're not going to ask me to pitch you, I am not right now. Maybe. No, I wanted to, I don't know, you tell me what this is, but you were telling me about solution calls. I wanted you to talk me through what a great solution call sounded like and I wanted to understand, talking about solution calls, impact, partnerships, these things. So I wanted to find out and understand when Joe used to do these solution calls. What did he do? Yeah, what I wanted to find out was when he used to do them, when maybe you weren't getting as good conversion, good result, he wasn't as impactful with them compared to now. So like firstly, what is a solution call? Where does this fit into the sales process? Is this like a new client meeting? Is it what are these solution calls? Yeah, new client meeting, new client meeting, BV call, schedule call, obviously people will call things, but yeah, I think I say solution call because I'm talking about getting onto a call and providing a solution rather than getting on the call just to talk about requirements. And when you look at what we do as a staff and in a project partner, 80% of what we do, 90% of what we do is that type of work. So that's when I say solution call, that's what I mean. And then before just to make sure everyone understands, before the solution call, what normally happens? Did you have an initial meeting go, look, I think from what you've shared with me today, I think it'd be a really good idea to have a solution call or have this meeting where we can go through a staff. Now this would be on the initial call, initial meeting. Yeah, this would be on the initial meeting, yeah, initial meeting, yeah. I don't like big, long sales processes. If you can get some question effectively, you can get something wrapped up on the first call. We're not a business that have like a three step schedule call process to selling that would be done on all on the initial call. All right, so let's just talk about it. So how long are these calls normally? How long these meetings? 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. I think the key thing as well, and that of one of your beer around that, how can you fit it into that amount of time? I think the key thing is going into those calls with information that as a contract recruiter, it is so, so key that you know everything about the projects you're going to. You should go into a call as a contract recruiter, understanding program, what size are part of the program, what pains there might be, where there might be shortcomings, what stage of the project today are. You understand all of that before you get on the phone. One that's how you convert more of your prospect calls because clients buy into people who know who know those things. You sound like an expert. Two, when you get onto the call, you can do discovery, discovery is key question in this key, but you've got the top line subjects and you can get straight into going underneath those on the call rather than going okay, well what are you driving at the moment? How are you driving it? What partners are you working with? How are they getting on? But if you know 60% of that before you get on a call and you're not going to know everything, then it sets you up to have more of a detailed conversation beyond that on the first call and your conversations are going to go much better. I'm assuming you're getting this information from your contractors, your network. Candidates, yeah. Like any contract recruiter will tell you candidates are the basis of any strong desk. Any type of business development has to have started there. Being even for our floor, one thing we drove recently was anyone who had a scheduled call or a solutions call, whatever we're calling it, that week was to speak to contractors within that project ahead of the call to identify information prior to getting on the call. The conversation is so much more effective and you can really pitch much more specific solution if you've uncovered that beforehand. And then, Joe, talk me through how like, because I think this is really interesting, this is just really smart. We're getting into the detail here of like how you approach these things. Like, how do you deliver that in a sort of unknown way? Do you know what I mean? Because I'm sure you're not going in there going like, I know this about this, I know this about this. You're going to deliver it in the tonality where you're like, yeah, so look, how I might know this or am I right here or my along the right track here? You might play it sort of the tonality is like bit unsure, but you're sort of short. How do you deliver this in an effective way that makes them be like, right, this guy knows his stuff? He's credible. 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. 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It's leading questions, like asking leading questions, and I think as well, like there are a lot of things that are consistent in our market, we've, like, partners in how they deliver, and I think being able to frame certain phrases like there are certain things that I say on calls where you say, "Look, partners have a reputation for over-promising, over-charging, and under-delivering." Here in the same things in the market from X and X, or over the last two years, the most common pain that I've heard when speaking to people like yourself is X. So I think that's usually the best way to say it off. It's those little probing comments that then unlock additional topics, but that's usually how you would go about it. And then also being transparent. So look ahead of our conversation. I wanted to speak to some candidates in my network, who I know are partnered on the program, or may have worked in the program to see if I could identify in the areas that we may be able to support. Is this the case? Or have you currently identified a solution to address this? For example, there are