SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to Retained Search, the podcast, where we lift the lid on what it's really like to work retained, discuss the stories we've gathered along the way, and give you all a peek behind the scenes of our amazing community and how they're getting ahead. Blaine! So nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

Yeah, great to great to meet you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

I'm really excited about today's conversation, and I'm gonna let uh the audience find out more about you as we talk. Um tell us first of all who you are and then tell us a little bit about the journey that I know everyone's gonna be intrigued by.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

Yeah, of course. Yeah, so yeah, Blaine Doors, um co-founder of Wanted. Um we set Wanted up in 2020. So yeah, been going six years actually, um, last week. So yeah, huge milestone from starting. Actually, we started just uh two weeks before COVID hit. We didn't know COVID was hitting, and then we uh we was literally me and my business partner was uh sat in a we work in Victoria and we just committed on a 12-month term in in there, and uh then then then then then COVID hit like two weeks later. So it was a it was a really interesting time to set a business up, but we could have never looked back because I think um as everybody knew if you were in recruitment in 2020, it it went crazy. So it actually had the opposite effect for us, even though we were most of the team was remote. Um the the whole technology ecosystem, and I think every ecosystem just absolutely went crazy because people needed to hire. Um, so yeah, it was actually a good time to set up. Um and we wanted to set something up. Well, me personally, because coming from a very traditional executive search background, I wanted to set something up that actually went against the market from what the traditional big search firms were going to do. Because prior to setting wanted up, I had a couple of offers with the largest exec search firms to go and work within their organizations and help lead lead that search practice in Europe. But I just felt there was a real gap in the market, and we kind of spotted that, and you know, here we are kind of six years later.

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

Wow, that's a nice story already. Um, and just before we started recording, you said something that really kind of uh perked my in piqued my interest um in that a lot of the audience that we have are interested in retained search and executive search. Some are there already, some are on the journey. And I mentioned one of the things that people are keen to know is what is behind the scenes, you know, what do they actually do? Um, you know, what how does a a hydric or an e gon um do how do they do things things differently and what do what do they actually do? And you said, and what what don't they do? Yeah, yes. And that's that's just so telling because I've had a really similar experience too. Um, so could you tell us a little bit more about that gap that you identified? What what was it?

SPEAKER_00: 3:30

Yeah, I think I think if I go obviously right back, I think, you know, um I started in recruitment like most people listening do. Um, and you're you know, you're chasing roles, you're chasing fees, and I realized really quickly that if you don't understand a market deeply, you're you're always going to be behind it. And that really stuck with me, kind of that strap line, um, still all these years later. And I think the there's a real misperception around um if you are hiring a CEO or if you're hiring a uh, for example, just in my market, a data center technician, or what the low one of the lower roles of grading are, that um you wouldn't necessarily be able to sell uh a retainer um to that organization. But if you really think about it, it's the same process whether you're hiring that person or a CEO. Um, yeah, the people you speak to are different, but you know, every time you get on a train to work, the people you get on the train with, they're different also. It doesn't mean you don't get on that train. So it's it's the same process. And the the way I look at it, it it's just about you know, really, really understanding the client, understanding kind of where the pain points are, understanding what the competitors are doing in the marketplace, and then demonstrating that value to the client. So they actually think, okay, well, this consultant, you know, they really understand our business, they understand what's going on in the market, and we actually don't want to work with two or three different suppliers. We really trust this individual, and then you can start to put some metrics in place of like, you know, we we need to shortlist in X amount of time. Um, we need to, you know, create a rapport, if that's something that you that that now, I mean, LinkedIn Talent Insights is still um fairly kind of like new to me, but you know, we use other tools, like there's amazing tools out there like horsefly and stuff like that. But you know, use using a different tooling systems and then just kind of showing the client that the value that you can add as opposed to, and I think we were speaking earlier and it kind of makes me laugh because another uh episode I did somewhere else, it was kind of like you you you you simply get a role and you're like, Yeah, yeah, that's fine, no problem, right? Okay, yeah, it's in London. Do you know what? I've got four already, and and you've already killed yourself for saying you're a taker because the client knows, oh, you've got someone, it must be really easy. And then when it comes down to, you know, I remember this individual come to me and said to me, Yeah, but they only want to pay eight percent. But I said, Yeah, but you've said you've got five or six people, they they just think they're sitting there, you're not doing anything.

SPEAKER_01: 6:31

Yeah, yeah, it's so true, it's so true. And I want to dive into that more deeply. First, before we do that, you've been on this journey over the last uh, well, if we take um, you know, go back before wanted, um, you know, this has been a journey that you've gone on uh for many years. What is different now to how things were in terms of the work that you're doing, the deal value, the types of projects, the way in which you work with your clients? Can you tell us a bit about that?

