Season 9 | Ep39 Scott Lechley: How a Solo Founder Went 100% Retained and Had His Best Year Yet

Speaker A: Somebody was dilly dally and then somebody died. I've had that before where somebody's started. What do you do with that fee? You can't charge them for it, can you?

Speaker B: Candidate has died.

Speaker A: My wife is just like, what do you mean? She said, you're making this up because you get people that don't turn up or wife didn't want them to go, or they couldn't get the dog out to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, so they weren't going. It's humans.

Speaker B: Scott Lechley has been running lechley Associates for 24 years by himself. In that time, he's built and walked away from a team of eight people, flown candidates to Abu Dhabi for interviews on his own money, worked for the Dubai government who never paid him. And yes, he's lost two placement fees in that time because the candidates died. Now he places people who run the UK's biggest construction programs, think HS2 style infrastructure, new hospital projects, tier one contractors who need a new framework director or a COO, and they can't afford to get it wrong. Now, a couple of years ago, after the candidate died, that was the final straw in Scott deciding to go 100% retained with his business. And this year, in 2026, just six months in, he's already done 300K in retainers so far. Now Scott's got over 50,000 construction contacts in his LinkedIn and his database. He's got an AI stack that builds a BD list for him every single morning. It writes his content for LinkedIn from his conversations that are being recorded. And he's automated his finance team using AI too. Now he's one person doing what most firms need a team for. Now, I asked him what this model he's built around AI, retained search, keeping it lean has actually done for him. What has building the business this way allowed you to do as a human, as a father, as a husband, as a man.

Speaker A: I'm not Mr. Parents Evening. I've been able to do everything. I can start work when I want. I don't need to work 9 to 5. I've watched more cricket matches and rugby matches and taken and picked up children's schools. It's the flexibility. And you can work with people that you want to work with and if people don't want to work with you, it's fine. Plenty more out there, but it's just

Speaker B: about 24 years in, two candidates that have died, a Dubai government department that didn't pay a quarter of a million pounds. But in all that time, Scott has never thought of giving up. And he says he absolutely loves what he does every day. I truly believe that this is the most exciting time for a recruitment business owner to run their own business. And Scott shows us exactly what's possible today. So this is a brand new episode of the Rag Podcast with Scott Lechley. The guy's running his business for 24 years, has had two candidates die on him, has had government departments in the Middle east never pay him 250k in fees. But he's never thought of giving up. And he says he enjoys it now more than he ever has before. Without further ado, Scott, welcome to the Rag podcast.

Speaker A: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Speaker B: I know, like I was saying before, you've got the memo, you got the glasses, you got the T shirt, you got the, you're in your garage, gray hair. But I send that memo every week. No one, no people don't listen. You the only one who's ready.

Speaker A: Great minds.

Speaker B: That's it, mate. People who are listening to us are like, what the bleeding out? Scott, look, obviously we know each other. We've been interacting for a while now. Um, and I'm excited for this episode because I think you're doing some really interesting stuff that's so. That's just genuinely cutting edge and modern and it's relatable. So I can't wait to get what we've been talking about out to other people and before we do. And I don't want any of the historical story here. We're going to do all that, just give people the bird's eye, like elevator pitch of who you are, what your business does today.

Speaker A: Right. Scott Lechley, we Lechley Associates, been running for 24 years in November offer, uh, solutions to construction industry senior leadership teams. Cross infrastructure cost construction, um, massive projects. Massive infrastructure projects. HS2 size. Well, yeah, latterly NHP, which is going to be quite interesting in terms of the way the contractors see that. So it's.

Speaker B: What does that mean?

Speaker A: Oh, sorry, yeah. Uh, new hospital projects program. Um, it's the first tranche is about. They're getting close to, uh. Well, the whole project's worth 39 billion and the first 10 are coming out, you know, 20, 25 million.

Speaker B: And you'll place what type of people into those projects?

Speaker A: Ops directors, you know, framework directors, the people that are going to lead the projects. I mean, in effect these, these such a sizable schemes now that, yeah, two and a half billion, two billion pound project. It's in effect a new company. So it's, it's pretty much building new board, you know, and those 10 major categories that go with inside it, from design all the way through to health and safety, commercial and uh, the people

Speaker B: on site, uh, like the site management as well.

Speaker A: Well, site management. See, I probably would step a little bit aside of that. That's not necessarily where clients want to pay that um, retain fee for. It's the hard to find roles, those roles that they're all going to be fine over the same people, you know, they're going to be construction professionals. Having built our uh, hospital of a sizable value. None of them are going to be building the sizable value that they are because there's no, not many people out there have done two, three billion pound hospitals.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So yeah, I think the contractor is going to be fighting over the same people.

Speaker B: Okay, so it's just you.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Running for 24 years.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And that's by design, as far as I'm aware that we're going to go into it. But you, you know, you love it the way you've got it. But you didn't always, you weren't just like a career recruiter. Right. So you started life as a quantity surveyor. So you were in the industry. Tell us a little bit about that job and how you flipped from being in the industry to recruiting for the industry.

Speaker A: I left school with a couple of A levels, three A levels. And I just thought, I think at that age, even more so then I didn't know what to do. Somebody said go Qs. That uh, sounds good. Right, Brilliant.

Speaker B: Where is it?

Speaker A: London. Even better. So I was traveling to London. I was 18 years old. It was fantastic. But you know, as my career has gone on, it was started off on a lower, you know, it was a, um, 89, 90. One of the recessions towards the end after the sort of the boom in the mid-80s and whatever else, um, worked in estimating departments and yeah, absolutely loved it. Hard work, uh, photocopying, reading drawings, just understanding what these buildings were. We were talking massive stuff like Battersea Power Station and underground extensions. But they were all on hold so they sort of channeled on and it got a little bit quieter and I ended up going off to you miss to do uh, a commercial management degree in Manchester. Yeah, did that three years, came back and did a year out before, you know, it's 95, 96 and you know, just worked on projects. You know, it was fun, it was great. Big teams, big projects. Um, and then it got towards the end of the 90s and one of the friends was Working out in Switzerland. He said, would you fancy it? I said, yeah, definitely. And work in Switzerland. That'd be great fun. When I said next week, he said, no chance. Four weeks down the line went off, went to work in Switzerland building a, um, the second generations, two and a half G, uh, that sort of stuff. Worked in various different parts of Switzerland, in Lausanne, Lugano, um, Bern, um, and Zurich. You know, did three months there, traveling between the two. And it's absolutely fantastic. I mean, 27, 28 years old, you know, car driving around Europe. It was, it was good fun. Um, and on the back of that, we need the next job. That was a year, 12, 14 months, and we needed a new job. That's the sort of the first part of the recruitment side of the, you know, experience really. It was more about, well, we need a new job. There was five of us and we said, well, what would we do? And none of the others were, you know, everyone was going to fall in their lap again and, you know, we'll end up going here, there and everywhere. But we managed to get a project with Ericsson in the Czech Republic. And, you know, on the back of that we recruited more people. We had other people out in South America, in Holland, in Sweden, and it just sort of grew from there. We spent two years in Prague, got married. You know, supposedly one night, wife told me that we were moving back to the UK and we were going north. You know, I'm m. Originally from the south, but yeah, yeah, a few beers, you never know. You know, I might have said it, I might not have done, but to be perfectly honest, it was probably the best thing I've done. You know, we came back after those two years, had a family and, uh, I did work for another recruiter for a very, very short time. And I was appalled. I just didn't just to pause there

Speaker B: you were, you almost created your own recruitment, um, by delivery of projects as like a mini consultancy, effectively.

Speaker A: Like, I mean, we need a new job and on the back of it they said they need some more people. We were doing, carrying out.

Speaker B: How did you find the new job though? Was that, was that a tip off someone you knew, or did you.

Speaker A: It was. Well, we knew what we wanted to do. We knew that there was projects being awarded, you know, new, new contracts being awarded to different countries. We're in Switzerland, Czech Republic didn't seem too far away and it was cheap. Um, fantastic time.

Speaker B: So you start building projects, building teams, and then what was. When was the light bulb, let's say, to go and work for someone. How did that happen?