different ways you can go about it, but the little probing comments and questions that then unlock the topics is the best way I've seen. And what's like the opposite of this, Joe? How can I deliver really bad solutions? What does really not look good looks like, which is going to result in not very good conversion, maybe ones and twos, not actual full hiring solution opportunities, projects, like what's the opposite of what we're talking about here? Featuredumping for one, like featuredumping. You know what I mean when I say that, that's a featuredumping. So getting on calls and going, we do this, we do that. And you don't know if AB or series are going to be relevant to the client. So featuredumping over talking as well is a huge thing. I've worked with some very good salespeople over the years at different businesses. And the best salespeople I've ever worked to speak the least on their calls. So being someone who's not speaking too much on conversations. Yeah, but mainly like the thing I hate to hear, and this is where calls don't go well is when you just oversell without any reason behind yourself. So people just pigeon in our week and do this. We've got global coverage or we've got offices in X, Y and Z or we've got those things aren't value ads to that individual specifically. Unless you know that they are. Yeah, we shouldn't be dropping features in unless we know that they're benefiting the person we're speaking to. Yeah, you're making it all about you and not them. Yeah, 100%. And clients don't want to hear it. And also clients get pitched like that all the time. But one thing I, clients have bought into recently on schedule calls. I joined the call and say, look, I'm not going to put a deck. I'm sure you don't want to see that classic logo slide. And they all start laughing because clients are used to seeing this stuff from other people. They don't want to sit and listen to another person. And they're like, what are the things that they're going to do? What are the things that they're going to do? Yes, it's been great. It's been great to be honest. It's been good. I think there's a few things that I put it down to. Like one is obviously Jamie's an individual, just anything that he's ever said was going to happen. And I think that's just, he wouldn't ever let us not hit a milestone or hit a number. I remember when we said we were moving to Miami, it was quite short notice for a move to Miami for a team of four. And a lot of people would have said, are you not going to do that? Or it doesn't seem realistic. It would get pushed back. Yeah, we done it. And I just, this unwavering trust in what he says in terms of what's going to happen with it. Yeah, as a team, we make it happen. And that consistency of hitting things that you set out to do, it piles onto itself. I can't remember what word I'm thinking trying to think of that. It adds up. And I think that's just something that we've consistently had. Yes, it's been great journey to be a part of seeing new people come in, seeing new starters come in and hit big numbers. You're seeing people that were like training new starters that you knew were going to do well. And then they eventually start happening, the deals are happening. It's been a good thing to see. And Croydon to Miami, mate, talk to me about that. What has it been in there for two years now? What's a guy in from Croydon doing in Miami? What is that actually like? What's the transition like? It's the best thing I ever did. I recommend it to so many. Anyone I speak to, I would recommend it to any consultant. If you get an opportunity to go abroad, not Miami necessarily. Obviously, it's brilliant here, but it pushes you one to achieve more to do more. I could confidently say that if we didn't move out here, I don't think it would have been the same. Just in terms of the, yeah, it's just a serious thing to do, right? And to move away and sign a lease on an apartment and its expectations on your head and you ridden a waffys with four people looking around at like an empty floor. Yeah, there was a lot of pressure and yeah, I recommend it to any consultant who has the opportunity to go abroad and build up a market. I think it's one of the best things you can do for personal development, for independence. Lots of different points, but yeah, I think it's amazing. And what about like integrating into Miami culture? What's that been like for you? What's it been like to? It's been interesting. There was definitely some learning curves. I think different things in what they put emphasis on. Yeah, Miami's like huge around work life balance, which is a good thing for us. And I think part of our shift to valuing that a lot more over the last two, three years has been from going to the state and seeing the importance it has here. And seeing that we can have people perform and produce big numbers with that still being an emphasis point for us. But yeah, there was definitely a learning curve around a few things when we first moved over here and. And what we wanted in a new high R and changing the mold, what we might have had previously and. And really being more open to what type of people could come in here and and achieve. I think it's very, it can be quite hard to open your minds of things when you are sitting in a certain way or you've seen a certain type of person coming in a chief. But yeah, we've seen from coming out here that there are people from all types of backgrounds, all type of personalities, all types of experience that have come in and done big numbers as part of the model you have. So yeah, there was definitely a few eye openers coming out here. But yes, for the better of everyone in the business for sure. And then because you mentioned this when we prepared for this, like you've got multiple early 20 year olds, late teenagers doing 10 K a week more like. Talked me through like how how do you feel like you've been able