The resources available to help you build what it is that you want.

With a 60 year history as a successful professional search network, Sanford Rose Associates Inc was acquired by the team who run Next Level Exchange.  Since the acquisition in 2012, the trajectory of the network has skyrocketed.  With the robust team of resources now available to existing search firms, the network has increased the number of offices in the network by just over 50% yet revenues increased by over 700% in the same time.

That mantra of allowing people to be in business for themselves but not by themselves and thus being part of something bigger than oneself has been our guiding philosophy.

What are the resources available to help you build what it is that you want?

One of the biggest challenges that most search firm owners face is how to expand the team without easing off of the gas and losing the momentum of the billings that allowed them to be a position to start hiring in the first place.

The hiring team at SRA are experts in identifying, screening, and qualifying prospective recruiters, and the goal of our hiring support is to help in the expansion of your team while still allowing you to maintain the momentum of your core business.

The profit of one hire in his or her first few years alone, that may not have happened without our involvement, could pay for all of the investment associated with being in the network for decades to come.

“SRA’s hiring team has helped us develop an internal recruiting engine for our firm. We’ve gone from a steady headcount of 4-5 for four straight years to an average headcount of 13 in 2021. We will continue to rely on SRA’s hiring support to grow our firm and would not be able to grow a the clip we anticipate without them.”
Maxwell McNamara, CEO: Full Spectrum

“The SRA hiring team allowed us to streamline our process and have consistent candidate presentations tailored to our needs. It adds to the hiring experience for applicants and builds more credibility for us as an organization. Combined with the fantastic training provided by Next Level Exchange, the entire engagement and onboarding experience has never been better! We have added 18 people in 12 months! Thank you SRA!”
Peter Humphrey, Managing Director: TalentSphere Staffing Solutions

Once you’ve hired a new recruiter, one of the biggest time commitments is the time required to teach the fundamentals of the search business and ensure a solid ramp up!

Every SRA office has the opportunity to enroll an unlimited amount of recruiters into our Facilitated Foundation Training Program, which is a small-group, distance-based program designed to provide students the benefits of interacting with recruiters outside their firm, role play with new and tenured associates, and complete a structured curriculum that covers the life cycle of the placement process.

As the owner or manager, you will receive frequent one-on-one feedback and personalized coaching regarding your new hire. All SRA offices have this unlimited access to this robust program as part of the value proposition provided for being in the network.

“We have been utilizing SRA’s foundation training for the past 4 years. The 5 week program is now integrated into our onboarding process for all new associates. The interactive nature of the course and feedback provided to the student, team leaders and executives of our firm have proved invaluable.”
Scott Chadbourne, President: Global Executive Solutions Group

“My time is better spent coaching with my new hires and supplementing their training with industry-specific content.  SRA’s five-week training process is now utilized for all newly hired recruiters, regardless of background or experience.”  
Tom Zeleny, President:  Aspen Associates Group

Each SRA office has unlimited access to what we believe is the leading online training program in the entire recruitment industry with over 150 hours of professionally produced training videos available on-demand along with a robust learning library. Our SRA Offices also have unlimited access to live and on-demand Mastery Courses, an accumulation of the very best practices of top billers and niche specialists in the recruiting industry.


“My firm has grown by nine people over the past twelve months. Relying on SRA’s world-class training and professional development has been absolutely essential to me as I continue to scale the business. Our percentage of engaged and retained searches has doubled over the past twelve months.”Kent Burns, President: Simply Driven Executive Search

“Through SRA, I enrolled my entire senior recruitment team (normally $7,500 for us to do on our own, no cost through SRA) in the Retained Search Course and it was one of the best decisions ever made for the health of my team. Having the team at SRA push and challenge my crew was like a breath of fresh air for them and for me.”
Chris Fackler, President: Ringside Talent

Think of the firm you want to have built three years from now; you will likely give a quick answer that is a combination of revenue and the size of your future team. The good news is that you’ve got a vision for your business, which is very exciting!

Now, think about how you are going to build that business. The challenge? You have spent your career becoming an expert in how to be a brilliant recruiter. You are an expert in the search business, but not in the growing-a-search-firm business. Before you invest additional time, money and resources teaching yourself as you go, would it make sense to first consult with an architect and builder that specializes in building and growing search firms?

Erin Bent, Greg Doersching, Christine Geiger, Jeff Kaye, Karen Schmidt, Nicholas Turner, and Lil Roy Vaughn are the architects.  This robust team of subject matter experts have consulted with hundreds of firms to support even the most tenured owners with an effective blueprint to help you grow the firm you desire, avoid costly mistakes made by most owners, and set up an effective hiring, training, performance management, and marketing communications best practices for long-term sustainability.


