Intro And Meeting Sean

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Change my name on it.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

It comes in as my cool.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

All right.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Yeah, all good?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Yeah, I got you.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

So welcome everyone and welcome most of all to Sean Anderson. And I'm not sure whether I thought that I'd be sitting here doing a podcast with you. I see you all over LinkedIn. Your podcast is awesome. Ours is like, you know, in the back room and we didn't really know what we were doing starting ours, so I feel very honoured having such a promo on the podcast. Um sorry, nice to have you.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Thanks for thanks for inviting me. I actually don't get that many invites if I'm honest. I don't really remember to say no to a podcast in our industry. I'd always I'd always give it the time, but yeah, I don't get that many invites. Maybe people think I'm too busy, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Or maybe such a pro that you'll show them up.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Maybe. I think we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Already the mic is so much better than mine. I need to maybe make mine a bit better. Um, yeah, it's really nice to have you here. And uh there's a few things I would really like to cover with you today. And the first is I see so much of you, I know what you do in terms of the output, like people rave about you and your business and the program, and um, I know a lot of people that you've worked with, and we've got clients in common too, but I don't know a lot about you. Um so I wanted to start with that first. Like, how did it all happen? Take us back to 2016, I think it was. And you were you were working in recruitment, you were a biller. What what was going on there that made you think I I don't want to do this anymore or I want to do something different?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Um

Teacher To Recruiter To Founder

SPEAKER_01 2:00

long story short, I mean I started off as a school teacher, I was a P teacher in Sheffield when I went finished uni and but I did a bit of time selling in between uni and going into teaching, so I really enjoyed the sales side. I was knocking on doors, like the old knocking on doors jobs, um, selling, I was signing people up to charities and stuff. But I I I did really well really quick in the sales role, but it was a shocking, like pyramid scheme type company. I was like, this is nonsense. Got a job in teaching, loved it at the age of 21, being a P teacher, like out on golf courses and football pitches, and and then I went travelling. So I went travelling at the age of 23, 24, one of them, um, 2010, 24. Um, and I uh I landed in Melbourne and I'd done like six months backpacking, I got to Melbourne, and my qualification teaching wasn't valid in Australia. I would have had to retrain, it would have cost a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

