Confessions of a Recruiter
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Confessions of a Recruiter
Mastering BD: The Harwell Way | COAR S1-EP1
In this episode of Confessions of a Recruiter, we explore the core pillars of business development: lead generation and prospecting, discovery calls, job briefs and needs analysis, objection handling, and trust building. A key focus is placed on how recruiters can use personal branding and video content as powerful tools for generating leads and building credibility.
Harvey Rivers and Adam Powell join us to share how they went from agency recruiters to launching HARWELL, a seven-figure recruitment business built in just two years on the Gold Coast.
From high-volume outreach in the early days to a more refined, relationship-led approach, they break down their frameworks for discovery calls, handling objections (including their ANOT method), and fee negotiations. They also share how they confidently secure 50 percent retainers upfront by demonstrating clear and compelling value to clients.
For recruiters looking to level up or start their own agency, this episode offers practical advice, tested strategies, and valuable insights into what it takes to build a recruitment business with purpose and impact.
· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io
Buckle up listeners, because today we're diving into the incredible world of two absolute legends, harvey and Adam, a dream team of A players who live and breathe sales, communication and personal development. Not only have they hustled in big agency, started their own from scratch, built a team around them and grown so much they'll land themselves on the AFR list. These two lads have been on a wild, heart-pounding ride that'll leave you inspired and ready to crush your recruitment goals.
Speaker 2:You boys have been busy.
Speaker 1:Didn't know I was in a podcast with JK Rowling. Thanks for joining us, boys.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us Third time. This is our hat-trick appearance, I know, and there's probably plenty of people who know who you are from listening to the podcast before, but I want to kind of hand the floor to you guys for a few minutes and just, I know blake's giving a pretty thorough rundown of what you guys have done, but just from your side, um, just a bit about the journey to this point with uh, with harwell. Be great, just to hear from you, yeah, fuck it's been um, it's been a roller coaster.
Speaker 4:We can say that, that's for sure. Um, we, we didn't know what we wanted this to be when we started it. In all honesty, other than me and Ads trying to bill, I think half of what we might have billed for our previous agency, which would have put us in a pretty good position and doubled our earnings anyway. Spend 30 hours a week working and a bit of time on the beach is what it was meant to be. It's probably been polar opposite.
Speaker 2:I think the growth individually and together has just probably been the most surprising thing. Like, I think, when you're in the thick of big corporate world, your world's quite small. You only really know what they want you to know, which is a good tactic, I guess, to increase the fear of getting out there and seeing the real world. But the journey we've been on as people the last two years, that's probably the most impressive thing for us and I think the journey from going from thinking we know everything to now knowing a lot more two years later but knowing we know nothing if that makes a bit of sense and that's what excites me the most is we're still just scratching the surface of what we've done so far and the world we're trying to step into now are just incredible.
Speaker 2:And some of the people we get to speak to through recruitment, through the podcast, podcast and just general, that kind of network on the gold coast of people who want to lift other people up, it's going to be a crazy another two years ahead.
Speaker 4:That was the best part, I think. Like you, we left haze thinking, oh, we're pretty fucking good at this, and then now you look back and go, we were actually pretty shit. Yeah, I had no idea, and thankfully we thought we were pretty good, otherwise we not be here.
Speaker 3:You're not doing 30 hours a week now, then safe to say so we doubled that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're knocking our 60s. Probably Our downfall, but also our biggest strength is we just take on so much and we just figure it out when we get there along the way. So the podcast again could be a distraction, but the benefits you found from that have been credibility and kind of the networks you've been in. Even the team has meant it's just been me and Harves, and then we hired Andy and Chloe to start a trades and labour division. That was probably the least labour-intensive decision we made, because they're already really really good at what they do and they're the experts in that space. We've kind of just built the platform for them to come and do it and then building out the teams again. So as of today we've got a team of eight, which is seven recruiters and a marketing coordinator, and then we just rolled out the strategy down at Bunker and Byron over the weekend and that's going to be 12 of us by Jan.
Speaker 2:So about to get right back in the trenches again for another absolute hoorah. Buckle up.
Speaker 1:Buckle up.
Speaker 4:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:And so what's it like starting an agency with your best friend? Because we talk to recruiters all the time and one of the common themes before starting their business is do I do it by myself, do I do it with a colleague, do I try and find a friend? What's your experience been like starting a business together, and is there anything you would do differently now, being where you're at?
Speaker 4:I think when you get it right, it can honestly be a superpower. I think we spoke at the recent Mastermind we had a question around that and the way we feel it's like we've got three brains and what I mean by that is Ads has an idea, I have an idea or opinion on something, and then we kind of normally settle on something that's in the middle. So it's a little bit of a superpower in that sense. Um, as well as things like you know, if I'm having a shit month or I'm down in the dumps or at the moment got a newborn at home and it's baby number two and life's a bit hectic, he's over there pumping out massive months which take the pressure off so I can just kind of breathe a little bit, and vice versa.
Speaker 4:There's been times in the past where perhaps construction's been a little bit quiet for whatever reason, and I can just dig in and make sure I'm pumping out big months, so you never have to go into that scarcity mindset, I find, of trying to scratch around for deals or panicking. So it's been a superpower in that sense and just enjoying the journey together, like we do everything together, like we're genuinely fucking levels above best mates yeah, and to go and share that experience and the achievements, like I'd rather be on the front of the newspaper or hit the AFR alongside him than doing it myself. So just the personal side of things as well, it's a cool journey and I hope we look back. I think we had a question on our podcast from a listener that said what are you two going to be talking about when you sat with a schooner in 30, 40 years time? And we both just said we hope we fucking look back and we're just still best mates and we go.
Speaker 2:What a fucking ride that was yeah, yeah, I've got a massive opinion on it because I think it's easy to look at us and go, fuck, I need to get a business. But that kind of came after 13 years of knowing someone and I wouldn't be able to go into business with anyone else now without having that kind of depth, because I think you'd just be second guessing the whole time Like there's nothing that we don't know about each other's lives. Luckily, we're from very similar backgrounds in the UK, both kind of rely on our mum, both got a sister we want to support, not from particularly well-off families, so our motivations are very similar too, which helps guide where we want to go in business as well. And one thing we said in the car I think the reason it works so well is because there's no ego in terms of whose idea is better or worse. We're very happy to go if, say, I want to go and start this AI, world halves will go.
Speaker 2:Okay, great, have you considered this, this and this? And if that evidence is strong enough to go, actually it's not the right idea, I'm happy to go. Fuck you, right, let's just change tack. Let's do something else we don't fall in love with. Oh, but it's my idea, so it must be right, and vice versa, and we can also call each other out pretty bluntly because we know it's coming from a place of. We need this business to work so we can support our families.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what's really interesting?
Speaker 1:I've been speaking to a lot of directors and partners of agencies and some of the feedback that they give is I didn't get into business with this person, I've been forced into business with this person because, they've kind of grown the ranks and now they're a director and you know, now they're equal in New South Wales as a director and they're all kind of participating in their business and they didn't actually choose their business partners and there's like this level of animosity to be like, well, if I'm in business, I want to choose who I go into business with. And so the reason why I share that story is because one of my girls at Vendito kind of said something in a similar vein. You know they saw you guys at the mastermind and said I wish I had that, I want that out of my business partner. And it was just a reminder to say getting into business isn't normally like that. They're best mates in business together. They're not business partners in business together, and so it's a really unique opportunity and situation.
