Why the 22.5 Club exists
In July 2026 I sat down with Sean Anderson on The RAG Podcast and told the whole story for the first time: 24 years of running a search firm on my own, the switch to 100% retained, and the AI desk that made this the best year I have ever had. The Club is the next phase of that story. Here is the short version, with the moments worth watching.
The RAG Podcast, Season 9 Episode 39, with Sean Anderson of Hoxo. Published 29 July 2026. Watch the full episode.
It started with £10,000 and a six-month-old
Twenty four years ago I set up Lechley Associates with about ten grand behind me, a telephone and a laptop in a council office in Garstang, six months of recruitment experience and no training. My daughter was six months old. There was no plan B.
“It was never not gonna work. I’ve made a decision and it’s gonna happen.”
Watch this moment · 12:28
I tried the volume game. It nearly turned me into someone else.
I had the company record month in my first ever month in recruitment, and I still could not stomach the model: KPI-driven calls, annoy as many people as you can, a small cut of a big commission someone upstairs was making. Later I built a team of my own, and found I was doing their work instead of mine and becoming the recruiter I never wanted to be. So I paid them off and went back to one person doing the job properly.
“The message all the way through this was just do the right thing.”
Watch this moment · 19:25
Contingency was working for free
The lessons on the way were expensive. The Dubai government took me for £250,000. I flew plane loads of candidates to Abu Dhabi on my own money. I had placed candidates die before the fee was paid. And under contingency, every search was weeks of proper work done on the chance a client might not change their mind.
“What other role do you do where you decide you’re gonna do two and a half, three weeks’ worth of work on the chance that you may or may not get something?”
Watch this moment · 27:10
“I was doing my job properly and they’re cheating. I don’t want to play that game.”
Watch this moment · 27:24
So I went 100% retained, pretty much overnight
I stopped taking contingent work. Clients who walked away came back six or eight weeks later with the role still unfilled. There was a dip, and then the money started coming in, because a client who pays up front is a client who is serious. The hardest part was not the market.
“The biggest issue is your own head, asking for it in the first place: I am not doing this unless you pay me some money up front.”
Watch this moment · 32:16
The fee buys my honest opinion
Retained work means the client gets what they are actually paying for: judgement. This year that judgement cost me £40,000 in fees, and it was the right call, because what keeps me up at night is not an unpaid invoice. It is talking someone out of a perfectly good job and selling them a ringer.
“I’ve lost 40 grand worth of fees this year by telling somebody, don’t take this job, because I think you’re setting yourself up for a fail here.”
Watch this moment · 25:10
“You need to tell me exactly what you want, but more importantly, you need to tell me what you don’t want.”
Watch this moment · 29:24
Then AI removed everything that was in the way
The AI desk started with the accounts, when Claude replaced a £250-a-month bookkeeping bill. Then it learned my voice from thousands of recorded conversations. Now I wake up to a BD intelligence report, a ranked list of the calls worth making, and a database that maintains itself. I have sold off almost every tool I used to pay for. AI does the preparation, the research and the admin. I do the relationships.
“It’s allowing me to speak to more people. So if you speak to more people, you get more opportunities.”
Watch this moment · 1:02:13
The result: my best year in 24, still one person
Six months into 2026 I had already cleared £300,000 in retainers, with more confirmed behind it. And the numbers are not even the point. The point is what the model gives back.
“I’ve not missed a parents’ evening. I’ve been able to do everything.”
Watch this moment · 1:05:54
The Club is the next phase
On the podcast Sean called it the next phase of this project, and that is exactly what it is. The 22.5 Club is named after the fee I charge: 22.5% retained, no discounting. It exists to teach the model behind that fee to recruitment business owners who want out of the volume game: the positioning, the fee conversation, and the AI desk that makes one person enough. The channel gives the builds away free. The advisory is for owners who want to go faster, one to one.
“The number will come if you do a decent job.”
Watch this moment · 1:11:42
See the desk on the map
The one-page map of where AI actually helps on a recruitment desk is the same system I described to Sean, drawn so you can build it yourself.
Talk to me about your firm
If the story sounds like where you want to be, the advisory is the fast route: three months, one to one, on your positioning, your fee model and your desk.
Fifteen minutes is enough to work out whether it is worth doing at all.