And before I knew it, everyone I met in who was English or Irish was working in recruitment. I was like, I fancy that, I'll have give it a go. So I got a job at Randstad, um, second largest recruitment company at the time in the world. I don't know if they still are, but um, brilliant training program sent me from Melbourne up to Sydney to learn, and and I got a job in this dedicated government team that was not, I didn't realise I wasn't given a commission structure. There was zero commission. So, but because I was playing in like a there was no real BD. You were given like a big client list, you didn't have any data, but you had to go out and say, look, we've actually signed a contract to work with you now. Can we get on your books? And it's like a fake playground role. I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. The the set the bent the salary was good, but and I I got to like 25 contractors out in a year and made no money. And uh my brother was working for a small boutique firm, three of them, didn't do a deal for like nine months, and then he made more money in three months in commission than I made in the year. And I was like, what the hell am I doing? So long story. I I moved back from Australia to the UK in the pandemic, no, pandemic, in the Olympics, so 2012. So we're going back, showing my age a little bit now, and and I uh I moved to a company called Venquist in the city, and uh we were opposite, we're in Trafalgar Square when I joined, and I'd gone from Randstad with 300 people on the floor in this massive skyscraper to this tiny little office in a Regis building in London where you could hear everyone's phone calls, and that was an interesting journey in itself. Yeah, but I knew I was pretty good. I did it, I didn't make any money, but I knew I was pretty good. And then I got put in I worked with an incredible woman called Claire Eads who's still in the industry, and she she basically took me under my wing and we went out and built a contract business in the insurance market, and I I was I did really well. So I went from you know, I was the individual top like individual top biller to the company top biller to the to the company team top biller, and I did like 725k in my third year in London on my own, which was ridiculous earning like 230k as a 20 year old. Bought myself a flat in London, and and it you know, I think I was pretty happy for a long time there, and they were great business, still speak to them now, but I I had something in me, and and my best mate is my business partner, Amma. We met the first day of university, so we went to Australia together, we were teachers, he got into education recruitment, I did IT recruitment, we moved back to London together, he did education recruitment in London, and it was 2014. He his dad passed away in a freak accident, it was horrific. What went on, and again, I've shared that on a few other podcasts, but that moment sparked a different in difference in him that changed me, and we were both like, you know what, life's so short, and we're best mates, and we've always been talking about could we could we build a business together? And then but he did education recruitment and I did IT, so they're totally different. So we're like, could we bring it together? No, so anyway, I got him a job with me. So he came and worked with us from 2014 to the till we left, and and he was like my he kind of semi-reported into me. I had started to run the contract business for the company in the UK, and he was running a division which had mainly contract, a little bit of perm. Um, and then 20 2015, we said we're gonna do it, we're gonna we're gonna set up our own business in a couple of years, and then there was a third person who worked with us who was on the perm side, and he was brilliant. And we we planned it for two years. I mean, we used to meet quarterly and we had like financial forecasts, and bullhorn was gonna be purchased and everything. We had the Hoxo, the name was a recruitment company, and it it wasn't that I didn't enjoy the company I was in, but I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I knew I wanted to be my own boss. And I was I was 28, 29, approaching 30. I was like, when I get to 30, I want to be my own boss. Um now in the final year 2016, I was a really I was running about 20, there's about 27 people. We had about 200 contractors as a group. We were trying to get to 300 contractors, and my boss was like, I want to get to four and five and six. And I I don't know, I I got really burnt out with it, if I'm honest. I was like, I'm not that I'm not enjoying it. And actually, that's the year where I'm quitting my job at the end of the year, and I'm earning a quarter of a million quid, and I'm gonna quit to start a business, and I don't enjoy it. So I went on like a bit of a weird journey that year where I bought my house, so I had I had that in the bank. I'd already saved some money to quit and start, so I was like playing around with things. I wasn't making as many calls as I used to. I was meeting clients through my team, I was doing, I was hiring, I was training, I was doing a bit of bobs, but I started it was the first year I started to really invest in podcasts and and self-improvement and you know, reading books by people like Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad, or you know, stuff from Gary Vaynerchuk. And I didn't know that world existed, you know, and my recruitment career was about banging the phone and meeting people at beers, coffees, lunches, and converting them into relationships, and it was all so insular. I I could meet people, I could meet 10 people in a day around the Gherkin. That was all I did, walk around the same square mile. So suddenly I'm listening to people in America that are educating me on things I didn't know anything about, and I'm like I realized really quick that there was something the way I was learning was not something I was applying in my there was no part of that was was in my job. So, you know, I'm listening to I'm listening to Gary V on a podcast and then I'm banging the phone 10 times before 10am. And I'm like, imagine if I could be I fancied myself as a good communicator. I thought if I get in a room with people, I'm very good, but do I want to keep banging the phone 10 times before 10am to speak to hiring managers? No, like not for the rest of my life. So I was like, what if I could use some of the same tactics I'm learning to and deploy it into my business? So at the very end of my recruitment time, like the final three, four months of my days in 2016, I started posting on LinkedIn a bit. And you know, LinkedIn was so different then. I don't know if you remember then, but I do, yeah. It wasn't uh it wasn't a social media platform, it was a news bulletin. It was boring, it was dull, but it was it was posting jobs, and that was it. Um, I started talking about things that I was learning from meetings. So I remember coming out of a meeting, I'd be like, look, I'd write about the fact that that meet in that meeting I learned something that was, you know, I think would be relevant to my contract community, and people started just liking and messaging me. And I remember getting a call once off a client who said, You've literally just said what we were talking about in a boardroom. Can we have a chat? And I was like, I'm on to something quick, like on something. And then anyway, I found a guy I grew up with in Manchester. I said, look, he was working in marketing, I didn't really know what I was doing, I was playing around. He watched what I was doing, he's like, Yeah, I think you're onto something as well. And I said to Amma, I've got a really I've I read that book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I think I've got an I've got an idea here. I said, if we build Hoxo recruitment and we and I I want to be the face of it, I want to be everywhere, I want to have a podcast, I want events, I want all these things, I want everyone to know who I am outside of the the phone calls. I'm gonna get Mark, my mate who I grew up with, who's in marketing, to to run it with me, and then I'm gonna we're gonna resell him to non-competing recruitment companies, and we're gonna have a second business called Hoxo Media. And Amma was like, I don't know what you're talking about, like he didn't know. Like he thought um he I've always had I've always been the ideas, man. He's like, Great, whatever, he'll burn himself out. But he read the book as well, and he was like, Oh, it's an asset, we can have a second company and income coming in. He's like, I like the sound of it. And then when we quit our jobs at the January 20, 2017, and we had a non-compete for four weeks. I just got really excited about so we literally was we were setting up two limited companies at the time, and I started ringing around and dropping messages to recruitment people I knew, and I signed four retained contracts in a month before it even started the company, all paying me two grand a month to

LinkedIn Sparks Hoxo Media

SPEAKER_01 10:40

run their social media, and I didn't know what I was doing. So I said to Hammer, look, we want to put four contractors out in that time. There's no way we would have done that. So why don't we commit to this for six months? Why don't we burn away the non-compete that we've got and just focus on learning, and then we'll apply it all back to the Hoxell recruitment company. And that never happened where we literally the business took off and we got yeah. So that was 2017, and the world was very different. There was no real talk of AI, it was all about social media kicking off. You know, that was the thing, and um I just ran at it like a machine. I was on LinkedIn every day, I was vocal, I was walking and talking around London, I was I was just getting myself out there, and it worked, and we did we grew really fast, but we didn't really know what we were doing. Like we didn't really know what we were doing. Like I relied a lot on the guy I brought in, and he wasn't he'll be the first to admit he wasn't it wasn't really his skill set, he was doing like internal marketing, he wasn't like an agency marketer, a bit like recruitment, you know. The internal skill set is very different to the external skill set, and I we were running an agency that was fast-paced, working with agencies who demanded a lot, and he just didn't enjoy it. So that ran that ran for till the pandemic. I had a walking into the pandemic, I had a business with 15 staff in a in an office in Bethnal Green. I lived in London, and everything was UK, it was all physical. We would literally had cameras, equipment, and we were shooting people in their offices, and we were managing the the digital presence for these recruitment companies, and it was going okay. Um, I had the podcast in person that that had I'd only just launched it in January 2019, and that was really flying. Um, but I had had an idea for a training business from for about two years. That's uh Hishem Azus worked for me, and I tr I trained him up and I said this is what I want to do, and then he left to do it. Yeah, he quit and set up the business that I had imagined. So I was like, but he the thing is he did it in a way that I wouldn't have done it. So he took my idea and ran in a different direction. I was like, right, well, my idea is still valid, the way I want to do it is still there. So then going into the pandemic, every advisor I spoke to, everyone's panicking, everyone says marketing's gonna go. And I said, Well, what do you mean? They were like, Well, first spend that's gonna be cut will be marketing. So basically, I've got this business with 35 retain companies doing a million a year, roughly, in terms of revenue. I've got a team of 15, the business is good, we're making some money, but every I expected every client was gonna fire me within a week. So I spent the first couple of weeks of the pandemic building out that training business because I thought if I have to let everyone go, I'm not I haven't got a business. Like I genuinely just sell and on the face, I'm not delivering anything. So I came, I know I was getting like a million views a month on LinkedIn at the time, and I thought, I've I'm an ex-school teacher that works in recruitment that now works in marketing, and I think I can teach recruiters marketing.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

