#572 AI Can Source Talent. It Still Can’t Close Humans With Will Spengler

Mehmet: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to an episode of the CTO Show With Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me Will Spengler, his founder and principal of Frederick Fox, a company which specialize in hiring and recruiting for, you know, finance roles, for accounting roles and technology roles. Also, as well, we're gonna discuss today a lot of topics with with Will, but mainly, as you can imagine, we're gonna focus on this part of the business.

Of course, as usual, I don't like to steal much of my guest time. This is why will thank you again for joining me here today. Give us a little bit more of your, you know, background, your story and what brought you to, to, to start, you know, the company and then we're gonna take it from there. Okay? 

Will: Very good.

Hey Momed, thanks for having me on the show and I'm ex, I'm excited to be on the CTO show and to have an audience in Dubai and it's nice to meet you in person. Um, my name's Will Spengler. I started Frederick Fox. We're a staffing company. We [00:01:00] have, you know, it, it was started in 2019. It, it, we, we are now up to about 61 recruiters and we have five individuals in the back office.

So in six years, um, we've become about a 70 person business. Um, it was all organically. Built, uh, we took no venture capital, no private equity funding. Um, we've really been building it as we go. Um, I'm very proud of that. And, um, essentially we're a professional services company. We, we staff predominantly accounting and finance technology and sales roles.

And our top three verticals are. You know, our top three, you know, industries that we service are mainly technology, SaaS type companies. We do a lot as well in manufacturing and construction, but that's just a high level on me. On on me. 

Mehmet: Great. And thank you again, will for being here with me today. You know, like as [00:02:00] a founder, I have to ask you this question.

There must be, you know, a moment where you were not seeing what's happening in the market and then. You saw something probably broken or maybe incomplete. That pushed you to take this decision to build what you have built today? Well, so, you know, if you can give us, like, maybe on a high level, you know, what you have seen, uh, missing, uh, and what's the opportunity that you said like, okay, it's forced to go and build a company around it.

Especially you decided to bootstrap, doesn't, you don't, you decide not to take funding also as well and it's, it's something hard to do actually. 

Will: Yeah. Um. So I worked in staffing for eight years before I started my company. Um, it, I worked for five and a half years for a publicly traded staffing company called a Deco Group in the United States.

And then I, for three years worked at a company called Tema [00:03:00] Solutions Group. So I had worked at two other agencies for about eight or nine years before I started Frederick Fox. Um, I don't think that I was some. Visionary genius or, uh, Wunder child? Uh, when I started the company in, at age 31, um, I think a lot of what Frederick Fox was was, to your point, um, it was an opportunity to create a business model that was.

I think more economically fair for partners. So, um, without getting too granular, I really loved the business. Tema, the second staffing company I worked with, I think the gentleman was a visionary with a great idea. He basically took the real estate brokerage model and applied it to staffing agencies, um, and would pay out double, if not triple, uh, to the recruiters, uh, for what they would bill.

Um, the issue with that, you know, I became a partner in [00:04:00] that company. And I kept on trying to speak up on how we could make it a better partnership offer for the other partners involved. And so me starting this company was filling a gap of, okay, there isn't this opportunity for recruiters. There isn't a business model that's with a real, fair, genuine partnership structure.

Can I create and fill that gap? Um, and I just seized the opportunity and did it and have been doing it six years. So you're, you're right, there was that, it wasn't like, um, I'm not like Elon Musk with this gr grandiose idea. I would say that I'm following suit of ideas in the past and filling a gap, um, to, to really empower other people more within our, within a framework.

So, 

Mehmet: yeah. And thank you for bringing this up. Well, you know, and I tell people like, you don't have. Um. You know, people, they have this misconception sometime that, yeah, we need to have [00:05:00] this idea that no one else before have done, or we need to be super humans to do this. And they tell them, you just need to find your, you know, your, your purpose and call and then try to go and build it out.

And, you know, here, here you go. Like you, you started, you know, and now it's eight years. I think it's coming to eight years. Right. Um. And, and, and there you go. Um, or seven years probably. Right? Um, yeah. 

Will: That, that I've been doing Project Fox. Yep. 

