Season 9 | Ep34 Mathew Gollop: 7 to 85 People, a Near Collapse, and the Free Idea That Paid Him Back

Speaker A: He took over the recruitment business in Hong Kong just to keep his job. Five years later, ah, he'd grown the business from seven to 85 staff across five global offices.

Speaker B: We're just going to keep doing this and we're going to keep growing and we're going to keep making money because we already did the recession, uh, there's not going to be another one. It looked like we were hurtling towards a cliff pretty quickly and we were obviously going to run out of cash and we didn't know how to scale down the business quickly.

Speaker A: £800,000 in lost revenue in just over a year. Six months of business Runway left. He brought an investor in and had to dilute his shares and then they closed every international office one by one.

Speaker B: I didn't know what a good market was. I just sort of scrambled for a few years.

Speaker A: So as he pulled the business back to one office in Hong Kong, he then made a decision that I've never heard before and I don't think many recruitment owners would.

Speaker B: Certainly some humility. There was tough exercise. You go out and you do a beach cleanup. It's a one off event and it's not connected to your business. Whereas what we were talking about is using what we know, using recruitment as

Speaker A: the lever, you started giving recruitment away. Free searches for charities and a not for profit job board was created. Any additional searches were run at a 50% discount.

Speaker B: We were recruiting for board because we were recruiting the CEO or the executive director. Those boards are usually senior people and so they would then become familiar with our brand and then they would come back to us for searches in their own business.

Speaker A: Now this free work had a huge commercial benefit. It won him a top university, a place on semi government panels, a charity desk that now consistently runs at a profit and board level. Relationships that he just could not have got any other way.

Speaker B: I'm, um, deeply attached to this business. It's my strength and my weakness.

Speaker A: This is a brand new episode of the Rag Podcast with Matt Gallop, the guy who took over a business scaled from 7 to 85, went through near collapse and then came up with a free idea that seriously paid him back. Without further ado, Matt, welcome to the Rag podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: No pleasure. You are joining us from Hong Kong. It is, what is it? 11:00pm 11.

Speaker B: Yeah, 10 past 11.

Speaker A: Incredible, uh, dedication to the course. I believe you've got jet lag from the UK anyway, so you feel like it's UK afternoon time, I imagine.

Speaker B: Yeah, not too bad. Yeah. Somewhere in Between.

Speaker A: Have you just got there then today?

Speaker B: No, I got there late last week.

Speaker A: Right. And you, um, you're UK based, but work in Hong Kong a third of the month.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I lived in Hong Kong for 24 years up until last year, August. And then kids, uh, of a certain age, parents of a certain age, uh, all those things that brought me back to the uk. And so now I just travel back and forth between the two.

Speaker A: And how. How have you adjusted back? We'll get into the stories and all that in a minute. But how have you adjusted into leaving the weather and back to. Well, we know what the UK is like.

Speaker B: Yeah, the weather in Hong Kong is just a different kind of bad, really. You know, it's, um, hot, humid, lots, uh, of rain. I quite like having the seasons again, access to a garden, that kind of stuff. So that's been nice, uh, harder for the kids. They were born, grew up in Hong Kong, so it's a bit more of a challenge for them.

Speaker A: What the hell is this winter that you've brought me to?

Speaker B: Yeah, not so much winter, but, you know, we, we. They grew up in Hong Kong. Their mum's Japanese, she's from Tokyo. So Hong Kong, Tokyo, Canterbury. Uh, it's not quite the same.

Speaker A: No. Not as sexy, is it? Oh, they'll, uh, they'll get used to it. I mean, they're pretty well traveled kids. All right. They've got a rounded view on different parts of the world, which is cool. Well, Matt, look, thanks for taking the time. As I said, really appreciate you giving me your time at this time of night. And we'll, uh. You know, I've got. I think we've got a really interesting story for people to listen to. Now, before I get into any of the stories, I always ask you to give me the bird's eye view of you today. So I just need, like, what the company does, how many people where you're based. That's it. And then we'll tell the story.

Speaker B: Yeah. So right now, um, about 30 people mixed, uh, perm, sort, um, of mid to senior, mixture of contingent and retained, uh, and a, uh, growing contract and sow business, all based out of Hong Kong, covering the region, but probably 80, 90% of the work done placing people in Hong Kong, whether from around the region or locally.

Speaker A: So all 30 are in Hong Kong?

Speaker B: Yes, apart from me.

Speaker A: So you're the only one who's no longer there. Right. Okay. And is that across sector?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, financial services, manufacturing, sourcing, supply chain, retail, consumer, big institutions. Uh, Hong Kong is A small market like three and a half million professional uh, people in Hong Kong. Seven and a half million total population. So you not really that kind of inch wide, mile deep, uh, approach that you might have in a big market like the uk uh, so tend to be, have to be a bit more nimble around industries and functions.

Speaker A: But how have you sliced and diced 30 people then? Do they all have a slight focus in what they do?

Speaker B: Oh absolutely, yeah. So the teams themselves are specialized around um, either industry or function. But there is some evolution of that. We'll probably get to that bit later.

Speaker A: Sure. Okay. So um, and the business, you joined the business in 2001.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So give us a quick introduction to how that happened.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I was um, I worked for Hayes in the UK Hays Accountancy at the time. I was just a bit sort of tired of um, the way recruitment was being done, um, the politics, the sort of change of your desk on a Monday morning. And uh, I opened Recruiter magazine. I looked in the back, there was a nice glossy advert with a Chinese temple and a palm tree, uh, from a rec to rec. So I called the rector, had a few conversations, got flown to Hong Kong by connected group, uh, two nights, two days of interviews. Got me drunk on the last day. I'd uh, already signed the contract by then. Flew back to a very gray journey down um, the M M25 in November of 2000 and uh, felt a bit surreal but turned up in February 2001 to join the business and grow the non tech piece of what they were doing.

Speaker A: So you, your life at that point, were you single, without responsibility? Was it quite an easy decision to make?

Speaker B: It was, yeah, very easy. Single, um, uh, no kids. I was 27, uh, and I joined a business where they said, can you come and be a manager? I said I don't want to do that anymore. I'm fed up with managing people. Uh, so I just came to be a senior consultant. But that didn't last long.

Speaker A: Mad what, what were you looking for in that at that point in your life and career? Uh, to go and leave a massive corporate like Hayes, go and fly across the globe. What was you, what was that intention?