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I think uh initially um I started out very traditional. So it was uh, you know, 20 to 30 percent of package, and it was split in a very traditional way of like, look, okay, I show you a short list of five people, we get these for a process and we get them into a selection process of free. Uh, and then there's another invoice due. And then on the actual offer, um, so the the candidate sign in, um, it wasn't on start date, or the we were very rigid in the process, and then there's a another fee. And then after that, with after the six-month probation, there's another fee as well. Um, so it was a very, very traditional model um that's probably kind of all all the big search companies still use, actually. Um, and the methodology was all the same, you know, essentially. I think everybody does the same job, it's just badged differently, labeled differently, has a different logo on it, but we all do the same. Um I think where what where I wanted to be, and obviously I can proudly say where I am now, I I have it's I it's took me about four years to get to kind of where I needed to get to, because we started off very much as that that embedded specialist working on you know high-end briefs, but what we did do, which kind of really went against the market, was like instead of that phrase I used earlier, instead of just figuring this out as a CEO search or a VP search or whatever the kind of board searches are, where the traditional search guys are playing, let's look at a model where we actually say the most pressing hires that you've got at the moment in the next kind of 12 to 36 months, what are they? And you get a very long list of opportunity there. And we actually say, okay, well, if we actually, you know, think, act, wear their t-shirts, logos, and everything like that, and we come on, we're embedded, but we're not an RPO where we're just throwing stuff at a wall, hope, hopefully it sticks. We actually come in, we're ingrained to the business, we understand your markets deeply. And what we'll do is we'll put in a statement of work essentially, and we'll have defined SLAs in in place that you can hold us accountable to, and we'll deliver on all your roles. And when I was going into customers, like I kid you not, for like the first three years, people I was crazy. They're like, Why? Why would we do this? And it it was just literally very, very difficult to sell because the the fees were were large. I mean, you're talking like million-pound contract, three million pound contract, five million pound contract. So it wasn't just a one-off kind of 50-60k retainer, um, it was large stuff. And what appealed to me the most was again, I go back to that same saying if you sell an opportunity that is, you know, one million or you know, 100 pounds, the process is the same. The only difference is the buyer might be slightly different. So for that£100 one, it may be quite quick. Um, but then there may be dilution as well, because you know,£100, they're going to be working with multiple vendors for that. Because it doesn't really matter if they it costs them 500, they've got five vendors. Where if you're really ingrained, you know, on a big deal and they're actually committing a lot of uh revenue um to an external party essentially, there you you really do get ingrained quite quickly. And I was very, very surprised, and people see on our website with the the partners we work with, and I mean these are like billions of dollars of companies, like their revenues are huge, and they work with us. And I think that's what I was talking about going against the grain. So it's the same process, same procedures. The only difference I hear, and not mentioning any names, but a lot of search companies I hear that have been appointed, they very rarely deliver now. Yeah, so there are you know huge sums of money that is committed, they get a very lovely glossy rapport, they get a researcher, and they get lots of meetings, but they get anything but what they want, which is the person. So we actually put in place an SLA that said, Do you know what? If we don't hire these people, you don't pay us. And now the client's like, wow, okay. Because we know from when we go into that briefing, you know, them conversations, we probably turn down roughly now about 70% of work. And all of the opportunity that we get is referral-led now. Um, anything cold coming in, we probably wouldn't entertain because it'll probably be one, uh, too good to be true like what's going on. Um, or B, it's just probably not realistic. Um, and I think I think it helped as well about you know, the market we're in, AI infrastructure. Um, in in in my kind of world, you know, I think what is actually going on right now is probably the biggest thing in humanity, right this second. You know, there are trillions of dollars getting poured into this, and we're right at the forefront of it. So I think market definitely helps because if a market, for example, was on the low and things weren't going great, then it's gonna be very difficult, I even think to sell one retainer to that organization because for them, they're not gonna be probably scaling at the rate you need them to scale at. Um, so yeah, I've probably kind of like digested away from where we were meant to be. But in short, that was kind of that.

SPEAKER_01: 13:12

I know we haven't uh digressed anywhere. I um I'm interested in lots of the stuff that you have said, and one of my first questions is you mentioned that some of the more classical firms are delivering everything except what the client actually needs. Why do you think that is? Why do traditional or classical firms fail where a business like yours would succeed?

