What Most People Don’t Tell You About Starting a Search Firm
Are You Ready To Open Your Search Firm?
Congratulations
The fact you are on this page means you’re considering opening a search firm. That consideration warrants celebration. You may be scared, overwhelmed, and suddenly feeling like you don’t know how to do the basics. That’s normal!
Be Your Own Boss
Owning a search firm is the most amazing thing you can do in your professional life (but we might be biased.) You can enjoy tremendous flexibility in both your schedule and your location. You can earn a lot of money. You can be your own boss.
Not for Everyone
That said we’d be remiss if we didn’t tell you how hard it is. For some, being your own boss, equates to having no boss, which equates to very little work getting done. Or you may throw yourself all in and end up with an unrelenting boss and no joy.
When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck it can be easy to watch Netflix and not work. If you don’t work, you don’t earn. Many “entrepreneurs” fail because they’re running from having a boss, maybe one particular boss. You have to be the boss now.
We can’t control if a candidate accepts a job, nor can we control if a hiring manager wants to extend an offer. There’s a recession and a slow to hire at least once a decade. Entire industries sometimes just end- ask Blackberry developers or any restaurant owner during the pandemic. There’s significant risk when you have no control.
We teach you how to sell engaged and retained work, but you should still be able to financially support yourself for at least six months before starting.
It sounds like a long time. If everything works perfectly, you get a new job order and signed contract Day 1. A superstar recruiter might have a new person fully started in a month, to include their two weeks notice. Then thirty more days to get to payment. With a lot of luck they pay on time.
More likely you need everything set up for your business from website and name to incorporation, and clients, and many points of contact before you ever talk to a candidate. Be financially ready.
Your candidates and clients can feel if you’re really interested. When you’re naturally curious, you’ll do better as a recruiter.
This is where introverts can be massively successful as recruiters. Most of the position is learning about other people and letting them talk. Just extrovert it up enough to pick up the phone and get them talking!
Being a headhunter means wearing a lot of hats. You are moving between BD, Sourcing, Recruiting, and negotiating deals all day. It’s exciting, but also hectic.
When you run the business, you add Owner to that Operator list. From paying the Government and keeping the lights on, to strategic direction, sometimes you get to work on the business instead of in it.
This is hard work. There’s a lot of training. You’re on the phone continuously. There are long hours. If you don’t really want it, you won’t every be successful.
Same as anything else worthwhile.
Trying to embark on this journey alone will take longer and decrease your likelihood of building a thriving firm.
You want someone who has your best interest at heart, knows the industry well, and is willing to have difficult conversations with you.
Good luck!
Whether you chose to hire us to ensure your success, or you’re going at it alone, either way, we wish you consistent revenue and wonderful clients. For a specific client’s story, please read below. Hearing it directly from one of our clients is the best way to truly understand exactly what it takes to start your own search firm, and the difference you’ll experience having the right support.
Kraig's Story Starting a Search Firm
“I was introduced to Tricia after I did a post inside a Facebook Forum for Headhunters related to me starting my own search practice without any prior agency experience. One of the people who saw my post wrote me an email basically saying:
“Kraig, I can tell by your posts recently in the forum that you’re fucked if you try and go at this alone. You should consider having a conversation with a woman who runs a full desk AND does coaching who changed me and my partner’s life with her training and coaching. And while I get nothing from making this intro, I just had to reach out and attempt to save you from falling on your face.”
At the time I was already investing in another well-known coach for 1:1 support, but I didn’t feel like it was really going to make the impact I was looking for. So, I reached out and spoke with Tricia. We had great chemistry, and I loved the way she presented herself. However, she was literally 10x the cost of the other coach I was working with. But that’s part of what appealed to me. I knew paying a premium for the right help would be worth it as the ROI on doing things right (vs. wrong) would totally change my world.
I was hesitant to sign a coaching contract when I’d just started my business, was low on cash, and the fact that I’d recently shut down a prior business which had put me underwater financially. I was also skeptical of whether or not she’d be able to hold my attention. What got me over the hump was her having a clause in her contract that would allow me to opt-out after 5 months if I wasn’t getting value for the money.
I leaned on Tricia’s confidence that she could get me up and running and could provide both the 1:1 support and her extensive library of training programs that she’d told me she’d customize to my exact needs week to week. The combination of all these things gave me the confidence to sign up for her Church of Executive Search program. And I haven’t looked back.