Mehmet: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now about scaling and, and you know, especially in a business like you, uh, will, um, you mentioned at the introduction that you know, you are growing about to cross $10 million, so to do something like this.

I believe, you know, you have to do a lot of, you know, work on being agile, delivering results instead of wasting time. [00:06:00] And this is an a mistake. I see other founders and entrepreneurs in different verticals, they do, they waste time on building heavy infrastructure and so on. So for you. What really helped in reaching this?

Like was it a mix of culture plus maybe, you know, the, the talent that, you know, you, you get with you down the road, what you can share about this, um, scaling story that you had. 

Will: Yeah, I think, um, okay, so I think one of the things when I started my business in 2019 was I had been. My first two years in business, it was just me.

So from 2019 to 2021, I was, I was by myself. And that created a period of time where I really thought a lot about what I wanted to do. Did I want to just be this solopreneur? Um, and if I was gonna build something, how would I do it? And how would I go about it? [00:07:00] So I think the reason why. It grew so fast was in 2021 when I started to actually add people.

Um, and people came into the company. I had a crystal clear vision from that time being by myself of where I would go in the next five years and how we would accomplish it. Um. So I always knew, like we would go from, I, I had like a five year plan. We'd go from zero to 1 million, then we'd go to 2 million, then we'd go to 4 million, then we'd go to eight, seven, 8 million.

Then we'd go to 15, then we'd go to 20. And so I had, I'm an analytical person by nature. I had spent time doing a five year plan saying this is how many people we would have to have, this is how our back office would have to be structured. Here's the time if we took, uh, if we had this amount of gross profit.

Um, I would know I could invest into back office infrastructure and services, um, to support the, the revenue that we would have to [00:08:00] process. So I think part of the secret to the success being so fast was I just had a clear plan and a clear offer and clear vision so that when people started to join the business, I, they knew what we were trying to do, where we were going, and why.

Um, and then I think the other side of, of why it was able to be done without any investment is just the nature of our industry. We don't have like a huge barrier to entry. You know, when you're developing a, so software to product, or if you're in a heavy asset industry, let's say trucking or logistics or, you know, uh, you have to actually have these million dollar physical assets that you have to purchase or get funding to get even play in the game where, you know, or in software, you know, oftentimes you have to develop and pay for.

You know, building out a product before you take it to market. And that's why VC will get involved because you have to pay those engineers. What was unique about [00:09:00] professional services and staffing was um, it's a very low barrier to entry. You basically just have to have customers and you have to start churning revenue.

And, um, we were able to grow organically without a heavy barrier like an asset or a software development, if that makes sense. So 

Mehmet: absolute. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, maybe I was sharing with you before with. Start the recording. So, you know, I hosted a lot, uh, of different leaders and, uh, entrepreneurs with me here on the show.

We discussed talent and hiring. Okay. We focus more, we focus more on the technical side, but there is a fact, like even if you are a startup at some stage, especially maybe when the time comes and you need to have maybe your first. Accountant or maybe even you have the full-fledged CFO. So I want to touch on this part because I think we didn't discuss it on the show, although like it's A [00:10:00] CTO, but I had CFOs with me also as well.

But we never focused on what a good hire means when it comes to these first positions, you know? Whether accountants, analyst, um, like if I want to put myself in the place of a maybe full-time CFO or fractional CFO, what I would be looking for when we talk about finance talent. 

Will: Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, so I think what a lot of startups do is that they try to find a bookkeeping firm that can just manage their QuickBooks, and there's a lot of these bookkeeping firms that can do basic AP ar. Um, and you could get 'em for like $600 a month. Um, that's how I initially started with accounting. But I think where that starts to break down, I, I always say once you're like 3 million in [00:11:00] sales, um, and you start to have some complexity, uh, you do need that first accountant.

Um, and. Uh, what I did was I hired somebody that came from about a $15 million business that was really good in QuickBooks, but so I went from a bookkeeper to more of like an accounting manager from a small company. And what you get with that is you get somebody who can actually build a balance sheet, actually really build a p and l and statement of cash flows.

