Julian Adams - How he billed over a million pounds in just one year

Hello everyone, a very quick one from me. It would be a massive help to us with our ambition to help as many recruiters as possible. Achieve their goals and also inspire the next generation to choose recruitment as a career if you hit that follow and subscribe button. If you're someone that prefers to learn in a visual way, we've also recently invested a lot in our video podcast experience. So in the show notes, you'll always be able to find the link to watch the video on our YouTube channel and make sure that you hit subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. Thank you so much for supporting the show and enjoy this week's episode. Welcome back to another episode of the recruitment mentors podcast. I'm your host, Hisha Mizzouz and on this week's episode I was joined by Julian Adams from a Donald & Company. Now I've got to know Julian over the last couple of years because he was actually one of our founding members at recruitment mentors. So I know how hard Julian has worked to get to where he is today. And last year he became the top performer within his company where he built just over 1 million pounds within the year. As a permanent recruiter within the real estate market. So in this episode we uncover exactly how he did that. How he consistently sold retainers to achieve that goal. How he took his career to the States, which was absolutely pivotal. His business development strategies, how he used specs to open up doors, console and build relationships. The importance of building candidate talent pools and how to go about that and so much more. Enjoy the episode. Julian, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this. We've got to know each other a bit. I know you listen to the podcast and I know a bit about your journey because we've been speaking over the last couple of years. So I'm looking forward to dissecting, taking a bit of a step back and talking about the last five and a half years. Because I think, yeah, from learning about your story, I think it's a great one. And we're looking forward to everyone learning about it and everything that you've learned along the way. So before I ask you the million dollar question, let me just give you everyone some immediate context, some career highlights, the show real. And so if anything, you know, I'm missing, you let me know. But you know, from preparing from this, what I juttered down here is, started your recruitment careers at 360 recruiter in November 2017. That's when it all started. First five, six months was a real struggle. I think you said to me that you did around 13K in your first five, six months, but your first year Billings ended up around 111 grand. Second year, improvement, 215 grand. Third year, 260 grand and other improvement. And this was all in the UK market in the regions. Then the fourth year, you started this US journey, as you just said, in your bedroom during COVID, so March 2021, and ended up that fourth year doing 166 grand in your Billings. And that was American market from the UK. New to American April 2022. But in your fifth year, financial year, which just finished, you hit the £1 million Billings mark, which was a big goal of yours. And now, I don't know, we'll see what happens six years, right? In terms of that, that continues in that trajectory. So, you know, I think just to frame this up, a lot of people have been sold, the US recruitment story, you're living proof that, you know, this is something that can become a reality for people. Because a lot of people being sold, what you could potentially achieve in America. So, really excited to die set. This is with you specifically around, you know, BD, gain interaction, adapt into the market, pitch and retainers that are now being a big part of your story. So, all of that. But let's just start. What are your thoughts on, you know, the characteristics and traits that you believe make up a highly successful recruitment today's market, and then we'll start from there? Yeah, of course. My general thoughts are it's intangible characteristics, such as being passionate or competitive, I think, a two for me. Spent a lot of time really trying to look at different people in MacDonald and company and the group and really seeing what they do well and then trying to replicate that and really sort of pushing yourself to drive and compete with people. I know I'm not everybody has the sort of competitive feeling, but I think just when we're looking at hiring people, we typically call it the "why" or the "fear". And you really need something that is deep inside you that drives you to go and perform every day or drives you to get out of bed and make today's successful day. I've seen it from both sides of things in terms of people who we've taken on who haven't really been as passionate or haven't really had the motivation from inside them in terms of, you know, it can be anything from, came from hard times when they grew up through to, you know, they've got a kid they want to provide the best life for them through to just when you're motivated and they want to be successful. So, I guess it doesn't need to be a particular reason, you know, in one bucket or another, it just needs to be a reason that drives the person on. And I've seen people that have not lasted very long in recruitment because they don't really see it as a career and something you can be really successful in. So, the really, the intangible ones, I think, in terms of passion and somebody's competitive, I've got that drive within them. And then let's just talk about this for a sec. Obviously, clearly it's important, but how much of an emphasis of importance would you say that is to, you know, your own story and your own performance over the last five and a half years? How important has that been for you? De-key, yeah, key to it. I think, I mean, I think it's probably a bit of a detriment in the aisle, beat myself up and push myself to the point of probably breaking to try and compete with people and to try and be number one. But that's probably what's made me successful and allowed me to get to where I need to get to. So, that coupled up with, you know, working relentlessly to get to that point, probably the key driver or the key, the key piece to the success. Okay. So, let's just break this down a bit. So, just really quickly for people listening, let's just talk first part of this journey. Just to frame out for people, you know, so your world, you can describe it to me like, you know, the world that you recruit in, it's permanent, like could you just give us just a real high level flavor of, you know, the world you're recruiting, the types of companies and industries that you operate in. And I'm going to, you know, go into the questions, but I think that would be important for people, because immediately people will be thinking, okay, well, what market is going to recruit in? What is average deal size or that? So, just give us a bit of a flavor on that on when you're in the UK and then, yeah, we'll go from that. Sure. So, doing the same thing in the UK as I'm doing in the US now, we're real estate specialists. So, working across development, investment and asset and portfolio management. Also, other areas in terms of some financial pieces. So, looking at capital markets and investor relations roles for real estate groups as well. The main groups we're partnering with are real estate developers and investors. And that can be anything from an investment from a family office through to an institutional investor, different investment funds. So, that's really the market that we're working with in. And in terms of asset classes, it's a real range. So, because we're real estate specialists, we understand different nuances and intricacies around different asset classes. So, we've got a real range of coverage there. And then, look, you can credit me from wrong here. But, so, in the UK, you wasn't in the London market, was you? You was doing the regions, right? Correct. So, Birmingham North. Birmingham North. And your average deal size is between five and six grand. Probably some, yeah, five to eight, probably. Five to eight, yeah, cool. And then, let's just frame that out just really quickly. Then, what has ended up being the average deal size in the US? Because if you said that you've pretty much been doing the same, top of skill set, same thing, but in the US, what does that end up looking like in the US? Probably somewhere 30 to 45,000 dollars. That's probably skewed a little bit in the, I'm a bit greedy. So, I'll work low-level roles as well if they'll retain us for them. So, that probably skews it somewhat. But I think generally, the average would probably be around 50k. Okay, cool, perfect. Right. So, that just massive help. So, let's just start with this just initial period, right? Struggled at the beginning, like a lot of people do. You know, looking back at that period, and we're going to really go into, you know, what changed, what you did differently, how you've continued to improve, not stagnate. But, you know, looking at those first five, six months, you could have easily quit, right? Did fame ground your first six months, but clearly then had a better finish to the year. So, you know, looking back, what was Julian doing wrong in those first six months, you think? Good question. I think it was, going back to the point I mentioned earlier, I think it was the real desire, and actually understanding the opportunity that I had. I came from a sales background with Holly Davidson doing their insurance, and candidly, that was just a bit of a laugh. It wasn't really a career. Moved into recruitment because I wanted to scale up what I could take home, and I had a few friends who'd gone and done that. And I think I was just at the point where it was probably just a job for me, you know, it wasn't a career. And I also think that generally there's