Peter Searle: Recruitment Entrepreneurship is All About Timing

Peter Searle is the former UK & Ireland chief executive of Adecco Group. He was a guest on the Scale Up Live podcast with REC chief executive Kevin Green, discussing recruitment entrepreneurship. Here are four big points he made during the interview. 

Great sales people make great managers

When you're a manager, you're actually a facilitator. You sometimes get into a position where you think you're managing people, but you're actually leading people and facilitating them to do their job better. What you have to remember when you change from being a salesperson to a manager is that when you're a salesperson, you only work with customers externally and you spend all your time selling to them. When you become an internal leader, you don't get the power to tell people what to do. The reality is you just switch from selling externally to selling internally. You need to add value to your people. If you're an intelligent salesperson, you can become a high-flying manager.

Passion is key

The biggest learning curve was that I had to give and take more responsibility from the individuals directly running our businesses. I had to trust other people to have the same level of motivation and passion about running the company as I did. In our industry there are a lot of people who've gained the knowledge but have lost the passion. I would rather find someone young with lots of passion and teach them how to do the job. When you go into an industry, you can't think of it as nuts and bolts and figures on a spreadsheet. You have to be passionate about it otherwise you're not doing your job.

I had to trust other people to have the same level of motivation and passion about running the company as I did.

Think like an entrepreneur

When I started on a desk, I considered that during the first five years I was an entrepreneur. Every single one of our consultants should think in exactly that way. People are going to be the core of your business. When I meet a successful business, it's very rarely been done by someone on their own. I see four or five key individuals around them who have shared their skillset and the synergy between them has enabled them to be successful. You need to bring other people in to help you.

Timing is everything

You need to pick your market and your timing right. It's probably easier to go into a rising market and it's probably easier to move into a growing niche. Look for where the trend is and follow it - the trend is your friend.