Season 9 | Ep33 Greg Fischer: $4.2M Revenue, $1.4M Net - Then He Left With Nothing but a Handshake

Speaker A: I remember laying in bed at night and I couldn't sleep, and I started having these fantasies of what would it be like to leave at all. She goes to me and she's like, that was really brutal. And I'm like, yeah, Daniel can just be a bit colder and harsher. And she's like, no, I was talking about you.

Speaker B: Greg Fisher spent 10 years building one of the most profitable recruitment agencies per head in the United States. $4.2 million in revenue, $1.4 million in EBITDA, 38 employees, and he had a 33% equity stake in a $50 million exit on the horizon. But Greg didn't get there. And that's not because the business failed or somebody made him a better offer, but because his partner at home listened to him on a supplier call one afternoon and gave him feedback he just wasn't prepared for. What she said forced him to ask a question that he'd been avoiding for years. He'd always been the guy that was helping build teams. He cared about the people in the business. That was his edge, his identity, and it's what made the business so successful. But in the crazy push and growth for an exit, that version of himself quietly disappeared.

Speaker A: I think we started looking at people as much more like resources and just a means to an end than actually people.

Speaker B: He'd started to adapt, change his style to become someone who could work well in that high, uh, pressure environment. He'd not even noticed the change happen. So I asked him, look, if you're on the verge of a $50 million exit, no matter what's going on, why did you leave?

Speaker A: I walked away from probably seven figures in equity at that point with nothing. I couldn't be the person I wanted to be and be in a good, healthy, working dynamic. It was going to be one or the other.

Speaker B: So Greg left, took some time out, and built a brand new business, finding offshore recruitment talent from his home in the mountains of Colorado. But this episode isn't really about that story. It's about what are you prepared to take in the relentless pursuit of growth and exit, and whether the person making those decisions and operating to grow and exit is still the person you recognize. Uh, so this is a brand new episode of the Rag podcast with Greg Fisher, the guy who walked away from a $50 million exit. Without further ado, Greg, welcome to the Rag podcast.

Speaker A: Thank you. Excited to be here.

Speaker B: No, it's amazing to have you on board, mate. And, um, from a beautiful Colorado morning setting in the background, just for those that are listening and not watching. Tell us where you are and what can we see behind you right now?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm in a little ah, mountain town in Evergreen, about 45 minutes. Um, from Denver. To me it's the perfect blend of both worlds. I can go out for a nice night in the town and then I can wake up like uh, this surrounded by trees and birds and squirrels and foxes on all sides.

Speaker B: I love it mate. And you live and work from there and spend most of your time there?

Speaker A: Yeah, as much as I can, mate.

Speaker B: Epic. Absolutely epic. I mean I've already told you pre, pre air that we're in the um, one of the, it's like a heat wave in the uk which is very rare this time of year. You do get, you do get warm weather but a week ago it was 11 degrees C. Yesterday it was 30, 34 I think in parts of the UK. So like we're not built for this stuff. Today I'm sat in my office sweltering so you look like cool and it looks perfect and I'm just in a little tin can box sweating. So I'm jealous. Well Greg, we've been chatting now for about six months. You came onto my radar, uh, from LinkedIn. Right. We were both interacting with each other. I think you commented on a few of my things. I think you declined or ignored my request, request to connect for about six months. Which was like why is he, why does he want to connect with me? But anyway we got chatting and I really enjoyed the interaction. For those that don't know you, I've done a brief introduction but could you give us the. None of the history, none of the story, just the bird's eye view of you and your operation. What you do today like headcount, location specific niche, that kind of stuff. And then we'll get in and find out how you got to where you are.

Speaker A: Yeah, I run a uh, I'd like to think one of a kind search firm where we're essentially a rec to rec firm for international recruiters. Uh, we help our clients recruit all over the world but our specialty is high performing Latin American recruiters. Launched the agency back in July of last year. Uh, today it's myself and two soon to be three recruitment consultants.

Speaker B: Amazing. And uh, you started this business, was it just over a year ago? Year and a half ago.

Speaker A: Uh, July of last year. So what, 10 months?

Speaker B: All right, so not even a year ago. Wow. First year founder energy is the, is the best. I think it's the most amazing field.

Speaker A: There's, there's nothing like it, it's, it's so fun waking up with the fire in your belly.

Speaker B: Well, let's get into your story because you didn't start as a founder, but you worked your way up to being an owner of a business. You've got a really interesting, um, perspective. Just first question I ask everyone is like the story of just getting into recruiting. How did, how did that happen? Because you were, you were in the fitness industry before.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So thought I would live and die in the fitness industry. Like, was really into sports and working out and dream job was to be a personal trainer and then someday open up my own fitness studio. And uh, I told them that during my interview, which maybe wasn't the smartest thing to say. Eventually I'm going to go start a competing business, but got a job in the fitness industry. Spent seven years working my way up into management. Ended, um, up getting fired from my job about a month after getting married, which was, uh, tough, tough place to be, um, but ended up getting recruited by a recruiter for some sales management jobs. And that job didn't work out, but we hit it off and he's like, hey, why don't you come work for me? And I was like, you know what? Yeah. Which is, am I? And I was like, I'm going to open a gym someday. I need something to pay my bills until then and why not? This seems like sales. He's a cool guy and just kind of jumped into it with no, no long term plan of staying in it.

Speaker B: So take us back to the beginning of that then. So what, what did you walk into in that business in 2015?

Speaker A: Oh man. Uh, so as a solo recruiter doing direct hire healthcare recruitment in Los Angeles, um, I'd say he had very good instincts for the business, was a very solid recruiter, had no idea to manage or run a business. Um, I jumped in and right away I was like, oh, this is just like sales, this is great. This is easy. Um, I came in with a really strong management background. And so after the first half dozen placements I was like, hey, can I start getting some clients? And he's like, uh, yeah, of course. Go get some clients. And uh, after I got a few clients I was like, hey, I don't want to recruit all the time. I like managing, leading, I like sales. Can I go hire a recruiter under meeting? He's like, yeah, do that. And uh, you know, within a year we had built out a small team underneath me.

Speaker B: So you, you naturally enjoyed or had experience in leading people and therefore Felt it would be a good idea to build a team.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's always what I'd always enjoyed, the hunt of sales. But the most fulfilling thing for me was developing people and building teams. And, uh, I just. I wanted to go chase after more money, and I wanted to chase after the work that lit me up and fulfilled me. And very clearly, that was. Recruitment was going to be unsatisfying, but building a team was going to be very satisfying.

Speaker B: Right. You worked that out. Were you living in LA at the time as well?

Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. Very, very different from what you see.

Speaker B: Yeah. Were you working together in a physical office, I imagine, in 2015? Yeah.

Speaker A: Down in Santa Monica, driving an hour and a half in traffic every day.

Speaker B: Wow. Uh, sounds glamorous. Santa Monica, until you mention the traffic.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know what, though? It was pretty cool. Driving early in the morning and would pop down to the beach and, like, go take a dip in the water and then head into work in my swim trunks. And, uh, it was a good life. Yeah.

Speaker B: So in terms of. You said recruiting was not going to be fulfilling, so break that down. How do you figure that out so soon? What was it about that part of the job that perhaps didn't satisfy you?

Speaker A: You know, it was a few placements in the first couple placements were just, whoa, this is really exciting. And the client's happy and the candidate's happy, and your boss is happy. Um, but after, like, the fourth or fifth one, I remember one day, um, Daniel, the firm's founder, um, I just made a placement, and we were excited. And he looks over and he's like, hey, like, you don't seem that excited right now. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Doesn't. Doesn't do it for me. Like, I got this guy a job that's. That's cool. But I was like, for whatever reason, like, it just.

Speaker B: You're not making decent commission off the back.

