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.

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· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Buckle up listeners, because today we're diving into
the incredible world of twoabsolute legends, harvey and
Adam, a dream team of A playerswho live and breathe sales,
communication and personaldevelopment.
Not only have they hustled inbig agency, started their own
from scratch, built a teamaround them and grown so much
they'll land themselves on theAFR list.
These two lads have been on awild, heart-pounding ride

(00:21):
that'll leave you inspired andready to crush your recruitment
goals.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You boys have been busy.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Didn't know I was in a podcast with JK Rowling.
Thanks for joining us, boys.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thanks for having us Third time.
This is our hat-trickappearance, I know, and there's
probably plenty of people whoknow who you are from listening
to the podcast before, but Iwant to kind of hand the floor
to you guys for a few minutesand just, I know blake's giving
a pretty thorough rundown ofwhat you guys have done, but
just from your side, um, just abit 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

(00:57):
been a roller coaster.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
We can say that, that's for sure.
Um, we, we didn't know what wewanted this to be when we
started it.
In all honesty, other than meand Ads trying to bill, I think
half of what we might havebilled for our previous agency,
which would have put us in apretty good position and doubled
our earnings anyway.
Spend 30 hours a week workingand a bit of time on the beach
is what it was meant to be.

(01:19):
It's probably been polaropposite.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I think the growth individually and together has
just probably been the mostsurprising thing.
Like, I think, when you're inthe thick of big corporate world
, your world's quite small.
You only really know what theywant you to know, which is a
good tactic, I guess, toincrease the fear of getting out
there and seeing the real world.
But the journey we've been onas people the last two years,
that's probably the mostimpressive thing for us and I

(01:44):
think the journey from goingfrom thinking we know everything
to now knowing a lot more twoyears later but knowing we know
nothing if that makes a bit ofsense and that's what excites me
the most is we're still justscratching the surface of what
we've done so far and the worldwe're trying to step into now
are just incredible.
And some of the people we get tospeak to through recruitment,

(02:08):
through the podcast, podcast andjust general, that kind of
network on the gold coast ofpeople who want to lift other
people up, it's going to be acrazy another two years ahead.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
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 lookback and go, we were actually
pretty shit.
Yeah, I had no idea, andthankfully we thought we were
pretty good, otherwise we not behere.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
You're not doing 30 hours a week now, then safe to
say so we doubled that.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, so we're knocking our 60s.
Probably Our downfall, but alsoour biggest strength is we just
take on so much and we justfigure it out when we get there
along the way.
So the podcast again could be adistraction, but the benefits
you found from that have beencredibility and kind of the
networks you've been in.
Even the team has meant it'sjust been me and Harves, and
then we hired Andy and Chloe tostart a trades and labour

(02:48):
division.
That was probably the leastlabour-intensive decision we
made, because they're alreadyreally really good at what they
do and they're the experts inthat space.
We've kind of just built theplatform for them to come and do
it and then building out theteams again.
So as of today we've got a teamof eight, which is seven

(03:10):
recruiters and a marketingcoordinator, and then we just
rolled out the strategy down atBunker and Byron over the
weekend and that's going to be12 of us by Jan.
So about to get right back inthe trenches again for another
absolute hoorah.
Buckle up.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Buckle up.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
And so what's it like starting an agency with your
best friend?
Because we talk to recruitersall the time and one of the
common themes before startingtheir business is do I do it by
myself, do I do it with acolleague, do I try and find a
friend?
What's your experience beenlike starting a business
together, and is there anythingyou would do differently now,

(03:43):
being where you're at?

Speaker 4 (03:43):
I think when you get it right, it can honestly be a
superpower.
I think we spoke at the recentMastermind we had a question
around that and the way we feelit's like we've got three brains
and what I mean by that is Adshas an idea, I have an idea or
opinion on something, and thenwe kind of normally settle on
something that's in the middle.
So it's a little bit of asuperpower in that sense.

(04:11):
Um, as well as things like youknow, if I'm having a shit month
or I'm down in the dumps or atthe moment got a newborn at home
and it's baby number two andlife's a bit hectic, he's over
there pumping out massive monthswhich take the pressure off so
I can just kind of breathe alittle bit, and vice versa.
There's been times in the pastwhere perhaps construction's
been a little bit quiet forwhatever reason, and I can just
dig in and make sure I'm pumpingout big months, so you never
have to go into that scarcitymindset, I find, of trying to

(04:34):
scratch around for deals orpanicking.
So it's been a superpower inthat sense and just enjoying the
journey together, like we doeverything together, like we're
genuinely fucking levels abovebest mates yeah, and to go and
share that experience and theachievements, like I'd rather be
on the front of the newspaperor hit the AFR alongside him
than doing it myself.

(04:55):
So just the personal side ofthings as well, it's a cool
journey and I hope we look back.
I think we had a question onour podcast from a listener that
said what are you two going tobe talking about when you sat
with a schooner in 30, 40 yearstime?
And we both just said we hopewe fucking look back and we're
just still best mates and we go.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
What a fucking ride that was yeah, yeah, I've got a
massive opinion on it because Ithink it's easy to look at us
and go, fuck, I need to get abusiness.
But that kind of came after 13years of knowing someone and I
wouldn't be able to go intobusiness with anyone else now
without having that kind ofdepth, because I think you'd
just be second guessing thewhole time Like there's nothing

(05:33):
that we don't know about eachother's lives.
Luckily, we're from verysimilar backgrounds in the UK,
both kind of rely on our mum,both got a sister we want to
support, not from particularlywell-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 thecar I think the reason it works
so well is because there's noego in terms of whose idea is

(05:55):
better or worse.
We're very happy to go if, say,I want to go and start this AI,
world halves will go.
Okay, great, have you consideredthis, this and this?
And if that evidence is strongenough to go, actually it's not
the right idea, I'm happy to go.
Fuck you, right, let's justchange tack.
Let's do something else wedon't fall in love with.
Oh, but it's my idea, so itmust be right, and vice versa,

(06:15):
and we can also call each otherout pretty bluntly because we
know it's coming from a place of.
We need this business to workso we can support our families.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, you know what's really interesting?
I've been speaking to a lot ofdirectors and partners of
agencies and some of thefeedback that they give is I
didn't get into business withthis person, I've been forced
into business with this personbecause, they've kind of grown
the ranks and now they're adirector and you know, now
they're equal in New South Walesas a director and they're all

(06:43):
kind of participating in theirbusiness and they didn't
actually choose their businesspartners and there's like this
level of animosity to be like,well, if I'm in business, I want
to choose who I go intobusiness with.
And so the reason why I sharethat story is because one of my
girls at Vendito kind of saidsomething in a similar vein.
You know they saw you guys atthe mastermind and said I wish I

(07:06):
had that, I want that out of mybusiness partner.
And it was just a reminder tosay getting into business isn't
normally like that.
They're best mates in businesstogether.
They're not business partnersin business together, and so
it's a really unique opportunityand situation.
You guys find yourself in Cause,as you say, it was 13 years of

(07:28):
building up to get into businesswith each other, whereas
sometimes there's this kind offantasy or, or you know,
idealistic concept that you know, you're going to get into
business with your businesspartner, You're going to be in
love with them and they're goingto be best mates and do all
this stuff and, like most timesthan not, that's not what
happens with business partners.

