The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

I'm joined by an old client of mine, Paul Smith. Paul is the Managing Director of Deploy Recruitment, a specialist infrastructure and technology recruitment business heavily invested in the rail sector. 

Paul started the recruitment side of this business just over 10 years ago. 

In this episode, he tells me about the last year and how he completed the MBO to buy out the original Partners and fully own the company. 

Today, so many recruitment founders partner with other people — whether business partners, back office providers, solutions providers, or investors. 

And I see so many get to a point when, a little bit down the line, it doesn't feel like the right fit anymore. 

Paul is open about why he decided to buy out his partners, the risks (personal and professional) he faced, and how he ultimately got it done. He also shares the emotional side of the process and how he’s felt since taking ownership. 

A super honest guy who does not mince his words. That's what I love about Paul.

For anyone who's thinking about selling to their employees as an MBO, completing an MBO in the future, or buying out a business partner, you've got to listen to this episode.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:29 Overview of Deploy Recruitment

01:27 Paul's decision to buy out the company

03:23 Paul's experience with laser eye treatment

04:21 Overview of Deploy Recruitment's services

05:20 Expansion into other industries and territories

06:17 Challenges and opportunities in the industry

07:15 The importance of infrastructure maintenance

08:12 Issues with technology and connectivity

09:08 Benefits and challenges of electric vehicles

10:34 Introduction to Paul Smith and Deploy Recruitment

11:04 Paul's background and decision to join Deploy Recruitment

12:19 Joining a non-recruitment company and leveraging their resources

13:44 The growth of Deploy Recruitment

14:41 Finding clients by observing train stations

18:12 The challenges of cash flow in the industry

20:08 Expanding into different sectors and offering additional services

22:14 The importance of process and procedure in the rail industry

23:13 Servicing internal projects and external clients

24:09 The 24/7 nature of the business

26:06 Managing on-call responsibilities

27:44 Understanding turnover, gross profit, and net fee income

28:14 Offering flexible payment options to clients

30:09 Expanding services and finding new ways to work with clients

31:55 Using data to provide real-time insights to clients

35:11 Taking over the business

36:12 Timing and circumstance

37:07 Impact of COVID-19

38:41 Opportunity to buy the business

39:05 Transition and management buyout

42:02 Executing the buyout

44:14 Personal risk and commitment

46:00 Challenges and considerations

49:30 Being a leader

50:26 Vision for the future

57:26 Hiring good people

58:11 Streamlining operations

01:00:03 Importance of content on LinkedIn

01:02:51 Continuous learning and growth

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

I'm super excited to be joined by Mirtes Lobaito, the CEO and founder of AGM Tech Solutions, a recruitment firm headquartered in New Jersey in the US.

Mirtes shares her inspirational journey from Brazil to the US, where she started her business with no English language skills and worked her way up from cleaning homes to tech sales. 

She eventually entered the recruitment industry and decided to start her own company. 

Despite facing challenges and self-doubt, Mirtes grew AGM Tech Solutions into a successful IT staffing firm, achieving over $100 million in revenue in just five years. 

And she's done all of this whilst raising three children too :)

Mirtes’s energy is incredible – her story inspired me, and I’m sure you will be too!  

Takeaways

If you are looking for a story to get you off the ground and start or inspiration to drive your recruitment business even further, this is the one for you.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:57 Overview of AGM Tech Solutions

06:18 Mirtes' decision to stay in the US

08:54 Mirtes' transition into tech sales

10:46 Mirtes' success as a salesperson

13:02 Mirtes' entry into the recruitment industry

20:45 Setting up AGM Tech Solutions

23:57 Building the team and growing the business

29:35 AGM Tech Solutions' growth and recognition

33:21 Building a business in a post-COVID way

34:19 The rationale behind dotted locations

36:31 Engaging with candidates and clients post-COVID

38:01 Winning business by becoming an extension of the customer

39:02 Opening the door with new business

40:09 The role of the CEO

47:19 The vision for the future

53:26 Balancing work and life

01:00:00 Tips for starting a recruitment agency

__________________________________________

Episode sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

Episode Sponsor: Hoxo 

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

 -  4 bite-sized training videos that can immediately help you boost business on LinkedIn

 - Exclusive access to Hoxo 20:10:5 warm leads tracking template

Free support from the Hoxo team to help you implement the process and get the results

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

I am so excited to be rejoined by Chriss Abbass, the CEO of Talentful, four years after our first episode together. 

For those who don’t know, Talentful is the world's leading embedded talent recruitment solution, working with some of the best tech companies on the planet.  

I had Chris in my studio in London back in 2019. At the time, his business was 4 years old and had already grown to 150 people and £9 million in net margin. 

Today, another 4 years have passed, and their last company account was over £30 million!

In this episode, Chris and I discussed

I personally learned so much from this conversation, hearing about the journey of one of the most innovative and cutting-edge recruitment agencies out there. I hope you love it too!  

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

I'm super excited to be joined by Oliver Legg, the co-founder of Aspiron Search, a specialist headhunter in the cybersecurity market operating from the UK but placing people all over the US.

Oliver started his career as a regional sales manager for a home security installation company seven years ago.  

Today, alongside Joe his co-founder, they generate over 7 figures a year with a team of five in the cybersecurity market. 

A super modern agency with a focus on brand and content (their podcast alone last year made them 320,000 in net fee income)

Takeaways

If you're looking to grow your business or want to launch your own agency and want to hear from someone who didn't start too long ago, but is having an amazing journey, then you've got to listen to this!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:26 Oliver's Journey into Recruitment

06:12 Transition from Sales to Recruitment

09:03 Joining Iceberg and Early Success

14:21 Starting Asperon Search

25:29 Early Success and Growth

28:29 Working with Recruit Hub

31:17 Opening the Crawley Office

34:12 Boom Time and Hiring

35:12 Introduction to Triuntapped

36:12 Process of Working with Triuntapped

37:08 Benefits of Using Triuntapped

37:37 Challenges of Growing a Team in 2022

38:59 Lessons Learned in 2022

40:43 Adapting the Business Model

43:10 The Impact of Change on the Business

44:39 The Importance of Consistency and Adaptation

45:07 Navigating the Challenges of 2023

46:04 The Resilience of the Business

47:29 The Power of LinkedIn and Content Creation

49:24 Investing in the Business

50:51 Starting a Business and Lessons Learned

53:46 The Decision to Move to Bournemouth

56:06 The Impact of the Move on the Team

58:01 Current Way of Working

59:27 Future Hiring Plans

01:02:16 The Benefits of Being Together

01:05:38 Goals for 2024

01:08:41 Closing Remarks

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Hoxo 

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

 -  4 bite-sized training videos that can immediately help you boost business on LinkedIn

 - Exclusive access to Hoxo 20:10:5 warm leads tracking template

- Free support from the Hoxo team to help you implement the process and get the results

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

In this episode, Ephram Stephenson, CEO and founder of Collar Talent Group, joins me for part 2 of the Collar Talent Group story!

I interviewed Ephram Jan 2023 when his business was just over a year old and he'd already reached a head count of 100.

13 months later, and the business now has 140 people across multiple Australian offices, making them the fastest growing agency in the country.

In this follow-up show, Ephram shares insights on how he has rapidly grown the business, built a strong company culture, and attracted top talent. 

Ephram strategically headhunted his leadership team, and together they have a combined experience of over 500 years in recruitment! 

Key takeaways

As always, we talk about the things he's got wrong as well as the success. Ephram’s got bags of energy, and he's fun to be around. 

So if you're looking to grow your business at scale and with speed, check this one out!

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

This week, I'm super excited to be joined by Alex Woodhead, the founder of a brand new 10-day-old talent and engineering consultancy called Apera. 

A business that specialises in recruitment for future mobility, space and clean energy. This is a super niche futuristic market with so much space for growth. And it isn’t Alex’s first time attacking it! 

We talk about how Alex started in recruitment: his journey from trainee to Director in his first firm, how he co-founded a company called Strativ, and built one of the fastest-growing recruitment companies on the planet. 

Within four years, they had a 100+ headcount and £13 million in NFI. 

Find out how they achieved this and why, a year later, he negotiated his exit and started his own business once again. 

Alex is one of those founders who has a crazy work ethic, unbelievable self-confidence and belief in what he’s doing.

But what stands out about Alex – and we get into it in this episode – is that his success is not a result of having the best sales skills. It's about having the best product and then building a business around that product. 

Takeaways

If you want to grow your recruitment firm or just listen and learn from one of the best leaders in our industry, then you do not want to miss this episode!

__________________________________________

Episode sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Hoxo 

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

On this week's show, Oscar Orellana-Hyder, the Founder of Cordell Partners, shares his journey from being a sceptic of personal branding on LinkedIn to building a successful recruitment agency in the UAE.

I’ve worked with Oscar since 2021. He was a Hoxo client whilst working for Robert Walters.

He went from someone who thought that using LinkedIn was complete nonsense and was billing £350k per year using only traditional methods, to doubling this within 12 months! 

All through 100% inbound business, generated via his LinkedIn personal brand.

In late 2023, he decided that he finally had the skills and the confidence to launch his own agency. And his personal brand is still generating business all over the region.   

If you're really interested in finding out how a personal brand on LinkedIn can actually pay dividends in terms of revenue, you've got to listen to this episode.

Takeaways

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to The RAG Podcast and Cordell Partners

01:28 Oscar's transformation and launching Cordell Partners

02:52 The name and vision of Cordell Partners

03:49 The importance of family in the UAE

05:41 The influence of family ethics in business

07:34 The niche market of investment recruitment

09:59 Transitioning from corporate recruitment to niche market

11:24 The decision to move to Dubai

13:20 The impact of personal branding on revenue

16:14 Joining Robert Walters and focusing on Abu Dhabi

19:57 The impact of The RAG Podcast and LinkedIn

26:14 The catalyst for starting Cordell Partners

38:11 Setting up Cordell Partners and the vision for the future

45:15 Building businesses from nothing

45:42 Growing the team

46:41 Finding self-sufficient people

47:11 Value of being part of a community

48:08 Future plans and retirement

49:35 Expanding to other regions

50:05 Identity and accents in the region

51:01 Embracing change and transient nature

51:28 Infrastructure challenges

52:25 Living in a transient place

53:19 Future business goals

54:16 Importance of commitment to the region

55:37 Exploring other countries in the region

56:04 Openness to answering questions and helping others

56:56 Sponsor message: Hoxo

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week's show, I'm joined by Jonathan Berry, the director of the Middle East region for Robert Walters Group.

I’ve known him for five years and have been working with him for four years. 

Jonathan was the first staff member at Robert Walters to join my bootcamp. And I'm now working with over 700 recruiters across the Group. 

Jonathan came to Dubai after working for Robert Walters in Sydney, and is now running the business in the region. 

In this episode, he shares his journey from being a lawyer to transitioning into recruitment and building a successful recruitment desk in Dubai. Jonathan discusses the challenges and opportunities of working in the Middle East market and the impact of COVID-19 on recruitment. 

We also reflect on his leadership role and the importance of personal branding in his success so far. Jonathan explains how LinkedIn has translated into revenue and emphasises the need for a long-term strategy rather than a short-term focus. 

Takeaways

A great guy with a refreshing approach to recruitment – take notes, as this is super valuable! 

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

__________________________________________

Sponsor: Hoxo 

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

On this week's show, I'm delighted to be joined by Calvin Lee-Pickett, the CEO and founder of Calvin James Recruitment. 

