The Resilient Recruiter

A top biller wants equity in your recruitment firm. Can you offer them a future as an owner?

At Integra Partners, recruiters who generate $240,000 in placement revenue over 12 months become eligible for an invitation to buy shares. Eight of the firm’s 16 employees are shareholders. They receive distributions based on profitability, have access to the financials and have a defined arrangement for selling their shares when they leave.

My guests, Mark Waschek and Scott Wedel, lead Integra Partners, the employee-owned company behind Ag1Source and Career1Source. Before becoming President and COO, they were competing billers in different parts of the business.

Taking over from the founder meant learning to lead together, agreeing on where to invest and helping the founder prepare to let go. They explain why outside support, including a business psychologist, was so important to that process.

Mark and Scott explain how employee ownership works in practice, what it changes about recruiting and retaining your own team, and the tension between shareholder payouts and investing in growth.

In this episode:

• How recruiters qualify for an invitation to buy shares
• Why employees purchase shares with their own after-tax money
• How share prices, profit distributions and exit payments work
• What financial transparency demands of the leadership team
• How a retiring shareholder’s priorities can conflict with growth
• How two rival billers learned to lead one business
• Why clearer roles helped improve employee engagement

Episode highlights:
[01:32] Why the founders built an employee-owned recruitment firm
[05:13] The $240K threshold and how recruiters buy shares
[06:55] Leading when shareholders can see the P&L
[09:42] The disagreement that brought the founder’s exit into focus
[12:54] What happens to your shares when you leave
[16:18] Balancing shareholder returns with investment
[23:23] How a psychologist helped with the leadership transition
[28:03] Dividing leadership responsibilities around their strengths

About Mark Waschek and Scott Wedel
Mark Waschek is President of Integra Partners. He joined Ag1Source in 2006 and brings a background in agriculture, executive recruitment and business development.

Scott Wedel is Chief Operating Officer. He joined as a sourcer, became a search consultant and recruited in banking before moving into leadership. He has since handed over most of his recruiting desk to focus on developing the team and running the business.

Connect with our guests:
Mark Waschek’s profile and contact details
Scott Wedel’s profile and contact details
Ag1Source
Career1Source

Podcast Partner
This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for recruitment agencies and executive search firms. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

Free Resources
Recruitment Business Scorecard
Free 30-minute strategy session with Mark

Connect with Mark Whitby
LinkedIn
Facebook
Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach
Twitter: @MarkWhitby

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter

If one of your top billers is asking about equity and you don’t have an answer yet, this one is worth your time.

A contingent agency filling 84.6% of its jobs? I wanted to know how.

That was Bilingual Source’s search-assignment fill rate in 2023. Every assignment comes with mandatory exclusivity. And Greg Benadiba has a way of earning that commitment even when the client is already working with other agencies.

After taking a detailed brief, he asks how confident the client is that those other agencies really understand the role. In 25 years of coaching recruiters, I hadn’t heard that question used in this way.

Greg is President and CEO of Bilingual Source and the author of Recruitment Principles. In this conversation, he explains the standards behind his team’s results, from choosing clients who will cooperate to making sure personal commission doesn’t get in the way of the best placement.

He also shares a mistake: a candidate he didn’t call back, the bad review that followed and the potential referral it put at risk. It’s a practical example of what keeping your word means in a business built on trust.

If you’re spending hours on jobs that never turn into placements, Greg’s approach will give you plenty to rethink.

What you’ll learn:

• How Greg earns exclusivity through a more detailed job intake.
• What asking for interview slots upfront reveals about client commitment.
• How consistent business development gives you the confidence to turn work down.
• How he tackles internal competition over candidates and commissions.
• Where to start with allocating 10% of your time to improving the business.
• How he uses AI to track the commitments he makes on calls.
• How his Recruitment Principles GPT helped an account executive get a response after six weeks of client silence.

Episode highlights:

[01:56] The numbers behind Bilingual Source’s fill rate
[05:47] Two questions that help Greg earn exclusivity
[17:56] Testing client commitment before sending CVs
[26:28] Why colleagues are each other’s number one customers
[30:59] Making time to work on your business
[43:42] The missed callback and the cost of broken trust
[49:16] Getting a silent client to respond with the Recruitment Principles GPT

About Greg Benadiba

Greg Benadiba is President and CEO of Bilingual Source, a Toronto-based French and English recruitment firm. He started his career in customer service at Dell, joined Bilingual Source as a recruiter, and now owns the company. More than half of the firm’s placements come from network referrals, and it holds a 4.9-star Google rating. Greg is the author of Recruitment Principles: Timeless Truths in the Age of AI, which is required reading for everyone on his team. He first appeared on The Resilient Recruiter as guest number 14 in March 2020.