a runway where you typically give yourself six months for everything to click and fall into place, and you know, the initial stuff that you're putting out, people then start remembering you and going back to you, and so on. So, you're trying to learn sort of different markets you're recruiting in as well as the skill set of recruitment. So, that was probably the sort of runway to get in up and running. How old were you when you entered the recruitment? How old was I? 23? Yeah. Fair. There's still very much like, you know, is this what I'm carrying on doing? Not to build a fit where it's out, doesn't work out. That's fairly normal. So, when did you start to get a sniff of like, hang on a minute? This is actually something that, you know, I could earn some good money, change my circumstances, you know, because it doesn't just happen overnight, does it? Like, you start to, you know, realise actually, you know, I've got a great opportunity here. When did you start to get a sniff of that, do you think? Going a lot of anecdotal, there was a candidate interview that I did, and I met the guy for a coffee in Manchester, and we talked about different roles that he might consider in different groups, and we mentioned a few of the smaller groups that are in the same space as what he does. And he can have mentioned to me, you know, I wouldn't go and work for another smaller group speakers. It's not as appealing. I'm one of the best groups that do this type of work now. And he likened it to the work and the opportunity I have with MacDonald and Kumbane, where he said, you know, you wouldn't go and work for, you know, insert large corporate group or smaller shop, you know, you're with the best group of people. And so that day I clicked and I think I mentioned this to you on the sort of prep for this, but I actually ended up placing that candidate as my last placement before moving to America. And I still say to him to this day, you know, I really do owe you quite a lot because that conversation was the real sort of driving piece for me where everything clicked and I thought, you know, I've got a phenomenal opportunity here to be successful. So I really don't know what. So if that clicked, just call some back to this period. I understand that. Sometimes, you know, it takes a third party, someone out of your typical circle to go, you know, look, you've got a great opportunity here or, you know, to give you a different perspective. So I'd certainly understand that. But just if we can get into that frame of mind, you know, you just had this meeting, it's just clicked. You've gone hang on a minute. Yeah, I've actually got a great opportunity in front of me. I'm surrounded by great people. I could really, you know, make something of this. What was the first thing that, you know, you did differently when you got back at your desk? What was some of the things that you started to do differently? It was just that mindset change, you know, just like the cogs turned, it's like, let's work harder than anybody else. There was, I had a really great set up in Manchester and the guy that runs the office, you know, I, I, I, I, I can't thank him enough as well. Um, but he really sort of integrated the knowledge and the, the sort of foundations of recruitment for me. There's a guy who was the second person on that desk and he's a phenomenal recruiter. He is just a machine. And so he was really the benchmark for me, talking back to the competitive piece. That was the guy and I was like, okay, he's killing it at the moment. That's where I need to be. What is he doing? How do I scale things up and go from there? So really just finding those, I guess the intrinsic desire to, to want to better myself and want to compete. And whilst it seemed far away at that point, you know, we've got room to do this. And then just on there, just to focus on this for a second, a lot of people listen to this, will have those people in their team in their organization, but not everyone will maximize that. So, you know, you just describe this person clearly inspirational, clearly something you can learn a lot from. But, you know, what did Julian actually do to extract some of that value to, you know, like pick up some of the things that this person is actually doing? And there's one thing seeing them, seeing them at the top of the leaderboard or whatever. But like, what was your actual tact to, you know, actually extract some of the things that you can learn from this person? You know, did you say, hey, look, I'd love to go through a coffee and ask you a couple of questions. Did you, I don't know, ask to listen to some of his calls. Like, what did that actually look like? How did you approach that? Well, because we're in such close proximity in the office, you could, you could overhear calls anyway, but it'd be asking him questions around this client or why I think this candidate is suitable. And then again, it's, it's just the, just to bang on about the competing piece and really driving yourself, I'll go back anecdotal again. Whenever I would get into the office, if he had found new clients on the system, I would look and I'd be like, you know, wherever you found those guys from and he'd tell me it was from one of the sort of marketing pieces that is shared regularly with him real estate in the Northwest. And so I got to the point where I was checking that out sort of pretty frequently, but you get to the point where you check it in the afternoon and you see there's a new client on there that's just moved into Manchester, for example, and you go on the system on the CRM and he's already put them on. So then it's like, okay, so I'm on the right lines of things to scale things up, but how do I beat him so then it came to the point where I'd get into the office before him. And the first thing he does every day, I know is check out that publication. So I'm now doing that and I know that if I don't get in early enough to review them, map them out, put them on the system and do my BD email or outreach, then he's going to have them. So he's my biggest competition both inside and outside of the company. So really looking at the people that are being successful and that are doing well within the industry and trying to replicate what they're doing and pushing that a little bit harder or trying to get ahead of them and get any sort of advantage that you can. Yeah, now great, sir. And then anything just on that tangent, is there anything else that you know, you sort of latched on to quite quickly could be on the candidate side, could be when headhunting people could be managing a process, could be on the BD, speak to the client side, was there anything else that you found you know, you latched on to and it really worked well for you as well besides that from this person that I've interest. It's not really sort of rocket science, I think the key thing is just speaking to as many people as possible, asking more detailed questions to better understand the market and to connect the dots. I think the real key piece and we'll talk about this a little bit later on in terms of the BD side of things, but in terms of connecting the dots and being able to leverage information from one person to the next, that's how you start to build up credibility and then again, that sort of feeds into both the candidate side of things and the client side of things. Okay, nice. So let's just sort of get right then towards the US because I feel like that's been quite pivotal for you, right? I mean, you're going through some real life changes, personally and professionally, it's exciting. So let's sort of talk about this window because it's safe to say, leading up to the US piece, you know, you was on the upwards trajectory, working hard, improving year and year, which is what I'm hoping you'd be really happy for what you was aiming for. But then it looks like, particularly from the performance wise, what initially gave you the inspiration to look at the US or even consider that because you know, you did the UK market for three years and then it was this fourth year where there's this huge spike in your actual overall Billings performance. So first, you just talked to us a bit about when did the US piece initially sort of feel like, actually, this is actually something that I'd consider and why was you considering that? 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We'd floated the idea around about opening the US business for a little while before bringing the guy on that set everything up there and really was just sort of growth and upward trajectory. I don't say I achieved everything I could in Manchester because I got a pretty easy life. We've got a lot of the market share in the regions in terms of what we do and so I probably could have sat there and not to be arrogant but put 250, 300K in every year and been happy. But there was really the ability to scale things up further in terms of building out a team having something that started from scratch that can present real ownership and just take over sort of uncovered land. Yeah, so just new opportunities out of your comfort zone, something different. Okay, so just so we understand then so the strategy was, the middle of the company hired someone, experienced to open that up and then you were someone that I'm guessing put your hand up or put your hand in the ring to go, you know what this is actually something that really excites me. So was the initial plan okay Julian, look that's something that we're excited by too. Just give it a year period of whatever the timeframe was where you're going to work the US market from the UK. Is that typically how it went down or what the initial sort of high level plan was? Yeah, not far off. I sort of made it known that I was interested in the role and then when they got to the point of bringing the guy on at a couple of conversations with the CEO and also the guy in the US and we all felt I could be a good