SPEAKER_00: 13:39

I think I think like most of the big uh big firms now they kind of hedge their bets on like look, they're gonna fill it. You know, they they in their mind they they keep all their options open. Um and I just think that it's that the market's tough at the moment. And I think you know, lot lots of organizations will happily go in and you know sell a great opportunity and paint a great picture. I think when you really deep dive into it, and especially, you know, lots of search companies are global businesses, um, and a lot of that uh opportunity is actually driven from HQ and then that gets filtered down essentially. So all the buying decisions are kind of typically overseas. Now that in itself creates a challenge because what might be done in one region like our US um opportunity and team work very different to my team in Germany, to a team in Amsterdam, to a team in London. And globally things work so differently and things are done so differently. And I think that that's one. I think the other thing is as well, actually getting good stuff is probably the the biggest downfall I see at the moment because I think working probably for a very large corporate to some people is uh quite daunting now. You know, there are a lot of uh organizations now like startups, scale-ups, people where they can kind of be around founders, be around co-founders, be on the journey with them. I think that excites kind of uh you know the new generation, um, Gen Z or whatever, they're all labelled as now, so many different different labels, but essentially people coming in. And I was talking um, you know, to my siblings and you know, they're got university, what what what you want to go out and do. And as we all know, most people, you know, train in something and they do something completely different. Um so I th I think that's one aspect, and and I think the other thing is as well, I tend to find that a lot of search businesses now they don't really understand the market probably as much as they used to. Um and I think they've sort of been left behind and and they just they just rely on just historical relationships, essentially. And the new, I think the new kind of especially in my in in in my world, like most of the founders that I'm working with, they're like my age, you know, they're they're in their 30s. And for them, it's all about we just want to go to the market expert. We want to get get understand when you come in the office, you kind of you're like us, you think like us. Um, you know, you want to be part of that journey. I I lost a suit and tie like four years ago. Um, I never thought I could ever be dressed like this, ever. But I think the world has just changed.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

I love that. I love all the things that you've said, and I I absolutely agree. I um I think there's there's other reasons too. Um, you know, the the classical norms, the um uh I went to a brilliant lecture on innovation at the um as part of the Goldman Sachs. Have you done that Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program, by the way?

SPEAKER_00: 17:11

No, do you know what we haven't actually does? Is it good?

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

Oh, it's so good, yeah. Um, on innovation, and they shared these brilliant um examples of how uh assumption and pre-uh conception stifle innovation and stifle actual uh growth. Um, by the time uh you know, there's a uh there's a classification of genius, it's divergent thinking, it's being able to get outside the box this blue sky. I think there's a program on it on TV about it at the moment. Um they can assess people on it. So they assessed a group of um people at different age groups, so between two and five, and then uh five to ten, and then uh ten to sixteen, and then twenty-three plus. Yeah. And between, guess which group is is classified as the highest genius level? This is for divergent blue sky thinking.

SPEAKER_00: 18:11

Three to five.

SPEAKER_01: 18:12

You're absolutely right. The the um and the example, one of the examples the guy gave was that um there's this there was a study done in the 60s, very, very old-fashioned study of people being able to think logically, and they put in the in front of the children a maze and they asked these toddlers to work out how to get out of the maze. And these toddlers were mapping little paths through this maze. One of the kids goes and gets a helicopter out of a toy box and he puts it, and he puts a little guy in the helicopter and he flies him out of the maze. Wow. And he got punished for it, basically. He got punished for cheating, right?

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

Cheating.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

Yeah, exactly. And so it basically goes down the age ranges and shows us by the time we get to 23 plus, guess how what many percent of people are classified as genius is divergent blue sky thinking?

SPEAKER_00: 18:55

Probably a small amount, I guess. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 18:58

By the time we come out of formal education, creativity and genius has just been crushed out of this. Elon Musk has been talking about this for a while now.

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

So you're absolutely right. This this um the freshness of thought, the younger we are, you know, in our thought processes, the less we have preconceptions and formal um uh norms um and forced upon us, the the better, the better we are at solving problems, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 19:26

Yeah, I think so. And I think as well, I think with um, you know, when you're in that sort of retained mindset, I think it it forces you to think like an advisor. Yeah, if you're in that contingent mindset, it's almost like you're a trader, you know, just quick wins, you know, day trading, just up, down, up, down. But most day traders, you know, probably lose a lot more than what they gain.

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

Well, they also burn out as well.

SPEAKER_00: 19:52

They they burn out, exactly. And I think that's kind of like the a nice way to think of it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

Yeah, and I no, I love everything that you've said um and agree with it as well. And it's exciting to hear what you've been able to do to. I'm also interested in the way that you speak about being ingrained with clients and the way that you um it sounds like that's a journey that you recognized early on was worth going on, right? That that yeah it starts. Does it start with like you know, a piece of work that you demonstrate capability on? And then yeah, tell us about it.

