Season 9 | Ep31 Nathan O'Connell: Building a £1M R2R business on 4 x Retained Clients

Nathan O'Connell spent nine years as a British military officer. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. He finished on the withdrawal with 16 Air Assault Brigade and left the forces two weeks before his 30th birthday with no sales background, no LinkedIn profile, and no recruitment experience of any kind.

He got into rec-to-rec by accident. Spotted an advert on his wife’s Instagram, joined R2R Global, and was given a cold desk focused on energy and renewable energy recruitment companies in London. Within 12 months he was their top biller in London. By year two, he was number one globally.

Then he left. And instead of replicating what he’d done, he built the opposite. O’Connell Search Partners runs retained mandates with a maximum of four clients per geographic region. A team of four billing from Liverpool, covering London, New York, and Texas. In four months they invoiced £427,000.

“I had nothing to sell at the time. So it was truly just a genuine interest.”

This week on The RAG Podcast, Nathan breaks down how a military background shaped the most deliberate rec-to-rec model you will hear about this year.

We cover:

How a British military officer with zero sales experience became a global top biller in rec-to-rec within two yearsWhy Nathan limits his client base to four per region and how he selects between startups, scale-ups, and executive search boutiquesThe retained model in a space where most rec-to-recs work contingently, and what happens when mandates stay open for monthsHow he reconciles being anti-headcount whilst running a business that depends on agencies wanting to grow headcountWhy he gives clients 12 to 18 months grace before considering headhunting from businesses he has placed intoThe Atlas CRM and Device integration that he says saves a week of work per retained searchWhat he sees across dozens of agencies about which ones attract top talent and which ones struggleHis plan to personally bill £1m across three international locations with one researcherWhy he wants to be financially free by 45 and has no intention of building a big team

Nathan O’Connell is not building a rec-to-rec empire. He is building a business designed around financial freedom, genuine relationships, and a small team where everyone bills.

If you run a recruitment agency and you have ever wondered what a rec-to-rec headhunter actually thinks about your business, your culture, and your ability to attract talent, this episode will tell you.

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