“As a 20-year boutique search firm, we struggled to break certain revenue targets and experienced all the challenges similar firms experience. After having aligned with SRA after leaving another networked organization, our business has evolved in ways we did not think was possible. Most notable, the shift to a Team Focused Search model, a paradigm-shifting innovation suggested by SRA. The results have been increased revenues and employee engagement. Thank you, SRA!”
Traci Cetraro, President: ConnectPoint Search Group

“We have been building and rebranding our 50 year old search firm for the last 10 years with an amazing consultant. We have now partnered with the team at SRA to make that dream become an operational reality. The team brings well over 20 years of search experience and as well as over 160 perspectives of their partner firms that enables them to help architect your firm to whatever heights you want to go. The team is authentic, relentless and highly skilled…what are you waiting for?”
Michael Chase, Managing Partner: Chase & Associates

Consulting and coaching may very well be the most valuable component of our value proposition.  Legendary basketball coach John Wooden stated “It is what you learn after you know it all that counts” –  and Sanford Rose Associates shares that same belief.

Every SRA Office is assigned a tenured coach who has a demonstrated track record in helping owners and recruiters around the globe reach their fullest potential.  That coach is dedicated to helping each office accomplish their own individual and unique professional objectives – whether it’s to grow your office by adding additional talent to your team and perhaps launch new practice areas, or simply increase your personal production, or to repeat the banner year from the year before.

“We have worked with coaches since joining SRA and it has helped us tremendously in all areas of our business. Having access to the extensive industry knowledge of a coach that knows our business, that can ask the right questions, and that can make observations or suggestions, has made a significant difference in the results (revenues have increased significantly year over year) of our company as we have grown.”
Stephen Provost, Co-Founder: Prestige Scientific

“I have been part of coaching clubs before; the difference between other coaches and mine is that mine has actually helped grow businesses much larger than my firm, she is works with dozens of other owners who are all constantly providing new proof of concept of what’s working and what’s not, and she truly has a sincere interest me building what it is that I want.”
Jon Littman: Genesis Search Group

Our monthly MasterMind groups are designed to create a forum for similarly situated individuals to discuss challenges, solutions, and real-time scenarios on a perpetual basis.  Our small group monthly MasterMind groups create a forum for open discussion around all facets of building, maintaining, and operating a successful and scalable executive search firm.  The existing and future coaching and consulting initiatives are all designed to assist our SRA offices and recruiters reach their fullest potential.

“As the owner of a successful search firm, I have been amazed as to how incredibly valuable my peer group mastermind calls have been. I learn from the challenges others have overcome and I use my experiences to help others achieve what it is that they want. I love the positive abundance mindset that is so prevalent within the owners of the SRA network.”
Angelica Rains, CEO: Groupe Insearch

“Our firm has experienced exponential growth since launching in 2015. There are so many challenges faced when growing a firm, and they evolve constantly; what I needed to do to get to $500k is different than $1m and is still different to surpass $2m. Having a trusted group of CEO’s who know our world and who can be a perpetual sounding board to provide real-time in-the-trenches advice is invaluable.”
Wes Washington, Owner: Boaz Partners

As an established search firm, we recognize that you want to retain and grow your brand equity and, as such, we “bolt-on” the SRA global branding and support, enabling our collective and leveraged efforts to take your brand to the next level.  There are many ways our team can help you with your marcom strategy:

  • Digital marketing strategy analysis and consultation
  • Website migration and hosting to SRA WordPress network
  • Website WordPress management support
  • Enterprise-level web hosting services, website CMS hosting (WordPress) and SSL security certificates, backups, security audits and management
  • Content “push publishing” platform and feeds, ensuring your website will be automatically updated with the latest SEO-optimized network news stories, press releases, and client-facing articles as they are released
  • Publish current searches online, integrating your applicant tracking system (ATS) into your website
  • Search Engine Optimization on-page services and strategy for websites, significantly boosting your visibility online
  • Our video marketing library provides video resources for your clients and candidates; from interview preparation to new hire candidate on boarding, we offer innovative, professionally produced videos to streamline your recruitment process with candidates and clients – all added to your own website
  • Through a partnership with an outside Public Relations firm with extensive recruitment industry experience, SRAI funds this program corporately for offices within their first year in the network and then achieving a performance milestone ongoing; offices gain media exposure and journalist interview opportunities in a wide array of international, national and regional publications and in the brand of the office
  • Optional, custom offerings for brand identity design, re-design and development
  • Optional, custom offerings for website designs, re-designs, development and content management systems, fortifying and strengthening your site with dozens of pages of recruitment-specific content, press releases and news stories
  • Optional, custom offerings for design and development of marketing materials, branded PowerPoint deck, custom pitch deck and graphic designs
  • Optional, custom email marketing content created for you on a bi-monthly basis; you can send as-is or we can create a template in your brand and simply plug our content into your message
  • Optional, custom offerings within www.nlmarcom.com provided at steep discounts

