Season 9 | Ep35 Oliver Paull: £800K in 3 Years, Solo, From a London Flat

Speaker A: LinkedIn recruiter is nearly becoming obsolete for me, let's put it that way. This tool used to be everything. Every single one of those clients I've ever worked with has come from the podcast. I've done no cold client outreach over £500,000 just from a podcast.

Speaker B: Oliver Paul is 28 years old. He has no office and no staff. He's never made a cold call to win any of his clients. Who works from his flat in London from 2pm to 2am, entirely on US time and just under three years, he's billed close to 800,000 alone at 80% profit margin.

Speaker A: I left there pretty much having three panic attacks a week. Sometimes my manager at the time would ring me and say, where are you? And I'd be like, I'm back home, lying on my bathroom floor.

Speaker B: He walked away from his first job billing 650k to join his mates company. Two years later, just before Christmas, one phone call shut the whole company down in seconds. He had no job, no plan. So he asked his dad for £3,000 to help him start the business. Dad said no.

Speaker A: He said, if you're asking me whether you should start a company, the question should be, do you believe enough in yourself to invest your own money to allow you to be successful? And I replied, yeah, I do. And he said, right, go and start your business now.

Speaker B: In month one he closed £27,000.

Speaker C: That was done.

Speaker B: Stood at the breakfast bar with his laptop propped up because he didn't have a desk. Year one he did £290,000, 81% profit margin. Year two, 298,000. Year three, 270,000 already. This is all powered by 120 episodes of a podcast that he uses for business development and an AI resourcing strategy that works while he sleeps. I mean, how does that feel at the age of 28?

Speaker A: Yeah, I've had a lot of my friends sort of ask me about it and it, it's pretty weird. I don't.

Speaker B: There is a new generation of recruitment founder out there and they're not standing up making 100 dial outs a day. Instead they're building assets that drive clients inbound to them. Ollie might be the clearest picture yet of where our uh, industry is headed.

Speaker A: So this is a brand new episode

Speaker B: of the Rag podcast with Oliver Paul,

Speaker C: the 28 year old who's just billed

Speaker B: 800,000 pounds across the US market on his own from his flat in London. Without further ado, Ollie, welcome to the Rag Podcast.

Speaker A: Thank you, thank you so much for having me, Sean. It's a pleasure.

Speaker B: No, it's good. This, uh, something we've been speaking about for a while again, I think six months, nine months maybe, we chatted. I think you had the problem. We're going to do this. I'm like, oh, shit, I've missed that one.

Speaker A: Yeah, back in December, I think you first reached out after I did a post about sort of the year that I'd had. Um, and yeah, then finally we've got it on the diary.

Speaker B: We have. Well, look, you're dialing in from London, I believe.

Speaker A: From London. Batsy.

Speaker B: Yeah. And a fellow podcaster with his, with his own mic and camera and stuff setting up. Well, sometimes we have some real issues with the audio when you're doing it remote, but we're not, hopefully not gonna have that today. Um, mate, I've done a brief introduction. I'm gonna, I want to get right into the story in a minute. Before we get into the story, give us the bird's eye view of you and what the business does today. None of the, none of the detail in the past, just an elevator pitch of you today.

Speaker A: Yeah, cool. So RecGen is a company I founded around two and a half years ago. Now, um, we focus now on placing sales and technical individuals into construction technology companies. Majority in the U.S. so when we started the business, we were focused on cybersecurity and placing just salespeople. The last year and a half pivoted into this construction technology space, really niching down into that market and becoming the go to recruiter for construction technology SaaS companies. And it's just you and just me? Yes. Nobody else? Just me. Sitting at home all day long every day.

Speaker B: 28 year old sitting at home running his own company for the last two and a half years. Are you living alone? Do you live with someone else?

Speaker A: So I'm very fortunate. I live with my girlfriend. And we also have a housemate who is 27 and he also owns a recruitment agency as well.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: So his is 3 years old as well.

Speaker B: So is he in the same apartment or house every day on his own calls, doing it together?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So he runs a kitchen around my bedroom. Um, and then we'll have a little tea break. Well, have you seen these like, uh, content houses? Um, that's the way we look at it. We're just a house full of recruiters pretty much. Then we've got his brother next door who is a like financial analyst for the tech company.

Speaker B: So, uh, wicked young entrepreneurs living together, doing it together. I love it. Well, we're Getting that. I'm going to get into all this. Let's go back then. So, um, I've known you, I've been on your. You've been on our radar for years because of the relationship I had with Jez. Heard, who was on the podcast a number of years ago, who rapidly scaled, well, rapidly grew a business called Scale Genesis, incredible revenues, and then, you know, was open about the fact that he, you know, he didn't want to do it and liquidated the company and you were part of that. So let's go beyond. You knew Jez, who you ended up working for as a student. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. So both me and Jez studied at, uh, Cardiff. Met, uh, we both did sport, sports and exercise science. And he. So Jez was actually in the year above me. Um, we are the same age, but I did three years at college and then Jez joined straight away. Um, so through a friend of a friend, ended up that me and Jez actually ended up living together in, I think, second and third year. Um, so really got to know Jez for all his great quirks. Um, and obviously he's brilliant mind and stuff. So that was really how I got to know Jez in a nutshell.

Speaker B: So then you. You're not from Cardiff, you go to Cardiff and then you ended up getting into recruitment in Bristol, I think, after graduating. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: So the story is a classic degree to get into recruitment, by the way. Similar to there.

Speaker A: There is a story, to be fair, of how, why I got into recruitment. There's sort of two sides of. I used to do promotion, uh, at uni. Loved it. Loved being on the street, trying to get people in clubs selling tickets. Yeah. And I would say it was like one pound a ticket you would get. Why was it selling around 300, 400 tickets a week while I was at uni? Because I thought, oh, this is brilliant, I can make loads of money. But I remember one eye. I, uh, stood on the street trying to get someone in the club. These three lads come up to me, lo and behold, they are pretty pissed. And they go, mate, if you want to make real money, you should go into recruitment. And I went, coming from Cornwall, I went, well, what's that? Never heard of this job. Didn't know what it was. He said, yeah, if you want to

Speaker B: do it Cornwall, that's just a kid who does it. I'd never heard of it either.

Speaker A: Ah, I think most people had it. And they were like, yeah, we have nice watches, nice cars. Little Ollie was going, oh, I want all these things Money sounds great. Um, so I then started, went home, started looking at recruitment. And in my second year I went, you know what, when I leave, I want to go into recruitment. So I had another two years, pretty much uni to go. Which nice people. It's like, uh, you get to end uni and you go, you're like, who's

Speaker B: ever said that to me?

Speaker A: Well, this is. And this is the honest truth. And then there is another part to it which is I didn't know this because I'm not very close with him. My granddad owned a recruitment agency in London, in Mayfair, for 30 years. And only when asked my mum and said about, I want to go into recruitment, she went, you realize that's what your granddad did. And he ran a global business recruiting software engineers in the US at the time, from the uk. And the fact I was now in those similar shoes and that wasn't the decision making is thousands of pounds international back then, not a clue. So it was. I think it was more like shipping people off and whatever it be. Again, I don't know him whether my mum's sort of making up some of parts of the stories, but he had a recruitment agency either way. Yeah. I don't trust everything she says.