fit. I don't know whether it was their plan to see whether I was successful from the bedroom in Manchester or not. It was right at the point where Donald Trump had put a travel ban on the UK US travel piece so we couldn't fly to the US because that was obviously in place and the embassy also had a massive backlog on these replications so it was at the point where we were seeing how things were going but doing it from the bedroom in Manchester wasn't that fun. So just so you know the timeline, when did you make your first BD call to a US based real estate company like what month was that and what year? Yeah April 2022. April, okay. I'm sorry, it's 2021. It's 2021, yeah. April 2021, okay, cool. So that's the timeline, right? So we're pretty much, yeah, so we're that's two years, right? So firstly, you can be honest with us, you know, was there a plan? You know, was there, you know, was there some sort of plan on, because the US is fucking huge. What state we're going to go after? What we're going to focus on? Obviously, you know, you're going to cover the same specialisms being known for similar things that you're on the UK, but you know, was there a high level plan on how Julian is going to, you know, go to market from his bedroom in Manchester? What was the initial plan? So at the point where we brought the guy in America, he had sort of a six months runway until we pivoted across. to the US market. We had no appetite whatsoever to look at California, no appetite to look at New York. We were going to be Texas-driven and then sort of wider sunbelt and the Rocky Mountain region with a lot of work in Midwest. Candidly that probably wasn't that clear of a strategy to be honest, I think. We knew it had a great track record. We've obviously got a fantastic brand in terms of offices all around the globe and so it really sort of played into kind of sharing our track record in different locations, looking at groups that we've done work with on other continents and then also trying to build up relationships with some of the local players. Two, Alex, the guy that I work with in America, his sort of testament. He did a fantastic job of initially building up some track record from scratch for us when he first sort of came into the company. We were working things in all locations from Knoxville which don't know whether you know much about Tennessee but there isn't tons gone in in Knoxville and then you've got the hardest requirements that somebody wants. We were still finding the people so we started to build up a track record and then probably over that first 12 months it again being a bit greedy we picked up stuff in different locations and then as time went on that transition to let zero in on a certain market or have people designated to different geographies. Okay, yeah, sure. I understand like part of journeys like this, you have to, there's experiments, there's risks you have to take, there's bets you have to make and then once you know make some of those bets have some of those experiences you know you can then refine, learn from and become more focused. So just with the early stage in mind, I guess there's a lot of people listen to this that might be in the trenches right now of starting. You know, you know, you're obviously there's still so much for you to do and potential and growth but you know you're more out the other side here, you know, you've built more of this track record, you've had a ton of different experiences. So if you're just focusing on that initial period like, you know, knowing what you know now, knowing what you've learned from obviously your peers and the US team, like if you were to go back to that moment of starting this American journey in your bedroom in Manchester, what would your first 90 days look like? What would you prioritise, you know, what activities would you be prioritising? What would you be doing, I think, what are the most important things for us to be doing and those first 90 days you think? First of all, you need to build up a candidate pool because yeah, if you haven't got any candidates to work with, you're going to really struggle to pick up work, you know, picking up vacancies or opportunities with certain groups and then trying to drop interest or just trying to find a reason to better understand what these people are looking for and also better understand what groups are competitors to these companies. One thing which again, I'll sort of come round to it with the BD piece, but in terms of one thing I was typically doing on every call to better understand the market, every candidate that I read at the end of the call, I would ask who would be the top two or three companies that you want to work with or you would work for in a heartbeat. And if you think you're doing 10 candidate calls a day on the light end, it's an extra 20 to 30 clients that you can business develop with a warm lead and additional to that. You're also building up your market knowledge which I think is imperative to again be successful to win work, to have good quality work. Yeah, that's a really smart question. So really double down on building your candidate talent pool, really get to grips with, you know, who are some of the best known brands companies that people would love to work for and that would be a really good start. I guess just quickly as well, I want to sort of ask you some questions on this BD piece, but how long did it take you to do your first deal? June, I think, sorry, now at the end of May we up that knock still role I mentioned to you, we placed that at the end of May, but that was something that Alex had teed up that I was working on with him. So my first deal that I picked up, the placement started in June. Okay, because I think people also, you know, as you can imagine, listening to this, probably thinking, I might be sitting here right now and I haven't really gained any traction, I'm a month in to, you know, trying to take what I'm doing in the UK, but doing it into the US. Like how long do you think I should at least give it for me to be able to look in the mirror and go, you know what, I gave that a fair crack. Maybe there wasn't potential there, you know, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. As long as it takes there's always potential, right? I know that's probably not the answer that you wanted in terms of time frame. I think, look, if you got to the point of four weeks in, it all depends on what you you sort of quantify as traction. If you built out a really great candidate pool within whatever niche or area it is that you're looking for, you can always do things with those people and ultimately, and I listened to a few of your podcasts prior to this to do some prep. A lot of people talk about the long game and I can't stress that enough that everyone's to make a quick book now, right? But long term, the conversations that you're having day to day are going to impact what your future looks like and just treating people the right way and making sure that you come across credible, whether it's a candidate or a client, you may not get something from them day one, but, you know, in two, three months or in 12 months time, they should remember you from a lot of the other people who probably aren't credible or aren't asking the right questions or adding any value. I think you'd look at a four-week period and try and not to sort of zero on on KPIs, but look at the traction that we've had. I think three months to try and get some form of placement given that notice periods are two weeks rather than, you know, four to 12 weeks. And yeah, just like I guess, try and set out the goals as to what you're trying to achieve outside of buildings by way of building some sort of track record or building up relevant candidate pool or client pool. Cool. And then just a couple of things, if we're just to, you know, just zooming on the beginning period and then we'll go into what you think you double down on what you did really well, some of the strategies that worked. So, like some people might be thinking, okay, so sitting in my bedroom in Manchester, London, wherever going to the US market, I might have had some success in the UK. Now we're going to go into the US. So you said that what would be fundamental would be speaking to candidates building that talent pool. Obviously, that's absolutely crucial, right? So why, as a candidate, am I going to give you my time? If you haven't got any track record in the US, you're someone in the UK calling me like, I don't understand why someone in the UK is calling me. You haven't got any jobs to talk to me about. Like when we're speaking to these candidates, why should they give you your time? Like, what value can you give them? What is it that you is leading into? Because, you know, you're trying to build something. So you haven't, unless you tell me otherwise, what are some of the things that you had to offer and why would these people give you their time? Good question. I think around the sort of value piece for these candidates, it's really sort of having some form of track records somewhere and at least understanding the market you're recruiting in. I think it would be incredibly challenging to take some of these never done real estate recruitment, for example, and put them in a new market because they have no understanding in terms of recruitment, real estate, how they can create a value for people. And look at a lot of its persistence, you know, there are still people now with two years in still people who aren't that familiar with us. I think that we built up a track record, but there are still people that we've, you know, hit on LinkedIn and put phone calls into. Still, we haven't any traction with us spoke with them. And so again, it kind of goes down to the persistence piece and the value that you're trying to create is, as I say to everybody, whether it's a sort of junior level analyst through to the CEO or CIO of a