From Bricking it to Bossing it

The Rollercoaster Journey of Building a Recruitment Marketing & Creative Agency.

Rewind to 2020, the world turned upside down. The pandemic had not only disrupted everyday life, but it also opened the door for new businesses to emerge in unexpected ways. It was during this chaotic time that our founder Chris Cranshaw launched Halt, out of his spare bedroom during the height of the global crisis.

In preparation for the following article, we asked Chris to sum up in a few sentences the emotion he experienced during the early days of start-up life:

“I was bricking it! Despite spending several months prior to the launch – researching and speaking with recruitment agency owners I knew about the challenges they faced with outsourcing their marketing, my confidence in our offering was overshadowed by a fear that this may all go horribly wrong.? Thankfully, my concerns were quickly put to rest within the first few days, when the emails and calls started coming in. The rest is history!”

Fast forward four years, and Halt’s grown into an established recruitment marketing, creative, branding and website agency, known for our resilience, ingenuity, and quality of service. This is the story of how we went from humble beginnings to becoming one of the UK’s leading recruitment marketing and creative agencies.

Year 1: From Bedroom Startup to Office Moves

The COVID outbreak brought about unique challenges for the recruitment sectors, but it also created a huge opportunity to launch a recruitment marketing agency, combining digital and creative marketing skills with a deep understanding of working within a recruitment business (both as a recruiter and marketer).

With businesses scrambling to adjust to remote working, reduced revenues and in many cases, cutting their marketing spend, the recruitment marketing space was ripe for transformation. From day one, we operated from a bedroom-turned-office, juggling inbound client calls and project deadlines in a space that didn’t scream “business headquarters,” but it was enough to get us going.

What happened next felt like a whirlwind.

Within days of launching, we landed several key clients who were willing to take a chance on us, which led to a snowball effect of new work and referrals. We grew quickly and by the end of our first year, we had already moved offices several times to keep up with the increasing headcount. We ended year one not only with a growing team but also with a clearer vision of where we wanted to take Halt.

Year 2: Riding the Growth Wave

If the first year was rapid, year two was nothing short of explosive. We expanded our existing service offerings outsource marketing resource, branding, and brochure websites, to include dedicated social media outsource packages, virtual/fractional CMO services, marketing strategy development and fully equipped recruitment websites. Our team size tripled as a result, and our recruitment business client base expanded across multiple sectors and locations across the globe.

The biggest surprise of year two? We surpassed seven-figures in revenue, a milestone that was a distant dream when starting out.

What fuelled our growth was not only the demand for our creative and marketing services but also our ability to continuously adapt to our clients’ growing needs. Every challenge the market threw at us, we met head-on. And by the end of year two, we had established ourselves as more than just a fledgling startup—we were a force to be reckoned with, winning projects and market share that we had no right to against more established, larger competitors.

Year 3: Investment in Stability and Reputation

While year two was all about growth, year three was about stabilisation. It was the year of investment, not in the sense of taking outside capital, but in solidifying our foundations. We focused on investing in more expertise within our team, a fit-for-purpose office and studio space, refining our processes, building a strong operational backbone, and establishing our reputation. By this time, we were recognised as one of the leading recruitment marketing and creative agencies in the UK, known for our results-driven campaigns, high-quality delivery, and client-centric approach.

The efforts into our own brand awareness also started to pay off, not just through our online and social presence but also through the word-of-mouth referrals that had become a significant driver of our inbound leads. We doubled down on what worked and pushed ourselves to keep innovating, ensuring we could provide even more value to our clients. Most importantly and despite the many approaches and advances we received from outside parties; we did all of this without sacrificing our core principle of not taking outside investment in order to remain true to our vision of sustainable, organic growth.

Year 4: Surviving and Thriving Amid Market Challenges

Year four brought challenges that no one could have predicted. The recruitment industry took a dramatic shift, with some clients slashing budgets or pivoting their business models to survive. We saw multiple deposit-paid projects put on hold/cancelled and over six-figures in billed revenue lost due to companies going into administration.

It was a tough pill to swallow, but instead of letting these setbacks define us, we leaned into resilience and strategic thinking. We weren’t alone in this situation, and while many competitors and fellow agencies in the recruitment marketing agency space were forced to downsize, alter their offerings, outsource majority of their delivery overseas, or close their doors entirely, we’d fortunately made strategic decisions that allowed us to not only survive but thrive during this time.

One of the most significant achievements during year four was our ability to remain 100% inbound-driven. Despite the challenges, we have yet to make a single outbound sales call. We credit our growth and stability on the strength of our brand, organic SEO efforts (powered by our own SEO service), and, most importantly, the referrals we get from our clients, friends and brand advocates. While we’ve done some minimal personalised outreach to existing clients and relationships (about 20 in total), introducing new services or solutions, it’s this continuous stream of inbound opportunities that’s been the lifeblood of our business.

Key Successes in Year 4

Resilient and Reactive Growth Without Sales Calls: Over the last four years, Halt has managed to grow purely through reacting and adapting to inbound leads. We’ve had zero reliance on cold calling or aggressive sales tactics. Our social media and SEO strategy, combined with client referrals, word-of-mouth recommendations, and our logo placed at the bottom of the websites we’ve created, has driven every new opportunity to our door. Despite the market turbulence, we maintained a healthy pipeline of projects, thanks to the trust, reputation and relationships we’ve built over time.

Washing Our Face in Dirty Market Water: While many of our competitors had to drastically downsize, we remained sustainable throughout. Despite losing significant revenue from paused projects and client insolvencies, we’ve doubled down on growing our high-value services. Our suite of marketing solutions continued to expand, and we ended the year stronger than ever, even as we’ve witnessed others in the industry falter.

Staying True to Our Mission of Organic Growth: One of the core tenets of Halt has been to grow organically, without taking outside investment or influence. We’ve always believed that by keeping control within the company, we could make decisions that were not only in the best interest of the business, but of our team as well, rather than decisions being influenced by external shareholders. This philosophy has allowed us to remain agile and choose clients and projects that align with our values and culture, rather than taking on work purely for quick financial gain.?

A Strong, Loyal Team as Our Backbone: A huge part of our success has been the team behind Halt. Over 60% of our current team members have been with us for three or more years of our journey. They’ve been instrumental in building out our capabilities, refining our services, and contributing to the creative culture we’re proud of today. Many of them now sit in senior leadership roles, shaping not only Halt, but also their own expertise and future career journeys. While it’s natural that we’ve lost a few good people along the way, we’re proud to say that all of them left as good friends and have gone on to thrive in their new roles. Their contributions have been a vital part of our story.

The Road Ahead: Reflecting on Our Journey and Looking Forward

As we close out year four and reflect on our journey so far, we asked our Founder and Managing Director Chris Cranshaw to share his thoughts:

“This journey hasn’t been easy—far from it. Supplying into the recruitment industry is fast-paced and highly competitive, but through a combination of the good timing, good decisions, a phenomenal team, not getting complacent, and a dash of good fortune, we’ve managed to grow into a leading marketing agency in our space.

As I look to the future with my team, we’re excited for what’s next. The landscape is constantly changing, and we’re more than ready to continue adapting, evolving, and growing. The challenges of the past have taught us invaluable lessons about resilience and the importance of staying true to our mission.

Ultimately, the rollercoaster ride of building Halt has been worth every twist and turn. And as we embark on the next chapter for Halt, we remain committed to the core values that have got us this far."