Speaker B: It's in the blood.

Speaker A: Yeah, apparently so.

Speaker B: So you go and work for a company. I know the guys at G2 did a bit of work with them years ago. Um, and you went and joined. You moved from Cardiff to Bristol, did you? Straight out?

Speaker A: Yeah. So being from Cornwall, I went, oh, what's the nearest biggest city that's not London or something? That's going to scare the hell out of me straight away. Um, so went to Bristol and remember, it was. So I left during COVID of uni. I originally got a offer from Heat Recruitment and I was meant to start in September. In August of that year, they rung me and said, because of COVID we're doing layoffs. Your offer is no longer there. So I known for like three, four months. So I panicked, going, well, I'm stuck in Cornwall, I'm working in a farm shop. That's my stepdad. I really don't want to be working on a farm. I hate getting muddy. And so we. So I started interviewing, ended up work, getting an offer from G2 as well as also a couple of others there. Um, but G2's training ground was what it sold it sold it to me. Uh, ultimately.

Speaker B: Okay, so take us back to what, what that was like. You were there for two years.

Speaker A: Yeah. So two years went Straight in and did contract recruitment. Um, they put me into a market where I was placing project managers, construction managers into the food industry in the Netherlands. So sounded super niche to me. I'd known the three, three people had done this market before and all quit after about a month of doing it. Um, I came in, had quite a bit of early success and I thought, you know what, I'm incredible at this. The next six months was absolutely horrendous. I'd gone from doing two deals in the first month of being there to then suddenly doing nothing for six months. Very much worried about my job. But working 7am, 7pm, trying to get in on the phone, 100 dial outs a day.

Speaker B: Um, they are like old school. Standing up on the phone as many times.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. If you want stood up on the phone like you're getting someone shouting at you across the room. Um, like it's Wolf of Wall street vibe, I suppose.

Speaker B: Like the guys there, ah, celebrate that culture. Right. It's what they. And they're incredibly successful because of it. It's just that 100 they want, they choose to work that way. And it's as far as I'm aware, it's like a graduate, it's a graduate model. They bring young people in, they work them hard, they've got some incredible billers, but not for everyone, that way of working.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And what, so what was it? How did it feel like for you?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, I mean, and this will paint a good picture of that. Before I left to go and join Jez's company that year, I was on target to bill 650,000. So I was on for pretty good year. The money was going to be good. I was doing perm deals, contract deals. My business was my business desk. Of all the clients I was working, I was working with Pepsi, McCain's like some of the biggest food company, Coca Cola, some of the biggest food companies across Europe. And they were working with little old Ollie. He really didn't have a clue what he was doing. Um, but I was. That environment I realized wasn't for me that I was always a people seller, that I wanted people to like me and they wanted cold, hard pushing, like we're going to close deals no matter what, within reason, like. And it resulted in me just mentally struggling quite a lot. Like I mentioned to you, that was I left there pretty much having three panic attacks a week. I'd have to go to the bathroom because I'd be having a panic attack all the time. Sometimes, uh, my manager at the time would ring Me and say, where are you? And I'd be like, I'm back home lying on my bathroom floor. I had to leave. I couldn't function. I was performing. Amazing.

Speaker B: Coming from though. Is it the fact that you just didn't want to, you just didn't want to make those cold calls or was it the, the way in which you were, uh, you weren't working, aligned to your values?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was just that I. It didn't align to my values of how I wanted to sell. But also I loved cold calls. I was, I was. I loved handling objections. I loved it. It was once I stopped once I. When I was on the phone, fine. As soon as I was not on the phone, it would. All that pressure of. To perform and to, to hit these numbers and targets and comparing yourself to 20, 30 other people in the sales room that I always wanted to be number one. That's always my biggest issue, is that I have to be the best. And I really struggled with comparing myself to other people in the, in the office.

Speaker B: So when did you know that it was time to leave? What was the, was the final straw there?

Speaker A: Yeah. So. So when I moved to Jez, Jez, I'd actually turned down Jez's first offer. We put a great offer in front of me. I took a month and a half to decide if I was going to join him. Ended up turning him down because I was looking at how much money I was making at uh, G2. And uh, the final straw for me per se was I remember just sitting down with my girlfriend at the time and being like, she's like, you can't keep doing this. You're literally. You put on loads of weight. You're mentally not there. You can't function. I couldn't go to public places. Like, I couldn't go and socialize with people I didn't want to. All I was worried about was working. And I didn't go on holiday for two and a half years or whatever it was. I don't think I took a holiday day.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And that it just. At that point I knew I had to get myself into a different environment where I can be more autonomous towards myself, have more control over how I sell and how I depict my career. Um, there were other reasons. There was stuff going on in the company that, that sort of pushed me a little bit harder. But it was definitely a big catalyst was how I was mentally feeling

Speaker B: to join Jazz.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then so me and Jaz just met up with just as. As we do, because we're mates, we still do. And he goes, come on, come and join me. And he threw this offer at me that I'm telling you now, most people at that age would never have said no to.

Speaker B: What was it? Can you tell us?

Speaker A: Yeah. So he offered me like 65k base and then I was getting 30% of whatever I bought in within a plan for getting like a 10% equity of the business. So yeah, when you've looked at your mate who's just down 1.1 or 1.2 million, you've gone, I wouldn't mind a little piece of the pie.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And uh, just having that base and that stability, the opportunity to be a modern day recruiter. Nothing against the old school methods but the way he sold it to me, I went, it sounds cool. And I got to go to Manchester

Speaker B: and take us through that then. So you, you, because I know you moved, you had to. Part of the deal was you had to go and move to Manchester.

Speaker A: Yeah. So moved to Manchester. Um, absolutely loved it. Part of the deal was do six months in Manchester. Uh, and then uh, we would then move to London and open a London office. We were already at about 10 or 11 members of staff at that point. And then plan was to open something in London. The ultimate plan was that Jez was going to move to London as well. We pretty much were going to move all operations to London. That was. Jaz had a goal that he wanted to move there as well. Um, ultimately we, and this has been a big lesson for me actually that, and it's sort of why I probably am hesitant to hire for myself. We hired all of our friends like every single one of them, like anyone we knew that did recruitment. You came to work for us and that actually backfired so much you think that you can trust your friends to deliver and to work harder. Me and Jaz have very similar work ethics. We will drill ourselves into the ground. We will work every single hour there is in a day. And even when it wasn't my company, we were doing that. We were up till 4 or 5, 6am sometimes just to try and get hold of the candidate at 10pm or whatever. We didn't care. And, and you were doing everything, all your clients. Yeah, everything in America. Yeah.

Speaker B: And yeah, go on, you finish what you're saying. But I did want to ask you because you mentioned about the way of working was different. So let's go into that hiring piece and then I want to go back.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It was like to go from standing up and making hundreds of Dollars to how you actually operated inside to scale Genesis.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. So, yeah, I mean, the hiring, it was a big lesson learned that just hiring your mate can be detrimental. And actually, I tell you what, the first person I had to fire was a very good mate of mine and that was the most horrible experience I had in my life when he turns around and goes, how am I meant to pay rent, mate? And I go, yeah, all right.

Speaker B: Uh, what were the symptoms that made you make those decisions? What were you seeing that ultimately said, right, we've made, We've got it wrong here.