But they're usually really hands-on accountant and they can set up your chart of accounts. And they can set you up in a way to now analytically work on your business versus like a bookkeeper is just making sure you're collecting the money and paying your vendors. You're not getting much like analytical chops or, or, or, or real like, uh, business partnership or decision making out of that individual.

Um, I think it depends on how fast you're gonna grow and your stage of development of [00:12:00] your company. One of the mistakes I made was, um. I under hired accounting for how fast I intended to grow. Um, if I were to redo it, I would've spent more on a really heavy controller or. CFO that had really hands-on accounting experience, uh, in a startup environment.

The, that, that person's hard to find because a lot of CFOs are very analytical. They're great business partner strategists. They're great presenters of the business. But when it comes to getting a CFO to actually build the chart of accounts and actually do the accounting, that's a rare bird to find. So we talk to a lot of companies.

We work with a lot of VCs and private equity groups with hiring in that zero to 20 million annual revenue range for accounting. So it's a broad answer to your question, but it's a lot of variables in there that's contingent upon the [00:13:00] complexity and stage of development of the startup. 

Mehmet: That makes a lot of sense actually.

What I wonder now about, well, like if we were talking, because you do this for tech roles also as well. Now when we talk about hiring tech talents, usually there are like, uh. Uh, I would say the usual suspect location where we can find these guys, you know, probably, you know, we, we can find their profiles easily.

When it comes to finance specifically, uh, where, you know, in your opinion the top guys, you know, topnotch guys would, would be coming from usually? 

Will: Yeah. So when it comes to accounting, I think. I think you always want to find people that are coming from your industry that understand your business model.

And I think getting someone from your industry, like a competitor goes a long way for accounting in finance. Um, and [00:14:00] then also you have to pull somebody from a similar size company. I see this mistake a lot where. Let's say a $15 million revenue business hires A CFO from a $500 million company, um, that CFO from a $500 million company, can't really, I hate to say it, but really can't add any value to a $15 million business.

Um, it's too hands-on. It's too in the weeds. It's too operational. Um, I'm not saying there's not outliers to it. But a lot of like big company people, they become to ivory tower to management, too many departments underneath of then bubbling the actual work up. So, um, if I were to give any advice, I would say find accounting and finance talent that are in your industry that are in a similar sized company, and that's what's important, um, that you culturally get along with them as well would be the cherry on top.

But that's, I think. Where a lot of people make mistakes with [00:15:00] that hire is that they just get somebody that talks the talk but can't walk the walk. 

Mehmet: Right. Now, I want to ask you Will about not as technology itself, but on a high level, there is a lot of, uh, changes happening to all, to all sectors, right?

Like Ev, every single job company is being disrupted currently with. Cutting edge technologies, whether it's AI, automation when it comes to what you do, you know, recruiting. So, and I'm asking this question a lot nowadays to different people, like whether it's GTM, uh, whether it's like, you know, recruiting and other, like I would call supporting roles for, for the business, how we make sure that we don't turn this into a.

Cold, robotic way of dealing with [00:16:00] people, because reality is, people are, doesn't even techie people, including myself now, I, I'm not doing coding anymore. Like, I mean, I'm not a technical guy anymore, but still, you know, I understand the technology and I would prefer a human touch always, especially if it's coming for someone who talks to me about, let's say, an advisory role or maybe a full-time role.

Still, I have the preference to, to feel like I'm not. You know, thrown into an automated process and getting these things, I prefer someone to give me a shout, for example, what are you seeing? You know, you know, this technology is affecting that part and how we can keep it as much as possible human, but at the same time leveraging the technology to be more agile, more fast, and, you know, make everyone happy.

I would say. 

Will: Yeah, that's a great question. Um. Developers and AI engineers, um, and I would even say private equity and venture capital. There's, they're trying to [00:17:00] disrupt the staffing industry and they have been trying to do that for the last, I would say seven years. And they've done a lot of great things with ai.

Um, a lot of the sourcing of candidates and the ability to filter. People through a database to pick the best fit candidate in an unbiased fashion, allegedly unbiased, a lot of that sourcing and data work. Um, and people analytics is. Being very well handled by ai. I think a lot of people wanna have that one, that one button where you say, okay, I press a button, and AI has my new hire starting in the desk.