Calvin came from the UK to Dubai as an employee of Robert Half Recruitment, a global organisation. A few years later, he decided to start his own business. 

Without any experience as a business owner, he has grown organically over the last five years. And in this past year, things have REALLY changed for Calvin and his team! 

In this episode, Calvin discusses how he pivoted his business model to monetise the growing candidate base he’d built and the challenges he faced in setting up a business in Dubai. We also talk about the impact of COVID-19 on the business and the importance of building a solid personal brand. 

Calvin is a really great guy who’s building something special. You don’t want to miss this one! 

Takeaways

__________________________________________

*RAG Sponsor message* Hoxo

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document, you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily, and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO, Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp, which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

*RAG Sponsor message*: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

Episode 2 of my LIVE series in the UAE and I'm joined by Abdul Rahman Risilia, CEO and founder of ARC Talent. 

Abdul is someone I actually worked with when I started my recruitment career in Melbourne in 2011, but I didn’t realise this until the show because, back then, he worked under a completely different name!

In this episode, Abdul shares his journey from door-to-door sales to building a successful recruitment business in Dubai, growing through the various challenges along the way, and his unique business model and approach to hiring.  

We talk about

You don’t wanna miss this!

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

The first of our 5 x episodes recorded Live in the UAE kicks off with ME as the guest! 

So Chris Redmond, who's been on our show three times since 2019, approached me about interviewing me and telling both the Hoxo story and my learnings from almost 300 episodes of the RAG on my recent trip to Dubai!

In this episode, I opened up a lot! 

We discuss 

The story of Hoxo to dateThe impact of my personal brand on building the businessWhy I started The RAG PodcastThe impact The RAG has had on the industryMy top learnings from 5 years of interviewing the best in the business How my life and Hoxo are 100% different since the pandemic My vision for building a life that I love both personally and professionally. 

Thanks to Chris for taking the time to host this episode; it was so much fun to be on the other side of the mic!

I hope you find this valuable!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG Podcast

05:11 The story of Hoxo Media

06:11 Hoxo's services: branding and personal branding

13:22 The impact of personal branding

20:02 The RAG Podcast: purpose and impact

24:25 Lessons from successful recruitment owners

30:05 Interviewing style and emotional moments

37:20 Hoxo's future plans

42:07 Scientist or artist: Sean's approach

43:31 Overcoming challenges and taking action

46:20 The power of energy and inspiration

47:15 Appreciation and friendship

47:44 Closing remarks and sponsorship

__________________________________________

*RAG Sponsor message* Hoxo

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

*RAG Sponsor message*: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

In this episode of the RAG podcast, Sean Anderson interviews Richard Morton, the founder of MatchMedics. Richard shares his journey of launching a recruitment company in his 50s and emphasises that it's never too late to pursue your dreams. He discusses the challenges he faced in the early years and the turning point after reading the book 'Traction'. 

Richard explains how MatchMedics narrowed its focus to specialise in recruiting doctors and the subsequent growth in team size and revenue. He also highlights the expansion into the local market and other specialities, such as general practice. 

Sean and Richard discuss the impact of LinkedIn on his recruitment business and the potential it holds for finding high-level candidates. He shares how Hoxo's Personal Branding Bootcamp has helped his team develop a unified language and methodology for using the platform effectively. 

The conversation also explores the impact of content generation and the importance of becoming a recognisable brand online. They discuss the future vision of the business, opportunities for growth, and the importance of building a strong team and environment. This is a must-listen for anyone wanting to hear first-hand about the journey of building a rec business from the ground up, and what it takes to start driving success! 

Takeaways

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:56 Richard Morton's background and launching MatchMedics

04:16 Richard's start in recruitment in 1989

08:24 Transitioning from being an employee to an entrepreneur

12:15  Starting MatchMedics and the early challenges

19:14 The turning point after reading the book 'Traction'

25:17 Narrowing the focus to specialise in recruiting doctors

27:40 Expansion into the local market and other specialities 

28:39 Growth in team size and revenue

38:22 Managing the resourcer-recruiter model

44:26 Expansion into the general practice market

45:21 Richard's role in the company

46:20 The challenges of transitioning from doing the work to managing

46:50 The benefits of participating in the Hoxo Personal Brand Academy

47:16 Discovering the potential of LinkedIn

48:13 The impact of LinkedIn on business

49:07 Creating a unified language and methodology

50:03 The Impact of Hoxo on content generation

50:33 Generating placeable candidates

52:29 Educating the competition

52:58 The vision and future of the business

53:24 Building a strong team and environment

56:13 The journey and potential growth

57:09 Seizing opportunities and driving success

58:04 Understanding rotations in the healthcare sector

59:16 Taking time off and reflecting on achievements

01:00:42 Closing remarks and sponsor message

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (the creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Jamie Reynolds, a man who’s held some impressive titles in his career but most notably was the Former CEO of PMP Recruitment, a part of the Cordant Group, COO of Halian, and most recently, CEO of The Recruitment Co. 

In this in-depth episode, he shares his journey from a 17-year-old trainee to his moves toward CEO. 

During his time at Cordant, he delivered multiple millions in profit through a company wide business transformation programme.

Jamie is passionate about empowering people to think differently, and it’s inspiring to hear how he uses this mindset to deliver financial results!

It’s not always smooth sailing, and it’s refreshing to hear someone speak so realistically about mental health and wellbeing. Jamie and I discussed the lessons he learned during the acquisition and merger of Halian and Staff Group, including the need for empathy and respect when making tough decisions like redundancies. 

One of the good guys in the recruitment sector, take notes- there is lots to learn!

Takeaways

Chapters 

00:00 Introduction

02:20 Jamie’sackground and expertise 

06:04 Transition from service sector to recruitment sector 

07:20 Jamie's journey to CEO level

10:38 Joining the Cordant Group

12:59 Transformation within the Cordant Group

19:04 Implementing transformational projects

25:11 Managing multiple projects

32:15 Turning around the business

36:32 Transition to Group CEO

40:56 Transformation during the pandemic

43:46 Dealing with redundancies

49:55 Role evolution and disposals

52:06 Acquisition and merger of Halian and Staff Group

53:31 Lessons learned from exits and transformations

55:50 Success of PMP Recruitment

56:42 Driving results

57:08 Ability to work with both large and small businesses

58:58 Offering growth, transformation, and coaching/mentoring

01:00:37 Jamie's life and approach to work

01:02:31 Importance of mental health and well-being

01:04:06 Closing remarks and contact information

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

In this week's episode, I was joined by Laura Clark, CEO of OA Group, who shares her journey of joining the family business and eventually taking over as CEO. 

She discusses the challenges and rewards of working with her mother and the lessons she learned from her entrepreneurial upbringing. 

Laura also talks about the growth and operations of OA Group, her early career in recruitment, and the negotiation process of buying out her mother's stake in the business.

This episode highlights the importance of hard work, independence, and the drive to improve in the recruitment industry. 

Key takeaways 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:58 Laura's journey and joining the family business

03:18 Overview of OA Group

05:15 Laura's early career and working with her mother

08:06 Growing up with an entrepreneurial parent

09:04 Laura's interest in business and entrepreneurship

10:34 Joining Osborne Appointments

16:11 Early days of recruiting and the types of jobs

19:19 Balancing work and motherhood

25:45 Progressing in her career and becoming a manager

29:25 Realising her entrepreneurial ambitions

31:19 Negotiating the deal to take over the business

37:48 Taking ownership of the business

43:34 Working with family and post-acquisition vision

45:01 Creating a meaningful and sustainable business

46:20 Balancing growth and fairness

46:50 Key principles for a viable business

47:48 Embracing change and being open-minded

49:18 Seeking outside opinions and ideas

50:14 Creating a safe environment for feedback and innovation

53:02 The importance of in-person interaction in recruitment

58:12 Gender equality and avoiding self-limitations

01:02:48 Juggling work and family life

01:07:45 The importance of prioritising and being agile

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

On this week's show, I'm delighted to be joined by Josh Huggins, the founder of GS2, a global sustainability search recruitment firm headquartered in Basingstoke. The business is just over 18 months old, with eight employees. 

Josh shares his journey from being a professional footballer to starting his own recruitment business. 

After becoming the second-largest shareholder at Principal People he, alongside Simon Bliss, led the process of selling the business. 

He had to wait five years and faced many challenges before making the bold decision to leave and start GS2. 

Takeaways

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast and guest introduction

01:25 Josh Huggins' background and journey to starting GS2

03:20 Overview of GS2 and its divisions

04:39 Target market and clients of GS2

06:02 The changing recruitment landscape and opportunities in a post-COVID world

07:00 Josh's background in football and transition to recruitment

10:46 Joining Principal People and the growth of the business

16:28 Transitioning to a senior role at Principal People

20:44 The process of selling Principal People and the challenges faced

27:51 The decision to start GS2 and the challenges faced

36:48 The attempted buyback of Principal People and the decision to start GS2

40:33 The exit from Principal People and the start of GS2

44:28 Naming and structure of GS2

45:23 Negotiating the exit and setting up GS2

47:39 Starting GS2 and building the team

49:21 Returning to operational billing and setting standards

51:15 Recruiting levels and service offerings

52:08 Investing in personal branding and learning from Hoxo

53:07 Changing the mindset of recruitment and staying connected with clients

55:28 The impact of personal branding on revenue

57:21 Bringing Tom Glanfield on board and internal recruitment

01:00:15 Building GS2 with an exit in mind

01:02:09 The vision for GS2 and future growth

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week's show I was joined by Owen Myers and Jenna Mackie, the founders of Mackie Myers. 

Mackie Myers is a specialist accounting and finance recruitment firm headquartered in London, two and a half years old with 14 employees. 

Since launching, the business has doubled revenue year on year and operated in a sustainable way!

They've introduced a 4-day work week after 12 months, which has been hugely successful. 

And they are now looking at growing from 14 to 40 - 50 over the next few years. 

In this episode, we talk about:

For anyone who's listening, who wants to build a business in the future always right at the start of their journey, this one's gonna resonate because ultimately, these guys are two and a half years in, everything's fresh, everything's real, and they're making it work. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Mackey Myers

02:20 Working together at Michael Page

08:29 Leaving Michael Page and starting a new business

12:38 Navigating the challenges of Covid-19

19:40 Setting up Mackey Myers

27:19 Hiring and scaling the business

34:24 First year of Mackey Myers

42:47 Lessons learned and balancing personal life

45:42 Business planning basics

46:43 Transition to a four-day workweek

48:04 Benefits of a four-day workweek

49:02 Operating model of a four-day workweek

50:53 Managing client expectations

52:20 Communication with clients

54:07 Balancing work and parenthood

55:34 Returning to work after maternity leave

59:21 Challenges and successes of 2022

01:01:09 Profit margins in the recruitment industry

01:02:29 Current state of the business

01:05:06 Future vision for the business

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - they handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

On this week's episode I was once again joined by Vincere, specifically their Head of Product, Kristy Gilham. This is a follow-up to the conversation we recorded back in September. 

In this episode, we focused exclusively on the product roadmap and the things that they're working on right now to improve for you, the customer. You’ll hear some interesting insights into how they decide on which products to put into action, and which ones to leave off the table. 

Despite the negative press post-acquisition, hopefully you're starting to understand that Vinny are still committed to the customer.

They’re also almost exclusively focused on working with small to medium-sized recruitment agencies – which is so important! 