Speaker A: I was, and I liked the commission, but the actual nature of the work itself, it just didn't spark much into me for. And to honor. To be honest, to this day, I'm still not sure why, but, like, it just never. I never got really excited beyond making some commission and growing the firm.

Speaker B: So you figured out you did enjoy the client side, you did enjoy opening doors, and that other people could probably do the candidate piece. Is, uh, that kind of the conclusion you got to quite quick?

Speaker A: Yeah. The candidate placement was a means to an end, and I wanted to go find people to do that where that meant something to Them.

Speaker B: Yeah. Fair. So what did you start to grow? Because this business built some serious profit and it became a bit of a beast. And you became also a minority shareholder. So take us on that journey.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, probably six months in, I started, started getting some clients. Within a year, had one or two recruiters underneath me. First couple tries didn't go that great. Um, but eventually figured out who we needed to hire. And within two, three years, we were a million dollar practice. And then we got stuck. And I think it's where you see a lot. You work with a lot of agencies around that size, and I think it's what you typically see where, um, Daniel, the main owner, was managing a few clients. He was starting to remove himself from the business a bit. I was doing the sales, I was doing client relationships, I was managing the recruiters. I was still recruiting a little, and I was stretched really thin and just spinning our wheels. And to be honest, I wasn't very good at growing accounts. I wasn't very good at client relationship management. So we just had to keep feeding more clients in. And I could feed in enough to sustain the business, but not enough to grow the business. And really what cracked things open for us and allowed us to grow was once we figured out hiring internationally because we just, we didn't have. We were profitable, but not so profitable that I could just go hire team salespeople and just eat into our margins. But we decided to go hire a few international team members. And once we figured that out, we started to just 2, 3, 4x the number of sales calls I could get. And then we started this nice, steady ascension of growth.

Speaker B: Okay. So it kind of feeds into a lot of the conversations I have now. Right, right. It's like most of the founders are actually operated in the way that you just said. Like they, they probably would prefer to be spending time on sales calls with clients and interacting with customers. They love the new chase, they love the client relationships. But when it comes like landing and expanding, other people probably are, uh, better than them. They prefer to see the strategy and the vision open doors. So what did you build around you, uh, opening the doors as well as helping you deliver on what you, what you sold.

Speaker A: So I think what a lot of people talk about what they want. I thought a lot about what I didn't want. And I hated spending time prospecting, going and building lists of clients you'll reach out to. I also didn't really like cold calling. Um, I wish I did.

Speaker B: I don't.

Speaker A: I could do it. I just didn't love it. And I was just like, how can I. And I, I enjoyed sales calls. I'm like, how can I just have a calendar full of sales calls? And so very quickly we, we had the thought process of what if we had a list of every, every single potential client out there who fits our ICP and has a need that we could fill. And if we could find every single one in the United States and just have a list at our fingertips and every single one knew who we are and how good we are at what we would do, we could really build this thing. And so we set out with this impossible project and we hired a couple of people in the Philippines to essentially just start market mapping and just spend. And now this is common practice, but back in the day this was, this was novel where we just said, we're going to go map the entire market and have a couple of full time team members do nothing but comb the job boards looking for relevant openings, dropping them into drip email campaigns. And this is when people actually open their emails at a high rate.

Speaker B: Sequences actually worked and didn't look obvious like they do now.

Speaker A: Yes, yes. Yeah. And I loved writing and was a really good writer and so I could just spend time writing really good copy and directing the research team. And then, uh, we got really good, sharp, dedicated people and it was a beautiful thing. And very quickly my calendar just started getting filled with sales calls and I could just spend a little bit of time on coffee.

Speaker B: There was no like SDR involved. It was just email and a calendar link.

Speaker A: Purely email. Yeah, purely. It was the laziest way to grow a business. Um, just purely international. Team finds people, drops them into drip email campaigns. They get the email campaign, people say, hey, when can we talk? And that's it. And I just started getting a calendar

Speaker B: full of sales, just have a very specific email per prospect based on what they were advertising, et cetera.

Speaker A: Oh my gosh, Sean. We obsessed over it every single week. I carved out probably an hour to go refine campaigns and we had 10 different campaigns running for each different type of decision maker. And we were constantly ABC testing. Um, yeah, we nerded the heck out on email copy.

Speaker B: Yeah, but it worked, right?

Speaker A: Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like we, we would do things like go create LinkedIn profiles and then go reach out to recruiters with that to see like what other recruiters were writing and then spend a lot of time on. Well, how can we differentiate ourselves? We spent an immense amount of time on that, but yeah, it worked. And we got To a point where very quickly my calendar is just getting full of sales calls, um, which then started to put us in position to really build the business.

Speaker B: What were you selling? Was it ones and two role fills like retainers? What solutions? What was the pitch?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, so it was a lot, a lot of it was. First we started off just doing, you know, 20% contingent. Then eventually we figured out, wow, we're really shooting ourselves in the foot here. We're taking on a lot of bad business. Um, and so then we started switching to 25, 27%, mostly retained search. So we were doing a lot of that. And then I think we created our own luck where we ended up stumbling into an RPO deal, um, that was worth a 30 to $50,000 a month retainer. And then once we got a taste of that business, we actually started building out a retained practice as well. Or ah, not a retained practice. A RPO practice.

Speaker B: Yeah, a monthly recurring revenue RPO practice. Yeah. So what, it took three years to build? Three year point. Were you just starting that journey or was that where you were starting to win these RPOs, etc.

Speaker A: So yeah, I think we, we got our first RPO deal probably right around year three, year four.

Speaker B: What, what team did you have behind you at that point? The delivery. And how did you sell the delivery function?

Speaker A: Yeah, so initially it was, it was nothing and we had to be on site every other week and it was, man, I. That uh, it was one of those times where you just keep going and going and going and you're working till midnight every night. You have no idea how you do it, but you're just so fired up because the opportunity. So at that point it was Daniel as the owner and he was more strategy. At that point I was managing the team and then I probably had three, three recruiters on my team and I was managing the client relationship, I was directing the strategy. We had a full time recruiter dedicated to delivering for that client. And then our other two recruiters were just focused on our direct hire practice. And then, and then actually Offshore was a big part of that because there's no way she could have managed 30, 40 open requisitions at the time. But we had two full time offshore recruiters handling all the sourcing, handling the outreach. And like, just like they were lining me up with sales calls, they were lining her up and our goal was just to have her day start to finish nonstop calls with candidates. And we were able to do that really well. That, that ended up being a multimillion Dollar client over the course of a few years.

Speaker B: Wow. So m in behind you. Then there was people capable of managing projects on the ground in the US was supported by offshore recruiters. How much involvement did you have at the point of right, they've signed a contract, it's, you know, it's recurring or it's a retainer or whatever. How could you, could you pass that on and go to the next sales call or were you still. Was it like the more you sold, the lower, the less your capacity was to sell more?

Speaker A: You know, I think we did decent at handing off relationships. So the day to day relationship, the submissions, the gathering feedback, we were able to hand all of that off. I would hop on like with that RPO client, I would hop on a monthly strategy call to talk through performance, to talk through APIs. If a hiring manager wasn't behaving and our recruiter couldn't get that done, I would do it. But um, and it took a lot of work. Like initially, you know, it was probably 30 hours a week dedicated to that client. But after a couple of months I was able to step back and probably get down to a point where it was a couple hours a week. And um, I would say for our business as a whole, I stepped back from most of our client relationships and focused on sales. I would also say that was our downside. And what I didn't do very well was set our recruiters up to say, you're responsible for building this account now. And for that reason, one of my biggest regrets is nobody was really responsible for building accounts for a lot of our company's existence. And we lost out in a lot of recurring business for that reason.

Speaker B: They were good at filling what you committed to, but they weren't finding the next piece. And it was just like a leaky bucket of clients coming in basically.

Speaker A: Yeah. And they could handle the conversations, you know, they could work all the way through with a client to an offer stage and giving feedback and they didn't need me for that. But nobody was saying, hey, let's hop on a quarterly business review, let's send some NPCs.