That was the kind of I'd come to this conclusion that I've lost that honestly.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

I was like, I think I've got something here. So I I launched a pilot free webinar on the the second week of the pandemic, and 800 people turned up. And I was like, okay, I'm onto something here. And then we launched that business in um in May 2020, and that is the the the kind of lifeblood of everything we do now. Um so we became a we had an agency and then we had a coaching business very similar to how you work. And for a while that was cool. And Kirstie works for you, she worked with me. She was in that business when we had two companies, and it it became very it became quite messy. It was profitable, but it was it was it was a bit all over the place. And then we had like 40 employees at one point, and uh yeah, it didn't wasn't something that I enjoyed. So that I don't know if that answers your question, but you know Yeah, it totally does.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Well, on that, you spoke you've spoken openly about the change that happened then, and there was some big pivots for you at the at that time, and having to make difficult decisions, like that's there's particular types of pain in that process that you know people don't often talk about. And what did that teach you that you couldn't have learned any other way?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Um, I think if you if again, I'm not I'm I'm not actually running a recruitment company, even though I'm from the industry and my clients are recruitment. I don't run it, neither do you like we're not running recruitment companies, right? So, but my podcast was about 2019, it was about scale. It was about the rag recruitment agency growth, is what it is. Like it was all about scale, it was about headcount, it was about exits, it was all about growth. So every week I'm sitting down with these founders and I'm listening to these stories. I'm thinking, I want a bit of that, I want to grow, I want to sell people like you could sell that for 15 million and blah blah. So I just thought you had to grow, you had to grow, you had to put heads in, you had to add more complexity, and you just had to keep going. That was all I knew, and it's all recruiters ever talked about. Um and then when I got to the end of January 2020, end of 2022, and we looked at the numbers and we did um like I'll be really open that we did like 2.2 million in revenue, we did 550k in in net in eBit data, right? So it's a good business, two founders, but 55% of the profit came from the coaching business, which had four staff, 36 people working in the other. So I'm like, what are we doing? So we think we've got to scale this business, we think we're gonna build something for exit. I think Amma, my business partner, is obsessed with an exit. I'm like, he wants an exit. So I'm like, I don't really want to do and I'm not even that passionate about growing a big business, but it's what he wants. We're doing it together. He thought it was what I wanted. So when we sat down in January 23 and we looked at the numbers for the year, I was like, I've got to be honest with you, mate. Like, it doesn't really excite me to grow the heads. If anything, I think I'd rather it went smaller. Like, I just don't like what it's become, I'm not enjoying it. And he said, I feel exactly the same for the first time we've ever ever opened up, and that was when we redesigned the model and we decided the coaching business is going really well, it's profitable. How do we expand on it? How do we put if we put all our effort into this four of us doing it? If we if we put our actual attention here, what could we turn this into? And so that's what we did. Um, so the learning is actually I was building a business that I thought I needed to build. Like I it was what my my past and my network and all the stories of exits and scale, and I was just I was influenced by so much information that actually wasn't aligned to how I wanted to be, how I wanted to live. Like I didn't thrive in a huge business as a recruiter. I was even though I was in a business of 55 people, my team was six. We I I over overlooked about 27 people, but day to day I was dealing with about six, seven people, and I was a really high quality operator in that kind of environment. Put me in a running a 40-person business, it's not big in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn't aligned with me.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

So looking back then at you yourself back in 2017, you know, when it all first started. Yeah, what what's the version of Sean that you'd most want to sit down with now? And what would you tell him?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I mean, it's hard because you don't think you wouldn't get where you are without that person being who you were. Do you know what I mean? So it's if you change too much, you might not be where you are now and you might not have what you have now. I think I'd say like keep asking the question, like, just because you can or could doesn't mean you should. Like, what do you really want? Like, how do you want to, how do you what are your strongest, what are you best at, and how can you spend more time doing that and the things that you enjoy? I I got myself trapped in so many different parts of the business that I wasn't very good at and it stressed me out and actually, you know, added str added added anxiety and things that I wasn't good at. I don't I don't like when we got to 40 people and I was looking at like cultural blueprints and I just I didn't enjoy it like HR processes and stuff. I'm like,