So whether you’re a boutique agency looking for a new CRM or a current Vinny customer, enjoy the episode, listen up, and take notes. 

Takeaways

Vincere is committed to improving the user experience for small to mid-sized recruitment agencies.The product roadmap includes enhancements to the user interface, email functionality, and automation.Data security and compliance are top priorities for Vincere, especially when integrating with LinkedIn.The company is actively seeking customer feedback and engagement to shape the product development.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the RAG podcast

00:57 Focus on the product roadmap

02:25 Discussion on market conditions and plans

03:23 Updates on product development

06:40 Product roadmap for small to mid-sized market

07:55 Improving UI and UX

09:20 Improvements to velocity and data import tool

10:20 Integration with LinkedIn and data security

13:52 Payroll integration and expanding marketplace

15:42 Revamping the scheduler for smaller agencies

17:06 Improving email functionality and automation

19:22 In-app training and product enablement

21:43 Improving internal communication and knowledge sharing

22:11 Introduction of workspace and AI functionality

23:07 Adopting AI in Vincere

25:03 Focus on improving system speed and security

27:05 Addressing compliance and email functionality

28:54 Marketing automation and marketplace mindset

30:45 Engaging with customers and gathering feedback

32:31 Prioritizing feature requests and engaging with customers

35:23 Openness to customer feedback and engagement

38:40 Closing remarks and contact information

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

Today I was joined by Dan Moussa and Kevin Warner, the founders of Telesca. 

Telesca is an 11 month old recruitment business headquartered in Brisbane with a completely unique model. 

These guys recruit in the energy and sustainability space and in a short space of time they’ve built a business with the following

100% retained (30% upfront / 70% on success)Productised model with clear pricing and delivery structureUtlisation of Offshore experienced recruiters in Philippines.Soon to be 11 staff, every member of the team has 7+ yrs of experience

 In 11 months, they've generated over 7 figures but most importantly, they’ve done it in their own way!

In this episode, we talk about

We really go into detail about this model because I genuinely think it's amazing. I mean, it's super profitable, super scalable and sustainable as well, win win!

You don’t wanna miss this!

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

On this week's episode, I'm excited as Chris Redmond, the founder and the CEO of RedHolt, is back on the show for the third time.

In Q4 2019, he came into my office in East London; we recorded in person together and he claimed that he wanted to be a digital nomad.

They’d just got rid of their office, cancelled the lease and were going completely remote.

This was a pre-pandemic world and I'll be honest, I thought it was a bit mad. 

Six months later, the world went into lockdown. 

Fast-forward nine months and he came back on my daily show, the RAG Report, and talked quite openly about how the systems he'd put in place pre-pandemic meant that he had no real disruption at all. 

In 2023, Chris lives in Dubai, and he's still got a team in the UK that operate mainly in the media and broadcasting space. They are retained headhunters with a forensic process driven way of working.

Chris has built an amazing lifestyle business which has consistently been running at about 60% profit - this is madness in our industry! 

He's now got the challenge of building a business that can be sold.

He wants an exit plan, but how does he navigate that?

Chris also lost 35 kg in 2023, and he looks incredible! How did he find the motivation and drive to make this lifestyle change? 

In this episode, we talk about his professional plan, plus his personal life. And, as Chris does not hold back, we get into as much detail as ever! 

You don't want to miss it.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Ready to find 25+ warm leads within 7 days on LinkedIn?

As a recruiter, most of the working day is spent chasing people via cold outreach on LinkedIn.

This method is super time-consuming and most people don’t reply because they simply don’t know or trust you.

But it can be different...

If you follow the process in this document you will hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in just 15 minutes per day and drive warm leads whenever you want them.

A warm lead is a person who you can 100% guarantee knows who you are, and what you do and has shown interest in you and/or your services in the past 48 hours.

Over 5000 recruiters around the globe are following this process daily and the results have been amazing!

You can have this too!

Access the Hoxo 20:10:5 guide here: https://bit.ly/3PLjaJY

If you’d prefer to consume this information directly from our Co-Founder & CEO Sean Anderson (The creator of 20:10:5), you can join our free training course now!

Get access to:

This course is part of the hugely successful Personal Brand Bootcamp which has seen over 5000 recruiters graduate and drive millions of warm leads and £££ in revenue as a result!

Get free access to the course once you’ve downloaded our guide.

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they

need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one

easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week's show, I was super excited to be joined by Anthony Kelly, the founder of DeepRec.ai which is a niche AI recruitment agency, part of the wider Trinnovo group. 

He joined the Trinnovo group three and a half years ago, as part of the Trust in Soda brand. 

After seeing early success, he left Ireland, moving to the UK and it was here that he realised he wanted to be an entrepreneur.

At the start of 2023, Anthony decided that it was this year that he wanted to launch his agency and that he wanted to do it in Bishop's Stortford, to be close to his partner and newborn baby. 

A little negotiation with the founders of Trinnovo, and they agreed that he could launch his own business within the portfolio, as long as he wanted to build something of scale.

They discussed building a business of circa 50 people in headcount with a 2 million EBITDA as a target focus. Anthony said, “yes, but I want to do it my way in an office five days a week in Bishops Stortford. We're not going to be in London.”

They all agreed and got it off the ground.

So he's now a team of five, five months in. He's got a plan to be 18 in 12 months. They're profitable and they're making significant waves from a placement perspective. 

In this show, I discuss:

If you're wanting to speak to or learn from someone who's right in the thick of the first six months of growth of being a new founder, but with a vision of scale and exit and all the things that most people in our industry want, then this is an episode for you to listen to.

Anthony is a charismatic, open, friendly Irish guy. I love talking to him. I'm sure you will too. 

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call “an offline recruiter”, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to “an online recruiter”, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up within six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons:

1) While I've been building The RAG Podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients. In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds interesting to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

On this week’s show, I was super excited to be joined by Stuart Fry & Lloyd Cremer. 

Stuart is the CEO, and Lloyd is the CRO, of Halian, a recruitment and IT services business headquartered in the UK with multiple offices all over the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.

Lloyd joined me from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Stuart was in Dubai. 

They recently completed an MBO where they bought the original founders out, and they're on a journey now for the next four years to create an incredible wealth creation exercise for a number of their teams across the world.

Stuart joined almost 15 years ago and has seen the business grow in both recruitment and IT services, and Lloyd has come through a traditional recruitment route for over 15 years. 

In this episode, we talk about

If you're looking to add different services on top of just recruitment, or if you're looking to join an organisation that's growing towards a wealth creation activity, then you should be listening to this show. 

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally, many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance, but anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: https://bit.ly/Hoxo-Untapped

On this week’s show, you’ve got me again. I know I’ve been sharing solo episodes the last few weeks and had a couple of weeks’ break, but I really wanted to take this time to share my recap of Q3

So personally, and professionally, I feel like it's probably been the most powerfully transformational quarter of my life.

In this show, I discuss:

There's so much stuff I've done that I think can add value to you guys. I really hope you enjoy the show.

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call “an offline recruiter”, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to “an online recruiter”, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up within six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons:

1) While I've been building The RAG Podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients. In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds interesting to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they

need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one

easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

I’m still on paternity leave, so I'm going to give you another super valuable piece of content from my recent Personal Brand Taster series. 

In this week's episode, I want to feature the 4 steps that any recruitment company can adopt to become what I call an inbound recruiter.

And that is a recruiter that:

✔️ Lives off warm leads

✔️ Is spotting 25 warm leads a week on LinkedIn and turning that into business

So I'm going to give you four actionable steps that you can take today to do less outbound activity and more inbound activity. 

It's only going to be a maximum of 30 minutes. It's super valuable so take notes.

Enjoy the session.

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call “an offline recruiter”, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to “an online recruiter”, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up within six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons:

1) While I've been building The RAG Podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients. In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds interesting to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals are a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they

need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one

easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

Because I’m away on paternity leave over the next couple of weeks, I’m giving you some super valuable information that I’ve recently shared as part of our Hoxo Academy Taster Sessions.

I’m featuring a case study that I recorded about a company called Precision Sourcing. Simon Hair, the MD at the company, was previously on The RAG Podcast and was part of my Personal Brand Bootcamp in 2020, where I taught him how to build his brand and find warm leads daily on LinkedIn.

As a result of that course, he enrolled his whole team in my training. 

At the end of 2022, I was working with over 32 members of his team, and they generated over 2.5 million Australian dollars, which is over 23% of their annual gross margin.

So they did just over $10 million, and $2. 5 million of that was generated through Hoxo's warm inbound leads process that we taught them through the bootcamp. 

If you're interested in how this team have generated extra gross margin from LinkedIn, then listen up in this episode, I'm going to tell you 10 things they implemented to ensure that our 3X system, which is the process that everyone follows in our training, so well that they got success from everyone in the business. 

Also, as part of this show, you can click the link in the show notes, and there's a downloadable guide that gives you everything that I've said (including all the notes). So you can take it and use it in your agency. 

So if you want to build your personal brand on LinkedIn, if you want to get more inbound business, and want to get warm leads that win inbound business on LinkedIn, you've got to listen to today's show.

I hope you enjoy it.

__________________________________________

Hoxo 20:10:5 

Find 25 x warm leads on LinkedIn every week with our new FREE training!

Our Hoxo 20:10:5 free course is now LIVE!

We've just launched and have had hundreds of recruiters sign up!

All looking to learn how to find warm leads on LinkedIn

We're already receiving messages from people telling us about their initial results

It’s crazy!

NOTE - a warm lead is someone who you can guarantee 100% knows who you are and has shown interest in you in the past 48 hours

Are you ready to learn?

If so, download our free guide and access our free course today - https://bit.ly/3ZtbNKo

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals, and even build whole offshore sourcing & recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. 

It’s a simple process, you pay a deposit to kick off the search, and they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days. You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

On this week's show, I’m speaking directly to our partner, Vincere.

Vincere has sponsored the RAG Podcast for the last three years, and I have a lot of love for the brand and a great relationship with the business. I’m really grateful for the support they've given me and our industry.

However, about a year ago, they were acquired by The Access Group which is the fastest-growing and largest software company in Europe. After they were acquired, the two founders, Bernie Schiemer and Eloise Sutton-Kirkby, exited almost immediately. 

Since the acquisition by The Access Group, there has been murmurings across the industry, and their reputation has taken some damage. 

So I interviewed Nick Thomson, the Commercial Director for The Access Group’s recruitment division. And Kristy Gilham, the Product Director at Vincere. 

She’s been with Vincere pre and post-acquisition. 

We had a really candid, hard-hitting conversation on your behalf. I asked them what the hell they've been doing and why there's so much negative press regarding support and functionality - and what they are going to do about it.

Are they actually going to make changes?

In this episode, we break down

🎙️ Some of the big ticket items they're working on

🎙️ The reasons why you felt some pain and 

🎙️ What they're going to do about the issues brought forward

And, hopefully, you're going to not only learn about the product, but also build some form of connection with the two people who are going to be the face of the brand and are going to be able to help you get to the bottom of any issues you have.

This is the first in a series of conversations we're going to have with them.

 I want you to listen, come back to us with your questions and challenges, and we'll have another conversation. 

Over time, I want to make sure that we're holding them accountable to being the best operating system provider possible!