Speaker B: And uh.

Speaker A: But we were really good at sales.

Speaker B: Yeah. So there was new client acquisition machine. But then once it came in, so you were lacking like that really strong delivery, someone on your level. But on the delivery side it was thinking, how do we grow? How do we land and expand accounts?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So that, that sounds like around about 10 people. Circa 10 people. When it comes to the people at the front in the Philippines doing the market Mapping, sending out the emails, you on sales, you know, five people or whatever behind you got Daniel, the founder. So how did that then evolve over? Because you were there for the best part of, was it nine years you were there?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So how did that evolve from 10 people to you becoming a shareholder? Like, what was the next phase?

Speaker A: So, and there, there are a couple of things that went in tandem. I think me becoming a shareholder in the business, growing, uh, like it eventually did were, were correlated. So I, you know, we're three, four years in. This practice is growing, but also only growing to a certain degree. We're around a million, million and a half, um, in revenue. I still wanted to go open a gym, so I decided to do that. And it, uh, was a bit of a ballsy move, but I, I went to Daniel and I'm like, look, I've always had this dream, I want to do that. Um, I also, this is my day job, it's paying my mortgage. Um, so I want to do both. And I brought in a couple of business partners for, for this fitness studio we had wanted open and happened to be two blocks away from the office just by chance. And I went, yeah, in la. Um, so we got, we got really lucky with the space. And I go to him and I'm like, look, you know, from 8 to 5 I'm fully focused on AMI, but the hours outside of there, I'm going to be working on this gym and um, this comes first. But just so you know, my goal is to build this thing and scale it and I have to give him a lot of credit. He said okay. And he, he really wanted to support me with that and, and I think I'd earned a lot of trust. You know, we had, he had struggled for years to build the business and now together we had built something. So I think I earned to an extent, but I think a lot of people would have said absolutely not, it's one or the other. Um, and I was doing that. So I would get to the office at 5, 5am, 6am and I would start working on operation stuff for the gym. Then I would focus on the firm. And then after I would hop down to the gym again and go sit down with my business partners and work on the business. And um, you know, it was 12 to 14 hour days and um, with a bit of a commute on top of that. And I was so fired up about it, I was able to do it and I had a really wonderful partner at the time and she, she really supported me and I think helped to make it possible. But, um, after about a year in it, my business partners in the gym were at each other's throats. Things were going okay. We were profitable, but not that profitable. And we realized we weren't likely to reach our goals. And I wasn't at the point where leaving the recruitment firm made sense. And so we decided to get out of the gym. And we got incredibly lucky. We had probably a $10,000 a month, um, lease on the space and got really lucky. We found somebody who actually paid us to take over the lease and uh, got out a little bit before COVID which was great because that gym had its doors closed for over a year.

Speaker B: What kind of gym was it? Was it like you studio, like classes, class based gym, or was it just a classic, classic gym with like weights, free weights areas, etc.

Speaker A: It was a studio with small group classes. But the whole idea was, you know, CrossFit and all F45. A lot of these kind of wreck your body. And our whole idea was we put a lot of attention into posture and stretching and mobility while doing group classes. Um, yeah, yeah. So small, small group training and you know, look, we did probably three quarters of a million dollars in revenue. But my business partners had expensive lifestyles and that wasn't going to be enough for them. And they just didn't get along very well. And a lot of lessons learned in that one. But, uh, yeah, eventually we realized we had to get out.

Speaker B: So that was like. I mean, you mentioned you got a really understanding partner, but like your life must have been crazy at that point because you're traveling, commuting, running two businesses. You know, how do you maintain, how do you maintain a relationship outside of work in the midst of that?

Speaker A: You know, I, I did make sure part of it was honestly being really selfish in, in ways that were good and bad. Like I, I made sure in the morning I would stop at the beach and I would meditate. I would take a swim in the water. I was working with a personal coach who just helped me a lot with my mindset. Um, I got, I, I owned a gym, so I was able to get into the gym. Right.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker A: And, and I would still get out to play soccer, uh, a little bit, um, or sorry to everybody in the uk, football. Uh, I'd still, I'd still get out and do that. But uh, honestly the, the home life wasn't very good and I, I was not, I was not a great partner during that time. And I have to give, um, I have to give her a lot of Credit because she knew this was my passion. I talked about it for years and she said, I'm behind you and it was never going to be the long term goal. But yeah, a lot of personal relationships really suffered and I just said, I, I need all my energy for myself. I even need you to give me that energy. And I think I was able to get through it and perform really well. But, um, I definitely took. It was a bit of an energy vampire from people around me.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's one thing saying I want to support someone and who's going through that, and it's another thing living that. And I've, I've seen so many people lose relationships because of their businesses and. Yeah, uh, you know, maybe a slightly different phase to where you were, but like, you know, going for that big exit or whatever, like they talk about, I'm building it for my wife and my kids or my husband or whatever. And then by the time they get there, they're gone, you know, because they, they've not been able to endure being second best to a business for 10, 15, 20 years, however long it's taken. So in a way, I'm quite glad for you that it was only a year because that could have really done some more damage in your life. Um, so what happened next then? So you go back to the drawing board. What does Daniel, how does Daniel take it that you've.

Speaker A: Well, I, I think, you know, he was really supportive. Obviously he was happy for himself. To say now, now I have all of Greg back. And, uh, I, you know, it was, it was tough. I, I put a lot of energy into something that ultimately cost me money. I probably lost $150,000 in the venture. And so I lost a lot of money. I lost a lot of time that I really valued. And um, I took time to reflect though, and I, I think I thought a lot about. Well, imagine you took this time and money and you had spent it on your education. Look at it like if you went and got an mba, which might have been a similar number of hours and money. And you know, you do that because you get a lot out of it. And I'm like, so what if, what if I could go back and look at it and say, like, what, what did I get out of this? Was it just for nothing? And I spent a while reflecting and I remember because I was like, I was just hurting after all this. I was like, man, you just threw this away. You didn't reach your dream, like, so I was pretty crushed. Demoralized and I ended up just writing it out. And I was like, what, what did you learn? Like, what can you take out of this and apply for the future? And I wish I still had this, but I wrote down a list of 22 different things. Some of them were lessons like the risks of just owning a physical, physical retail space. Some of a lot of it were lessons learned about alignment with business partners and alignment on values and how to run a business. And I look back and I was like, you know what? I think these are really valuable. Let's, let's see how it plays out. Let's see if I can actually apply what I learned from here in the future. Um, but I, and a lot of it was also like, what's meaningful to me? And I had always thought that being in the health and fitness space was what was going to be most meaningful. But after I reflected on that, I was like, you know what? That's not it. It's building teams and helping people grow and building their careers. Like, that was the through line. Because I enjoyed that in the recruitment firm too. Um, strategy, creating something like, there were a few of these things that I started to learn. It's not necessarily the vehicle, it's not a gym, it's not a recruitment firm that matters less. It's really all about the people and what you're building with them. And I think that was a big aha for me where I was able to let go of that being the career path I had to follow. I also knew that I wanted to be financially independent, um, by a relatively early age. I really wanted, when I someday had kids, I wanted to be really present in their lives and not stuck working 80 hour weeks. And so I knew that was going to be through business ownership. And so I went back to Daniel and I said, hey, so, you know, I have this goal of being financially independent by my early 40s. I don't think I'm going to be able to save up enough money from some salary and commission to get there. Um, and I was probably in my late 20s, early 30s, early 30s at the time. And it's going to come through business ownership. And I see two different paths. One is rinse and repeat of what we've done before. I continue to be the practice manager of this business. I'll do a great job. Like I kept this running for the last year. I'll continue to do that. I'm going to go start another business and eventually when that business is successful, I'm going to leave and it's not going to be in recruitment. It's going to be something else. I'm not going to compete with you. And whenever that happens, I'll leave. That's option A. Option B is, I found this really fulfilling. And you've seen what 60% of Greg can do. Imagine if I take all the lessons and all the energy I poured into that and put it all into ami, and I need to have a meaningful enough ownership stake in this for that to be worthwhile. But if we can do that, this is going to be your path to freedom for yourself and also freedom for me. And he thought about it.