Pandemic Pivot Into Coaching

SPEAKER_01 18:40

what the fuck am I looking at this for? Like I'm wasted. I should be out meeting people, I should be communicating, I should be influencing, I should so it was like it took me to go like almost stop doing most of the things I was good at to figure out I should go back. So I'd I'd say, look, define your role earlier and stay in your own lane. Like be proud of what you got. I think we have this thing as founders where we think we've got to be good at everything, and we've got to constantly work on our weaknesses. I'm like, no, lean into your strengths and surround yourself with people that fill the gaps. Like that's what I've learned. Now we've got a lean team, but the people around me do all the things I don't do, and I'm not good at, and I don't want to do, and I do what I'm good at, and it works. And I see a lot of recruitment businesses trapped doing the bits they don't like.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, so true. Um, you've made a strong public argument recently that the recruitment industry is splitting down two paths: trusted advisors on one side and then commodity suppliers on the other, and the middle ground disappearing. For those listeners that honestly are somewhere in the middle of that, what does their first move actually look like? Do you think?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I think it's about being it's a bit like what I said before. It's about being clear on what you want to do and who you want to serve and what's the what is the quality business? I mean, I know it's easy to say, but when you and when you're not like depending on how your business is performing, you will take what you can take and you will work what you can work and you've just got to pay the bills. I get that, but if you can take a little step back, I think you've got to be like, uh if I'm gonna stay in this game for the long term now, what do I want to do? Who do I want to serve? Like what type of people do I want to work with? And uh be very, very crystal clear on it. And if it's too broad, I think you're gonna struggle. Like it's very hard to service multiple different audiences in multiple different geographical locations or sectors or industries. An AI will be better than you at that. But if you can own a very if you can carve out a very specific space and you can get your arms around it and you can see it and you can feel it and you can listen and communicate, I think when I say trusted advisor, it's because you're you genuinely know who you're talking to on a regular basis is uh you know uh you can visualize it and then you can you can own it. Now, behind the scenes, this is the bit that I've got to be open about. Behind the scenes, if you need to fill a job that's a bit random to make it pay the bills, do whatever you want. I don't care, everyone's got pressures, but online on the surface, the the narrative of your company, your website, everything you say has got to be clear and directional for the future. If you're uh so many people are worried about what they're gonna miss out on if they're too clear, they're like, but what but I used to do a bit of that and I do a bit of this. And I'm like, See, the first thing you do is miss forget you you're worried about the two or three things a year you get that you might miss, but you're not you're not thinking you're gonna double down on the bit that you're good at. So it's I I think it's getting clearer on what you're good at and what you want to spend your time doing. That's that's the that's the first thing I would do before anything else.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Um and that piece around being Visible for those things that you're talking about. Most people know that they should be. Yeah. And it almost surprises me in nowadays that there are still people that know that they should be, but aren't but aren't and and are not sustaining it. What's going on between that intention and that desire and actually executing?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, there's there's there's there's there's some really common problems that we come across, right? Again, back in 2020-21, there was an education problem. Like people just did not know they needed it, you know. Do I really want to do that? Do I really need to do that? You will still get people now that that will bill a million quid a year and they don't touch their LinkedIn account. Like that happens, but for most of us in a digital world, you know, there's an appreciation now, like you say, that you should. So when it comes down to I know I want to do more, there's three things. The number one is is ideas. People don't know what to write about, like they don't actually know what where to craft an idea from. Like they they've got loads of stuff in their head, but the second you say, like, go to LinkedIn and use it, it's like, Christ, where do I start? So there is an education gap for a lot of people. Um, the second thing is then confidence. So people have ideas or don't, but a lot of people will suffer from the first again. What I said before, the first perception of what could go wrong with niching down is the same thing with if I go on LinkedIn, what if my candidates don't like it? What if my clients don't in what if it backfires? What if people don't want to work with me? Like they always go to the negative. So then there's a there's a there's an education issue of how, and there's a problem with what could happen. The confidence isn't there, and they don't not many people have someone in their network or coach that they can lean on that says, do this, this works, this is tried, this is tested. It's like going into recruitment business. There's no there's no leader who's done that done the work before. It'd be very hard to get to the get someone up. But the fact is, you've done it, you sit someone next to you, you explain what you're gonna do, and you get them there. So that's the kind of principle I apply is like, well, if you haven't got that network, we we can help you because it's it's actually quite straightforward. Um, and the final thing is time. So I don't know a single recruitment founder or leader who's not busy, you know. Not many people are sat there twiddling their thumbs in the week. So if you've not got the education andor you're lacking in confidence, it becomes a big laborious task. Yeah, and you might have tried something once that backfired or did nothing. Most of the commonly, I posted a few times and nothing happened immediately. It was, it was not a quick return, so it's like oh fucking no, I'd rather get on the phone. Sorry for my my language, but that's the truth. Not at all. Um that's the truth. So for me, it's we we my business is designed to solve those three things. It's to give people, you know, really clear, robust processes to create ideas, not to sit on there and be motivated or creative, it's a process. You know, we build confidence by supporting people. The word con confidence comes from the word confide. You don't confide in yourself, you confide in others. You need external other people to bounce off to build it. And then the final piece, time, we've built a way of doing this in a repeatable way that doesn't take a lot of time. And now with AI, you know, the way that we've built Claude and the processes around it, everyone's best friend is Claude at this point in time. But yeah, it can, you know, you can get an output in in seconds, minutes now that used to take a lot longer. So I

Build The Business You Want

SPEAKER_01 25:20

think it's about having a lack of process ultimately. All those things are a process problem. Yeah, so and I get so many people say, but I don't like social media in my personal life. Neither do I. I've got zero interest in it. Like, I've not looked at Instagram for two and a half years. My team share the things that I put out on LinkedIn. That's it. I don't look at it, I don't know what my DMs say, I've got no interest in it. But LinkedIn is a platform where we make money, it's it's how we build our business. Like it's not an ex it's not about vanity and wanting to be liked. It's about genuinely opening doors and having a commercial advantage.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