Speaker 1:You guys find yourself in Cause, as you say, it was 13 years of building up to get into business with each other, whereas sometimes there's this kind of fantasy or, or you know, idealistic concept that you know, you're going to get into business with your business partner, You're going to be in love with them and they're going to be best mates and do all this stuff and, like most times than not, that's not what happens with business partners. So you guys are in a really really good spot that you're not only best mates that helps, you know, keep the glue together but you're also super humble with how you're approaching business as business partners too. So it's really inspiring to look at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't really like my business partner, but it was just seemed like two good operators. And then you end up being driven by ego half the time. But when you're good mates, like you're saying, you park the ego and you just do what's right for each other.
Speaker 2:I guess there's probably levels to it as well. Like Harwell isn't just a business anymore, it's kind of the combination of everything that we're about as people as well. I get a little woo-woo with it.
Speaker 4:It's almost like a cult, isn't it? I mean it kind of is.
Speaker 2:It's a representation of both of us, whether that's in recruitment, whether that's the podcast, whether that's just the clothes we wear. So I think you can go into business with someone for a business outcome and know we want to scale and exit that, and then we'll shake hands and go our separate ways. But there's no end date here. This is going to be until we roll over, which hopefully is after the box.
Speaker 4:There can be a very difficult side to business partnership as well, like one thing that we've learned is the only risk to Harwell is mine and Adam's relationship, nothing else. If our relationship breaks down for whatever reason, harwell is at risk. So it's one thing that as the business has got much bigger and we've got a lot more, a lot busier, the first thing that we probably push to the side is me and him spending time together as mates not business, just purely mates. So we've tried to now actually put times into the calendar where a few weeks back we went and did a nine hole pitch and putt on a thursday morning just as mates, and it was so good for us and we definitely needed it, because now we're going into another crazy sprint.
Speaker 1:it just kind of like reminds you why you do it and puts you back on the same page, and that's one thing that, if you forget to do, can be very, very difficult yeah, it keeps you grateful, reminds you why you work hard, right when you can just take a bit of time out and go hang out with each other as mates and go, yeah, we're enjoying the fruits of our labor, yeah, okay. So let's get into the topics of the podcast, which is all around business development, lead generation, prospecting, et cetera. So I guess the first pillar that we want to talk about is lead generation and prospecting. So you guys have had a really strong kind of growth period over the last two years. When you started, you both started from scratch, essentially, so no better people to ask these questions to. But I guess I'm going to give you a broad question right now, and this is going to be more focused to Adam what's the most effective strategy you've used to consistently generate leads when you first started?
Speaker 2:There's probably two answers. When we first started, it was that big blue ocean blank canvas, right? Who is every construction company in Queensland that we don't know about? Who's the contacts? Let's get them into a campaign with email marketing. It was probably a bit of a scattergun approach just to get momentum and runs on the board and then over time we now had the luxury of going okay, there's a certain amount of business that we need to have a good year. Let's be particular about who we want those clients to be. The first answer was just probably volume, to be honest, around our ICP. We know they've got to be a commercial builder, maybe in residential, probably tier two, tier three, maybe a big subcontractor. If you're one of those, you're in Queensland, you're fucking getting an email.
Speaker 2:And then over time now it's a lot more referral based and relationship based. I'm lucky I've got a bit of a superpower, a super weapon, andy Hanna, who's out there pounding the pavement, banging on sites. Every day he sees what's going on on the ground, on site, and if a builder is scaling up from what a subcontractor has told him, I kind of get that lead. So I've got a bit of a point to go and follow. And then vice versa, when I go and place the project manager or the site manager, we then go and get the labour hire off the back of that. So a bit of a double act. On the Gold Coast there's probably not many sites and people who don't know about at least one of us about at least one of us.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's really interesting. So you said a few things there that I'd love to dive into. The first thing is ICP. So what is ICP? Ideal Customer Profile, okay, and how did you get your ICP? Like, what was the process there? How do you know who to target to be able to get the leads to start with?
Speaker 2:It's probably knowing who you don't want to work with. That's probably the easier way to go For us. I don't want to be doing loads in civils because it's not my area of expertise. It's not what I'm that familiar with. I haven't got a network in there, the tier one world. There's too many layers of recruitment teams in there. It's too slow and kind of mundane and they prefer to work with the bigger tier one agencies as well. That's just what they like to do. So who's left out of that? Tier twos, tier threes, developer builders and then kind of the biggest subcontractors who almost run like a mini builder within themselves.
Speaker 1:So that's interesting because a lot of the conversations we have with recruiters who are trying to niche, they get a little bit scared that they're niching too much and they're going to lose opportunity. And because they're so specific let's say, for example, you're only going after tier two builders you will exhaust that market really, really quickly. And then there's a really easy way to just get distracted and try and open your market up a little bit further and go into a different market or maybe tier one or tier three or outside of construction or kind of blur the lines on the industry that you're focused in. So did you ever feel that and what did you do when you started to feel that? Were there any things that you told yourself or methods or structures that kept you on the path? I think it's belief.
Speaker 2:Luckily, I came from Hayes, where I was there for five years or so. I went up through the ranks, managed a construction team, so I had a level of self-belief already Already, knew I could carve out a market and had a market and a track record to fall back on. Okay, just because you're not wearing the big blue colour, you can still do the same job and get the same results. Distractions oh, this is another quote. I'm going to fuck up Distractions come disguised as opportunities.
Speaker 1:Is it a good one? I love that. That's a whole special.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is you've got to have a client out of Sydney who calls you because Andy's placed someone and it's a warm lead, but it's a Sydney civil construction company. It might be a big juicy 30K fee, but the time I'm going to spend speaking to people in Sydney who I've never spoke to before to then potentially make 30K. If I'd reinvest that time into Queensland with someone who's in my ICP, a tier two builder, I could potentially make two 30K fees, and then that's. Every conversation goes somewhere further, whereas when I'm speaking to people in Sydney and Melbourne and Perth, there's not much more. After that first conversation. I really want to get out of it. So even if a PM's got great, I'm not looking at the moment call me in six months. I'm probably not going to do that, whereas if it's in Queensland it just takes you one step closer.
Speaker 1:I find Love that.
Speaker 4:I think people need to look at the numbers a bit more Like for context. Tier two builders commercial builders on the Gold Coast. If a hundred people within that niche move around every year or there's a hundred placements through recruitment agencies every year, an average fee of 20K, that's 2 million fees up for grabs just purely in one niche of tier two commercial builders on the Gold Coast. If he goes and nails 50% of that, he's a million dollar biller.
Speaker 2:I think it's speed to action as well. I think that's one thing we kind of pride ourselves on is and it's particularly at the moment is being candidate strong. If you've got the candidate nine times out of 10, you'll find them the role. So, rather than go back to all right, let's chuck an ad on Seek, let's do a campaign, let's do LinkedIn recruiter and going from zero every time. If you can start on level two, level three, because you've got to pull, your speed to action is so much quicker. Your service to the candidates is so much better because you're coming to them with quality opportunities as well, the client's happier. And then you start to build that reputation as if you're serious about hiring someone good. Whether it's HireWell or whoever it is, they're the person you go to.