Um. On this date, but when in reality when you go through that process, there's just, you, you would be surprised how tech technical it is to do, do staffing. It sounds like a simple problem, but when you actually get down to it, like you have to source and find, uh, you have to reach out to them [00:18:00] and then you have to peak their interest and then you've gotta get them to come meet everybody for a cultural perspective.

Um, then there's actually closing and making sure that the person is actually. Willing to make a career shift. Can AI do that? Like yes, there are ai, AI is now doing interviews. Um, AI can now call, um, in the future. Yes, AI could theoretically build, build that end to end. Button that you press a button and your new hire starts.

But I think what's happening is that a lot of the, it it, it's not really working in, in actual practice where people don't actually respond to AI reaching out. People don't want to interview with an AI bot. Um, people want to have an experience where it's interpersonal and emotional, and maybe I'm trying to justify my job, but like us being a broker still.

It still creates this [00:19:00] human interaction that actually gets results. Now, if AI can learn to do that and actually stick somebody in a seat and it's effective, I understand companies not using people like us, but in reality and seeing it play out. I think AI is only further justifying our jobs, and we're seeing an increase in demand for our services.

Mehmet: Maybe, I'm not sure if this would apply to your space. Well, but I'm hearing more about, so for example, in SaaS now they are talking about, uh, vertical SaaS or like specialization in one specific thing. I, I give simple example. So, you know, especially now. Everyone can go to these vibe coding tools and they can build anything.

So people are talking about probably the way the market is shifting, by the way, and you know, this is opinion not from me, from a lot of people, although like they said, yeah, SaaS [00:20:00] is done long live ai, but it's not true because still you need someone to manage. And anyway, we can discuss this later, uh, in, in other episodes.

But the idea here. As a business owner, do you see, you know, you becoming actually important because if you are specialized, and I know you have like very few areas you focus on as a company. And you have the leverage, which we call it in the startup world, also the moat first of understanding the market that you serve very well.

Plus you have all these connections, relations, whether with companies that they are hiring and the talent pool. And this becomes, you know, instead of something commoditized, something which is actually differentiating in the marketplace. Are you seeing. This might apply also to any professional service company.

Are you seeing the market going or shifting towards this direction? [00:21:00] 

Will: Yeah, I think real relationships is, is sort of the moat at times. Um, you may be able to develop an end-to-end AI tool, but is, you know, Wells Fargo gonna trust you to develop, de deliver the service. So I do think sometimes like having those relationships and having those contracts.

And the trust that the customer feels that basically pays our bills. That's the moat for a lot of these like AI generated companies that are trying to connect six different AI tools to create that one button that gets the person that start. Um, so yes, I think re there's a shift in general for real relationships.

On both sides, people looking for new jobs want are going to respond better and are going to actually shift jobs if a real human being is talking to them, they're tired of [00:22:00] AI and AI call screens. It's not working, and it's the same thing with the end customer. The end customer wants to have a human to interact with that they can a, a single neck to squeeze where they can make sure that the service is actually delivered.

Um, I know that probably would frustrate an AI engineer, um, but that's just the reality that we're seeing is like, it's, it's real relationships. That's, that I think is the moat to your point. 

Mehmet: Right. You were telling me, well, before we start the recording, about the internal, uh, tool that you have built, uh, that helps in, uh, without going into the technicalities, I know like, you know, it's, it's kind of a tool that you're proud that you have developed.

It's called Ruby ai. So tell me more about it. Like what, what's the use case and what, like drove, you know, the decision to, to have it built? 

Will: Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, it's, uh, [00:23:00] ruby.ai is, is the, is what we call it. My cat was named Ruby. She actually passed away on the launch date and I didn't have a name for the product, so I just went with Ruby, my cat's name.

Um, but um, essentially what it is, we call it like a recruitment operations hub, but essentially it's a payroll software and analytical tool for. Specifically for the staffing industry? It it, what it does is it gives real time sales reporting and leaderboard for all of the reps in our company. But then it also APIs with our payroll software and our recruiting software to grab placement data.