Speaker B: I think it was. I hadn't done a lot of independent travel. I didn't, I took a year out. But I worked um, I traveled a lot. My dad was a racing driver so I traveled around Europe quite uh, a lot as a kid, but to racetracks and I never traveled on my own. I never did the, you know, work experience overseas or anything. So I had a bit of an itch like that. And then I was also a bit tired of the culture, the KPI driven culture, uh, at Hayes and some of the politics, like I said, um, and so it kind of ticked two boxes. It was a new challenge. I've always been quite impulsive and I found a business that was sort of a boutique and uh, you know, had a slightly different view on things.

Speaker A: So when did you take over that business? Because you joined as an employee. What? Tell us what happened there.

Speaker B: Um, I landed in February 2001. January. If you looked at the boards, great numbers. Uh, the South China Morning Post, which was the, uh, classified that came out on a Saturday. It was like that thick with ads. Uh, and I thought, this is it.

Speaker A: I'm going to land of opportunity.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to make a mint. And uh, the dot com bubble had burst, but Asia was sort of, you know, had a bit of momentum still. And literally February, the month I joined, just all the results went through the floor. Um, and so we literally went through a year of struggling, struggling, um, started downsizing.

Speaker A: How many was in the team when you joined?

Speaker B: About 20 or so.

Speaker A: 911 happened as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, then 9 11, uh, and I remember I went away at Christmas. I came back and uh, the owner of the business said, I'm out. I, uh, need to put more money in. I don't want to do that. I can't find a buyer. Um, sorry. Um, and over a few drinks, a few of the system added. Try and do something with it. Let's do this business up. And so, um, my colleague said, uh, I'll help you. He had a bit more experience than me, uh, but he said, my wife won't let me lead it because I've already been through one bankruptcy in uh, New Zealand. Um, and so he said, people will follow you. I'll help you. Let's get it done. So that's what we did. So we basically.

Speaker A: How did you get the money for it?

Speaker B: The business was still a going concern. Um, we had to cut everybody's salary and we basically offered a number to the shareholder, which is an husband and wife, uh, and said if we can get the business to repay this amount of money, uh, you'll get that money and if not, we'll carry all the risk and any debt that is left of it. So, uh, that's what we did. Um, managed to slowly turn it around. After sars, that was the next thing in line. So that was really like two and a half years of recession, basically. Dot com, 911 SARS. Um, and I, uh, didn't know what could look like. I didn't know what a good market was. I just sort of scrambled by for a few.

Speaker A: So there was you plus a few running the businesses.

Speaker B: So seven of us, uh, I had the majority share. We had a couple of other people, uh, with shareholdings as well. We just divided up by whatever we knew.

Speaker A: Um, um, sounds like it could be hectic though. Seven people making decisions.

Speaker B: Um, I was the decision maker, so the ultimate decision maker. Um, just tried to involve everybody in that because I didn't know any better. Um, we were all learning as we went along. Uh, but people followed me. I think I had dumb confidence, I think at that time, um, and wanted to do the right thing by boom. Uh, and so they saw that there was a journey ahead, they jumped on board and, uh, we had a bit of momentum to take us through.

Speaker A: So when did you start to see finally the numbers turning around, like. And it was like, this business is going to survive.

Speaker B: It was sort of August, September 2003. So SARS finally cleared and the global economy had already picked up, uh, because SARS was an Asian issue, really. And, um, so the market bounced back really hard, um, and fast. And I remember big investment bank calling me up and saying, matt, we've got jobs for you. Uh, I was doing sort of ops middle office at the time, um, you know, one of our preferred suppliers. And I said, well, I don't have any terms with you. And I said, what do you mean? You've been talking to us for the last two years. Yeah, but there's been no job. So I've just been knocking on your door for two years. Uh, and that was kind of the story then. It was like we were one of the last men standing. So we just kind of, uh, picked up from there and started ramping the business up to tell let's talk us

Speaker A: through them what happened next. Because that turned into a, uh, I think the headline numbers were. You went from. Was it seven to 85 people?

Speaker B: Yeah, seven to 85. There's a few stories in there. But, um, fundamentally we saw the market growing. Uh, we were profitable in Hong Kong. We had a client, uh, it was Barclays at the time, went to Singapore, set up their global headquarters, uh, for a lot of their sort of middle office functions. In particular, we did a lot of tech at that time. So we followed them down there. Uh, we set up an office. And, uh, then I got introduced to somebody in Dubai, was looking to exit a, uh, search firm, another Brit Known to one of my business partners. And um, he was looking to set up something in uh, Dubai a year later. So we set that up too. Uh, and then a year after that someone came to me and said, I've got a joint venture for you in China. Group of, uh, guys that just need a bit of help. Some local Chinese, uh, growing their business. And so they had uh, Beijing, Shanghai. So we formed a joint venture with them, help them start growing that business. Everything grew. Dubai, obviously, that sort of first, uh, wave there. We did a lot in the property sector and um, by the end of it we had this sort of big business, but then was rolling into uh, the great financial crisis with mixed profitability. Um, hard to maintain consistent profitability across the offices other than Hong Kong, which was always our call.

Speaker A: Um, it sounds like, yeah, like opportunity, create. Like was it an intentional, right, we're going to go and grow this as fast and as big as we can. Was it purely led by things coming across your desk and thinking, well, we've got the money, got the time?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a bit of a mix. But there was no real, um, defined strategy. I would say it was probably driven by excitement and ego more than anything else. You know, it was pins in the map, flying around different locations, learning about different markets. Uh, you know, it's really exciting. Uh, but um, we learned a lot during that period about maintaining consistent profitability. M, uh, the depth of relationships, how you get impacted when the market downturns. Uh, and some stories in there of some really tricky circumstances, particularly in China. Uh, I don't know if you remember GlaxoSmithKline, um, 2000 would have been sort of 12, 13 had a big issue in China, um, basically Foreign Corruption act and all that kind of stuff. And we were their number one mid tier recruitment supplier at the time. Um, because we'd been used as a bit of a shield to some dodgy businesses that sat underneath that somebody in the company owned. Um, so we went from all the numbers going through GSK to them paying us nothing and the police turning up on our doorstep. So, uh, it was a challenging period, uh, that we had to navigate through.