(07:48):
So you guys are in a reallyreally good spot that you're not
only best mates that helps, youknow, keep the glue together
but you're also super humblewith how you're approaching
business as business partnerstoo.
So it's really inspiring tolook at.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, I didn't really like my business partner, but
it was just seemed like two goodoperators.
And then you end up beingdriven by ego half the time.
But when you're good mates,like you're saying, you park the
ego and you just do what'sright for each other.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
I guess there's probably levels to it as well.
Like Harwell isn't just abusiness anymore, it's kind of
the combination of everythingthat we're about as people as
well.
I get a little woo-woo with it.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
It's almost like a cult, isn't it?
I mean it kind of is.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's a representation of both of us, whether that's
in recruitment, whether that'sthe podcast, whether that's just
the clothes we wear.
So I think you can go intobusiness with someone for a
business outcome and know wewant to scale and exit that, and
then we'll shake hands and goour separate ways.
But there's no end date here.
This is going to be until weroll over, which hopefully is

(08:42):
after the box.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
There can be a very difficult side to business
partnership as well, like onething that we've learned is the
only risk to Harwell is mine andAdam's relationship, nothing
else.
If our relationship breaks downfor whatever reason, harwell is
at risk.
So it's one thing that as thebusiness has got much bigger and
we've got a lot more, a lotbusier, the first thing that we

(09:07):
probably push to the side is meand him spending time together
as mates not business, justpurely mates.
So we've tried to now actuallyput times into the calendar
where a few weeks back we wentand did a nine hole pitch and
putt on a thursday morning justas mates, and it was so good for
us and we definitely needed it,because now we're going into

(09:29):
another crazy sprint.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
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 whyyou work hard, right when you
can just take a bit of time outand go hang out with each other
as mates and go, yeah, we'reenjoying the fruits of our labor
, yeah, okay.
So let's get into the topics ofthe podcast, which is all

(09:54):
around business development,lead generation, prospecting, et
cetera.
So I guess the first pillarthat we want to talk about is
lead generation and prospecting.
So you guys have had a reallystrong kind of growth period
over the last two years.
When you started, you bothstarted from scratch,
essentially, so no better peopleto ask these questions to.

(10:15):
But I guess I'm going to giveyou a broad question right now,
and this is going to be morefocused to Adam what's the most
effective strategy you've usedto consistently generate leads
when you first started?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
There's probably two answers.
When we first started, it wasthat big blue ocean blank canvas
, right?
Who is every constructioncompany in Queensland that we
don't know about?
Who's the contacts?
Let's get them into a campaignwith email marketing.
It was probably a bit of ascattergun approach just to get
momentum and runs on the boardand then over time we now had
the luxury of going okay,there's a certain amount of

(10:50):
business that we need to have agood year.
Let's be particular about whowe want those clients to be.
The first answer was justprobably volume, to be honest,
around our ICP.
We know they've got to be acommercial builder, maybe in
residential, probably tier two,tier three, maybe a big
subcontractor.
If you're one of those, you'rein Queensland, you're fucking
getting an email.
And then over time now it's alot more referral based and

(11:12):
relationship based.
I'm lucky I've got a bit of asuperpower, a super weapon, andy
Hanna, who's out there poundingthe pavement, banging on sites.
Every day he sees what's goingon on the ground, on site, and
if a builder is scaling up fromwhat a subcontractor has told
him, I kind of get that lead.
So I've got a bit of a point togo and follow.
And then vice versa, when I goand place the project manager or
the site manager, we then goand get the labour hire off the

(11:34):
back of that.
So a bit of a double act.
On the Gold Coast there'sprobably not many sites and
people who don't know about atleast one of us about at least
one of us.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, that's really interesting.
So you said a few things therethat 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 processthere?
How do you know who to targetto be able to get the leads to
start with?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
It's probably knowing who you don't want to work with
.
That's probably the easier wayto go For us.
I don't want to be doing loadsin civils because it's not my
area of expertise.
It's not what I'm that familiarwith.
I haven't got a network inthere, the tier one world.
There's too many layers ofrecruitment teams in there.
It's too slow and kind ofmundane and they prefer to work
with the bigger tier oneagencies as well.
That's just what they like todo.

(12:21):
So who's left out of that?
Tier twos, tier threes,developer builders and then kind
of the biggest subcontractorswho almost run like a mini
builder within themselves.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
So that's interesting because a lot of the
conversations we have withrecruiters who are trying to
niche, they get a little bitscared that they're niching too
much and they're going to loseopportunity.
And because they're so specificlet's say, for example, you're
only going after tier twobuilders you will exhaust that
market really, really quickly.

(12:51):
And then there's a really easyway to just get distracted and
try and open your market up alittle bit further and go into a
different market or maybe tierone or tier three or outside of
construction or kind of blur thelines on the industry that
you're focused in.
So did you ever feel that andwhat did you do when you started
to feel that?
Were there any things that youtold yourself or methods or

(13:12):
structures that kept you on thepath?
I think it's belief.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
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-beliefalready Already, knew I could
carve out a market and had amarket and a track record to
fall back on.
Okay, just because you're notwearing the big blue colour, you
can still do the same job andget the same results.
Distractions oh, this isanother quote.

(13:39):
I'm going to fuck upDistractions come disguised as
opportunities.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Is it a good one?
I love that.
That's a whole special.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
What I mean by that is you've got to have a client
out of Sydney who calls youbecause Andy's placed someone
and it's a warm lead, but it's aSydney civil construction
company.
It might be a big juicy 30K fee, but the time I'm going to
spend speaking to people inSydney who I've never spoke to
before to then potentially make30K.
If I'd reinvest that time intoQueensland with someone who's in
my ICP, a tier two builder, Icould potentially make two 30K

(14:11):
fees, and then that's.
Every conversation goessomewhere further, whereas when
I'm speaking to people in Sydneyand 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 dothat, whereas if it's in
Queensland it just takes you onestep closer.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
I find Love that.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
I think people need to look at the numbers a bit
more Like for context.
Tier two builders commercialbuilders on the Gold Coast.
If a hundred people within thatniche move around every year or
there's a hundred placementsthrough recruitment agencies
every year, an average fee of20K, that's 2 million fees up
for grabs just purely in oneniche of tier two commercial

(14:54):
builders on the Gold Coast.
If he goes and nails 50% ofthat, he's a million dollar
biller.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I think it's speed to action as well.
I think that's one thing wekind of pride ourselves on is
and it's particularly at themoment is being candidate strong
.
If you've got the candidatenine times out of 10, you'll
find them the role.
So, rather than go back to allright, let's chuck an ad on Seek
, let's do a campaign, let's doLinkedIn recruiter and going
from zero every time.
If you can start on level two,level three, because you've got

(15:20):
to pull, your speed to action isso much quicker.
Your service to the candidatesis so much better because you're
coming to them with qualityopportunities as well, the
client's happier.
And then you start to buildthat reputation as if you're
serious about hiring someonegood.
Whether it's HireWell orwhoever it is, they're the
person you go to.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
I've got a question.
So just on the campaigns.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
You mentioned that a couple of times and there's a
lot of recruiters out there whodon't have automated CRMs where
they can do that.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
So yeah, it's a fair point.
What was involved in yourcampaigns?
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 (15:56):
Pretty basic, to be honest, looking back, and it's
something I probably cringe atnow, if I read the first one, it
was the first one was a biglong one.
Hey, I'm adam, I'm a directorof high, well consulting we're a
new recruitment.
It wasn't great um, but it wasaction.
Right, we did something andthen the second stage would be a
follow-up hey, this is the kindof people we help, would you be
interested in seeing so andthere'd be a third stage and a
fourth stage, kind of spreadover four to five months, and we