SPEAKER_00: 20:28

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. I think like um going back to that sort of you know, retained model, you know, acting as that trusted advisor. I think all my clients would say that I am literally their eyes and ears and I'm their advisor. And the thing is, is that you know, I I get to know them on a personal level, I get to uh know these individuals on like, look, you know, what what's their pain points? Um most of the people I'm selling to, you know, they're they're sometimes not founders, um, you know, but they're in you know billion-dollar organizations and they've got a huge, huge number to hit, and they need to scale that out in Europe. Um and and we talk about Musk, you know, worked um on um opportunities where you know there's lots of uh opportunity within what Musk is building, um, and you know, what, for example, Nvidia are building, and we've we're really at the forefront of that. Um and that market is is quick, you know, it's about you know bringing stuff online very, very quickly. And one single mistake will cost you billions of dollars. So they're not prepared to make that mistake. And I think it depends on kind of whatever sector you're in. There's always gonna be kind of that that cost of opportunity. And we when we when we kind of go in, they they look at us as you know, that we are that trusted partner and we're gonna help them through that journey. Um, that could be startup or a big corporate, like I say. It's exactly the same. And we'll start off, you know, exactly as you said. You know, like, look, we're there's we've spotted an opportunity, and what we do is we actually do um organizational chart design from scratch. So we'll look at a company, we'll look at what the competitors are doing, um, we'll make sure that we're doing you know, diverse hiring, making sure everything's inclusive. Not many people do that, and really going into the detail, um, because most organizations say, oh, yeah, well, we we do this and we do that, but deep down, when you really analyze the data, they don't. Um, and it's just about showing people and just seeing how you can add that value. So, yeah, you've definitely got to get the the case study. Um, obviously, you know, luckily for Wanted, is we we've got a number of very large case studies now, so we're almost proven, which is hence why we get stuff coming in now, you know, more so than going out.

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

What what advice would you give to somebody that hasn't you know got that yet? Let's say they have got the opportunity with some bigger customers that have got a growth trajectory. How have you taken a client on that journey from just working once for the first time, yeah, you know, to then becoming so integrated and so embedded with these multi-million accounts?

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

I I'd say, look, I I was exactly that, you know. Um, there's uh I don't want anyone to be kind of misconceived by what I'm saying. Well, I started as a recruiter, that was my market, and I was around lots of traditional search recruiters. I was the youngest person in the room by country mile because I actually started with them. I think I was about 20. Um and it was suit and tie, clean shaven every day. It was really, really traditional. Uh seven days a week in the office, you know, Saturdays, Sundays, you you know, if you needed to be in, you had to be in, and that was it. Um, and what I learned quickly was like, um, I remember I was like, look, okay, here's the laptop, you're gonna follow this practice lead around everywhere. Um, he's the head of practice, and you're gonna see how he does things and you're gonna follow it and don't deviate, was what I was told. Do not deviate. So that okay, fine. Uh so I followed followed uh this guy around, um, which I still speak to today, actually. Um, it's funny because um, and I won't uh kind of uh move on too quickly, but um he did he he actually uh does some advisory for me now.

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

Oh, that's nice, which is quite cool. Are you enjoying this so far? Don't miss a single episode. Hit the subscribe button right now so you can be part of a conversation that's shaping the future of recruitment. So we dive really deep into the strategies, the stories, and the truth about retained search. So if you want to hear more about it, or you know someone else that needs to hear this, then share it with them. Right, let's get back to the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 25:17