company, everybody could use a good head, head, head, under within the role of that. So within their contact. And so even if we're making the initial connection now, and there isn't something to talk to the candidate about in terms of a role, what you can do. And, you know, to this point, I had a couple of conversations earlier where a couple of guys I spoke with weren't relevant for the role I was working on. But we're going to make that introductory conversation. Number one, from your side, because you can pick their brains and get better knowledge on the market. And also are they actively applying for things if so what companies are looking, but also you are building a warm introduction. So the next time something does come on in six months time, there's relevant, you can pick the phone up to that person. They should remember you if you don't get dropped correctly. And then it makes it a lot easier than just sort of a cold, cold, you're just trying to get the person's interest because you've already spoke with them. Don't know their answer to that completely. That's fine. Look, I think this would be helpful for people just quickly. Like, what does that actually look like? You know, like, let's say we're reaching out to these people on LinkedIn. I understand what you're saying. You know, you said about some of the things that, you know, we want to try and portray that. Look, it may not be able to help you now, however, look, I've got this track record. I'm confident, you know, at some point, I might be answering to you, to someone that might be really helpful in your career. I might even be able to, you know, speak to about a job opportunity that could be, you know, really positive for your career. I understand that, but, you know, would you mind just sharing with us early on? What does that actually sound like? Are you saying on LinkedIn, like, hey, look, building a market here, would you be against giving me phone minutes of time, confident, you know, I might be able to help you at some point if we're trying to get that across in the message. What do you actually lead with, you know, via, you know, on LinkedIn or on the phone? I think I started out with, with one development role in Dallas. And so that was the starting point really in terms of reaching out to people and trying to use that as leverage. I think it's challenging. I think you would get shut down a lot more if you went with the angle you suggested there in terms of, you know, we're trying to build a market out, that I've anything at the moment, but can we, can we connect? So really trying to sort of mention, or even try and get them on the hook in terms of there are tons of great groups that are working with at the moment. I'd love to just pick your brains or hear a bit about what you guys are doing at this company. And then again, I mean, it's really looking at some of the traffic we've had in different locations and being able to talk to a couple of the global groups that we work with and then, you know, dropping some of their names. I wouldn't say everything was probably right down the line in terms of, you know, you heard about an opportunity, maybe you're not working it, but you're sort of suggesting to that candidate that, you know, we know people like that company or if familiar with some of the work they do. And so again, you're probably doing a little bit sort of faking it till you make it in terms of trying to just get interesting. Get the ball rolling with candidates. So I think really it's looking at potential roles that you may have or groups that you can leverage from a different location and sort of suggesting that you do some work with those guys just to build up that track record and then it's a bit of a cycle then once that starts going and you've got candidates coming to you and obviously then sort of winning other work. And then just something's just to progress this a bit. Sorry, now we're going into the detail here mate. That's all right. So like, I understand what you're saying. So like then let's just say we're on the call. How we approach that? Are we saying, we work with these types of companies, we haven't got anything on at the moment. Are you just owning the fact that you don't have all these live vacancies? I know you wasn't saying that that's what you're saying as to why they should give you time. But as well, what are you saying on these phone calls? I mean, you're just saying that we work with these types of companies and these are the types of firms that will likely be picking up jobs with and then you're sort of continuing that message rather than because some people might be worried about, oh, I might get on the phone call, they're going to say, right, tell me about this job then or tell me about that. They haven't got the, they're not working on that job. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Vin Cherry. Today I want to talk about the power of the recruitment operating system. This jointed tech systems are painful for growing recruitment companies. Too much admin, bad data and no visibility. It's holding back recruitment organisations. Meet Vin Cherry. Vin Cherry is the creator of the recruitment operating system, a modern operating system for recruitment and staffing agencies worldwide. This natively integrated tech platform syncs data and workflows across recruitment agencies, front, middle and back offices. Start off with a suite of modules, a core CRM, ATS, Advanced Reporting and Analytics, video interviewing and more. That's just their core product. Vin Cherry also works with a pre-integrated access products to expand your tech capabilities. Link up, your recruitment websites powered by volcanic or cover screening and pay and bill with the fast track integration. It's time to unite front, middle and back offices on a single recruitment technology platform. Unleash growth without gravity. Let's go. Find out more on vincere.io and because you listen to this podcast, you get this count. Check it out. Enjoy the rest of the episode. But you can easily live Jaxson handle that in terms of saying that you partner with X Group. You don't need to mention a company. It's something that asks you about the role. You can say, we haven't spoke before. I'll be eager to understand your background, understand a little bit about what you're doing. Can you give me some colour and I'm more than happy to tell you about the group? Depends on the level of role. You need to, whenever we're trying to go into a new market and try to build things up. You always have the ability to use a trapdoor to get away from something. It's a role that my colleagues work on. I'll get more colour for you. I really want to understand your experience better because if you're doing X asset class, then it might be relevant for this. I don't know what short-time talking about it. Do the piece that is valuable, Mr Candidate, is that this isn't going to be an opportunity that I'm going to bring to you. There are going to be other things in the future. So whilst I've got you now and we've made time to set up this call, I mean, you could just to run through in more detail what your background looks like. What would be the kind of thing that you would want to go moving to? What would be the kind of role that you'd want to go for? And again, if you then go to the point of, you know, I don't know how well people will appreciate this example. But if you've got a development manager and they want to be a vice president of development, you could probably tell them that the other role that you'd suggested to them is probably more junior than what their expectations are. So, I won't tell you about that one, but I'll keep in the radar for the future. So that's probably the way I would do it. I think registering a candidate, if they try and give you challenges in terms of who you're working for, you always have the ability to sort of either use the trapdoor or to step back and say, you know, we haven't spoke before. I mean, you get to understand your background and also your aspirations, motivations and what you're doing. And then I can provide you with the best type of company to sort of work with or look at. No, no, I appreciate your sharing that. I don't know. Yeah, I think that would be really helpful for people. So I understand there's a bit of a journey, right? You know, like you said, you've got to not presume that you know more than you actually do, but you know, there's an element of, you know, you're trying to be what you want to become all right before you become. And that's just the part of the game, right? So just as we're talking about this early period, and then let's go on to the BD strategies and, you know, how we went on to achieve these types of billing performances. Looking at that early period, what were some of, it sounds like you just went into it headfirst because you're someone that's willing to learn, you've got the mindset. But what were some of the, you know, early challenges, maybe on the candidates side, client side, I don't know that maybe you had to adapt to, didn't expect. Example might be one of the ones that I've picked up a lot on from speaking to people is they had to learn the hardware. The Americans are really good. You know, being engaged and yet, you know, student sounds great blah, blah, blah. And I'll be like that. And then they just won't hear of them and just get completely ghosted. They said that happens a lot. You know, there's the, the salary conversation is slightly different. A lot of people, you know, you even can't tell awesome what the salary is or they get really weird about that. So then what are some of the challenges that you found, you know, you had to navigate and adapt and you came up against? Yeah, I think really is learning the market and knowing where to go, you know, where to go fishing, I guess. Really sourcing the right levels of people and the right candidates. I remember when I first started