And I think what it's doing more so is it's also connecting with. We use QuickBooks online to start to automate accounting. Mm-hmm. So essentially it becomes an, an accounting automation tool. It's a single location to pull, pull in all [00:24:00] of our data, display it to everyone on our team and to help. Automate the accounting entries that are occurring within our business, essentially allows us to process more revenue with fewer headcount in the back office.

And then I think where it's gone as well is we've built a clay database for sales leads and we now have a lead gen system that we've developed into Ruby, which empowers our salespeople with. With real time AI generated leads and contact information to try to make our salespeople, you know, less research, more on the phone with hot leads.

So it sort of serves as we call it a recruitment operations hub, but it's, it's, it's an accounting operations automation tool mixed with a sales lead gen operations for us all to interact, uh, as a recruiting company. 

Mehmet: Great. Um, you were mentioning a few minutes [00:25:00] ago something regarding the culture and when I was preparing, you know, the, the material that I get from, from, from your team.

I've seen, you said something interesting. You said like, recruiters deserve equity. Um, explain that to me and why this is important and how this might affect behavior. 

Will: Yeah, so it's, it's sort of why our whole business model was, was built. I think there's a trend in, actually, I think it's a global trend where everybody really wants to be, the business owner wants to have an asset or ownership.

If you're helping to build a company, why don't you have a piece of the pie? I think there's a big trend towards. Um, and it's not everybody. Uh, some people are very employee centric. Um, but um, I think for [00:26:00] us and the way we set up our partnership structure. Was that if you're helping grow the company, IE you're recruiting other people, you're leading a, a profitable p and l, that you're protected from an equity perspective in the event of a change of ownership or a sale.

I think in globally, the way most corporations are set up is in the event of a sale. A very small group of partner partners participate in the multiple or the value creation of the entire company and employees work for a set wage annually. That's kind of the trade off between being an owner and an employee.

Um, but I think what we've done is we've created a very merit-based, clear incentive path where people through merit can build an equity position within our company and they're protected. In the event of a sale. A lot of, in our industry, a lot of these firms, they call people [00:27:00] partners, but they have no partnership stake and they have zero protection in the event of a change of ownership.

That's what we set out to change was that, and it came from my belief and my own desires where. Look, if I'm gonna build a two, three, $4 million business unit onto an owner's company, I should have some protection, um, for having put in that sweat equity. And there just wasn't that available anywhere I saw in our, in our industry.

So that was the concept behind Frederick Fox's. How do we create something where, um, people can really feel ownership or pride? But even more so protection for sweat equity they've put in over years. 

Mehmet: Uh, that's, it's kind of challenging the state score, I would say, because I, I didn't see this in, in your industry before Will, and as you said, like it's more about high commissions and sometimes, you know, we see in other industries even like it's low pay high commission, which ends up, [00:28:00] uh, being very stressful.

Although like you would have. Success, I would say. But yeah, you feel that you are not building for, for yourself. And I think this is trigger a little bit people to, to feel like yeah, they're part of, of something bigger. Uh, they feel home really when, when, when they come to work. I believe every day. So makes, makes a lot of sense to me now I want to go back Yeah.

To, to, to the entrepreneurship part of, of, uh, our. Um, when you look back of all the things that you have done so far and you know, you, you just kind of reflect what you see, like some of the skills, personal skills, I would say not, not professional skills that mattered the most in make you successful with what you have done so far.

Will: Great question. Um, I [00:29:00] think. I think the biggest skill that I underestimated and that I'm constantly trying to improve on is people leadership, um, and dealing with people. Um, I was young when I started my company. 31. I'm now 37. Um, I had a vision and a plan, but I had been in a leadership role before, but I had never really.

Been a leader that oversaw multiple departments to include not just like, I'd only been a sales leader, I'd never, you know, when you start a company, you become a sales leader, a marketing leader, an accounting leader. Mm-hmm. A technology leader, and you have to work cross-functionally to in effect craft vision, hold people to objectives in a way that's, you know, you can't have an ego.

You have to be a partner with them, but you have to keep people in line towards. Deliverables. At the end of the day, I think the style of [00:30:00] how you deal with people, motivate people and keep them on track towards hitting objectives. I underestimated that. Um, if I were to redo it again, maybe I would've waited till my forties or fifties when I had actual a, a lot more leadership experience.