Speaker 3:I've got a question. So just on the campaigns.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that a couple of times and there's a lot of recruiters out there who don't have automated CRMs where they can do that.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's a fair point. What was involved in your campaigns? Was it just emails? Did you integrate calls and, you know, specking or floating? What was your campaigns? What do they look like?
Speaker 2:Pretty basic, to be honest, looking back, and it's something I probably cringe at now, if I read the first one, it was the first one was a big long one. Hey, I'm adam, I'm a director of high, well consulting we're a new recruitment.
Speaker 2:It wasn't great um, but it was action. Right, we did something and then the second stage would be a follow-up hey, this is the kind of people we help, would you be interested in seeing so and there'd be a third stage and a fourth stage, kind of spread over four to five months, and we did snag a few new clients from it. So it does work.
Speaker 2:Whether that's now become a bit too saturated because of the likes of Locksow and everyone's got, or a lot of people have got access to those tools, that's probably a different question in itself, and it's something we don't rely on too heavily now. If we're ever going to do a campaign to a client, it's more a content of value campaign. So we're not selling, providing them free value in terms of top five interview questions. You've got to be asking Top question. You should ask your candidates to find out how good your recruiter actually is, bits and pieces like that. So when the time comes and they do need to pick a recruiter, we've been in the inbox once a month and we've given them stuff for free, with no expectation.
Speaker 3:I love that. I used to talk about that quite a bit, and action is the thing you said there. I used to say to consultants you know why would a client use you a lot of times? Because I'm this, I do all these great things. Sometimes it's because you've been in touch the most right and you've added value every time you have. So that is a key point. I think for those out there, listening, doing the action is probably 90% of the job and you can sit there and rewrite it a million times.
Speaker 2:You know it sounds perfect. Perfect on one day. You come into the office the next day oh, that's how that fucking sounds. Shit. How many times have we done that? So it's just about press the button. Learn from the feedback you get or the feedback you don't get. If you get no replies, it probably wasn't a good campaign and then just rejig and adjust rather than try and get it perfect Because, again, it's a timing thing. It could be the perfect bunch of words on the email, but email. But if they just hired the PM last week, they're not going to be looking for one Isn't.
Speaker 3:the quote being done is better than perfect or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So so volume is essentially. Your answer to begin with is just get out there, make some, take action and refine your approach as you go on, whether that be email, phone, et cetera. What about personal branding content? Like this is something that you guys are really, really good at. How would somebody thread personal branding content, this type of thing, in with their proactive outbound BD strategy?
Speaker 4:LinkedIn, obviously in the recruitment world, is a massive one. So to start with, it's just, but probably, deciding who you're trying to be and who you're trying to target. They're the main things, because LinkedIn's amazing. You've got a platform where you can effectively create one to many content. So, rather than sit here for two hours and call 50 people with a phone call which still works and still needs to be done, call 50 people with a phone call which still works and still needs to be done, what about today spending a two-hour block of creating 50 pieces of content which, over the period of a month, might be viewed by 400,000? That's where it can really be utilised. But you have to be really clear on who you're trying to talk to.
Speaker 4:And we've fallen into that trap of posting the fun stuff of Harv doing cartwheels on the beach when he gets a fee in, which is important because it shows us as people and that's the authenticity side of it. But that gets loads of likes and it often gets likes from recruiters. So we fell into a bit of a trap of posting content that just got loads of likes by recruiters, but recruiters aren't coming to me asking me to recruit CFOs, so it's transitioning back on that and going who's my target audience? How do I speak to them with every single post with things like giving them free, value, career advice, hiring tips, things like that, just to elevate my profile? And, as you said, with the email inbox? If you're sending the emails in your top of their inbox all the time, well, what if I'm on?
Speaker 1:their newsfeed every single day. Yeah, so for recruiters that are hesitant to be posting, to be using video, that aren't sure what to say, they don't feel like they've got the credibility or the authority and they just feel like something's missing to just get it done, what's some advice for them to be able to feel inspired or have a framework or a process or a thought process to be able to just start posting?
Speaker 2:I've got two. The first one is literally just regurgitate the conversations you've been having with your ideal ICP again. So if I've spoke to three project managers this week, two of them might have said the same thing about oh yeah, if I knew I can get a site team together, I'll be more ballsy when I'm trying to win new projects Because I can't. That's what's hesitating, that's the pullback, that's what I'll be talking about On the phone. This week, two project managers said to me the. That's what I'll be talking about On the phone. This week, two project managers said to me the reason they're not winning new projects they're not confident they can put a team together.
Speaker 2:What have you found? Bang. It's real. It shows the people you're speaking to and you're not making things up. And then the other ones look at the calendar that you've got out. You've got your BD blocks. You've got your in there. Don't look for gaps in there to film content. Look at what you're already doing that you can film. So what I mean by that is you might be able to set up a, set up your mobile phone and you're sat there for two hours doing BD. Just have a time lapse of you just sat there punching it right and just go. What does a morning of a crew look like?
Speaker 2:bang, or if you're a PM on the Gold here for me in the next two hours, just something real yeah like that yeah, um it's less invasive walking around on the phone as well, um, and it's just different types of content that people want to see. I know we had a bit of a chuckle, um, when we started doing the selfie videos, and how we started that was we set a challenge to do uh one every day of the week just to see what the outcome would have been, and if we didn't do one, the other person would have to wash the other one's car, which is so. I managed to get a video of how I was washing my car, which is good, but after we smashed that for a while and fair play to people we started to see a lot of recruiters do the same kind of content right and as they should. That's all we really do as well is copy people. So now it's like, okay, how do again.
Speaker 2:So now we started doing a bit more longer form content with the podcast. We've got rosy, and so we did more professional kind of production, which looks good as well, as well as some of the more authentic raw stuff too. So get started is probably the first one, and then look at different industries of what they're doing and how can you kind of copy that and put a recruitment spin on yeah, and it's simplest terms, right.
Speaker 4:If you decide you want to go and get jacked, what do you do? You start going to the fucking gym, start posting content. Yeah, just start like what? What you see today from us is probably day 800, right, and the guy that's been doing bicep curls for 800 days is gonna have really big biceps. But the only way you're gonna get to day 800 is starting on day one, and it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1:Love that. Okay, so a bit of a summary for, like the lead gen kind of prospecting pillar we're talking about is number one is just taking action. It's 90% volume outbound. You've just got to take the action, define your ICP, go after it, don't get distracted. Just start posting content. Perhaps film yourself doing something you're already doing, or start to create content out of the candidate or client conversations you're having. I guess, especially if you're prospecting, doing your BD calls and you have, you take a brief or you have a pattern of conversation that you have that's really easy to post about. So you don't have to think of something from scratch and then mix in the social media the posting, the content with the outbound volume activity and that's you know, part of the secret sauce, to get the leads, to get the prospecting, to get the jobs in.
Speaker 2:Harv's actually got a really passionate thing he likes to say about content haven't you mate? About how you can ruin a good post, he rants and raves about this all the time.
