Volition Turns 1 - the Bad & the Ugly.

• Day 1 - I started Volition on the 13th of January 2023. It was also the 1st anniversary of being with my partner Claire. I know this because I got so excited about launching the business that I forgot it was our anniversary...so Day 1 was spent very much in the dog house. I did remember it this year and it was a much better time, the 13th of Jan will forever be etched in my mind now but for the right reasons. Family > Work needs to be remembered!

• Client acquisition – January 2023 was already starting to see the economic slow down and I had various non-compete clauses. Then when the SVB & CS news came out I felt like the market totally died. I’m not sure if I did anything wrong in this period – but it was definitely a difficult time and roles were tough to come by or had a lot of competition on them. Any BD tips for when the market is quiet are appreciated!

• Tech - I was basically mis-sold a tech product. It’s annoying because I love the product but was told it had an integration with my CRM/ATS which it doesn’t. It still doesn’t and to integrate it would cost me $99 a month for the API, which I refuse to pay out of principal. It’s a lesson to me to actually double check how any integrations work in demos and to ask wayyyy more questions. Tech needs to make workflows more effective or simpler, I now have two products that each create a data silo which isn’t the best. Work smarter, not harder! 

• Accounting – I think my accountant is pretty good? But I actually have no idea. Every time I speak with him and ask questions he basically tells me everything is fine and to stop worrying. I like to try and understand things, so I think I need to go and meet him and try and speak to him properly about everything and try and pin answers down from him as opposed to just taking “that’s fine, don’t worry about it” the answer I usually get from him. I’m filing the first lot of corporate accounts soon and still have no idea what this process actually entails. Don’t get fobbed off so much!

• Bad business – Volition was never designed to be a large business. So when I started it I promised I’d only work on positions with invested clients and where the demands of the role had at least some alignment to the market. I’d love to say I stuck to this but I didn’t hear are a few examples:

• Sales – one new client gave me 13 minutes to discuss two positions with him, then when I started to ask questions he said “sorry I don’t really have time for this,” and left. I was super excited by the company and so wanted to give it a good craic and leave a good impression. So I spent a week+ producing shortlists for roles that I didn’t really understand or have the required context to find great candidates for. I sent the profiles over and was told the roles had been filled – huge waste of time and lesson learned.

• CTO – I was asked to find a CTO for £100k + 20% Bonus, 4 days a week in London who had managed geographically dispersed teams Rather than just saying no that’s totally unrealistic to the client I spent a week on it and got laughed at by any candidate worth their salt.

• Just working off of the spec – I have a bit of a guilty pleasure that if I think I can find great candidates from my network quickly, off of a spec I will jump the gun a bit and start submitting candidates. The endorphins I get from finding some candidates quickly is ultimately counterproductive & very rarely ends in a successful placement.Don’t be scared to say no!

• Personal goals – I can’t say I’m overly stressed working for Volition, I’m doing what I love to do. But when I left my prior role which was much more demanding, I promised myself I’d spend more time working on myself, usual stuff – gym, meditation & being present etc. On the physical  health side, let’s just say I started 2023 at 94kg and I start 2024 at 101kg. On the mental health side I often find myself thinking about the past and what could have or should have been. I need to let go of that ego, it in no way serves who I am as a person today or my life moving forward.

• Professional goals – I flip-flop between wanting to grow Volition and hire staff and being good with it just being Jack & I. Deep down, I actually think keeping the business as the two of us makes the most sense, but you can’t help be swayed by society that you’re no good in this industry unless you’ve built a team and are making money off of staff. Try not to care what others think!

• Marketing – we’ve been posting a lot on LinkedIn like this and I really enjoy the process. I’ve also had some good results from it both clients & candidates and revenue & feedback. But other than how many Impressions I get, I still no 0 about Marketing. If anyone can recommend any good books or other things I should be looking at then I’m all ears!

• Product offering – I spent some time putting together what I thought was a compelling productised offering to clients which was publically available on the website – www.volition.work/#services I’ve subsequently barely bothered discussing it with clients as I’ve been doing fine as a contingent recruiter. But I do think the additional services are a value add and so I need to actually speak about it next year!