“The SRA MarCom team has revamped our website, helped me create new blog content, case studies and email marketing campaigns and have finally created the inbound lead generation I had always wanted. The support of this team has helped elevate the quantity of quality clients seeking me out instead of the other way around.”
David Brown, CEO: David Brown International

“The SRA MarCom team has been instrumental in helping us retool our AGRI-SEARCH brand; they are a true partner for our team and their expertise has been critical in helping us put forth a positive message for our company that fits well within the agricultural industry.”
Dave Allen, President: AGRI-SEARCH

Having a network of other trusted offices can provide you, and perhaps more importantly your clients and candidates, with additional expertise that can be leveraged to their advantage.  In addition to SRA/SRA split opportunities, our split network opportunities expand your reach, maximize you and your team’s earning potential, enhance your credibility and ensure a strategic advantage in this globally competitive landscape.

“The relationships and connections with other owners in the SRA network have been invaluable for the growth of my business. I now have a trusted nationwide referral network, and I value the potential for spit opportunities.”
Lacey Clark, Principal: NW Recruiting Partners

“Beyond the valuable relationships built since joining SRA, we have also made two incremental placements based upon leads from peers in the network. Making friends, and making money, who can argue with that?”
Ruben Moreno: Blue Rock Search

Surrounding oneself with the right people is a significant contributor to professional growth and success for most any professional – but in a pure people business like recruiting, it is crucial.  The SRAI team is fanatical about celebrating both individual as well as organizational performance through monthly, quarterly, and annual awards and recognition programs. It’s a simple fact that recruiters are competitive by nature – and thus allowing recruiters to benchmark themselves against other recruiters within the network fuels motivation and ambition even further!

“The monthly rankings gives our recruiters the recognition they deserve, but also allows them to see what top billers in our business are billing on a monthly and annual basis. This is a key motivator; for competitive individuals there is possibly no greater motivator!”
Joe Sos, President: JFSPartners

Our conferences are also the opportunity for our academy awards, an event that highlights the best of the best performers within the network.  Whether it’s from a yacht on the bay in San Diego or overlooking the sandy beaches in Mexico, we all appreciate the opportunity to be recognized for our achievements amongst our peers.

Being part of something bigger than oneself is something most people crave.  It may be cliché but if there was an illustration in the dictionary of the expression that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the image would be a group photo at one of our conferences!  There is no doubt SRA recruiters have a higher engagement, motivation and retention as a result of not being so isolated!

“What I have come to realize is that the SRA trips have a “multiplier effect” that I did not anticipate. Our top recruiters see others putting up even bigger numbers, making them want to achieve even more next year. Additionally, our entire team sees other firms growing, inspiring them to band together so we can finish among the best-of-the-best firms in rankings.”
Bob Broady, President: BroadReach Search Partners

“Top performers love recognition! We’ve been lucky to have people in Top Rookie spot twice and in the top three (including two #1 honorees!) consultants in the network over the past four years and I can tell you that there is a constant buzz from New Year’s until the trip as they build up anticipation for the trip and the awards ceremony!”
Mark Phillips, CEO: HireEducation

Nobody thinks of IT support as being an essential component of running a successful search firm, but that’s because most work with average or even good IT resource providers.  Can you say you’ve ever really found a GREAT outsourced IT option?  Our Sanford Rose owners can. The SRAI Tech Team will be your primary “Go To” for most all of your Help Desk remote support and basic systems maintenance, and collaborate with you on computer systems setup, networking, off-site data backups, redundancy and mobile device support when the devices you count on to help you in business let you down.

The bottom line is that our team of technology experts can save you from both unnecessary as well as unanticipated technological problems, as they are specialized in all areas of both proactive and reactive technological matters.  Perhaps most important, all this team does is tech support for recruiting firms, thus they truly understand our business.