Speaker 4:When people do a really, really good post and it's given free value or what they think is free value, and then at the end, there's massive call to action right there in front of your face it's not free anymore. Whatever your post is, decide the post. Okay, this, it's not free anymore. Like whatever your post is, decide the post. Okay, this is going to be free value. I'm actually going to sell on this post and I'm going to sell really hard. Or this is going to be a staff post. Shout out, just do that and stick with it. I think I saw one the other day on LinkedIn. It was a leader of Wasn't mine?
Speaker 3:was it.
Speaker 4:They've obviously done really well. Incredible recruiting firms. I'm not knocking them here, but it was a really heartfelt post about an executive person in their business that has now left and gone on to pastures new, and it was a great post, really sincere, even had some awesome kind of subtle value builders in there. That got me as a business owner, thinking, okay, if I was to hire someone like this in my business, these are the things or the changes I can expect. Got me interested, which is what this post should do as a business owner. Got me interested to go. I need to speak to this guy and then at the end so if you're in the market for XYZ, then talk to XYZ recruitment and I'm just like you've just taken the edge of such a nice post about someone that's given 15 years of service to your business to sell. Just hold that and then the next day just sell and people aren't stupid.
Speaker 2:They'll read that and go. If I need that, I'm going to call that person yeah it definitely licks me out a bit.
Speaker 4:I actually sent it to our entire team and gone. Hey guys, this is not cut the last three lines off this post.
Speaker 3:It's awesome this is not what to do, but if you want to know how to write a good one, email me today, oh so good.
Speaker 1:So discovery calls Ed.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, discovery calls or the discovery phase of a client meeting, just when you're really, you know, your first meeting a client, for example. I'm really curious. Your experience between either of you can answer this. But what's a typical mistake or big mistake that you see?
Speaker 2:You've just named one to do with posts, but anything that you see in the discovery phase, and this is probably a Swiss teaching he's going fixing the problem, trying to come in and go oh, you need a project manager. Great, what does that look like? Really, you've got to slow things down and go back, okay. So what have you done to fix this? Already ready, yeah, I've gone to five recruiters whatever it is, or what are the project managers you had in the past that haven't worked out? Why is that so, taking them from kind of current state and looking at the problem to going backwards?
Speaker 3:rather than jumping into solution mode straight away? Yeah, which?
Speaker 2:is easy to do, especially if you're a little bit. You know light on and you've got a job on and how exciting, um, but yeah, just slowing things down because they're great before we. Can you tell me how have you got to this point? Get all that context, because that's then what creates the urgency and the gap. So when you do start talking about the solution and you go, okay, well, why don't we just stay as we are? Why don't you not hire this project manager? Why don't you just go and seek and try and find some yourself? No-transcript as well. It's kind of going into it.
Speaker 2:Saying I've got the is another harvey rant. When you say I've got the perfect candidate for you before you've even done a brief. Yeah, it's not possible because you don't know anything about me and my business or what we're trying to do. So probably go and look if we can help. I can walk you through how that might be, but if we can't, you know it's probably gonna be recruited, I know. Or a different avenue I can put you in touch with as well. And it's really is making it about them and their problem rather than what you can do to solve something you don't even know what you're solving.
Speaker 3:That's good and um on that, then. So you kind of semi-answered the question, but position yourself as a partner versus just another recruiter, how do you? You guys have great relationships that have clearly been developed over time include recent ones too but how have you gone about that? Is there anything that you do, harvey, anything from your side?
Speaker 4:ask the questions that they probably don't ask you or expect you to ask. So for me a bad brief, as if I've gone in there and just asked every stereotypical recruitment question in the world and I've not really kind of challenged their thinking or unearthed unusual things about the business. And they can be questions as simple as what's this person absolutely going to hate when they walk into this role or what's the toughest things that they're going to find when joining this business, because there might be some really difficult things on the way through the door. I've placed CFO roles where they're coming into a massive, massive cleanup, but we've been able to position that and tell candidates so they know what they're coming into. And again, that's not a question that any other recruiter would ask. So I think it starts to put you on a level, probably get them to think more commercially about their business.
Speaker 4:Where do you want to be in three years' time? Where do you want to be in five years' time? How does that impact this person? What can they do for you in that period of time that's going to impact your life? Just big questions like that. The best thing in a discovery meeting is when someone sits back and goes no one's ever asked me that before. And then you're like okay, now I'm on the right track. But even being upfront and honest, just be like look, we might not be the right fit for each other. That's why we're going to sit down and do this meeting, because straight away you're then on a level of I don't need to take on this work. I will take it on because I want to.
Speaker 3:But because I want to is because I can get the result for your business, because I can get the result for your business and do you suggest that people prepare some of those questions in advance, those questions that aren't on the job brief, or do you say just on the fly, just be real, respond, listen, what do you?
Speaker 2:recommend. I actually prep a really detailed brief before I go in so say this was a client meeting, I've never worked here. Before I do my research, I prep a draft brief which for us, going into the detail of it, is kind of a three or four-page document, dual branding on the top, and then we go into a copy and paste through the company. Then it'd be my spiel of the company. Oh well, you know X Recruiter, tier two, builder, they do A, b and C. These are typical values. Then I'd have a project info, one or at least all the sectors they work in. Typical duration of the program length are they EBA, non-eba? Where do they build? What kind of clients do they work with? What are the systems they use?
Speaker 2:I then go into the team structure. Are they resourcing really well, they've got three foremen, three CAs, whatever it is. Then we go into the culture and the values. Then we go into key metrics of the role. In the first 90 days this PM must have the ECI completed. Then we go into the role duties, experience required package at the bottom.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty heavy and obviously I can't do that before the meeting. But if I can get 60, 70% and I say, hey, blake, there you go. This is what we're going to be working through. You go, fuck. This guy gives a shit. He's going to research the company and wants to know all this detail. And then the actual line I use is when we walk out of this meeting, I'm going to have everything. I need to know exactly who this person is. If it's not in here, then we can't qualify someone on it, but if I send you someone who's different to this brief, you've got right just to hit me over the head and say, fuck, what have you been doing? Because this is the Bible that we're looking for, nice. It puts the onus back on the client as well, because if it's not in this brief, how do you expect me to go and match it to the market as well?
Speaker 1:You know, what you said a little bit earlier on that I think is probably worth exploring and understanding is around framing.
Speaker 1:So you said a really good line before around, look, let's see if we can help. And if we can't help, do you mind if I point you in the right direction of someone that can Framing that before going into taking a job brief gives you an instant level of credibility and authority that you're not there to just sell them and flick over some CVs. So talk to us about how you frame these discovery calls and perhaps even the purpose of the discovery call, because prior to the swish method I thought what the hell is a discovery call in recruitment? It was kind of a little bit I was missing a trick there and I didn't understand because I was probably really transactional in the way that I operated what the purpose of a discovery call was, why framing is important and kind of wrap this kind of process up before taking the job brief. So who wants to go on that? Why framing's important and kind of wrap this kind of process up before taking the job brief. So who wants to go on that?
Speaker 2:I can whip out an A-not if you want.
Speaker 4:This is as he's raring to go. He's falling off his chair, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it'll be. Blake. Appreciate you taking a bit of time to work through the job. Brief today, naturally, after doing this for seven years and building how well? Up to seven figures within two years. I know a lot of builders do things a lot of different ways. So obviously, to find out how you do things, I'm going to ask you a few questions and then typically it goes one of two ways Either we aren't the person to help you and I'll kind of point in the direction of who he is, we'll give you some free value to help you with your search.