Speaker A: But let's just go back to the growth then. So what was your role in the business in Hong Kong at the point of opening up new offices? What were you actually doing all day?

Speaker B: So I was um, md obviously managing the teams directly. So, uh, we had leaders of teams, but reporting through to me, um, I ran the back office and all the operations. Uh, and then I also build as well. Uh, so obviously that became harder as we started to scale out the other offices. Uh, but I've always kept some revenue in every year and I'm often building new pieces. So industries we're not in, um, growth markets that are perhaps sort of trending upwards that I can jump onto. Uh, and then recruiting, uh, for Hong Kong and for the other offices as well.

Speaker A: So when you spot an opportunity then. Because I, I once, obviously a long time ago, I went to an event and the, the guy speaking, Russell Clements from S3 and he said, so excess, such a sexy thing to have international offices. But one, one office does not double the complexity of your business. He says it 10x's like the second office from the first HQ can 10x the complexity of your business. Now you've got to the point, you got to the point where you had five. So talk me through like the difference of running a business locally in Hong Kong with 20, 30 people and then this expanding, obviously majority is in the Middle east and Far east, but still completely different countries from Dubai to China to Singapore. Like they're all different. Can you give us some of the specific challenges that come with that kind of complexity and what, what those differences were?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's two sort of main ones. I think the first one is that you assume you can replicate the culture. Uh, you bring people on board who buy into the dream, they understand the values. Uh, and we did hire some good senior leadership, but they hadn't grown up in the core business. And so the sense of ownership and detachment when you weren't there was a, was a, was a real thing. And so the, the culture got replicated, but not always in exactly the same way. So you were sort of constantly course correcting around that. And that took some, some work.

Speaker A: And then of that though, what are the symptoms of that? So like, how do you know that it's different other than language and the way the office looks like, what are the, what's the data telling you to say that there's something different here?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure it's the data. It's more the, um, how people respond to the messaging, to the vision, to the values. Um, when you sit in, yeah. When you sit in an office and you see how people operate and you listen to the types of conversations that they have with clients and then you realize in an office, um, that it's incredibly transactional. The types of conversations they're not having are the type of conversations that you've developed the business to have in other locations. Or you see the way that people are managed. And it's not vastly different to how you do it in head office, but there's a different feel. And so when you come to have conversations with people, you're delivering a slightly different message. There's a disconnect between what the local leadership does and, um, what you do in head office. Um, and that then creates this sense of everything's better at headquarters because there's this consistent message that comes out. And we're kind of the poor cousin because we're headquarters.

Speaker A: Can you give us an example of where the message is different? Something specific?

Speaker B: Just, um, trying to think back now. I mean, I think when I think about how we performance manage people, um, it was really about building that transparency into the process. Having very direct conversations with people, having, um, conversations that were m. Meaningful, um, and, um, caring about the individual. We were talking about mental health and burnout, uh, long before it became a trendy thing to do. And then you go to another office and you get one of the other extremes. One is that they don't want to face the conversations. So there's a performance issue. But no one's had any direct conversation with the individual. So when you engage, it's a shock. Wow. The group MD just turned up and told me, there's something lacking in what I'm doing. Because they hadn't had the conversation locally or the flip side, which was, um, they moved into performance management very aggressively. Makes people's heads spin. Doesn't leave them time to really think about what they're, you know, what they need to improve in order to achieve, uh, the goals that they need to deliver.

Speaker A: And did you find that was more apparent or different in each in specific locations as well? So, like, would one region be more m aggressive than another by culture or whatever?

Speaker B: Yes. And I think that's partly down to local leadership style, um, uh, of the individual, but then also the cultural difference of the. Of the location. And that's the other challenge which is, on the surface, everybody in those locations wants to work for certain type of organization. They feel like they're working for a regional business with a global type, uh, of culture. Um, but the way that they need to be managed and the way they respond to that is very different. And then you don't necessarily notice until you've already got it wrong. And so communicating very directly with people in mainland China doesn't get you the same reaction as it does in Hong Kong. It's all part of China, but the cultures are very different. And Beijing is Different to Shanghai. To Shanghai. Um, and then obviously Dubai is a bit of a, especially back then, a bit of a hodgepodge of different cultures still kind of uh, forming at that time.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm trying to think of, imagine, I don't know why, in my head I'm imagining China would be, would be a place where they'd manage things quite aggressively. But maybe that's just. Is that true? Am I got that wrong?

Speaker B: I think now if you look at the culture of some of these big tech firms coming out of China and that's what everybody's seeing, right, is uh, yes, very aggressive, um, and um, long working hours, um, that really old school kind of, uh, growth company, uh, culture and mindset. And um, that's why they're achieving some pretty big goals in tech, in alternative energy, battery tech, et cetera, et cetera. Um, if you go back to the time that we were sort of building and growing in China, I was there, um, uh, the Olympics had just happened in Beijing before that English was very limited. And then you saw this sort of stepping up of English capability. Um, a lot of skills were coming out of uh, state owned enterprises. And so that was much more, um, indirect management, you know, sort of bit hierarchical, more traditional. Um, so if you look at the evolution of what's happened in China from 20 years ago to today, it's chalk and cheese basically. But at the time it was a bit different, it was a bit softer.

Speaker A: So what, I guess what were you optimizing for? You know, was it about headcount? Was it about flags on the map? Were you looking for revenue? Was it a bit of ego? Like what, what was driving this? Because that is a serious growth in five years. That's massive.

Speaker B: Which I don't think we realize until we uh, until we look back, um, and you tell that story in people's eyes, you know, sort of go a bit wide. I think, um, we were, I think we were optimizing for headcount, um, because at the time, going from 2003 to 2008, you could plug in a new headcount and make money once. You did that once and then again and then again. And it worked. It was just an um, equation. Right? So we're just going to keep doing this and we're going to keep growing and we're going to keep making money because we already did the recession. Uh, there's not going to be another one. Uh, and um, then along came the financial crisis. And whilst we hadn't borrowed money, but we were living on our own Cash flow. So, usual story, we were just suddenly very quickly overextended.

Speaker A: What did that actually look like?

Speaker B: Um, it looked like we were hurtling towards a cliff pretty quickly and we were obviously going to run out of cash. And we, um, didn't know how to scale down the business quickly. Never been through that. We'd only been on the upswing. So it was about then finding alternative routes. Right.

Speaker A: How long did you have? What was the Runway?