one of the first contingent rules that I worked on was for an investment associate with an investment funding Dallas. And it was my first sort of crack at trying to build up a Dallas business. And I think I, you know, went through LinkedIn recruiter sourcing people. I think I registered about 150 people in a three-week period. So yeah, every day was, was long hours trying to find the right people pivoting LinkedIn certain ways to try and get the best people, interviewed all of those people and then shared probably my best 10 people with the group. And as is the case with some clients, they just incredibly hard to please. And so they took a few people to final and then didn't progress them and then decided to put the role and hold. But obviously, it's means to announce. So probably the success piece from that was I ended up picking up another investment associate role a week later, sent my best eight people and got that job turned around within a week from short list to offer and acceptance. I don't really know about the people not coming back with Americans. I think that is an American thing where they are, you know, incredibly polite and friendly on the call, but they probably won't be as direct to tell you that they're not interested. So I think there are a lot of pieces around qualifying people and again going back to asking difficult questions or hard questions because you don't know what's your time. You don't want to chase people if they're not interested. But yeah, I'd probably say just learning the market and trying to build up that knowledge being the sort of key piece in the most challenging early doors. Yeah, nice. I appreciate you showing that. Let's go into the BDP thing because you're not hitting the top of numbers you are without consistently bringing on great client opportunities, great jobs that are fillable. So let's just talk a bit about this. So you can go into the past year, last year, but if we were to talk about Julian's business development strategy, we're spoken about the importance of the candidate talent pooling and not just having your candidate hat on, you're asking smart questions like what one to three companies would you love to work for or you think are amazing. That's obviously you know, you're building your market mapping there and you're building companies that you can obviously go after. So obviously part of the BD strategy is you know, ask good questions, use the kind of conversation, use information to my advantage. But what else you know in this BD strategy for Julian? What else did it consist of? What else did you find really work for you over the last two years? I mean, I think everybody said this more recently in the past 12 months, just given how hot the market was. When you were speaking out candidates, you know, that was probably the main driver for a lot of people. Our aim wasn't necessarily with that piece to place that candidate. That was more of a tool to get a client on a call who had a requirement and then we would then pick up the work and go through that process. There are obviously tons of tons of different routes into BD, whether that's looking at different ad chases or again, leveraging candidates in terms of, you know, where else are you interviewing or I don't want to make sort of duplicate introduction. So, you know, where would you look at as a group and how far along are you in those processes? And I guess trying to leverage them to the point of understanding who they're working with in those processes, whether that's a recruiter or whether they're doing it all direct. Outside of that, I mean, you again, cold calling pieces. I think with the whole cold call piece and this was something I was discussing with one of my colleagues earlier, people don't necessarily like to be sold to. So, I think that really the key piece one, picking up the phone to various individuals. I don't want the idea of somebody sitting behind a spreadsheet and ringing one client after another for a hundred calls because you can't have any sort of value or build up any sort of talking points with these clients. So, one thing that we always tried to do alongside looking at the target pool of clients we wanted to work with, was also if we are going to try and business develop different groups that we've picked up leads for looking at their website, looking at any sort of information on Google in terms of the news or anything else to see whether if they're doing development, they've got any projects in the market and relating that into the conversation because people like talking to themselves, people like talking about some of the stuff they're doing and some of the raccoleads. So, it's really trying to show you've got market knowledge and credibility and then talking to those pieces and trying to take the conversation from there. I think a lot of the time people get a little bit displaced with trying to build rapport with somebody going to call when they didn't really want the call initially, they probably don't care that but you've got a dog called Bubbles. They don't want to tell you about their dog. They're not interested in any of that. What they want is to better understand what you've got going on, what you know is going on in the market. And people look for free things, right? So whether you then present them at some point with salary benchmarking or Intel in the market or what the competitors are doing, but it's really trying to strike up a chord with somebody with useful Intel opposed to, how's your weekend mate? You know, what do you do? Do you watch the football? They're not interested. They're busy people. So looking at different routes into sort of starting the conversation that way. So it sounds like showcasing candidates was pretty private to light that was a big part. Yeah, initially, I mean, trying to spec out good quality people. And then as soon as we sort of got on the call with them, we could talk to track record and requirement and qualify the job properly and then position ourselves all the way we wanted to. Is that what it's in the last six months? I mean, I sold three retainers so far this month I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks. And the same last month. So the appetite has been slower in terms of the responses from specs. But again, the, you know, probably a luxury point where well, I could pick and choose what work I picked up. And so if I've got a bandwidth to service it, then I can. And if not, then somebody else can pick it up, I guess. We're going to go into the retaining piece, but just clearly that that's been, you know, a really important tool. And everyone listen to this. We'll be speccing out fucking candidates. Regardless if you like it or not, so many recruiters will be doing it. Some recruiters do it great. Some recruiters, not so great. For me, when we say not so great, I just feel like it's just super unpersonized. It's, you know, send out how many emails, not even thinking about the person receiving it. And I'm sure there'll be, if we send it to enough people, there'll be people coming back, right? And I do feel like that is definitely one of the activities and habits that, you know, does a good job of tarnishing our reputation. So, you know, let's talk about how does Julian approach speccing? Like, what does that look like? What does a good spec from Julian? Are you calling me and, you know, you've got your pitch ready going, hey, look, how it's spoken before? Looks like you've got some good projects on the go, spokesperson's investment associate person at the moment who said that they'd love to work for your organisation. Don't know if, you know, you got to have anything going on at the moment or, you know, are you mainly emailing people, what are your principles to doing at exceptional specs to actually get responsive to? A combination of those pieces. So, first of all, they need to be, one thing I think sort of talk worth talking about is looking to build out your day-to-day so making sure that it's clean in terms of coding people at the right sort of code skill level, competent to, because yeah, I'm sure, you know, the track record of people sending out specs for completely irrelevant candidates isn't going to be very high, I'm sure, in terms of return. So, really looking at different asset classes and then also different competencies and trying to book it people that way. It means that we spend longer in terms of trying to pivot all of that data and making sure that we're not hitting the same people, you know, with sort of multiple specs and also, just making sure it's relevant is at least in the right wheelhouse. There's nothing worse than obviously receiving something unsolicited where it's, yes, not even relevant to you. You don't really put a good, I can't be self in terms of those people receiving those sorts of emails. So, really looking to splice it and make it relevant to how many people you're trying to hit. Additional to that picking up, again, going back to the piece about trying to get information from candidates. If you know that there's a hiring manager in a certain company and you've done a similar search or you've got good candidates that cover the same thing that they're looking for, then obviously you can tailor it much more directly to that individual. But honestly, just given the, looking at the US market, given the amount of people and just how broad it is, it is too challenging to try and splice absolutely everything and just dump it down to the point of putting 50 to 100 people into a hot list 'cause you'd that be a full week and nobody's got time to do that. I also typically like to anonymize a resume to go on there or a CV and the email should not be incredibly wordy in detail 'cause people just delete that. Should be pretty brief into the point, probably two sentences. And I think that typically gets more traction than doing a bit of a write up on an email as well. - Well, my those two sentences sound like Julian, 100% bro, two sentences, what? What might that sound like? - You know, first name. Inclosed here is the resume of a talented development manager that I'm working with. They're currently doing industrial projects within the DFW market if I've interest. Lots of the book all. - Yeah, just super direct. - Yeah, 'cause at the end of the day, you know what I'm sorry, you don't waste your time, you don't waste their time. If they like the look of that resume, they're gonna get in a call with you or they're gonna show interest. If they don't, or they wanna mess around, then you're just not interested, your time is very valuable. Yeah, and clearly this has been one of the most effective ways for you to open doors and then consult, getting them on the call, all of that. - Yeah, exactly that. - So, all right, cool. So let's move this on to retain. We're gonna go a bit over that hour market, but that's fine with me if that's cool with you. 