Speaker 1:Or if we can help you. We'll walk through a couple of steps and see what that might look like. How does that sound? Sounds great, perfect beauty. I'll take it. That was such a strong a not. So that's 22 percent. So so for those who are listening they would just feel like that is just a, like a, such a great, natural, flowing uh conversation. But walk, walk through the ANOT acronym and some of the points that you've and the lines that you've created there. That gives you that level of authority and credibility to then take that really good job brief. So what does ANOT stand for?
Speaker 2:So appreciate, naturally, and then obviously, and then typically. So the appreciate is just saying thanks for your time or thanks for sharing, sharing your time, because both our time is important, and then the naturally is the opportunity to build value in yourself, your company and your product. Essentially so, naturally, we've been doing this for seven years. I know not every company is the same, so now you know that I've been doing this for seven years, we know how well the seven figure business that we built in two years.
Speaker 2:So rather than me tell you how good we are, I've kind of just dropped that in a really non-invasive, non-direct way. Obviously, I have to ask you a few questions to find out if it can really help. So you're kind of getting permission then to ask some of the really curlies because you've set up at the front end. And then look, typically it goes one of two ways. You kind of give them an out so they haven't got to sign up today, or they lose this offer in 30 minutes, none of that high pressure stuff. They know great. If it's not for me, he's going to help me out anyway.
Speaker 4:It's all about changing their frame of mind, matt. Every recruiter thinks they're different to all the other recruiters, but that person that you're exactly like the rest. So they're going to expect you to come in and sell from minute one and tell them I can get you the perfect candidate. We do this, we do that. So if you can come in and the first words that leave your mouth completely reframe how they're kind of expecting the meeting to go. You catch them off guard.
Speaker 4:The sales defenses are down, so then you get much better answers and you actually find the true reasoning or the true problems. So if you can go and do that from minute one in the meeting, imagine the difference in quality of the information you're going to get throughout that meeting which, as Adam said, is your Bible when you walk out of there and you go to the market because you're only as good as the job brief you can take, and it stops you spending two, three, four weeks of wasted time speaking to the wrong people, giving them the wrong information, and then in six weeks the client's going. You haven't given me anyone. You're saying, well, yeah, because you, this information you gave me wasn't right, and then we're just fucked I love that.
Speaker 3:It reminds me of eight mile. You know when he's doing that battle and he says all the negative things about himself, straight away it's like get it vaccinated, straightinate against it straight away and then there's nothing for you to come back with.
Speaker 3:No, I love that. Just a question on kind of cold calls or BD calls. You know it's something that we have all done or have to do and not everyone loves it. But what's the biggest piece of advice? You've got around that. I always used to focus on skill. When I was doing BD, I said this question how do I ask this? How do I get them to listen to me in the first 10 seconds? But maybe not on the mindset. Maybe I should have focused somewhere else. But what's your advice?
Speaker 4:the biggest one, I think, of reason people don't like bd is probably the mindset, isn't it? It's that fear of rejection. What we kind of do is we've done a lot of work with ourselves and our team of unearthing our real why, you know? Okay, I want to make a million dollars of personal income a year. Well, why? To support my family. Why? So they don't have the same issues I did in terms of finances when I grew up? Why? Because I want to pay off my mum's mortgage.
Speaker 4:So when you get down to like really, really powerful things like that, can I then pick up the phone a hundred times and get told to fuck off to pay off my mum's mortgage in five years? Yep, all right, let's start there. That's the mindset is creating an environment or a mindset where it's impossible not to do it. I think that's the first thing Because, again, you can mull over the perfect scripts, the perfect intros, the perfect value builders, but if they're all in your head and you ever actually hit dial on the phone and start telling them to people doesn't matter. So one for me was definitely the mindset piece in BD.
Speaker 3:I love that. And I also loved how you asked why so many times? Is it Kaizen, they say, if you ask why five times, you get to the real answer. That's right, yeah, so that's actually just naturally doing it, mate. But yeah, I think in terms of a tangible takeaway.
Speaker 2:It's you do this really well is? Hi, I'm Harv Rivers. Hi, welcome. So how have you been? Great, look, the reason for the call is we work with ABC in your space. This is how we help them. I just want to see if you might be in the same boat and if there might be value we can add to you too, and then you either go to the meeting or you go down the call, whatever you want, but it's I'm working with your competitors.
Speaker 4:We've the information you can extract as well from your previous successes. So rather than saying I helped ABC recruit a CFO brilliant, that's your job. What did that CFO achieve for that company? So then you've got a story and gone hey, I helped your competitor up the road with a new CFO and actually renegotiated an international freight deal which saved them $6 million in year one. This is how that's impacted the business. Can we explore the potential of doing that with you as well? Love that. So you're not just hey, I recruit a CFO Brilliant. 10 other people have called me today and told me they can do that. Here's the impact I've got from recruiting the right CFO.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that from my conversations, recruiters don't go into the depth of the outcomes of their placements. I know I never did. I would usually sell the candidate based off the features and benefits of the candidate, not the benefits of the candidate in the role to what they've achieved for the company. So being able to frame it and go hey, I have placed a CFO, that saved the company $6 million and this is what they've achieved. As a business owner, a hiring manager or someone that has a pain point, that's going to connect straight away and it's going to be less about the candidate that you're trying to sell them and more about the solutions and the solving of their problems as a business.
Speaker 1:So I think that's really really good.
Speaker 4:People in the e-commerce world do this really well. Obviously, it's a world that I've gone into quite heavily and we've started a national division in e-commerce now, which is going really well. But I've partnered with a few people that specialize in helping everyday people start their own e-commerce brand, and they pump the sponsored ads on Instagram, but their ads never say we help you start your own e-commerce brand. They say, hey, we help Blake start his own e-commerce brand. They say, hey, we helped Blake start his own e-commerce brand and he now does 100K in passive revenue every single month, which means that he spends 20 hours extra with his kids and his wife. That's a very different story and a very different narrative. To gain my attention to at least go, I should have a look at them.
Speaker 3:Okay, so objection handling. We kind of touched on this at the start before we kind of started recording. In recruitment you get trained on all sorts of objections. But in your world, or particularly starting a business, what were some of the most frequent objections you guys faced?
Speaker 2:when starting harwell I'd say sound like a twat, but it feels like a long time ago. We had to kind of cop a few now because you've got a level of familiarity in the market probably not too sharp on it these days, are we?
Speaker 4:the first one was hey, it's har, it's Harvey from Harwell. Who, who? Yeah, it's Harvey from Harwell, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:The fee is always a big one. Yeah, right, like some of the guys, I'll just place the values on $430,000 plus super Right. So we took a percentage on that. That's a decent recruitment fee. I think there's a natural bias If you ask someone why someone's so good, they'll tell you a couple of things and then they'll chuck in the negative. So that's kind of you're opening to the world. To go, oh, okay, great, and how did that impact you? No-transcript, I've got no context. To go, yeah, that's fair enough. I've been doing this for seven years. A lot of people have said the same thing. Some ways we've helped companies who said that is A, b and C and not achieve this, because I know I've been there and done it and I've got context for them. So it's a bit of a long winded one, but it's doing the research to call the right people who should have the same problem that you've previously helped with before. And you can use those kinds of case studies to go around it and use the third party stories.