I agree. Um, where does retained where do retained search firms fit into this? You've you've talked, uh you talk about influence-led agencies, three to ten people found are visible. You also talk about AI now, multiplying out output. Um is retained like a natural endpoint, do you think, or is that something completely different, entirely? Retained search firms?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

I think it depends on where the where the customers come in. If it's a retained search firm now, who are like we we we don't, you know, we don't do a lot online, then it's different than a business that's building up to selling retained. But I think it's funny because I if I if I start with the first camp, I think not to offend anybody, but there's a there's a perception in the in the in the ex in the executive search world that it's different. It's so different, so different, right? Um, you know, retained search is highbrow and it's high margin, and it is, but it's like executives will not will not be interested in LinkedIn, they're not interested in social media, they're not interested in conversation. It's like, well, it's not true, is it? Actually, the more senior you go with conversation, typically people get more charismatic, they get more interesting, they've done more in life, they're more they're more personable. Like the C-level execs of big organizations I ever dealt with are just incredibly personable people. They don't get there without that. Now they're time poor, they're time poor, but they've got a lot about them. So actually, the thought that executive recruitment doesn't require any kind of personality or social footprint, I think, is limited. I think what it comes from is people want to be stealth, they want to be under the radar. You know, but I think there's a misconception. You can be incredibly confidential in your approach, but be incredibly well known at the same time. So when you reach out to that candidate on when you're working on a mandate, you want them to recognize you and go, it's Louise Archer messaging me. Like, even if I'm not interested in this job, I'd love to keep Louise on my good side. Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna respond. Like, that's the kind of perception you want to have. There's a guy Joe Mullings in America who does like seven million dollars a year, he's got the most incredible brand. Like, it's all built, it's all one in the same. Like, he's not, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

So I think that's an expensive, I think it's just an excuse to not do it, really. It's oh, I need to remain confidential. That's just a good reason to be scared and sh stay away from it.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, I agree. And then, and then if you're going into executive retained search stuff that you train, obviously, I'm not the expert here, but I do know lots of my clients who've done it, and like one of my clients, Kyle Winterball, I talk about him a lot. He just got paid an 100% retained search fee up front. Did our program, yeah, and he's been paid 100% up front. So, yeah, so he's built my he's built his audience with me and he's built his retaining skills with me, but a hundred percent retainer up front. That now that doesn't happen. That's an inbound client who've invited him into the conversation, huge like multinational airline, chief data officer role, and a team around him, team build, I'll pay you a hundred percent up front. Why? That is because the perception of him is is is incredible. They believe he's the right guy before he's even in the door, you know? Yeah, they they know they're in good hands, and also what what's really imperative, like the Stu, and you know you don't know if you know Stu Mitchell, if you're with him, he's one of my clients in America as well. Stu's another one, incredible operator in in New York, British guy over there, and what what he said to me is building his brand has meant he has to be good. So most if this kind of stealth mode operating in the shadows means you can get away with bad practice, like you can genuinely get away with bad practice. But when you're vocal, when

Trusted Advisors Win The Split

SPEAKER_01 29:40

you're out there every day, when you're literally putting your head above the parapet and saying this is what I stand for, this is what I believe, this is what I'm working on, you have to operate within a quality framework. So clients will be like, Well, this guy has to deliver at the left. It's like no one ever got fired for hiring IBM or PwC. It's that kind of mindset, isn't it? Why? Because they're they have to be they have to be good enough to maintain that level.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Otherwise, there'd be people commenting, you're shit.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah, exactly. Well, you say this, but it's not true.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Well, that's what I always say. Like, if anyone doubts me, go and look at my LinkedIn and look at the comments. Like, if if I was a charlatan, it would be called out very quickly.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah, I don't worry about that. But yeah, I think I think the perception walking into a retained appointment and being able to say, look, this is it's also a different level of access to the market. Whereas most recruiters can sell time, can say, I'm gonna do this, this, and this in this order. If you've got the right brand, you've got them the access. You're like, my response rates are a different level. I can open doors that other people can't. Like, just because they can run the same search, they're actually gonna reply to me. Yes, and in and in and in three years' time, when AI is sending 10 times the messages than it is today, he who gets the reply will win. That's my opinion, and that's where I go with the trusted advisor piece. It's about can I position myself that we're using AI with my name and reputation, I'm gonna win. Because ignoring AI is stupid.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Totally. I I agree. Tell me, I'm I'm interested in this specific specifically, so on AI. What does AI actually change then about personal branding? Like, and what does it not change? What remains the same?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Well, what it changes for the average person in a negative perception is they just they just speed up something they're not very good at. So a lot of people just write LinkedIn content using ChatGPT or Claude, but they don't really know what they're doing. They're they're literally going in with a prompt like write me a LinkedIn post or give me five LinkedIn post ideas, and and it's just terrible, regurgitated crap that looks like everybody else's stuff. And like we did a test the other week where I was on Claude and my team were on ChatGPT. We put the exact same prompts in, asking for names of a podcast, and it almost gave us word for word the same results, right? So with a basic prompt like me, write me a LinkedIn post, you're gonna get the same as 99% of the industry that does it. But when you know what you're doing, like I'm not gonna go into the semantics of how we do it, but we've built like some serious information into Claude, and we're pulling data from we're tracking hundreds of LinkedIn profiles all over the world every day. We're pulling in information to learn about ourselves, but also to track what's actually working on LinkedIn now. So in the past, I would have had to base my knowledge on what's worked for me and what I have got time to read. Now I'm like on Monday morning, I get a report in my inbox what the best people in the world are doing that I can read while I'm having a coffee and I can learn from. I can then apply that to what I've been talking about. You know, I've got transcripts from all my calls that can come in that I didn't have before. So I would have had to think, well, what was I saying to Louise last week? Whereas now I'm like, the whole thing's recorded, the whole transcript goes in, and then I can merge what I'm saying with what the industry's doing well, and I can find an angle that I'm like I'm almost guaranteeing will land well. The bit that I'm still really obsessive with is authenticity. So it has to still I've got one golden rule like I will never write something online. I'm not prepared to back up if you picked up the phone to me. So, you know, it has to still sound like me, it has to still be something I believe in. Sometimes AI will write an incredible post and you're like, that is not me. Like that is not me. I don't know that information. If I was pushed on it online, I'd I'd struggle. I think people put in are putting a lot of that out there and they don't they don't have anything to back it up. So for me, it's it's it's not changing, you know. I was I I think I was performing as well pretty much before, but it it's I say that the landscape's way more competitive now. Like you could walk around London with a camera with your phone and talk to it and get a quarter of a million views in 2018. Like you can't do that now. Like the platform is so much more competitive, there's so many more people speaking on it. There's still a dot in the ocean compared to the people on it, but it's way more savvy. So you're in a different landscape, AI is keeping us at the front of that, it's giving us access to information, to ideas, to data, and then when you've got the skills, you're able to craft it as you always did, just faster and better and more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Is that what stands out? Is that what kind of makes a difference? Because there is a lot of noise, you're quite right. What does stand out now?