Speaker A: Well, it was coming back. Do I go and go back into construction? When do I come back to the UK and go and work for McAlvin? We've been earning some decent money and, you know, to come back and of having missed three years would have had to take a step back. It was moving from the south. It wasn't in London anymore. I didn't really know the sort of the Manchester marketplace that well. And the whole idea thought, well, why wouldn't we go? Wife's pregnant, just about to have a baby, oh, I might as well go and do some, do some stuff on my own. But prior to that, I'd had work for another recruiter and just thought I'd give this a go. I mean, I had a record month when I first went in there, first month I ever worked in recruitment. It was, you know, the company's record month. They're all sort of saying what you're doing. I've said not a lot. It was just because I was talking about construction and it just went from there. I just. I couldn't, Couldn't work under those sort of KPI driven, make, uh, a phone call, annoy as many people as you possibly can. That was completely against everything of how I thought this was to work. It was about, you know, the candidate getting a job. It was about, you know, providing a service to the client, solving their problems. And it was looking at a different way, as opposed to, I've got a round pack and it's stick it in a square hole and get a lump of commission for it. And a very small part of that massive commission that somebody upstairs was making a lot of money on. Um.

Speaker B: Do you think it's different, though, when, like, you've got the knowledge of the sector, whereas, like, if you think about a young person who doesn't comes in, they've got a candidate they almost want, they almost need, in some instances, the candidate's CV to open that door.

Speaker A: They don't understand the cvs, that's the other.

Speaker B: No, but it can still. It's proven. I'm not saying I would do this either, but I'm just saying it's proven that the right CV in the right company opens doors. Right. Um. Otherwise the industry wouldn't spec candidates at the rate they do. But for someone like you, with the kind of level of experience you have, like, you've got a level of. I mean, you can still send a candidate with it in a different way, but you also don't need it. Like, you could Just have a genuine peer to peer conversation. Did you find that?

Speaker A: Yeah, that developed over the years. I think early on it was still a bit of a, uh, thing. You come in, you used to win the construction great, and now you're just being a, you know, salesman. Does that mean you're a crap at what you did as a, as a QS working with the contractor and then you've just come and done this? So you had to build some of that credibility and that took some time. That first month or two was all about enthusiasm, naivety, I suppose. We were given certain things. You made the most of it. But then, you know, you started seeing the humdrum stuff behind it. And it was always trying to make it, uh, better for everybody, really. It was. Even from the very, very start. It wasn't about. It wasn't a sales job to me. Everybody said, oh, it's sales, it's about KPIs, it's about making numbers. Yeah, you have to have a plan, you have to make a certain amount of calls, submit a certain amount of CVS or whatever else it might be to actually know what you're going to produce. However, there are other ways of doing this and I decided that, you know, let's, let's do something different. And I did. I said, not working or we had a conversation. There's two way. Whatever else. But, um, it was time and a place to go and do it. So I got an office in the local council offices in Garstang. I had literally a telephone and a laptop.

Speaker B: Um, 24 years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, um, yeah, crazy time.

Speaker B: So you've got limited experience in recruitment. How much are we talking, like?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, well made up. I've got no training. No, no, no, no, nothing. You know, it was all about. This is what I think I should be doing it. Yeah. The odd bit is recruitment training that they offered, but that, that was it.

Speaker B: What was the. You say the situation. Did you have a family or your wife was pregnant or what was going on?

Speaker A: Um, uh, at the time that we started, after the first six months, Grace was six months old. So, yeah, I had a. Started a new company, literally with about, I don't know, 10 grand behind me, with a new baby left, had nothing and, uh, had to make some placements. Yeah, it was good fun.

Speaker B: What would, what was plan B gonna be if it didn't work out? What would you have done?

Speaker A: That's where my mentality comes into this. I didn't have one. I mean, it was more. It was never not gonna work. You know, it was. I've made a decision and it's gonna happen. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right. So there was. There was no bumby. Um, thank God. But that also drives you. You think that gives you the.

Speaker A: I don't think I ever do anything unless I think I can do it properly. So point doing something if you're not gonna, you know, if you think you're gonna fail, then very. You will do.

Speaker B: True, true.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So look, there's 24 years. I can't. We can't unpack the whole 24 years. But one. One thing that we. I know about you is you still solo, right? And you did go and trial building a team, which having not done that for anybody else and doing that on your own money. Tell us about the experience you had of, of growing. And when did you do it?

Speaker A: That's quite early on. Probably two years in, well, maybe less than 18 months. Two years, uh, just seemed to be the thing that, you know, you started a company, you built a recruitment company and bring more people in and you, you bring them through. They were great, lovely people, but it was still the same. Late one morning, they'll be late the next day, and they're like, only five minutes, but, you know, just leave earlier. You know, it was that frustration of, please don't, you know, don't treat me like an idiot. And I did try, but I don't think I was probably the best boss. I probably didn't explain myself very well. I was more about, um. I was never nasty. I was always good fun. I was probably too soft with them in certain respects. Um, but it wasn't for me. I just, you know, just felt that I was doing their work instead of doing my work. And I always have the opinion that if I've got a candidate and I've got a client, I have to do both sides. I can't have somebody, uh, doing the other side. It needs to be all of mine. It's that whole. If they're paying the money for me, they want me to do that role. They want me to do that job. And that's the way I've always looked at it. And that was the. The difficult part of everything because I had to do everything. It was all the other stuff around it as well, which made it a little bit more difficult. And, you know, opportunities always came up, and it was whether or not we take them. I'm at a guy that went out to the Middle East. Um, he said, you fancy that? And I went, yeah, I'm going. So I got a plane ticket. I went out to, uh, Abu Dhabi in Dubai to have a look around and see how that one worked out. Went with another colleague and, you know, we had a conversation about starting some bits and pieces up. Didn't really want to do that, you know, it was more about just get out there and see what we're doing. So we flew in and out. We've been about 25, 26 times over the years. Um, just used to take plain load of candidates with us, you know, five or six people every time, show them off when they got there. Invariably they bought them. A bit like a people trafficker, I think.

Speaker B: As in you'd fly the people over with you.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just say, right, so it's always been trying to look for something different. What was other people doing? What weren't they doing? Now I'll take the people. I haven't taken the CVs, I thought, I'll take the people. So that was a, that was a, a chance you took. You know, you had to pay the flights, you had to look after them and all the other bits and pieces. But, yeah, the rewards were there. So that.

Speaker B: Did you already have the contracts with the, uh, Dubai entities to do that?

Speaker A: Yeah, they, I knew what they wanted. I knew roughly where they're at and I knew the project directors and I knew, you know, made friends with the HR teams at a desk in Langarok's offices out there. I sat. Used to come and go as a police, really. It was, they were quite happy to see me. He brings, oh, here he comes with some more people. You know, it was, it's all cost plus. They needed good people, had good people and, you know, that's how it worked out, really.

Speaker B: But you'd bring five with the intention of like a short list or with five would.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they'd probably had a conversation beforehand. You know, I'd seen somebody and I would just say to them, I'll bring them with me, you know, it's fine. You know, you like the sound of them that you, you want to. Instead of you taking a, you know, a punt on this, uh, I'll bring them out. It'd be fine. My treat. If you like, I'll bring them over. That's because I've got the confidence that they're the, uh, the right people. And you get a lot of buy in from that as well. The fact that you were prepared to put your money where your mouth was, really, in terms.

Speaker B: Yeah. How did the candidates respond?

Speaker A: I loved it. A couple of Days away in Abu Dhabi.

Speaker B: Yeah. A little holiday paid for by you.

Speaker A: But I did say to me, didn't get the job, then you'd have to come back with a little bit of, you know, I can't just outlay this gash. If you don't get anything, I want something back. The ones that, you know, straight in there got the job. Yeah. Quite happy. A couple of flights. Yeah.

Speaker B: So how did you manage that, then? Did you just show them the costs

Speaker A: and say, well, I just said, that was your ticket. Give us half back principle. I've had a couple that refused to pay it. But, you know, I've never. I'd never argue with them. I said, okay, fair enough. Is that's. That's the way it goes, you know, that's the way it goes, really.

Speaker B: But when you said you were hiring a few people, you said, I think research says you got to. Is it eight staff you built it

Speaker A: up to, um, four in the office. And I had some mums from school that used to do, you know, a bit of translating, you know, some marketing and all the other bits and pieces that. That, you know, just farmed it out there. But they were the best ones. I still use those sort of mums from school types, you know, the ones that are happy to work at a certain time. They work and. And they'll do everything and you get more for your money sort of thing. Sort of, yeah. Little superstars that you pick up every now and again.

Speaker B: But when it comes to the actual recruiters in the office, that's me pretty much.

Speaker A: Yeah. They. There was four of them in there. I mean, I was taking some youngsters, given a new give, giving them opportunities, something, you know, showing them what I was doing. Did they want to follow on? Did they want to do what I was doing? Did they want to sort of join the. And a couple of them were very good. But I just decided one day that that's it, and paid him off. And off I went.

Speaker B: What was the conclusion then?

Speaker A: As in why I did it?