Speaker B: We had about six months at that point. Um, by doing some softer sort of downsizing and some of the things that made sense to us as soon as we started talking to potential investors, then it became clear experienced people started saying, you got to cut back quicker or you're going to need a lot more cash. Um, and that's when, uh, we realized

Speaker A: how much are we talking? You burn through, like, rough numbers

Speaker B: at the time, you're probably talking about £800,000, something like that.

Speaker A: You know, how long period?

Speaker B: Uh, probably about 12 to 16 months, something like that.

Speaker A: Um, it's a lot of profit, it's a lot of money. Just consistently, the business is on the decline. How did you, how do you feel at that point? So you, at this point, what are you, early 30s? Like you, you're still a relatively fresh young entrepreneur. Intrapreneur, however you want to word it, how did you respond mentally and emotionally? And you know, at that point it was.

Speaker B: It was very difficult. I think that there was, um. There's a point where you, where you work through this period where you're just overly optimistic. And I would love to say that was the last time I was overly optimistic. Um, but that's probably not the case. But, um, you go through this period thinking it's going to bounce back. You go into an office, uh, and you look at the pipeline, you get a lot of promises, uh, and you think, yeah, okay, we're going to turn a corner here. We're doing okay here. Um, and we were making money in Hong Kong. And so really up to, um, I guess sort of 2009, when things really started to tighten post financial crisis, then we realized, well, we're not going to have the money coming out of Hong Kong to support all these other offices. Um, and so we need to start cutting back in those other offices. And, um, at the same time, I'm going out to market to try and find an investor. And I've never had those type of discussions before. Uh, and I got a business that I believe in, um, but just losing money rapidly. Um, and so I was very lucky, actually. To end up with, uh, a deal on the table. I had two deals on the table. Was very lucky to be able to get to that point.

Speaker A: When you brought the investor in and diluted your shares to survive, what did that cost you beyond just equity?

Speaker B: Um, certainly some, uh, humility. Um, there was tough exercise. My business partner at the time, uh, exited, uh, shortly after that, um, and took a core team from technology. Uh, uh, we're still friends now. We probably weren't for a little while after that. But, um, uh, he set up his own business, uh, in Hong Kong. Um, and I stuck around because it was just another experience. It was okay. I'm emotionally attached to this business. I can still see the potential. Um, and this is something new. I have an investor now and I'm going to work through this process and I'm going to turn this around. It took a lot longer than I thought. Uh, but we did come out of that, uh, cycle and uh, build a pretty robust business that was built around Hong Kong. We closed Singapore, Dubai, uh, and downsize China.

Speaker A: So is that what the investor suggested? Or did you, were you already, was that already part of your pictures, essentially, that you needed the capital to cover you while you did that?

Speaker B: Um, it was what the investor suggested and I resisted and um, we downsized. But I hung on to those other offices, um, hoping that we would get back to some of our, you know, our previous potential that we'd seen in those locations. Um, and none of them delivered that potential for various reasons. Uh, markets, right people, right place, right time. Um, and when we finally just focused on Hong Kong, then it just took off.

Speaker A: I was gonna ask that how long did that take to get, shrink it back down to just Hong Kong?

Speaker B: Um, there's about four years. Um, we did quite a big drop with, um, Dubai first, uh, China, we downsized and then Singapore. Uh, we closed. And so, uh, that was about a four year period of, uh, bits and pieces. Um, and again, looking back, it would have been easier in one step, more painful immediately, uh, but easier than to get on with uh, life after that,

Speaker A: uh, death by a thousand cuts instead.

Speaker B: That's right. Uh, but then, yeah, we had some great people in those offices, um, uh, who worked hard, tried to turn things around, uh, people that have been great advocates for the business since they left and maybe went in house and uh, you know, it sort of pays you back in other ways. But uh, it was uh, yeah, definitely the least efficient way to go through that process.

Speaker A: So before we get into the next part, because I want to talk about like there's quite a big shift in the way that you looked at the business and I think it was probably caused a lot by this. But when you look back on a business of 85 people, like, I feel like a lot of our industry, even though the world's changed since the pandemic, I still feel a lot of people are obsessed with headcount. They're, they get a bit of a, it's like an ego play, it's like a sexy thing to say. How many heads you got? I've got 50 or hey, we had 40. And I honestly hated it. Like I hated my life. I didn't enjoy work. If we take just the cash problem out of uh, the equation, how did you feel about what's it really like running a business, multi location, multi headcount, that kind of stuff?

Speaker B: Um, I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed traveling, I enjoyed the experience of learning new markets, learning new cultures and I knew the name and story about everybody in the business. Um, so I go out to an office and I'd probably been involved in their recruitment process as a minimum, uh, I like engaging with people, I like learning about them, I like working out how to tool them up properly to ah, be successful. Um, so I enjoyed the experience, but was I successful at it? No, not in terms of how the numbers represented. And it just sort of proves how hard it is to replicate yourself across, uh, different locations. Or maybe you're trying to replicate yourself and actually that's not the right thing to copy for people and they, you should have a different framework in a different location.

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Speaker B: So this first started probably um, after the financial crisis around 2010. We had a management team, uh, MDs at each office. So I had an MD in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, um, and then myself kind of cutting across the top. And it was uh, Jack Welch winning, uh, that book we read. And we went, that's it, that's what we're missing. Strong vision, mission values. And that's when we started to kind of form the foundation of it. And then if you fast forward to sort of uh, 2016, 17, we started to think about what's our social purpose, what's uh, our impact on the, on the community around us. And that's when we kind of evolved the um, vision. The vision made this shift to um, using recruitment as a lever to improve lives. So that consolidated this non transactional focus on a duty of care to candidates and a quality service client. But then it extended into how do we impact the community? And we started that by free searches for nonprofits. If you're a charity, we'll do it for free. And that wasn't very scalable. So we then launched Recruit for Good, which is a free job board in Hong Kong for the nonprofit community. Well, the charitable community. Uh, so it's a place for people to go if they're looking for jobs with purposes and a place for uh, charities to find those.

Speaker A: Just to pause though, like, how does jobs repurpose like when you work in multi sector, how does that thread into to everything? Because there's a lot of jobs that are just, I suppose every job has a purpose. But like the kind of first thing that comes to mind is like not for profit, you know, changing the world, you know, climate change or whatever. And then some of these roles are just running successful businesses. So like, did it fit the whole business or did you have to really think about how to connect the dots?