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter - reliant on posting jobs and sending emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up within six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons:

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients. In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn, leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form, and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

On this week’s show, I'm joined by Kyle Grainger, our newest RAG sponsor and the founder of a six month old recruitment agency, Untapped. 

Untapped specialise in finding remote, highly experienced recruiters for recruitment agencies in UK, US, Middle East, and Australia, sourced from untapped, low cost locations such as the Philippines and South Africa.

The benefit of this model is that you can hire people with a proven track record, who don’t need too much management and training at a fraction of the cost of an equivalent hire in your location!

As you may know, 75% of Team Hoxo is based in South Africa and I can say from experience that this has been an amazing move for us!

The reason I brought Kyle on the show so early on in his journey was simple:

Having raw conversations with people in the first six months will give any new or aspiring recruitment owner the opportunity to find out what the beginning stages of launching a company is really likeI 100% believe in what these guys are doing and have already used them for sourcing our talent internally!

2023 has been a tough market and cost control has been on the agenda for most of us!

Untapped provides a cost reduction, high quality talent solution.

It's a complete no brainer. So listen up, take notes and reach out to Kyle if you're interested. 

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment business in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally, many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamline where possible.

However, accessing lower cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance, but anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4 stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end to end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process, you pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days, you can put people through your own process also and then hire perm or on a freelance basis depending on your need. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

This week’s show is going to be a little bit different. 

My guest is Mel Kang, the CEO of Mezzle, a consulting law firm, not a recruitment agency.

Mezzle takes traditional lawyers who work for traditional law firms and flips the model. 

They attract lawyers who join them without a set salary but take home 70 percent of their annual earnings/ billings. 

The reason Mel’s a guest on the show is because of how similar the law industry is to the recruitment industry. The way they set their firms up is almost identical.

Mel’s whole day job consists of headhunting lawyers from traditional firms and bringing them into Mezzle.

He launched Mezzle with his friend and partner Raj on the first day of the pandemic 

Since then, they've now grown to 48 consultant lawyers in the UK and Dubai.

They are on track to become one of the top 200 law firms in the world. 

I truly believe there's so much you can learn from this conversation as a recruiter or recruitment founder. 

Understanding the way Mel thinks and is able to adapt and evolve, can make your recruitment company better. So take notes. 

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

__________________________________________

If you’re a recruiter who’d love to listen and learn from some of the greatest recruitment owners and leaders then you need to listen to the RAG Podcast!

We’re having real and raw conversations with successful recruitment entrepreneurs about what is happening in their businesses right now and their plans to navigate market changes.

Episodes are released every Wednesday at 12pm GMT

https://www.youtube.com/c/HoxoMedia?sub_confirmation=1

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment business in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally, many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamline where possible.

However, accessing lower cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance, but anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4 stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end to end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process, you pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis depending on your need. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

This week's show is going to be different. I am featuring a recent webinar I hosted for the recruitment industry where I had over a hundred people turn up and I've had countless messages asking for this information.

At Hoxo, we help brand recruitment agencies and their people better. People are your biggest asset in your organisation. Every single recruiter at a desk level can have such a huge impact on your brand, on your market, and on your business.

I think it's fair to say everyone knows now that you should be getting your team to post more on LinkedIn. But asking them to do it and actually getting them doing it are two very difficult challenges that we see across the industry.

So in this 30 minute episode, I'm going to:

🎙️ Tell you why your recruitment team should be posting on LinkedIn

🎙️ Give you three things to get your team to do to raise the output and the quality of their output

🎙️ Give you some really simple metrics to track performance. So what are the KPIs and measurements you should be looking at on a monthly and a weekly basis to ensure that your team are moving in the right direction?

At the end of this episode, click on the link attached to the show notes, and download our show notes for free. So take your own notes and then you're going to get my notes and you'll be able to take advice and put it into practice and get things moving in your agency tomorrow.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

LinkedIn for recruiters: Transform your team's posting power in just 30 minutes!

Download our resource for an overview of:

- Why your team should be creating and posting content on LinkedIn

- 3 important steps to get your recruitment team to post

​- What to expect from your teams each week on the platform

Get your copy here: https://academy.hoxomedia.com/download

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s TimeTemp is your complete integrated timesheet and workforce management solution, pre-built, pre-integrated, and designed so no matter how much your business grows, you’ll be able to keep track of every single worker.

All changes inside Vincere will sync with TimeTemp and feedback into your account, automating the entire process with two-way sync from your front to back office.

Vincere’s TimeTemp enables you to create shift schedules, search available workers, shortlist,

and book assignments in seconds.

It’ll also allow you to track time, leave, and expenses with its built-in pay rule engine,

DoorClock and mobile app for the on-the-go.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week’s show, I’m excited to be joined for the third time by DSP (David Spencer-Percival!).

The founder of Life Science People, a global life science people provider based in the UK with offices in the US and soon to be opening in Europe. They are just under three years old with 100 staff.

The first time David was on the show, they were on their way to a hundred people - they were flying.

The second time, earlier this year, David talked about how they'd lost a lot of money in the downturn at the end of last year - £800,000 in three months.

The market just wasn't great.

Now, he's back on the show to share that they've just secured £4 million in investment funding by Silchester Partners.

This discreet, private hedge fund now owns 20% of his business and the £4 million is going to fuel their growth for the next 10 years to help them get to 1000 people.

In this 30 minute episode, we cover:

🎙️ The process of the funding,why they needed it, and how they got it over the line

🎙️ What he’s going to do with the money

🎙️ Derisking as a founder on the way up

🎙️ His epiphany - he sold Huntress Group and Spencer Ogden too soon and now he’s on a much longer term trajectory

Anyone who's looking to grow, scale, sell, exit, you've gotta listen to this. DSP is an industry legend!

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition?

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay.

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years.

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode sponsor: RecruitHub

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE.

One of them was Stuart Mitchell, Founder of Hampton North in the US.

With experience in both the UK and US markets, million-dollar biller Stuart Mitchell formed Hampton North to tackle the biggest problem in cyber security; the talent shortage.

Before launching his own business, Stuart felt like he had run out of growth and he wanted to achieve a better work-life balance for himself and his team. For Stuart, this meant he could spend more time with his daughter.

He now is on a mission to create the best cybersecurity recruiting team in the industry, with the support of Recruit Hub, The world’s most powerful recruitment start-up solution.

His only regret once joining Recruit Hub? Not joining sooner.

Link to his full story: https://l8.nu/ryze

I am excited, delighted, and honored to be joined by Greg Savage in the latest episode of the RAG Podcast. 

Now, almost everyone in our sector globally knows who this guy is. 

During his time in recruitment, Greg:

-Has built an incredible brand

-Has been an advisor to 16 recruitment organisations in the APAC region

-Has owned and scaled three organisations

-Has authored a book 

-Has built his own training academy across the global recruitment community 

I interviewed Greg at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. He was the second person I brought onto The RAG Report, which was my daily show in 2020 in which I provided some advice to our community in a time of need.

On today's episode, we talked about the work Greg did during the pandemic, the advice he gave, the advice he would give now, and the reality of the current economic situation. 

We also talked about Greg’s book and his experience, and he gave some golden nuggets of information.

He specifically outlined the metrics you should be measuring to ensure your business is scaling profitably. 

He said the number one reason he gets involved with businesses is because they tend to grow gross profit but not their profit. So essentially, they scale without profit. 

Greg gives some unbelievable advice as to how you can manage this issue and the reasons why it might be worth getting an advisor to help you if you're seeing certain symptoms. 

I’d advise you to listen to everything he's got to say. The guy is full of wisdom and experience. Take it on board, take some notes, and I hope you get as much value from this episode as I did recording it.

Vincere

A message to all recruitment leaders looking to upgrade their CRM: Before you sign the contract, be sure to read the terms at least twice.

Common traps to watch out for:

- Not understanding the pricing model

- Discounts limited to only the 1st year of contract length

- Monthly contracts - this could mean flexibility for the vendor to raise prices

- Data hosting - anything outside your country could mean compliance & legal issues

GetVincere.io’s 10-step guide to keep your vendor due diligence & evaluation process airtight:https://bit.ly/3C2G1s3

Part 2 with Ben Wallin and Dan Cox on growing their business to 31 recruiters and being no longer reliant on their own billings within 24 months of trading!

On this week's episode, I'm excited to be joined for the second time by Ben Wallin and Dan Cox, who was previously on the show 12 months ago in August 2022. 

Ben and Dan are the founders of Edison Smart (previously Edison Search).

When I interviewed these guys in 2022, we talked about how, in just over a year, they billed £1.7 million in revenue, grown to just under 20 staff, and they were on this absolute mission called Project 2024.

So a year later - have they achieved even more growth as predicted?

In this episode we find out how:

👉They've grown to 31 employees

👉They've opened up an entity in the US

👉They've got boots on the ground in Dubai

👉They're absolutely flying from Basingstoke recruiting internationally

They specialise in smart technology, which is super niche and they work in a very specific way. 

Ben and Dan are so methodical in their approach that not only have they grown to 31, but they've done it by building an infrastructure around them of core teams, including leadership, operations, marketing, and L&D. 

Now their personal billings are a really small % of NFI.

This is almost unheard of in our sector inside the first 2 yrs!

Now, I often get asked:

How do I become more operational?

How do I work on the business, not in the business? 

This episode tells you how to do it and gives you a roadmap to follow. 

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients.In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

On this week’s episode, I'm excited to be joined by an old friend, Joe Curtis. 

Initially, Joe was the founder of a recruitment company called 3Search, which then led to building a bigger business called 11 Investments. 

11 Investments is a series of niche recruitment organisations that work together and share a common goal with a central operational function. 

Joe's role as founder is to bring more people into the portfolio, both people who want to start their own recruitment company and also people who want to work for the portfolio. 

He's been responsible for growing the business to 100 people, which they’ve managed to do sustainably and profitably with a clear plan.

In this episode, we talk about:

So, if you are in a position right now where you are feeling that, post covid, you don't really know the best way to run your firm - whether it's remote, in-house, or a combination - then you need to listen to this because Joe explains it perfectly. 

He's got to a headcount of 100 and they’re going towards 200, so there's a lot to  learn from this episode.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Epispde Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment business in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

On this week’s show I’m sharing one of the most powerful episodes I've ever recorded with a lady called Janette Marx. 

Jeanette is the global CEO at a company called Airswift, a huge workforce, staffing and solutions organisation headquartered in the US with 62 offices worldwide, 900 employees, and 7500 contractors that they support. 

Jeanette's been with the business for nine years and in the recruitment industry for over 20 years. She previously worked for Adecco and was leading a huge operation for them across the US.

What I love about Jeanette is her mindset and how she's done what she's done while going through so much!

She's an author of a book called Together We Rise, which she co-authored after the pandemic with 16 other female leaders in the staffing industry globally.

She shared how she’s grown her career as an entrepreneur and become a global CEO as a female whilst having a baby and running a business. Everything she's done to get to where she was at the beginning of 2023. 

And then we talked about the impact of finding out that she had stage two breast cancer at the beginning of March this year and how she dealt with the news.

Because the book she wrote was about dealing with crisis moments and stress and how to stay calm, she managed to put everything in the book into practice and between the beginning of March and the end of April, she was back to work, cancer free.

She went through a series of different operations, she built a team of doctors around her and she took control of a life or death situation and has come back to work with a different sense of appreciation for life. 

She's still incredibly motivated to give back, build a business and help her people, but she also has calmness, which has come from getting through something so serious.