Speaker B: Yeah. Like, what did you. What did you realize?

Speaker A: It's all about what I was enjoying. I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. I wasn't enjoying it. I was doing something for something else for some other reason that wasn't the reason that I was doing what I was doing.

Speaker B: So what? Break that down, though. So what. What were the symptoms? Because I don't think you're the only person who goes through this. Right. That's why I'm asking.

Speaker A: Um, it wasn't about the Money. And it wasn't about anything else. I wasn't offering the rights. I was turning into one of those other recruiters that I didn't want to be. I was. They. I was, you know, the only way that I, that they wanted to do was, well, how many phone calls? Who do I speak to? And I just saw it. Sometimes they were making a mess and I was going around clearing up people's messes. You know, they were, uh, you know, offering certain things or putting a CV in for a certain role and it didn't actually fit. And all you were doing is upsetting clients on their fault and being taught or they hadn't had the right experience of how they had, how they've been asked to do the stuff. And that's my failing as well. But it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wasn't enjoying that. I didn't want to be that trainer. I wanted to be, you know, that person who went out there and spoke with the client, found out about these jobs, went into Manchester and, you know, see the development of, you know, Beacon Tower when it first went up, Renica, with all the new stuff that they were doing, and then the excitement of going to places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Amman, Costa Rica, you know, there was various places out there that you went and had a look at and got some real experience from. I worked for BAM out in Holland, you know, decided against the UAE because they didn't pay me, you know, Dubai government, of all people. So, you know, there's been some proper lessons on the way in terms of, you know, what is right, what is wrong. But the, the message all the way through this was just do the right thing. You know, look after the people that you're placing, let them come back to you. Be. Just be genuinely nice, help them out, give them what they're asking for, not what they don't ask for.

Speaker B: And when it's only you, you don't, like, you're not responsible for other people. There's a. There's the pressure of billing. So much probably goes away. Right. You've obviously got to hit certain numbers for your family and things, but, like, you're not trying to pay other people's mortgages and other people's livelihoods. So, like, tell us about, like, how, how have you shaped the targets over the year and the structure around what you've built and earned, etc.

Speaker A: I mean, initially it was, you know, you need a certain amount of money per month to go through some months. It was tough to get to those Numbers. And it's been in that position where, you know, three months, four months, having that sort of salaries or guarantees of money over a period of time. You know, sometimes it could get quite close when you were waiting for someone to pay. There was, you know, you know, somebody was dilly dally and then somebody dies. You know, I've had that before where somebody's, you know, started and, you know, what do you do with that fee? You know, you can't charge them for it, can they? But there's.

Speaker B: So the candidate has died on you.

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker B: I've not had that on the podcast before.

Speaker A: So my wife is just like, what do you mean? That is another coup. What, somebody's died? Yeah, yeah. She said, you're making this up because you, you get people that, you know, don't turn up or, you know, the wife didn't want them to go, or, you know, they couldn't get the dog out to Dubai or Abu Dhabi so they weren't going. Or they changed the mind at the last minute because a child didn't fancy that sort of stuff. I mean, you can, it's what happens, you know, it's humans. And that's, you know, that was all on the contingency side of things. And it's always been in the back of my head that don't do contingency, don't go down that route. And, and it's over a period of time that, that I decided that that's ultimately where you needed to go. And it's been the last couple of years, really, that, that's, that's the. Been the big change, you know, in terms of the way you're perceived. And it's. Yeah, it's been a big change. But that's come over those 24 years when you've had downturns, you've had economic crisis, you've had Covid, you've had, you know, you name it. I think I've been in the worst 25 years possible in terms of an economy. Um, I was never going to give up. There's times where I thought, what am I doing here? Should I go get another job? What was you.

Speaker B: What was your worst year of Billings then?

Speaker A: In the last 20 worst year? Probably just after Covid, it just went. Luckily enough I had some M money behind us, so that, that wasn't so bad. But it, it was that all whole changeover. Covid was fine. I didn't have an issue with that. But it was afterwards where it was all in a state of flux, is it going to get better? Is it not? Is it, Is it, is it? And I think there was a lot of questions out there as to how things were going to go. Um, people weren't spending. You know, clients decided that they better off the money in their, their back pockets. In terms of the developers, um, I think this construction struggled anyway, but I've had. They've had a massive change and I think it's keeping ahead of those changes, you know, understanding what problems that they're gonna.

Speaker B: So what was your numbers in the worst year?

Speaker A: Probably 80, 90, which is still, again,

Speaker B: when you keep your overheads low. It's, it's. Yeah, it's okay, but it's nowhere near where you want to be, Right?

Speaker A: But you paid the tax man, you paid this, you paid that, you paid the other. It's, yeah, fair enough, but. And that's the other thing. You know, it could be and it's what it could have been. You know, you look at what it could have been on those years, it probably would have been double that without some of the other that goes in there. And, you know, what is a good year, what is a bad year? You know, it's all relative in it.

Speaker B: Well, it's all, it's all perception, right? It's your own subject.

Speaker A: People think I drive around in a Porsche. People think I've, you know, live on a manor in a manor house or whatever else. And this, that, and the other, and this, that. Uh, I think that again, it's. It's that whole Facebook and, you know, people's, you know, mentality. See, one recruiter who's been working in the city, you know, placing thousands of, I mean, God knows what is on 15 million quid a year or whatever. Yeah, they're out there, but in general, they're not. You know, it's, um. There's a lot of other, you know, aspects to it. You know, it's. You don't get paid on time, you've got pressures. Uh, thing is, right, my wife says to me, I don't believe you. Don't get. I don't get. It doesn't bother me. You know, somebody don't pay me. It's not my issue. I just don't pay somebody else, you know, or not so much that it's tax man. He'll have to wait for it. He'll come down and give me a bullet. What's he going to do? What's the worst can happen? I'll pay him. It's not an issue. Um, but it is, it is Stressful. Yeah.

Speaker B: But what's your best year been in 24 years then?

Speaker A: This year.

Speaker B: And where are we at now?

Speaker A: Six months in and what are we on? 300.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you're on, you're on track for half a million plus this year then

Speaker A: I'd say that there's. Well, I know there's another 150 coming anyway, so. Yeah, but yeah, I mean that, that, uh, makes you feel better and it makes you feel like you've, you've made some right decisions, but it's also you've put the hard work in. You. I, uh, you know, everything you do, you learn from, you know, it's not necessarily about construction, but I've spoken to some fantastic people. You know, if you could take that from a conversation, have a conversation about, I don't, I don't know, the project they're on or the people they're working with or, uh, you know, the best thing they've done, what they've enjoyed. Even to the point where you start talking about the kids, you talk about football, you talk about. You learn so much from somebody as an individual. And I see it as my job in some ways to, is to interview for the client the way that I'm not saying the wrong questions to ask, but you can professionally be friendly and get a little bit more personality out of them. And I had a couple of clients in the last few months that have said, you know, the quality of what you're producing in terms of what the candidates said, what your interpretations are. And I've always been told, don't give an opinion. Why not? Yeah, you know, they're paying a lot of money for something. I, I would give a good opinion, a bad opinion. I've lost 40 grands worth of fees this year by telling somebody, don't take this job because. Yeah, uh, I think you're setting yourself up for a fail here. Yeah. So any other client or if I was working for somebody saying, what are you doing? You know, but that's somebody's livelihood, that's somebody's family, that's somebody. They're coming out of a perfectly good job and you've gone in there, tempted them out and sold them a ringer. Yeah. That's not, that's what would cause me not to sleep at night. Not that somebody hasn't paid me, you know. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's all about doing the right thing. Sense of injustice. Yeah.

Speaker B: So let's break down then, what's changed? Because like you say, we're now, uh, 24 years in and you're having your best year ever. We're in this post Covid AI driven world that if you read the news, we're all doomed in the next couple of years because we won't have any, you know, we'll just be living on some kind of universal credit. I'm not sure I believe that. But, um, you're doing incredibly well out of this. So let's break it down so that we'll go into AI in a minute. But the move to a more of a retained model.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I think it's been a few years that you've been aiming to do that. So talk us through. What were the symptoms that were in the business that showed you you needed to change something here?