Speaker B: I mean, I'm thinking of giving you equity in my. You got me here. Come on.

Speaker A: Yeah, this is, you know, I think. I think it came from me getting really clear though, from going through that first, what really mattered. And, um, and he's like, I like option B. And so we work. Yeah. So we worked out a deal where, um, if I hit certain milestones, I could own up to, uh, I think it was 33% of the business. Um, which to me felt. I felt from going from a shareholder to being an owner. That's what I told him. M. I need to feel like an owner of this business. Yeah, we worked out that path and then started getting after it. And that ended up being 20, 20, 21 time. Uh, this was probably. Yeah. Uh, no, no, this would have been pre pandemic, so probably like 2018, 2019.

Speaker B: Okay, so you've agreed. Was it like shares that would be like you say, over a period of time hitting, like I said, all mines. Milestone related.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Yeah. So what happened?

Speaker A: So, so I started investing all of my energy into building this.

Speaker B: And thankfully you're still with the partner that saw you through the gym stage at this point.

Speaker A: Uh, so we had, we had gotten out of that, uh. Oh, yeah. Romantic partner. Yeah, we were married to my now. Now ex wife, which is another story. Yeah.

Speaker B: So she, she saw. So she saw you go all in on the gym and then come out and then go all in into another business, right?

Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. Um, yeah. So. So her and I are still together. We're. We're still together. Um, I go all in on the recruitment firm and thankfully I didn't have to work 80 hours a week to be able to build this thing. But I was dedicated to. And, um, I think with all of my energy into it, um, things started to work out and I started to look and like, how can we build this thing? And we looked at things like, how can we go replicate this half Million dollar a year RPO client. And we started looking at our existing accounts and we ended up flipping. Get this, this was a 17% contingent client that we shared with five other recruitment firms. We took that and turned it into an $80,000 a month retainer. So uh, we had some really big things click into place. I started to say, how can I replicate myself and eventually work towards having a leader over our direct hire recruitment team? Eventually we built out a leader over our RPO team. And once we put leaders in place and I invested in building them, they were really able to go in and say, how can we make this get better? How can we take the framework that Greg built and then built on top of how can we actually give a shit about our clients and spend time talking to our clients and developing our clients and building a client development strategy? And so then things started to grow and in a three year window we went from a million dollar practice to a $4.2 million practice. Um, and we went from a team of 10, 15 to a team of 38. Um, and out of that 4.2 we were able to net 1.4 million. So it was a really, really healthy business financially.

Speaker B: 30 over 30%. No, circa 30 margin.

Speaker A: Yep. And the really cool thing is by that point Daniel and I were completely removed from the day to day. So we did at that point, I think that year I closed one deal.

Speaker B: Um, so I, at this point you're not even the, you're not even the guy on the sales calls anymore. Someone's writing the email copy still that same strategy, email copy responses, book into someone's calendar, someone sells, passes that on someone else is capable now of land and expand. Like that was the model.

Speaker A: Yep, yep. So we had four. And not only that, I had removed myself from managing those individuals too. Um, so we had individual contributors, we had leaders who were phenomenally talented over those individual contributors. And then I sat on top of them and then Daniel was able to kick back and, and uh, relax and enjoy life quite a bit also.

Speaker B: Wow. So what, what year did you reach that 1.5 million dollar net profit?

Speaker A: Uh, 2022. So you know, part of it was we, we built a successful business. Part of it was we were definitely riding the highs of the economy.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say, what, that's the best time in the history of recruitment?

Speaker A: Probably. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: But I mean I'm not taking anything away from you because not many people have done what you've done, so that's, that's incredible. So what, what happened next because, because it didn't quite pan out how you maybe planned when you pitched him that, uh, amazing option B. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So 2023, the business, like every other took a dip. Thankfully it wasn't horrible. Wasn't like a lot like we were still doing somewhere north of 3 million. Um, so we were still doing okay as a business, but we weren't necessarily doing this anymore. One of the really big things that changed was we went from, let's go run this as a lifestyle business. Let's build something that's really profitable. Let's surround ourselves with people that we're happy to spend time with. We went from there to Daniel started to craft this vision of I want a $50 million exit. Um, I want to be set for life. Which would have made me essentially set also

Speaker B: 30% of that would have been a lot of money.

Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of money. So I said, okay, let's do this. As that happened, a lot of the way we made decisions started to shift as well. So we started to go from what makes us money today, what just makes this a well run business that we can mostly remove ourselves from, to what's going to get this big fat exit. And so that led to a lot of changes that I think contradicted maybe some of the ways we would have made decisions in the past. So, so really good example. So we also had a contract, a contract staffing business as part of this too. And when we started looking at selling, we said, well, direct hire has crap multiples. Um, we're not.

Speaker B: When you say direct tire, you mean like contingent permanent recruitment, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, permanent recruitment. So we said that that business, we're not going to get great multiples if we keep growing that side of our business. RPO sells for good multiples. We're going to have to grow it a bit. Contract, um, staffing is what's going to get the best multiples. And when we then looked, and at that point, when we looked at our profit, it was pretty even about a third, a third, a third from each of those three practices. And when I looked at our energy, so my time spent, our sales team's time spent, it was about a third, a third, a third. And we said, well, wait, this doesn't make sense. If we need to get a big exit, we have to put most m of our eggs in the contract staffing business and a bit in the RPO business and pretty much not in the direct hire business. Um, and which broke my heart a bit because I had always been far more attached to the direct Hire. I think I'm more of just a direct hire guy in general and, but that's what we had to do. So we actually went through a wild transition of take telling our recruitment team which was all 180 recruiters or 270, they're managing client relationships and said you're going to be on your own now. You have to go get clients. Um, and I spent six months with that practice teaching them on how to get clients. But to them they felt abandoned and rightfully so. And our company, everybody else said hey, we're a company where we take care of our own. And they saw us basically kick one out to the curb and say go fend for yourself. And it was a smart business decision based on our long term goals. But from a human to human standpoint it just again it felt like you were just giving the kids a boot and that ah, that was, couldn't you

Speaker B: just keep one of the sales team dedicated to them and have the campaign running and then just put like I say, just keep the lights on for them though?

Speaker A: Sure, yeah, we, we could have, we, we still felt like we needed to be all in on that, on that strategy. And to be fair we had a belief that our Recruiters180 recruitment team could do it. But we were also prepared for them to fail and for that to go to zero. Um, funny enough, that team ended up growing and being even more successful as 360 recruiters. So that ended up working out okay for them. Um, but that definitely. And I think we started to make a lot of other decisions that said let's take profit and growing our contract staffing business and that now becomes the top of the pyramid and everything else is a bit more of an afterthought.