In this episode there were moments where I had to take a deep breath and as I was getting quite emotional myself. I'm just inspired by such an amazing woman who and what she's achieved. And I think anyone out there who's dealt with serious illness themselves or seen their family members or friends go through it can resonate.

And anyone who's at the helm or wants to be at the helm of a larger business, you can also resonate with with different things we discussed. 

If you’re interested in reading ‘Together We Rise’, you can find it here: https://amzn.to/3KglF41

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients.In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals is a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client

portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one

easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

I'm super excited to be joined by Alexander Antoniou, the founder of AL Solutions, a Life Sciences specialist recruiter headquartered in London, just over five years old, with 25 staff.

Now, the reason I wanted to interview Alexander is because he’s not only grown AL Solutions, but he's also built a portfolio of five other businesses that he does the back office support for. They share infrastructure, and he's basically set other people up.

Alexander is only 25 years old!

He got into recruitment at 18. Having said to his parents, who wanted him to become a lawyer, that he was going to have a gap year and just work in sales to save some money for university. 

He then became the top performer at a local life science recruitment firm, and two and a half years later, at the age of 20 years old, he went out and set up AL Solutions, which stands for Antoniou Life Science.

Alexander is an incredible guy with incredible energy. He’s so young and has achieved so much.

He looks at the business with energy, passion, and a level of simplicity. I believe we could all learn from the way he runs his business.

You’re going to enjoy this episode if you are a recruiter looking to start your own business in the future or if you're looking to grow and you want to think a bit clearly and a little bit more simply about the whole solution. 

__________________________________________

Hoxo

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo. We’ll give you the training, support, and resources to help you stand out from the competition and reach over 25,000 relevant people and drive daily inbound leads on Linkedin in 6 weeks - and if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

Now, how can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? 2 reasons:

1. Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say will do for our clients in less than two years. We actually built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2. Second is our track record. Not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, follow this link: 

https://academy.hoxomedia.com/get-started59434285 

__________________________________________

Episode sponsor: RecruitHub

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE.

One of them was Stuart Mitchell, Founder of Hampton North in the US.

With experience in both the UK and US markets, million-dollar biller Stuart Mitchell formed Hampton North to tackle the biggest problem in cyber security; the talent shortage.

Before launching his own business, Stuart felt like he had run out of growth and he wanted to achieve a better work-life balance for himself and his team. For Stuart, this meant he could spend more time with his daughter.

He now is on a mission to create the best cybersecurity recruiting team in the industry, with the support of Recruit Hub, The world’s most powerful recruitment start-up solution.

His only regret once joining Recruit Hub? Not joining sooner.

Link to his full story: https://l8.nu/ryze

On this week’s show, I am joined by Louise Campbell, Global Head of Learning and Development at Robert Walters.

Robert Walters is a global, household name in our sector, with over 4000 employees around the world.

Louise is based in Ireland. She was the MD of their Irish business for over 20 years.

Recently, she reinvented herself and moved into L&D wth the goal of making a difference across the global team. 

I love understanding Louise's mindset. 

I've personally worked with Robert Walters for three years. They’ve just signed with us for another year, and we're working with over 500 of Robert Walters's consultants on their personal brand.

Louise has been instrumental in both bringing us on board, and also working with us to ensure that training is delivered well across the organisation.

L&D is normally something that's under-invested in and not very well managed in recruitment organisations. 

What I think is so special here, is that Louise went from being an MD of the usiness to then using all of her knowledge for L&D. 

So she's not just a trainer, she's a business leader, and we talked about her intrapreneurial journey through Robert Walters, why she loves the organisation, why she's been there for over 20 years, and everything in-between. 

If you are looking to develop a strong L&D function in your business and grow organically by building the best team possible, you need to listen to this episode.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients.In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals is a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client

portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they

need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and

configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one

easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything

they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

I’m thrilled to have Kevin Frater join me for the first episode of Season 7 of The RAG Podcast! 

I usually interview founders and leaders of recruitment firms on the show, but this week we’re interviewing our first unemployed guest. 

Kevin is an absolute legend!

He was part of the Frank Recruitment Group (FRG)  for over 10 years and left in January of 2023. He started off in a role where he was doing client development, having spent four and a half years with the Allegis Group.

He soon became the fixer. This guy would go to different offices and effectively turn them around.

He started in London, then went to Singapore, and then he spent six years in Germany where he walked into a team of 12 recruiters and six years later left with over 180 staff, with one of the highest performing teams in FRG globally. 

He went through two events with the business where he realised some wealth and he finished up at the start of this year to take some time out before starting his next opportunity. 

In this episode we talk about:

🎙️ Turning around underperforming sales or recruitment teams

🎙️ Kevin’s ability to let others do the hard work, but what it took to be a true leader behind the scenes so that people could flourish

🎙️ The personal and professional challenges of international travel, and balancing everything in between.

🎙️ Rapid growth and what it takes to go from 12 to 180 staff in six years

If you’re a recruitment manager or recruiter that wants to get into recruitment management and grow your career by being behind the scenes, this is gonna be an amazing episode. 

And if you’re a recruitment business in need of a recruitment director, someone who's going to run the business, take on international operations, and drive a really scalable, repeatable model then again, listen to this conversation, because he might be your guy! (And if he isn't your guy, he's going teach you a lot in the process :) )

Hoxo

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo. We’ll give you the training, support, and resources to help you stand out from the competition and reach over 25,000 relevant people and drive daily inbound leads on Linkedin in 6 weeks - and if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

Now, how can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? 2 reasons:

1. Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say will do for our clients in less than two years. We actually built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2. Second is our track record. Not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, follow this link: https://academy.hoxomedia.com/get-started59434285 

Episode sponsor: RecruitHub

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE.

One of them was Stuart Mitchell, Founder of Hampton North in the US.

With experience in both the UK and US markets, million-dollar biller Stuart Mitchell formed Hampton North to tackle the biggest problem in cyber security; the talent shortage.

Before launching his own business, Stuart felt like he had run out of growth and he wanted to achieve a better work-life balance for himself and his team. For Stuart, this meant he could spend more time with his daughter.

He now is on a mission to create the best cybersecurity recruiting team in the industry, with the support of Recruit Hub, The world’s most powerful recruitment start-up solution.

His only regret once joining Recruit Hub? Not joining sooner.

Link to his full story: https://l8.nu/ryze

On this week's show, I was joined by Stuart Mitchell, the founder of Hampton North, a specialist cybersecurity search firm, headquartered in the US with 3 staff.

He's based in Connecticut, just between Boston and New York.

He launched the business in September 2022, so we're only nine months into his journey.

I wanted to interview Stuart because he’s built an incredible personal brand. I have never worked with Stuart, so I can't take any credit, but the way he works is exactly how I believe the modern recruiter should.

It's what I teach thousands of people to do all over the world. He started investing in his personal brand in 2017 and by 2019 he was at Stott & May on the west coast of America.

He was bringing in business all over the world for his teammates and he started to realise the power of personal branding and inbound on LinkedIn.

He then teamed up with RecruitHub and launched his own agency.

After nine months, he has billed over $ 1 million which is incredible!

He's now at three people and he wants to build a company that is fit for the modern era - a remote first business.

All of the people who worked for him have approached him, and they're already top billers elsewhere.

So, anyone who's looking to start an agency, you're going to learn a lot. Anyone who's already running a business, you could learn a hell of a lot from the way he's running his.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment business in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - we handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here  https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

On this week's show, I'm joined by James Emmett, CEO and founder of Hanover Group. 

Having recently interviewed Anthony Pitt, President at Hanover USA, I was really excited to welcome James, the original founder, on to the show.

James started the business 27 years ago and has now grown to an organisation of over hundred people across multiple international locations including both the UK and USA.

The business has not only grown organically, but also has a clear acquisition strategy too. 

In this episode, he talks at length about his buy and build strategy.

This is going to be super important for you to listen to if you are the type of organisation that wants to grow and potentially do this through a similar method. If you're a small recruitment organisation that might actually be interested in being acquired in the future then we also cover the pros and cons to the whole process.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

RecruitHub Message

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE

One of them is Kyle Winterbottom, founder of Orbition Group, a niche, talent consultancy that operates exclusively in the Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence space across the UK, Europe, and USA.

In just a year of trading, the company has gone on to build an impressive client base in the Data and Analytics space and has an industry-leading podcast with more than 20,000 listeners in 128 countries.

Before joining RecruitHub, Kyle had spoken to other start-up support companies which either wanted him to invest a ton of money upfront, then he’d only own the percentage he’d invested against what it costs to start, or they wanted a lot of equity.

For Kyle, RecruitHub was a great option – they weren’t asking for money upfront to launch, they weren’t taking loads of equity and they wanted to be involved; the company has been able to lean on RecruitHub quite heavily.

Since partnering, Orbition has benefited from tech setup, planning, legal, finance, incorporation, and more and Kyle's been able to focus on the other bits he knows how to do well.

If Kyle had known about RecruitHub earlier in his career, he'd have launched much faster.

Read Kyle's story here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/case-studies/launch-stories-orbition-group/

Roheel Ahmad on growing to 80 staff in 8 years and looking at the next phase of growth - to IPO with a £60 million valuation. 

I'm delighted to be joined by Roheel Ahmad. Roheel is the managing partner and co-founder of Forsyth Barnes. I interviewed his partner, Scott, a few years ago during the pandemic and have watched their journey ever since. 

These guys are just pushing 80 staff across Nottingham, London, and New York, and they specialise in exec search and leadership roles across three different sectors: FinTech, sports, and eTail, which is retail carried out via the Internet.

Forsyth Barnes was founded in 2015 by two guys who knew each other before and had a mission to grow something big with scale, and they've thrown everything at it.

In eight years, they’ve achieved more than they expected, now they're looking at their next phase of growth - to IPO with a £60 million valuation. They've just given away 33% of the business to the staff, and they are growing like crazy.

So, the RAG is all about growth and everyone looks at it in a different way. These guys have got a clear path that I can’t wait to share with you.

So if you are looking at growing, an exit, or an IPO, then this is the episode for you.

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s TimeTemp is your complete integrated timesheet and workforce management solution, pre-built, pre-integrated, and designed so no matter how much your business grows, you’ll be able to keep track of every single worker.

All changes inside Vincere will sync with TimeTemp and feed back into your account, automating the entire process with two-way sync from your front to back office.

Vincere’s TimeTemp enables you to create shift schedules, search available workers, shortlist, and book assignments in seconds.

It’ll also allow you to track time, leave, and expenses with its built-in pay rule engine, DoorClock and mobile app for the on-the-go.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week's show, I'm joined by an old client of mine, Matt Green. 

Matt is the founder and CEO of IDEX, a recruitment organisation with an employer branding arm and an advisory arm working with the insurance industry, the financial services sector, and now the legal sector.

Matt founded IDEX 17 years ago and they are now fully remote with 60 people in Manchester, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

What I love about this business is that over 17 years, they've managed to do things the right way. 

They've also built a product with a genuine USP where they go into organisations and sell retainers and employer branding packages. They can genuinely take recruiters from £200k billings whilst working with other firms to 1.5 or x2 in billing by giving them access to their services and technology.

And as a result of all of this work, Matt is now on a mission to 10X the business! 

But there’s no pressure and no timeline. 

Matt has a long-term view, so anyone listening to this episode, especially new founders or even people that are thinking about starting a recruitment firm will learn from this! Matt's a great person to listen to because he’s quite different from a lot of recruitment business owners.