Speaker A: People changing their minds, you know, clients more so than anything else. Especially in that post Covid period where they were saying they wanted something, they'd get halfway through it and then they'd say, I'm not sure we're just going to bring somebody away. I'll just put that on hold for six months. Or we might just do this, we might just do that. And you think, well, I've just done, um, three weeks worth of work on that. Yeah. You know, ultimately all I want to do is get paid. And I kept saying this, I just want to get paid for my time and I want to get paid for my time. But nobody really went for it. And I was thinking, when. What other job, whatever role do you do where you decide you're going to do two and a half, three weeks worth of work on the chance that you may or may not get something? You know, clients whinge that these fees are so high. Well, I say to them that, you know, fees can be lower if you want them to be lower, but you've got to go a completely different way. And these companies that are going out and doing, taking on, we've got, we've got a job, we've got a PSA with five companies on there. Let's just chuck it out there, you know, because I was doing my job, right. I was doing it to the best of my abilities and I'd always lose out. I mean, not always, but in, you know, if you're going up against that fight, it's not a fair fight. I'm doing my job properly. They're cheating. I don't want to play that game. So I either pull out or do something completely different. And it was about, I always just said to him, I'll do those hard to fill roles, those roles that nobody else wants. I'LL do them, they're fine. Because you treat every search or every contingent the same as a blank piece of paper. You start at the bottom, you build your long list, you go to short list, you know, sucking eggs and whatever. But it's. If you always do it properly, you know how to do it. So if you consistently do something and there's certain parts of that journey which I hated, you know, no, I hate the accountant stuff. You know, you don't want to do that or you don't want to go out and just find telephone numbers and searching, you know, reading LinkedIn profiles or whatever else. I just thought, right, this has got to stop. You know, it's not how it should be done.

Speaker B: Well, let's go to that in a minute. But yeah, the move to retain them was about genuinely realizing that you were working for free. Too much, right?

Speaker A: Too much. I mean, yeah, it was getting, yeah. How did you change it?

Speaker B: What did you do specifically?

Speaker A: I, I pretty much overnight I decided that, right, I'm just not going to take on any contingent work. I, I said I'm not going to do it. I did. There was a couple that I did no for it, but the main task was I've turned work down on the basis that it wasn't going to be retained but they've come back and that was the big thing as well. Sometimes you turn things down, say to somebody, I don't want to find you that job because, you know you're not going to find it elsewhere. But if you want me to do it, it's going to take me some time and I'm not prepared to get unlucky every now and again. So they would come back. And it started off when I was working with one of the big main contractors. They said, look, we really are struggling with this. Can you, can you do it? I said, yeah, but I'm not doing it the way you want to do. I'm not doing it. When you, when I find somebody, you'll pay, Pay me now. I know I've got a commitment to you, you've got a commitment to me. I, uh, won't lay down, let's go for it. That is what I'll do. But I mean it needs to be a two way thing as well. That's the thing. You need to tell me exactly what you want. But more importantly, you need to tell me what you don't want.

Speaker B: What's the difference when a client pays you, then what, what are the main.

Speaker A: Well, I know that they're serious, you know, sometimes you'll get people asking you to do something because they know full well that you'll go off and do it and they'll come back and go, they've got no commitment to you, they've got nothing, they've got no buy in, yeah, you might like you and all this and sometimes it's, they would love to pay you but they've done something outside of their circle. You break the new HR rules or they got a um team involved or PSL involved. So it's also about not overstepping the mark with, with those as well. So take a major step back and play by the rules. Don't try and go through the back door, you know, tapping somebody else up. I mean to the point where you know, you some get board level appointments and those that are instructing you do it, they can be told by HR or the recruitment teams that we can't take this guy because he's not on this list. And I've, there've been a couple of occasions with two massive, massive projects in the uk. Two multi billion pound project. Well I've given them candidates on the basis that the candidate wanted to work there, they wanted to see him but the HR teams refused to engage.

Speaker B: Can't exec go above that though and just say look, I know it, they've

Speaker A: got better things to do, they're building and they've got responsibility for and they just want their problem solved. And um, me creating another project problem is a problem for them. But what I've also learned is that on that, with that company, with that role, I provided that candidate with all of the backup, all of the information that he needed to go for that interview in terms of, you know, research and we worked together, went through it, put him in touch with people that were there, uh, the recruitment company that took him or took his name after being given to him by somebody in that team, did nothing, just asked him about Concrete. It's a coo. It is relevant what you know about Concrete. He was very good at concrete and he knew exactly what they were talking about. But if that was the level of question that they've got for coo, it's

Speaker B: not so retained essentially means you don't have to deal with this crap anymore.

Speaker A: You don't need to deal with that crap. Once you, once they've given you the go ahead, you go with it and you're in control of what happens.

Speaker B: Did you have any knock on impact of billings though? So like if you're going from contingent work, you're working a Lot of stuff. Not guaranteed, but at least you're busy. And then suddenly you're like, I'm only taking retained. Was there a dip?

Speaker A: Did you?

Speaker B: Because I think that's what would go through people's head.

Speaker A: There was a dip, but it was not, um. Once it was fixed, it was very quick fix because the money started coming in. I think the biggest issue is, is your own head asking for it in the first place, saying, I am not doing this unless you pay me some money up front. This is what I can do, this is what I've done, and I can go and do this down the road for somebody else if you don't want it. So your choice. And having the ability to walk away and then not go back again and then not go back. Maybe go back in six months or even that. But most of the time they were coming back in six, eight weeks where they still haven't filled that role. Do you want to give it a go? Yeah. Or what? Still the same rules as season recruiters.

Speaker B: We all know that the best information we gather from our calls don't always make it onto the CRM. I know for me personally, it never did. You know, it's in the call, it's in the interviews, in the meetings, perhaps in an email, LinkedIn, or even this day and age. It's WhatsApp. What someone's really motivated by, why they'll move, type of money they want, which client you know is ready to buy. The types of information that you can use often gets lost because nobody's got time to type it up. And again, awful at it. Personally, I want to highlight Atlas, our, uh, headline sponsor for the show, because they literally change this completely, right? Yes, Atlas is a CRM, but it's a CRM M that, uh, actually understands context. It captures everything you say, you hear, you read, you write automatically, right? Using AI. It's not because you've had to sit and type it, it. It's because Atlas was listening in the first place. Then it goes one step further and tells you the next action to take. So it's got workflow processes built in, and when you need to fill a role, they've got something called People Search, which ranks your best candidates and tells you why they are the best candidates so you don't have to dig, you know, and the same memory turns into bd and that same memory turns your BD into a shortlist of exactly who to chase and why, so you win more work. And if you want to see your pipeline, you just speak to your dashboards. And Atlas builds it for you. The view that you want in real time, tracking only what you care about. Like this is genuinely bonkers to believe it's all possible in one platform with AI, but it is. So whether you're perm or contract, it does both for contractors. They've made it so you don't even have to change timesheets again, right? They've got a live margin visibility tracker across every placement. And with their new MCP and API, Atlas Connects Atlas plugs straight into your LLM, Claude, ChatGPT, whatever you're using and um, the rest of your stack. So basically all of the low volume admin tasks that keep you from billing, Atlas can do for you right now. This is a genuine game changer. Like it's not theory. Atlas customers are seeing 50 higher candidate response rates, 35 increase in clients, 115 plus hours saved every single week. Their billings are jumping up one client by 85 in the last six months. And some agencies are hitting 130 of their annual target after building their business around one platform called Atlas. So if you sat there thinking, look, I need to bolt AI into my CRM, I honestly wouldn't bother. I get asked this all the time. Don't just try and bolt in. I'd have a look at Atlas. Take a look. All right, head to ww www.reruitwithatlas.com forward/rag to find out more. I promise you it won't be wasted time. All right, let's get back to the show. Is there an element though that you also know that some roles, uh, are just not worth taking the retainer because you're not going to fill it. Like they've gone out to market with

Speaker A: the wrong roll or that's where the buying comes in terms of it's not necessarily what they do want, it's what they don't want. So we traffic light everything, you know, we have 10 non negotiables what they must have and they've got four, four or five that we can have a niceties there. We also have uh, a list of what they don't want. So that's very clear that when you present them a candidate, if I can tell them that they've answered those 10 questions, here's the experience, here's the backup of what they've done. And this is through, you know, a lot of the new tools that are out there that you can do that from conversations that you've had with people in the past. You can ask them certain things and maybe some stuff you've forgotten. You can retain so much more information nowadays as well. And then you can go back to the candidate and ask them the question if there's something missing and it comes out. And with one of those non negotiat great candidate. But they've only got seven out of ten. You know there's three more things there. Go back to them. See these don't tell everything. Have you got experience of X, Y and Z? Have you done stuff on this? And um, if you can go back and say it's been in position where the client can't say no because you fulfilled. Exactly. You've drilled down so much into what they want you to look for. If you give them that, there is no question and that's where you can say to them, well we've got to shortlist. I've given you six candidates that fulfill that brief. But you don't like the look of them. I think that we are now at a stage where we need to do the second stage payment because we are at that level. Let's start interviewing these. Take my, you know, there's a lot of work gone into this. This is what they've done. Um, this is what you've asked for. You know, they might not be from the companies that you've wanted and they might not have had, you know that they're not that picture that you had in your mind but speak to this person and once you've done one and two and three of those, they start trusting you. Because I had this year I've had 11 interviews to fill 10 places and that 11th one there took two. Two people on the same. Wow. So I've had. And that's. That was earlier in the year. I've had a couple that haven't gone, but we're on second stage interview with the second or third ones. But you know, they would have taken them anyway. But you know, in terms of a run at things, that was pretty good.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you're, you're having the best year. You, you know, you fully retain. Like will you take any contingent now?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: No. So you're 100 retained senior appointment. Is there a level that you only operate at? Like is there a minimum fee level or role level that you're like I won't touch it unless it's that or above?