Speaker B: Okay, so I'm still. Well as a seasoned recruiter. You know that a CV never tells the full story about. Someone can better share what really matters during conversations. They tell you on calls, in the interview over email, what they're motivated by, the salary expectations, plans to relocate, etc. Most of the detail ends up buried in notes forgotten. It's not on a resume. Now our headline sponsor, Atlas CRM changes all of that. It's the first, first AI native recruitment platform built to eliminate admin. Um, it captures every single conversation automatically that you guys have and turns it into something you can use. They've got something called Magic Search which is now out. Right. And what you can do is ask it questions like who talked about one in a four day week? Or who mentioned they're open to relocating Next year, it searches across your entire database and pulls the answers instantly. So it's not about keyword guessing and digging through old notes. You get insights from real conversations not limited by CV fields and coded filters. Atlas also makes BD easier with their opportunities tracker. You can track and grow with client relationships powered by generative AI, and that's built into an existing workflow, so you don't need any extra tools. It's in the CRM if you want visibility of your business. Atlas's smart dashboards give you clear view of the pipeline across your business. And it's not theory. Right. Atlas customers have reported over 40% EBITDA growth, an 80% increase in monthly billings from adopting the platform. Atlas is built for agencies who want to grow without adding more manual work. So don't miss the future of recruitment. If you're sat there thinking, I need to bolt AI into my platform today, don't even bother. Just get started with Atlas and unlock your exclusive listener offer, uh, at, uh, www.reruitwithatlas.com therag. All right, let's get back to the show. I understand why that might be a challenge in terms of you've got an emotional attachment to the direct hire permanente. Yeah. But if they're turning it around and performing, where does that become a problem? Because what you're saying is that, uh, decision's paying off. Plus, I'm putting all my eggs into the contract business is going to be with a multiple which pays for my future payoff. Where's the challenge?

Speaker A: Yep. Yep. So it was more. It was more of the mindset business. From a business standpoint, that actually was. It was a wise decision, but it was more of the mindset of going, we take care of our team. We put a huge amount of priority on taking care of our team. To now the number one is just how can we go make more money? How can we go get to that $50 million exit? And I think we started looking at people as much more like resources and just a means to an end than actually people. And I started to really struggle with that a lot more and more, especially because that was the place where I got the most meaning in the work.

Speaker B: And you. How did that change the dynamic between you and Daniel and the conversations you would have?

Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely started getting a lot more heated. It's a really good question. I think we started, Daniel more and more was just like, we need to make cold, hard business decisions. Which, to be fair with our goal was probably the right mindset. It was the right mindset And I kept going more and more, like, this is a person. Like, we can't. We can't kick them that occur. We can't just look at them as a cog in the wheel. And, um, like, we got to be loyal to them. Like, yes, if somebody doesn't perform, we get rid of them. But, like, if this is a good person, like, we. We take care of them. And so more and more, we started. We started butting heads a lot more. Um, and I found. I think one of the big things for me was I started finding, um, two things. One, I started finding myself speaking out against him publicly, where there would be a company decision, and people would go like, hey, tell me about this decision. I'm like, that's Daniel. And it started being a lot clearer that there was Greg's way of doing things and Daniel's way of doing things. He gave me a lot of freedom, but very. And even the people hired, there were people who were more supporting Daniel's areas of the business, and they had a certain, I would say, value set and mindset. And then there were the people I were building. And so the company was going from this to starting to tear down the middle.

Speaker B: And is there about 40 people now? Has it got bigger what we're at?

Speaker A: Oh, no, it's, uh, probably a third of where it used to be.

Speaker B: It's probably a no at this point, though. I'm saying when it starts to.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So it's. It's still around that size. Right? Right around 35, 40 people. Um, it starts. Starts doing weird things for me, too. So I remember one time Daniel and I were on a call with a vendor, and, um, my current partner now happened to be just in. In the living room, within earshot. And after we. We get off the call and we're tearing into this vendor about this and that, and she goes to me and she's like, that was really brutal. And I'm like, yeah, Daniel can just be a bit colder and harsher. And she's like, no, I was talking about you. I was like, whoa, whoa. And I. I think something that had happened to me is to keep the house together, I had started to live a bit more in Daniel's world. And ultimately, it was. It was his company more than mine. But I'd started to adapt a lot more of his mindset in order for us to work without even thinking about it, it just kind of.

Speaker B: That's not true. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, but that, uh. I think that forced me to take a good look at myself and Say, who is the person that I want to be? And then who is the person that I need to be for this business to work and for us to be viable business partners? And probably over the course of six months, it just became. As I asked myself that question over and over, it became very clear that I couldn't be the person I wanted to be and be in a good, healthy working dynamic. It was going to be one or the other.

Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I read in, uh, when I did my research, that was the line. It was like, I, I don't. I didn't like the person I'd have to become to stay. Which is. Yeah, uh, change usually only occurs right when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the. The thought of change. So you got to that natural point. Was there like a final tipping point? Was it that. That chat with your partner, or was there something else that made you go, right, well, enough's enough?

Speaker A: No, it was. I don't think there was a single tipping point. I think it was just a lot of continual reflection. And then it kept building. Actually, you know what? There was. There was one, um. I don't know if I've talked about this before, so I remember laying in bed at night and I couldn't sleep, and I started having these fantasies of, um, what would it be like to leave it all? Like, what would it be? And I'd had such, like, blinders on, like, you are building, building, building, and you will get there. And I was like, what would it be like to leave? And I started like, fantasizing of like, sell my house. Buy the smallest little cabin in the woods, Pay all cash. I think I remember. This is so ridiculous. I was like, I'm going to start a blog. I love sardines. I'm like, I'm going to start a blog called the Sardinery. And I'm going to start these niche blogs and work like five hours a week blogging. And that'll just be just enough. And I'm just going to be out in the woods with my dog and my partner and that'll be it. And I remember staying up until like three in the morning on Zillow just like looking at houses and then looking at myself going, what the hell? Like, the next day, I was like, man, if you are seriously, uh, fantasizing about, like, there's, there's something wrong here. Like, you have to question what's going on.

Speaker B: And, uh, that's a natural reaction to the friction you're going through, though. And again, I'm going To. I'm totally in a different world here, but, like, in the similar timeframe, 2020, I'm in a. I'm in a relationship where, you know, I'm married for a year. It's failing. I'm going to get divorced. You know, I. My business is building. We're not at that level, but we're probably at 20 heads and thinking about growth and scale and. And I. I became obsessed with the minimalists, the guys from the US who, like. I don't if you know those guys, but there's two guys who write, they blog, and they have a podcast and they have a couple of Netflix documentaries about, like, stripping back and just getting rid of everything that's irrelevant. Right. And I'm. I'm watching these tiny home documentaries and I'm. Yeah, I was fantasizing about getting rid of everything.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Genuinely. So I went to a beef for six weeks on my own, and I'm. I'm just renting this Airbnb with. With a backpack, and I'm like, I don't need any of the shit that I've got home, like, in any of it. I don't need any of it. So I got rid of 90% of it. I got. I rented a flat in Manchester which had, like, basic. I mean, it was a beautiful apartment, but it had, like. It came with furniture, and I added literally nothing. Like four plates, four bowls, four knives, four forks, four glasses, four mugs. That was it. And my wife came, who I'm now married, when she started dating me, she came and she was like, where the. Where the she stuff? I was like, what stuff? She's like, where is it? I was like. I told her, right, let's go back a bit. And it was literally like, what you said I'd be fantasizing, and I started just getting rid of shit. And it was great. I loved it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I've never. I've never heard somebody who had it, who had a similar experience.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, very similar. Maybe not the woods and the cabin, but it was about tiny homes and. No to carry because you, uh. Probably because you feel like you're carrying so much, you're just looking for release in all areas. And everyone. Someone else's life looks better than yours at that point. If you're going through enough of a challenge.

Speaker A: Yeah, I just. I wanted to get away from it all. And, uh, I didn't realize I wasn't being honest with myself about how much my situation was eating at me. And I think that forced me to start being really honest.

Speaker B: So what did you do after that when you. When you took stock and realized, actually, you know, I was a bit hasty in the night. But what did you. What was. What was the next step?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I started. I started getting clear on what matters to you and became very clear the person who I was going to be. And that person needed to be consistent at work and at home. I wasn't going to compromise on that. And then it became very clear that I could not coexist in the business and be the person I wanted to be. And so I knew I was going to leave. Um, I spent some time reflecting on what I wanted to do. Um, and I hadn't actually told my partner, my business partner. And I said, hey, I'm going to go, I can do direct hire recruitment, I can do executive search in my sleep. Um, I knew some good industries to do it in. And I said, I don't want to build the team right now. This is going to be too much. I knew I was burnt out. I didn't realize how burnt out I was, but I knew I was burnt out and said, I'm going to go figure out a small executive search practice, go make 3 to 500k, work 20 hours a week, spend a lot of time in the woods, do that for a few years, and then probably go build something eventually. So I got clear on that. Took maybe a month or so to figure out what that plan would look like. And then I went and told my.