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Well, what stands out right now is is authentic ideas that come from people who actually know what they're talking about. And again, when you say stands out, it depends on what you define as standing out. Like, I got 65,000, 70,000 impressions on a post on Monday that got 80 likes or something, and then I got a post that did 200,000 impressions two weeks ago that got 12 likes. So it's totally different. Like that wouldn't have worked in the past. So, like, what stands out on LinkedIn now isn't just based on likes and comments, it's actually based on like how how it's it's based on is it written well, is it authentic? Do people stop and read it? Like, dwell to the amount of time people stop and save it and things is the most important thing on LinkedIn now. Like, and the network you have is important, but it goes beyond your network pretty quick now to different people. It's always trying to find the right people rather than just relying on your first degree connections. LinkedIn is purposely trying to get your content in front of the right people all the time and test it. So the algorithm's changing. I still believe that if you can stick to things that you know that you're genuinely knowledgeable on, you know, you can you you can support it with actual back data that you can find and you know insights and other people's information, but it's got to be your authentic lens. It's like when you jump on a on a call with a client. Like if you're not adding your own perspective on things and you're just agreeing with everything they say, is I don't think you're gonna be remembered.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Yeah, I agree. What's the mindset behind this? Like, we've talked about those recruiters that are um become really that are really visible, that become known, you know, like Kyle and like the other example you gave, um, from those who do stay under the radar and basically stay invisible, uh, you know, in this context. Beyond the kind of tactics of what they need to do, what's the actual mindset difference?

SPEAKER_01 36:13

The mindset difference is you know, I'm or I'm I'm not just a tactical recruiter, I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a broadcaster of media. Like I'm genuinely we've always been asked the question, what's the market like? That was the number one question every recruiter's ever been asked. What's the market like? You know, going for a beer with someone, what's the market like right now? We should be answering that question as part of our strategy. Like we need to be we need a we need to have a one-to-many broadcast strategy. That's the mindset. It doesn't mean we need to be an influencer or a thought leader or any of that, but we should be thinking from a mindset perspective, I'm not just a tactical recruiter, I need to add more value than that. I have to because AI will do that bit, like it will that's why I talk about the commodity. The commodity is time and process, and I do these things in this order, it will go, it will go. You know, it will 100% go. I don't care what anyone says. Now, that doesn't mean you might be pushing the buttons on the AI to do it for you, and you're still making the money and the fee. Like that's the goal, right? So, but in order to get the access to that and still have that gravitas that people want to talk to, then you've got to, I believe you've got to be public and vocal about the things you care about.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Because it's gonna get much harder otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Like it. Um you've talked about those that are suffering um from not doing some of these things on a smaller scale, but there's also some big casualties, too. You and I have both shared publicly the um big journalist agencies, contingent agencies struggling, um, and the respective and relative resilience of the search firms, you know, the corn fairies and the hydrics, and there's a big difference, isn't there, between who's doing well. Um now, uh, what's that telling us about where retained is heading, do you think, and why?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Well, I think I think it just goes back to what I just said. It's like if you can get yourself into meetings where you're talking bigger, then like the reason exec search firms are thriving is because they're not seen as a commodity, they're seen as a partner that they can you come and sit with us and help us shape this. Whereas if you're on a supplier call with one of five, that's a commodity. That's a commodity. Like if you're the guy that's joining five other agencies, listening to a brief, and then you're writing down your notes and then you're going out to market, like that is it, that's a commodity, and that will get that will get affected. So retained is you know, might not have to be exec level, but it it's about getting your arms around the process and helping a customer come up with what they need and and being that trusted advisor. And it you know, it's very difficult in certain instances. It's funny though, because another I don't want to keep going on about Kyle, but Kyle, Kyle's client base are like enterprise level, like McDonald's and Nike and Google and British Airways. And you would not put him as a three-person recruitment business as a partner to those organizations. Like you should he shouldn't be getting in the door because he is not gonna work on their panel, and he's not gonna cover their data engineering roles and their software development roles. He's not gonna do the he's not gonna do the dance that they want him to do, and a lot of the time they do go out to the panel first and they don't deliver. So, but he's like, if I'm gonna work with you, it's gonna be on my terms, you know, it's gonna be my way, yeah. But that again only comes from having a clear understanding of who and what you're gonna do, keeping it nice and tight, and being completely consistently committed to that audience. It's tough.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

For those people that are listening that are um they've got a contingent business or or a hybrid business today, um, an agency. What's the honest

AI Helps If You Have A Point

SPEAKER_02 40:10

assessment do you think, if they're not making the shift one way or another?

