Welcome back to the Hirewell Hot Corner where sports and recruitment meet. I am your host, Dan Spittel, joined as always by my Ironman co-host, Louie Morici. Louie, great to see you again. Let’s jump right in. What’s going on in your world, and the world of sports today? I don’t know why, but I always chuckle at the Ironman thing.
I think it’s great. Every week, I should expect it. It just still makes me chuckle. But as far as what’s going on, we had week zero, college football. Our team, Notre Dame, kicked some ass overseas, which was great. And we’re experiencing some roster cuts now getting ready for the NFL season.
Yes we are. I’m going to keep throwing the Ironman thing in there until you miss one of these shows. So, Cal Ripken Jr it, we’ll see how long you can stick with the record. Yeah, roster cuts happened, yesterday, August 29th. Teams cutting down to their final 53 to start the season. Today is the flurry of picking up practice squad players, waivers.
A lot of things happening. I don’t know if they have insane consequences. We’ve seen some kicker trades in the last couple days. Those have been interesting. But you know, we’re getting real close to some NFL football. First game kicks off in eight days. Thank God. It’s been a long, long summer.
Fall weather’s kind of in the air on a every other day sort of basis. Like I’m excited and let’s face it. We got fantasy football as well to enjoy. The new NFL season also means the start of fantasy football, which I think many people actually intend to enjoy more so than watching football. Just gives you an added element to watching football games. A lot more stake in the game for maybe teams you weren’t rooting for, teams you don’t care too much about.
It seems that every matchup has something involved for one of the two people when they play each other, so, definitely an extra excitement. Especially if you’re not in a state that allows sports betting ’cause that’s been a big part of adding to excitement of otherwise pretty, sometimes boring football games.
But every year for fantasy football, aside from dynasty fantasy football is a fresh start. New chance for teams to jump out the gate, build a winning team, see if they can take ’em all the way. Thousand percent. I mean, and let’s face it, wherever you draft, you’re still going to have a good chance at getting some good players from round one to, let’s call it round four or five.
And then from there, that’s probably when the real work starts. You know, you really have to dive in, talk about sleepers, things like that. People that might be not the highest on the rank list, but you might have to scroll down a bit, find someone that’s going to be utilized more so maybe than the year before, or just someone that’s kind of slept on.
For sure. Coming from, being in a dynasty fantasy football league, it’s given me a lot of extra research that I’ve had to do for that. And so it gets me very well equipped for the year to year fantasy football drafts. But you know, everyone has their own strategies. Everyone has their own opinions that factor into how you go about building out this team.
But all strategies may be different. We all have the same end goal. Be successful, win weeks, make it to the playoffs, win your fantasy football league. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a great way to segue into the kind of recruiting side of this and building a team from scratch or building out a new department in the recruiting space. How do identify that, whether it’s a new business, or a startup, or it’s an expansion, whatever the case is.
But what’s going to make that team a success from day one? Definitely, a little bit of an interesting and different topic than most of the things we talk about. A lot of the things we talk about on the show are very run of the mill day-to-day, what a lot of people will experience. I would say that building a new team from the ground up, not something as many people are working on. Something you don’t get to do often.
So it’s a really cool opportunity that we get to work with people who are doing so. Where we see it most of the time, at least on my end, is whether it be a new startup, smaller companies kind of growing with funding, growing to meet the needs of an untapped market. Or it’s growth or expansion of a new team, new department from an already existing larger company, whether they acquire new business, new clients, new companies, and expanding from there.
So, I can talk about that all day from my world. Let’s talk about it from your side of things too, Louis. Yeah, I mean, from a sales side, that’s where my main focus is. I guess just giving an example, I’m working with a client right now. Overall, their company basically helps build out other companies’ visions when they’re going to trade shows.
So they partner with these companies, “Hey, what are you looking to have at your booth?” Whether it’s interactive, whatever the case is. And they do this across any industry, any trade show, anything under the sun. So, we look at the why, first of all, is this a flash in the pan uptick or is this something that we’re going to have a foreseeable future in? And in this case with kind of covid taking the backseat, trade shows, conferences, they’re fully back in person.
So there’s a need to kind of bring on three or four sales reps for the next four or five, maybe plus months. So from that aspect, got to make sure we’re getting the right talent. It’s not always just about the quantity play, it’s obviously the quality. But setting the tone, because let’s face it, the majority of this team is going to be new.
So how do we make sure that they’re buying into the atmosphere, into the culture that’s already been set, but also bringing it to the next level. So those are just a lot of the aspects that when you’re doing this and taking a team from a certain point to the next level. All these things have to come into play.
This topic has a bit of a special place in my heart, given the type of work that I get to do. Yeah. For those who are maybe newer to the show, we haven’t probably explained this in a while. My role within Hirewell is on the on-demand team here at Hirewell. And what that means is, while we do a number of different staffing solutions, placements, executive search, our on-demand function is a flat monthly fee where companies can bring on one of our resources on a full-time basis.
We basically integrate onto their team, become a member of the organization, have access to all their internal systems, and not only help them hire, potentially build out a new team, new department. But also kind of from a consultative advisory standpoint, help build that into place for long-term success.
My specific background and examples I’ve gotten to, companies I’ve worked with through Hirewell, I’ve had an opportunity to work on a project where they brought us on because they were expanding basically a new department. One of the clients I worked on was more of a tech startup as well. We helped build out multiple new teams for them expanding, they had three consulting teams, they built out to five. We built out a US based tech team for them. All of those were starting from scratch.
So it was not only identifying the areas that we need to hire the people for and how do we get from this vision to this team. But also, where to prioritize, what steps we should take in order to make it successful and sustainable. So I really enjoy this conversation. Yeah, I think the on demand aspect of your job and that department of Hirewell is very much like fantasy football because there’s different areas. Running backs, wide receivers, sales, accounting, like whatever the case is, there’s more of an eclectic mix.