(16:18):
did snag a few new clients fromit.
So it does work.
Whether that's now become a bittoo saturated because of the
likes of Locksow and everyone'sgot, or a lot of people have got
access to those tools, that'sprobably a different question in
itself, and it's something wedon't rely on too heavily now.
If we're ever going to do acampaign to a client, it's more
a content of value campaign.
So we're not selling, providingthem free value in terms of top

(16:42):
five interview questions.
You've got to be asking Topquestion.
You should ask your candidatesto find out how good your
recruiter actually is, bits andpieces like that.
So when the time comes and theydo need to pick a recruiter,
we've been in the inbox once amonth and we've given them stuff
for free, with no expectation.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
I love that.
I used to talk about that quitea bit, and action is the thing
you said there.
I used to say to consultantsyou know why would a client use
you a lot of times?
Because I'm this, I do allthese great things.
Sometimes it's because you'vebeen in touch the most right and
you've added value every timeyou have.
So that is a key point.
I think for those out there,listening, doing the action is
probably 90% of the job and youcan sit there and rewrite it a

(17:17):
million times.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
You know it sounds perfect.
Perfect on one day.
You come into the office thenext day oh, that's how that
fucking sounds.
Shit.
How many times have we donethat?
So it's just about press thebutton.
Learn from the feedback you getor the feedback you don't get.
If you get no replies, itprobably wasn't a good campaign
and then just rejig and adjustrather than try and get it
perfect Because, again, it's atiming thing.
It could be the perfect bunchof words on the email, but email

(17:40):
.
But if they just hired the PMlast week, they're not going to
be looking for one Isn't.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
the quote being done is better than perfect or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
So so volume is essentially.
Your answer to begin with isjust get out there, make some,
take action and refine yourapproach as you go on, whether
that be email, phone, et cetera.
What about personal brandingcontent?
Like this is something that youguys are really, really good at
.
How would somebody threadpersonal branding content, this
type of thing, in with theirproactive outbound BD strategy?

Speaker 4 (18:18):
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 whoyou're trying to target.
They're the main things,because LinkedIn's amazing.
You've got a platform where youcan effectively create one to
many content.
So, rather than sit here fortwo hours and call 50 people

(18:42):
with a phone call which stillworks and still needs to be done
, call 50 people with a phonecall which still works and still
needs to be done, what abouttoday spending a two-hour block
of creating 50 pieces of contentwhich, over the period of a
month, might be viewed by400,000?
That's where it can really beutilised.
But you have to be really clearon who you're trying to talk to
.
And we've fallen into that trapof posting the fun stuff of Harv

(19:04):
doing cartwheels on the beachwhen he gets a fee in, which is
important because it shows us aspeople and that's the
authenticity side of it.
But that gets loads of likesand it often gets likes from
recruiters.
So we fell into a bit of a trapof posting content that just
got loads of likes by recruiters, but recruiters aren't coming

(19:25):
to me asking me to recruit CFOs,so it's transitioning back on
that and going who's my targetaudience?
How do I speak to them withevery single post with things
like giving them free, value,career advice, hiring tips,
things like that, just toelevate my profile?
And, as you said, with theemail inbox?
If you're sending the emails inyour top of their inbox all the

(19:47):
time, well, what if I'm on?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
their newsfeed every single day.
Yeah, so for recruiters thatare hesitant to be posting, to
be using video, that aren't surewhat to say, they don't feel
like they've got the credibilityor the authority and they just
feel like something's missing tojust get it done, what's some
advice for them to be able tofeel inspired or have a

(20:13):
framework or a process or athought process to be able to
just start posting?

Speaker 2 (20:19):
I've got two.
The first one is literally justregurgitate the conversations
you've been having with yourideal ICP again.
So if I've spoke to threeproject managers this week, two
of them might have said the samething 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 projectsBecause I can't.
That's what's hesitating,that's the pullback, that's what

(20:40):
I'll be talking about On thephone.
This week, two project managerssaid to me the.
That's what I'll be talkingabout On the phone.
This week, two project managerssaid to me the reason they're
not winning new projects they'renot confident they can put a
team together.
What have you found?
Bang.
It's real.
It shows the people you'respeaking to and you're not
making things up.
And then the other ones look atthe calendar that you've got
out.
You've got your BD blocks.
You've got your in there.

(21:02):
Don't look for gaps in there tofilm content.
Look at what you're alreadydoing that you can film.
So what I mean by that is youmight be able to set up a, set
up your mobile phone and you'resat there for two hours doing BD
.
Just have a time lapse of youjust sat there punching it right
and just go.
What does a morning of a crewlook like?
bang, or if you're a PM on theGold here for me in the next two
hours, just something real yeahlike that yeah, um it's less

(21:25):
invasive walking around on thephone as well, um, and it's just
different types of content thatpeople want to see.
I know we had a bit of achuckle, um, when we started
doing the selfie videos, and howwe started that was we set a
challenge to do uh one every dayof the week just to see what
the outcome would have been, andif we didn't do one, the other
person would have to wash theother one's car, which is so.

(21:45):
I managed to get a video of howI was washing my car, which is
good, but after we smashed thatfor a while and fair play to
people we started to see a lotof recruiters do the same kind
of content right and as theyshould.
That's all we really do as wellis copy people.
So now it's like, okay, how doagain.

(22:10):
So now we started doing a bitmore longer form content with
the podcast.
We've got rosy, and so we didmore professional kind of
production, which looks good aswell, as well as some of the
more authentic raw stuff too.
So get started is probably thefirst one, and then look at
different industries of whatthey're doing and how can you
kind of copy that and put arecruitment spin on yeah, and
it's simplest terms, right.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
If you decide you want to go and get jacked, what
do you do?
You start going to the fuckinggym, start posting content.
Yeah, just start like what?
What you see today from us isprobably day 800, right, and the
guy that's been doing bicepcurls for 800 days is gonna have
really big biceps.
But the only way you're gonnaget to day 800 is starting on

(22:43):
day one, and it's as simple asthat.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Love that.
Okay, so a bit of a summary for, like the lead gen kind of
prospecting pillar we're talkingabout is number one is just
taking action.
It's 90% volume outbound.
You've just got to take theaction, define your ICP, go
after it, don't get distracted.
Just start posting content.
Perhaps film yourself doingsomething you're already doing,

(23:09):
or start to create content outof the candidate or client
conversations you're having.
I guess, especially if you'reprospecting, doing your BD calls
and you have, you take a briefor you have a pattern of
conversation that you havethat's really easy to post about
.
So you don't have to think ofsomething from scratch and then
mix in the social media theposting, the content with the

(23:32):
outbound volume activity andthat's you know, part of the
secret sauce, to get the leads,to get the prospecting, to get
the jobs in.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Harv's actually got a really passionate thing he
likes to say about contenthaven't you mate?
About how you can ruin a goodpost, he rants and raves about
this all the time.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
When people do a really, really good post and
it's given free value or whatthey think is free value, and
then at the end, there's massivecall to action right there in
front of your face it's not freeanymore.
Whatever your post is, decidethe post.
Okay, this, it's not freeanymore.
Like whatever your post is,decide the post.
Okay, this is going to be freevalue.
I'm actually going to sell onthis post and I'm going to sell
really hard.
Or this is going to be a staffpost.