to unlock their potential what like systems and processes of you. Equip them with to get them up to those levels because these are people that are young. These are people that may not have like loads of experience, but you've been able to get them up to these levels. I think there's a few things like being consistent. I think the main thing with leading teams is ensuring that you maintain buy in from those people. Like the second your team don't buy into, they stop listening to what you're asking. And you can check things as closely as you like or you can review things. But if they're not going to maintain the standards you expect when you're not in the office, then you've not had the impact on that person that you should have. So I think being consistent in messaging, consistent expectations. I think the fact that obviously I'm young and I've built an arm of our build means that people naturally that helps me in terms of respect that I get from the floor and then being involved as well. Leading from the front is so key. Leading from the front. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to build, but even if you're a non-billion manager, are you taking part in schedule calls? Do the sales consultants on your floor have a level of confidence in you that if you partake in a call with them, it's more likely to result in outcome. I think that's a really interesting way that you framed it in terms of how many people go into a non-billing position and then their peers feel like if Joe's on this call, I have more chance of closing it. I really like that sort of bit that you mentioned now. I think that really demonstrates that extra value that you should be offering. Yeah, 100%. So key. So key. Like, yeah, I could talk on that for days, but yeah, I think that's massive as a leading to sales. Let's talk about, obviously, I told you about the conversation I had with Asher and how he built his book over time. And I feel like what I'm definitely learning here, obviously, you can just talk from Inter-X experience, but I feel like the more contract recruiters I meet and interview, and they're doing like a million and a half, two million. Oftentimes, there will be big enterprise clients that make up that sort of structure of their desk. So I think just really curious, 'cause it seems like that's been important for you as well. Right, you know, when we started this, you said, you've got like five, six, like really key clients. Talked me through, 'cause I'm sure there's plenty of contract recruiters listen to this. That should be hopefully aware of like, these are like the 10 big, net new logos. If I get in with these customers, like my whole desk could change. Like watch your methodology around breaking into enterprise clients. You know, we've always spoken about, it can take time, which I'm sure is part of the equation. But I'm sure this is something that you're helping your team with now and you're a lot more intentional about, 'cause of your experience. Watch your methodology around breaking into enterprise clients and big logo clients. I think there's several things, and I listen to that the guy who works at Oscar, a couple of things that overlap. But one, making sure you're covering all bases. Like, are you busy on LinkedIn? Do you look like an expert on LinkedIn? Are you connecting with people in LinkedIn and sending them tailored follow-ups? Naturally be in that you can't overlook the value of that. Are you on the phone to people at that client daily? Are you calling them outside of core hours? Are you calling them before 830 during your lunch one day a week and an after 530 to catch them at times when they're not going to be in meetings? Are you consistent in your approach? But I think you've done a post on it the other day on LinkedIn that it's a known fact that clients or success in sales comes at the 748 touch point and yet 95% of people don't get, which is bonkers. You know, so are you being consistent in your approach? Are you covering all angles in terms of tailored specs out? Get entailed product out. Speaking to senior candidates within the project to see if you can get sponsored into the program. Speaking to candidates to get information so that when you send an email, when you call call and pitch, you can have it to the point where it's tailored to the point where it demands a reply. All of those touch points with information to make you more reputable, to show that you're specifically target in that business. And then all of that has to be consistent. Is that happening weekly over the course of three months? I've got a, like the enterprise account now who's probably responsible for 80% of my book, 85% of my book. Even 90 really if I'm being honest, is coming from somewhere I did two deals with and then it took 18 months to do another deal. And then now I've got 40 runners there. So are you consistent enough that you will call a client every week for a year and back the fact that when they pick up, it's going to be worth the effort or are you just going to call it a day? Too many consultants do one and done. It's like a deal with a client and then they don't expand it. And that comes from providing a good service from the offset. Like when you get the opportunity, are you so big on first impressions that they can't go anywhere else? Are you mapping out of a contacts in the business and names dropping people that have said you can go ahead and use them as a reference point? And then are you consistently going to go at that business? So many recruitment companies and even the same with us, right? You've got a long list of clients you've placed with. Any one of those clients, a lot of the businesses we work with, they could all be million pounds, two million pound accounts and they sit there dormant, two or three deals against them. And yeah, I think it's a case of consistency against those businesses and also having