SPEAKER_01 40:17

I just think it's gonna get harder. Like, I'm not here to say that you can't make money doing traditional recruitment, because I think that'd be lying. Like, there's people out there now that are doing well and they've not changed a thing in the last 10-15 years, but it's gonna get harder. It's gonna keep get you're gonna have to keep doing more work for the same return, and the the return will diminish. That's a fact. It will it will it will erode away. Because the people that work the way you work are gonna retire. You know, the the the the hiring managers and all the kind of like a lot of the people who are making the money in a very traditional way have still got that senior network that are still just picking up the phone and buying coffees and doing all those things. They're all gonna they're gonna erode away. Whether they're young you're younger than them or whatever. So what are you doing to engage that audience below the younger generation that are coming through and you know the 25 to 45 year olds that are gonna be adopting technology to assess suppliers and stuff like that? You have to be thinking about different ways of working. And I just you know, it's I I wish we, you know, you want you want everyone to survive and thrive. And I the reason I my podcast exists is to help every recruitment founder grow a business that they love and that that works for them. And I love the industry, um but some people are gonna find it more difficult.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

You know, I work with founders in in a similar way that you do, um, and we're both founders ourselves. You've interviewed over 400, I think, in fact on your podcast. What's the single most common blind spot that you see in really talented founders? I know we all have them.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Not not behaving in line with what they say they want. So interesting.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 42:04

And it's a bit like me. Well, it's like me, in it, like saying I, you know, I said I wanted to grow a business and exit, but I weren't behaving that way. I wasn't like deep down, I wasn't, I didn't enjoy, like I was, I was I wasn't learning about the skills to to take my business to the next level. I was still operating like a guy who ran a business of 10 people, and it didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

And and you see people, I think you do yourself a disservice there because you've you've done quite a lot of you've done some of the stuff I've done, you've done, you've you've worked really hard to improve your development development.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah, definitely, but not in line with what I said I wanted. If you know none of the scale and exit stuff, it was always about clean profit culture frameworks and HR policy and employment laws and all that. I wonder an MBA in like business management or whatever. So I was behaving in a way that actually led me to the business I'm I have today. Yeah, um, and that's okay if I was a if I was conscious.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

So many people say they want something and their their behavior doesn't like and it's it's often they want to grow, but they act like uh they act like they're you know they're the rainmaker, they have to do everything, they don't delegate anything. It's like, well, you're never gonna grow. Equally, they say they want to stay lean, but they try and delegate fucking everything. Like, I had a woman the other day I spoke to who was making very little money. I mean, billings were very low. Her team was the most sophisticated team with infrastructure and delegate. She didn't do anything all day. I was like, what do you do? She's like, um I was like, that's the problem. So you you know, you what do you want? I want profit. I'm like, wicked. Well, you don't need five people managing your shit. You don't. Like, so you know, for a lot of people, it's about starting with what they want and then working out if their behavior, their activity, their network, what they're surrounding themselves with is aligned. And that's the blind spot that I see.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Yeah, I like it. Tell me about your Beliefs then. Um, something that what's the belief about recruitment or about building your business, about building hoxo that you held strongly years ago, and then have since changed your mind over.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

That um everything, you know, I'm I'm prepared to sacrifice now for later. Like that was kind of how I used to look at it. Like I I would work whatever hours, you know, if I needed to work till 10 o'clock at night or whatever, I would, and weekend work and minimal holidays and whatever. Like I used to and even when I went on holiday, I'd always be on my laptop. And you know, I thought I thought I was doing something. And I it was it was it was all the podcasts I've done. Every time I've interviewed someone who's sold and exited, and I've got under the bonnet of it, they've usually kept been open with that. It wasn't that successful in their personal life. Like they got divorced or they lost their kids or whatever. Like and um, you know, I I I started a business at a 30-year-old with a girlfriend and a and a and a mortgage. You know, I'm I'm married, I got divorced, I've been married again, I've got two stepkids, I've got a young two-year-old. You know, I've got so much my life's completely different than it was when I started this business. But now I'm like the the job I have at home is is more important than the job I have at work. Like it's it's number one. Like I'm I'm love my business, but the day it erodes that I'd rather just shut the fucking thing down. Like I'm I'm not gonna sacrifice being a husband or being a father for this, but I think you can have it all. I think you can have it all. I genuinely think you can have it. But again, having it all is uh I know the profit I want to hit, I know the numbers I want to hit, and it's enough. It isn't skyscraping, record-breaking, groundbusting business development. It isn't like it's I I'm really excited by it because I know if I reinvest the profits into equities and different things, I'm done in a few years anyway. Like, and I'm still finishing, like it's we're recording this at 4 52. I'm done as soon as this is done, and I'm sat at the table with my kids. Like, that's how I want to live, you know? Yeah, so and even the podcast, like I I do it remotely now, and I know the production was better in person, it was, but I went back to it and I started missing things. I was in London when I should have been at home, I was missing my daughter at the tea time, I was missing bed times, and I just made a call. Like, you know what? It is what it is. If people don't want to listen to me because it's not in a studio, then fair play, but that wins. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. Final one. If you could give every recruitment founder listening one piece of advice for the next 12 months, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 46:47

