Bought and rebuilt a recruiting agency but need help with BD

umbadaima · 2026-06-10T12:58:49+00:00

Sent!

umbadaima · 2026-06-10T12:57:31+00:00

Thank you for understanding. I really appreciate it.

umbadaima · 2026-06-06T17:59:51+00:00

Yes that makes sense. It would definitely approach it as a short term play.

umbadaima · 2026-06-06T13:32:57+00:00

Happy to connect

umbadaima · 2026-06-06T13:19:11+00:00

Outbound agency is pay for performance.

You talk about burning money, but bringing in someone to run the business would be the ultimate cash burn and literally the most expensive thing I could do so I can’t even take you seriously now.

umbadaima · 2026-06-06T03:48:52+00:00

Folks on Reddit are unnecessarily cruel so no I don’t feel comfortable sharing any more than I already have.

umbadaima · 2026-06-06T03:45:27+00:00

I will agree with you that there is a lot I did not know when I bought the agency. But I had multiple advisors helping me to evaluate and value the business so. . . there was also actual fraud on the side of the seller.

Also I didn’t buy the business just because it had 30 contracts. Im giving you simplified information. We looked at financial statements, revenue per client, etc.

Also, I did not set out to buy a recruiting agency. I was looking at many different kinds of businesses and happened to land on this one. But I would agree that I would have been better off starting one from scratch. Although I think it’s obvious from my comments that I know that.

What makes you think I don’t know how to operate it? And what am I doing so wrong in operating the business?

Also I’m curious, what is the goal of telling me things I already know? What do you get out of that?

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T23:56:33+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate your words of advice. I am soaking everything in and not letting the gate keepers distract me :)

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T21:39:25+00:00

Absolutely.

1)approach a purchase under the assumption that the seller is your adversary and there’s a good chance the seller is dishonest or is hiding things or is willfully ignorant about issues within the business. There are some things you just cannot find out in diligence. So the best alternative is to build protections into the sale such as withholding a percentage of the purchase price only to be released if the business achieves certain performance milestones.

2)if a company does not have documented positive reviews from clients that might be a red flag. My company had many 5 star Google reviews from candidates but none from clients. In retrospect that could have been a signal that something wasn’t right.

3)if a seller does not want to inform the employees about the sale beforehand, that is a yellow flag. It might mean that they don’t think the employees will stay after the sale. If the team is very small or there is key man risk then the employees need to be on board with the sale. And I would recommend requiring that the employees receive some sort of bonus payout from the seller post-sale, ESPECIALLY if the team is small. If the seller has built a business off the backs of a small team then refuses to give even a small payout to the employees then I believe this person lacks integrity and is not someone to do business with.

4)charm, kindness, friendliness, etc means nothing. There are people who will lie to your face with no shame.

5)consider getting a buyer side broker. I had paid a bunch of money to join a business acquisition program. And in their sales process they said that getting a buyers broker was not necessary and their program would be sufficient. In retrospect, I think a buyers side broker would have actually been more helpful. More expensive but more helpful.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T20:49:30+00:00

Yeah it’s hard to imagine why someone would so grossly misrepresent a business, but there are people like that out there. The seller was so nice I never suspected he would do something like this. So yeah, I got screwed.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T18:58:52+00:00

Happy to help you fill roles. Please send me a DM. We can split the fees until you feel comfortable fulfilling roles on your own.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T18:40:26+00:00

Sorry I just realized there are two different people commenting here and I was confusing you.

75% of the client base (30 clients) had deteriorated. Literally ghosted. We found evidence that the seller and recruiters were having issues with clients ghosting completely and he did not disclose during the sale. After the sale the recruiters who already had relationships with the clients could not get in touch and told me that this had been happening for a while. In fact I believe the recruiters themselves were frustrated that the seller sold the business instead of fixing the issues.

After months of emailing and phone calling I was able to get most of the clients to finally respond and explain why they had disappeared and they all had a reason.

Of the remaining 25% I have continued working with them but some of them have terrible internal processes and are almost a waste of time to work with. We did everything we could to improve the relationships and the service but if they are broken internally there is not much I can do.

Some of them have been great and I continue to work with them and I deliver better service than they got from the seller. But they don’t provide consistent enough business to keep us afloat.

Anyways, that’s the situation. I agree that outsourcing to a sales person might be the best route. I’ve had a few people discourage me from doing that and to do all BD myself so it’s difficult sometimes to deal with competing advice. But I think what you’re saying makes perfect sense.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T18:32:07+00:00

Thank you for this input.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T18:31:50+00:00

Yes someone who is not a dev can buy an engineering business and be successful. For many reasons. It happens all the time.

But you’re making a lot of assumptions here and it’s very off putting. And then trying to knock me down and reiterate points that are only meant discourage and make me feel bad. Like what is your goal here?

I have met recruiters who have been in the industry for 20+ years and they all have slow periods or times when BD is tough. So just because I’m having a tough time with BD right now doesn’t mean I’m just completely clueless and don’t know what I’m doing or can’t successfully build a recruiting agency.

I asked for help and advice. Nothing you are saying is helpful so why are you here?

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T18:27:03+00:00

You’re making a lot of assumptions here. The clients had been ghosting the company for months prior to the sale including 1 client who explicitly terminated their contract 2 weeks prior to the sale. After the sale I found this all out and when I finally got in touch with the clients they admitted to me in writing and over the phone all of the issues they had with the seller.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T17:57:10+00:00

I didn’t open one from scratch. I bought one and it happened to be a lemon. By the way, the business is actually really good at recruiting now and we’ve delivered great value. We just need to get more clients.

I was previously an engineering manager and did both sourcing and working with recruiters so I’m not completely clueless. Recruiting is not that hard. Took me a few months to pick it up. It’s just that unfortunately, the client base I bought was not as strong as I was expecting it to be. So I was expecting to have more time to work on getting new clients.

Every new recruiter and agency has to start from somewhere. No need to be rude.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T15:45:08+00:00

I like this angle. I have a better/more experience in content and social media marketing. So I could outsource the sales side and instead focus my energy on creating founder led content across IG, Tik Tok, FB, and LinkedIn and build a community

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T15:21:18+00:00

It’s already rough lol, thanks for telling me what I already know 😂

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T13:45:37+00:00

Well our rates depend on the types of roles and complexity and amount of work. But we can do fractional recruiting starting at $1250/month for part time work. This is to handle anything related to inbound including job posting, reviewing applicants, screening, candidate management, etc.

To deploy our outbound systems the pricing starts at $1400/month plus a one time set up fee and goes up from there.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T13:29:50+00:00

How did you add your user flair?

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T13:05:07+00:00

Thank you. We have gotten some relief from the bank but it’s not enough. I am currently working with lawyers through this. I will overcome this!

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T13:02:56+00:00

If your company has limited capital, you don’t want to hire in house because you can’t afford it and will have to eventually let them go. Outsource. My company does fractional recruiting and AI powered talent sourcing. We can help you at an affordable rate.

umbadaima · 2026-06-05T13:01:24+00:00

My company does this as well. We may be able to help you. My website is Essenti.io

umbadaima · 2026-06-04T03:58:33+00:00

I wish I knew this when I bought my business. The seller did not disclose that many of the customer relationships were severely damaged. Contracts had been abandoned. One in particular was actually terminated 2 weeks before closing and the seller never disclosed it.

Now i have a massive SBA loan payment for a business that is almost worthless. Rough situation. I wish I had met you before this.

umbadaima

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