Speaker 3:On the fee side, because it's something I've been a consultant for many years and you naturally think, oh well, they're working at 15%, so I should just be 15% or I should be 14%. That'll give me the shot. And I'm sure when you guys first started Harwell you just wanted to get the business on. But did you hold your position on fees or did you kind of just drop it? I actually increased my fees when I did so.
Speaker 2:I bought my dog shit when I was at the old company anyway, because there's a lot of legacy relationships which you kind of just had to stick to. So I bumped mine up when we started even thanks to Blake and Dec at the time kind of invoice on contract being signed as well rather than start date, which cashflow wise in the early days was massive. So my terms got better. Yours stay pretty similar.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've probably moved a fair bit towards retained work and actually managed to managing to get 50 of the money up front 50, yeah um fee negotiation or fear, objection handling.
Speaker 4:It all comes around to how how much you articulate your value.
Speaker 4:Me and ads are quite lucky in the sense of we recruit high-level senior positions within businesses which, as you know, can be make or break and the ROI on getting that right or wrong, the recruitment fee becomes a drop in the ocean.
Speaker 4:Like we just discussed a CFO that renegotiated an international freight deal that's a real story. So when we're talking about millions of dollars of change in year one, the 45K they've paid for that recruitment fee, it's all of a sudden a drop in the ocean. But on the other hand it's getting it wrong the time the money potential damage that person can do to the business. If you can articulate all that well enough, then you won't get pushbacks on fees because it's saying you've got to put them in a position where they're like, oh shit, I'm actually stupid not to invest in this. If I ever come out of a meeting and someone asks for a fee reduction, first thing I do is think back of that meeting and go where did I go wrong? What didn't I do? Because they should never come out of that meeting trying to save a grand on a recruitment fee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting. On a recruitment fee yeah, so it's interesting. I think there's a few things you boys do that create an outcome where objections aren't as prevalent as probably you were used to at Hayes, for example. And I think what I'm understanding at the moment is the first is the framing for the discovery call. So it's framing hey, I've done this a lot, I'll help you out, no matter what. This isn't a sales pitch. Let's just see if we can help From doing that and then moving into the past and then creating a gap between where they're at today and where they want to be and the issues that they experienced in the past.
Speaker 1:Essentially, what you're doing is it sounds like you're approaching it as a trusted advisor. You're framing the call. So it's not a salesy. I'm going to win this business. I just genuinely want to help Then, digging further into their past around you know why someone didn't work out what the issues, et cetera, et cetera. How much did that cost your business? How much did it cost in time, energy, effort, Creating this massive, massive gap of where they're at today and where they could be, and then finding a solution. It's almost as you say. It creates this gap where the client probably feels a bit stupid for asking a thousand bucks off because they've just identified a $5 million gap in their business that they need plugging.
Speaker 4:And that's the most important part of the solution, not the fee yeah, and it's also having value bombs to thread in throughout that meeting or conversation, whatever it might be, and that's based off third-party stories. So hey, I don't know if your situation is different, but when I helped the cfo in the company up the road, one thing that he found was that when he had the wrong talent in his team, he actually spent his time managing down and fixing mistakes that were way, way below him. That was taking up 10 to 20 hours a week. Now what he worked out. If he had that 10 to 20 hours a week focusing upwards and outwards onto the market, he could have actually made millions of dollars for that company or started new business divisions, moved into new markets, whatever it might be. So when we kind of went in that full circle moment and back to a 25K recruitment fee although he's got an internal recruitment team he actually felt the investment to come with us was a wise decision Fuck you, sarah Mate.
Speaker 2:That sounds so good.
Speaker 3:Who you got mate, that is exactly how you talk to very senior people, because you can't address what they're doing wrong, because it's that ego play, but saying Mr CFO over here has done this and anyone listening to the call who needs to overcome objections like that. That's how to do it. Frame it with someone else.
Speaker 4:But I'm not selling. I'm talking from a real life experience. I'm explaining the benefit that the CFO at the road has got. I'm also pre-handling the objection of hey mate, we've got an internal recruitment team, so we can't use recruitment fees fees, because that internal recruitment team for the CFO at the road was just posting a job ad on Seek. They weren't doing a headhunt and I don't need to tell you that. You know that the best people aren't applying on Seek, as you wouldn't be Just fucking wrap them up.
Speaker 3:I want to stay on objections, but I can't stop thinking about this 50% retainer you're talking about, and I think everyone who's listening on the call or on the call or on the podcast rather wants to know about it. What do you do to position a 50% retainer? Do you know what? I don't sell it.
Speaker 4:I don't sell it. I do the discovery and, as we discussed, our discovery is pretty in depth. At the end of it I say, hey guys, there's a few different options. I'm going to send through my terms of business. We don't need to sit here and read it and discuss it now. I say I'm going to send it through. Read it. Naturally, you're going to have some questions. Come back to me. There's a few different package options. Typically at roles of this level, we have seen people edge towards this package before, but I don't know if that's the right one for you. So I want you to go and think about it and come back to me. And normally you just get an email back saying accent.
Speaker 2:Hey, mate, we'll go with. Yeah, it's a piss day because I'll just get a fucking. I'm sat there grounding away in the construction trenches and then yeah, oh yeah, that's retained. Yeah, that one's retained as well, but they're choosing to do it. Yeah, they're going harvey, can you? You know, I'll pay this today. Can we get started? It's a service, right?
Speaker 3:I used to. I did a bit of a cheat mode when I first started selling retainers because I was really struggling and I just said, okay, we won't pay a retainer, but you'll pay a third of it when you get the shortlist, which is basically the moment I've sent something over.
Speaker 1:So it's like a retainer, but the service they get with it is what they're paid for yeah, see, the experience that I had is when I first heard about retainers I thought how the hell is someone ever getting paid before they've started the work Like? It never made sense to me. And then one day I thought you know what? I'm just going to whack a retainer on my terms and pump up my contingent rates so high that the retainer looks really, really attractive. Never mentioned the retainer, and I used to do a third, a third, a third, because that was like the most common. And then what I found was, because I'm used to recruiting contingent roles, I'd invoice the third and then within two days I've found the shortlist and I'd have to invoice the shortlist and they haven't even paid the first part yet. And I'm still like it was an admin nightmare. So moving to just half upfront, half on contract acceptance was, from an administration standpoint, better, but you got way better commitment and clients turn around and go. What's this option?
Speaker 1:You go oh yeah, look, 99% of our clients actually do choose that. But because we've never worked together, I didn't want to pitch that to you straight away, but that is the most sensible option.
Speaker 3:I used to love selling retainers, but putting a completion up on the board, that's a third of the fee you're like ugh.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a different mindset. But, yeah, it's a different mindset. But it's also elevating yourself as an essential service to their business rather than just a recruiter. And it's again, you've got to have your objection handles ready. It's easy in my world because it's accounting, but you wouldn't go to two accounting firms and go, all right, I want you to both do a full end-of-year tax return and whichever one comes back best, I'm going to pay you and the other one you can go away because you've not given me the result. Yeah, when you say it like that, yeah, like that. And I'm like, okay, if you're going to go to two recruitment agencies or three or four, and whoever gets the best result, why would I invest my time into that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a bit of an advice thing and a bit of an education process with your clients as well. When you explain to them what a retainer's for, nine times out of ten, they get it and they kind of go along with it.