Speaker B: Yeah, I know what you mean. And it came naturally, but not necessarily in all the ways we expected. So if I look at it in a different way, and you're a business and you want to do some social good because it's good for your pr, your team like it, whatever the reason, uh, you go out and you do

Speaker A: a beach cleanup, um, plant trees or whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Um, it's not sustained because it's a one off event and it's not connected to your business. Whereas what we were talking about is using what we know, using recruitment as the lever. Right. And so we were going out and supporting these charities that um, every penny counts for them.

Speaker A: So what were you doing giving a percentage of your fees to the charities?

Speaker B: Now we were recruiting for them at zero cost.

Speaker A: So as well as the commercial sector though, you couldn't just drop your business for that, surely.

Speaker B: No, no, it was only if you're a registered charity in Hong Kong.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so, uh, then we created the job board so that we didn't have to deal with, um, you know, sort of a small number of searches for free. It was more predictable. But what we found is people still coming to us and saying, we need your help, uh, we need an executive director CEO for this charity, um, and we'll pay. But it didn't feel right to charge full fees, so we did it at a 50% discount.

Speaker A: How did it get to the point of 3 to 50%? Was there like a limit they could get per company or something before you charge them?

Speaker B: It was because we'd now launched the Recruit for Good website. So what we would say to people is, if, uh, you want to recruit for free, there's the job board. We'll promote it on LinkedIn for you, we'll refer people if we know them, and, uh, you can do the rest. If you want a full search service, give it to us, we'll do it, 50% discount, but we don't discount the service. So you're still getting a full search delivery. Yeah, um, and that worked. But what happened as a result was a number of Things that we didn't predict. One, um, the PR was exceptional. Nobody else was doing anything quite so sustained or linked with recruitment. The sort of PR halo that you got was uh, uh, very powerful. We were recruiting for boards because we were recruiting the CEO or the executive director. Those boards are usually senior people with corporate. And so they would then become familiar with our brand and then they would come back to us for searches in their own business. Then we started working for big institutions in Hong Kong. Like uh, our first one was a Big University, Top 4 University in Hong Kong. Uh, not on the academic side, but corporate functions. And the only way to get in is a track record of NGO related recruitment which we had because we'd done it for free. And we didn't need to say we did it for free, we just had a track record. So when one of those pictures came out, we won that search. And then we got put on a list of these sort of semi government NGOs in Hong Kong. Then we started getting all these um, requests, uh, for proposals for these big institutions. M And that's become a core pillar in our business now. Um, so there was sort of a lot of things that run out of trying to do something good and actually became commercial.

Speaker A: Was this, well, was this doing. Were you doing this while the business was coming off that, you know, whilst the investor that four year period and you're trying to clean up or was it after the. You were back to kind of just Hong Kong and it was like right now we're on the Phoenix Rising type phase.

Speaker B: Yeah, we, I think we were just sort of the beginning of that upturn.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, and we've been through some ups and downs since and it has sustained. Um, and we have one person on that desk and she spends 80% of her time delivering searches at a 50% discount. Um, still does some other searches around that and the NGO sector, uh, and runs a profitable desk every year. Um, she could make more money on a commercial desk, but, um, does it because she loves the ecosystem, the community, the impact that we have, uh, and now we do a salary survey every year for that sector. Uh, and we were actually funded to do that or part funded to do that by a charitable foundation.

Speaker A: Uh, last year did it have any impact on the. I can see that subtle impact of when you're in a boardroom. Like say these people are voluntarily in the boardroom. I imagine so they're already working in commercial organizations and then they're like, uh, you know, these guys are good and they've come in for the right reasons, know, pay, pay it forward kind of thing. But if you're just going out to an organization, a generic commercial organization, did it. Did it help or hinder in any way? Because I can almost imagine some might look at you as, now, you are a charity recruiter, and like, actually, you're not fit for purpose to. To help us as a manufacturing, uh, plant or whatever the organization was. Was there any of that that happened?

Speaker B: Not that I noticed. Only positive. So when you go out and talk to a client and you're talking about your capacity, your capabilities, your track record, everybody's doing that, um, and having things that make you different. In particular, you get that question from a potential customer. What makes you different? It's really hard for a lot of companies to answer. Right. Uh, we've been around for a long time. We've got a big database.

Speaker A: We care about our people.

Speaker B: Exactly. Um, whereas what we could say, every search that you give us that generates revenue is effectively reinvested in this initiative. Um, and this is what we do for the nonprofit community. And there's no one else doing this in the market. Um, and a lot of people know us for this association now in a positive way. Um, I can't tell you if we've lost anything the other way. Um, it's certainly not that has been communicated, but I don't think so. I think it's only been a positive at this stage.

Speaker A: You're right, though, innit? Finding a unique selling point in our sector is hard. I always say it's a unique mechanism. It's not. And that's what you've created is a mechanism. It's how we do what we do that's different. What would there. Is there any way that. Because, like, I'm thinking one of the big things I talk about is having a mission that goes above recruitment. Right. Like the best brands I work with, we always try and define an angle that allows them to have conversations with executives on an ongoing basis, whether they're recruiting or not. Because everyone else is going in with the ones and twos and talking about talent and talking about, I've got this guy, like, you're only ever going to be on demand, uh, or allowed to have that conversation if there's an actual need, whereas you want to be having, like, constant visibility, nurturing conversations. Were you able to use, like, csr, uh, as an angle to talk to executives in the commercial world and be like, what are you. We're doing this. You know, could. Could you get. Was there anything you could do to get them involved. Events or anything that you could play off?

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. We found that we would make connections and introductions with charities that we'd work with, um, with clients. So either directly with the CEO or the head of HR or whoever's running CSR or in larger organizations, they have their philanthropy team, CSR team. And we would be pulling these people together and saying, we think you're a good fit. We know what their mission is, we know what you're trying to achieve. Um, and so you've got that element. And then I ended up sitting on a number of, uh, charitable boards myself that then helped me navigate senior professionals who were looking to get more board experience, helping them understand how to get a seat in a charity so that you can then build some experience for yourself for the future.

Speaker A: Wow. So there's like almost like a charitable brokerage plus a, uh, fractional board member service to be able to. And you're not charging for any of it, right?

