Duo handle the music

20-Aug-2008

Colin Cottell discovers how Handle changed its tune to become an all singing all dancing recruitment company

For the first 20 years of its existence London-Fbased recruiter Handle Recruitment was happy to do what it did best. Under the leadership of its long-time managing director Stella Walker, who started the business in 1978, Handle was content to supply office and admin staff to the music and entertainment industry.

Peter Tafler, Walker's son and a joint director of the company, who joined the business in 2000, says the company was synonymous with the music industry. He estimates that at one time, Handle had cornered between 70% and 80% of this market.

But if there was ever a case of a big recruiter in a small pool, Handle was it. For despite supplying the music studios, as well as stars such as Mick Jagger, with office and secretarial support, by 2000 the company still only employed a relatively modest eight staff.

By 2006-2007, however, the number of employees had jumped to 30. And this year the number has risen again to 50, while turnover has surged to £7m, with gross profit before tax a healthy £1m. Handle recently had its most successful quarter ever, says Tafler, with gross profit exceeding £1m for the first time.

At the same time, Walker says the core of its original client base remains essentially the same. "I can show you record cards from 1989 and record cards today from Universal Music, Universal Film, Virgin and Sony BMG, and a lot more, and all those clients would be the same," she says.

So how has a recruiter, which over two decades built its business and reputation purely on the basis of supplying office staff to a relatively small number of customers, managed to expand so fast and so successfully?

Tafler says the big changes began in 2000 when he joined the business to launch a new finance division. But although Tafler was able to draw on his five years' industry experience, with Hays Accountancy Personnel and legal recruiter Quarry Dougal, this was to be a finance recruiter with a difference.

While many finance recruiters don't necessarily care whether they are supplying accountants to food manufacturers or the aerospace industry, Handle's approach was to continue to focus on its existing core clients, the studios and music companies.

Tafler says there were many advantages to diversifying in this way. "There was an unusual loyalty from our client base. They were very open to us trying new things and offering more services," he says.

Indeed, he admits that without the pre-existing Handle connection, there is "no way" he would have had the success he had if he had just started up as plain Peter Tafler Finance Recruitment. The fact that Handle was also associated with the glamorous world of music and entertainment also helped, he says.

Even so, he says that persuading some finance directors to take Handle seriously as a supplier of finance staff when it had previously only provided support staff sometimes worked against them. "After doing the same thing for 20 years, they didn't see us a finance agency," he says.

Nevertheless, Tafler says Handle managed to overcome such perceptions to grow the division rapidly. While it helped that many of its clients' recruitment processes were "fairly HR led", it was also vital to supply the right people, and not to attempt too much straight away, he says. While not admitting luck played a part, Tafler admits there was also an element of being in the right place at the right time. "There was nobody else serving the studios," he says. According to Tafler, it makes sense from the clients' point of view to use Handle for a wide range of its recruitment needs. "It must be advantageous for them to use one supplier that has all that knowledge about them. As long as we can provide a professional service, why would they go elsewhere?"

Tafler says the strategy of diversifying while remaining close to the company's roots has proved successful, with Handle's top 20 clients using all its services, except possibly finance, and HR, its newest division. "There are no agencies that compete with us in all those different areas," he adds.

One major client, Sony BMG, gave Handle exclusivity on the music side of its business on jobs below £60k after it decided that it didn't make sense to use three agencies when Handle was already handling most of its jobs.

In the last five or six years Handle has widened its services further, launching divisions covering sales and marketing, digital and HR. These are not only aimed at the core music/entertainment industry client base, but also at allied areas such as film, TV and other media.

The result is that the business has been transformed from when Tafler joined the company in 2000. While at that time, supplying office staff to the studios and stars was Handle's business, today sales and marketing, finance and office support each make up 25% of the business, with digital and HR the remaining 25%.

Indeed, Tafler predicts that digital, which with HR was only set up within the past 12 months, will grow rapidly. At the same time the company's client base has widened.

Walker agrees that the key has been the creation of the five divisions, while continuing to focus predominantly on the company's traditional client base. "We don't go out to banks or property companies," she says.

In the past 12 months, however, Handle has begun to diversify further beyond the world of music, entertainment and film into new areas, such as publishing, marketing services, new media, advertising and even video games. While Tafler admits these are new areas for the company, he argues they are ones which fit in with its existing brand. New clients include Google and Amazon.

Tafler admits that with all this expansion, planning has taken on greater importance. "Initially, it was more of a desire to do new things such as setting up the finance division — we didn't have a five-year plan, but we have become a lot more stringent in that respect."

Walker is fulsome in her praise of her son's role in driving the expansion of the business. "Peter has done extraordinarily well over the last nine years," she says.

And although she concedes that they do have the odd difference and that their strengths differ (she is more of a detail person, while he thinks more globally), she says that when it comes to business they both believe in the same things.

"We are not in the type of business where you think, I want to be a millionaire. That type of business is about putting bums on seats. I am not saying that is wrong, but I don't think we can be in that type of business because then you are chasing your next placing and it wouldn't matter how you achieved it; whereas here, it's always been a philosophy of long-term relationships," Walker explains.

Tafler concedes that working with family can at times be "challenging". However, on the positive side it allows "franker dialogues". And while he admits he is a bit more of a risk taker than his mother, he believes the two complement each other well.

Certainly when it comes to fundamental beliefs about how a recruiter should operate, it's clear that mother and son are of one mind. "It's never been about setting the highest possible margins as it is with the biggest agencies. It's about the quality of work and the quality of the client relationship, so from an ethical point of view we are reading from the same page," he says.

Walker says it is vital that as the company grows it holds firm to those same beliefs it had when it employed just eight staff. "I believe if you are passionate about what you do you cannot fail, because you do the job properly," she says.

And she attributes much of the success of Handle not only to her own passion, but to that of the staff. "We have huge luck with the staff we have. There's not one that wouldn't feel the same way [passionate] about Handle. It's not just a job for them."

Walker proudly proclaims that in all its years the company has never lost a client — or at least one it wanted keep. It remains to be seen, however, whether as it looks to expand beyond its original core client base it will be able maintain that proud record.



Handle Recruitment and Directors

Stella Walker, managing director

1962 Joined recruitment agency Reliance
1970-1978 Ran own promotions and retail business
1978 Manager, Atlas recruitment agency
1978 Founded Handle Recruitment, managing director

Peter Tafler, director

1995-1998 Hays Accountancy Personnel, managed temporary and contract division
1998-1999 Quarry Douglas — started contract finance division
2000 Joined Handle Recruitment to launch finance division. Then established sales and marketing, digital and HR teams.