(24:12):
Shout out, just do that andstick with it.
I think I saw one the other dayon LinkedIn.
It was a leader of Wasn't mine?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
was it.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
They've obviously done really well.
Incredible recruiting firms.
I'm not knocking them here, butit was a really heartfelt post
about an executive person intheir business that has now left
and gone on to pastures new,and it was a great post, really
sincere, even had some awesomekind of subtle value builders in
there.
That got me as a business owner, thinking, okay, if I was to
hire someone like this in mybusiness, these are the things

(24:49):
or the changes I can expect.
Got me interested, which iswhat this post should do as a
business owner.
Got me interested to go.
I need to speak to this guy andthen at the end so if you're in
the market for XYZ, then talkto XYZ recruitment and I'm just
like you've just taken the edgeof such a nice post about
someone that's given 15 years ofservice to your business to

(25:10):
sell.
Just hold that and then thenext day just sell and people
aren't stupid.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
They'll read that and go.
If I need that, I'm going tocall that person yeah it
definitely licks me out a bit.

Speaker 4 (25:23):
I actually sent it to our entire team and gone.
Hey guys, this is not cut thelast three lines off this post.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
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 (25:39):
So discovery calls Ed .

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah well, discovery calls or the discovery phase of
a client meeting, just whenyou're really, you know, your
first meeting a client, forexample.
I'm really curious.
Your experience between eitherof you can answer this.
But what's a typical mistake orbig mistake that you see?

Speaker 2 (25:53):
You've just named one to do with posts, but anything
that you see in the discoveryphase, and this is probably a
Swiss teaching he's going fixingthe problem, trying to come in
and go oh, you need a projectmanager.
Great, what does that look like?
Really, you've got to slowthings down and go back, okay.
So what have you done to fixthis?
Already ready, yeah, I've goneto five recruiters whatever it

(26:13):
is, or what are the projectmanagers you had in the past
that haven't worked out?
Why is that so, taking themfrom kind of current state and
looking at the problem to goingbackwards?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
rather than jumping into solution mode straight away
?
Yeah, which?

Speaker 2 (26:22):
is easy to do, especially if you're a little
bit.
You know light on and you'vegot a job on and how exciting,
um, but yeah, just slowingthings down because they're
great before we.
Can you tell me how have yougot to this point?
Get all that context, becausethat's then what creates the
urgency and the gap.
So when you do start talkingabout the solution and you go,
okay, well, why don't we juststay as we are?
Why don't you not hire thisproject manager?

(26:43):
Why don't you just go and seekand try and find some yourself?
No-transcript as well.
It's kind of going into it.
Saying I've got the is anotherharvey rant.
When you say I've got theperfect candidate for you before

(27:06):
you've even done a brief.
Yeah, it's not possible becauseyou don't know anything about
me and my business or what we'retrying to do.
So probably go and look if wecan help.
I can walk you through how thatmight be, but if we can't, you
know it's probably gonna berecruited, I know.
Or a different avenue I can putyou in touch with as well.
And it's really is making itabout them and their problem
rather than what you can do tosolve something you don't even
know what you're solving.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
That's good and um on that, then.
So you kind of semi-answeredthe question, but position
yourself as a partner versusjust another recruiter, how do
you?
You guys have greatrelationships that have clearly
been developed over time includerecent ones too but how have
you gone about that?
Is there anything that you do,harvey, anything from your side?

Speaker 4 (27:43):
ask the questions that they probably don't ask you
or expect you to ask.
So for me a bad brief, as ifI've gone in there and just
asked every stereotypicalrecruitment question in the
world and I've not really kindof challenged their thinking or
unearthed unusual things aboutthe business.
And they can be questions assimple as what's this person
absolutely going to hate whenthey walk into this role or

(28:05):
what's the toughest things thatthey're going to find when
joining this business, becausethere might be some really
difficult things on the waythrough the door.
I've placed CFO roles wherethey're coming into a massive,
massive cleanup, but we've beenable to position that and tell
candidates so they know whatthey're coming into.
And again, that's not aquestion that any other
recruiter would ask.
So I think it starts to put youon a level, probably get them

(28:30):
to think more commercially abouttheir business.
Where do you want to be in threeyears' time?
Where do you want to be in fiveyears' time?
How does that impact thisperson?
What can they do for you inthat period of time that's going
to impact your life?
Just big questions like that.
The best thing in a discoverymeeting is when someone sits
back and goes no one's everasked me that before.

(28:51):
And then you're like okay, nowI'm on the right track.
But even being upfront andhonest, just be like look, we
might not be the right fit foreach other.
That's why we're going to sitdown and do this meeting,
because straight away you'rethen on a level of I don't need
to take on this work.
I will take it on because Iwant to.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
But because I want to is because I can get the result
for your business, because Ican get the result for your
business and do you suggest thatpeople prepare some of those
questions in advance, thosequestions that aren't on the job
brief, or do you say just onthe fly, just be real, respond,
listen, what do you?

Speaker 2 (29:22):
recommend.
I actually prep a reallydetailed brief before I go in so
say this was a client meeting,I've never worked here.
Before I do my research, I prepa draft brief which for us,
going into the detail of it, iskind of a three or four-page
document, dual branding on thetop, and then we go into a copy
and paste through the company.
Then it'd be my spiel of thecompany.
Oh well, you know X Recruiter,tier two, builder, they do A, b

(29:44):
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 programlength are they EBA, non-eba?
Where do they build?
What kind of clients do theywork with?
What are the systems they use?
I then go into the teamstructure.
Are they resourcing really well, they've got three foremen,
three CAs, whatever it is.
Then we go into the culture andthe values.

(30:05):
Then we go into key metrics ofthe role.
In the first 90 days this PMmust have the ECI completed.
Then we go into the role duties, experience required package at
the bottom.
So it's pretty heavy andobviously I can't do that before
the meeting.
But if I can get 60, 70% and Isay, hey, blake, there you go.
This is what we're going to beworking through.
You go, fuck.
This guy gives a shit.

(30:25):
He's going to research thecompany and wants to know all
this detail.
And then the actual line I useis when we walk out of this
meeting, I'm going to haveeverything.
I need to know exactly who thisperson is.
If it's not in here, then wecan't qualify someone on it, but
if I send you someone who'sdifferent to this brief, you've
got right just to hit me overthe head and say, fuck, what
have you been doing?

(30:45):
Because this is the Bible thatwe're looking for, nice.
It puts the onus back on theclient as well, because if it's
not in this brief, how do youexpect me to go and match it to
the market as well?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
You know, what you said a little bit earlier on
that I think is probably worthexploring and understanding is
around framing.
So you said a really good linebefore around, look, let's see
if we can help.
And if we can't help, do youmind if I point you in the right
direction of someone that canFraming that before going into

(31:18):
taking a job brief gives you aninstant level of credibility and
authority that you're not thereto just sell them and flick
over some CVs.
So talk to us about how youframe these discovery calls and
perhaps even the purpose of thediscovery call, because prior to
the swish method I thought whatthe hell is a discovery call in
recruitment?
It was kind of a little bit Iwas missing a trick there and I

(31:40):
didn't understand because I wasprobably really transactional in
the way that I operated whatthe purpose of a discovery call
was, why framing is importantand kind of wrap this kind of
process up before taking the jobbrief.
So who wants to go on that?
Why framing's important andkind of wrap this kind of
process up before taking the jobbrief.
So who wants to go on that?

