Season 6 | Ep31 - James Wardle on overcoming gambling addiction to building Alderson James to £2 million revenue with a 3-person team!

The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

On this week's show, I am joined by James Wardle, who is the founder of Alderson James, a specialist talent acquisition and HR recruitment agency headquartered in the UK with seven staff.

Now, what was so unbelievable about this episode is how honest and vulnerable James was.

We spoke about the 10 years of running this business and how he started life with pretty much no plan.

He was a rec-2-rec who wanted to effectively work for himself before getting married and having children.

Whilst the business has been running for over 10 years, everything changed during the pandemic!

Here James had to be honest with his wife, family, and friends about the fact that he was a gambling addict. This came as a huge shock to his nearest and dearest, they had no clue this was an issue.

He was at a point where he was spending - and winning and losing - on ridiculous bets.

He was searching for daily things to place bets on in the first lockdown, like football games in Singapore and Thailand. Anywhere in the world he could find sports to bet on, he was betting and he was also investing in crypto and different highly volatile stocks.

It all culminated in September 2020 when he lost $50,000 in a day.

His business nearly went under. He only one member of staff at that point. He was at rock bottom.

Since then he's gone cold turkey and stopped betting. He turned it all off, and his business has grown as a result!

James soon hit $2 million in revenue with three people, personally billing £1.6m.

He's now built the team to seven. He is working with clients all over the world - some of the most unbelievable brands. He's switched on, he's focused and he's got a growth plan.

He wants to get to 20 staff in the next couple of years.

Now James is not a guest from the biggest business I've interviewed on the show, but it is one of the most honest, vulnerable, incredible episodes I think I've ever recorded. So I really hope you find as much value as I did having this conversation.

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Hoxo

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