Speaker B: Did all this while still working for ami.

Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. Went to my. Went to, uh, Daniel, my business partner. Told him, told him where I was at. He, uh, was shocked. Totally shocked, Totally blindsided. In. In hindsight, I wish I had indicated earlier that I was struggling and given the opportunity to process and for us to talk about it, but I just went to him and said, hey, I'd made a decision. And then, um, he's like, okay, like, is there anything that would change your mind? I told him no, and that was it. So we took a. We transitioned myself out over the course of a month, handed off my responsibilities to him, to the rest of my team. They were.

Speaker B: Did you have any. Is there any value to the shares or was it one of them? If you leave, you. You relinquish that.

Speaker A: Um, we ended up with a handshake deal. If he and I, I knew I might walk away with. With nothing. And contractually he had the leverage to do that. So we walked away with a handshake deal that if we kind of timestamps, this is where the company was and what the company would be worth and if he sold the company at some day he would pay me out. But it was, and still is to this day, handshake deal. I walked away from probably seven figures in equity at that point, um, with nothing, which was a bit of a ballsy move but, but it was the right move and that was it. And I uh, was really, you know, it felt like it's not non, not a divorce. I've gone through that also. But, but also that to some extent when you spend 10 years building a team around you and um, being deeply invested in those people and went off and started doing this executive search thing and doing the networking, it was a non competing business. I was working a different market and within, you know, initially I was excited about it, but two weeks in it just felt like a drag every morning.

Speaker B: And you were going to serve non,

Speaker A: uh, health care nonprofits in Colorado. And very, very tight market was a market I knew I could work very well and it just felt like a drag. I had no energy other than make sure at some point you bring in money before you run out of money. And that was the one and only motivator. And I was like, wow, is that what I left for? Did I leave to go spend 20, 25 hours a week just literally trading time for money without getting anything out of it? I was just like, oh, that's, that's going to be rough. Um, and so I figured out pretty quickly that that wasn't going to be the path within a month and was doing a little bit of consulting and that was actually fun. And I'm part of a business peer group called lfg. It's me and three other guys and they're like, hey, you should think about this consulting thing. And I'm like, uh, I don't know. But they talking to them kind of convinced me to let go very quickly of this executive search practice. And I took a few months to just decompress. And in that time I started to realize how burnt out I was and um, took about three months of maybe.

Speaker B: Were you already living in Colorado in the woods at this point or you left la?

Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. I'd been out here for a couple years and was uh, just took a few months to spend time in the woods, spend time playing video games, spend time with my partner, just like doing anything but being productive. And uh, that allowed me to decompress a lot. And doing that I think I started to get a lot clearer on what I would want and what I didn't want. And I knew I didn't want to just do a traditional recruitment practice. It just, it didn't fire me up enough and I didn't want to spend time doing something that I didn't care about. Um, and so as I was doing the consulting, um, a lot of that work came from people saying, well, hey, you built this amazing business that ran like a well oil machine. You've removed yourself from, from the day to day. You, you were really profitable because you had international teams. How'd you do it? And I was initially just coaching people and well, here you're a recruiter, here's how you go recruit good people. And everybody said, yeah, but I don't want to take time away from recruiting for my clients to go recruit offshore or nearshore employees. Can you go do a for me? And I had in my head, um, I'm not, I'm not a recruiter, I'm a consultant. I'm not going to do this. But I went, this was wild. I went something like 2 for 20 on sales calls. And my business group was like, Greg, you have to go do this. You're crazy. Like, everybody is telling you they want to talk to you about hiring international recruiters.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they want you to go do it. You need to go do this. And eventually it became clear to me that there was an opportunity. And initially I was like, hey, I'm going to go find people and maybe I'll just ask for a commission for a referral and I'll build out this really cool referral practice. But I couldn't find a good referral partner, especially for Latin America. The majority of the solutions out there were more of a staffing model, which was great and could add a lot of value. But I was a big believer on the best employees are going to want to be direct employees of a business. And business owners do best. The employee does best when they're fully invested. And it needed to be a direct model. And I didn't find anybody who could find world class talent, especially in Latin America. And so that then led to the idea for well oiled machine,

Speaker B: which is awesome. So, you know, that's how we came. How I got on your radar. You got on my radar was through like LinkedIn comments and seeing your, your profile and you kind of already doing. A lot of the things that I talk about is you, you know, you, you're building a presence that's clearly got, uh, you clearly got a lane that you live by and you communicate regularly. And I think you told me like yeah, your first. All your clients pretty much were inbound in the first six months or so. So tell us what, what was your strategy to attracting clients for this new remote practice? Because did you, you know, you could have just done. I don't know if you did, but the whole scraping data, uh, sending out emails, etc. What you did before.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I, again, often I'm driven. I am clear what I want, but also what I don't want. And I initially thought about doing email outreach very quickly started to realize that it wouldn't be as easy as before and maybe I could figure out a way to do it. Maybe the channel just was never going to be as productive. But my sense was I wasn't going to be able to build this out effectively through pure, cold, outbound email. I also knew I didn't want to do cold calling and I didn't really have a strong network. Like, like I knew a couple of people, but I wasn't going to be able to leverage my network to do it. And I had a really good friend in that business group, Eli, who runs a marketing agency. And he had gone all in on LinkedIn a year ago, a year earlier. And, uh, he had actually signed up with the coach and everything. And I had before been like, LinkedIn's bullshit, like, whatever, it's just luck. Most of the time it's just people just wanting to brag and maybe a few people get clients, but it's all just luck. And he had started to get a lot of clients and I'm like, oh shit, there's something here with this. And like, I enjoy writing, so that part would be cool. And I have a lot of thoughts and opinions to share, so that could be fun. And this guy's figured it out and I feel like I could go just obsess over this and figure out a way to do it really well. And so I actually, I started following some different coaches. You had gotten on my radar, A few other folks had gotten on my radar. And so I started researching best practices and testing things and initially went horribly wrong. Like, I just got nothing from it. But it was really demoralizing. But eventually I kept plugging away, kept plugging away. And I remember the first time somebody was like, hey, can we talk? And I was like, oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible. Like, I didn't have to do any work. I just shared some thoughts and opinions and, and I, uh, wrote it in a way that was compelling and people found me. And, um, so started. Started to double, triple down on LinkedIn and then also leveraging relationships that I can make through LinkedIn, going and using my platform, my reputation to go meet other interesting individuals who can maybe connect me with clients as well. And that started to pick up steam and pick up steam and got to the point where my calendar was starting to just get a few times a week bookings in it, uh, from potential clients and like, wow, we're, we're onto something here.

Speaker B: So at the beginning, did you build it how you built the old business? Like you did the recruitment for a bit and then you would outsource or did from day one, did you say, I need to have someone fill in the jobs while I'm selling?

Speaker A: Yeah. So I knew that's where I wanted to get to. Um, I also knew a couple things. One, I knew this was going to be a bit different. Like I had built my own team before and I'd given advice on people, on how to hire a couple, but I hadn't really actively headhunted for high level talent. And um, so I knew I had to recruit for a bit to really build the playbook that somebody would follow. But like Sean, it was fast. Like the first couple weeks I was like, oh, this is fun. Like I'm learning, I'm, um, taking what I already know and adapting it a bit for especially the Latin American market, starting to map the market, starting to build out some processes. And then within like two weeks I was like, Greg, you have three months before you were going to burn yourself out doing this, because it just was not inspired me at all. Yeah. And, and so I, I ended up hiring, I think it was a month and a half in or so I started to look for a recruiter, um, to be able to handle the delivery side, to be able to go out and headhunt recruiters. And uh, I think it took 32 interviews before I finally landed the one who I ultimately hired and she's been a rock star for, for us. Um, it was.