Speaker A: No, I think it's, I mean when you're talking about the roles that they will. They're at a certain level within the business anyway. So they fall in above the, the 150, 200,000. I mean anything up to about 450, you know, they sort of numbers that are.

Speaker B: Ah, but if they said we've got an 80 grand or a 50 grand

Speaker A: roll, I mean, if I've done three or four rolls of them and they, they needed a favor, yeah, definitely pay me a third of the fee up front, we'll go and do it. And yeah, yeah. I do find that some of the more senior roles are not easier, but they've not been messed with as badly as, say, some of the other candidates down the road. They've had bad experiences and, you know, oh, ah, you know, not another recruiter and I phone and all that sort of stuff and they. You get past that a little bit more. And as long as you can get past that, I'm not taking your call. We don't. I've had many a time where they. We don't take calls from people like you. What's that supposed to mean? You know, it's, um.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, got it. So the bit that I'm really interested in is the AI stack that we've had conversations like, you're an Atlas user. Atlas are a headline sponsor of the show. Right. Um, that's not the only software. But can you give us a bird's eye view of the, of, of what you, what you, what you're doing? Because you are having the best year in 24 years. You're completely solo. We're in a market that everyone's complaining about saying, you know, this terrible times and AI is going to eat up, uh, the industry. But you're, you're, you're proving that's, well, it's working for you, not against you. And it, it definitely is the narrative, I'm saying, right? I think there's trusted advisors and I think there's commodity partners. Commodity partners are just banging CVS out and Advis are doing what you're doing. But AR and AI, I think, is making that gap bigger because AI behind someone who's trusted is, is a genuine secret weapon. AI behind someone who no one's ever heard of could just be more noise and actually more damaging. So tell us about what you're doing.

Speaker A: Somebody told me how I could do the stuff that you don't like doing. And that was like, wow, what is this? I need to have a look at it, you know, in terms of. So I started off with the accountancy side of things, you know, not having to search through every three months for invoices to be paid. So it was all those small little incremental things, right? Okay, it's doing that well, so I don't like doing. And what else is out there? What else is other companies building in terms of software? What are they offering? What are the new apps doing? You know, the note takers and all the other bits and pieces. They're doing this and it's producing something. What can you actually do with the stuff that you can get? And it was, you know, conversation I. With Jordan as well. I mean, I spoke to him very early days in, In Atlas, and the way that he was talking about, you know, how things could happen, how AI can clean your database, you know, it's another job. You know, who wants to go through there and just update databases down there? Uh, I just maybe go to sleep. I would fall asleep.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it was. If you, if you could think of a, uh, another way of doing that or be quite creative or, you know, explain. I have conversations with Claude and Chat gtpr. I think it's great. You know, you can talk to them or come back with other stuff. It's about sparking new ideas.

Speaker B: You.

Speaker A: And you might not have the idea when you first start, but you pick up stuff, you listen to things, you listen to other conversations that you've had with people. And even to the point where you think, well, I do that when I'm speaking to somebody. How about every name that somebody's mentioned on a phone call, bring that out and get that automatically updated with the relevant information and then feed that back into your database. I mean, that would have taken months, years. Now, BD we're doing now where, you know, I get all that information and I've built certain pieces, you know, mini apps in, in AI which will bring in, um, opportunities overnight, who's moved, what projects have been awarded, you know, movement in the background, signature signs, all those sort of things. There's a lot of companies out there that charge a fair amount of cash and did a great job. But for me, it wasn't ever, uh, quite right. It was always about the wrong sector. It was wrong about.

Speaker B: Let's go, let's break it down then. So specifically, you said finance.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What software did you use for that to solve them?

Speaker A: I just. I just literally gave all my invoices to my accountant and it cost me 250 quid a month just to do them. My books and whatever else now. And I can. It literally pulls. If an email lands in my inbox that has anything to do with a receipt or an invoice, it automatically apportions it to a place where I can. I Used to just go through and tick it off, tick it off. Now it was getting to the point where it was so good.

Speaker B: What are you using though? That's my question. What software do you use?

Speaker A: So Claude is reading my Gmails. Yeah. So I've basically gone through there and having built up prompts over the time and it understands what I'm asking it, you know, questions me as to what you want. Do you want to do something that we did two or three months ago? Is this an extension of that? But it's always building on those prompts.

Speaker B: All right, so what's the output then? So emails are coming in expenses or invoice related? Yeah, you. Is it automatically sending the emails out for your invoices as well? Or is that coming from zero or whatever?

Speaker A: Right. No, I, I just literally go through Dex, my accountant's got Dex, uses free agent or whatever it might be. I don't get to do any of that sort of stuff as long as I'm sending out what I'm spending comes in, you know, whether it be Atlas, uh, you know, it comes in Atlas, arrives as a PDF. Claude reads it, sees what's gone on there and that goes so, and it will mark on my, it will marker on the email, sends it into another box. So I've now got an email inbox with all my invoices and, but I don't need to look at, I just know, okay, they've gone. So I've got, not got to worry about those. Just keep an eye out if there's anything that's missed. If you've got, you know, some, some things you don't get invoice for, but you can. Now I've uh, worked out of the last couple of months that you can stick all your EE bills if you're not getting an EVO for it. It will go and read my account. I've given it passwords, I'll access my M. EE account, it'll take out the last three months invoices. So the amount of time I'll spend in doing that, that's another day that I can start, you know, doing stuff,

Speaker B: speaking to people, operational tasks. Claude is running for you now. Ah.

Speaker A: So I've got, I've got an accounts manager, basically an accountant working for me doing that. So I've got this little man sits in the corner, you know, don't pay him, pay him, pay Claude 100 quid a month and you know, 20 quid of that is employing, uh, an accountant. Then I looked at it and on some of the marketing side of things, it's not as easy as just saying, I want some LinkedIn posts written. You know, you've got to have so much more going into that, being fed with conversations with everybody you have. You know, you can even get to the point where you've got two and a, uh, half, 3,000 conversations, maybe more of people that you've spoken to and you say to, at the end of the week, pull out something from like one of those conversations that has been, you know, inspiring, maybe it's a bit controversial or maybe it's that anonymize it and ask me some questions about it of what my opinion is. And if it's good enough, you can just run a whole next week's worth of prompts. It automatically takes it. So apart from having a conversation with Claude, everything's done, they go out next week, written perfectly. But that's taken, you know, two, three years to get to a point where that, uh, that automatically happens itself.

Speaker B: Claude's managing your operational finance, is helping you write your social media content. What else is it doing? Now? Let's look at bd. What are you doing there?

Speaker A: I get a report every morning telling me what's happened, who's out there, who's changed, who's done what. I've even built it now where it's not just giving me the names, it's giving me their telephone numbers, the email addresses, you know, other people in those departments who I need to speak to. And it's automatically auto populating my database, creating opportunities. Opportunities I can come.

Speaker B: How much of this is Claude and how much of this is Atlas? Because people are thinking, do I need Atlas? Do I need Claw? Do we need both?

Speaker A: Um, Alice is fantastic and Jordan is doing all of this stuff, but the, the little niceties, like the little. I know the icing on the cake in certain respects is the ability to, um, make this so personal for your audience, for your people. I mean, people, uh, are taking on outlets, maybe selling however many licenses, and it's very difficult for Jordan to be able to do all of that. But he's very close. There's others out there, some of the big ones that are, you know, absolute, uh, nightmare. I've dealt quite a few of the big organizations. Not great, but he, uh, Jordan's great. You know, you pick the phone up to him or you've got a problem, he'll think about that problem and he'll see what other problems that's associated with that and he'll build it within a week, two weeks, three Weeks. He's built something to actually look at your problem. And that's, you know, it gave me the incentive to look at Claude in that way as well. You know, if there's a problem to be solved and somebody's taking you along, you don't necessarily have to do it, just build something. You know, there's certain apps and they got N A10, you've got Vercel in terms of building apps. I've got an app on my phone now which has been built, which is, you know, I come in in the morning. It's a dashboard. It tells me the most 10 most important people have to phone today. Or these are opportunities you need to follow up with. You know, this has come in. This is. And we can mark BD opportunities as well. You know, BD opportunities being marked out of 100, you know, anything. I don't even bother with anything below 75 now. It just goes into another.