a structure in place where you know, okay, I'm going to touch all of these touch points within this week and then I'm going to leave it for two weeks and I'm going to do the same thing again, but I will do that over the course of a year regardless of outcome. So did you, that example that you gave, this and that been one of your biggest accounts? Like did you know it might turn out like that? I hoped it would. Yeah, I'm not sure I knew. Like I backed it would be a big account, but not the cum. But I showed people on the floor this sometimes. I sent 65 different leaders there in email every other week for a year. Like, like, yeah, like I was plastering myself everywhere. There was a lot of things that I did with that business and Tim Post and yeah, just so much stuff, but quite laughable some of it. But yeah, I was very consistent in my approach and I think another thing consultants get worried about a pestering clients, right? And I agree you should never pest your client like these are mutual relationships. If you're delivering value and when you get on the phone, you have something to talk about, you won't be perceived as pestering. When you're calling a client to say, oh, has anything changed? Like, of course, they're going to think you're pestering them. But if you're ringing them because you've got a new solution or a new candidate's come available, you know, you have to speak to them about X and X. You're not pestering them. You want to get in touch with them. I've never had a client say I pestered them or I was on them too much because if you've actually got something to talk about, every time you pick up the phone, how could they ever say that to you? Yes, I think people need to be more like less worried about pestering clients and more concerned about what you picking up the phone to discuss. And yeah, if the latter is in the right place, then you shouldn't be hearing complaints about the prior. 65 leaders to emails a week for a year. Yeah. Yeah. What was you saying in these emails, mate? Ah, so many things. So many things. Every time I've got a new piece of information, I just tailor the email, like send a new client touchpoint at all, five week batches where I'd send one and I'd say, "Look, following up, I wanted to see if you reviewed the last email, followed up, want to see if you reviewed the last email, I'd just go through my inbox and do reply all and just like hammer through." Yeah, you should be doing that with multiple clients at one time. That's what our job is at the end. Like, I get specs off partners in the US now. Like, send them the candidates, offshore candidates and stuff. And they're consistent. Like, I'll get a follow-up every week for the four months. And I say to some of my team, like, principal consultants, I've got offshore partners who will email me every Friday for three months and you're giving up your clients after six weeks. How can this person be more consistent new in this environment? So, yeah, I think that's the key thing. So, I just want to make sure we cover two things before we finish. One, what's Joe's mindset to make sure that you protect your book? Like, as you know, I sat down with Ethan and he's had to go through that twice, I think. So, you know, you were being honest with us like 90% of your contractors and maybe this one client. So, how is Joe thinking about protecting his book? So, the next time we jump on here, you're going, "Mate, this client." So, I want to make sure we cover that. But the other thing I want to make sure I ask you is, "Okay, we're being persistent, I get that." But what were like the signs from your perspective that this could potentially turn into like a really big client? Like, what were some of the signs that, you know, you found yourself going, "You know what, this information I'm feeling like that I just found out is making me feel like that, this could be, you know, a big partner for us. Like, what were some of the signs?" 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 as achieved their potential by providing world-class training delivered by today's top performers. If you're a growing recruitment business that wants an alternative way to upskill and develop your team, that doesn't involve having to spend more time doing it yourself or pulling the responsibility on your already time-port billing managers, then you should check out Hector. After successfully implementing Hector in several recruitment companies, we've helped them reduce the time it takes for their consultants to do their first 360 deal, improve important performance metrics like jump-to-fill ratios, and even increased the average billing per head by 20% for multiple recruitment teams. You can check out Hector and learn more about how we can help your business and book a call directly with me in the link in the show notes. I think understanding everything about the programme, like my market state or analytics, that's what I've always done, and I knew it was a huge project, and I knew that they were leveraging contractors, heavily. I knew who the partners were, a lot of what we do, and this is what differentiates us from a lot of recruiters. It's easy to say that we sell against the NCR, IBM, CAPGEM, we're selling against them and we win the work. And I knew who the partner was, I knew where they were falling short, I was hearing about it, so it was a case of waiting until the opportunity came up to deliver against it, and they're making a good first impression. But knowing how much of a presence a partner had on the programme, you know that they're being charged to X amount per hour by that partner, then you know for every one resource you place there, you're saving X amount of cost. So once you put in someone good, it's just a matter of time before you start getting given more work, because if they can get better quality for a lower cost, regardless of brand name, business