Speaker B: No, because, I mean, board seats are volunteer as well. Right. Nothing to charge on. Um, we did do a couple of commercial board placements, which is not that common in Hong Kong. Um, as a result, um, probably that we never would have done without that. Uh, but, uh, yeah, certainly built a different type of credibility, both for the business but also for my personal brand as well. Started to sit on boards, um, gives uh, you a different sort of, uh, perspective for yourself and also to bring to other people.

Speaker A: I literally had a chat today with someone who said like, I, uh, love what you do, you know, uh, to me personally. And he's like, and I see other recruitment founders now having these big conversations, whether they're hosting events or podcasts or whatever. They're talking at like a business level. He's like, I just don't know if I'd have enough knowledge. Like, he's like, imposter syndrome. I'm like, I'm just a recruit, recruit, a good recruiter that runs a small team. Now I want to ask like, what you would have said to answer that. My answer was like, it's being in the room that gives you the knowledge. Like, for example, when I launched the Rag podcast, I was a two year business owner, you know, hadn't been through that much really in that period. Nine years on, I've, you know, we've, I've never sold a company, But I've interviewed 50, 60 people that have. I've been in enough conversations to understand the different facets of what people go through and ask good questions. But I don't need to be an absolute expert. I just need to understand the room and navigate the room and lean into what, um, I'm good at. Like what. How do you feel about that? Because, um, you must have been in some really interesting positions and rooms that perhaps you weren't on paper, kitted out for.

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Especially in those, uh, early years. Right. It's, um, sort of. You feel like it's smoke and mirrors. Um, and, um, as time goes on, as long as you're listening and learning and absorbing every conversation, then you've always got something to project back and share. Um, and it's similar to what you, uh, Hoxo teaches on the, uh, LinkedIn marketing course. Right. Is people have a syndrome, which is, um, the imposter syndrome of, I don't know, why would people listen to what I share? Uh, what's interesting about what I have to say. And yet they're all having really interesting conversations every day with candidates. And so it's about extracting those pieces, um, putting your own spin on it, asking the question with that as the context, getting something else back. And then there's a sort of momentum that goes on and on. Um, I was in a meeting this morning, and it was probably one of the most senior shortlist, uh, pitches I've been in. And I still had the cold sweat running down my back as I was waiting to go in the meeting. Um, and that's really what you thrive on. Right. You know, I was nervous about it. I didn't sleep so well last night because I wanted to do a good job. Um, and, um, so we all still feel like that. I think if we keep pushing ourselves and we keep expanding ourselves. Um, but it's being curious all the time. It's asking questions all the time. Uh, because most people are willing to reflect back if you ask a sensible question. Right.

Speaker A: So I totally. I mean, I think you've nailed it there. I think it. It's about getting out of the. Getting out of your comfort zone. If you're feeling like that, it's probably a good sign, I think. Um, now, where I wanted to. Where I was interested is like the business now. And, you know, you've gone from 785 back to circa 30 people in. In one region. Um, and you. I think you called it a large boutique when we spoke, like, what, you know, how deliberate is this business now? Like, in terms of how intentional have you. Uh. Is it. Yeah, I guess. Is it by design? You're at that size and scale and everything like that. When you've been so Big before um,

Speaker B: it is as a response to the market. So similar to the uk it's been very challenging in uh, Hong Kong over the last few years we were predominantly a perm business. So if I look at 2022 where we're at 65 peak numbers, um, 80% perm, 90 um percent perm, uh only um, and now by the end of this year we'll be probably 60% perm. Um so we've shifted the focus of the business because the market has demanded that we've hired people that are more um, experienced in contract and statement, uh, of work solutions, augmented workforce etc. And so that's going well. Perm um is stabilized. Um, and we are now looking at, and this is what I was mentioning before, how do you structure around positioning yourself as an industry expert rather than the usual functions of. We do finance, hr, legal, technology. Because I think the market is shifting. Um, and certainly here we need to be very conscious that we're talking around uh, industry sectors and particularly growth sectors like um, alternative energy, battery technology, AI alongside some of uh, our traditional uh, supply chain manufacturing etc. So it's kind of like thinking about how do you tool the business and train people to deliver within the industry rather than being a functional specialist. And you'll still have some people that cut across as functional specialists but much more important to lead into the market around the industry space I think. Yeah.

Speaker A: Is it, is it. Are the industries in Hong Kong like insular where they kind of play musical chairs with people and uh, are they you know, do they, are they open to outside? Because like when I recruited in the insurance market, London was. Unless you'd worked it. I don't know how anyone ever got their first gig other than like being recruited in as a graduate because if your CV did not have, was not littered with insurance, you weren't getting a, you weren't getting an interview. Maybe on the perm stuff they would but contract interim, no chance they were buying someone who had the exact experience. So I'm like is it similar for you in that way? In that world?

Speaker B: It's, it's similar at the moment because the market is not deeply talent short. The demand is um, sort of contained by economic conservatism. Uh all of this um, turmoil that we see in a supply chain driven market, uh, and a financial services driven market is uh, creating some hesitancy. Um for us it's more about language. So uh, Cantonese is the locally spoken language and as companies have condensed and expats have learned, um, because we had social unrest, we had um, the um, uh, Covid uh issue. You've then got Cantonese speaking teams that can afford to hire people whose English is not so good. Then when you want to bring talent in because you're in a talent short market, very challenging. We're still in that middle piece at the moment. Um, a government is pushing a Hong Kong is a global talent hub agenda which it has the capacity and the infrastructure to be. Um, employers are still very risk averse and limited around the local market other than in certain pockets. So certainly around transformation change, uh, big technology programs, uh, especially in the interim and contract market a uh, bit more flexible and then we've got a couple of clients where they are not, they don't have competition in the local market and so they have to look uh, internationally or regionally to find talent.

Speaker A: Wow. And the language piece is big in it. Like you can't really get around that. Something as complex as Cantonese, you can't

Speaker B: just learn it overnight.

Speaker A: No, not at all. Um, but in the last, the last couple of years you mentioned have been difficult. You said 20, 22, you were 65 people down to 30. So are you, are you at the bottom of that now do you think? Is it, is there more on the horizon where you see the business going even, even leaner?