'Cause I think there's more to it. There's more to dissect here. So, okay, so what I wanna know then, 'cause you shared with me, shared this with me on the prep call, was going into, you know, the year that you just had, you shared with me that, you know, you set your eyes on becoming the top pillar, which you then went onto achieve, right? Which is where you've hit just over the million UK pounds mark within a year. So firstly, what I'd love you to just share is, how did you make sure you wasn't overwhelmed by that? 'Cause like, did you know that you're gonna have to build something around the million, or, you know, what? Being the top pillar, what was like the initial figure that you knew you had to get in and around? - I thought it'd be high hundreds of thousands, so there's a guy who was sort of competing against for the last few months, and he's been the top pillar for the past, you know, four or five years since I joined the company, we joined it a similar time, all the, he has a lot more recruitment experience, and as far as I sort of would see it, he's like the goat in terms of what he's been doing. I think he finished last year on like 825,000, sorry. - The year prior. - Yeah. - So I figured it would be high, yeah, high hundreds of thousands, maybe a million, but I didn't really have a number inside. I kind of thought, let's try and do a million dollars and see how that goes first of all. And then once we got to that point, it was like, okay, let's see if we can do any different currency. - Yeah, so what I just love you to do is share, 'cause I think, you know, basically, I guess what I'm interested in is how you sort of broke down, broke that down, 'cause I find, speaking to a lot of top performers, that this is what they're really good at, 'cause you know, you were, you know, so basically, and yeah, 800 for you, K dollars in the fourth year. So I guess yes, and it's in actually like 20%, basically you were like aiming for, you know, to get an extra 20% out of what you did in that first year in the America, right? But you know, being in the financial year, we're at fucking zero, you know, starting again. What, like, how did you break down that target a million dollars to make sure that you, 'cause looking at that, you know, running down, you're like, how the fuck am I gonna do that? (laughing) You know, so it's a big number. So like, what's been your, you know, process to if you do have a process on breaking that down, so you don't become overwhelmed by it, and you know, you focus on chunks if that's something that you do. - I mean, I'm always overwhelmed. So probably not the best question. I mean, look, it's just like taking a accountability at the end of every day, you know, I'll always check my KPIs and my stats for the day to recognize whether I've had a good day and equally sort of a good week. And if you're, it's like putting ingredients into a cake, right, if you put enough of each thing in, it should turn out okay. I didn't really have a set number that I needed to do each month. It was mainly a case of just working relentlessly. And honestly, going back to the competitive piece, kind of keeping an eye on anyone that was ahead of me, and just making the decision, you know, work harder, work longer, just trying to deliver for clients and ultimately, you know, it should work out okay. And then obviously you get to the point as we get closer to the run-in where you're keeping an eye on what they're doing and again, sort of trying to, trying to push as much out as possible in terms of business development, picking up work, and then finding ways to try and service that as well as trying to keep play spinning. - So I think what people be interested in is, what do those, what were, you know, Julian's key ingredients, the KPIs, what were some of those? And they might change in certain parts of the year, but you said they, you know, I'd look at my key KPIs and that'd been an indication to me that you know, I had a better day rather than, I'm not so great day. So what were some of those key KPIs? Are you always looking at, if I've registered five candidates per day, then I should be on track, or you know, what were some of the key ingredients? - Yes, so candidate calls to be clear, I mean, for 10 a day, and they have to be relevant as well, right? It's not a case of just registering somebody that isn't really relevant to what we've got going on, or wasting time on that. Client calls, typically trying to do two or three a day. I mean, my specs target was, yeah, in the thousands of every month, I couldn't tell you what that was meant to be, but trying to get specs out consistently. Again, good quality CVs, so a lot of the pieces are on sort of BD, being a consultant to the group, so making sure every resume that we're sending or every CV we're sending, if the client picked me up and asked me why I've sent that person, making sure I could talk to the reasons why and my thought process, so sending good quality CVs, not just trying to hit a target, and then obviously converting those to interviews, and again, consulting the clients to, if they're on the fence about somebody, the reasons why we should consider having that conversation. - What do you aim for your CV to interview reshautically to be? - Probably to. Yeah, should interview probably one and every two people. It depends on the group, and depends exactly what they're looking for, but we're trying to put together a short list of probably eight people, I'd expect half to get the opportunity to interview, and I've been short list where I've shared eight people, and they've wanted to interview six or seven, sometimes all eight, which is sometimes great, sometimes you're thinking, I don't really know, if you know what you're looking for, because that gives you a bit of a range of people, but a large part of the role is consulting clients through the process, a lot of them are hiring a certain individual, as a new hire that they haven't done before and so you have to kind of work with them to help find what they like and what they don't like in candidates. - Yeah, so I know we're talking a lot about quantity here, but as Julian said, if you're listening, quality is just as fucking important. But I think what I love hearing here is we're talking about quality, but also the quantity required, the input required to get anywhere near the million mark. So we're talking 10 canday calls per day, at least two free client calls per day. I mean, you mentioned the number thousands of specs. So good number of specs and that's really helpful for people. 'Cause there's a lot that you could be doing. If you're getting in around there and you're asking the quality questions and you're using information to advantage, then we can really be building traction and moving forward. Julian, let's talk about this retain journey then. 'Cause you know, you taught me last year. Yeah, you taught me last year. Every single deal that you did was retained, right? Is that correct? - Correct. - So taught does make, is the fourth year, how many retainers did you sell in the fourth year? - So I made some notes just for the prep. So I saw 18 retainers in the fourth year and did 42 placements in total. So that was inclusive of the retainers. And then last year I did 58 placements and 33 of those retainers. - 33 retainers. - Some of the reviews still fallen into this year. - So let's just talk about this and we'll talk about this then we'll sort of wrap this up. But so, okay, 33 retainers who went from 18s for 33s who doubled basically. And then prior to that, you hadn't ever worked in that way, right? - I checked before. I sold two in the previous three years. - I sold two in the previous, okay, of course. Three. All right, so let's break this down then, right? So, okay, let me first start, I guess, a good question to start would be, if you sold two in three years and you sold 18 in that fourth year, what the hell did that pitch sound like when you sold two compared to what it sounded like when you sold 18? What were the main differences in that pitch if we were sitting on that pitch and retained? - I mean, the two that I had sold retained had been existing clients previously. It was more a case of talking about the time that I had to put into the searches to make it worthwhile. So again, it was sort of nominal amounts up front, probably two or three thousand pounds. And yeah, probably felt a little bit cheeky asking for money up front. It certainly changed since then. I guess sort of pivoting to now, really just expressing that the amount my time is valuable. I think that, you know, it sounds incredibly sexy when you talk about exclusively retained work and everybody wants to do it. The reason we do it isn't because it's sexy or because we can say, you know, I've got retained jobs on. You really look at the contingent model and the retained model and when you're doing contingent work, that money is never guaranteed. And so typically