For solo search and recruitment firm owners

The recruitment game got harder, and what used to work stopped working.

The same job boards everyone shares. The same candidates on every desk. Clients who take your shortlist and hire the cheapest of five. AI that now sources for free. More calls, more CVs, more hours, and it barely moves the needle. The owners pulling away stopped playing that game. They became the one name their niche calls, retained and paid upfront. Here is how you become that name.

Grab a time with me Watch the webinar first

Your next step

Grab a time with me.

We put your desk and your last twelve months on the table, find where the retained, repeat, higher-fee work is hiding, and map how you become the one name your niche calls. No pitch. You leave with the plan either way.

A straight, outside read on your desk
Where the retained and repeat revenue is hiding
The plan to become the only name in your niche

Owners who stopped being one of five

“Took ROI Executive Search to seven figures, 3.5x the year before, working remotely.”

Brandt Handley · ROI Executive Search, client

“From one of five names on every brief to retained and exclusive, the only firm the client would call.” £30k to £100k a month.

Ken McCarthy · Solo search firm owner, client

What being a commodity costs you

You are interchangeable, so you are disposable.

When the market cannot tell you apart from the firm next door, price is the only lever left. Here is how that plays out, month after month.

01

One of five firms on every brief

The client sends the same role to five firms and waits to see who runs fastest. You are one runner in a race, and the finish line is a fee that someone else decides.

02

Your fee gets ground down

Because anyone can be swapped for anyone, the only thing left to argue about is price. You cut it to win the work, and you win the work that pays the least.

03

The client takes your shortlist and hires cheaper

You do the search, you send the names, and the client thanks you. Then they place the same person through someone who undercut you, and you carry the cost of the work you gave away.

04

Busy every day, then nothing

A good month, then a quiet one. No retainer, no pipeline you can count on, and your income swings with it. You are working flat out and still never further ahead.

The quiet fear you never say out loud. That if you stopped grafting for one month, there would be nothing there at all.

The fix

Become the one name in one narrow niche.

Not more calls, not longer days. A different sequence. You go narrow, you get known before the role is ever public, and you agree the fee before the search starts. Solo owners who make that shift usually end up working fewer hours, not more.

1

Own one narrow niche

Stop being a generalist for hire. Pick one narrow niche and become the single name that owns it, the person the market thinks of first when the role comes up.

2

Known before the role is public

When you own the niche, you hear about the role before it is ever a brief. You get the call first, not added to a list of five and asked to run.

3

Retained, fee agreed up front

The search is agreed and paid before it starts. No shortlist handed over for free, no being swapped for someone cheaper at the end. You are the search, not a supplier of it.

Grab a time with me A different sequence, not more work. The owners who make the shift usually work fewer hours.

Proof

Solo owners who stopped being one of five.

Brandt Handley took ROI Executive Search to seven figures, 3.5x the year before, and did it working remotely with more time for his family.

Brandt Handley

ROI Executive Search

To seven figures3.5x the prior year, working remotely

Ken McCarthy went from one of five names on every brief to retained and exclusive, the only firm the client would call for his niche.

Ken McCarthy

Solo search firm owner

£30k to £100k a month

One of five, to retained and exclusive

Stephanie Yee lifted her fees from about $6,000 to $7,000 up to $22,500, and grew revenue from $100k to $180k, on her own.

Stephanie Yee

Solo search firm owner

$100k to $180k

Fees roughly $6,000 to $22,500

One to one with Andy

Built around you and your niche.

Private support for solo owners

The Search Firm Boardroom

One to one support built around you and your niche, with a direct Slack channel to Andy. You work the sequence on your own market and your own numbers, agree your first retained fee, and Andy is in the channel with you the whole way.

A lower first step. Not ready to talk yet. Watch the owner webinar, free, and see how a solo owner goes from one of five to the only name in the niche.

Watch the webinar

The people who shaped this industry back us

What the leaders say.

“The ‘Built to Sell’ for the search industry.”

Lou Adler

Search Legend, USA

“30 years in this industry, and Andy found the missing link.”

Roy Ripper

30+ years in recruitment

“If you want to stop grinding and start scaling, Andy is the only choice.”

James Blackwell

Founder, Recruitment Entrepreneur

The Search Firm Boardroom

You are the firm. We make you the one they call.

In the Boardroom we map your market and build the machine that wins you retained work at higher fees, so you stay small, free and the only name in your niche, without ever building a team.

The Search Firm Boardroom: we map your market, then help you bill all of it, across a ninety-day programme.

Grab a time with me

Start here

Stop being one of five. Become the only one.

Bring your niche, your numbers and your last twelve months. Andy shows you where you are being treated as a commodity, and the sequence that gets you called first, retained, and paid before the search starts.

Grab a time with me Watch the webinar

For solo search and recruitment firm owners. Not for job seekers.