Speaker B: No, I think we've definitely reached the bottom and the right structure to build from. Um, so there's been somebody running the business day uh, to day while I've been in the uk. Um, their background is um, more from the contract solution side. So that business has had a lot of attention. Um, and I think operationally they just have a um, ah, different approach which was needed during that period. Um, and they didn't have the emotional attachment so it was easy to come in and look at what needed to be unplugged, what needed to be plugged in. So we're now at a point where perm is lean but we have strong people. Contract uh, is growing and um, we're in the right industry spaces. Financial services is still a struggle outside of technology so we're less focused on that. Uh, but we're doubling down on some of these other commercial sectors that uh, we know we've always been very strong in.

Speaker A: And how does it feel as a business owner now that you've costs I hope I'd imagine are down because of the headcount. And if you're building more resilient revenue through contract, you know, you're walking into the beginning of the month with a different cost versus Income ratio. How does that feel?

Speaker B: It's just starting to reach that tipping point. And if you look forward to the end of the year, uh, with the starters that are forecast and what that looks like, it's um, definitely a different feeling, um, to know that your perm business is going to take you into profitability if it has a reasonable month.

Speaker A: M. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Rather than having to depend on, someone's got to pull something out.

Speaker A: What's that feel like? I mean, I, I know how that feels as a business owner, but I want to know. I'm mindful of like, how do you cope with that? Like, and give us some examples where, like, you know, it's got to the wire, like you're in the final week of the month and you know there's a genuine emotion around we're going to lose money or whatever. Like, how is that? Take us back to some scenarios you've been through.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, um, it's brutal. Um, and I think that particularly when you reach that point that you know that without numbers you're going to be losing headcount because that's the only way to really reduce cost. Um, when people promise to deliver X and it doesn't come through, uh, it's very difficult. And those people can be people that have been performers, uh, in the past, but then they reach these sort of bumpy periods, uh, where they promise the earth and don't deliver. Uh, it's pretty challenging. And on the flip side, what I found difficult because I always go back on the tools in very different difficult times. You can be delivering yourself, you can be the top biller, but you don't feel successful because the whole business is struggling. Um, and um, you're not really sort of, uh, able to pat yourself on the back. Um, and investors don't do that. Um, so, um, you could find really fine ways to be resilient within yourself, to push yourself through.

Speaker A: What percentage of the revenue do you bring in nowadays?

Speaker B: Um, you know, a lot less than has been in past years. Um, less than 10% of revenue would come directly from me. Um, but, um, some would be referred. And I think I was top biller last year, but pretty low base, uh, in terms of, across the business. Uh, and, um, this year I'll be there or thereabouts because I've got more time to spend on business development, client development, uh, and then picking out the searches where I think I can bring value. Yeah.

Speaker A: One question that keeps, uh, running through my head though is like, in those moments, and especially when you've Got this contract, statement of work guy come in, who's helping you? I said, lacking emotion, probably thinks, well, I know I've done this before. This is the engine I need to build. You're under pressure, you're letting people go. Like, how does this purpose recruit for good feel on in those moments? Did you ever genuinely think of like cutting it or just parking it to one side and just getting on with the job as originally was?

Speaker B: It's a good question. Um, so maybe I'll take that, I'll

Speaker A: tell you why I ask after.

Speaker B: But okay, I take it in two ways, right? Which is, um, I've just told a story of that person coming in and obviously you, with your experience of talking to a lot of recruitment owners and going through a lot of uh, these uh, sort of case studies, know that that's much more difficult than how I just made it sound. Yeah, uh, it's been very challenging, very um, capable individual with a different philosophy to me, um, probably the right philosophy at the right time. Um, however, he came in and joined the business because he appreciated the uh, brand that we had and the purpose. Um, and so from his perspective it had commercial value because he knew our reputation in the market, he'd heard about us, he wanted to see that in operation. Short answer is no, because it still generated revenue. Um, it's more than covered its cost. Um, and that association is now very powerful. If we suddenly disconnected with it, that would be more of a negative than any positive you gain from it. And actually my personal time is heavily reduced in terms of day to day on those type of issues. You know, I'm much more commercially focused now that somebody runs that test for me.

Speaker A: And look, I think that's great and I'm glad you answered it based on how he felt coming in because in terms of, you know, I genuinely do think this industry is so short sighted. Like that's the one word I would use to describe founders across the globe. Everything's just shortsighted. And it comes from uh, probably very perm heavy businesses who've learned that they need to step in and change shit in week three of a month to pay the bills and stuff. Like, I'm not discrediting why, but like that's why a lot of these, there's not many that can say they've got an initiative like yours that's lasted because they'll, they come up with these good ideas, but as soon as they get tip over that middle of the month mark or middle of the quarter or whatever, and they're not quite where they want to be. All goes out the window. Any nice to have those. And it's like, get back on the phones and make money. And I get why. But, you know, I mean, I'm genuinely impressed with the fact you've kept it going. And I think, you know, the fact you've always had a commercial edge with it is. Is also why you have. It's not pure philanthropy, it's revenue.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Now, you did mention spinning that business off as. Or that product as its own business or own thing, maybe partnering with other recruitment companies around the world and other markets. How serious is that? Is that something you'd want to do long term?

Speaker B: I think that's probably the piece that's got dropped as a result of, um, having to be very focused in terms of time on the commercial side of the business. One of the reasons. The key reason it's been sustainable is it covers its costs as a minimum and potentially makes a profit. So as soon as you can build revenue into something, it's sustainable. Um, and, um, we had this idea that we could kind of franchise this out, grow it globally, but actually, we don't have an intention to open lots of other offices anymore. So it doesn't really link up. You'd only be doing it for philanthropy's sake. Right. And it wouldn't really give you a return. So I think we're going to be much more focused on maybe building some other capabilities for nonprofits in Hong Kong. Um, and we've been approached by some funders, uh, philanthropic funders about, uh, other services that we might be able to provide. So that would then kind of need to be separate from Connected Group, um, because Recruit for Good is just a website platform. It's not a company. So we might set up a small charity in Hong Kong, funnel the funding through that, deliver the services from Connected Group, and then just cover the cost back in.

Speaker A: Great. So it sounds like. So if we look at now the deliberate model you're building, how would you describe the future of the business? How is. How is it gonna. How does it look now? And how do you want it to look moving forward?

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think it looks massively larger in terms of headcount. Uh, I would expect, you know, maybe 40 people, early, uh, 40s, to be kind of the new peak for us in this market. Um, most recruitment companies are 50 down on, uh, 20, 22. Including the big guys.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course.