Speaker B: What would be an example of a BD opportunity then?

Speaker A: What's, um. That came in this morning. It'll be the ones that aren't allocated. There's certain companies that I want information from and there's certain projects and they have changed automatically and it makes suggestions for me as well. So I'll get them flash up on the screen. Something's not happened with so and so for so long. Do you want to replace it with this? Because only sent me many places on that list because I don't want inundated with information. So I've got, you know, size Will on there, Hinkley on there, the, uh, hospital.

Speaker B: Give me an example. Like what has happened in that business that puts them on your list, like

Speaker A: somebody's moved, got a new COO in there, or they've made a redundancy. I mean, I had one a couple of months back where CEO had left. I've contacted him, spoken to him, got him another job elsewhere. I wouldn't have spoken to him if it hadn't popped up on that screen.

Speaker B: Um, so how did it know he's left?

Speaker A: It was either, um, a press release, something come up in news. So it's reading all the construction press, it's written. So anything that comes out straight away, rather than having to wait to the end of the week to read the build a magazine or whatever. Uh, but it's pulling it in from so many different sources as well. But even sources like finance roles that I would never have had a look at before because they're a part of that construction team. You can take home finance roles now just have to have the understanding what's going on. So you know that they're building a new team. So if they've got a new. Create a new division, you know, the split division, somebody bought another company or you're finding that a company's gone under, you know, it's. That other thing is reverse recruiting as well. Going to speak to those people, offering them a. A service, get them out there, help them with the cvs, they'll come back. If they're senior positions, they're looking tired. They will remember.

Speaker B: So it's doing the research for you. It's putting an email in your inbox every morning that says, look, Scott, here's the hottest news today. These are the 10 people to go after. And then you're just literally still picking up the phone to these people, sending out.

Speaker A: Yeah. And again, if you get something and this is where Atlas comes in, you can. It pulls in opportunities and within those opportunities, it builds you a. Either an email flow, um, through LinkedIn or even just tasks that remember to phone somebody on a certain day at a certain time flashes up on your screen. So I have certain parts of the day now where I'll go through that opportunities list and clear that. So that's maybe an hour, hour and a half. There's certain stuff in there, but what that's generating is unbelievable. The other one that works really well is when you get, um, somebody accept a LinkedIn request. As soon as they accept a LinkedIn request, a personalized message is coming up from them. If I've spoken to them in the past, refer to something I spoke to them even two years ago, it'll go back and read what I've spoken to when the last time that they spoke to. Even to the point where I put names of children on there or, you know, just stuff that, that is more personal than stuff you just get off LinkedIn. Anyway, I've read that post. You did? Yeah. That's great. Brilliant.

Speaker B: But, uh, you're still clicking send and copy and paste and stuff like that at this stage?

Speaker A: At the moment, yes, but there is getting less and less and less. It's more about, you know, it's say on my app, in the morning there'll be a tick sheet, right? That one. Yeah, yeah, I'll hold on to that one. Yeah.

Speaker B: What have you used to build the app? What tool? All in Claude. So is Claude like 90 of the. The AI you're using or is there any other plugin?

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, Claude is that. Is the. In effect the AI. Um, and, and, um. Jordan's um, various AIs that go through on that as well.

Speaker B: So when it comes to like Claude creates the list of information that day does Atlas automatically pulls that in if there is an opportunity, you tick the box, it automatically creates it in Atlas.

Speaker A: I've had to write those prompts and the uh, and the, the using now whether it be Nan or you know, any other automation software, various bits and pieces out there that do, do it. Depends on what's, what's the stuff. But you get it really drilled down now I use Tana as well, which is absolutely fantastic in terms of it's got its own AI inside it so you can have a. Somebody's name comes in. It'll auto populate everything. Yeah, yeah, you'll get. So if it gets a name and you get the company, it'll populate everything to do. So you can build up the perfect profile and then you can transfer that over via customized films into, into, into Atlas@ uh, us doesn't do the moment, but it will do it in the future. But it's a matter of can I do it? Jordan's got a um, a piece on there which tells you who's moved over the last few weeks. Yeah, it's good, really good. It's better than I've ever had before. But there was bits and pieces I missed in it. I explained to Claude what I wanted it to do. It goes away, comes back and you have. As long as you, you can't just let it go off and do its stuff. You've got to spend a bit of time. Yeah. Teaching it as well.

Speaker B: What I want to do. Just pause a sec because there's a lot going on and as people might be listening, thinking, wow, this guy. So if we break it down, your finance tasks are being handled by an agent inside. Claude is monitoring your emails and making sure that nothing gets missed. You know, your social media content is being pulled and heavily leveraging the conversations you're already having to identify key moments that have already happened to then produce good things on the front end. You've got from a BD perspective, you've got a daily uh, scrape that's bringing in possible opportunities of movement, different triggers that you, that you personally then follow up on. And within Atlas, campaigns are created that remind you of tasks, remind you of emails are going out, there's things happening automatically but also checklists so they make sure that you keep working these opportunities. Yeah, I mean that alone is, is, is quite a lot going on every day and then when you get a job what are you doing there to make sure that is AI then enhancing the sourcing side of.

Speaker A: Yeah, it enhances. Do you want to explain a minute ago about how we go about getting a job description? What it is? The key points are of that. You know, give me suggestions as well. I mean, Jordan again is doing this in the background as well. The way the search works, it looks and pulls it through. But I built that extra extension on it that it'll now go out to the rest of the network as well. So it will go on tintet. So we've got not just what Jordan's doing, there's all the other stuff. If you can't get anything from that. So it's just having that imagination of going out and what else do you do next and.

Speaker B: But give us an idea like you get a job on what actually

Speaker A: the job description. You can really drill down and it doesn't look like a generic job description. You can explain it, you can explain the project, you can give it so much information. You can actually have a conversation with a client and ask the client, ask the. Ask Claude or whoever else write me a job description on what was discussed. So you've got first draft there. It'll go through and put it in a certain way. And then you can actually develop that further and say, you know, what is it? Where can we find people that have got this skill set? Which of the companies do we target for this skill set? Do you know anybody out there that can do that job? Can you? You know, it's drilling down and asking those questions and asking them rather than saying to your, well, uh, a LinkedIn search, you go in there going. And it won't bring anything up. It won't have read the job title, it won't have read everything else as well. But it's giving it the opportunity to. To dig deeper and find something. So if you ask the question, may not know it from that question, ask it another question. But more, the more times you ask a question, the more times it remembers it, it goes and puts it into a, uh, you know, a background, a platform, and it will ask every single one of those questions every time in a split second. Rather than you having to go through and say this, this, this and this, it would already have done it. And it's come back because you said three weeks ago you were looking for this about this role. I've done the same thing. Is there anything else this time that's changed it, it and it and it prepares so such detailed information and the reports that you can Generate to give to the clients, takes on board a real, a mixture and a really interesting um, different types of observations. You can write score charts.

Speaker B: What about from an actual sourcing perspective? So like I think the, the efficiencies and quality of producing the right person even, even educating you back as to why maybe you, you asked the wrong question or I get all that Q and A that the AI is greater. Uh, the question I get a lot is what tools actually help us find better people or help us find people faster? You know, what, what are you, are you doubling there?

Speaker A: I have very few recruitment apps now. I think when I've tried those I don't rely on LinkedIn anymore. I've got a basic LinkedIn license. That's it. I don't even pay for it. Um, I use, I've used the candidate sourcing tools. I don't use them anymore. Um, I don't use a social media scheduler anymore. Um, what else would you use? I don't know if there's certain other things that I don't have any BD software now which I looked at and dabbled with, but it's very expensive.

Speaker B: You've only got if you haven't got the paid LinkedIn license. So you're very limited in terms of your searching on link LinkedIn. So where are you just going to Atlas?

Speaker A: My, my, um, all I need is a name or a LinkedIn address on most cases but I've got 40 odd thousand, 50,000 people in the construction industry in the UK. I think I've probably got the majority of where they're at and it's just keeping that outdated and I run software in the background. I do pay for, you know, the likes of Clay, um, Apollo, but only on, I don't have it constantly going, you know, I'll do a drive where I need to clean up the database or I'll uh, you know, make sure that check the database to ensure that these people are still at this company. But Jordan's starting to do that as well now.

