The Top Biller Who Surfs 200 Days a Year
About this episode
Tony O'Neill shares his journey of building a successful executive search firm while maintaining a lifestyle centered around surfing.
Tony O'Neill surfs 200 days a year, runs an executive search firm from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and lives a life most agency owners assume they have to retire before earning. Here's the part no one talks about: it didn't come from selling the business or stepping back from the desk. He's still billing, still in Pinnacle Society conversations, and still committed to another fifteen years in the seat. The life came from a decision he made fifteen years ago to reverse-engineer everything and to build a brand, not a search firm. This conversation is the playbook. Tony walks through the brick wall he hit in year one, the consultants who saved his business, and why he chose an outdoor sporting goods niche his mentors told him was too small. He explains why he switched from contingent to retained in year three, why he refuses contingent work today even with the perfect candidate already in his inbox, and why owning the client relationship is the non-negotiable that separates high-performance firms from everyone else. Then he breaks down the 2024 pivot that added over six figures to his revenue. When his niche got hit, he called every past client to ask how he could improve, and…
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