He has patience, sees the long-term picture, and doesn't make rash decisions. He invests in his company and he sees it as his baby. So many people can take advice and learn from him in this episode. 

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support, and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients.In less than two years, we built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion-pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Vincere

Vincere’s portals is a quick-win solution for agencies in need of a no-code candidate and client portal. It’s your one-way ticket to attracting top-tier candidates and clients with everything they need in one place.

Easily set up your candidate, client, and job portal straight within your Vincere account and configure it to your own brand and theme so it feels like you.

You can publish jobs from Vincere’s Job Portal and sync them directly to your website in one easy click. You can also offer candidates a quick and easy job search interface, so it’s made easy for them to find their perfect role.

And for your clients, you can offer them unique logins so they can access everything they need 24/7, so they can rate and review candidates and arrange interviews.

Find out more on vincere.io/rag

On this week’s show, I am joined by Adrian O'Connor, the founder of Global Accounting Network (GAN) 

Founded in 2011, GAN is a business of over 27 people headquartered in the UK with an office in Atlanta. 

In this episode, we talked about his journey of growth during the last 12 years, including:

How he has built a remote-first culture with UK headquarters and a US based business all whilst personally living and working from Lisbon, Portugal

How he and his team have built a methodology and a process that has enabled them to have a much higher fill rate in the downturn of the economy. So as job flow has decreased, their fill rate has gone up to 78%.

So if you're interested in building a remote-first company, having a US-based office, living abroad and working completely remotely, or you just want to know more about how you can have a much stronger fill rate in today's economy, this episode is for you.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint from RecruitHub and access key information including:

- Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

- Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

- Co-founder MUST-knows

- How to automate your way to faster billings

- Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

- Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

On this week's show, I'm joined by Adam Richardson. 

Adam is the founder of Strive Sales, a dedicated go-to-market recruitment agency headquartered in Manchester with an office in Tampa in the US with over 20 employees.

At 33, he has loads of experience in running businesses. He got into recruitment when he was in his early twenties and, within a couple of years, he became an entrepreneur launching his first business outside of the recruitment market. 

Upon selling this credit finance business, he launched his first recruitment agency and later a second brand which he now focuses on fully today. 

Through that period, he's seen so many ups and downs, specifically in the go-to-market niche, which is predominantly recruiting salespeople into VC-backed software companies.

Over 70% of all the candidates in the sales market in VC-backed companies are underperforming, which means the knock-on effect of recruitment has been astronomical. He saw over 50% of the vacancies he was working on vanish at the beginning of 2022.

So as a company, they've had to evolve, they've had to adapt, they've had to become BD focused. 

In this episode we talk about his experience in all his different businesses, but really how using all this experience enabled him to get through such a very difficult 2022.

Now, they’re seeing the upside and it's starting to shift along with economic conditions.

Adam is a young, super ambitious, super motivated, and knowledgeable guy!

I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did recording it.

__________________________________________

Hoxo Message

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo.

We will give you the training, support and resources to take you from what I call an offline recruiter, reliant on posting jobs and sending in emails to open up new customers, ultimately looking like every other recruiter on LinkedIn - to an online recruiter, being seen by over 25,000 relevant people driving a 200% minimum increase in engagement on your profile and seeing daily lead lists from LinkedIn that you can follow up with in six weeks time.

And if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

How can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? Two reasons

1) Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say we’ll do for our clients in less than two years. We built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2) Our track record - not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,000 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, make sure you fill in our contact form and we’ll tell you how we can help: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

RecruitHub Message

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE

One of them is Kyle Winterbottom, founder of Orbition Group, a niche, talent consultancy that operates exclusively in the Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence space across the UK, Europe, and USA.

In just a year of trading, the company has gone on to build an impressive client base in the Data and Analytics space and has an industry-leading podcast with more than 20,000 listeners in 128 countries.

Before joining RecruitHub, Kyle had spoken to other start-up support companies which either wanted him to invest a ton of money upfront, then he’d only own the percentage he’d invested against what it costs to start, or they wanted a lot of equity.

For Kyle, RecruitHub was a great option – they weren’t asking for money upfront to launch, they weren’t taking loads of equity and they wanted to be involved; the company has been able to lean on RecruitHub quite heavily.

Since partnering, Orbition has benefited from tech setup, planning, legal, finance, incorporation, and more and Kyle's been able to focus on the other bits he knows how to do well.

If Kyle had known about RecruitHub earlier in his career, he'd have launched much faster.

Read Kyle's story here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/case-studies/launch-stories-orbition-group/

Recruitment owners and leaders: struggling in today’s tough market? 

Well I’m giving you 3 Clever ways to boost your business development using LinkedIn

On this week’s episode of The RAG Podcast, I wanted to release a very special episode, which is based on a webinar I recently hosted for the market, all about using LinkedIn to boost your business development.

When put into action, this advice will help you:

#1 - Optimise your profile and grow your LinkedIn network

#2 - Get the attention of your market at scale

#3 - Find daily inbound leads

This is part of the process I teach on my Personal Brand Academy, where we’re working with 4,800 recruiters globally to teach them how to win on LinkedIn. 

You can take the advice straight to LinkedIn, make some extra revenue, build some more client relationships, and get some more jobs!

This is a 30-minute video session. You can listen to this on the podcast platforms or flip to YouTube and watch this recorded video as I use slides and I show you examples you might want to see. 

I hope you make the most out of this. Listen, take it, put it into practice, and go out there and win in a market that is super competitive right now.

__________________________________________

Hoxo

Are you spending hours on LinkedIn and cold outreach and want more business coming to you over your competition? 

Well, if you're the founder or leader of a recruitment agency, here's what we can do for you at Hoxo. We’ll give you the training, support, and resources to help you stand out from the competition and reach over 25,000 relevant people and drive daily inbound leads on Linkedin in 6 weeks - and if you don't perform, you don't pay. 

Now, how can we make such a bold, results-driven promise like this? 2 reasons:

1. Whilst I've been building the RAG podcast, we've actually done what we say will do for our clients in less than two years. We actually built a business generating from zero to over 1 million views per month on LinkedIn leading to multimillion pound revenues with a sales team of me plus two people without making a single outbound call.

2. Second is our track record. Not only have we done it ourselves, but we've helped over 350 agencies and over 4,700 consultants do it as well, all in the last three years. 

Now, if that sounds of interest to you, follow this link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/get-in-touch

__________________________________________

Episode sponsor: RecruitHub

Over 70 founders have launched their businesses on RecruitHub in the UK, US, and UAE.

One of them was Stuart Mitchell, Founder of Hampton North in the US.

With experience in both the UK and US markets, million-dollar biller Stuart Mitchell formed Hampton North to tackle the biggest problem in cyber security; the talent shortage.

Before launching his own business, Stuart felt like he had run out of growth and he wanted to achieve a better work-life balance for himself and his team. For Stuart, this meant he could spend more time with his daughter.

He now is on a mission to create the best cybersecurity recruiting team in the industry, with the support of Recruit Hub, The world’s most powerful recruitment start-up solution.

His only regret once joining Recruit Hub? Not joining sooner.

Link to his full story: https://l8.nu/ryze

On this week's show, I am delighted to welcome back a previous guest, David Spencer Percival, known as DSP. His last episode was one of most listened to episodes I ever recorded!

David is the founder of Life Science People, a specialist life science people recruitment firm headquartered in London with offices in LA. 

They've got over 85 heads and they're only two and a half years old!

I interviewed David in November 2021, where he'd grown to 65 staff  in 11 months.We'd also talked about his story. 

Before he was the founder he was part of a number of businesses. He’s most famous for Spencer Ogden but he was also involved in two other businesses that grew to a £100 million in growth and over 500 staff. 

The reason we brought him on this week was to talk about the reality of the recession right now.

When we interviewed in 2021, the market was going mad. 

There were deals going in for fun and it was an easy place to make money. Life science people were growing super fast! 

But by September 2022, the whole market changed. 

In this episode David explained how perm recruitment literally ‘fell off a cliff’, and it was only because of contract revenue that the business was able to stay afloat.

He lost £800,000 in three months at the end of 2022. They're now seeing a change as there's some positive signs. 

In this episode, we cover:

If you are suffering and you're feeling that the market's a little bit turbulent, listen to David. You'll get some real quality information that you can action.

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

James Leighton on how you can build a business like his, which is eight years old, in two years!

On this week's show, I am finally joined by a good friend and client, James Leighton. James is the founder of Anderson James, a specialist construction and property recruitment firm, headquartered in Manchester with over 30 people operating in both contingent,RPO markets, public and private sector in the US.

And I'm delighted to finally have him on because I didn't actually know the story of him building the business.

Now whilst the business launched in 2015 and is effectively eight years old, the business didn't really get moving until 2017, 2018.

So they had at least two to three years at the beginning where they didn't get the business moving for a number of reasons. 

Now, James shared in-depth issues that they faced and the different steps they've gone to grow to where they are now. And he broke down exactly how he would get to where he is now in two years. 

So for anyone wanting to know how you can build a business that's eight years old in two years, you need to listen to this episode. 

He gives some really clear advice, practical examples, all the way through the show as to how a startup founder or someone trying to grow to 30 and above can do it in record time.

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

On this week's show, I was joined by Matthew Wragg, the CEO of Gattaca, an organisation with 500 people, headquartered in the UK.

Matt has been with the company for over 21 years. 

From his first role in recruitment, he's worked his way up. He’s had eight or nine different roles in that time! And then, just over a year ago, in early 2022, he got given the CEO job. 

While he never vocalised it, this was something he’d always wanted. 

In this episode, we talked about his journey to becoming CEO, but also the work he's done beyond becoming CEO. 

He talked about:

- His visibility both internally and externally

- How he still meets with clients

- How he sends out messages to his whole company every single Monday

He gives some really practical advice on how you can run a business and focus on growth and attrition. 

We also talked a lot about how Matt's super proud of working in the recruitment industry and wants his whole business to share that sense of pride. 

Matt is a young, energetic, highly inspirational CEO and a huge advocate for the industry. 

You're gonna learn a lot from this one!

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Aaron from IXL launched his own recruitment business with RecruitHub, which offers start-up support that guides new business owners through the process and takes a lot of pressure off their shoulders.

Aaron can focus on recruitment, fully supported by their finance and operations teams as well as benefit from discounts and a full tech stack that he plugged into from day one.

He started at the beginning of this year and is already profitable!

Find out more about his journey here:  https://www.recruit-hub.com/case-studies/launch-stories-ixl/

On this week's show, I am joined by James Wardle, who is the founder of Alderson James, a specialist talent acquisition and HR recruitment agency headquartered in the UK with seven staff. 

Now, what was so unbelievable about this episode is how honest and vulnerable James was.

We spoke about the 10 years of running this business and how he started life with pretty much no plan. 

He was a rec-2-rec who wanted to effectively work for himself before getting married and having children. 

Whilst the business has been running for over 10 years, everything changed during the pandemic!

Here James had to be honest with his wife, family, and friends about the fact that he was a gambling addict. This came as a huge shock to his nearest and dearest, they had no clue this was an issue.

He was at a point where he was spending - and winning and losing - on ridiculous bets. 

He was searching for daily things to place bets on in the first lockdown, like football games in Singapore and Thailand. Anywhere in the world he could find sports to bet on, he was betting and he was also investing in crypto and different highly volatile stocks.