Connect with Greg:

Website and newsletter: https://gregbenadiba.com/
Recruitment Principles book: https://gregbenadiba.com/book/
Recruitment Principles Companion GPT: https://gregbenadiba.com/gpt/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbenadiba/
Bilingual Source: https://bilingualsource.com/

Podcast Partner:

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an an AI-native ATS and CRM with built-in AI agents that structure your data, monitor job changes and capture call notes into your CRM.
Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

Free Resources:

Recruitment Business Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard
Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/

Connect with Mark Whitby:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Twitter: @MarkWhitby https://twitter.com/markwhitby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/

Follow The Resilient Recruiter for weekly conversations with recruitment leaders about building a profitable business and a life you enjoy.

Vanessa Raath recently trained a team in Canada who thought they were using AI quite well. They all had the paid version.

They just didn’t know what it could do.

Vanessa helps recruitment teams put AI to work on their desks. She was already known worldwide for talent sourcing training when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Within six months, she recognized how much sourcing work it could support and began training recruiters on AI. Today, she works with teams around the world from a small town on the South African coast.

In this conversation, Vanessa walks Mark through a repeatable workflow that combines a raw CV, interview notes and a LinkedIn profile into a formatted CV and executive summary in under five minutes. She explains how she gets AI to help write her sourcing prompts, organizes client information, and teaches it to sound like her.

They also discuss what recruiters need to do with the time they save. Vanessa explains why she ignores headhunters she can’t find online, and why a visible presence in your market gives clients and candidates a reason to trust you.

If your team pays for AI but is still dabbling with it, this episode will help you decide what to set up first.

In this episode:

• How to identify a recurring recruitment task for AI to help with
• Building a reusable skill for candidate CVs and executive summaries
• Why Claude gave Vanessa the best results when she tested three tools
• Removing sensitive personal information before uploading candidate documents
• Using Exa for candidate research and Tavily for competitor intelligence
• Getting AI to ask questions before it writes your sourcing prompt
• Using skills, projects and examples of your writing to improve the output
• Building the personal brand that helps clients and candidates trust you

Episode highlights:

[06:22] Getting up to speed with the right guidance
[08:38] CVs and executive summaries in under five minutes
[12:03] Testing the same workflow in Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude
[25:55] Getting AI to help write your sourcing prompt
[30:56] Dictating email replies with Copilot in Outlook
[34:11] How Vanessa uses skills alongside projects
[48:44] Why she checks the person behind a recruiter’s message
[59:25] Start with an end goal and work towards it with AI

About Vanessa Raath

Vanessa Raath is a South Africa-based recruitment trainer who works with recruitment teams worldwide on AI and talent sourcing. She was already known internationally for sourcing training before expanding into AI following ChatGPT's launch. Her first course focused on helping recruiters build a personal brand.

Connect with Vanessa

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessaraath/
Website: https://www.vanessaraath.com/
Tried and Tested AI Tools: https://start.me/p/l6bkk7/vanessa-raaths-tried-tested-ai-tools

Podcast Partner

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM with built-in data enrichment for recruiting businesses.

Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

Free Resources

Recruitment Business Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard
Free 30-minute strategy session with Mark: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/

Connect with Mark

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Twitter: @MarkWhitby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter for new episodes every week:
https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354

For the first five to six years of his first recruiting business, Mike Kelly did everything himself. Cold calls, interviews, client meetings, even payroll. He began handing off the work when he asked himself: what's the highest and best use of my time?

Mike is the Founder and CEO of Conexus Advisors and has grown and exited three professional services businesses. In this conversation, he shares how Conexus reached $65M in revenue, with 50 internal team members and 230 consultants working on client projects. The firm generates over $750,000 in gross profit per desk, including researchers.

About 85% of the business is project consulting and interim advisory. Mike explains how that revenue supports growth and walks through the division of work between researchers, screeners, recruiters, and account executives. Two people work on the database all year so fee earners can spend their time talking to clients and candidates.

Mike also explains how he develops managers who can take over coaching and grow their own teams. He shares why top billers don't always make good managers, how overrides and equity reward leadership, and what allowed him to hand over his own book of business for the first time in 28 years.