But I I quite early realized that I just wasn't that person. You know, for me, uh I'm uh very kind of fast thinking, I like to get things done at pace. Um, I have ADHD and ASD combined together, kind of creates a kind of a whirlwind going on in my mind. And he was very structured, where I was very scatty, and I was like, wow, I just don't know if I can do this. But what I learned really quickly was my scattiness was great because it it made me deviate because they were very much in telecommunications, and I was like, Yeah, but what about the data center side of it? Like, and I'm really fascinated by this, and I done extensive reading, like, so I would go back to the point you initially raised. I'd say it all starts with really understanding the market, and you can do that so quickly now with like Chat GBT, you know, tell me how to be the best advisor in X market, and it will actually be prompts. Where with me, I had to like read a book or read an article or something. It was like, oh no, it took so long. So it if you had all the tools now, I would have absolutely loved it. So I think first and foremost, understand your market and just make sure that like if you're not reading like at least two to three articles a day, then you're gonna be left behind. So I started off just reading, reading, reading. We never had a practice doing that, nothing. So it was cold, literally stone cold. They were like, No, you do telecommunications, we're not interested in that. Like, they're our partners. So I opened that market from complete scratch, and how I done that was like I say, read up, read up, read up. And the person that owned the business, he was the best ever leader that I've ever worked for. He's absolutely amazing. And he always said to me, like, look, what you need to do is you do everything but recruitment. Like, I'm hearing the calls that you're talking about, and you're talking about where sites should be hosted and you know the power constraints and how you're going to get around there. And people straight away thought, he's my trusted advisor. I really like this person. Then they met me and they were like, Wow, how old are you? Because I looked about 12. So they were fascinated by the journey, like of like what what I just thought you'd done it for so many years. So it was kind of that act as if, read lots of data, get that advisory part, and then literally people were literally saying, like, look, we're we're we're looking at doing this search, can you do it? And I did maybe two years there, and then for the the last I was there for nearly six years, for three or four years, I was the highest biller, I had the best performing practice, and I had a room like full of people that have been doing it like 20, 30 years, but I went against the grain. Um, I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge, I didn't do any of that. So for me, I was just everything what a search firm didn't want, you know, because it's normally, let's be honest, Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, you've done something, you've gone through a process and something like that. And when I went and um when I kind of met a lot of these companies, because there were so many big companies that were hearing of us, like definitely the top three in search, and they were actually actively, their like in-house recruitment team was actively poaching me, saying, Look, we we want to speak to you. Um, and I thought, wow, like, do you know what I actually um I could maybe be really interested in this? And when I actually met with all of them, I I kind of realised that we we do exactly that. The only difference was they charged like so much more for that that service and that solution, and they had so much more branding. You know, we wasn't in St James's Place, for example, we wasn't in Mayfair, for example, where we used to work, it was in Beckenham, just outside of London. So it was it was very different. But I think the process is all the same, and I think people just overthink it. I think as long as the client looks at you as an advisor, as long as the opportunities you're going after can be retained, because I'm sure if someone wanted, for example, something that was very easy to find in their market, I don't know what that could be, but very easy uh to find, then it's probably not worth even pitching a retainer. So I think it's just spotting the gap and then saying to them you can fix it. And it shouldn't be active people. Uh and my whole talent pool is like, and I hate the term, but there's no other term, is headhunting people. Um, you know, and if you can do that, I would say selling a retainer isn't that complex at all. I think the client actually values it so much more.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

I completely agree with you. My god, I bang on about this every bloody day. Sometimes I think I haven't said this enough, or I think I have said it enough, and then I listen to people going, you know, I've been contingent for 20 years, and I just kind of like, oh my god, what are you doing? What are you doing? This isn't that difficult. Um, and it it all comes down, and I want to come back. Um to there's a couple of other things I want to ask you. Uh, but I want to come back to the point we talked about earlier, the at the point, like what do what is this mistake? And let's just go deeper on what this mistake is that most recruiters make when they're talking to a client. The client says they right, yeah, I I need some help with something, and what should they do instead?

SPEAKER_00: 31:11

I think I think the first mistake people do is they just don't ask the question. Like that's the number one mistake. I think if the client doesn't know that they do retain us, then how how on earth would you even get retained in the first place? So I think actually asking the question. I think secondly, I think um the common mistake is yeah, we found we found these people for X and Y. Um, you know, we have a database of 10,000 plus engineers, um, and you know, we will be able to uh find this person for you in five minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 31:45

Yeah, totally. Totally.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

I I think I think just acting as if like it's that easy when we all know deep down, and I've been on that situation in my early careers where you think, oh no, I actually don't have anyone, and now I'm gonna have to go and find someone.

SPEAKER_01: 32:02

So what should they do instead? What instead of saying, right, absolutely get what you need, I'm gonna I've got people for you, what should they do instead of doing that?

SPEAKER_00: 32:10

Yeah, I think like that rule, isn't it? Like two ears, one mouth. I think just actually listen. Like listen to the client, like, okay, so for example, how's the role come about? How long have you been looking for the role? What's been good? What's been bad? How comes your internal function isn't able to find this this this role? The the the other partners that you've been working with, what's their background? Like, what do you like? What don't you what don't you like? It's just questions. Um, I think lots of people just don't ask the right questions, and then they expect that they're oh, but why didn't I get retained? Well, did you actually go through this process? Um, and you know, for example, you know, I've made lots of hires within Wanted and put lots of people um on site with our clients, and when you're actually putting people on site, you can't hide. So, you know, I can't say my name's Blaine and it's Harry. You know, you can't do that because they physically see you every day, you know, you're in the office with them, but also you're speaking to uh you know different candidates when you're within their organization. So for me, when I'm um essentially recruiting um very, very experienced recruiters or even junior recruiters for me, I just want to know like that they've got that that drive and that that mindset to be able to kind of ask the right questions, ask it in the right way, use the appropriate language, um, respect the client, understand their, you know, what they're looking for, but also, and uh another word I use quite often, and especially with uh some clients, is like, look, okay, you want a purple squirrel, and when you go in Richmond Park or Hyde Park, how many purple squirrels are you seeing running around? And he's like, Well, none. Yeah. So what you're asking me to find doesn't exist. And lots of them actually come back and they're like, God, I wish the other three, four people just said that. Like, if they don't exist, then you've got to come up with a solution. And we always back things up with data because me telling you it doesn't exist, you might just think, hey, Blaine's lazy, doesn't want to go and find it, or someone else can find it. But now, um, and I'm sure everyone's using LinkedIn Recruiter now, with uh talent insights, you can hold stuff off of it, you can look, um, even though you're not allowed to share it, you can still say, look, hey, this is everything that's going on in the market right now. Um, and this is what you're gonna need to pay, um, and this is the solution in place. And I just think it it's just doing that, but also lots of people I speak to as well. There's always it's almost like there's so many problems. Like everyone just gives you problems. But I'll say to what do you mean? Well, you know, like oh, they're not interested, they don't want to do retainer, they have an in-house team, they're not gonna pay 5k or whatever it is up front, they're not gonna you know, because they already work with people, we're gonna lose the business. There's that risk as well, isn't there? Yeah, of actually walking away. Yeah, which recruiters don't do.