what you see is recruiters will pile themselves up with as many contingent jobs as possible. They'll probably send three or four, learning through candidates. And then that probably doesn't get that much time because there are other recruiters working on it or they're just not sure that they'll get a fee. The key piece around how we're positioning this and why we're doing it isn't to get money up front because that doesn't really mean that much to us besides commitment from the client. It means that we're working on an exclusive basis where the ability to map out and vet candidates properly, it's guaranteed money so means that we can put as much time into it as possible and ultimately build out and provide the best short list of candidates. So that's the reason that we do it because we cover our own back and it allows us to do a proper job opposed to, you know, I'll send four candidates and somebody else will speak to one person and they'll send them, it's just not of interest. And so it's really having that mindset that we want to do the best possible job and consult to these clients. And so we're not just taking money off them and kind of doing nothing with it. You work relentlessly to provide results. - So, okay, so let's just talk about this then 'cause I think everyone listening in June will go, there has been nodding. They're like, yep, definitely agree or these things, right? But all those things that you just said is how it helps you and your team. Not 'cause it's sexy, not 'cause you get money out of front but it because your time is then, is that you're actually putting a value on your time and as you said, you can really commit to delivering a great service. But that's all the benefits to you but obviously in order for you to sell these consistently the other person you talking about them has got to feel like, well that makes sense for me and my business is how that's gonna help me. So let's just talk about this process. 'Cause people might be like, well how does this actually work? Is it different? Is it not different? We'll find out. So if I become a client that you speak to about a picture and retain to, are there, so what are the steps firstly? You might have sent me a specie V, I've gone Julian. This candidate mate, this is someone that I'm excited by. We get on a call. Yeah, talk to me about the process. Are we gonna go straight into a bit of a discovery call? Are then we're gonna book another call where we then do a proper picture and retain a, what's the typical sales process? We're just in one call. One call. And we'll go through, yeah, yeah, one call. Okay. If they wanna do a follow up to understand terms or any other pieces then we can do that but I'll typically try and make it 30 minutes or it might overrun slightly depending on the level of detail we get into. Okay. One call. Over video, yeah. Over video. Phone call. No, I don't give a call. Okay, right. Right, let's break this, I can phone call down then. Come on. Yes. 'Cause that's surprising to me. I'm not gonna lie. I thought there would be, but this is why I think this is helpful people. 'Cause I thought there'd be a bit more to it. You might have put a presentation together. You might have found out a bit more around, you know, about their challenges, their pain points. But this is great. 'Cause this is unearthing. People might be over-complicating this stuff. But why don't you share with us what is important that happens on this 30 minute call? Oh, yeah. I'll run to that now. I think just to your point about there, there probably being a lot more to it, video call presentation, whatever. I don't think they really care. Like honestly, I don't think they really care. I think the key pieces that they want to know are, what does your track record look like? Does this person ask the right questions and understand what we're looking for, but also giving them the confidence to, you know, believe that you will deliver for them? In terms of the, I'll look at, I'll give you the example. I play a lot of poker. I'm not going to show you all of the cards, but I'll give you. Yeah, let's give you one of the frameworks, you know. People listen to this, we want the framework, you know. What are some of the key things that you're going to go through? Yeah, I mean, definitely do your diligence on the company, first of all, take a look at some of the material, take a look at what they're typically doing, have a look at people within the group to see whether you know anybody or are familiar with them. Maybe you've got some of those candidates and so you'll have insight into some of the stuff that they're working on, but you can really, you know in the market about the group. And then look really, I let them lead the call by way of, do you want me to give you a background on a McDonald company or are you familiar with us? Or why don't you tell me a bit about what you guys have got going on? You know, why did this development manager interest you? What did you have in mind for this person? Typically they'll give a high level overview and they'll probably go into as much detail as they think is required. I think then I will talk to them on a much more technical level in terms of different pieces around the role and you know, probably make recommendations or suggestions as to why I think would this person fit coming from this background or. You show credibility with your questions and you understand what you're talking about. Yeah, I understand, get that, yeah. And also talk to any sort of track record or whether they know people at another company that you'll be familiar with. I think that's a key one in terms of how close and a lot of these markets are. I think providing you can mention a name and you could happily say to the person, yeah. Give, give Dave a call now. He'll say great things about me. They won't call Dave, but if you're willing to be that sort of, you know, brushing out there, they'll probably think, okay, this guy probably knows what he's doing. So go into technical detail, understand the role better, really deep dive into the company's culture, growth, trajectory, really talk to the ability to understand everything so that we don't waste their time or our time and again, sort of talking through the whole candidate journey piece because people don't have good reputation in the market and so and you also want to work with groups that aren't going to dig your candidates around and give you a bad name. A lot of other pieces, I think, that we sort of leaned on particularly through COVID would be our ability to manage candidates' expectations. You got to the point where you had three or four opportunities per candidate, you know, and you weren't representing them in all of them. So really sharing with the clients that we manage our candidates closely, the percentage that we typically lose to counter-author or to another opportunity was incredibly low and talk around those pieces and how we do that. Then going to what I would like to think is a very fluent or fluid pitch of the company and some high points around why we're specialists in what we do, talk a little bit to the truck record. I heard somebody mention on a call the other day that they use pitch decks, sorry, I'm one of your podcasts to use pitch decks. I think that's useful for people. I've got a pretty good memory, so I usually know competitors that I can talk to in people and people I've placed and so on. So I'll drop a few names there in terms of those pieces and then I'll typically then ask them, you know, do you want me to run through what our contract looks like and it's just straightforward. This is how much you pay upfront. This is what it looks like. We have cancellation clauses in all of our contracts as well. So if they don't make the placement, then obviously we'll charge a few on top of that. So it is sort of real exclusively retained work opposed to just taking a little bit of money upfront and then kind of leading it open. And then look, I think the other piece really is just trying to close them. We've had this a few times where some of our guys have done what they think are really good calls. Like, yeah, I've just sold a retainer and then a week goes by, two weeks go by. Client isn't coming back to them. So I think, you know, providing they want to talk to it, you ask them around from the contract. Is there anything that stands out to you there? Is there anything that you feel uncomfortable with or you know, what are your thoughts on that? And there have been calls where I've sat and talked through different parts of the contract and you know, where we can probably add some flexibility or the reasons that we have that. in there and how it's beneficial to them. And it's really making them feel comfortable with what we're trying to do. But again, I think the key piece going back to it is just market knowledge and credibility. If you can talk credibly and ask high level questions and reference people that you know in the industry that you've done work with, then that's probably as good as it's going to get in terms of, you know, you should pay me money up front to do this because I've done this search 10 times in the past three months and there are, you know, we've got pools of people and relevant bits. I think one other thing and look, I'll over share here a little bit. I think when people are picture retained work usually, there's always this emphasis that we have to bow down to the client, you know, your company's great, you do all of this really good work. That often goes against people and they think, all right, well, if we're great, we'll post it on LinkedIn or you know, you should be privileged working with us, whereas you have to have the confidence in your mind that number one, they should be privileged to work with you because of the value that you're going to add. But number two, I wouldn't say diminish what they've done, but I also think that you probably