Speaker 3:And also framing it in their language, like you just did like for accountants or you don't go into retail. You don't say that you put your stuff through the checkout and then decide how much you're going to pay. You know, we decide up front. And we're not perfect right, we're not just retainer, we're not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these job briefs, the way I'm sounding them, sometimes they are pulling, you know, blood from a stone. Is that the metaphor?
Speaker 3:yeah, I was going to say blood from a stone yeah, whatever, that's a hard one.
Speaker 1:That's where we try to be right?
Speaker 2:do we work on contingent, non-exclusive roles? Of course we do right. Do we use that foot in the door to do a good job, to then picture with Tane a second time around? Absolutely. You know there are some clients who are a little bit left field when they call up and they've got a job or whatever it is. Do we go and do it? Sometimes we might do so. We're not absolutely live and die by what we said exactly here, but it's just probably that journey that you want to go on, and the earlier you are, the harder it is. But sometimes if you can stay true to where you want to be in the end, that's where you'll get there a bit quicker, because the focus is there.
Speaker 3:I like that Okay.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to pivot to the trust building exercise. What is the fastest way for a recruiter to go from just a recruiter to a trusted partner or a trusted advisor?
Speaker 2:Results I was going to say no, turn down the business you know, or advise people not to take your offer if it's not the right thing for them.
Speaker 2:I think part of the cost I'll frame this really well maybe I can't remember the cost I want or not but basically saying, look, what we're going to do here is work through a few options and yes, I've got a bit of bias towards my one.
Speaker 2:But if you say this other option with the other recruiter or company is going to give you more time, your kids have more money in the pocket, I'll be the happiest guy in the boat for you because I'd hate to take that away from you into this role and then straight away, they go. Great has my interests at heart. So at the back end, when there does need to be a bit of pressure put on potentially, or a little bit of more directness, they know you're doing it from the place of their interests rather than your own. And it's easy to talk about two years in because we've got a level of business and success, if you want to call it that, where we're not begging people to work with us and we can lose a fee for the right reason, because we know and believe in the world, and the universe is going to kind of come back round for us anyway, Did you feel the same at Hayes?
Speaker 3:Did you turn much businesses away when you were there?
Speaker 2:If I did, I would have felt like I was cheating on them because it was not what you're meant to do. So I might have been like, hey, mate, I actually think you're right, this one's not for you, take the other one. Whereas now we're kind of very vocal about it. Yeah, we're happy to, kind of. And if one of our staff said, look, actually he's going to take the other option because of ABC, I'd go fantastic, stay in touch with him.
Speaker 2:Obviously he's going to potentially become a client down the term bigger picture thinking and it's, you can go to bed at night and just feel better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, as well, like I think that's, that's half of it, hey yeah, it's just realizing that, although we're the facilitator, it's not about us. It's about the company that you're helping, it's about the job seeker you're helping and in which, both ends of the spectrum, the company owner has hundreds, potentially thousands, of employees that rely on them for their livelihood, or that job seeker is about to make a massive change, which the wrong change changes their wives, their husbands, their kids' lives. So when you think that I'm not the important one here and I'm actually going to do the best by you as a human, doing that over a period of time the compounding effect of what the long game looks like you're always going to win.
Speaker 1:So, harvey, how would a recruiter let's say we've got a three-year recruiter at Hayes currently at the moment they're thrashing it out, they're grafting and they feel like their relationships are probably a little transactional and they want to elevate themselves and become that trusted advisor in their niche. What would one piece of advice you would give to them to be able to start? Either a mindset shift, a phrase, a to-do list, a call to action, what could they do to start going further towards being a trusted advisor instead of a transactional recruiter?
Speaker 4:Good question. A couple of answers spring to mind. One of them is I don't know whether this is going to piss a few people off I think you can only be treated as much as your job title or your position allows. Unfortunately, if you're in a transactional role in a massive global corporate, you're going to be viewed as transactional. What can you do to try and fight against that? Probably personal development.
Speaker 4:One thing that we learned from working in a big corporate is their training to get you up and running and learn recruitment is outstanding. There is no better place to go and learn recruitment at the moment than somewhere like that. But that's where it stops. There is no deep psychology training into how to learn your ICP and learn everything about them Language of leaders. How do I talk to them? You know even go and listen to podcasts in finance. I listen to CFO podcasts all the time. I'm a numbers geek, but that's why I can sit in front of a cfo and talk their language. Um, so when you go and do things like that which, again, they don't prompt you to do in these places, you have to go and seek it out yourself. I think that's probably the best step you can take, or call blake and ed and start your
Speaker 1:agency through x recruiter. We'll tell you how to do it. So I'll give you that 100 bucks.
Speaker 4:But but we joke about that, and the reason I say what I said at the start I know it didn't offend anyone is the minute we stopped working as a senior recruitment consultant at Hayes to I'm now the founder, co-founder and director at Harwell. There were people that I was trying to call for years and wouldn't give me the time of day. And you pick up the phone or you send them an email with a slightly different signature where you've got skin in the game and you're doing it for yourself. All of a sudden they'll go and sit down and go for a coffee with you and nothing changed in that initial period of time other than where I was, what I was called and what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Love that, so just change your email signature to director. Vice president.
Speaker 3:Even if you're not one, then just have a crack. Yeah, pretty much done. What's the one key takeaway that someone should take from this episode? I'll ask you both individually.
Speaker 2:I one, I think, probably the intention. I think you're going into help right, and you don't need their business and they don't need yours. If you can help them, though, then it's. It makes sense that they'd want to use your service. I think there's a lot of depth to that and if you listen back, you speak about the discovery and the pre-framing and the agenda and the level of research you go into. I think if you come in with that mindset to help, to understand, you're going to, straight away, be in the top 10 for the people who just need to make a fee so they make budget for the quarter yeah, um, I probably say ask yourself how much you want it, and what I mean by that is it's easy for me and ads.
Speaker 4:This is our business, this is our livelihood. But all of the stuff we've discussed today has been a super, super hardcore two-year learning journey, because we've burnt the boats and we've gone all in on this like it's our actual life. I think about it every single minute of the day. So how much do you really want it? Because if you do and you go all in, that's what you can do in such a short period of time. Buckle up.
Speaker 3:Buckle up, you get the seatbelts on your chest.
Speaker 1:We should do that next time. Okay, cool. All right, we've got a new addition to Confessions and the game is Are you Smarter Than Ed?
Speaker 3:I didn't come up with this game, by the way, blake did.
Speaker 1:I came up with this game when I was listening to Nova 106.5, and it was like maybe it was Nova, maybe it was someone else, but it was like are you smarter than Suze? And essentially, callers would come in and they'd try and like battle Suze for like general knowledge, and it was always such a fun experience, one to see you know just the general population, on how they can answer the questions, but two, it was just really engaging.
Speaker 3:And the answer is probably yes, by the way.
Speaker 2:Depends on the context.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to fire off 10 football themed questions. So should we just show why it's football?