Speaker A: The more that it wasn't the respect. So the expectations were there. We aligned it, we put pips in place, we did whatever we could to make it as a normal environment. But there was too much camaraderie, I suppose you could say, in the office, which you need that balance as a manager of that I'm your manager, not I'm your best mate that we spend every single weekend together having beers with. Yeah, yeah. And ultimately that's where activity was low

Speaker B: or, uh, what were they showing that you were not happy with?

Speaker A: Yeah, activity was definitely low. And I think something that both me and Jez struggled with at the time, both being very young, um, was setting expectations that were clear and also achievable. There were some things I obviously don't agree with. And the expectations that me and Jaz could hit wasn't what a normal person who has nothing tied into the company. I was fortunate. I had a big base. I had everything I needed to be comfortable so I could throw everything into it and, um, take that risk. Whereas we didn't sort of think about. Actually, some of our mates might not have any savings or they might not have anything. They. They want to have a more. More of a social life because we didn't interview them properly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: We just went, do you want a job? Yeah, cool. We know you're quite good at where you are, but it's a different environment. I think we'll talk about this of the. The startup and the. The bigger company, the difference of working for them. And that comes down to what you asked me about the processes.

Speaker B: Yeah. So talk us through the biggest. Like, what were the obvious changes for you to go from that boiler room environment to Manchester.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, uh, it did take me a while to really grow into the role because actually going from G2, that had a, um, CRM that is stockpiled to the brim to go into Jazz, where we were changing CRM pretty much every two months that we didn't have really much, that much data. So then what we actually ended up doing was Jez wanted to build a. I'd never done email outreach to candidates. Well, a little bit to candidates, never to clients or anything like that. So we spent the first four or five months after I joined literally just doing data. So we were, um, pulling, scraping every last bit of data we could through sales, navigation, through using a thing called finding to find all these emails, cleaning the data, verifying every email. And we did that with no outreach, no recruiting activity, nothing at all. We just did data pretty much for about four or five months. And that, to me, threw me off completely because I was like, I was just itching to just get on the phone, ring clients, do business, which is what I've been told to do. So that shook me a little bit. And then we started doing email outreach. And I remember it was just before December, we started to email clients. And I think my first sort of wave of this new data that we just cleaned had something like 18 clients come back wanting to work with me. And so I was like, what's going on here? It felt free to me. It felt like I'd done no work to achieve this. And so we're doing email outreach and then working that way using LinkedIn Recruiter. We were using very early on stages of AI recruiting software to filter and find candidates for us. And that just blew my mind that you could win business that way. I wasn't having to jump on, well, speak to 16 people a day who would all tell me to basically F off. Um, yeah, that was. That was the biggest difference, me. And it blew my mind completely.

Speaker B: So you're in Manchester, uh, you're building data. Was, uh, he already had a team when you came in, or was it?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there was about seven of us. Yeah. So I think I was the seventh to join.

Speaker B: And then you grew it to 10, 11 or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was 11 or 12. We got to as the max. Um, and then it sort of fell very quickly back down.

Speaker B: So what happened after six months?

Speaker A: So after six months we moved to London. We opened an office here. I hired my best mate from G2, uh, the. And he was a really good recruiter. Uh, again, I went to university with him. He also went to uni with Jazz. Um, and so he comes in, we work in the London office, um, in Old street. Was going all well, we hired another one of the mates from Cornwall. He was working remotely at the time, was about to move to London. Then the outputs just weren't there we started doing everything. We won a big bit of business with a client, with a defense client in the US and we were working all those roles but couldn't fill them. They were so niche, completely outside of my remit of what I would ever have done in my career. And I think we wasted a lot of time, to be honest with you,

Speaker B: uh, on those email outreach like to get the work. What were you emailing with? Was it with a candidate? Were you leading with candidates or.

Speaker A: Yeah, so. Well, it was a mixture to be honest with Jez. He's a very good copywriter. Um, and some of the emails and the campaigns and outreach, this is where I've now learned all, all of this from is from Jez. We did so much training on actually writing it. And you know what his sense of humor is like? Well, he can put that into written text which resonated. So everyone was finding it hilarious because you're sending all these different. And he would spend hours every day using stuff like LEM List or Lavender or tools like that to work out how to write better emails. Um, and then, yes, that was exactly what he was selling. Candidates, telling jokes, whatever it be. Um, and then were you getting really

Speaker B: hard to fill jobs back like you say you're getting things that you were like, what the hell is this?

Speaker A: Well, some of we kept it to a niche to start with. Mine were all cybersecurity, they were all sales roles. It was really good. The issue was that happened was we broke the domain and then got obsessed with then domain health, domain based. So everything went from sending thousands of emails down to, well, we can only now send 50 emails a day.

Speaker B: Okay, people who don't understand what that means, breaking a domain, can you explain it?

Speaker A: So obviously with like Google, Outlook, um, whatever it be, Gmail, um, they all have a domain reputation. So if you're sending a stupidly higher quality quantity of emails that are bouncing to wrong emails, um, not getting replies, getting unsubscribes, um, Gmail will flag your account as being a damaged or let's say spammer. And suddenly whenever you send an email you're hitting the spam folder or in a lot of cases not even being delivered to them at all. Um, that happened to us. We went from an open rate of like 95% using Loxo and we were getting like 20, 30% reply rates. It's crazy numbers really. And then that dropped down to we were getting I think like nearly 12% open rate.

Speaker B: So how did that affect Jez at that point?

Speaker A: Yeah, Quite badly. Um, just because that was, that was our main method. And then being Jez, because he's very intelligent, he gets very hyper obsessed with things. And so we got very hyper obsessed with repairing the domain, how can we get around it. So we created loads of subdomains, Loxo then told us we could send it through their domain and in the end it never quite got back to how good it was with our domain because at the time we didn't know what domain reputation was. We didn't know it was a thing. It was actually when Gmail and Outlook actually started to really get stripped on it. Yeah, um. And yeah, that resulted. That was definitely a hard time when we suddenly then had to go back to cold calling.

Speaker B: You've got to London now and you've set up this office and suddenly the email marketing stops.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that became challenging because then we had to pivot our whole business model. I was fine because I was very fortunate that I, in that six months I had actually just about built up enough clients I could sort of keep ticking along my own book. And at the time there was pretty much what, eight or nine of us at this point and I was the only one generating revenue. Jez has gone completely hands off recruitment. Everyone else is sort of struggling to win business because they're not knowing how. None of them have done cold calling like I had. So I, I was just calling people because that's all I knew and I knew it would work. They're not gonna. They can block my number if they want, but sometimes go back to the old way and it's always trusted fair.