Speaker 2 (31:57):
I can whip out an A-not if you want.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
This is as he's raring to go.
He's falling off his chair,yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
So it'll be.
Blake.
Appreciate you taking a bit oftime to work through the job.
Brief today, naturally, afterdoing this for seven years and
building how well?
Up to seven figures within twoyears.
I know a lot of builders dothings a lot of different ways.
So obviously, to find out howyou do things, I'm going to ask
you a few questions and thentypically it goes one of two
ways Either we aren't the personto help you and I'll kind of
point in the direction of who heis, we'll give you some free

(32:25):
value to help you with yoursearch.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Or if we can help you .
We'll walk through a couple ofsteps 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 arelistening they would just feel
like that is just a, like a,such a great, natural, flowing
uh conversation.
But walk, walk through the ANOTacronym and some of the points
that you've and the lines thatyou've created there.
That gives you that level ofauthority and credibility to

(33:02):
then take that really good jobbrief.
So what does ANOT stand for?

Speaker 2 (33:06):
So appreciate, naturally, and then obviously,
and then typically.
So the appreciate is justsaying thanks for your time or
thanks for sharing, sharing yourtime, because both our time is
important, and then thenaturally is the opportunity to
build value in yourself, yourcompany and your product.
Essentially so, naturally,we've been doing this for seven
years.
I know not every company is thesame, so now you know that I've

(33:27):
been doing this for seven years, we know how well the seven
figure business that we built intwo years.
So rather than me tell you howgood we are, I've kind of just
dropped that in a reallynon-invasive, non-direct way.
Obviously, I have to ask you afew questions to find out if it
can really help.
So you're kind of gettingpermission then to ask some of
the really curlies becauseyou've set up at the front end.
And then look, typically itgoes one of two ways.

(33:50):
You kind of give them an out sothey haven't got to sign up
today, or they lose this offerin 30 minutes, none of that high
pressure stuff.
They know great.
If it's not for me, he's goingto help me out anyway.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
It's all about changing their frame of mind,
matt.
Every recruiter thinks they'redifferent to all the other
recruiters, but that person thatyou're exactly like the rest.
So they're going to expect youto come in and sell from minute
one and tell them I can get youthe perfect candidate.
We do this, we do that.
So if you can come in and thefirst words that leave your

(34:20):
mouth completely reframe howthey're kind of expecting the
meeting to go.
You catch them off guard.
The sales defenses are down, sothen you get much better answers
and you actually find the truereasoning or the true problems.
So if you can go and do thatfrom minute one in the meeting,
imagine the difference inquality of the information

(34:41):
you're going to get throughoutthat meeting which, as Adam said
, is your Bible when you walkout of there and you go to the
market because you're only asgood as the job brief you can
take, and it stops you spendingtwo, three, four weeks of wasted
time speaking to the wrongpeople, giving them the wrong
information, and then in sixweeks the client's going.
You haven't given me anyone.
You're saying, well, yeah,because you, this information

(35:02):
you gave me wasn't right, andthen we're just fucked I love
that.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
It reminds me of eight mile.
You know when he's doing thatbattle and he says all the
negative things about himself,straight away it's like get it
vaccinated, straightinateagainst it straight away and
then there's nothing for you tocome back with.
No, I love that.
Just a question on kind of coldcalls or BD calls.
You know it's something that wehave all done or have to do and
not everyone loves it.
But what's the biggest piece ofadvice?
You've got around that.
I always used to focus on skill.

(35:26):
When I was doing BD, I saidthis question how do I ask this?
How do I get them to listen tome in the first 10 seconds?
But maybe not on the mindset.
Maybe I should have focusedsomewhere else.
But what's your advice?

Speaker 4 (35:37):
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'vedone a lot of work with
ourselves and our team ofunearthing our real why, you
know?
Okay, I want to make a milliondollars of personal income a
year.
Well, why?
To support my family.
Why?
So they don't have the sameissues I did in terms of
finances when I grew up?

(35:58):
Why?
Because I want to pay off mymum's mortgage.
So when you get down to likereally, really powerful things
like that, can I then pick upthe phone a hundred times and
get told to fuck off to pay offmy mum's mortgage in five years?
Yep, all right, let's startthere.
That's the mindset is creatingan environment or a mindset
where it's impossible not to doit.

(36:18):
I think that's the first thingBecause, again, you can mull
over the perfect scripts, theperfect intros, the perfect
value builders, but if they'reall in your head and you ever
actually hit dial on the phoneand start telling them to people
doesn't matter.
So one for me was definitelythe mindset piece in BD.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
I love that.
And I also loved how you askedwhy so many times?
Is it Kaizen, they say, if youask why five times, you get to
the real answer.
That's right, yeah, so that'sactually just naturally doing it
, mate.
But yeah, I think in terms of atangible takeaway.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
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 thecall is we work with ABC in
your space.
This is how we help them.
I just want to see if you mightbe in the same boat and if
there might be value we can addto you too, and then you either
go to the meeting or you go downthe call, whatever you want,
but it's I'm working with yourcompetitors.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
We've the information you can extract as well from
your previous successes.
So rather than saying I helpedABC recruit a CFO brilliant,
that's your job.
What did that CFO achieve forthat company?
So then you've got a story andgone hey, I helped your

(37:25):
competitor up the road with anew CFO and actually
renegotiated an internationalfreight deal which saved them $6
million in year one.
This is how that's impacted thebusiness.
Can we explore the potential ofdoing that with you as well?
Love that.
So you're not just hey, Irecruit a CFO Brilliant.
10 other people have called metoday and told me they can do
that.
Here's the impact I've got fromrecruiting the right CFO.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's one thing that from my conversations,
recruiters don't go into thedepth of the outcomes of their
placements.
I know I never did.
I would usually sell thecandidate based off the features
and benefits of the candidate,not the benefits of the
candidate in the role to whatthey've achieved for the company

(38:04):
.
So being able to frame it andgo hey, I have placed a CFO,
that saved the company $6million and this is what they've
achieved.
As a business owner, a hiringmanager or someone that has a
pain point, that's going toconnect straight away and it's
going to be less about thecandidate that you're trying to
sell them and more about thesolutions and the solving of

(38:24):
their problems as a business.
So I think that's really reallygood.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
People in the e-commerce world do this really
well.
Obviously, it's a world thatI've gone into quite heavily and
we've started a nationaldivision in e-commerce now,
which is going really well.
But I've partnered with a fewpeople that specialize in
helping everyday people starttheir own e-commerce brand, and
they pump the sponsored ads onInstagram, but their ads never
say we help you start your owne-commerce brand.

(38:49):
They say, hey, we help Blakestart his own e-commerce brand.
They say, hey, we helped Blakestart his own e-commerce brand
and he now does 100K in passiverevenue every single month,
which means that he spends 20hours extra with his kids and
his wife.
That's a very different storyand a very different narrative.
To gain my attention to atleast go, I should have a look
at them.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Okay, so objection handling.
We kind of touched on this atthe start before we kind of
started recording.
In recruitment you get trainedon all sorts of objections.
But in your world, orparticularly starting a business
, what were some of the mostfrequent objections you guys
faced?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
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 nowbecause you've got a level of
familiarity in the marketprobably not too sharp on it
these days, are we?

Speaker 4 (39:29):
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 (39:35):
The fee is always a big one.
Yeah, right, like some of theguys, 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 biasIf you ask someone why someone's

(39:56):
so good, they'll tell you acouple of things and then
they'll chuck in the negative.
So that's kind of you'reopening to the world.
To go, oh, okay, great, and howdid that impact you?
No-transcript, I've got nocontext.