In this episode:

• How to identify the work you should hand off first
• Why Mike and his partners went nine months without a paycheck
• How a split desk works from research through to offer
• Why account executives personally prepare candidates for interviews
• How staying within a clear niche improves desk productivity
• The conversion targets Mike uses to assess recruiting performance
• How to develop and reward team leaders
• What makes a recruiting firm sellable

Episode highlights:

[09:24] Building a business instead of owning a job
[12:15] Protecting recruiter time and generating $750K GP per desk
[14:20] The fear that keeps owners doing everything
[16:33] Funding the team before paying yourself
[19:24] How the split desk works
[38:25] Conversion targets and the daily call report
[48:54] What makes a recruiting firm sellable
[54:49] Developing managers who take over coaching

About Mike Kelly:

Mike Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Conexus Advisors, an advisory, interim and executive search firm focused on the Office of the CFO. A former CPA, Mike began his career at Ernst & Young. Over the course of his career, he has founded, scaled and sold three professional services firms, including Spinnaker Financial Resources, Beacon Resources and Tactical Cloud.

Connect with Conexus:

https://conexusadvisors.com/

Podcast Partners:

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more:
https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more:
https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

Free Resources:

Book your FREE 30-minute strategy call:
https://www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/

Take the Recruitment Business Scorecard:
https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard

Listen to more episodes:
https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/

Connect with Mark Whitby:

• Mark on LinkedIn
• Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby
• Mark on Facebook
• Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter so you never miss an episode.

A hot market can hide a lot of problems.

Josh Volinsky and his partners launched Synergy Search in September 2020, and the accounting and finance recruiting firm has reached as high as $6M in revenue. When the market normalized, recruiters who had learned to work transactionally struggled to adapt, a run of hires didn't work out, and the founders recognized that they weren't tracking the activity behind their results.

"We got sloppy. And when you aren't tracking activity in any way, you can't see it coming."

In August 2025, a breakfast conversation between the three founders became the start of what Josh calls the reboot. That October, three recruiters each billed over $100K in a single month. At the time of recording, Synergy has 15 employees and revenue in the mid- to upper-$4 M range.

Josh explains how they introduced accountability into a firm built on freedom, what their scorecard now measures, and why shared office days became part of the reset. He also discusses supporting the team following the death of their colleague Cara, and the training process that has helped accountants become successful recruiters.

In this episode:

• How a strong market can disguise weaknesses in your recruiting business
• The breakfast question that prompted Synergy's reboot
• How conversion data encouraged a top biller to improve
• Why Josh prioritizes client interviews, job orders and calls
• How a Bullhorn-connected phone system reduced manual administration
• Why Synergy hires accountants and trains them to recruit
• How a written blueprint and regular role plays support new recruiters

Episode highlights:
[01:24] Hiring accountants as recruiters
[07:28] Preparing financially to launch the business
[18:11] Dividing responsibilities between three founders
[22:32] Building the recruiting blueprint
[25:29] Practical role plays that involve the whole team
[43:58] The market shift that exposed transactional habits
[48:31] The breakfast conversation that started the reboot
[54:06] The three recruiting metrics Josh prioritizes

About Josh Volinsky
Josh is a co-founder of Synergy Search, an accounting and finance recruiting firm with offices in Maryland and Nashville. He began recruiting in 2007 and launched Synergy with Mark Hammond and Gary Palank in September 2020. He remains an active biller and joined The Pinnacle Society in spring 2025.

Connect with Josh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshvolinsky/
Synergy Search: https://synergysearch.com/

Podcast Partners
Recruiterflow: The AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

Juicebox: The modern AI platform for recruiting search, outreach and pipeline management. https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

Free Resources
Take the 7-Figure Freedom Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard
Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/

Connect with Mark Whitby
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/markwhitby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354

What would you change if you could start your recruitment firm again today?

In 2023, Kim Laipple led a 28-person team at Scientific Search and personally billed $1.4 million. Since then, the biotech market has been volatile. Between the downturn, retirements and other changes, the team dropped to about 16. Kim was also promoted to President after the previous owner retired.

Today, Scientific Search is back to around 22 people. Kim is running the business while still spending 30% to 50% of her week generating new business.

In this episode, Kim walks through the five channels feeding her pipeline: SEO that took nearly a year to produce consistent results, LinkedIn content built around the company and her personal brand, signal-based outbound using intent data, email marketing that depends on timing and relevance, and visibility through Claude and ChatGPT.