over-egg, even though you've done this search a few times, you know, you probably over-egg that it is challenging because, you know, there aren't tons of these people that cover this area in the market, so you've got a small pool of people to work through. This is the reason that I think that you need to go down this approach because if they think it's easy, why can't they give it to, you know, another corporate group that'll do it for 15% and no retainer. So it's really trying to suggest that you'd have the ability to to pick a work up and do it because of your track record, but also not fluff the client up too much to the point they think, ah, this is going pretty easy and actually they'd be really lucky to work with us. You need it to be the other way around. No, I appreciate you sharing all that, Julian, and look, I think what I actually take from that, and it's just something that I always think about because I'm always someone that's willing to learn on sales and we're into improve is, obviously there's so much power to understand, it's often not what you say but how you say it. So for me, what I take from that, Julian, is if I was listening into one of your calls, you know, the way that you would speak about my daughter company, your track record, how you work, it would just be with, you know, conviction, you know, directness, confidence, and this is how we work. You know, there's no, there's no element of like, yeah, like it'd be like, it'd be great if we could work this way. It's like, this is how we work. It's like if you wake up one day and decide, you want to go buy a new car, you got to miss 80s garage and you pick up all of the extras, they don't start saying to you, well, you know, we like this white leather or this cream leather that you've picked, you know, it's, it's going to be $12,000 to add that on, but you know, well, we can, we can try with them. I'm like, that's the price. That's, that's what it costs for what you want. So if you want to do this, we'll do it the right way, then let's do it. We can, we can service it and we can make it happen. If you don't, then that's also fine. Just don't waste our time. It's, yeah, it's just having the confidence, you know, this is the way that this is the way that we're doing things. And if you want to try out, you know, we'll, we'll do the work for you and there's no problem with that. If not, completely fine. And then, and then just a couple of bits. So typically when I speak to people, how they will structure this would be, and I know it might vary and you might have some flex, but as it, as a sort of core product, core service, typically when I speak to people, it's like, you know, they'll ask for X amount of the overall fee upfront, sort of commence the partnership, commence a project, then it might be, it might be broken into thirds, you know, then the next third might be when, you know, you've presented a short list, initial short list, and then the other third would be when that person is in a signed contract. Are those typically being the same milestones that you've, you know, used to break down your service, typically or? So we don't split into thirds, so we'll have an upfront fee and then there'll be a completion fee. Right. Again, I think that's probably another piece that, depending on who it is, you're pitching to, plays into your handle a little bit, and the, you know, some of these groups could have paid out two thirds of the overall fee short list or interview stage, and they might not like any of those candidates, so they're already 66% out of pocket, and the person's got to start again. So yeah, it's just an upfront fee and then the completion fee with the return of deducted off that. Well, it was typically the average upfront fee you charged. Some of my clients are going to be disappointed probably. Somewhere seven and a half to ten thousand. Okay, yeah, nice. And then somewhere in that room, do you not have any milestones, do you know, have you, like, you know, agreed milestones like, okay, okay, we'll commence this and then by this period, I'm going to probably give you this or as an artist, just then we're going to go through the process, rest on the completion. The rest of the completion, I mean, sort of get our bed for, it's, I don't know if it's easy to sell retainers, but it's, you know, it's within the wheelhouse, and then the hard work is finding the right candidates and putting the short list together, but again, talking about quality of resume shared, you should have it done in the first sort of go. And then your track record comes into play, right? It's like, look, typically, this is what it looked like, this is what we've done in the past. No, honestly, like, I know the way this is going to be really helpful for people, because, you know, I think a lot of people can over complicate this and you'll just own in how you work, this is the best way to work, you know, and everyone benefits. And then on this, because, you know, everyone taught, I'm sure you picked up on this as well, like everyone says, you know, the fees are bigger than us, you showed us the average deal size compared to the UK, but have you typically found yourself negotiating better times as well? Like what's under been that average sort of percentages that you managed to negotiate in the US? Because a lot of people say it could be 25%, but we've done the how true that is. The higher end that you quoted and higher. That's what I'm saying. All right, sound cool. Matt, I appreciate you over sharing here, right? Okay. So I just wanted to share a text with you, which I think you might find interesting. From your good friend Nick Carmen, he's a friend of the friend of the pot, right? And he said, he is without the nicest guy you could ever hope to outbill you. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know. Why did you describe it that way? I don't know. I don't know. I probably, I mean, some of the guys in America probably think I'm super intense, because when you, when you come in and you're locked in, then, you know, that's it. We're here to make money. We're here to do the job. But I don't know. I will always try and give people time, or I was trying to try and share some gems of value. Yeah, Nick's, Nick's a good guy. He was just the, how he grinds that work and huge billing so consistently without a pompous ceremony, always impresses everyone around him. Yeah, that's nice to hear. Yeah, like I say, I spent a lot of time trying to copy Nick and learn from Nick and he gave me some really good pieces in terms of building out the desk and doing business development and so on. So I couldn't be happy to have that sort of praise from someone that's achieved so much with MacDonald and company. You know, so look, we've covered a lot in this conversation. People listening to what the US success story would be your part in advice, my friend. Work ethic, just, I mean, it's the boring one, right? It's the one that everybody says, but if you ever look at anybody that's been successful, whether it's in recruitment or any other industry, you know, from sport through to anything else, try and do the best possible job that you can for yourself and for your clients candidates. Make sure to act with integrity and advise people because we're playing the long game and they're the conversations that you have and I think that you really need to, I think that you really need to treat every single conversation as one that you can get value from, whether it's today or in six months or in 12 months because people will remember how you can do it yourself and calls and in situations, try and act with integrity and more than anything, just hustle. Let's get it. Look, Julian, been in that suit pleasure. Kudos to you, my friend. You work ethic, what you've created, what's the Billings goal for this year, my man? Are we, what we aim in for? Conservatively, $1.5 million, so that's probably about 1.1, 1.2 million pounds. I don't know what the ceiling is. There's some more juice we can squeeze. There's no, you know, it's, for me, I think the best way to view it is like, you know, you're not playing a finite game, you know, like you're playing an infinite game. Like the goal is to keep playing at the highest level and why put like a cap on an affin? You know what I mean? Now that's why I like sometimes try to remind myself is like, why would you say a lot of, of capital all out now? Why wouldn't there be more and like just better viewing? There's probably more that could be done. 100%. I mean, I don't think that market is slowing down. I think as you continue to build relationships and scale things up and learn and get better, that things should continue to increase until I get to the point where you're just killing yourself and you can't do it anymore. But yeah, I think I just need to, I need one thing you didn't ask me which I'm awful at. So thank you for not time management and organisation. I'm just, I'm horrible at it. So I probably spend more hours working than I would need to if I'd just plan things out better. So maybe that's going to be my my success route to a one and a half or two million. I bet Julianne, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, time. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I hope there were plenty of golden nuggets for you to take away. As you know, I'm your host here of the Recruitment Mentals podcast. But I'm also the founder of Recruitment Mentals. We're a online subscription based learning and education platform. We're on a mission to help thousands of recruiters achieve their professional goals and successfully progress their careers through modern and engaging online learning. So if you're a recruitment business owner listening to this, there's a good chance that you value self-development, personal development. You're trying to develop a culture of continuous improvement. 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