(40:21):
To go, yeah, that's fair enough.
I've been doing this for sevenyears.
A lot of people have said thesame thing.
Some ways we've helpedcompanies 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 contextfor them.
So it's a bit of a long windedone, but it's doing the research
to call the right people whoshould have the same problem
that you've previously helpedwith before.
And you can use those kinds ofcase studies to go around it and

(40:45):
use the third party stories.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
On the fee side, because it's something I've been
a consultant for many years andyou naturally think, oh well,
they're working at 15%, so Ishould just be 15% or I should
be 14%.
That'll give me the shot.
And I'm sure when you guysfirst started Harwell you just
wanted to get the business on.
But did you hold your positionon fees or did you kind of just
drop it?
I actually increased my feeswhen I did so.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
I bought my dog shit when I was at the old company
anyway, because there's a lot oflegacy relationships which you
kind of just had to stick to.
So I bumped mine up when westarted even thanks to Blake and
Dec at the time kind of invoiceon contract being signed as
well rather than start date,which cashflow wise in the early
days was massive.
So my terms got better.

(41:28):
Yours stay pretty similar.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
Yeah, I've probably moved a fair bit towards
retained work and actuallymanaged to managing to get 50 of
the money up front 50, yeah umfee negotiation or fear,
objection handling.
It all comes around to how howmuch you articulate your value.
Me and ads are quite lucky inthe sense of we recruit
high-level senior positionswithin businesses which, as you

(41:52):
know, can be make or break andthe ROI on getting that right or
wrong, the recruitment feebecomes a drop in the ocean.
Like we just discussed a CFOthat renegotiated an
international freight dealthat's a real story.
So when we're talking aboutmillions of dollars of change in
year one, the 45K they've paidfor that recruitment fee, it's

(42:15):
all of a sudden a drop in theocean.
But on the other hand it'sgetting it wrong the time the
money potential damage thatperson can do to the business.
If you can articulate all thatwell enough, then you won't get
pushbacks on fees because it'ssaying you've got to put them in
a position where they're like,oh shit, I'm actually stupid not
to invest in this.

(42:35):
If I ever come out of a meetingand someone asks for a fee
reduction, first thing I do isthink back of that meeting and
go where did I go wrong?
What didn't I do?
Because they should never comeout of that meeting trying to
save a grand on a recruitmentfee.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, so it's interesting.
On a recruitment fee yeah, soit's interesting.
I think there's a few thingsyou boys do that create an
outcome where objections aren'tas prevalent as probably you
were used to at Hayes, forexample.
And I think what I'munderstanding at the moment is
the first is the framing for thediscovery call.
So it's framing hey, I've donethis a lot, I'll help you out,

(43:12):
no matter what.
This isn't a sales pitch.
Let's just see if we can helpFrom doing that and then moving
into the past and then creatinga gap between where they're at
today and where they want to beand the issues that they
experienced in the past.
Essentially, what you're doingis it sounds like you're
approaching it as a trustedadvisor.

(43:33):
You're framing the call.
So it's not a salesy.
I'm going to win this business.
I just genuinely want to helpThen, digging further into their
past around you know whysomeone didn't work out what the
issues, et cetera, et cetera.
How much did that cost yourbusiness?
How much did it cost in time,energy, effort, Creating this
massive, massive gap of wherethey're at today and where they

(43:54):
could be, and then finding asolution.
It's almost as you say.
It creates this gap where theclient probably feels a bit
stupid for asking a thousandbucks off because they've just
identified a $5 million gap intheir business that they need
plugging.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
And that's the most important part of the solution,
not the fee yeah, and it's alsohaving value bombs to thread in
throughout that meeting orconversation, whatever it might
be, and that's based offthird-party stories.
So hey, I don't know if yoursituation is different, but when
I helped the cfo in the companyup the road, one thing that he
found was that when he had thewrong talent in his team, he

(44:29):
actually spent his time managingdown and fixing mistakes that
were way, way below him.
That was taking up 10 to 20hours a week.
Now what he worked out.
If he had that 10 to 20 hours aweek focusing upwards and
outwards onto the market, hecould have actually made
millions of dollars for thatcompany or started new business
divisions, moved into newmarkets, whatever it might be.
So when we kind of went in thatfull circle moment and back to

(44:51):
a 25K recruitment fee althoughhe's got an internal recruitment
team he actually felt theinvestment to come with us was a
wise decision Fuck you, sarahMate.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
That sounds so good.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Who you got mate, that is exactly how you talk to
very senior people, because youcan't address what they're doing
wrong, because it's that egoplay, but saying Mr CFO over
here has done this and anyonelistening to the call who needs
to overcome objections like that.
That's how to do it.
Frame it with someone else.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
But I'm not selling.
I'm talking from a real lifeexperience.
I'm explaining the benefit thatthe CFO at the road has got.
I'm also pre-handling theobjection of hey mate, we've got
an internal recruitment team,so we can't use recruitment fees
fees, because that internalrecruitment team for the CFO at
the road was just posting a jobad on Seek.
They weren't doing a headhuntand I don't need to tell you

(45:35):
that.
You know that the best peoplearen't applying on Seek, as you
wouldn't be Just fucking wrapthem up.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I want to stay on objections, but I can't stop
thinking about this 50% retaineryou're talking about, and I
think everyone who's listeningon the call or on the call or on
the podcast rather wants toknow about it.
What do you do to position a50% retainer?
Do you know what?
I don't sell it.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
I don't sell it.
I do the discovery and, as wediscussed, our discovery is
pretty in depth.
At the end of it I say, heyguys, there's a few different
options.
I'm going to send through myterms of business.
We don't need to sit here andread it and discuss it now.
I say I'm going to send itthrough.
Read it.
Naturally, you're going to havesome questions.
Come back to me.
There's a few different packageoptions.
Typically at roles of thislevel, we have seen people edge

(46:20):
towards this package before, butI don't know if that's the
right one for you.
So I want you to go and thinkabout it and come back to me.
And normally you just get anemail back saying accent.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Hey, mate, we'll go with.
Yeah, it's a piss day becauseI'll just get a fucking.
I'm sat there grounding away inthe construction trenches and
then yeah, oh yeah, that'sretained.
Yeah, that one's retained aswell, but they're choosing to do
it.
Yeah, they're going harvey, canyou?
You know, I'll pay this today.
Can we get started?
It's a service, right?

Speaker 3 (46:44):
I used to.
I did a bit of a cheat modewhen I first started selling
retainers because I was reallystruggling and I just said, okay
, we won't pay a retainer, butyou'll pay a third of it when
you get the shortlist, which isbasically the moment I've sent
something over.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
So it's like a retainer, but the service they
get with it is what they're paidfor yeah, see, the experience
that I had is when I first heardabout retainers I thought how
the hell is someone ever gettingpaid before they've started the
work Like?
It never made sense to me.
And then one day I thought youknow what?

(47:20):
I'm just going to whack aretainer on my terms and pump up
my contingent rates so highthat the retainer looks really,
really attractive.
Never mentioned the retainer,and I used to do a third, a
third, a third, because that waslike the most common.
And then what I found was,because I'm used to recruiting
contingent roles, I'd invoicethe third and then within two
days I've found the shortlistand I'd have to invoice the
shortlist and they haven't evenpaid the first part yet.