She also explains the 90-day training program she created for four new hires. Instead of giving inexperienced recruiters immediate ownership of live searches, the program allows them to build confidence on the phone while supporting established recruiters and protecting existing client relationships.

Kim is candid about the hardest part of becoming President. It is not learning new responsibilities. It is stepping back from the work that made her successful and allowing other people to do things differently.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How Scientific Search contracted from 28 people to 16 and rebuilt to 22
• Why do new hires spend their first 30 days building confidence on the phone
• The five channels behind Kim’s business development machine
• Why SEO took nearly a year to produce consistent leads
• How ZoomInfo intent data changes who gets called and when
• Why Kim tracks gross profit per fee earner across three groups
• What it takes to move from placements into longer-term strategy
• Why Kim launched a podcast interviewing life sciences leaders

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Why Kim still calls herself “the rainmaker”

[01:22] Scientific Search goes from 28 people to 16 and rebuilds to 22

[05:24] Moving from placements into longer-term strategy

[12:08] Dividing the week between rainmaking, coaching and training

[24:36] Why the first 30 days center on phone work

[39:48] The five channels behind Kim’s business development machine

[42:54] SEO produces five to seven qualified company leads a month

[45:36] Timing outreach with ZoomInfo intent data

Podcast Partners:

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

About Kim:

Kimberly Laipple is President of Scientific Search. Alongside her operational responsibilities, she continues to run a full desk while managing 18 recruiters and researchers.

Kim has more than 30 years of recruitment experience and has personally billed more than $1.4 million in a single year. She is also Vice President of the Pinnacle Society, a consortium of 80 leading recruiters.

During her 18 years with Scientific Search, Kim has placed professionals across clinical and commercial operations, manufacturing, engineering, R&D and analytics. She holds an MBA and a BS in Business Management from Rowan University.

Connect with Kim:

• Kim Laipple on LinkedIn
• Scientific Search
• Inside the Industry with Kim Laipple

Connect with Mark:

Free 30-minute strategy call: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session

Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby

Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter for a new conversation with a top recruitment leader every week.

Every December, Charlie Saffro caught up with a friendly competitor at Hirewell to compare notes on the recruiting market. At the end of their 2024 call, after four difficult years, she said something almost as a joke: if you know anyone looking to buy a supply chain recruiting firm, let me know. About a week later, Hirewell's owner called her.

Charlie founded CS Recruiting in 2010 and spent 15 years building a specialist logistics, supply chain and transportation firm. She had no exit plan. What changed was a prolonged downturn and two rounds of layoffs, the first in the company's history.

Charlie explains why she rejected buyers who wanted her client book without her people, and what she was looking for instead. She also talks through the part most owners never hear about: almost 12 months of confidential negotiation, running the business while both her senior leaders were on leave, and what closing day actually looked like from the 8am signature to the 3pm welcome meeting.

The second half of the conversation is about what happened next. Charlie walks through how her recruiters moved from a split desk into full desk work one account at a time, what that did for accountability and ownership, and why the best source of new business was already sitting in their database.

If you are weighing an exit, or you want your recruiters to own more of the work, Charlie's experience is worth an hour of your time.

In this episode:

• Why Charlie sold to protect her team rather than to cash out
• The three types of buyer she rejected and what disqualified each one
• What almost 12 months of confidential negotiation actually involves
• How she handled due diligence while two senior leaders were on leave
• What closing day looked like, hour by hour
• The advantages and disadvantages of full desk and split desk
• How recruiters can move into business development one account at a time
• Why past candidates may be your best source of new clients

Episode highlights:

[02:31] CS Recruiting joins Hirewell and Charlie's entire team comes with her
[04:16] Fifteen years in business with no formal exit plan
[12:07] The buyer conversations that failed Charlie's test
[15:14] Keeping the deal secret while running the business
[18:30] The offhand comment that led to a call one week later
[21:19] Two senior leaders go on leave during the negotiation
[26:41] Signing at 8am and telling the team at 10am
[31:35] Moving recruiters toward full desk one account at a time
[33:23] Full desk versus split desk and the accountability trade-off
[39:14] Providing value on a retained search without a placement
[42:14] Why past candidates can become your best source of business
[49:33] Using recorded calls and AI feedback to coach recruiters

Podcast Partners:

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

Free Resources:

7-Figure Freedom Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard

About Charlie Saffro:

Charlie Saffro founded CS Recruiting, a specialist recruitment firm serving logistics, supply chain and transportation. She started the company in 2010 and led it for 15 years before it joined Hirewell in December 2025. CS Recruiting now operates as a Hirewell company, giving its clients access to a broader nationwide recruiting team while retaining the specialist brand and team Charlie built.