As I write this, what I can share is that it’s been a very interesting 3.5 years coaching with Tricia.
There hasn’t been a single call where I didn’t hang up the phone feeling like I’d just gotten my entire month’s investment back from that single coaching call. My wife can attest to this being a fact as she can expect me to come out of my office every week after my session with Tricia saying in one way or another: “That call was worth what we paid Tricia this month”.
I actually thought about canceling 2 different times as I’d thought I had a handle on things and wanted to cut this line item from my budget and go at it alone, but both times my wife advocated for me to stay with it, and each time I did recommit, I’d have some big issue creep up in the following weeks where Tricia would demonstrate her expertise/genius and would help me work through a really hairy issue or would help me close a huge deal. These were situations looking back that I would have been totally clueless on how to handle. So needless to say, I’ve gotten more than I could have ever expected from the relationship thus far.
A few stats to provide some proof points:
- I’m 3.5 years into launching my solo retained consultancy from scratch with no prior experience in this business.
- I closed my first $100k search contract 7 months into working with Tricia (and an 80k contract the same month).
- I’ve billed well over $1M so far, which would have been a lot more had I not made so many dumb mistakes from overcomplicating things and being so stubborn (Tricia can’t do the work for me or force me to make certain decisions. It’s also worth noting that she and I have been discussing a side hustle for a couple years now and I’ve finally begun to set up the infrastructure to start testing what I believe has the potential to be an 8-figure income stream on the side of running my Search firm. And I plan to have Tricia by my side for the journey
- I’ve avoided picking up dozens of really shitty habits that I would have otherwise run with had Tricia not pushed back and made sure I really thought through things and took and tested her advice (which ended up each time to be bang on).
She’s helped me set up the entire architecture of my business:
- How I do business development
- How I kickoff searches
- How I do sourcing
- How I recruit passive candidates
- How I present the opportunity to candidates
- How I present candidates to my clients
- How I remain efficient day to day and keep my mindset in check
- How I maintain and uphold boundaries and expectations with my clients
- How I prep/debrief both clients and candidates
- How to close projects out (whether successfully or not) in a way that maintains my credibility
- How to navigate really hairy situations that could have otherwise tarnished my reputation in the market
- How I create wild and crazy out of the box proposals to meet the specific needs of each client
- How to write proposals and add in clauses to my contracts that allow me to get paid in unexpected ways
And the biggest, most powerful benefit that was totally unexpected is the emotional and psychological support she’s provided to me both pre and post-COVID to weather the ups and downs of my personal AND business life. Working with Tricia honestly feels like what I’d imagine it would feel like to work directly with Tony Robbins in a 1:1 coaching capacity
She’s that good.
Oh, and she’s also helped to inspire and push me to launch additional entrepreneurial side business projects and will have an ongoing hand in helping me shape those ventures. Another totally unexpected benefit.
She’s also helped save my marriage a time or two as well. Talk about unexpected benefits! Haha!
I’ve had many people reach out to me directly to ask me about coaching with Tricia seeing as these people observe me constantly championing Tricia in the forums, and really the only reason I’m writing this testimonial is that I’d prefer to put what I tell them in our private conversations in writing in an effort to save me time.
In closing, whether you’re just starting out in this business, or are a 20+ year vet, I can say with absolute confidence that Tricia will transform your life and business in more ways than you can imagine. That is, assuming you’re seeking that type of transformation. I know I was, and I don’t know where my life would be today without her guidance.
Thank you, Tricia, and good luck out there everyone!
-Kraig Ward
Founder, Bearhug Recruiting
P.S. The guy who originally introduced me to Tricia, has become a close friend and confidant. He’s also heard from me from time to time about how much I owe him a debt of gratitude. I hope, should what I’ve written here play a small role in you getting the chance to work with Tricia, that you’ll pay it forward like I’m doing here and like so many others who’ve worked with her have. She’s only going to be on this planet doing what she’s doing for a finite amount of time, and if you feel inspired to work with her, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. I can say without a doubt she’s the best coach/trainer I’ve ever worked with to date, and I’ve spent several hundred thousand dollars over the years working with some of the best business trainers/coaches out there