Speaker B: Um, so I think that's kind of where it sits with, um, 4%, maybe more, uh, in the contracting business, um, just that deliberate recurrent revenue. Uh, we're getting sort of more um, master recruit, train, deploy different uh, kind of solutions that are coming uh, through the business now. Um, so I think that's um, an area that we'll continue to resource and then the perm business really focusing around industry, um, using senior people like me to build new spaces, pulling people underneath, hand it over, move on to the next piece, leveraging AI as much as possible. Um, so we will move on to a native AI CRM uh in the next few months. The contract team has already started. We are already looking at how we can utilize other tools to automate as much as possible. Um, and we've got all that history in the business, uh, all that database of 250,000 candidates that has been barely touched, most of it for year, uh, on year. Uh, so by plugging in some of these tools I think we can really kind of ramp up our impact with a smaller number of people, uh, and then leveraging some outsource resources in places like the Philippines.

Speaker A: Okay, I like it. And in terms of long term play, you know, you've been through a lot. You've took a business over, you've scaled it, you've downsized it, you've diluted, you've rebalanced, you've shut offices down, you've grown off that. You've done so much stuff like what? Where do you personally see this going and what's in it for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very good question. I think the lesson learned is you need to be conscious of building something of value, um, to a third party, uh, if you want to take something to market. And we've always been a bit hesitant about that. We've always thought when the time comes it will be right. We haven't been very intentional about it. And um, you leave yourself exposed, you overspend in good market, um, you leave yourself cash short in tough markets, uh, then you have to cut back more than you want to. And so I think we're working towards now in a, let's say five to ten year time frame. A way to uh, bring value to all the shareholders because we have other senior team members who will have uh, a stake in this moving forward. So how can we all work together uh, to help everybody get value out of that and make sure that I can afford to retire because the years are counting down now.

Speaker A: So when does that on the. Have you got a timeline around that?

Speaker B: I'd say sort of um, five plus years. Because I think it's going to take us the next um, five year period to maximize the return on investing in that contract.

Speaker A: Working that out. That'd be 30 years in the business, wouldn't it? In five years. Yeah. Is that, does that kind of ring for you, that round number? Are you one of them guys who's like 30 years?

Speaker B: I don't worry about the numbers but I have realized I'm practically unemployable uh, anywhere else having been 25 years in this business um, and run it myself for most of that period of time. Right. So. And I'm, yeah I'm m deeply attached to this business. It's my strength and my weakness. Um, but I think I'm surrounded by you know, great people now, uh, leaning on other people's strengths more effectively. Uh, so I think that that, that next run over the next sort of five years plus will be the um, one that we can extract some financial uh, value as well as the value of the experience of the process as well.

Speaker A: And would you want to retire completely or would you want to be like a chairman or on the board and yeah, maybe.

Speaker B: I mean I think I've got that experience now, uh, or maybe help other companies who want to go through this journey. Uh, and um, you know, I think it's uh, definitely a transferable skill set because of all of those ups and downs I've been through. Um, so yeah, probably a bit of advisory work further down the line.

Speaker A: What are the headlines and final question, what are the headlines that you need to tick off to get the business in to shape, that there's value for someone else to acquire, invest in whatever the event might be that leads to you being able to retire. What do you need to do?

Speaker B: I think scaling the contract business is an obvious one. Um, and doing that in a meaningful, well structured, transparent way. I think uh, having a uh, back office that makes sense, um, that is transferable to another organization or another organization can look at and see obvious crossovers um, so that they can plug in their own resources. But I think most importantly is the perm, um business is building a perm business um, that uh, you're able to articulate clearly to a third party and is not overly dependent on um, a ah, small number of people who are big billers within their ah, certain spaces. Right. Which is why we're looking at this sort of industry ownership um, and using someone like me and some of our other senior people to work across these industries and then bring people underneath so you have a proven mechanism of how you bring someone in to Pick up a model that already works because then it's replicable, uh, other than your head.

Speaker A: Like you'd have to do certain amount in a sector before you then invest in someone to come in. Do you have like, I've got to go and bill 100k or whatever, but then I'll look at bringing some money.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're looking at sort of, um, in pounds, sort of 300,000 pound potential, um, within a space. So therefore you've got a couple of anchor clients. You can see that there's repeatable business and um, you're building a reputation. You can see that you can um, drop down from the senior roles that I would probably pick up to begin with and then actually in the mid level contingent business as well because then that gives you the uh, you know, sort of a bit more

Speaker A: awesome. Well, look, Matt, it's gone midnight where you are, I think, so I think you deserve to go to bed, mate. Um, thank you. I uh, want to say thank you for giving us your time and your candid nature and the story. Because it's genuinely. It's different than what I've told before. I think like, it's um. And I've done a lot of it. I think I've done over 400 episodes of this show now. But I, uh, I learned from everyone and I feel like what I like about. I genuinely mean, I, I think you, you strike me as. You've still got loads of energy for it, like, despite all the things you've been through. You meet some people. I met a guy yesterday in fact, who, you know, he look, he looked like he was on, he was on the downward. Just openly like, you know, I don't know how long I've got with this bit. Like the guy when you took the business on in 2000, um, two or whatever it was, um, I don't get that vibe off you. I mean, I think you, you want maybe the exit and the, you know, the retirement. But I don't know, you strike me as someone who's really, you're gonna go and give it your best shot, which I think is great. You know, go and make it happen.

Speaker B: Thanks mate. M. Yeah, I mean I've definitely had uh, a lot of ups and downs. Um, but can uh, still say for sure I'm very passionate about the industry, my position in that industry, my position in the organization, within the industry. So, uh, yeah, uh, I keep tracking on. We'll get there.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, look, I hope if anyone's listened to this show and would like to reach out to you, whether it's to pick your brains on scaling, downsizing, Hong Kong as a region, you know, managing a business from overseas because you're running a business from England, UK at the minute. Um, if anyone wanted to reach out on LinkedIn, is that okay?

Speaker B: Yeah, of course, yeah, please do.

Speaker A: You'll give them some time. Um, um, and we'll get you back on in the future and I want to find out how you are tracking against this plan.

Speaker B: Sounds good. Look forward to it.

Speaker A: 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 listen and the more recruitment owners we can help. As a recruitment founder, uh, 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 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 RAG 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.