Connect with Charlie Saffro:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliesaffro
CS Recruiting: https://www.cs-recruiting.com/
Hirewell: https://hirewell.com/

Connect with Mark Whitby:

Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/markwhitby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354

Ross Cohen left his role as managing director at one of Florida's leading search firms to launch Brinc Search Partners with his business partner, Brett Nortman. They gave up an established brand, a built-out book of business and the steady flow that came with a larger firm. Ross also had a non-compete preventing him from approaching his former clients.

Brinc launched in March 2025. In its first year, Ross and Brett billed over $1 million.

They did it by getting scrappy. Although both had spent years specializing in financial services recruitment, Ross accepted searches ranging from executive assistants to engineers. These assignments kept revenue moving, helped Brink prove its value and opened the door to further work.

Ross also explains why Brinc does not rely on traditional cold calls. Each search begins with people Ross and Brett already know in the market. They gather intelligence, ask for referrals and identify passive candidates who may never appear through job boards or LinkedIn searches.

You'll also hear why they hired their first associate before the business felt ready, how face-to-face meetings fit into Brinc's hybrid schedule and how the team uses Recruiterflow, PIN and Claude to reduce administration and present candidates more effectively.

What You'll Learn:

• How Ross and Brett billed over $1 million in Brinc's first year
• Why accepting searches outside their specialty helped create early momentum
• How Ross rebuilt his book of business without approaching former clients
• Why existing relationships outperform traditional cold calls
• How referral conversations uncover passive candidates
• Why Brinc hired its first associate earlier than planned
• How in-person meetings help the team assess cultural fit
• How Claude reduces administration and improves candidate presentation

Episode Outline:
[00:10] Billing over $1 million in the first year
[05:16] Lessons Ross carried from equity research into executive search
[17:22] Building candidate flow at StevenDouglas before launching Brinc
[23:01] Leaving an established firm to launch Brinc
[27:42] Rebuilding the business one phone call at a time
[38:51] Hiring an associate before the firm felt ready
[50:38] Replacing traditional cold calls with warm market conversations
[59:40] Building Brinc's technology stack around Recruiterflow, PIN and Claude

About Ross Cohen:
Ross Cohen is the co-founder of Brinc Search Partners. He launched the firm with Brett Nortman in March 2025 after building a financial services recruitment practice at StevenDouglas. Ross began his career in equity research at Lazard before moving into recruitment with Solomon Page. He holds Series 7, 63, 86 and 87 securities licenses, an economics degree and a master's in international business from the University of Florida. He is based in South Florida.

Connect with Ross:
Ross on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-cohen-44658037/
Brinc Search Partners: www.brincsearch.com

Podcast Partners:
This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

Connect with Mark Whitby:
Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Mark on Twitter: https://twitter.com/markwhitby
Mark on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Mark on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354

What do you do when the recruitment business you've poured everything into starts to fall apart?

Gemma Downing Mapp came back from holiday to find Mixxos £100,000 behind budget. Two months later, the company recorded its highest-billing month ever with roughly half the team.

Gemma is co-founder and CEO of Mixxos Group, a boutique recruitment consultancy she built with her business partner, Chris. They grew the company from a team of two into a multimillion-pound firm, with the numbers moving in the right direction year after year.

But the foundations had not kept pace.

Gemma and Chris knew within the first few months that a senior operations hire was not working. They liked the person and wanted the appointment to succeed, so they continued trying for 18 months. During that time, leadership became misaligned, standards slipped and financial forecasts became unreliable.

Gemma is open about the responsibility she and Chris carried for allowing the situation to continue. She explains why recruitment business owners delay difficult people decisions, what finally forced them to act and why the first thing she would fix is always the person leading the team.

The turnaround involved restructuring the company, reducing headcount by 50% and redefining the founders' roles. Gemma became CEO, responsible for the people and culture. Chris became Commercial Director, focused on revenue and gross profit.

They also brought in Sam to restore operational control. He introduced consistent one-to-ones, clearer financial reporting and a skills matrix, while helping the business prepare for a new technology rollout and launch a retained executive search desk.