Speaker B: Where is she based?

Speaker A: So she, she's based in Mexico actually.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you went with what you said you would do. Right. So you, if you're going to go and find Latam talent, you got to live it. You got to, uh, you got to drink the Kool Aid and find and actually hire Latam talent in your own business.

Speaker A: Yeah, because we, we had had a couple of really talented people in Latin America. At my last practice, we, we had a really good recruiter, we had a couple of salespeople down there who were all doing great work. But I'VE never lived in Latin America. Like, I don't know what it's like to be a Latin American employee working for a US Company. And like, from the business owner's standpoint, I can ask questions and say, how am m I treating for you? But I can never fully see the world through their eyes. And it was really important for me to have boots on the ground. And I've learned so much and gotten so much better as a leader from seeing things through their eyes and then from educating clients and going, well, yeah, in the U.S. maybe two weeks of paid vacation is standard, but in Mexico, three is the minimum benchmark and like, here's how you're going to be perceived. And so it's really helped us do so much better for the clients who want to do things right and take really good care of their employees and attract really good people. Having boots on the ground in the places we recruit has been an absolute game changer for us and it's allowed me to have good margins too.

Speaker B: So where are we at? I want to get into the model and talk about like what clients can expect and benefits, etc. Etc. But where are we at today? So like with 10 months or so in, what are the headline numbers, Team revenue, that kind of stuff?

Speaker A: Yep. So we are, we've been taking off like, like this. So first quarter we signed three clients. Um, the next quarter we signed eight clients. Year to date. We're just shy of 20, 20 clients for this year alone. Um, and we're actually at, at the point where we're starting to push back start times on engagements. So, um, right now we're doing about 40 to $45,000 a month in placement. So if we just kept on cruise control, we'd be a half million dollar practice. But at our current run rate, I'm expecting us to set ourselves up to be a million dollar practice next year. Um, which is wild when you consider our average fee year to date, it's like $8,500. So we're doing a lot of volume. Um, um, but we're in a place now where, yeah, we're bringing in about a new client every single week. Six out of 10 clients are coming back for at least a second hire within the first six months, which has been really cool. Um, we do a 12 month guarantee which everybody's told me we're crazy to do. But so far retention of our placements has been sitting right around 90%, which has been really good.

Speaker B: Makes sense.

Speaker A: Yep. So today I have two recruiters handling all the Recruitment of recruiters, they a lot of lessons learned. I still own the relationships with our clients but they handle a lot of the back and forth and offering perspective. Um, we very much need a third recruiter to be able to keep us up with the demands. When I was doing reviews with the team, they said the one thing Greg, we love working with you. There's nothing we change other than that you're giving us too many clients. Um, so we're actually in the search for a third international recruiter today. And then I'll be looking to bring in ahead of sales probably right around the end of next year. Um, and then gradually look to scale out the business super profitable on $45,000 of top line. My net is about 30, 30, 35,000. Um, so a super profitable model and there's room there to be able to add in some leadership. But we should, should be able to maintain right around a, ah, 40, 45% net even when building out a sales team and some of those other functions.

Speaker B: I mean some people listening will be like wow. I mean to go from a standing start it's relatively like I said, you didn't have the network so you've used LinkedIn to attract. What I would say is you're in a sexy marketplace in a way. Like recruitment is not a desirable purchase. Right. It's just not. But finding offshore quality resources at a fraction of the cost of localized. You know, you've got the Trump administration like we've got in the uk. There's challenges with costings locally. Like you hit a good market at a good time. There's shitloads of businesses now promoting South African recruitment here and there's Filipino recruitment in Asia. And I imagine Latam, um, recruitment is, is the next, is, is dominant in the U.S. so how are you finding that from a competent competitor landscape? Like it feels like it's a, a couple of years ago it felt like it was like an incredibly new opportunity. Now it feels it's getting more mature. The opportunity and the thought of having you know, a recruiter in an offshore in um, a quality guy in a quality person in a lower cost location offshore. How are you finding that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I probably, probably shouldn't say this but I will. But to date to my knowledge I don't have a single true competitor. So there are plenty of people who can go find Latin American talent. Latin American recruiters, most of them tend to be generalists and will work outside of recruitment firms as well. Um, yeah, but today I think we're, we're the only ones. So it's, it's been, it's been really good. Um, um, the reality is, is we're more expensive than the majority of other options. Like Latin American talent costs more than South Africa or the Philippines. It also comes with a lot of advantages as well. It's, you have time zone alignment with the U.S. um, you have far more people who have visited the U.S. um, so they understand the cultural in the U.S. unfortunately. And it's, it's really unfair. But we've built up, um, an intolerance to accents from a lot of other parts of the world, say like India or the Philippines, where if we hear that accent right away we associate it with like a bad customer service experience calling the airlines. And so, but a Latin American accent, like such a large, large percentage of the US is Latino that we don't have that resistance built up. And so, and the other big thing is there's a massive proliferation of big name US search firms or big name international search firms. So Robert Walters, Robert Half, Michael Page Korn theory, they all have really big successful practices there. So you have, um, you have people who can connect really well with the US you have really strong talent, you have people who know how to run a high level desk. And so even though the cost is a little bit higher, it's way less than US or UK talent. Um, and you can get people who can produce at that same level.

Speaker B: Makes sense. I mean, it sounds awesome. Now what, tell me, what are you trying to build? Like, what's the, you mentioned, you know, scale it out. But it sounds like you're in a unique position right now. Like you've kind of carved out that business that you were craving. Small, lean, you're living in the woods, it's profitable, you know, your values aligned. You're not having to be someone you don't want to be. Like, what, what does scaling it out look like in the new version of Greg being true to himself?

Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a few parts and like the, as I've reflected the honest reality, like we live in a material world. Like, I don't want to be concerned about money when I start a family someday. I want to be able to provide for them. So part of it is building a business that provides for me. That's half million dollars a year, $700,000 a year. That's more money than I know what to do with. I don't need to go build a massive, massive practice to do that. Um, sometimes I feel guilty when I'm talking to clients and they're like I need to earn $2 million a year and makes me feel a little diminished. But that's the reality is I just don't need more money than that. So that's. Yeah, we've talked about that before. So building out a practice where that as long as I make that much profit, I'm fine. I don't want to trade more energy and more stress to be able to grow larger than that. Um, which is about if I can build 1.5 million top line that very comfortably does that. I also for myself eventually want to remove myself from sales and remove myself from managing individual contributors. Right now it's a lot of fun and I'm still learning, but over the next couple years I want to do that. So what that looks like is building out a 12 person practice. We have four to five delivery consultants, we have a delivery leader, I have a head of sales, probably one sales support staff, little operational support and that's it. So 1.5 million top line, 10 to 12 person firm who's able to run it. I'm able to be vision and strategy and lead the leaders. I would. That gives me everything I need in terms of impact. I want to change the narrative around international employees. I think we in the west tend to look very down on the rest of the world. Um, and look there's, there's a lot of reason why like the America, the UK like has had so much business success. But I think as a result we tend to think of everybody else and often treat them as second class citizens. And that's just not true. And so I want to change the world and show people what international talent is capable of if you treat them like people and go out and find the best um, that they can deliver. And so I want to change that narrative and then I want to provide for my team and give them lives, give them really fulfilling work, um, help them earn the money they need to and if I can do all that I can be incredibly satisfied.

Speaker B: Um, do you think business, you think your brand still plays a part? You might have people doing the different roles, but how much of an impact do you still your face and your voice and your thoughts still have on that business when it's reached that 12 people?