Speaker B: So essentially your, your AI will go across your, your own network and, and your own CRM. So LinkedIn, your LinkedIn network and your CRM, here's the best people for the job. It doesn't need to go outside of that.

Speaker A: There's no, I mean, yeah, something like Apollo, it will find you. Everybody that works in that company might slightly be out of date, but you've got something to work with. You know, if it's slightly out of date and you're not getting the right things Back as long as uh, generally get gone are the days where you needed to have coded something absolutely fantastically well to actually find someone new database. Now you know Jordan search is brilliant. You know in terms of the way that you can, you can find anything in your database asking it with natural language. It's brilliant and it's by far the best software I've used. Recruitment software.

Speaker B: How much, how much do you still lean into the fact that you know the market? Like for example.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You get, you get a job on with Alphabet. I'm making this up. Don't, don't quote me. I'm probably completely wrong.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But you get a job on with Alpha BT and then you go to a complete. In your head you've got three or four competitors straight away. You speak to Atlas and you say look forward to. These are the, these are the four companies I need someone from like.

Speaker A: No, yeah, I mean it's gone. It's a little bit further on than that because you have a company and somebody's talking about and when you're talking to them there's always names knocking around in your head. So they'll mention something, oh I know him or he will be great for that. And if you've got four or five that you can start that search with that long list with five names, you can use those so well. You've got so much information on them, you've spoken to them and it. And it's what you say in the meetings, I think having a great record of what you've spoken about, you know, taking all of that information that is generated from those, those. So if you can speak to more people and you can pull out so much more information, you can ask candidates do they know somebody without even sort of going through them with it. They'll, they'll come up with names, drop stuff into the conversation. Do you know so and so. No. Do you know his number? Yeah. And it. And you don't need to write it all down. You don't need to be, you cannot be focused on. And this is where I've written and built that new. But I'm halfway through now where it constantly looks at what we're doing day to day in terms of um, in the, in the meeting itself somebody gets mentioned and it'll bring that information in front of you.

Speaker B: Yeah, just explain what that is.

Speaker A: Well, Sam speaking to you now, you mentioned a company. I've got a box on the side. It's a bit like I said to you earlier on, a bit old fashioned C Facts people don't really know a lot of times, do they? But down, down the side, it will come up with a company's name and it'll give me some background. So if I didn't know it. And it will give me three options, whether or not, what do you want to know about the company, who's working there, or future projects. Literally, you can click a button and it'll bring up all of that information. That information is coming via Claude, it's coming via, uh, um, Apollo, it's coming by Clay, and it's coming via, uh, Atlas.

Speaker B: So it's listening to you in real time and it's presenting information on the screen that you can then lean into. You can, you can regurgitate, vegetate, you could dig into.

Speaker A: And it makes suggestions as well. Say, say sometimes you're talking about a company and somebody's rattling through some names. It'll put them on there and it'll also bring on the names that you've already got in the thing. It'll just list them all in the bottom there. So you can have a conversation about various different people in there. You know, they are with a job, what they do, but it just makes it a lot better to be speaking to a client if they're talking about stuff and you know these people's names and you can bring other people's names into it, or you've got other projects or the projects that they've worked on. It's not just about doing work for you as well. It's providing you with information. And that's where the difficulties come. It's quite a. A long string. I, I do allocate an hour or so a day, maybe do a bit on the weekends, where it's just purely on, um, getting this stuff. Uh, right. You know, I really do enjoy it and it's.

Speaker B: But the job's quite simple at the end of the day. So you're taking a simple process and just trying to enhance each stage at a time.

Speaker A: Exactly. Make what you're getting different. Get something different from everything you do. Don't come up with the same names every day. Anybody can just drop a long list and provide that. But if you've got certain pieces of information, why somebody might be a bit different, you know, there's 10 other 20 other people out there that could do that role from maybe from a different industry, maybe from a different sector or a different background. They've got the same skill sets. And we found this working with the hospitals and a lot of people with the skills that the Contractors want, are already working client side, they've done the design, they understand it. And we're bringing in people that have written the documentation for an HP into building contractors now that understand what they've been asked to do. So wouldn't you want somebody in that? Especially when you've got, you know, a 2 billion pound project, then it's going to cost you an extra 50 grand a year to have somebody with that specialist knowledge in there. And it's, it's creating new roles as well, it's creating opportunities, useful.

Speaker B: So if we break, boil all this down, then what impact is it? I mean, we know you, you're having your best year ever. So what impact is the technology plus the longevity of the brand, plus the lifestyle design you've created where you're the one owning this, you're not delegating it,

Speaker A: rebranded, got somebody to build a website. I should have built this myself, but I didn't know where to start in terms of the brand apps really wasn't happy with AI having the ability to do that. So got that, got a new brand, changed that around. And, um, and even on that, we've gone out there and changed things that maybe haven't, haven't worked. So it's starting right back from the very beginning again. But then building on from that is, what can we do that's different? How can we stay two or three steps ahead of everybody else of what they're doing? If we hear something, let's implement it. If you're a bigger, bigger consultancy with, you know, five or six people even, that you can't be as agile, you can't change as quickly, you can't, you know, change your reports overnight. Something else that you find that's done something extremely well. You can't just go in and tell everybody you're changing it around because you're just going to end up with a, uh, crazy place. I, I function better under chaos. I love it. You know, it's stuff to be thought about there, there.

Speaker B: But what the question I'm asking though is like, because that's what I think. People, people know AI is useful and it's, it's efficient. But, like, what's the impact? I mean, again, the results are showing you. Yeah, it's making you more money. But, uh, what is it that's making the biggest difference across.

Speaker A: It's allowing me to speak to more people. So if you speak to more people, you get more opportunities speaking to people, to find more people that have got that potential to do that job. But it's also allowing you to think differently because it will spark ideas. If you've got a conversation in there, you can write it questions, ask AI, what do you think of this candidate? Could this candidate do this job? Where else could this candidate be placed? What sort of company? So there's lists, there's hundreds and hundreds of things you can ask it that you probably never really thought of. But you've got to be imaginative, ask it stupid questions.

Speaker B: You know, the thing that gets me, Scott, is like, everyone's got access to the same tools, right? Everyone could buy Claude and everyone can buy Atlas, and everyone can buy whatever the difference it really is in how you use it. Like, the fact is you're obsessed with using it in one direction all day in a very, very specific space that I've got zero interest or, uh, application to myself. So we're using the exact same softwares, some of them, and we're completely different in our approach. And I think that's where I see that's where we're gonna win here. Like, we're gonna win by being an area and just doing more than others and knowing it better than others in one. It's very similar to the old.

Speaker A: Just.

Speaker B: Just be a specialist, but be a specialist plus AI. It's like enhancing what was already great about that niche recruiter.

Speaker A: And I think that it'll grow and it'll come up with new ideas. I mean, everybody said in what, the 80s, whatever, oh, we've got robots building cars. Yeah, they were crap with cars before and they're now quite good. Yeah, um, most cases. But it's the same thing. It'll. It'll wheedle out some good. And I think it'll make recruiting more professional. It will make it. The barriers to entry will be a lot higher, which is great. You're charging big fees and you need to provide a fantastic service. And if you can start offering additional things with what you're doing. I mean, I'm in the process at the moment of I talked about afterwards. But it is certain other stuff that's happening out there that I'm able to get into now because of what AI has taught me or what the opportunities are. You learn so much more about things. What the problems the contractor might be encountering, what the, uh, cat, what candidates may be encountering working from home, um, locations, you know, all of these other things. There's so many more, um, differentiators now. And it's trying to make the most of those with the possibilities. So if, you know a company's Got various different offices in various different parts of the country. You wouldn't really look at that previously, but it will automatically tell you, why don't you offer that? They could work in a different office or remotely from here. So there's so many different things that gives you an edge or an angle that they may have not thought.

Speaker B: Basically, it's like having an expert team around you without the team.

Speaker A: Right, yeah. Hello. I mean, I've probably, yeah, I've got a whole board of directors that I talk to and they. And, and sometimes it's easy to deal with them because I can just don't shut up where they don't answer back or whatever else. Um, but it is very much, uh, learning thing. I love learning and you can learn about everything. And I think there'd be certain things that change legal stuff or people to be a little bit more informed. But I think sometimes they go too far with it, whereas it's interpretation.