Speaker B: So, uh, you were there for two years and then it all came to an end. So take us from that period of, you know, you're in London, there's two of you, the domain gets blocked. What happened between that point this coming

Speaker A: crashing down, so ended up having to. So we'd fired pretty much most of the Manchester office. I think there was one guy up there working with Jezebel. Um, we got him more doing like marketing towards the end. Um, it was one of Jez's first. It was Jez's first ever hire and he really, I think didn't want to let him go per se. Um, we then. I had to then fire my best mate. He was working with me in London. The more awkward part was that me and him were actually living together as well. Um, uh, so you can imagine me coming home from that office the evening and uh, yeah, it was my ex girlfriend. Me and his ex girlfriend and yeah, him Awkward, to say the least. I was very fortunate that Jez told me to fire him and by the time I got to the office in the morning, Jez had fired him for me. Which, but still quite awkward when you walk into the office and he goes, mate, I've just been fired. And I go, yeah, I was just on my way to do it. Um, so that was hard. He was very fortunate that G2 took him back. Um, and so he went back to work for them in the London office this time. But yeah, that was a horrible experience. And to be honest, friendship in the house or not, we only. About six or seven weeks ago, we're now back to where we used to be his mates. Like we. I ended up moving out of the house at this point, uh, after firing him and it was just because we weren't talking, it was just very awkward. Um, and then ended up, yeah, not talking basically for a whole year and then, yeah, we're now back talking but it'd be just a horrible experience. And another example of hiring mates as his drawbacks if you have to fire them. And at the end of the day, we did. He had been with us six months, he hadn't done any deals, so we were hemorrhaging cash at this point.

Speaker B: We were basically, Jaz has built loads, he's brought you in, you're scaling the team. Obviously the method to finding clients is drying up. It's not working. Was Jez billing as much at this point? Was there a reason why? Because surely you and him could still prop up the business costs at that point.

Speaker A: So we got down to literally me and him and this probably will worked for about four months this way. Jez still was hands off even when the business was struggling. Jez had lost all love for recruitment. He just didn't want to do it. He couldn't bring himself to do it. And fair enough, like to just write

Speaker B: emails, basically that was his job.

Speaker A: He just wanted to. Yeah, he just wanted to run a business, he wanted to be a CEO, he wanted to do that and that's what he enjoyed. He didn't. Wouldn't want to get on the phone, didn't want to source candidates, etc. Could he have of done it and could we have saved the business potentially, But I don't think the desire there, it stressed him out so much and really, really hurt him actually, the firing of his friends. Like he felt he had let everyone down. And Jez is a really proud person and a really good friend that you could see it emotionally. It. I've Never seen the guy cry, but when he had to fire his friends, that really, that really hurt him. And that, in the end, I think broke him. And then, yeah, then one day he just rings me and goes, I feel really bad, mate. Uh, you're literally paying me to live at this present moment in time. I might be paying you as a boss, but all the money you're bringing in, you're literally funding, uh, my pockets. And by the way, for the last the, towards the end, the last six months or last seven months, I took no commission, so every deal I was doing, I walked away. When, when the business closed down. Being owed, not owed is my mate, but. And I agreed to do this, but, uh, technically being owed £40,000 in commission. Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, so you're putting money in the business, keeping it alive and then he phones you and says, what the.

Speaker A: He feels bad that I'm doing this X, Y and Z and he's not doing any work. Pretty much. He's like, for the last few weeks I've been sat at home doing nothing. Um, I'm gonna close a business. I'm just gonna be an online personal trainer. So did you see? Yeah, it said to me a little bit like, I, uh, might close the business, whatever. But like, this was very much so, yeah, I'm going to close the business. And he was like, this was literally just, just before, just like, just before Christmas. And he was like, I'll keep paying your salary for like, I think it was one or two months more while you figure out what you want to do. Um, but he was like, if I was you, I would start your own business.

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Speaker B: All right, let's get back to the show.

Speaker A: Um, and I went and how did

Speaker B: you respond to what are you at this point? 26, 25? 26.

Speaker A: Yeah, must have been 25, 26. And I went. I'd always wanted to start my own business but I'd always thought maybe when I'm like 30 or something like that, when I'm a bit more mature. Um, and at this point I literally, because we were making money and maybe I hadn't had the foresight, I just decided to go and get a new property. It was like a thousand pounds more a month extra for me, like a lot of other expenses and whatever. And then I went crap, what am I going to do? Fortunately I've always been quite money smart that I've always been a big believer of you save. So I uh, had the money there in the bank that could provide me for the next couple of months.

Speaker B: But how soon did he shut it from that phone call?

Speaker A: Pretty much that phone call was when we like cease, cease trading per se.

Speaker B: So you uh, wouldn't, you've had like searches on and clients you were dealing with and things like.

Speaker A: Yeah, we had that and very fortunately the. So I had like at this point we had, I had like two clients on that was actively working with um, one so very much. Very fortunately Jeza said take, take the clients with you when you start your business. There's my, there's my present to you that uh, for like just being good,

Speaker B: do what you want basically.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, exactly. He just said look, I'm going to be closing the business, I don't really care. So very fortunately, well sort of fortunately those two roles, I didn't end up filling, but they. These roles also sent me. As soon as I started the business, those companies sent me two new roles which I still had access to the old emails and then just sort of said, look, uh, here's my business now can we sign terms? It will be paid to me. Yeah. And to be fair, I've always bought good relationships. So they were like, yeah, no problem.

Speaker B: So let's. Did you have to think twice about setting up or did you. I mean he said, just start a business, mate. But did you consider going, getting a job anywhere else or was it. Was there not any?

Speaker A: No, I, at that point when I don't think I can go back to working for yeah like a G2 or a company like that.

Speaker B: I learned too much business anyway. If he was out of the business for that long and he was mind was gone, then you were running it anyway, essentially.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, I just wasn't having to do the back office and stuff like that. And the even J said he was like, when you start your business, if you, if you're stuck or don't know what you need to do or how to run back office or whatever it be, just message me. Yeah. And so I remember I rung my dad and I said dad, I think I'm going to start my own business. And my dad's a business owner as well. Um, so he went, okay. And I went, do you mind lending me, uh, £3,000? And he went, what for? I said, well, that's what I basically need to get the company going and the cash flow. Do you not have any savings? And I went, yeah. And he went, and this stuck with me and actually still repeat it all the time is that he said to me, he said if you're asking me whether you should start a company, the question should be, do you believe enough in yourself to invest your own money to allow you to be successful? And I replied, uh, yeah, I do. And he said, right, go and start your business. And I think for me.

Speaker B: Why did you want his money though? Just so you didn't have to spend your own savings?

Speaker A: Yeah, I just wanted to take it as a loan. And so I was still. It didn't have to eat into my savings. So uh, I in my mind always value my savings. I've worked hard and I wanted him to see about just like supporting me. And actually the best thing that he did was when he turned me down. And I think it was all in a bunch of panic of me going, crap, can I afford to do this? Like if the next Few months are quite hard. Um, I reckon he helped me at

Speaker B: that point when he would have helped you. But, like, that's. My kids have asked me, now that they're 11 and 13, like, about the future and business and. And they say, would you give me. Would you give us money? And I'm like, they asked you these daft questions, would you give us a million pounds? I haven't got a million pound, but. And they're like, would you give me a million? Would you give me some money? I'm like, in the mirror, my stepdaughter said, if I had a really good idea, would you. Would you give me the money? And I said, well, probably not. I was like, I think I'd get you to go and work for it. You'd have to go and earn it. And then I'd, uh, help you. And I said, so I think I'd help you if you were struggling, like. But I'd want to see you put. I think anyone who's made money themselves values what they've done. And if you've given, even if you. I mean, look, loads of giving, a starting fund and what have you. But I actually respect your dad for that. I think I would have been.