Speaker 3:because you two boys have played football at a pretty reasonable level. Right, I know that, but I don't know what kind of level you played at. So maybe for the listeners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we were League 2 pros, so League 2 is actually League 4, so you've got the Premier League Championship League 1, so you've got the Premier League Championship League one.
Speaker 2:League two. You didn't dab that bit. I was pretty out of fun with it. So we were there kind of came through the system and then did two years together as apprentices and then a bit of time as a pro, which was good. But it's not as glamorous as it might look but in terms of what it instills in you along the way, it gives you a lot of ticker, your thick skin like you're getting sea bombed off by grown men, you know, and you pass a ball and it's not to their right foot. Even all the forfeits and stuff we used to do and the initiations I even stood there. A group of like 15, 16 year olds had to go and get your missus or your mum's lingerie and then stand and sing Christmas songs in front of the first team squad, like all this crazy shit.
Speaker 4:We still do that in any normal, yeah, any normal walk of life.
Speaker 2:It's probably workplace bullying, but football is just part of the process.
Speaker 3:Love it okay, so that's why that's why it's football themed.
Speaker 1:That's why, okay, cool. So what's the rules do we have?
Speaker 4:to ping. I think you're gonna read them ping it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I said to Serge there has to be some football questions from the 80s and stuff, because if it's all, just all right, let's see, I wasn't even born.
Speaker 2:Nice. Thanks, man, I'm getting going for this.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think we should put our hands on our laps, okay.
Speaker 4:Because we're all right next to the buzzer. Everyone is like it's 2v1 here. By the way, I'll just move my chair in a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Question number one who holds the record for the fastest goal scored in Premier League history?
Speaker 4:Shane Long Correct.
Speaker 1:That is random, very good, okay. So I've realised we've got four options here, so I'm going to actually read out the four options.
Speaker 4:One nil to half. No, we don't need the options. No, well played.
Speaker 1:Well played. So it's currently one Harwell zero Ed.
Speaker 3:Glover oh, double up Love it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1:Who won the Premier League golden boot in the 2020-21 season? A. Jamie Vardy, b. Mohamed Salah. C. Bruno Fernandes. D Harry Kane.
Speaker 3:I'll go Harry Kane. Oh, that's right One all I was flapping.
Speaker 4:Just a question If we know the answer before you finish reading the options are we allowed to buzz.
Speaker 1:I reckon you can, did you, no? Which player has won the most Ballon d'Or awards? Messi, yeah, let's go Shit. That's two for Ed. We got one for Harlow. Is Adela late to play? Okay? Question four who scored the winning goal in the 2010 FIFA World Cup final? Iniesta, yeah.
Speaker 4:Correct, yeah, I was like no, that's Andres, did that Andres.
Speaker 1:All right, that's still all I was trying to work out who. That's still all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's still all I was trying to work out who played in the game.
Speaker 1:Okay, question five which team did England face in the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup?
Speaker 4:Croatia. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 3:I cried when we lost the game. I don't know any of these questions and answers. We're all English, we all play football, so it's a bit easier. A lot of recruiters are English, so they'll get it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've got three points to Harwell, two points to Ed Glover. Which country has won the most FIFA World Cups?
Speaker 4:Oh, oh, damn it.
Speaker 1:Brazil. Yes, can we have a bonus point? For second Okay, we've got four points to Harwell, two points to Ed. Come on, Ed Mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, break away.
Speaker 1:Who won the UEFA Euro 2020? Ed Portugal.
Speaker 4:Incorrect. No, italy, italy yeah.
Speaker 2:You made it there, mate.
Speaker 1:Always put your hand through the desk, mate. Okay, so that's five to Harwell, two for Ed how many questions have we got?
Speaker 4:This might not actually be a very good segment for us mate.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's five to Harwell, two for Ed. How many questions have we got?
Speaker 3:This might not actually be a very good segment for us, mate, Not really we'll cut this out after this which club is known as Los Blancos, real Madrid. Get in there. He just didn't finish saying that.
Speaker 4:So that's six. Two yeah, with Questions to go. So I think we've won.
Speaker 2:Poor that cup surgery.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but let's do them anyway.
Speaker 1:Okay last two questions, just bonus questions, double points. Who holds the record for the most Premier League appearances? Brian Giggs Incorrect.
Speaker 4:I've got this one, gareth Barry, nice.
Speaker 3:Okay, last question 80s mate I told you 80s.
Speaker 1:Last question which footballer Is famous for the hand of God goal there, you go Armando Maradona. What was the final score? 9-5 it was double points. It was double points at the end, oh yeah 9-5 I got smoked. Good job, boys, you're not only good recruiters, you're good under the pressure, under the pump of football questions.
Speaker 4:Thanks, mate. So, ed, I've just had a bit of hot sauce put in front of me, Would you?
Speaker 1:like to pour it out for.
Speaker 4:Ed Do.
Speaker 1:I have to do it Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Ed's got to have a shot of hot sauce.
Speaker 1:Fill that puppy to the brim Can we have some background music.
Speaker 4:Let's try and get a bit of lift music yeah. What hot sauce is this Homemade. Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:All right, the brim. No, that's good. That's good Jesus.
Speaker 3:You need to get a good angle of the vomit here, Serge.
Speaker 1:Vomitron. That's pretty nice, serge, but it is hot. I'm Latino, mate, I can deal with it. Are you Latino? Yeah, I am. I'm mummies. Oh, you're mum. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:If listeners want to get in touch with you, or clients or anyone like that, what's the best way?
Speaker 2:There's two ways. So LinkedIn is kind of our corporate persona, if you like Adam Powell, Harvey Rivers on LinkedIn or Harwell Harwell, but Instagram is the one we're pushing at the moment. So our personal brands are trying to ramp up and probably do a bit of a behind the scenes and building the journey as well and, as you'd expect, there's some things you can put on there that probably aren't suitable for LinkedIn. So that's Adam Powell for me.
Speaker 4:It's Harvey Rivers for me. With the it at the start yeah, yeah, but genuinely we are looking to expand. So if any recruiters are listening to this, this is me selling.
Speaker 1:This is a call to action. This is a call to action at the bottom of the post.
Speaker 4:I'm fucking leaning into it.
Speaker 1:We are selling hard.
Speaker 4:Now if people listen to this and they think that their own agency isn't what they want to do and they want to come and speak to us and move to the beautiful Gold Coast. We're always looking for experienced people in the right areas that can compliment what we're already doing.
Speaker 2:I look probably to wrap it out Thanks to you guys the next recruit as a whole, like we're very vocal about our appreciation. Two years ago two and a bit years ago Now we were shit scared. Like it's looking back, the dots all kind of connect up nicely. But at the time it wasn't like that. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. The scarcity was real. We've got 20 grand in the bank. We've got to keep this. You know we can't lose that. But the belief and confidence you guys have given us or did give us back then, and then the continued kind of improvement on both sides, I think I said at the mastermind Blake, what I love about the partnership we've got is we've both grown at the same rate. So we'll need something and you'll make it happen, or you guys will get something, you'll give it to us. So we continue to level up together and we're just better together.
Speaker 1:Appreciate that. Boys, thanks for coming on sharing your journey. You guys have absolutely killed it. Hopefully recruiters out there are inspired by your journey. I know they would be. And yeah, if you're a recruiter and you want to, fucking join the A-team hit up. Harwell, let's go. Thanks boys, Thanks guys.