It would've made the path easier. But here we are. Um, I also think, um, you know, I, I was a salesperson with an accounting degree, but like, I had never actually filed an LLCI never purchased insurance. I never really was part of writing legal contracts. So a lot of like, so I've heard people say, you, you learn how to build a business by building a business.

Um, and that's just what. You learn as you go. But, um, so I don't know if I would do anything differently other than it would've been nice to have had a mentor advisor that had [00:31:00] actually like, could have, could have helped speed up the learning curve, um, would've been great as well. Um, with, you know, there's all these advisors out there that were.

That never really actually started a business. It, I think it would've been nice to have had like a, a tour guide to said, okay, here's how you file an lc. Here's the insurance broker to use. Don't use a DP use, like use this software and then go to this software once you're at scale. I had to learn through pain, all these things that if I had had like a fairy godfather, um, uh, that would be the other thing that, you know, I would say, 

Mehmet: I think the reality here will, is, you know.

Um, and I've seen this as a pattern, I would say, and I repeat to people who want to start something and I tell them, you know, [00:32:00] there's no Google Map example for, for starting a business. And the reason I call it Google Map, because in my opinion, like okay, I can read a lot of books, I can listen to podcasts like this one.

Uh, I can follow great leaders. I can of course, like this is knowledge is good and I do, I still do it on daily basis. Right? But I mean. When you start, when you plan to start something, you are in completely different place than other people where they started. Although like maybe you have, let's say the same degree, maybe you are financially on the same level, but the difference is, and I call it this trio, so there's a location, there's a time.

And there's your, you, your, your personality, and I believe this is 3D dimension cannot, maybe in one in 10 million, I would say like [00:33:00] two people, they would have the same conditions to start something. So this is why what you said resonates because you need to go out and try by yourself. Yeah, of course there are like some best practices.

All of us, we can go and benefit out from them. Don't get me wrong. But you, you gotta go and, and do all this and just about this. Advisors or mentors or consultants who never start business. I tell people like, listen to them, but don't let them. I would say don't let them, uh, affect your decision. Like don't build your decision because they tell you something.

Okay, listen, maybe they say something valuable, but you need to go back and ask yourself what, what I am seeing, like what I tend to do. Right? So it's always like kind of these conversations, which is, which is good, especially when you're building a company. I think you ought to say something. 

Will: Yeah, I, I completely agree with you.

I think a lot of the lessons, it is just you learn them through failure as you go, like, it, it, [00:34:00] and then you get better. Like when it comes to the legal side, every year we, uh, we find a new gap in our contract that some customer exploited. So we write the clause a little bit better this year, right? To protect the gap.

And it's like, it, it's almost like the same thing in everything in business. You get into it, you're using, um, and, and then you realize like, wait a second, I'm overpaying. Or, oh wait, I could do this more efficiently. And, and you just learn through failing and like getting money. Here's a great example. Um mm-hmm.

Mehmet: You 

Will: know. You, you could go private equity who will take the majority of your business. You could find a venture fund funding person that will get you early enough and only take 20% and take a minority position. But like one of the things I learned with, you know, we use factoring. I've never taken, but like.

There's just learning, learning the money loop and how ma, how money passes so many hands to you and how you can [00:35:00] actually just circumvent that to go straight to the source and pay a much le lower interest rate. Like all that learning comes from failing, overpaying, and making bad decisions, to be honest.

Mehmet: Yeah. Absolutely. It's, it's learning from failures. That's it. Now, if you want to advise someone who's thinking about starting a professional service firm today, what do you tell them? Will,

Will: uh, make sure your marriage is airtight before you start it.

Uh, just, okay. Uh, that's probably not the answer you wanted, but like, it's very hard. It's very, very hard because while it has no barrier to entry, it has a huge barrier to success and ultimately a professional services business. You have to be really good with people, and you have to, you have to serve other people that work for you, and you have to add value to them, and you have to set up infrastructure.[00:36:00] 

And you have to do that while bringing in revenue at the same time, which will, you know, in the beginning, the first four years I was working seven days a week from 5:00 AM to 11 o'clock at night. My marriage very much suffered. I also had three kids in the process. I have an eight, six, 2-year-old. So I would tell people, you know, just know what you're signing up for.