Speaker A: Absolutely. So we, to be able to build that model out, we need to bring in about eight new clients a month and do a good job servicing our existing clients. Right now we're building in four clients a month. So what I've said is the brand needs to be there and continue to bring in about Four new clients a month. Um, so that's going to sustain and we're only going to continue to invest in that. And then I'll bring in a salesperson to start to do a little outbound and then stack on top of that and then that gets us to our eight.

Speaker B: But you. Do you see yourself still writing and engaging and being on LinkedIn a couple of hours a day or whatever? Because I say that because I'm in that same position now where, uh, I've got the team of 11, we're doing about 3 million in. In British pounds. So what's that? $3.5 million or whatever. You know, we're doing a really good profit. I've got a sales. I've got a demand team, I've got a sales team and I've got a delivery team like M. They're the three teams and I'm kind of sitting across all demand is where I spend most of my time, which is content and podcasts and writing and. But I do still get involved in strategic sales and I still get involved in some of the strategic delivery. But, you know, could I go on a journey to remove myself from the whole thing? Probably.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: I don't want. I don't want to. Like, I just think it's part. I get fulfillment from it. Like, I enjoy that. I really enjoy. If I get to a point where I'm running out of energy and then maybe I don't see a future, then. Then I'll change. But while I can build my financial freedom whilst doing the parts of the job I love, I'm, um. Like, I think I've. I've got the sweet spot. And I could see you in a very similar.

Speaker A: Yeah, you actually mentioned a really important word, which is energy. And before I even came up with the concept for the business, I asked myself, like, what. How. What are the criteria that I'm going to use to evaluate the business? And one of them was money. And I came up with the number that I needed to earn. Um, another one was integrity and being able to run a business that. Where I would never compromise my values in order to meet my business goals. And then the third one was energy balance. And I said that I need to come away from work with the energy to invest in the other areas of my life that are really important to me. And so what that's forced me to do is say, well, in my time at work, what drains me and what energizes me and all the things that drain me, I need to be able to pass Off.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All the things that energize me, I want to do so that I get. I wake up fired up. So, yeah, creating leading people, vision and strategy, those are important. But actually the content part's a lot of fun and, uh, it gets me a lot of clients, but it also just gets me into really interesting conversations and conversations where I can help to open up people's eyes. And I've had a lot of people reach out and talk about the way they've changed things as a result of something they read. I'm like, so as long as I still feel that way about it, yes, I will be writing content.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I hope you do. You're very good at it. So I guess my final question is around, you know, what type of clients? I guess what, what, what's the right client for you now? So, like, I reckon a lot of people listen to this would be like, I want to, you know, I want to get a bit of that. I want a great quality recruiter offshore. But you, I'm. I imagine you don't want to work with everyone. This is probably criteria that you need clients to demonstrate for you. Like, what, what's the ICP and what, yeah, what do they need to display for you to take the time to, to try and find them that talent.

Speaker A: Yeah, great question. Because we're. We've actually, with time, become more and more selective about which clients we work with. So we work exclusively with recruitment firms and staffing agencies that have at least some of their recruitment efforts in the U.S. um, we. But besides that, if you're looking for an easy button and that's it, a set it and forget it, we're not the right agency for you. Um, and the reality is, as I've found it usually doesn't work out very well. If you're like, we're just going to hire somebody, we'll pay somebody else to train and find them and that'll be it. And then we'll leave it alone and they'll go produce business. That's not who we tend to work with. We work with agencies that are really intentional and say maybe they don't know today if offshore nearshore is their strategy, but they say, we want to go invest in a strategy. We're willing to put in a bit of money. It's not a lot, but a bit of money. And we're willing to put in the effort and we want a true team member and we're willing to invest in training and bringing them into our own and just treating them like Another, just like anybody else. And the agency owners who have that mindset do really, really well with us. And with this model, is there a

Speaker B: level of recruiter you're looking at? Uh, is it like, will you take a, if someone says I just want a rookie, would you do, would you do that? Or is it, does it have to be someone with a certain level of experience?

Speaker A: Yeah, we do, we do both. So that's the fun part of what we do is we're not just a rec to rec for international talent is we are, we're also consultants. And so we help with the design phase and even help an agency figure out what function do you need? Like do you want a sorcerer? Do you want somebody who's a career sourcer or a sourcer who could eventually move into an associate who could eventually move into a senior recruiter. Recruiter. Um, interestingly now about a third of our searches are uh, for non recruiters from industries. So like as a quick example, we have a client who recruits in asset management, like working with like million dollar traders. And we actually ended up going and finding somebody who came from a big bank in Brazil, had never done recruitment, phenomenal interpersonal skills, but already knew the language, already had credibility in the space. And we're finding, yeah, again about a third of our searches now are for just really high level professionals from the industry and then the rest are for, you know, your Robert Walters, your Korn fairy, established consultant.

Speaker B: Yeah, makes sense. Greg, we're out of time. We ran over a little bit than my usual time, but I uh, I've enjoyed it. I could have carried on chatting for hours. Um, you, you know, you got a really cool, relaxed style and I think, um, I've only met a couple of times, but I get a real vibe of how it would be to work with you and I hope people have listened and picked that up. Like, you know, I genuinely believe that you're a values driven guy and that you're going to do the right thing by people. And um, I think that's really important. Especially like the Rector X base has got quite negative connotations and that I don't believe. I think there's some phenomenal Rector X out there. But you know, I think you can do your own way of, you know, you're doing, you're going to do in your own way. You're gonna, you're gonna change that, I think for yourself. So um, I'm excited for people to, especially in the uk who maybe have a US footprint. I think you're the right Fit, um, if they wanted to reach out to you, LinkedIn, best place or website. How do you want people to contact you?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, LinkedIn is always best. I do have WelloiledMachine. Co has a bit more info, but love, love to connect through LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Awesome. And if anyone just wants to pick your brains and it's like early stages, maybe they're not in the U.S. but they want to get to the U.S. and they'd like to know. And are you okay if they reach out as well?

Speaker A: I love getting involved early because I can give people a clear picture of what does it cost? When should you be ready? How should you think about it? And I love to help people at the early stages, so. Absolutely.

Speaker B: Awesome. All right, so look, please do reach out to Greg, you know, and, uh, I hope you, you know, hope you get a lot of, lot of great conversations off it. And two, I want to get you back on. I want to get you back on in a year or so, see how things have progressed. Hopefully that hair of yours doesn't look as good in a year or so. Please, like, you know, make your mind look terrible. But, uh, and I wish you the best of luck, man. And I think you will. I think you'll do really well and it'll be great to hear, you know, how this thing evolves because naturally it'll take some different directions. But as long as you stay true to yourself, I think you'll build something, you know. Again with a story to tell.

Speaker A: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Speaker B: Thanks again for listening to today's episode of the Rag podcast. If you haven't already, please do subscribe wherever you listen to this show. As the more subscribers we get, the more people will, will listen and the more recruitment owners we can help. As a recruitment founder, you must know that things are changing. AI is everywhere, cold outreach is getting harder, and job boards, well, they're not what they used to be. But personally, despite the negativity, I believe the future is the greatest opportunity of our lifetime in recruitment. Because for the first time ever, a founder, uh, with five recruiters with a clear niche and the right systems can build the kind of influence, reach and profit, profitability that used to take 500 recruiters and a global office network. The agencies that are winning right now aren't necessarily the biggest, but they are the most visible, the most trusted, and the ones building inbound demand. At Hoxo, we're working with clients who are running multiple six and seven figures in net profit, outperforming the negative noise and headlines. So to explain what these guys are doing. I've created a brand new free masterclass video for Ragler listeners. In this video, it's less than 10 minutes long. I'm going to show you what these businesses are doing differently from the rest. So the link's in the description, fill in the form, watch the video and see exactly how this system that these clients are using could work for your agency. Good luck.