SPEAKER_01: 35:34

No, what and what do you say to that? What you you hear all these people complaining they won't pay 5k, they were working with recruiters that are not charging retainers. What do you say to that?

SPEAKER_00: 35:43

I just say that is exactly why you don't want to work with that client. You need to go and find better ones. You know, there's always, you know, there's there's there's hundreds of clients in my market, but we probably only work with 10.

SPEAKER_01: 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

Um, and the others we just won't, we just won't go to because of like various different obstacles. The other thing is as well, in the retained world, which you do have to be careful of, and I learned early on, I think it was around 2017, um, I carried out a search for a client, and it was a uh a VP role in Germany. And in Germany, they have very long notice periods, and then it has to go, you know, they have a work cancel, and you know, it takes a very long time because the process is very different. So we took on this search. I didn't actually had any experience. I had experience working in the UK with this client, but I didn't in Germany. So in the UK, it was much faster to do things. So um we went for a process and it took six months um to find this individual because um at the time she had a three-month notice period. Within like it was around nine or ten months, and you know, after the kind of three-month coverage, which was standard back then, that there's you know, you've lost it, right? You've had nine months, there is no kind of like option for us to look for any replacements. That doesn't really happen in retained search, not traditionally anyway, um, because once you're paying for their time, you know, as of such. And um, this individual left, but it was a fee of about back then about 140,000 pounds. Um, it was a substantial amount of money for the client at the time as well, just for one hire. And um, I literally, in my spare time, um, I found a replacement for that person and didn't charge anything. And I think it it taught me two things. I think, yeah, there's there's there's Ts and C's, but there's also like uh having a heart.

SPEAKER_01: 37:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:49

And and and and I think with clients, you you need to be able to kind of wear that heart on your sleeves. I think T's and C's are one thing, but they want to know that you're either with them on the journey or you're not. And for me, I just think that you if you're gonna do retained, just be on the journey with them. That's that's that's what I would personally say. It's worked for me. Look, there could be lots of other people here that have kind of done retained for a long time and they're kind of very traditional. And look, if it works and it's not broken, don't fix it. Um, but if you want to learn, I mean, we've the biggest uh project that we've ever sold is three million pounds just to one client.

SPEAKER_01: 38:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 38:32

Um yeah, so you you definitely can do it.

SPEAKER_01: 38:35

Yeah, I love that. I love so much about what you've shared there, and I like I've always liked the fact that there's T's and C's that are there if you need them, but people continue to work with people that they actually trust to have their best interests at heart and and and won't enforce T's and C's if that isn't the right thing to do. Um yeah, completely. Yeah, I I really love that. I had a really big situation with a big client once within a big firm, and they hadn't paid our invoices in the US, they hadn't paid our invoices in Canada, but they were paying all mine in Europe, and the business was saying we're not allowed to do any more work with them because you have to wait until they've paid us. And this guy was crying out for this hire, and I didn't want to not stop. And so I I did it and didn't charge him for you know what I trade.

SPEAKER_00: 39:27

And there you go.

SPEAKER_01: 39:29

It that was my client forever. Like, you know, when I left, I remember handing it over to my successor. It was like a baby, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, I completely agree with you on so many counts. Tell me something that I've been interested in. When you're talking about these big pieces of work, these million pound, two million pound pieces of work. Um, for a lot of people in their niches, they're I don't know, uh C-suite or C-suite minus one uh CFO type niche or their HR type niche, there just isn't that volume of work within a business, right? Yes the way that you're winning big pieces like this is by coming back to something you said right at the beginning, you're taking on huge chunks of their hiring across lots of disciplines, locations, presumably, and levels. How do you manage the delivery on things like that?