Speaker A: So do I. The best. Best decision, uh, best thing he ever did was saying that to me. And he's always like, he's had a business that. He would never even give me that business. He always said to us as kids, go and prove to me. Go and prove to me you can't do it, then you can have it, but if you can do it, then you'll feel so much better for doing. Exactly. He, uh, owns a jewelry store.

Speaker B: What impact do you think having an entrepreneurial dad had on you? Because I. I didn't have that. You see, I can't say I looked up to someone growing up. I had no, no guidance. So what would you.

Speaker A: It always made me want to have a business, like 100. I always saw him having this jewelry story. Wore his suits. He could do whatever he wanted. He could close it when he wanted. Not that he ever did, but did have the option. My pups was my granddad. Other one, not the one we don't talk to, but he owned a gentleman's clothes store. He owned five of them across the country. And so I saw these two guys that built these careers. They built them by themselves. And the lives they've been able to have is incredible because of it. And so I always wanted that. I didn't. I'm too opinionated to work for Other people. Which I've realized that why I butted heads with people is that I uh, like to change things. I like to do things the way that I think it should work, not how other people think it should. I will listen to advice, don't get me wrong, that's important. But I do like to try my way first, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: So your dad says no, you dig into your savings, tell us what happened next. Where did the name come from?

Speaker A: So I think at this time it must have been chatgpt. It just turned uh. I'm pretty sure I was using it at this point.

Speaker B: Yeah, it would have been just.

Speaker A: And I was like, oh, this sounds good. So I remember I wanted like obviously someone to influence to, to wreck to recruitment. So obviously rec then the GEN actually stands for recruitment generator. So being the generator for all these companies of generating you great talent. And that was where. That's what ChatGPT gave me was recruitment generator. And then I just saw REC and Jen and M. Sounds pretty good to me.

Speaker B: Scale Genesis. There's similarities in there. Like you've come.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: Called Venquist, which was a made up word. And so that was always going to be the route I went down was a made up word. So when I. Hoxo was a made up word.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: It was just like I wanted to. Because when you put it into Google, there's no comparison. It's not like there's loads of them.

Speaker A: True.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that. Yeah. I think you learn from where you've been and what you've been doing. So. And then take us. So what, what did, what did, what did it look like at the start? You just.

Speaker A: It was brilliant.

Speaker B: One day you're working for Jazz, on the next day you literally just flipped it to you.

Speaker A: Yeah. So basically flipped it over. Well, it was a period of time, I think it was about two, three weeks. Was working out sort of what I wanted to do. Helping Jez. Saw everything closing down the London office, whatever it be and then got to about December and I was like, right, I'm going to do this. Launched the company, figured out how to go on HMRC and sort everything out. So start the business. And I literally to the weekend after starting the business I moved into the new apartment. So all going on. I was also going on a 10 day holiday at that point as well. So we moved in, then went away for 10 days which was great. So stupid. I didn't really have a choice. I was like, I've got to do something now. Obviously it's going to be too late. So that all happened and then started to. I just reached out to old clients and new clients with LinkedIn. I messaged, whatever, and I'd been running a podcast with Jez Prior and I thought, I'm gonna just, just keep doing that. I don't, I don't know how to get hold of clients anymore. I don't have a phone system to ring the US don't have any software. The only way that I knew is I could record because I could still had access to streamyard. So I just recorded, recorded using that. And then lo and behold, was messaging in the cybersecurity space. Want some business? And then an old client reached out to me. And actually in the first, I remember January of that month, I did my first deal, which was at £27,000.

Speaker C: This was.

Speaker B: Yeah, you set up.

Speaker A: Yeah, first month. Yeah. Um, but the funny, funniest thing was I was in this new apartment and for the next two months I was a little bit skinned. So I bought LinkedIn Recruiter and whatever and it hit my bank account quite a bit. I had no stools. I was stood in the kitchen, stood on my feet, on a laptop, on a breakfast bar for a good two months while running the business as raw as it could be, filming a podcast. Stood up, super, uh, uncomfortable. My back was completely destroyed. But I spent those next four months literally doing nothing else other than working. And I was seeing all this money coming in and I was going, this is crazy. I didn't even have an accountant at this point. I didn't even know I needed an accountant. I just was getting, sending these invoices, getting paid. And then suddenly I went, well, I better figure out actually what I do with this money. And like.

Speaker B: And you're 20.

Speaker A: I didn't have a clue. And so we'd done 60,000 and like the basic first quarter of starting the business. And I was like, well, this is wild. Like, first three months, didn't really know. Then I felt ill for two weeks because I literally had killed myself into the ground. I mean, I was working literally Monday to Sunday every single day for. And Obviously I work us hours. So I start work at 2pm and I finish at 2am every single day still. So, yeah, to this day, ah, I

Speaker B: know a lot of people doing US hours, but I don't know many people working to that late.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll tell you what, so I used to do with jazz, 10 till 10 with us and inside my business and Jazz just randomly went to me one day, he said, have you Ever thought about just starting later and finishing earlier and working till. Till later? I went, no, not really. But it sounds quite good because I can just chill in the morning. So I changed it to 2, 2 till 2 and honestly best thing I ever did. I mean I'll work till some nights I work till 4:00am um, and you've got a girlfriend. She's a flight attendant.

Speaker B: I was gonna say. How the hell do you maintain a relationship if you.

Speaker A: Well she does. She's even fine with that. I just uh, shouldn't mind because the great thing is, and this is why I love having it by myself is that in the evenings if I'm not sat at my desk then I'll just portably take my iPad into the living room, go watch tv. I'll do work, uh, I'll resource or whatever it be and so I can do it all flexible. And so I learned. It took me a while to realize actually how much flexibility I could have during that slot. Of that it fitted me better. I've always been a night out. I like staying up late.

Speaker B: I am literally the opposite of you. I would hate it, it, I would absolutely hate it. Last night England were playing against Costa Rica in the warm up game and I could only watch the first half because my eyes were going and I was like it's 11 o'.

Speaker A: Clock.

Speaker B: I'm not, I don't need this. I'm up at 6, 5, 30 every day I'm like that.

Speaker A: But yeah, see I'm up at 9:00am Nine. Yeah, nine or ten. Yeah. Sometimes if I've been up for like 3:00am then I'll get up at 10 or 11. Um, that two till three period. If I do that then really does mess with me the next day a bit.

Speaker B: But if I go that's west coast because you're not getting the east coast at that time.

Speaker A: West coast candidates on the east coast will talk to me then. Um, so realistically the 12 tool. So 12 till 2. There isn't a great deal of calls going on at this point like I do occasionally with some west coast in

Speaker B: the day or two at uh, night.

Speaker A: 12 at night till 2:00am Right, that's, that is my sweet spot for getting the best resourcing and the best work done. If you want to get hold of a candidate on the west coast and ah, actually get them to reply straight away, they're, they're at home chilling like when we, when I worked with G2. What's that 4:00pm so eight hours behind, it's about 6:00pm There 4 to 6:00pm in it.

Speaker B: 12 till 2 is 4 till 6.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: It's the end.