And where is the value going to be driven? You got to allocate funds, things like that. We could talk about the auction leagues all we want. We don’t have to dive too far into it, but your setup, what you do, is so aligned with this topic. I can see why it’s one that you could talk a lot about.
No question. And just from the way you framed that, I think you teed it up pretty nicely, when you’re building out a new team from scratch, new department, whatever that may look like. What should management, whoever’s in charge of building up this new team, what should they prioritize? How should they go about being successful in building up this team?
Where do we start? Louie, I think I know where you’re going to go with this one. Yeah, I mean let’s face it. I’m going to obviously say sales, but this is the part of the company that brings revenue in. So the more revenue they bring in, the more you can hire. So I think depending on what you’re offering your product, offering your service, that may dictate how robust or how many people you can add to a sales team.
Because if you bring in 10 people and all 10 bring in the same amount, and then you bring in 20 and instead of splitting what the original number is, you double it, you know, it’s that one-to-one correlation. As long as you can still see that, you can invest in a lot of salespeople because they’re going to keep bringing in the dollars in the door to expand other areas.
But aside from that, kind of have to address where maybe you’re missing the mark or struggles or if you’re building a new team, what is most important? Yeah, I think, definitely a lot to be said about the validity of bringing in the revenue generators quickly.
Especially if you’re in more of a startup capacity and you need to grow the business, that’s definitely a way to go. Maybe that’s already an established piece and you’re expanding, specific operations, different departments within the organization. How then do you go about it? Well, do you look at it from a framework perspective?
You bring in someone who’s going to set the tone process-wise, build out procedures for you, and then grow the team from there. Do you bring in someone who’s well versed in the area you’re trying to get better in as an individual contributor? Do you bring ’em in as a manager who’s only going to hire out a team?
Maybe they start as one, become the other, come in, bring in their expertise, kind of be that team lead, and then grow as the company grows, as the team grows. Long way of saying there’s different scenarios. It’s all based on the size and scope of the team. Where the company is, where they’re trying to go, what they’re trying to accomplish with this new team, this new expansion project, whatever that may be.
I think it just speaks to the challenge that is your job and helping kind of dictate where you’re going to grow that team, from which angle. Because you know, you’re bringing in more revenue, well, you’re going to need people to support all of that in some capacity or-
So it’s alot of cause and effect, but at the same time, envious of what you’re able to juggle in that regard because it’s not easy at all. You know, obviously the bulk of our work is bringing in and finding the right talent for roles that are already in existence or roles that they’ve identified. I really do enjoy the strategic side of the work I get to do. My last client, we were brought on for three months ’cause they needed five hires.
We ended up staying 13 months and we hired 35 people. Built out a few different teams along the way because as we brought in a few people, they said, “Hey, we think we want to expand to this side of our business,” or “we want to bring in this team,” “grow this team.” Can you help us with that? The answer’s always going to be yes.
And having the opportunity to kind of forecast out strategically with their leadership and look at, okay, if we hire this person first, then we’re going to need this and this to follow. Really cool part of what I get to do. I really am passionate about that side. Really cool offering that Hirewell can give to our clients other than just we can fill top talent.
Yeah. It’s why we have this portion of our business and how we can be effective and regular contingent searches, or in this case the on demand where you basically are an extension of that company and act as so, and take a lot of ownership in that. Not to say that on the contingent side we don’t, but you definitely have a little bit more buy-in because you’re almost as if you’re an employee of that company.
For sure. Shameless plug for myself and my team, if you are looking to expand your team, build out a new department, anything like that, and you don’t know where to start. You got to reach out to us ’cause we have strategic masterminds on the recruitment and talent acquisition partners who are here to help.
Well that’s enough for that. Louie two minute drill. Take us home. Who are your fantasy sleeper picks for 2023? I’m just going to give you one. It’s the running back for Houston, Damien Pierce. I think young quarterback, team was not great last year. I just think he’s going to be just the rock that is their offense.
The old reliable, someone that is going to see probably 50% of the touches. As far as all the offense, not just from the running back position, like a lot of their offense is going to be ran through him. Probably not that big of a sleeper, but I think he’s going to put up more than he’s projected. CJ Stroud’s going to need a lot of help.
They’re probably going to be fighting back from losing battles in the back half of the game. He might get a lot of opportunities to do so. I think on my end, I have two for you. I think Deuce Vaughn running back rookie for the Cowboys. You know, with Zeke moving on, Tony Pollard becoming the bell cow back, they need a Tony Pollard for their Tony Pollard.
It worked really well for them last year. I think Deuce Vaughn could be that for them. And in the, I believe he was a sixth thrown pick. It’s an absolute steal. Another one I have for you, a little bit of a deeper sleeper, more of a dynasty guy maybe-
a bit of a coma if you will,
he’s in a coma
is Raiders rookie quarterback, Aidan O’Connell.
He made the 53. He’s looking like he should be the backup to Jimmy Garoppolo to start the season. Had a great pre-season. And could be a sleeper to start at least one game for the Las Vegas Raiders this year. Depending on how Jimmy G does, and if he can stay healthy. Let’s face it, health is the name of the game in all of football.
We just got word that one of our starting linemen or offensive linemen for the Bears is out for the first four games. So health is a huge thing. And, hey, if that guy gets a shot, I have Devonte Adams on my team. As long as he’s throwing the ball to him, I’m okay with that. Absolutely. Well, Louie, best of luck to you on your fantasy football year this year.
On behalf of Louie and myself, thank you once again for tuning into the Hirewell Hot Corner. Do join us again next in two weeks for our next episode. And as always, stay classy, LinkedIn. Bear down.