size, anything else, they're going to come back to you. So I think that's what it came down to. How do you think about protecting your book, then, mate? Surely that must be top of mind. So there's a few things. First of all, I've got 40 contractors there, across 19, 20 different managers don't even know each other. Right. So there's a case of networking globally, like not having. Obviously, if you get a big project with 25 needs, I'm not saying tell them no, but being conscious of having lots of people in one programme, good reputation within a business, so you can win business in other pockets, like operating with honesty and transparency as well. I see a lot of consultants trying in other businesses, or just in general, in Korea, try and take big margins. You know, like a consultant here goes to do their first deal, and they want a charge of 40% margin. And that type of stuff isn't how you build long-lasting partnerships. And it might put a big deal up on the board for six months, and you might look cool, but everything's within one account, or 80, 90% of it's within one account, it's within 15 different projects within one account. So not sitting on one contact in a business. And it also means I think a lot of recruiters miss out on relationships, because they might have a relationship with someone, and that person leaves. And then the account goes dead. If you're working with 15 different hire managers, free of them could not like you, and you can still. do free deals there a month. So yeah, it's just a case of maintaining relationships across the board. Yeah, I think that's the key thing there, as you said, like, okay, on the face of it, one customer, number of contractors there, but like you said, they're all working for a number of different hiring managers or, okay, that's interesting. In terms of what I wanted to close this out then, I just want to try and make sure I understand this because I feel like we help recruit on the training development side. And one of the most common areas that they score themselves low in is like time management productivity. I'm just trying to pitch a lot. How do you maintain and keep on top of like 50 plus contractors? Like, at these people, the hero few every week, like, you got them in a WhatsApp group. Like, how do you, no, I don't have them in a WhatsApp group. Like, how do you like structure this? I did permanent recruitment. So I'm just trying to visualize, you know, because you got to be all over these, I don't know, you got to like begin information, like these things. Obviously, I guess it depends on, are they in for a 12 month contract six months, but even still like things can change in the project. So how do you keep on top of that? We hired someone to help. So we've actually got a contractor care consultant that catch up people. A lot of me and Ethan's contractors, for example, because like between us, we've got 150 runners. It would be impossible. So we've got someone that does that. And then also, I, when I was building, I would catch up with them weekly, right? Because the amount of deals I've done from a candidate giving me a lead and giving me a candidate, like because they'll find out about a leader and they've got a colleague that they'll recommend. I've done so many free deals like that, where that comes about. So I think having those examples meant that I would always catch up on my contractors because I'd seen actual value coming from it. So yeah, catching up with them, making sure they were right. I would do that weekly on a Friday afternoon, usually. I'm actually telling like, choose afternoon, Friday afternoon, is with BD. Choose afternoon, I would catch up with everyone. But now we've got a contractor care consultant, but I've still catch up with people. So there are certain contractors I have that are maybe more senior in the projects or I've got certain contractors that are just good for leads and they'll get a more regular call off of me than than some of the other ones. I saw a video the other day where you were interviewing a lady you said about like, she called a contractor and they would like, look, I'll call you if I need some. Yeah, I was going to have a nice, yeah. I've got a couple of those that don't get calls off me. They probably know who they are, but yeah, but I think someone who picks up the phones of the contractors is key. Any issue you need to be reachable because yeah, like they're you're lively. It's always been huge on that like service in your contractors. I remember, yeah, from when I first started working with them, it was massive. Like time sheets had to be in on time, had to catch up in your contractors because they're your eyes and ears and the project and yeah, they're you lively here. So it's a key part of your desk. So where do we go from here then? How do you unlock the next level? If that's something you're thinking about because I'm sure at some point, I'm sure you might have found yourself going because you know, you said something which I thought was quite powerful which whenever I've met someone at InterEx, this is what person I'm inspired about is like you only think so I guess what I'm trying to say is the way that you phrased it is, 500k billets probably won't get noticed in InterEx. So you know, you're going to be inspired around the people that may go, fucking how I thought this was possible, but that's possible. So how are you feeling about this? Because you might have said you might not have at one point like, imagine if I could get my book to 50k weeks, like you might have said that in it and now you're here. So it's like how do you feel about not getting complacent getting the net like onto the next thing? Like how do you think about that? Well, I think there's still a way for people to beat like Ethan still even like you can sugarcoat it all you like, but yeah, even though I won top bill last year, like Ethan still has