It all culminated in September 2020 when he lost $50,000 in a day. 

His business nearly went under. He only one member of staff at that point. He was at rock bottom. 

Since then he's gone cold turkey and stopped betting. He turned it all off, and his business has grown as a result!

James soon hit $2 million in revenue with three people, personally billing £1.6m.

He's now built the team to seven. He is working with clients all over the world - some of the most unbelievable brands. He's switched on, he's focused and he's got a growth plan. 

He wants to get to 20 staff in the next couple of years. 

Now James is not a guest from the biggest business I've interviewed on the show, but it is one of the most honest, vulnerable, incredible episodes I think I've ever recorded. So I really hope you find as much value as I did having this conversation.

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

This week I  was joined for the third time by Elliot Dell.

Elliot is the CEO of Salt, a global leading digital recruitment agency with over 400 staff across 20 offices.

Now, Elliot joined the RAG in person in 2019, just before the pandemic.

At that point, there were 220 people in the company, spread across nine offices. So in three and a half years, effectively doubling the business while dealing with a global pandemic has been an interesting journey for him.

In this episode, we talked about:

🎙️ The reality of the boom post-Covid and how it helped the locations he's expanded into

🎙️ The introduction of an academy for hiring trainees and growing the organisation

🎙️ The reality of a global company - 20 offices located on every continent, and different regions suffering with different issues due to the economic downturn

Elliot also talks about protecting your time as a business leader. He discusses his routine and how he still finds time for his family, the gym, and his own self-care.

As always, Elliot was super honest and very passionate about the Salt business, sharing a vision to grow it to a thousand people in the next few years.

This was a really refreshing conversation that highlighted how high growth doesn't necessarily mean burning yourself at both ends. You can find time for everything else too.

Any business owner or recruitment leader looking to grow their headcount significantly should listen to this episode.

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Aaron from IXL launched his own recruitment business with RecruitHub, which offers start-up support that guides new business owners through the process and takes a lot of pressure off their shoulders.

Aaron can focus on recruitment, fully supported by their finance and operations teams as well as benefit from discounts and a full tech stack that he plugged into from day one.

He started at the beginning of this year and is already profitable!

Find out more about his journey here:  https://www.recruit-hub.com/case-studies/launch-stories-ixl/

On this week's show, I don't have a live guest. I have been away, and unfortunately, a few of the guests have not been able to record their own yet.

So, instead, I'm bringing back one of the most listened to and interesting episodes I've ever recorded, and that's with James Caan CBE. 

Most people know James Caan from his time on Dragons’ Den. What most people don't know is that James made his money from the recruitment sector.

James launched his own business, Alexander Mann Solutions, and is now the founder of Recruitment Entrepreneur, helping recruiters startup and scale up recruitment organisations all over the world. 

James is a celebrity, and in this episode that I recorded at the beginning of 2021, we got right into James's story and advice for anyone else growing, starting, launching, and becoming a successful recruitment owner.

We covered:

🎙Launching, growing and selling Alexander Mann in 2013 for £260 million

🎙How he felt when he had enough money to retire at 42 years old

🎙Growing Humana International and moving into private equity with Hamilton Bradshaw

🎙Launching Recruitment Entrepreneur in 2014, investing in more than 32 founders to date

🎙The impact his 3 million LinkedIn followers had on his career/business?

🎙Why he loves the industry and keeps on going when he simply doesn’t need to!

James is really humble, honest, and genuine. I hope you get value from this episode. 

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

On this week's show, I'm joined by Antony Pitt. 

Antony is the president of Hanover USA and has been in the recruitment industry since 1996. 

I love this episode because Antony was so candid about his experience. 

He's running a business in the US with more than 30 staff. Hanover is a global business specialising in financial services recruitment, with 70 staff headquartered in London.

What's really interesting about this episode is Antony talks about his challenge with alcohol addiction. 

He built his recruitment career in London, had a real issue with alcohol to the point where it was affecting everything in his life, and he decided to move to the US to change. When he got there, he was still suffering from his addiction, so he went into rehab. 

In this episode, Antony breaks down the story of how alcohol addiction can affect anyone, but also how with the right help and support, you can come out the other side and do wonderful things.

He's now 

👉 Running a multiple-million-dollar business

👉 The owner of two homes in the US

👉 More excited about his career 

👉 More energised than he ever was before

Anyone who is interested in the challenges we have outside of work and how we can get through tough times and still build a great business is going to be inspired by this show.

I hope you enjoy every word of it.

If you'd like to find out more about Hanover USA, head over to this link: https://www.hanoversearch.com/us

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

- Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

- Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

- Co-founder MUST-knows

- How to automate your way to faster billings

- Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

- Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

Jonathan Field on building a super profitable recruitment business where everyone has a responsibility to drive business

On this week's show, I am joined by Jonathan Field, who is the co-CEO of SSQ. 

SSQ is a niche legal search firm headquartered in London with over a hundred staff across 11 offices all over the globe.

They've got offices in Europe and Asia, and they've just opened one up in the USA. 

I absolutely loved this episode because Jonathan spoke about things I honestly don't think I've ever covered in four years of hosting the show. 

We talked about his journey from leaving a law firm after two years as a practicing lawyer to join the recruitment industry, and then working his way up to CEO.

We also talked about the legal recruitment sector and its high-profit nature, and the way in which they've run their business. 

We covered a number of things: 

1️⃣How they maintain profit margins of over 30% with over a hundred people

2️⃣How every single person in their business, apart from pure back-office individuals, has a fee-earning responsibility. 

3️⃣The employee ownership trust. Last year, SSQ sold 100% of the business to an employee-owned trust, which effectively means that everyone in the business owns the company and will gain incredible rewards from this structure. 

Scaling to a hundred people, 30% profit without ridiculous management structures, and then an amazing ownership exit strategy that I've never heard about before!

In this episode, we're gonna cover it all, and you're gonna learn so much from one of the most well-spoken smart founders I've ever worked with. 

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

For this episode, I’m excited to be joined by Daniel Puttick, the founder of LINKS Recruitment Group.

They’re headquartered in Cardiff, with 25 staff in offices in Birmingham and Bristol.

Dan started the business in 2017 and reached rather quick success.

He saw 7 figures of revenue and record profits inside the first few years. 

In Dan’s words, he got to a point where he thought he'd made it. 

As they were making more and more money, he began investing in different businesses.

He began starting work at different times, leaving the team to run the business.

He essentially took his foot off the gas… 

It soon backfired!

In this episode we talked about:

🎙️How Daniel got to the point where his business was in a great place

🎙️What happened to the business when he took his foot off the gas

🎙️Daniel being quite a controlling leader and what he's had to do to learn from his own mistakes 

🎙️How he had to change himself to make the business flourish

Dan was super candid and super humble in his approach, and you can see he's got his fire back to take the business to the next level. 

So anyone listening to this who's thinking about starting a business, this is a real honest account of the highs and the lows, the reality of what you must consider.

But also, if you're in the thick of growth and you think you might be at a point where you can take your foot off the gas, hopefully, this might keep you in the right direction. 

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

- Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

- Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

- Co-founder MUST-knows

- How to automate your way to faster billings

- Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

- Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

On this week's show, I was joined by Gary Redman. Gary is the CEO of the Now Business Group, a collection of recruitment organisations in construction, finance, accountancy, services, and most importantly in the education sector.

The business is headquartered in the UK with a really strong sales and EBITDA profile. We’re talking between five and a half to six million pounds per year in net profit.

Gary started the business 27 years ago. He started in recruitment at 19, quite quickly launched his own company and has been through everything you can imagine since then.

In this episode, we break down and chronologically crawl through those 27 years and talk about:

🎙️The highs and lows throughout his career

🎙️His health issues

🎙️His personal life

🎙️The catalyst that caused a lot of issues and challenges in the business

We agreed at the end of this episode that this will only be part one because Gary's story is one that we’ll need more time to tell. But, even in this first part, you’ll get so much value and inspiration.

I left the conversation feeling so inspired that someone who's in the later stages of their career is still so motivated by just doing a great job, building teams, and building businesses regardless of the money and the financial return.

It makes me think that I've got so much ahead of me.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did recording it.

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

On this week's show, I was joined by Jo Sellick. 

In 2022, Jo was the sole founder of Sellick Partnership, a specialist recruitment agency headquartered in Manchester. 

Over the last 21 years, Jo has worked tirelessly to drive the business forward and has taken the business to £95m in revenue and 105 staff across multiple offices.

In 2019, Sellick Partnership was 70% acquired by a French organisation with further plans for growth.. Little did they know that within a few short months, they were about to enter the pandemic!

In this episode, I spent time understanding Jo’s mindset, breaking down the barriers of what he went through in the early days, and the journey in between, from the start to now.

He’s one of the most personable, natural, and charismatic recruitment founders I've ever met.

This episode is hugely inspirational and Jo gives away some practical advice.

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

- Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

- Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

- Co-founder MUST-knows

- How to automate your way to faster billings

- Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

- Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

Season 6 | Ep 22 - Paul Sammeroff on how starting a rec business with two strangers backfired within 3 years!

On this week's show, I'm joined by Paul Sammeroff, the Founder and Director of PAS Capital, a specialist recruitment firm headquartered in Glasgow that exclusively operates within the oil and gas markets.

Paul’s business is only three years old with just under 20 staff at the moment. What's really interesting is the story that Paul's been through in those last three years. 

He founded the company in January 2020, just before the pandemic, in partnership with two guys that he didn't know. He was introduced by a rec to rec. 

One of the guys had recruitment experience, the other had cash and Paul drove their everyday operations. Together they created a business, but Paul quickly realised that this wasn’t becoming the partnership he had planned for. 

Sadly, the relationship didn’t work out and this led to serious strain on Paul, both in business and with his mental health. By the end of 2022 last year, Paul had decided that enough was enough - he was ready to walk away and leave the business or buy out his partners. 

In this episode, Paul breaks down everything that he did, all the challenges he faced, and how he got to a positive outcome.

I'm delighted for Paul that he's in a place that he's happy with, and I'm super excited for people to listen to this and learn the do's and don'ts of going into partnership with investors and anyone when launching a new entity. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

- Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

- Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

- Co-founder MUST-knows

- How to automate your way to faster billings

- Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

- Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I wasn't able to record this week's episode with a new guest.

Rather than leave you with a week of no RAG Podcast, I wanted to bring back an episode that I recorded in 2019, which was one of the best I've ever recorded.

My guest is known as Tom Glanfield, founder of Lawrence Harvey, LHi group. This episode was recorded pre-pandemic in an office in London.

Tom talked about his business, where he was at the time and how he was looking to exit it. He also told his story of launching the business from his house that he ACTUALLY renamed ‘Harvey House’... Amazing :)

The stories in this episode were incredible, and in fact, absolutely hilarious. I remember nearly crying with laughter at one point. 

Lawrence Harvey is one of the most well-known recruitment brands to have launched in the UK and scaled globally.

So I'd love to bring it back!

Tom and the team are incredible and have a great business. They've gone from strength to strength since the pandemic!

Today we’re going back in time. I really hope you’ll enjoy this episode!

__________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help:

- Recruitment Agency branding

- Personal Brand Academy for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Check out our website and social profile for examples of our work in action and to hear what our clients have to say about us. Like what you see? Reach out: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

 -Learn Candidate-driven strategies

 -How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

On this week’s episode of The RAG Podcast, I am joined by Chris Allaire, the founder and CEO of Averity, a specialist technology recruitment agency.