(47:40):
And I'm still like it was anadmin nightmare.
So moving to just half upfront,half on contract acceptance was
, from an administrationstandpoint, better, but you got
way better commitment andclients turn around and go.
What's this option?
You go oh yeah, look, 99% of ourclients actually do choose that
.
But because we've never workedtogether, I didn't want to pitch
that to you straight away, butthat is the most sensible option

(48:01):
.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
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 (48:08):
Yeah, it's a different mindset.
But, yeah, it's a differentmindset.
But it's also elevatingyourself as an essential service
to their business rather thanjust a recruiter.
And it's again, you've got tohave your objection handles
ready.
It's easy in my world becauseit's accounting, but you
wouldn't go to two accountingfirms and go, all right, I want
you to both do a fullend-of-year tax return and
whichever one comes back best,I'm going to pay you and the

(48:29):
other one you can go awaybecause you've not given me the
result.
Yeah, when you say it like that, yeah, like that.
And I'm like, okay, if you'regoing to go to two recruitment
agencies or three or four, andwhoever gets the best result,
why would I invest my time intothat?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, it's a bit of an advice thing and a bit of an
education process with yourclients as well.
When you explain to them what aretainer's for, nine times out
of ten, they get it and theykind of go along with it.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
And also framing it in their language, like you just
did like for accountants or youdon't go into retail.
You don't say that you put yourstuff through the checkout and
then decide how much you'regoing to pay.
You know, we decide up front.
And we're not perfect right,we're not just retainer, we're
not.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
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 (49:15):
yeah, I was going to say blood from a stone yeah,
whatever, that's a hard one.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
That's where we try to be right?

Speaker 2 (49:23):
do we work on contingent, non-exclusive roles?
Of course we do right.
Do we use that foot in the doorto do a good job, to then
picture with Tane a second timearound?
Absolutely.
You know there are some clientswho are a little bit left field
when they call up and they'vegot a job or whatever it is.
Do we go and do it?
Sometimes we might do so.
We're not absolutely live anddie by what we said exactly here
, but it's just probably thatjourney that you want to go on,

(49:45):
and the earlier you are, theharder it is.
But sometimes if you can staytrue to where you want to be in
the end, that's where you'll getthere a bit quicker, because
the focus is there.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
I like that Okay.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
So I wanted to pivot to the trust building exercise.
What is the fastest way for arecruiter to go from just a
recruiter to a trusted partneror a trusted advisor?

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Results I was going to say no, turn down the
business you know, or advisepeople not to take your offer if
it's not the right thing forthem.
I think part of the cost I'llframe this really well maybe I
can't remember the cost I wantor not but basically saying,
look, what we're going to dohere is work through a few

(50:32):
options and yes, I've got a bitof bias towards my one.
But if you say this other optionwith the other recruiter or
company is going to give youmore time, your kids have more
money in the pocket, I'll be thehappiest guy in the boat for
you because I'd hate to takethat away from you into this
role and then straight away,they go.
Great has my interests at heart.
So at the back end, when theredoes need to be a bit of
pressure put on potentially, ora little bit of more directness,

(50:55):
they know you're doing it fromthe place of their interests
rather than your own.
And it's easy to talk about twoyears in because we've got a
level of business and success,if you want to call it that,
where we're not begging peopleto work with us and we can lose
a fee for the right reason,because we know and believe in
the world, and the universe isgoing to kind of come back round

(51:15):
for us anyway, Did you feel thesame at Hayes?

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Did you turn much businesses away when you were
there?

Speaker 2 (51:21):
If I did, I would have felt like I was cheating on
them because it was not whatyou'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 veryvocal 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 ofABC, I'd go fantastic, stay in
touch with him.

(51:41):
Obviously he's going topotentially become a client down
the term bigger picturethinking and it's, you can go to
bed at night and just feelbetter.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Yeah, as well, like I think that's, that's half of it
, hey yeah, it's just realizingthat, although we're the
facilitator, it's not about us.
It's about the company thatyou're helping, it's about the
job seeker you're helping and inwhich, both ends of the
spectrum, the company owner hashundreds, potentially thousands,
of employees that rely on themfor their livelihood, or that
job seeker is about to make amassive change, which the wrong

(52:11):
change changes their wives,their husbands, their kids'
lives.
So when you think that I'm notthe important one here and I'm
actually going to do the best byyou as a human, doing that over
a period of time thecompounding effect of what the
long game looks like you'realways going to win.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
So, harvey, how would a recruiter let's say we've got
a three-year recruiter at Hayescurrently at the moment they're
thrashing it out, they'regrafting and they feel like
their relationships are probablya little transactional and they
want to elevate themselves andbecome that trusted advisor in
their niche.
What would one piece of adviceyou would give to them to be

(52:52):
able to start?
Either a mindset shift, aphrase, a to-do list, a call to
action, what could they do tostart going further towards
being a trusted advisor insteadof a transactional recruiter?

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Good question.
A couple of answers spring tomind.
One of them is I don't knowwhether this is going to piss a
few people off I think you canonly be treated as much as your
job title or your positionallows.
Unfortunately, if you're in atransactional role in a massive
global corporate, you're goingto be viewed as transactional.

(53:28):
What can you do to try andfight against that?
Probably personal development.
One thing that we learned fromworking in a big corporate is
their training to get you up andrunning and learn recruitment
is outstanding.
There is no better place to goand learn recruitment at the
moment than somewhere like that.
But that's where it stops.
There is no deep psychologytraining into how to learn your

(53:54):
ICP and learn everything aboutthem Language of leaders.
How do I talk to them?
You know even go and listen topodcasts in finance.
I listen to CFO podcasts allthe time.
I'm a numbers geek, but that'swhy I can sit in front of a cfo
and talk their language.
Um, so when you go and dothings like that which, again,
they don't prompt you to do inthese places, you have to go and

(54:15):
seek it out yourself.
I think that's probably thebest step you can take, or call
blake and ed and start your

Speaker 1 (54:22):
agency through x recruiter.
We'll tell you how to do it.
So I'll give you that 100 bucks.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
But but we joke about that, and the reason I say what
I said at the start I know itdidn't offend anyone is the
minute we stopped working as asenior recruitment consultant at
Hayes to I'm now the founder,co-founder and director at
Harwell.
There were people that I wastrying to call for years and
wouldn't give me the time of day.
And you pick up the phone oryou send them an email with a

(54:48):
slightly different signaturewhere you've got skin in the
game and you're doing it foryourself.
All of a sudden they'll go andsit down and go for a coffee
with you and nothing changed inthat initial period of time
other than where I was, what Iwas called and what I was doing.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Love that, so just change your email signature to
director.
Vice president.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
Even if you're not one, then just have a crack.
Yeah, pretty much done.
What's the one key takeawaythat someone should take from
this episode?
I'll ask you both individually.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
I one, I think, probably the intention.
I think you're going into helpright, and you don't need their
business and they don't needyours.
If you can help them, though,then it's.
It makes sense that they'd wantto use your service.
I think there's a lot of depthto that and if you listen back,
you speak about the discoveryand the pre-framing and the
agenda and the level of researchyou go into.

(55:38):
I think if you come in withthat mindset to help, to
understand, you're going to,straight away, be in the top 10
for the people who just need tomake a fee so they make budget
for the quarter yeah, um, Iprobably say ask yourself how
much you want it, and what Imean by that is it's easy for me
and ads.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
This is our business, this is our livelihood.
But all of the stuff we'vediscussed today has been a super
, super hardcore two-yearlearning journey, because we've
burnt the boats and we've goneall in on this like it's our
actual life.
I think about it every singleminute of the day.
So how much do you really wantit?
Because if you do and you goall in, that's what you can do

(56:16):
in such a short period of time.
Buckle up.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Buckle up, you get the seatbelts on your chest.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
We should do that next time.
Okay, cool.
All right, we've got a newaddition to Confessions and the
game is Are you Smarter Than Ed?