Throughout the restructure, approximately 99% of Mixxos clients stayed with the company. Gemma credits the relationships she and Chris had built and their determination to do what they said they would do.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How fast growth allowed problems to develop behind the scenes
• Why Gemma and Chris delayed a senior leadership decision for 18 months
• The danger of wanting success for an employee more than they want it themselves
• Why the leader between an owner and the team shapes everyone's standards
• How Gemma and Chris divided their roles around their strengths
• What Mixxos changed about hiring, onboarding and accountability
• How the company achieved its best month with half the headcount
• Why strong client relationships protected the business during the restructure

Episode highlights:
[05:58] Five years of growth and the foundations that failed to keep pace
[09:57] Returning from holiday to a business, Gemma no longer wanted to be in
[11:44] The cost of delaying a senior leadership decision for 18 months
[22:00] Gemma becomes CEO and Chris becomes Commercial Director
[28:29] Launching the retained executive search desk
[31:04] Achieving the best billing month in company history with half the team
[40:17] How Mixxos retained approximately 99% of its clients

Podcast Partners:
This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

About Gemma Downing Mapp:
Gemma Downing Mapp is co-founder and CEO of Mixxos Group, a boutique recruitment consultancy based in Milton Keynes. She and her business partner, Chris, grew Mixxos from a team of two into a multimillion-pound firm working across permanent, temporary and retained executive search. The business now also delivers retained search assignments in EMEA and the United States.

Connect with Gemma:
Mixxos Group: https://mixxos.com/

Connect with Mark Whitby:

Get your free 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Mark on Twitter: https://twitter.com/markwhitby
Mark on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/
Mark on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/

Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354

While much of the recruitment industry was flat last year, Sachin Ruparelia grew billings by 33% and kept hiring.

Sachin is the Founder and Managing Director of Camino Partners and Camino Search. Over the last couple of years, his businesses have grown net fee income by 20% and then 33%, while scaling to around 37 people across London and Tampa.

A big part of that growth has come from community-led business development. Instead of calling prospects to ask if they're hiring, Camino creates reasons for clients and prospects to want to speak with them. They run events, CFO dinners and networking sessions. They publish salary surveys and a 120-page Global Report for the private equity market.

Sachin calls it "the art of selling without selling."

In this conversation, Sachin explains how those events and insights turn into real recruitment opportunities, including the important step recruiters often miss: making the commercial ask after they've earned the conversation.

You'll also hear how Sachin approaches the other side of scaling: people. He shares how to know when it's time for your next support hire, why an operations manager can be one of the smartest early hires for a growing firm, and his A's, B's and F's approach to hiring people who are better than you in the areas where you're weak.

Sachin also speaks openly about growing up in a violent household and the two years of psychodynamic counseling that helped him understand how those experiences had shaped his behavior. He explains how that self-awareness made him a better husband, father, friend and leader, and why he now speaks openly about mental health in recruitment.

• How Camino grew NFI by 20% and then 33% while scaling to around 37 people
• How community-led BD creates conversations without leading with a sales pitch
• Why Sachin runs one to two events a month and how he gets the right people into the room
• How a 120-page insight report creates multiple reasons to contact prospects
• How to turn events and content into actual recruitment opportunities
• When a growing recruitment firm should make its first operations hire
• How the A's, B's and F's test helps founders hire around their weaknesses
• Why is self-awareness becoming increasingly important as you build a larger team

[08:50] Setting up the business at 31 and appointing a chairman
[09:33] The two years of therapy Sachin calls game changing
[17:20] Two verticals, 37 people and 33% growth in a flat market
[22:51] The first scaling lesson: hire people better than you
[29:25] Community-led BD: the art of selling without selling
[39:07] Insight-led BD and Camino's 120-page Global Report
[52:55] The first operations hire for a scaling recruitment firm
[54:50] The A's, B's and F's approach to hiring around your weaknesses

Sachin Ruparelia is the Founder and Managing Director of Camino Partners and Camino Search. He launched Camino Partners in 2012 with two former colleagues, initially specializing in accountancy and finance before expanding into "mission control" roles within recruitment businesses.

Camino Search works within the private capital ecosystem, placing CFOs and other senior finance professionals, along with corporate development, M&A and origination talent, into private equity-backed technology-enabled and business services companies.

The business operates from London and Tampa and has grown to around 37 people. Over the last two years, Camino's NFI grew first by 20% and then by 33%. Sachin's next plan, Mission 234, is to double headcount and triple NFI over four years.

Sachin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachinruparelia/
Camino Partners: http://www.caminopartners.co.uk
Camino Search: http://www.caminosearch.co.uk

This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow

It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach, and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox

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Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/