Uh, there's a lot of glory out there to start your own company and, and there's this trend towards entrepreneurship. But at the end of the day, it is very, very hard and it has a very, very big impact on your family life. And, um, I'm still happily married. I'll be 10 years married this March, but like all the glory that's out there about entrepreneurship, I would say really think about that because you might be in a phase of life where like it just, the, you don't have the time or the grease to really do it.

It really is not for everybody. And to be honest. The glory of it becomes less and less over [00:37:00] time. You know, I was always the guy that wanted to check the box and then you get five, six years in and you, you actually wanna uncheck the box. But it's, it's a period of, your ego has to go through that period of time.

Um, so I, I would tell, I would tell people to check their ego and is this something that they really wanna do? And is their life really in a position to do it? Um. Uh, otherwise I think you'll fail, um, because it, it requires a huge investment. 

Mehmet: Right. And you know, this is normal because sometime you need to get the punch in the face as well.

Um, and you know, by the way, this is not the only if you are an entrepreneur, right? Like even if, if, if you, you had this ego quote on quote on what you said, and you think like, okay, I gotta go take this role. And I gotta do 1, 2, 3, and this is my way. And then you get the punch in the face. Oh, like this is not how things are get done here.

When you do the business, it's completely different story. And you [00:38:00] know, and this is why, you know when I mentioned about the. I'm not against playbooks. We, I, I talk sometimes playbooks I call like there's a playbook for GTI, I like to call them best practices or like lived experiences because the word playbook is like, you are stuck.

You are like, you can't move a lot. Right. But this, yeah, this is, this is a reality, uh, here, uh, will, which I'm, I'm glad like you're sharing also this with us and you know, that, that, like, I'm glad that you passed through this and here you go today with the, with a successful business. Um, 

Will: yeah. I think I'm at the, uh, where I just want, I just want the people to be happy that work for Frederick Fox.

I want the partners to feel empowered. I want, I want everyone to be happy. I wanna have a good time doing it. Um, and I'm trying to uncheck the box. Um, I always said, I'll never do another startup. This is it. I'm into deep, I'm gonna ride this sucker to the, to the [00:39:00] grave. But, um, you know, it, it's not all the glory.

Once, once you've, you've been in it for a long time, it, it, it, it's, um, I don't know, count your blessings. Um, it, it, you know. It, it comes with a lot to be in this, in this position, 

Mehmet: right? Um, as we are coming to an end. Well, my last question to you is where people can find out more and get in touch. 

Will: Uh, www.frederickfox.com.

Um, also you can look me personally up on LinkedIn. Um, but if you go onto our website, we have incredible partners, incredible veteran senior recruiters. To reach our team is phenomenal, so feel free to reach out to anyone In our organization, we only hire the best with seven plus years of agency experience.

So we have some serious professionals in our company that can support you. Um, you can also find me personally [00:40:00] on LinkedIn. Uh, I, if you message me, I will respond even if it's 11 o'clock at night. Um, I watch it like a hawk, so. Thank you my Matt. 

Mehmet: Great. Thank you Will. So for the audience, the links will be available in the show notes.

So if you're listening on your favorite podcasting app, you will find them in the show notes. If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll find them in description. Well, I can't thank you enough for being here with me today. It twa a. For me another yet great conversation because you know, I, that's why I tell people I enjoy doing this because I learned down the road also as well.

I get to know awesome people like yourself. Well, so thank you very much for being here with me today, and this is usually how I end my episode. This is for the audience. If you just discover this podcast by luck or by chance, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed. If you did, give me a favor, subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues, and if you are one of the.

Loyal people who keep coming back again and again and keep sending me their messages and feedback. And keep us on the top [00:41:00] 200 Apple Podcast chart in different countries every week since 2000, uh, 25. We are, we are doing this 2025. Keep doing this. I'm, I'm really happy because, you know, I'm able to add value here.

Of course not me. It's, it's all my guests who joined and including you well today. So thank you very much for tuning in and we'll meet again very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.