My name is Adam Bolton, and until recently I worked for a recruitment agency
– I’d been there for almost 8 years, but I wanted something more. I
wanted to be able to provide more for my children (both in monetary and daddy
time!), and decided that the best way for me to do that would be to start up on
my own.
I’ve decided to write a series of blogs that will (hopefully) take me
through the first year of
AB Recruit.
In this, the first instalment I would like to share with you how I have set up
the business, and what you may expect from the initial period.
Basic Needs
So, you want to start your own recruitment agency – excellent.
Hopefully you will have some domain experience (in my case it is .Net
development) and you can take your business knowledge and employ it to your new
business.
Things you need (or things I did!):
- An accountant.
The very first thing I did was to meet with an accountant (most offer a
free consultation as they want your business). Luckily for me I was
referred the same accountant by 2 people and it turned out (Linkedin is
your friend) that a friend from my football team actually worked there.
- When I met
with the accountant, I made sure I had plenty of questions. I’ve
never run a business, so I had bundles of questions, things such as
registering for tax, forming a company, how to claim for business expenses
– trust me if you get a good accountant (which I have) you will get your
questions answered there and then.
- Money.
I’ve got a mortgage and 2 (hungry!) children to feed, so it was of key
importance that my wife bought into my vision for the as yet un-named
company – you need to work out your monthly outgoings, minimise them, and
then add business expenses.
- A
name. I spent 2 solid days trying to come up with a company name,
but every single domain I came up with was taken. In the end I went
for the good old fashioned ‘initals’ and ABrecruit was born.
- Insurance
for both public liability and business insurance – this is one I forgot
until the end!
- Business
Banking account. I had a nightmare with this, I chose to go with Lloyds
Business Banking and it took them about 2 months to sort everything out, I
wouldn’t recommend them on this basis, they compensated me for my issues,
ut I just can’t bring myself to recommend them even though I know people
who have had no issues with them. I’ve heard good things about HSBC and
Barclays though.
- A place to
work. It doesn’t matter where it is, you can rent office space,
share office space, work from a shed in your garden, anything, but you
really must have a ‘work space’ and a ‘chill space’. If you are
working from home, there isn’t a person on this earth that can honestly
say that a TV staring at them with access to Sky Sports News wouldn’t be a
distraction! You then need to add in a computer, phone line,
broadband etc. There aren’t too many hidden costs in running a recruitment
business.
- Website –
ask around. I can guarantee that someone you know is connected with
someone that runs a small web design agency, you should not pay more thank
£1,000 for this. I decided to opt for a mobile enabled site, meaning
if people view my site on a mobile device it adjusts itself accordingly
which is slightly more expensive. If you want a site like
www.abrecruit.com, give Jamie at Bubble
Web a call, he did mine.
- That’s
it. This is recruitment, if you’ve got a computer and a phone you’re
winning. Oh hang on, I’m missing something massive here…a
database! If you head over to Chameleoni you
will get a basic recruitment database for free – they run on the basis
that when you grow you will need to pay them for extra users. Good
business model.
Leaving your job
I’d been working for the same company for almost 8 years, so leaving the
comfort (and colleagues) behind was tough. I handed my notice in on 2
nd
Jan, saw through my 1 week notice period at home (looking after my kids and
squeezing in some XBOX time!).
My new working day
Since starting the business I have never worked so hard – and I have loved
every single minute.
My ethos for ABrecruit is somewhat of a cliché, but ABC used to be ‘Always
Be Closing’ in
sales / recruitment – well I
now see that as more like ‘Always Be Connecting’. I’ve met with far more
decision makers and developers than I ever did in the past. I’m open and
honest with my candidates (who love my working hours, see below!), and my
clients and people, on the whole, appear to be responding well to it.
I now work pretty much solidly from 8am – 9pm weekdays, and work all day on
Saturday with a break for my pastime – football!
I mention the working hours because you really do start to live and breath
the job – I’ve sat watching a film with my daughter and can’t resist checking
my emails! It’s also makes you feel proud to hear your daughter telling
her cousin on Skype (yes, my 5yr old knows how to use Skype, she has her own
account) that “my Dad has his own business”.
Candidates like the hours too – plenty of them call me between 6-9pm because
they’re not sneaking out of work to talk to me, they can relax and tell me what
they’re really after. Clients have told me how impressed they are with
getting CVs at 9pm, and I just tell them that’s what they get with ABrecruit!
I’m only 6 weeks into the business and it’s early days yet, but watch out
for the next instalment of “Adam Bolton – from recruiter to riches”.
UPDATE: How to
Start Your Own Recruitment Business: The Dream Continues…