Averity was initially headquartered in New York City but is now operating across the USA.

They have 30 employees, are completely remote post-pandemic, and were awarded the best staffing firm to work for in the 10 to 20 employees bracket by the Staffing Industry Analyst, SIA, in 2022.

Chris has got energy and is a big biller! This is his eighth startup team, and he clearly comes with a pedigree of knowledge and confidence that has enabled him to not only grow a business to 30 employees in eight years, but to grow one that is incredible to work for!

In this episode, we break down Chris’ career and his mindset around building a team and business, and what has made his organisation the best place to work for in the USA.

Loads of information, loads of energy, loads of inspiration. I hope you’ll enjoy the episode as much as I did recording it.

__________________________________________

Sponsor: RecruitHub*

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

-Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

-Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

-Co-founder MUST-knows

-How to automate your way to faster billings

-Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

-Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

On this week's show, I am joined by Sinead Connolly. Sinead is the award-winning founder of Lotus People, a specialist business support recruitment firm headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with over 22 staff.

Now, Sinead and I have known each other for a few years.

She’s been a Hoxo client since just after the pandemic, and I've watched her journey go from strength to strength.

In this episode, we talked about:

- Her journey from Ireland to Australia as a backpacker

- How she got into recruitment

- How she launched her business within three and a half years of starting in the industry

- The support and backing she got from another recruitment firm to start the business

- Her original business partner and what happened there

- How she went through severe burnout after nine months of being a founder to the point where she had to take three months out of the company all while as a pair, she and her business partner billed 1 million AUD in their first year

We explored the balance between success and working ourselves to the bone as founders and recruiters, and also why looking after yourself is crucial.

We are all aware of wellbeing in 2023, but this is a real life story of someone who's got the balance wrong and became bedridden because she worked too hard.

Now, seven years later, she's won Recruitment Leader of the Year at the SEEK Awards. She's got a really, really strong business and is in a strategic CEO role where she can look after the business and isn't responsible for billing.

If you are a potential or an existing recruitment owner who is (1) looking to find balance, and (2) looking to offload responsibility and become more strategic and make the business less reliant on your billings, then you need to listen to this.

Sinead is vulnerable, honest, and confident. She's a star in the industry. I hope you enjoy every single second of this episode.

__________________________________________

If you’re a recruiter who’d love to listen and learn from some of the greatest recruitment owners and leaders then you need to listen to the RAG Podcast!

We’re having real and raw conversations with successful recruitment entrepreneurs about what is happening in their businesses right now and their plans to navigate market changes.

Episodes are released every Wednesday at 12pm GMT

________________________________________

Hoxo

We’re on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies, giving them the means to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.

Here’s how we can help you:

- Recruitment Agency Branding

- Personal Brand Bootcamp for recruiters

- Personal Brand Management

Fill in this form to find out more: https://bit.ly/3jpuEWa

__________________________________________

Sponsor

‘Wow’ your clients by uncovering tactics and power plays for high-impact candidate submissions.

Download Vincere's eBook "Techify Your Client Experience Strategy"

- Learn Candidate-driven strategies

- How to offer the “VIP” treatment

- Leverage tech for high-impact collaboration

Link: https://personalbrand.hoxomedia.com/vincere

__________________________________________

On this week's show, I am excited to be joined by Luke McCormack, the founder and CEO of McCormack Partners.

Luke owns a specialist recruitment business in Glasgow that focuses on the commercial roofing and cladding sectors all over the UK.

Luke reached out to me a long time ago to talk about personal branding, and I've witnessed his journey ever since. I’ve been unbelievably impressed by what he’s achieved.

Luke’s got a team of seven billing just under a million pounds this year, and his process is absolutely crystal clear and mapped out:

-He’s the face of the business

-He’s built a brand that has him in industry magazines

-He’s running podcasts and videos

-He gets lots of engagement online

-He has someone booking all of his meetings

-He sells 100% retained or exclusive assignments, paid upfront

-The whole recruitment process and delivery are taken care of by Luke's team

Being the face of the business, Luke requires the right people around him to deliver the retained assignment successfully within 30 days.

It’s a very different recruitment model to a lot of the businesses I've interviewed over the last few years, but one that I believe is becoming more common and hugely successful.

Luke talks about where he got his inspiration from and his energy and drive to become successful despite his humble beginnings. He also breaks down how he does what he does in a visual document and talks about the future and his plans to dominate in the US in the future as well.

Anyone listening to this will gain lots of value, especially smaller recruitment companies and potential startups who are thinking about disrupting and doing things differently by having a model that's modern and digital.

You need to listen to this episode because Luke is doing something extra! 

Sponsor: RecruitHub*

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

-Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

-Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

-Co-founder MUST-knows

-How to automate your way to faster billings

-Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

-Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

On this week’s show, I’m joined by Edmund Blogg, the co-founder of RecruitHub, the newest sponsor of The RAG Podcast.

We’ve partnered with RecruitHub because I believe we’re on a shared mission.

These guys are a leading service accelerator for recruitment businesses. They provide new founders with the infrastructure to run their business from day one and allow them to focus on building it. They register the company, build the website and take care of all business finance and back office.

They don't charge for startup costs or monthly bills. They don't chargee you anything until you make money!

I know of loads of people who have been on the show, are in my network, or are clients of mine who have done amazing things with RecruitHub.

Now, I wanted to get Edmund Blogg on the show because he started his career in recruitment, had a really decorated career, ran a global organisation, and then started RecruitHub four years ago. They now have 60 businesses in their portfolio and they reckon they’re going to reach 100 by the end of the year.

In this episode, you're not only going to learn loads about startup recruitment businesses, but also about levers for scale and exit planning. We're gonna talk about why Edmund spotted this opportunity, what's different about RecruitHub to others on the market, and some really useful tips and information for you in 2023.

Edmund is a super smart guy. There's no surprise his business is doing so well. I can't wait to not only release this episode, but also partner with him!

Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Thinking about starting a recruitment business in the UK or US? 

Download your startup blueprint and access key information including:

-Funding – how much do you need, and what are your options

-Knowing where you stand - decode your non-compete and understand your restrictions

-Co-founder MUST-knows

-How to automate your way to faster billings

-Business plan basics – what are they, and how do you write one?

-Naming & brand-building – creating a brand that stands out

And more…

Get your copy at recruit-hub.com/startup-blueprint

On this week's show, I am joined by Ephram Stephenson.

Ephram is the CEO of Collar Group, a recruitment group based in Australia with nine offices and over a hundred staff. 

Interestingly, Ephram only started the business in the summer of 2021 and sent his first invoice in October 2021.

Since then, he's grown an agency that covers predominantly blue-collar recruitment, but is now moving into white-collar recruitment and exec search.

Now, this is not Ephram's first venture into recruitment ownership.

He got into the industry in Australia in the 2000s.

He did two and a half years as a consultant where he was a top biller earning a lot of money, and then started his own business, which he had for 17 years.

He's launched a number of different recruitment businesses and brands within that time and has been hugely successful.

He is one of the most energetic and enthusiastic owners I've ever met. You'll notice this on the podcast.

There have been a few guests over the last couple of years that stand out with that no-holds-barred, high-growth energy and absolutely no ceiling on where they want to go. 

And this is another installment of that type of episode.

So if you are in the blue- or white-collar recruitment space, and you are looking to hear about a story of someone with absolutely ridiculously high growth plans, this is one for you. 

Super honest, super open, and hugely inspiring. I loved every minute of recording it, and I hope you enjoy the show. 

Vincere

A message to all recruitment leaders looking to upgrade their CRM: Before you sign the contract, be sure to read the terms at least twice.

Common traps to watch:

- Not understanding the pricing model

- Discounts limited to only the 1st year of contract length

- Monthly contracts - this could mean flexibility for the vendor to raise prices

- Data hosting - anything outside your country could mean compliance & legal issues

Get Vincere’s 10-step guide to keep your vendor due diligence & evaluation process airtight: https://bit.ly/3C2G1s3

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I am joined by Ben Duffill.

Ben is the Managing Director of MRG Group, The Management Recruitment Group. 

They’re a 60-person recruitment organisation headquartered in London, with multiple global offices.

Ben has a really unique and interesting story in our sector. 

He went to university at 18 years old and quit within six weeks.

Back in Essex, he then managed to get himself into a recruitment career with Hays. This decision set him off on a trajectory to be successful in the future.

Now, at the age of 35, in the second business he's worked for, he's top of the tree. 

He is working for the founder as the Managing Director and has equity in the business.

Over the last 15 years, he's grown a family, he's been through ups and downs, but he's been very clear on his vision, what he wants to achieve, and how he can achieve his dreams of being an “intrepreneur”.

Usually, I interview entrepreneurs who have founded their own business, but I do not want everyone in recruitment to believe that the only way you're going to succeed is if you leave and set up your own company. 

Ben has proven that you can be super successful by staying with a business as long as one thing happens, and that is what we're gonna talk about in today's episode.

Sponsor: Vincere

A message to all recruitment leaders looking to upgrade their CRM: Before you sign the contract, be sure to read the terms at least twice.

Common traps to watch out for:

- Not understanding the pricing model

- Discounts limited to only the 1st year of contract length

- Monthly contracts - this could mean flexibility for the vendor to raise prices

- Data hosting - anything outside your country could mean compliance & legal issues

Get Vincere’s 10-step guide to keep your vendor due diligence & evaluation process airtight: https://bit.ly/3C2G1s3

On today's episode, I am joined by Simon Hair.

Simon is the Managing Director of Precision Sourcing Group, a business headquartered in Sydney, Australia with 31 expert recruiters in project services, SAP, data, and software development. 

Now, I've wanted to have Simon on for a long time.

I've worked with him for over two years and for some reason it just never happened. 

But the timing is perfect, because last week he got voted Australian Recruitment Leader of the Year at the TIARA Awards.

Nominated by his team, celebrated by his peers. 

You can see why in this interview.

Simon is one of the most organised and motivated people I have been lucky enough to work with.

He enrolled in my Personal Brand Academy during the pandemic, took everything I taught him, and drilled it into his team. 

Since then, his team has gone and worked with me as a collective for over 12 months.

They now are one of the most well-known brands in Australia in their market.

Over 23% of their net fee income last year, which is well over $2 million, was generated directly from their activity on LinkedIn. 

And that doesn't even include the work they've done with candidates. That's just clients they can track who have come in as inbound leads, or they've managed to source via the interaction through LinkedIn.

So I'd say he's building one of the most socially engaged recruitment firms on the planet.

And the way he explains it makes it sound so simple and so achievable. 

He's doing so whilst also driving the four-day week, so the team at Precision Sourcing now don't work on Fridays,

He appreciates everything there is to offer and he has an open mindset. That's evident in the episode and also in the business he runs today. 

Anyone who wants to grow in a modern, innovative way and who has an open mindset is going to love this episode.

Talent Ticker 

Looking for a way to grow your recruitment business in 2022? Talent Ticker is here to help.

More than 300 recruitment agencies are using Talent Ticker to automate their recruiters’ most monotonous tasks, help them predict who will be hiring 3 months in advance, and provide simple tools to identify ideal passive and active candidates to pitch for open roles.

Learn more at get.talentticker.ai/hoxo and take advantage of their special offer for our listeners.

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I am joined by Kayleigh Bottomley, the Founder and SVP of Storm4. 

Storm4 is another branch of Levin, the fastest-growing group of recruitment companies in the world.