SPEAKER_00: 40:21

Yeah, no, it's a great question. And to be honest, it's part of the solution that we've kind of been building on for many, many, many years. So, yeah, you need a good engine. Um, that that is like definitely um uh you need that. Um, and I think um for for us, um, it's just working how that engine works um and seeing kind of like what works and what doesn't work. And we've done some quite small like uh uh opportunities in clients just to test it to see if it works. Um, and now we've got something that's tried and tested and scalable. If you haven't got that, then it's then yeah, it's definitely challenging. Um now what what what we're kind of perceived as now is if you look at traditional RPO, it's just a gen generalist, you know, essentially. Where our market is super, super niche, um, and NVIDIA's taught me the whole market for the last 11 years, and now it's the most talked-about thing in the whole wide world. And you know, the Dow Jones just doesn't stop talking about AI infrastructure. Um, and I think that's where wanted and that AI infrastructure combines together because we have that domain experience, we have that credibility, but we've got the engine behind to do it. But certainly you would really have to look whether, again, it works for the organization they work with in. Because if you haven't got the backing and the support to do that, because sometimes our projects, you know, they can be anywhere between, you know, you could have, you know, five or six people dedicated on site in in in in that partner. Um and the other thing is as well, is that if you look at kind of the the RPO world in general, it is failing. There are too many failure points throughout their procedures and processes. And I think the the markets change as well. You know, I think candidates nowadays um and clients, you know, with automation, automation is kind of recruiter's worst enemy. You know, people use automation to send kind of lots of different messages out, and I think people are way more aware. I mean, um, someone tried to kind of cold call me on my phone, and just suddenly uh on Apple now, apparently there's some system that says, Hey, who are you? Tell me what you're calling about. Yeah, and it's like, wow. I mean, I used to call uh a PA directly through a switchboard. Say I have a meeting with Mr. Carter and I don't get through that you can't do anymore because AI will screen you out. So I think it's uh that the market's changed a lot, and I think that's why that low-level market has has gone. But I think even if, for example, you did do HR, I think if you take it, even a project of five or ten, because that's how we started. We didn't just suddenly get into placing lots of people, even that team, for example, you you placed a VP of HR, but then she's gonna need a HR manager when she joined, she's gonna need um assistants, she's gonna need coordinators, she's gonna need everything within the HR function. Uh she may even have legal responsibilities. And it all boils back to just asking the question. So you you take on that search, but then if you said to the client, well, look, uh and it again, if it's it's it's if the business allows it, because some some people might not want to do that because they feel that they're diluting the service, they've placed the VP. HR, that's the way they sell. Again, if it's not broken, don't fix it. If you're looking at new ways of doing it, me personally is like, look, go in and look at it as a bit of a project, a bit of a build, and then you work out how you do that commercially. That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01: 44:20

Nice. And this engine then that's obviously been built and been forming, you know, over several years, and I would imagine will still continue to evolve with the landscape and the tools and the technology that's available to us. What is what's the secret to building the engine? Like, have you got a is it a combination of different things that you're constantly kind of trying with new as tech new technology comes in, or is it like a fixed model that's been the same since you started?

SPEAKER_00: 44:52

Yeah, I think I think like like I said, uh I I I really just embraced technology massively. Um, you know, and uh for me, you know, I went and got two certifications within my market because I felt that again, you know, I didn't want to just pretend that I know it. I actually kind of want to be certified in it and I want to do courses on it. Um, and for me, I pick all the technology stack and a lot of the technology stack, you know, I'm speaking to people like startups, you know, literally, someone just I spoke to someone last week and literally just finished Uni and he's like developing this platform that can essentially, if you look at all the kind of AI video interviews that a lot of organizations are using now, um, more for for graduates, but it is rolling up the ladder. But this one's especially for like executive hires, um, and it uses kind of NLP to interact, the user interface is great. Um, it made me laugh, you know. He he created someone, you know, from Oxford background, best British English ever. It was absolutely amazing, and it's kind of in in uh kind of this beta phase at the minute, but it's like, yeah, there's so much out there, you've got to make sure, you know, you get the right platform. So every day, my job, um, hence if people look at my LinkedIn, you know, okay, well, what's like solutions director? I'm literally going out, selling solutions, and also buying solutions. Yeah, so I don't just sell it, I buy it. And I think it's uh a case as well as like, look, you've uh I hate the phrase, but you've got to kiss a lot of frogs. Yeah, you really do. Like, this is not an overnight job. I literally work seven days a week, pretty much like 10, 10, 11 hours a day, um, just building this business. But you know, it's exciting for me. You know, I believe in the mission, like I say, I think it's the biggest build that humanity will ever see in AI. And uh yeah, I think you've just got to believe in that to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 47:01

That's amazing. Congratulations, Blaine. I absolutely love, love, love your story. So, what's next for you? What's um what's coming up?