Speaker A: Yeah. So yeah, 6. So if I message them at 1:00am, um, they're just, they might just be clocking off for the day. And so they're instantly replying to me. And I can instantly reply to them. What I found was between 10 and 2, if I stopped at 10, the amount of clients that are then waiting for me to message them M is crazy. Like that, that period there they have it.

Speaker B: Break it down then. So I want a day in the life of. All right, so you wake up, let's say an average day. Not the crazy ones, just an average day. Take me on a journey of what time you wake up and what you do.

Speaker A: So let's say average day, 10:00am, um, awake, get in the shower, eat some breakfast. I'm in the gym by 12, in there for an hour, come back, shower, then buy, probably have a bit more food then. And 2pm I'll sit down on a laptop, work.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, so we're then chill through, probably get to about 4 or 5. I'll then probably have like a half an hour break, have some more food in that period. This will be that work. Up to about then is I might have some of the east code clients, east coast candidates having calls then. Then as we pushed on from about 5 till 8, generally is probably a bit more central stuff going on. So a few more central calls for clients, candidates because we're sort of hitting their like midday, noon area where they're a bit more free. Then about 8 o', clock, I take an hour normally to cook dinner, eat dinner, chill out, just reset, maybe go, maybe just get. Pop my head outside to get a bit of fresh air, get back in and then we'll do nine till two. Well, uh, nine till 12. That's generally my busiest part for west coast calls. That's when I'm normally chock a block and then from 12 till 2, that's resourcing prep. Like that's. They're my best outlets. Like, honestly, no one's messaging you, no one's texting you, none of your mates are awake. Everyone's sleeping. So I literally hear Netflix on or TV on. Oh, no, sorry, Netflix on or headphones on, Listen to music and just, just your girlfriend's either.

Speaker B: Uh, uh, at, uh, work.

Speaker A: My bed's right there, so she's probably asleep, yeah? Uh, yeah. Ah.

Speaker B: If you're on a call and she's asleep, like in the bed, she wears

Speaker A: headphones because she watches TV while she sleeps.

Speaker B: Right, so you can, you'll do candidate calls while she's there.

Speaker A: Yeah, the candidate calls. Or if, if I know I'm going to get a bit boisterous, or a client call, I'll just go to the kitchen. And so fortunately, I use like an iPad pro for my work, so moving around is so easy. Just grab it and off I go. Yeah, but yeah, it's uh, a. Yeah,

Speaker B: yeah, it's a very interesting a plan. I'm m. The. I'm like. Yeah, I'm the opposite, mate. I'm like 5:30 up, 6:00am, gym 7:00am I got a McDonald's for half an hour, random. Every day I post about it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen this with the coffee. People love it.

Speaker B: But I literally sit and have a black coffee and I just think. And I do some stuff here and there, laptop out, and I get ready for the day and then come back at half seven and I've got to get the dog out, I've got to get ready for shower, I've got to get the school run done and then I get back quarter to 9, 10 to 9, and then I'm in A. I'm working 9 till 12, flat out, usually back to back calls. Mondays I don't do any calls, I just do my content and my strategy. But every other day I'm. I'm speaking to people. 12 till 2, I take it off every day, so I go in back in the house, I'm with my daughter, with my wife, I always cook. And then two till half five every day. So we're five o' clock now. Um, and then usually half five, I'll wrap up and then I'll help with dinner, I'll help with the kids, the bedtime routine, all that. And then. But by about 7, I'm flagging, like. I know even around the kids. About 7pm, I'm. I'm a bit short, I'm a bit moody because I've been. I've been awake for 14 hours at that point.

Speaker A: So I'm like in the morning 10,

Speaker B: uh, you know, I can still stay up till 10, 11. I'm usually in bed about half 10 and I'm. So I'm only getting about six hours sleep, which is not probably optimal, but it works for me.

Speaker A: M. You get six hours and I get eight hours of sleep a night. Sometimes nine hours of sleep. And everyone goes, someone went to me the other day, said, ollie, sure, this is really unhealthy, like, your sleep must be ruined. Well, no, I go to bed at the same time every night and I wake up later than you and I get more hours.

Speaker B: It doesn't matter when you get it, your body, you'll have a. I mean the circadian rhythm does work with the sun. You'd have to have proper blackout windows.

Speaker A: What do I've got? Uh, full on eye mask, everything Like I. Yeah, it's all clocked in and you do have to be like that. Like I have the curtains drawn, whatever. And so I try to really mimic what I'm working like hours wise. I do try to look after m. My health as much as possible and you know, it's not for everyone. I mean it worked very well for me as well.

Speaker B: I think if you had three kids that'd be almost impossible. So like have you thought about that? Ah, is that something to down the line?

Speaker A: Yeah, consider. I think so. I mean there's plenty, there's loads of different things that go through my mind of that. You know the worst of it was I considered going to Dubai at one point and working till 4am every night just to deal with the, the work difference. But that's just. I'm just a bit tapped.

Speaker B: I have a client, Tom, who lives in Dubai and does us us hours. Like I don't know, it.

Speaker A: It didn't seem very plausible. But I think moving to the US would be cool. Um, it would work better for family, whatever.

Speaker B: But I think Latin America or America to be on the right side.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like I'm a lifestyle company at the moment in the sense of the funds my life and I can go on holiday, I do every year. I'll go on three, four holidays a year, still manage my work while I'm away and can still generate X, Y and zed money. And even last year I took more holiday, more time off and ended up doing 100 grand more than I did the year before. So the systems talk us through the numbers then.

Speaker B: So what have you done year on year? So you, since you sell.

Speaker A: So 209,000 in my first year of business and then that was like a, like 81% profit margin, um, which is wild in itself. But then year two we did 298,000. That was about, it was about 75% profit margin. I spent a bit more on a few other AI tools and whatnot. Um, then this year already I think we've just passed like 270,000. We've got a couple of offers that are waiting to be closed. So hopefully again sort of aiming to be consistent with that 300 mark. So around 800k, probably in the next over 3 years.

Speaker B: I mean, how does that feel at the age of 28?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I've had a lot of my friends sort of ask me about it and like it, it's pretty weird. I don't, I've had to be with myself. Like, I just see them as like numbers.

Speaker B: Yeah, they're just numbers.

Speaker A: Versus. Yeah, like versus. And there's not me trying to like, it's just how I have to teach my mind to be. Because I don't, I don't like spending money.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I really don't. I'm very fortunate that I bought a dream car that I really love. I have nice watches, I love clothes. I'm very materialistic. Like, I'll be very open about that. It's what keeps me going. I eventually want to have a lovely house and lovely family and be able to provide for them. That is my goal. But the byproduct of making the money, I'm glad I've done it. But it's come with sacrificing and working a ton. Yeah. Like I've given up a lot. There isn't. My mom always told me, live a normal, uh, 28 year old's life. Live, enjoy yourself, Go and do things, go and see your friends. I don't go on Thursdays, I don't go out drinking. Midweek. Yeah, like I don't have time. I'd rather work. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a really satisfied, satisfying feeling but also a bit like imposter syndrome. That's why I always feel, have you

Speaker B: with the money then? So if you're not, I mean you say you've bought dream cars and stuff, but have you invested it, you saved it? Like what have you, have you been clever with that, that capital?