Speaker 3 (56:36):
I didn't come up with this game, by the way, blake
did.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
I came up with this game when I was listening to
Nova 106.5, and it was likemaybe it was Nova, maybe it was
someone else, but it was likeare you smarter than Suze?
And essentially, callers wouldcome in and they'd try and like
battle Suze for like generalknowledge, and it was always
such a fun experience, one tosee you know just the general
population, on how they cananswer the questions, but two,

(56:59):
it was just really engaging.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
And the answer is probably yes, by the way.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Depends on the context.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Okay, so I'm going to fire off 10 football themed
questions.
So should we just show why it'sfootball?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
because you two boys have played football at a pretty
reasonable level.
Right, I know that, but I don'tknow what kind of level you
played at.
So maybe for the listeners.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, so we were League 2 pros, so League 2 is
actually League 4, so you've gotthe Premier League Championship
League 1, so you've got thePremier League Championship
League one.
League two.
You didn't dab that bit.
I was pretty out of fun with it.
So we were there kind of camethrough the system and then did
two years together asapprentices and then a bit of
time as a pro, which was good.
But it's not as glamorous as itmight look but in terms of what

(57:40):
it instills in you along theway, it gives you a lot of
ticker, your thick skin likeyou're getting sea bombed off by
grown men, you know, and youpass a ball and it's not to
their right foot.
Even all the forfeits and stuffwe used to do and the
initiations I even stood there.
A group of like 15, 16 yearolds had to go and get your
missus or your mum's lingerieand then stand and sing

(58:01):
Christmas songs in front of thefirst team squad, like all this
crazy shit.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
We still do that in any normal, yeah, any normal
walk of life.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
It's probably workplace bullying, but football
is just part of the process.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Love it okay, so that's why that's why it's
football themed.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
That's why, okay, cool.
So what's the rules do we have?

Speaker 4 (58:20):
to ping.
I think you're gonna read themping it.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Yeah, and I said to Serge there has to be some
football questions from the 80sand stuff, because if it's all,
just all right, let's see, Iwasn't even born.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Nice.
Thanks, man, I'm getting goingfor this.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Okay, I think we should put our hands on our laps
, okay.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
Because we're all right next to the buzzer.
Everyone is like it's 2v1 here.
By the way, I'll just move mychair in a little bit.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Yeah, yeah.
Question number one who holdsthe record for the fastest goal
scored in Premier League history?

Speaker 4 (58:51):
Shane Long Correct.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
That is random, very good, okay.
So I've realised we've got fouroptions here, so I'm going to
actually read out the fouroptions.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
One nil to half.
No, we don't need the options.
No, well played.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Well played.
So it's currently one Harwellzero Ed.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Glover oh, double up Love it.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
Yeah, love it.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
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 (59:25):
I'll go Harry Kane.
Oh, that's right One all I wasflapping.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Just a question If we know the answer before you
finish reading the options arewe allowed to buzz.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
I reckon you can, did you, no?
Which player has won the mostBallon 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 thewinning goal in the 2010 FIFA

(59:55):
World Cup final?
Iniesta, yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Correct, yeah, I was like no, that's Andres, did that
Andres.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
All right, that's still all I was trying to work
out who.
That's still all.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Yeah, that's still all I was trying to work out who
played in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Okay, question five which team did England face in
the semi-final of the 2018 WorldCup?

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
Croatia.
Oh, that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
I cried when we lost the game.
I don't know any of thesequestions and answers.
We're all English, we all playfootball, so it's a bit easier.
A lot of recruiters are English, so they'll get it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Okay, so we've got three points to Harwell, two
points to Ed Glover.
Which country has won the mostFIFA World Cups?

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
Oh, oh, damn it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Brazil.
Yes, can we have a bonus point?
For second Okay, we've got fourpoints to Harwell, two points
to Ed.
Come on, Ed Mate.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, break away.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Who won the UEFA Euro 2020?
Ed Portugal.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Incorrect.
No, italy, italy yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
You made it there, mate.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
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 (01:01:08):
This might not actually be a very good segment
for us mate.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Okay, so that's five to Harwell, two for Ed.
How many questions have we got?

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
This might not actually be a very good segment
for us, mate, Not really we'llcut this out after this which
club is known as Los Blancos,real Madrid.
Get in there.
He just didn't finish sayingthat.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
So that's six.
Two yeah, with Questions to go.
So I think we've won.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Poor that cup surgery .

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Yeah, but let's do them anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Okay last two questions, just bonus questions,
double points.
Who holds the record for themost Premier League appearances?
Brian Giggs Incorrect.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
I've got this one, gareth Barry, nice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Okay, last question 80s mate I told you 80s.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Last question which footballer Is famous for the
hand of God goal there, you goArmando 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 onlygood recruiters, you're good
under the pressure, under thepump of football questions.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Thanks, mate.
So, ed, I've just had a bit ofhot sauce put in front of me,
Would you?

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
like to pour it out for.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
Ed Do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
I have to do it Really.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Yeah, so Ed's got to have a shot of hot sauce.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Fill that puppy to the brim Can we have some
background music.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
Let's try and get a bit of lift music yeah.
What hot sauce is this Homemade.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
All right, the brim.
No, that's good.
That's good Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
You need to get a good angle of the vomit here,
Serge.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Vomitron.
That's pretty nice, serge, butit is hot.
I'm Latino, mate, I can dealwith it.
Are you Latino?
Yeah, I am.
I'm mummies.
Oh, you're mum.
Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
If listeners want to get in touch with you, or
clients or anyone like that,what's the best way?

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
There's two ways.
So LinkedIn is kind of ourcorporate persona, if you like
Adam Powell, Harvey Rivers onLinkedIn or Harwell Harwell, but
Instagram is the one we'repushing at the moment.
So our personal brands aretrying to ramp up and probably
do a bit of a behind the scenesand building the journey as well
and, as you'd expect, there'ssome things you can put on there
that probably aren't suitablefor LinkedIn.
So that's Adam Powell for me.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
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 arelistening to this, this is me
selling.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
This is a call to action.
This is a call to action at thebottom of the post.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
I'm fucking leaning into it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
We are selling hard.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
Now if people listen to this and they think that
their own agency isn't what theywant to do and they want to
come and speak to us and move tothe beautiful Gold Coast.
We're always looking forexperienced people in the right
areas that can compliment whatwe're already doing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
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 bityears ago Now we were shit
scared.
Like it's looking back, thedots all kind of connect up
nicely.
But at the time it wasn't likethat.
It was the scariest thing I'veever 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.

(01:04:10):
But the belief and confidenceyou guys have given us or did
give us back then, and then thecontinued kind of improvement on
both sides, I think I said atthe mastermind Blake, what I
love about the partnership we'vegot is we've both grown at the
same rate.
So we'll need something andyou'll make it happen, or you
guys will get something, you'llgive it to us.
So we continue to level uptogether and we're just better
together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Appreciate that.
Boys, thanks for coming onsharing your journey.
You guys have absolutely killedit.
Hopefully recruiters out thereare inspired by your journey.
I know they would be.
And yeah, if you're a recruiterand you want to, fucking join
the A-team hit up.
Harwell, let's go.
Thanks boys, Thanks guys.