Um I think it's a tough one because we are in a world of information overload, right? There's so much shit, like there's so much going on every every day. There's new AI tools, there's new news, there's wars, there's conflict. I think I'd switch it off. I mean like non-essential news, get rid of it. I've I that's the one thing I did as well. In April 2025, I switched off all social media, apart from LinkedIn. I don't have it. Now I run ads on, I'll spend 20 grand a month on ads on Facebook. Most people listening will be like, I'm sick of that guy. But I don't look at it myself, like I've got no interest in it. So I'm telling people to stop seeing my ads here. Bad idea. But anyway, um yeah, genuinely.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

I did just do that.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

I did, but I do I do think like if you want to protect yourself and your brain for 12 months and really add value to your business and your life is remove distraction. So it's not about what I can add to people's life for the next 12 months. It's actually, I'd I'd advise just take things away. Like if things are non-essential, then don't do it, just take it away. And actually, something incredibly liberating about stripping things off. Like, I'm a bit obsessed with it now. Like, my I threw away 60% of my clothes last week. I mean it. I got I I literally ripped my wardrobe out and I threw 60% into charity because I was like, if I don't wear it regularly enough, I don't like wearing it, it's gone. And then it used to stress me out every time I opened it. I've got all these clothes. I'm like, oh god, I'm looking through that. I felt like I could breathe. Yeah, like my calendar, I'm trying to get rid of stuff. Like holidays, I'm not even going on as many. And I'm like, I shaved my hair off because I was sick of styling that. Like, there's so many, I mean, I'm growing it back a bit now, I'm getting a bit cool again. But the uh genuinely, like I think there's something really liberating by simplifying your life. And I think right now the world wants to confuse you, it wants to grip you. You know, if you genuinely are in this industry, and I do think the next, I'm not saying this to scare you, I think the next few years are gonna be very, very interesting and difficult, but also incredibly there's incredible opportunity. And if you want to optimise that, then I would cut all the nonsense out and focus on every quarter what you can you, what are you going to impact, and don't get lost in other people's crap?

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Great advice. I stopped watching the news, reading newspapers, and listening to the news or getting involved in it in any way at all.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Do you get sucked in though a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Four or five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Does it have an impact on you when people stop telling you stuff? Because I get a little bit triggered. Like my dad will be like, Sky News, and he's he's got it on all day. And I'm like, Yeah, my mum's like, and even now I listen to Talk Sport Radio for the I I love the sports news. Like, I actually I lean on more sports news now to give me some positive news in my life. But you get that 30-minute bulletin on the radio about like the general news, and it's so depressing. Every time I take my stepson to school every day, we hit the car at half eight, and the news comes on on Talk Sport, and I click, I just mute it for the for about a minute, and he laughs every time I do it. I'm gonna mute that. Put it back on when this when the sport when the sports comes back on, and you know it's it's quite triggering the amount of like negativity in the world.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

It's it's yeah, once you get used to I'm I'm with you on simplifying things, and I'm also with you for the record on um having a you know, working to live is having a business that that that provides the life that I want to create for myself and for my family, and that's it, that's it. I'm not um I never have been interested in world domination or scaling,

Simplify Your Inputs And Your Life

SPEAKER_02 50:20

or uh I think maybe slightly different in that I think I realised that early on. Um and stripping out the you know that that noise is once you once you tune in or tune out and you get used to tuning out from it now. The minute that anybody starts talking about it, I just I just completely switch off. I just it doesn't go in, it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't go anywhere near me. Like I think if it's something that you can't control, there are there are too many things going on that you could get involved with that cognitively can just drain your your ability to be able to do anything else cognitively, like you've only got so much space in there and as a founder, it feels limited, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Like you've got to make so many decisions in a day. But my wife said it like because she my wife's probably on the journey, but not quite where I am with that, and she does consume a lot of news, and she's on Instagram through her, she owns a beauty salon, so her whole her inst her LinkedIn is Instagram. So she was saying to me, like, do you not want to like protect the kids though? I was like, What do you mean? She's like, Well, do you not want to understand what's going on in the world so we can protect them? And I said, Yeah, I get that, but I want to protect the peace daily in this house as well. So, like, yeah, I was like, if I lose my mind because of the Iran war, you know, and I get really upset about something and frustrated, and I come in and I take it out on them. I'm like, I think the trade-off is I'll I will pick up enough news from conversation and from LinkedIn and whatever that I need to know. Pretty confident of that. Um, so yeah, it's it it's not easy. That and I think that's the one for me that I would implore people. Just don't delete me on LinkedIn, please don't do that one. Bit of news, yeah. Me and you keep us up to your lip.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

We'll look after you between us. Uh we'll get you visible and then and get you retained, and after that you can you know live the dream. So yeah, exactly. Sean, it's been such a pleasure. I really enjoy talking to you today. I know the audience um will have loved listening to you too. Everyone, you can find Sean at Sean Anderson on LinkedIn or Facebook as it happens, if you've still got it.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

I won't reply to it, but you can have a look. Um Sean at hoxomedia.com is the easiest way to get me outside of LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Thank you. I shall let you go to dinner with the kids.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Thank you. Awesome.