Speaker A: It's like pretty much all sitting though. I've got savings accounts. Um, so it's in, spread across multiple ones. And so I haven't invested as of quite yet. Like, because I don't really understand. Like, like everyone says, oh, you should do this, you do this. But there's so much out there and it confuses me and I do have a financial advisor and I, we are sitting down and going, um, through everything in the next couple of weeks. But my dad's old school money, he's a jeweler, pawn broker. All right, yeah, you're old, you're old school. Like he never invested in his life. It was that you have money, you can buy things. Like you invest money, there's a risk. We don't play risks with money. That's how I was growing up. That's how I was taught to be with money. That's why I always saved. So I'm the same with this business, is that I live within my means. I probably could live a better life, but I live with my friends, I did. I could live by myself if I wanted to in London, but I don't know, it's, um, quite like living with my mates. It's good fun, as I've said, the business owners, whatever. But, yeah, it's, um. So what's the funny.

Speaker B: Have you got a plan, then, as to what you're building towards?

Speaker A: Yeah. So the. So I've always said this since I started a business, is that, uh, I learned very quickly with scale Genesis. I was too young to manage people and I wasn't ready. G2 told me that. And that was partly why I left the company, was because they told me I was too young to be a manager and I wasn't mature enough and all I cared about was money. And I thought that was wrong. But actually, I learned with Jaz that I was. That was right. And actually, so the plan is that hopefully by when I'm about 30, I've always had 30 in my mind. I don't know why, it's just a number. But when I'm 30 and I'm mature and a bit more settled with my life, that I'll then look to grow. But I want to build, not a big company. I don't care about that. I want a boutique agency of six, seven, just absolutely incredible recruiters who are just hungry, want to work for a really cool brand. But that's what branding for me is super important. And so I'm just trying to grow bigger brands, something so recognizable in a space that someone can just slot in and they can go for it. And at that point is when I'll take a step back because my missus has gone to me and said, you can't do these hours forever. And I know I physically can't.

Speaker B: You could do the hours if, like, say, you move to the us, I think you'd be all right. But if you live in London, you are, uh, struggling.

Speaker A: Yeah, I do want to eventually be able to sort of sit back and be like, here's my business, let's make it as autonomous as possible. I've made my business pretty autonomous. I probably don't need to work the hours. Like, I have a tool that reads my emails and Drafts all my emails for me, it tells me everything about every role. I just feed it with a JD and it can reply to the candidate of more detail than I can probably write in an email. So that's one thing that's covered. Got sourcing agents that help with the sourcing using juice box. Like there's other ways I've made it so autonomous. Most of what I'm spending is just having to physically reply to people or be on a call or call candidates. Like, uh, I could get a sourcer in to do that. All I would do is from the podcast which generates. And by the way, like those numbers I mentioned, every single one of those clients I've ever worked with has come from the podcast. I've done no cold client outreach. That's nearly what, over £500,000? Nearly, yeah, over £500,000 just from a podcast. And I, we don't know how because,

Speaker B: you know, the rag makes me about seven figures a year now. Right. But yeah, people don't get it. You know, I talk to recruitment founders, I'm working with about 3, 30 founders right now in a group called the Boardroom, where I'm essentially, we're replicating what I've done with my LinkedIn and there's four pillars, right?

Speaker A: There's the mission.

Speaker B: So the mission of the Rag podcast is to genuinely educate and inspire recruitment founders globally to build the recruitment business that they truly want, not what they think they should build. Like, I love everything you've said because it's truly you. You're not doing this because someone's telling you to do it. You're doing it, you're doing, you know, you sat there, uh, your wife's girlfriend's in bed and you're working your way because it suits you at 28 years old, I fucking love that. And I Hope there's another 26, 27, 28 year old listening going, I'm just going to do all he does equally. There's loads of people who want to build a different way. So that's my like mission. And I don't think many recruitment founders go out with a mission, they just go out to fill jobs. So yeah, there's four components, there's mission, then you need an asset, like a pocket, something that gets you in the room, something that it meets people. And then you need, I think you need the right delegation, the right automation. Like you said, I've got, I've got a really sophisticated AI stack and I've got a team around me that can execute, can get me in the room and can execute on the. I don't edit the podcast. I don't do any of that.

Speaker A: I can't.

Speaker B: The worst thing would be me sat there editing videos like it's never going to happen. But yeah, I'm enjoying it and I'm commercially set for it. So we're building that out and I've got like 30 founders. And it's amazing because I love the journey and uh, you've done it yourself, so like, hands off, hats off to you. But there's a real journey to it for a lot of people. There's a confidence issue and they don't get where the commercial side, they're like, well, should I not just be talking about jobs? I'm like, well, no. How do you. How is it? How have. In what different ways have podcast guests became clients and has the podcast generated clients for you?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, well, put it this way. I only post my podcast pretty much on LinkedIn. So there's no revenue to be made off the back of me from a podcast. I've launched 120 episodes of my podcast. Like there's actually tons of them out there. But every single, every single one, I'll send probably 30 LinkedIn messages, right? Maybe a week. And about 20 of them will reply saying where I'm interested or not. And probably about 10 of them will say they're interested. Okay, find me a better conversion rate for messaging clients who are directly in your niche, who aligned with what you're looking for that reply. Interested in having an initial call with me. So I run it in the sense of they reply via LinkedIn. I don't send cold email emails for this. That's all for candidates. LinkedIn Connect message. Do you want to be a guest on the podcast? CEOs of contact companies and we're going to talk about revenue leadership. Then you talk about recruitment. One of the segments is about how do you grow a team? How do you scale? But we start with a pre screen, pre screen, pre call with a client. Okay, standard, very old fashioned, a pitch flip. I tell them all about the podcast. I ask them questions about, uh, one of the, one of the bits we'll talk about is growth. How are you currently growing the team? What are you currently hiring for? How would you go about it? Do you work with external. I'm asking qualifying questions without them realizing I'm asking qualifying questions. And so they've told me all this information. You get to the end of the call, book them in for a podcast. You go, oh, by the way, you did mention you're hiring for an account executive. I am a recruitment agency. I haven't even pitched myself yet. Yeah, yeah. Ah, right, I've just sold at the end. If they've told me, oh no, we hate external recruiters and everything that fine, I just won't pitch myself, I don't need to. Or I'll just say, look, if you

Speaker B: ever need a recruiter, every single one to turn into an immediate role. But that's the mindset that the industry struggles with because they're obsessed with. Every activity we ever do has to turn into a dollar. Like it just can't be that way.

Speaker A: The best clients I have are people who reached out a year later. I'll tell you, this year alone, I had a client reach out who categorically told me when he was joining the podcast, said, look, I'm never going to give you business, never going to give you business. Left that company, became a CRO at another company, reached out to me. I did a £45,000 deal with him off the back of a podcast from literally like a year and a half ago. A year ago. Whatever it be like, do you know how good that feels that you haven't pushed him so hard and you haven't pressed someone so hard. But actually first person they fought was Ollie because you filmed the podcast with them because that's an hour in their time. He's pretty non forgettable in my opinion at least.