SPEAKER_00: 47:10

Retirement. No, no, no. I think I think um there's a few things that we're working on. Um we're looking into Dubai to open an office in Dubai.

SPEAKER_01: 47:22

Um at the um end of February, March, March, okay, 18th of March.

SPEAKER_00: 47:31

Oh wow, is there an event?

SPEAKER_01: 47:33

Yeah, be very cool to see you. Um yeah, we're doing an event over there.

SPEAKER_00: 47:37

Okay, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01: 47:38

We'll talk about it offline, that'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 47:40

Yeah, that would be great. So, yeah, potenti potentially Dubai will have to look into it. Depends if again, um, we would build a market from scratch out there because you know, but I think it's just something different. Again, our market's kind of heading in that way as well. It's a huge amount in the Middle East, so it'd be great to kind of build that with them. Um, and then yeah, just literally just keep on building and building and building.

SPEAKER_01: 48:04

And building. And when you retire, what will you do with your time?

SPEAKER_00: 48:09

Oh, do you know what? I don't think I'll ever retire. Um, no, I mean I'm only 35, but I mean that is a long way away. But I think um, yeah, I mean, I've got two kids, I've got a 10-year-old, um, uh a boy, and I've got a girl as well, so I've got one of each, which is amazing. So I'm certainly not gonna have any more kids. But um, yeah, I think it's um I think it's nice to kind of uh spend time with them, so you know, spend more time with them. Um, and I I wouldn't even know what to do, I don't think. Maybe be in Dubai.

SPEAKER_01: 48:42

Paddle player.

SPEAKER_00: 48:44

Well, it's paddle. Do you know what my whole company just played paddle? Paddle paddle, paddle, and paddle.

SPEAKER_01: 48:51

I'm I'm a huge paddle fan. We'll be playing it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love it. Our team love it as well. We're all really into I'm a tennis player, really. But paddle and pickleball, I just got sucked into pickleball as well, which I love. It's all just great.

unknown: 49:05

It's great.

SPEAKER_00: 49:06

It's funny, there's a there's a very unknown secret that probably no one knows. But I actually did play for England in squash when I was uh 10, 11, and 12. Um, and got into Kent League and stuff like that, but I haven't picked up a racket probably from like the age of 13 or 14, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01: 49:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 49:25

I played at such a high level, so competitive, uh, managed to secure some sponsorships that I just literally I couldn't think of anything worse now. It kind of uh grained me that kind of uh is a that is a hard journey to take on.

SPEAKER_01: 49:40

Oh, that's a shame. But do you you must be a good paddle player then if you're a really good sport?

SPEAKER_00: 49:44

I would be probably I I don't know if I'd be good now, but I did actually have um so one of uh my team, he's absolutely amazing. He's winning tournaments everywhere at the minute um in paddle. Um he's going around kind of like the country doing it. He literally plays in the evenings and weekends, that's all he talks about. And uh I did have a go with him, and he did actually say to me I'd actually play doubles with you, which I thought was a compliment because he is really good. So, yeah, I know how to play it, but I'm into um I do uh high roxes before they become fashionable. Uh now they're fashionable, I'm not that interested. I do a lot of uh CrossFit gymnastics, just keep fit, really.

SPEAKER_01: 50:26

Very good, good, good. Blaine, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 50:31

Thank you so much. Yeah, I hope it added value.

SPEAKER_01: 50:34

I'm absolutely certain it did. I'm looking forward to the rest of your journey and staying in touch.

SPEAKER_00: 50:38

No problem. Take care. See you later. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01: 50:43

Well, that's another episode of Retrained Search, the podcast in the bag. Thanks for listening to our wild tales, LinkedIn controversies, and our top tips on how to sell and deliver retained search. Get involved in our next episode. Send in your questions and share your experiences with us by emailing podcast at retrained search.com. And don't be shy, connect with us on LinkedIn and come and say hi. We don't bite unless you're a Shrek firm, that is. We want to say a special thank you to our retrained members for sharing what's working for them right now and innovating new ways to grow and evolve. It's an incredible community. If you're wondering what exactly we mean when we mention our communities, well, we have two separate programs. Our search foundations program is for recruiters who want to learn how to sell and deliver retained search solutions consistently. And we have our search mastery program. That's for business leaders or owners already at 50% retained or more and looking to scale and grow and structure their search firm. We cap membership to these programs to protect the integrity of the community. If you want access, just talk to us. Okay, thanks for listening. We'll be back very soon with another episode of Retrain Search, the podcast.