Advice on legal issues is like insurance; you don’t need it until you NEED IT.  Preventative care is just as important as reacting to the unexpected. From large to small, proactive to reactive, legal issues can include human resource policies, employment agreements, fee agreements, fee collection matters, and financial questions. We have outsourced support on our team who can provide insight on many issues. Only a licensed lawyer in your state, who you retain, can represent you.

“It helps me sleep at night to know that I have a highly responsive legal resource that I can count on for a myriad of issues, most commonly service fee contracts, internal employment contracts, lease review. It is also nice to not have to look at the clock calculating how much the phone call is costing you and being nickel and dimed for every service they perform.”
Chadrin Dean, Owner: Integrated Management


“Our client, who is also one if the biggest players in my industry, back door hired one of our candidates. We were in a tough spot wanting to preserve the relationship, but not be taken advantage of because we are a single-site firm. By bringing in internal counsel and those with seasoned negotiations expertise, we not only avoided legal action but also collected $30,000 more than expected.”
Jennifer Powers, President: J Powers Inc

The SRAI Finance and Operations team will help guide and support you with the time-consuming parts of running a business that keep you out of your market and generating revenue for the firm.  Simply put, your organization requires systems that will adapt to the changing needs of your firm, and we have a proven history of creating and managing those constantly evolving systems.  Our team provides consulting and guidance on such issues at no cost to our offices.

The more we become dependent on tools and technology that support increased production levels, the more those tools seem to raise their prices.  Not that we can blame them, but the negotiating power of a single office is nowhere near what we can do when we leverage our entire Sanford Rose Network who collectively spends millions on such tools.  We are able to negotiate discounts and some of our SRA Offices immediately save over half of what they pay in royalties JUST from our procurement discounts.

As an example, a 6 person office could save $20,000 annually between our discounts with ATS systems, ZoomInfo, hireEZ, RingCentral, E&O Insurance, contract staffing back office and Next Level subscription fees (assuming no current contracts between vendors).  For a $1mil search firm, this represents about HALF of all annual royalties for being in the network.  This effectively makes support for hiring, coaching, training, marketing communications, tech support, legal, split networking, conferences, mastermind groups, benchmarking and rankings (and more) LESS than the cost of one placement.  NOWHERE else do such resources exist with one team, much less at such low investment levels.

Do contract/interim work?  Some of our offices have immediately saved tens of thousands of dollars by using our back office services; the 18% fee is on the candidate pay rate, NOT the bill rate or margins (18% employer of record, 7% for 1099 employees).  You are paid real-time as the candidate is paid – there is no waiting for the client to pay first. There is no annual fee, startup fee or maintenance fee. Signature covers 100% of funding for a rolling 60 days, covers all burden, and all payroll processing.  For some firms, they save more by using our contract services than they pay in royalties.

No, we don’t want an office joining just because they will save money.  Sanford Rose, and our member offices, are so much more than that.  If you are simply interested in discounts, Sanford Rose is not the right fit.  But if you are interested in making an investment in you and your organization while saving money at the same time, we are here!

“As a search firm owner, it is normal to be cost conscious and ask yourself “is this worth it?” The answer is an overwhelming yes! Discounts on ZOOM video conferencing, Zoom Info, PCR, 24/7 Headhunting, Indeed, LinkedIn Job Slots, and LinkedIn Recruiter Seats all add up to thousands of dollars in real savings. I can happily say that I feel like I’m getting all the benefits of the network and not paying for it!”
Yosef Colish, President: Leah Yosef International

An architect imagines what if. A builder figures out how to. Great structures emerge only when the two work well together. You act as the architect coming up with the vision and dream; we act as the builder to help do the work to get you there.

What could you build if you had all the support and resources you needed?

We are passionate about what we do but have the luxury of growing at the pace we want and with the people we want. Our network and our offices are doing great things and we invite you to consider the possibility of coming along with us on an incredible journey together!

Being surrounded by a network of trusted advisors is that one ingredient that is so hard to put into words.  However, our owners took a run at articulating just what being in the network has meant to them.  We welcome the opportunity to discuss playing a meaningful part in the creation of your legacy.


“Why SRA? High energy, like minded peers, expert coaching, extreme discount pricing, fantastic IT support, top notch marketing materials, on-call strategy sessions, killer website design, Top 10 Search Firm in US, satisfies competitive edge, owners with willingness to share, mastermind idea generation…if this doesn’t strike a chord with you, I can’t imagine what will.”
Yosef Colish, Owner: Leah Yosef International