had the most runners at one point. So yeah, still pushing on to hit those numbers. I think also now for me, it's more so around that how many big billets can I create? And then doing it to maintain that leading from the front piece like me putting deals up on the board. I know it gets the team going. The team like seeing and yeah, being able to continue doing that pushes me on and then also for myself, but I've still got big goals. I want to hit that are maybe less billions related and more. Well, they are billions related but more earnings related and certain numbers I want to earn. So you have like bigger goals for like yourself, the team? Yeah, bigger goals for myself and the team and being able to create billets like we've got someone here now. He was a golf caddy. So he was carrying around people's golf bags in April. He'll win boys 600 K this year. And yeah, like I've got a senior consultant on my team who had a load of permanent boys come in last month and one of the boys came into the office on Saturdays at drop something. And he was in here like wrapping up his weekly review with four shopping bags on the desk in front of him wearing some sun like new sunglasses. It's like hearing things like that. It's nice. I've got personal goals. I want to hear outside of work, things that work will facilitate if my billion is carrying on going up and then also being able to create more billets is a big thing for me. So we sit down this time next year. What would have happened in Miami? What's going on? What happened in this? Because you're in charge. You're like the sales leader in the Miami office now, right? Yeah. So like if I came to your office this time next year, what would have happened? What are the big goals for the Miami office? Big goals, Miami office. Definitely having everyone up and running weekly GP to be 12 in care week. Something I have in mind for our floor. Yeah, having more leaders come from the floor as well as some it we're working on at the moment. How can we develop people in here into people leaders that can carry on and add value into the new start that are coming in. And those are the key things and obviously scaling, right? But scaling in the right way is something we've been big on recently and making sure that everyone we are, this is value add to the floor and yeah, but definitely maintaining a higher average weekly GP, getting my book even higher and having some other big billers in here. I want to see people in my team going on the global incentives, winning the award at the end of the year. There are a couple of rising stars, I would say, that I want to see have big years this year. So hopefully yeah, you'll be asking someone on my team to do a podcast next year. That's what I've got in mind. Love it. Well, Joe, Q-dose to you, you know, come a long way from Croydon, not doing a deal for six months. We're going to call it that the Croydon podcast is named Croydon about five times. I just, I just, I just, I just, I just think like, you know, like, this is what I love about this industry, like where it can take you. It's the best. It's brilliant. But even the fact, like you said, you was smashing it out the US market in your dad's barber shop. Yeah. Like, we've taken the time to take a look back because I'm sure you're always looking ahead. I want to do more. I can do better, but you've come a long way from that period. I'm sure there would have been moments in that time where you're like, I can't wait to actually be in the US and this is what you're living and breathing now. So yeah, like Q-dose to everything that you built so far. I'm really excited to see where we are in another 12 months time, but huge thanks for joining me. Yeah, cheers. It's been good stuff. Appreciate the time, mate. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I hope there were plenty of golden nuggets for you to take away. As you know, I'm your host here of the Recruitment Mentals podcast, but I'm also the founder of Recruitment Mentals. We're an online subscription based learning and education platform. We're on a mission to help thousands of recruiters achieve their professional goals and successfully progress their careers through modern and engaging online learning. If you're a recruitment business owner listening to this, there's a good chance that you value self-development, personal development. You're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement, but we've partnered with a number of grown recruitment companies who were struggling to understand how they can invest more in their people, how they can upskill them more quickly without spending more time, without having to spend thousands of pounds of external trainers, and we've ended up being a really great fit, modern fit for recruitment teams. We can ultimately help you get more out of your teams by giving your people access to modern and engaging online learning, which they can access on the mark. The thing that's really cool about what we're doing at Recruitment Mentals is that all of the people that your teams are able to learn from and the people that are delivering the learning content are people that are in roll right now. They're billing, they're actively facing the challenges that your teams are, and a lot of the time they're amongst the top performers within their companies, which means your teams are going to be way more confident to learn and spend on their learning, when they know they're learning from people, they're doing it right now, have been there and done it. There's nothing worse than feeling like training is not relevant and not current. The best place to find out more about Recruitment Mentals and if we can help you accelerate your team's performance, is a semi-missage on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn directly, and I'd love to connect with you and find out if we can help you get more outwalled your people.