Speaker B: So, look, obviously I think you got really interesting business. 24 years solo, AI led, you know, very niche gone, retained. You know, you're on track for half a million quid. Like what? Us building the business this way. Being in the garden and being like, what has it allowed you to do as a human, as a father, as a husband, as a man?

Speaker A: What not. I. I've traveled on trains. I used to go get on the train at the same station stand, next to the same people, listen to the same crap every single day. And it used to drive me mad. So there was one driving. Why do you have to drive somewhere for two hours? And if you've got to go meet somebody, I will go meet somebody. I'm not saying that, but I can start work when I want. I don't need to work nine till five. I can. I've watched more cricket matches and rugby matches and, you know, taken and picked up children's schools. I've not missed a parent's evening. I've been able to do everything, you know, for, for what the children have done. I've been able to take to university. I'll be able to, uh, you know, if they've needed picking up from somewhere, you can just change things around. It's the flexibility and, and you can work with people that you want to work with. You can choose who you want to work with. And if people don't want to work with us, fine. There's plenty more out there and. But it's just about choices. As I say to my, you know, kids, if you've got a choice that you can do something, you know, whether choice where you go on holiday, you know, go on certain olives because you need to earn a little bit more money or certain car that you want to buy or whatever. A lot of that becomes less and less important as you, once you get older. Um, and I'm 54 and, and you know I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18, 19, 20, you know and I still get told off by my wife because I want to go out drinking with my son's mates and she said I want some old fellow going there but you know that's, that's the way I feel and I don't no intention of you know people driving towards uh, retirement and I, I don't know, I enjoy this and why, why not? If I wasn't doing this I'd have to find something else to do and if I hadn't got anything to do or get me some of the trouble, get fat, die, you know, all that sort of stuff that you don't really want. This allows.

Speaker B: How many hours a day are you, how many hours a day are you spending working?

Speaker A: I do less now. Um, I wake up, I don't sleep, you know, I don't sleep. I'm probably wake up at 4, 5, go up uh 6. But then during the day I'll nip out and do something or I'll go and meet somebody, you know, six, seven o' clock. But I've been longer because they're air conditioning at the moment, it's too warm going home so I just stay in the air conditioned office which is fine.

Speaker B: You work from 6:00am till 6:00pm Pretty much, yeah.

Speaker A: But there's a lot of that stuff in the middle. Like I've just said to you there before, be somebody need a lift somewhere or I'll pick my daughter up from the station or my son's got to go to work in Bolton or something and I'll drop him off and it's nice, we can have a conversation on the way there and you know you can work in the car loads of stuff. So I can just do something at uh, a drop of that. Yeah.

Speaker B: Would you change any of it if you look back?

Speaker A: I would because I do, I do, I do work hard. What frustrates me I work hard but it frustrates me that other people don't and I can't say that, you know every each of their own. But I think if you're going to do something you do it properly. You know if you're going to go in and Say it's the other thing as well that annoys me is that a client will say they're going to do something and they. They won't have done it. When you know that you will do it and give it to them. When they are at the internal recruitment teams, you know that they've sort of held things up or created a. An unrealistic marketplace. There's a lot of people being missed. When people talk about the construction industry losing so many different. So many people, so, so much talent that's going and they're not bringing people through. But that's a completely different story because they're not. They're cutting off a lot of people at a certain age. And what we're also trying to do is build community. And that's been brilliant, you know, and that's another story I think we can talk about another time. But it's about building mentorships, you know, bringing young people in, bringing people back together again.

Speaker B: You know, you've actually got. It's a genuine purpose. But what. But again, what would you change then?

Speaker A: So what would I change up? Uh. AI, uh. Turning up a bit earlier.

Speaker B: Yeah. But that's not. That's not in your control. What would you change? It was in your control.

Speaker A: I think I would really. I'd far enjoy myself. Really? Yeah. In terms of where I'm at, maybe not the Dubai government taking me 250 grand. That may have changed that one. Maybe.

Speaker B: What would you do differently to. You just wouldn't do the work.

Speaker A: Yeah. You trust people? Maybe. Maybe less trusting. I think I've just too. I believe people. I believe if somebody tells me something, I believe that that's the truth. Yeah. They've got all the truth in the world, so they'll let me down. And, uh, I, I just try to be open, honest. I don't try and lead anybody up the garden path. I might not get there. Just an example. Yeah. With you, when we've had these conversations, you know, I've been. Always been open and honest with you and you have with me, and I think that's why we've got them.

Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. And it. I think you're 54 years old, your kids are getting older, like you've got no intention of slowing down.

Speaker A: Well, there's a new way of looking at this. I mean, I can work from anywhere.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So why. Um. I. I'd love to go and have a house somewhere else. You know, I could go and work in Spain. I can work wherever it might be. Maybe just do a couple of days a week, maybe take an assignment on a month, but just tick over. But once you get to a certain, um, point, you know, one assignment is worth a fair amount of money once everything else is paid off and children are gone and all the other bits and pieces. So you can still live a very nice life, you know, working a couple of days a week, which I don't think.

Speaker B: But do you think the pressure of knowing you've got commitment to someone that you've said, I'll fill a job, do you think that will eat you up even on your days off? Like, will you be able to actually, with the way your brain works, will you be able to. To switch off for a couple of days a week?

Speaker A: No, I don't think so, no. But it's whatever I do. And it's like kids, rugby, We've done that and that's been. That was an obsession, you know, riding my bike was an obsession. I've read Lance. Enter John o'. Groats. I virtually threw my bike in. Um, I've got no interest. I've still got my bike behind me now. I'm trying to make myself ride it again, but I have no interest because it's not challenging me. It's not. It's not. I've done that. Well, what else do I need to. I need to go and ride across America, but I've got time to do stuff like that, so it's about just extending it. You know, getting a bigger. A bigger name is more enticing to me. Getting somebody placed at a higher level or something I really like is. Is more of a driver than the. The number behind it. The number will come if you do a decent job. So target the top. The stuff will follow you. Do it properly, people, you'll. You'll get your rewards. But if you look for the reward, you don't necessarily do everything you need to do. Right. All the way through.

Speaker B: All right, final question. Because we, uh, we've gone over. But I've enjoyed it. That's why. What if someone's launching a business now or they're in the early days of growth and they like. They like the sound of how you set this up. Right. That your way up. Because the whole point of this show is to give people different ways of running recruitment companies so that you build what you truly want, not what you think you should build based on what everyone else told you when you work for someone else. But what. What would be your, I don't know, three golden rules then, of running a business in a Similar way to you. What are the, what are the non negotiables that you stick by that they, they could follow?

Speaker A: Be honest with yourself. You know first and foremost that you are prepared. If you take something on, you're prepared to do it. Mhm. Um, be realistic as well that you know not everything is going to go exactly the way that you want it and sometimes things happen really well. You have a good run at things but expect to be challenged. That whole. Expect, expect the worst and hope for the best. It's more, you know, you create your own luck. I think I've had that a couple of times where you know it really create your own luck if you, if you do everything you're supposed to do, you know, it's, there's a lot to that but also enjoy it, enjoy yourself and don't. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. And this is the benefit of where AI uh has done. It's allowed me to take away those shitty jobs that I don't like. I don't want to and what was holding me up and I've now got rid of them and it's given me a new impetus to actually do the stuff that I really, really enjoy.

Speaker B: Amazing. Scott. Thanks so much mate for being honest, for being, for being open. You know, you're uh, there's going to be a lot of people going, yeah, that's the kind of way of business I want to be a load of people that don't and that's cool, that's what this is about. But if anyone has listened today and thought, you know what he talks sense and he, like I said, drop you a note on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker B: All right, well look, I want to get you back on again in the future and have an update on where you are because I do think there's some exciting, you know, we know I've not gone into it but there's a, there's a community you're building, there's a, there's a, there's a phase, there's the next phase to this project.

Speaker A: One thing I would say if anybody does is looking at this, that wants to become a mentor, I'm looking for some more or if they know people that want to get into the construction industry, that want to be supported, you know, whether it is, you know, names to be spoken to, what actual roles are, you know, that sort of stuff, that low, real low level stuff. But if somebody really wants to give something back to the.

Speaker B: Yeah, like they're young, like graduates or

Speaker A: whatever, that any of those graduates are struggling. It's tough out there at the best of times.

Speaker B: Yeah. A lot of. A lot of the people listening will have kids and, and be approaching those ages. So if anyone's like, yeah, you'll take some time with them.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, because they're gonna, they're gonna be professionals one day. And it's what it's all about, isn't it? Giving it back. If you give it, you receive it.

Speaker B: So, Scott, I hope people take you up on that offer.

Speaker A: Thanks so much. Brilliant. Thank you.

Speaker B: All right, 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.