Speaker B: But it's funny, I, I had a guy, we, we've got like, obviously Atlas sponsored the show and I'm an investor in Atlas. I think they're amazing and we've got this hot 100 that we do, so we get like 100 recruitment founders based on their brand, based on their LinkedIn presence. They do all the algorithmic stuff. I've not got anywhere near it. But anyway, we co brand it. It's brilliant. We're tagging people all over the world that are doing great things and I had a message literally yesterday of a guy saying, hi, Sean, we don't use Atlas and we don't need marketing support. Literally just like do not sell to me. Basically, that's the first thing you put. And then he wrote, but I just want to say how your collab is absolutely genius, so hats off to you. I was like, I said, thanks, mate. Oh, nice opening statement. I may steal that when suppliers reach out to me. And he just put laughing face back, like I love the way he's going like off, don't try and sell to me. I'm not interested. But you're doing well. And I'm like cool.

Speaker A: Yeah. I honestly, I do love that content that you post as well with Alice and I do think is top tier but. But what? Like classic there of the. He's just transparent, just being honest and I think so many recruiters and this is. I hate recruiting. I hate connecting with recruiters on LinkedIn. It's my biggest passion of that. I try to be very genuine and transparent with clients. If I'm doing crap, I'll tell you I'm doing rubbish. If I'm slightly off my game with the first person to go, look, if you want to end like our contract, I'm completely fine. Like this is not how I want you to see me. And the being transparent like that has won me so much more business than trying to force something down someone's throat that they didn't want it or, or gone. Oh yeah, I've placed 10 of them in the past. Actually no, I've never placed them but I believe so much in my tech staffing and my ability. I'll fill your role, no problem. Like one of my clients at the moment, they're one of my best paying clients. They're in the health and fitness industry. Right. Um, they do membership management. No clue. I got referral. Someone referred me to them. They're a 50 year old company run by a family in the most random place in the US I like three deals with them this year and they paid me an absolute fortune. Like I don't know what I'm filling but uh, I know how I, I have enough systems in place that uh, are allowing me to do so and I'm honest about that. Like sometimes I really don't know what I'm doing but it works. Yeah, just working out.

Speaker B: But you are one thing you are doing is you're like you said you want to be the go to guy in a very specific construction tech. You, you're in my opinion living and breathing the brand and the way that I see the. I think we both see the world the same way. I'm not saying everyone should be 28, living in a flat and m working 2 till 2. But I think everyone should be investing in assets that work for them. Like you've got an asset that's working for you. So when you do go and chill out with your partner and watch Netflix, someone's listening to your podcast, someone's watching your content, someone's in. They're still consuming Ollie, even if you're there or not.

Speaker A: 100. Um, like if you're using email outreach and I use three different tools that are, uh, basically using it. I have sub domains, which has like six different domains. I can send nearly 300, 400 emails in this day and age a day to different candidates. I can work. I think I'm working something like 14 roles at the moment, and I can work them all simultaneously. Name me a time and day where you're able to do that in the past, like, yes, okay. I spend most of my days now just speaking to candidates. But all of the emails and stuff like LinkedIn Recruiter is nearly becoming obsolete for me, let's put it that way. Like, this tool used to be everything. It used to be the only way I ever thought I'd ever find candidates, that I can now use a tool which costs $179 a month and it gives me a thousand mess, like thousand emails or a thousand credits. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. So cheap. Like, um, ridiculously cheap. It works incredibly well. It's efficient. The filtering system. Okay, some. Sometimes there are people that prefer to be spoken on LinkedIn and sometimes it doesn't have emails, but I have messed up.

Speaker B: I know Jordan Atlas said, like, when you did the Comparison, though, that LinkedIn still wins in terms of the, the access. There's still more people and it's the same people on Juice Box. It's not like, again, I don't know the data, but it's. He was pretty confident that you still can't beat LinkedIn in terms of its access.

Speaker A: 100. Like, this is why I still have it is that, uh, there are. Why am I going to not message a candidate? Because they don't have the email. For example, I can find 100 software engineers and it will have 94 of the emails. They will all work. They're all verified. Pretty much might get one bounce. Okay, those six are, uh, then just click on the LinkedIn URL that they have access to and then I go on LinkedIn recruiter and message them. So you still need it, need access.

Speaker B: But it's not like you say, you're not 100% reliant on it anymore.

Speaker A: No, And I used to be. And that always used to scare me because when me and Jazz used to do automation and whatever it be we played around with for like two, two or three weeks, suddenly I get banned for seven days from LinkedIn. Uh, I went, well, Jez, our whole business is based on LinkedIn. Like, I can't do anything now for seven days. So that always scared me. And at least now I'm confident that, like, I could do it about. But still, I don't want. I don't want to sell myself short. One deal covers the cost of LinkedIn recruiter a year.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So that's the way I always looked at it.

Speaker B: Are we. I'm, uh, a fascinating conversation. I could talk, I could carry on for another hour, but we're out of time. Um, I want to say thank you for being so candid. Right. I think you've been really honest. You know, the highs and lows. You've had some tough times. You've been through all sorts. You're a young founder. Uh, you know, you don't know it all, but what you are doing is you, you're driving the car, you're building the bike while you're riding it. You're 800 grand in, in three years. You, you know, you, you're absolutely an inspiration, mate. I mean that. Um, I'd love to keep the communication up with you and get you back on in the future. Um, I think I'd like to see where, you know, you're going to be in a year or two and how when technology evolves, you're the sort of. I believe you're at the forefront of cutting edge understanding it and you're going to keep adapting it. So, um, I guess I want to say thanks and my final question I always ask is if people are listening and want to reach out to you, I think you will get a fair few people that say, look, tell me about what you're doing on Juice Box and stuff. Are you open to people? Share. I know it's other recruiters and it's not always your favorite audience, but if they do want to pick you, always happy to help.

Speaker A: Always happy to help people. Just, uh, as long as there's nothing annoying and. But, like, I have plenty of people that I've helped mentor, like coach, whatever it be, the littlest things, like, I'm very fortunate that I had someone like Jez to do that for me. And the people. I always love when people message me saying, should I start my own company? Should I do this? How did I do this? Those sort of questions, freaking awesome. Because just do it like, you will never know and you'll never experience the rewards that you get from doing it unless you try. Agreed.

Speaker B: Agreed.

Speaker A: That's why I say to everybody, mate, thanks so much.

Speaker B: Well, um, like I said, we'll get you back on in the future. I wish you the best of luck.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Sean, thanks again for listening to today's

Speaker B: episode of the RAG podcast. If you haven't already, please do subscribe

Speaker C: wherever you listen to this show, as

Speaker B: the more subscribers we get, the more

Speaker C: people will listen and the more recruitment

Speaker B: owners we can help.

Speaker C: As a recruitment founder, you must know

Speaker B: that things are changing.

Speaker C: AI is everywhere, cold outreach is getting

Speaker B: harder, and job boards, well, they're not what they used to be.

Speaker C: But personally, despite the negativity, I believe the future is, is the greatest opportunity

Speaker B: of our lifetime in recruitment. Because for the first time ever, a

Speaker C: 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

Speaker B: the most visible, the most trusted, and

Speaker C: the ones building inbound demand. At Hoxo, we're working with clients who are running multiple six and seven figures in net profit. 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.

Speaker B: I'm going to show you what these

Speaker C: businesses are doing differently from the rest. So the link's in the description, fill

Speaker B: in the form, watch the video, and

Speaker C: see exactly how this system that these clients are using could work for your agency.

Speaker B: Good luck.