As we journey to adulthood and turn 18 this year, I want to give a bit back to my competitors and clients.
I want to reflect on our success and the reasons behind it. If you can save money, make money, and reap any reward from my 18 Golden Nuggets, then I have succeeded in making a small difference.
To keep you interested, only 2 nuggets per month until we turn 18. Enjoy. PS – Nugget 2 is my favourite of them all – don’t miss it. Let’s kick this off!
Nugget #3: Never lie – it will come back to you
In recruitment, your word is your currency. The moment you compromise it, you chip away at everything you’re building.
It’s tempting to oversell, to soften the truth, to say what closes the deal. But this is a long game — and the truth always catches up.
Nearly 18 years in, and one thing stands out: honesty builds credibility, credibility builds trust, and trust builds a business that lasts.
Clients remember it. Candidates respect it. Your reputation depends on it. Say what’s true — especially when it’s uncomfortable. Because once trust is gone, everything else follows.
Remember – you only have one reputation….don’t lose it!!
Nugget #4: Relationships Are the Whole Game
Business, life — it all comes down to relationships.
Nearly 18 years in, and every success, every lesson, every opportunity has come through people. The right relationships don’t just support the journey — they shape it.
I was fortunate to have a business partner who was the yin to my yang. Different strengths, shared values. His integrity, his approach to people, and the way we challenged and backed each other created a formula that worked — not just for us, but for the kind of business and team we built around it.
That’s the thing about relationships — they set the tone. They attract the right people, the right energy, the right outcomes.
You also learn just as much from the difficult ones. They sharpen your judgement, your boundaries, and your understanding of what “right” really looks like.
Together, we are always stronger — but only if you choose wisely. Because the relationships you build will either elevate everything… or quietly erode it.
Because of this, I have never had to make a cold call in my life, and I don’t believe I ever will!!
Nugget #1: Have Fun — It’s the Real Secret Sauce!
If you’re going to spend most of your life working, you may as well enjoy it. Seriously. Having fun isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s the fuel for your fire. When you genuinely love what you do, the energy shifts, right? Conversations flow more easily. Clients feel it. Candidates feel it. My team certainly feels and responds to it (remote and office-based).
Passion creates momentum. Momentum builds confidence. Confidence attracts success. Nearly 18 years in this October, and our business is still built on relationships. Every placement, every partnership, every referral — it all comes back to connection, being human, being authentic.
When you get the relationship right, everything else follows. And when you enjoy the journey, it doesn’t feel like a grind — it feels like growth. This is fun. Success has a way of building on itself when the foundation is solid and the energy is positive.
Nugget #2: Use Tools to Buy Back Time for What Actually Matters
Over the years, recruitment has changed dramatically — but one thing hasn’t: people place people.
The difference now? We use better tools. Automation, smarter search, and data mapping — all of it cuts the time spent on repetitive tasks. We personally use www.1recruit.ai to assist us in creating job descriptions, creating job adverts, formatting CVs, and matching CVs to Job descriptions. All this for the same (international) cost of 7 cups of coffee. Try it out – its amazing!!
The time we’ve gained is reinvested where it counts – this is where we thrive. We still have to look at the following:
- Culture fit
- Personality alignment
- Long-term potential
- Industry nuance and skill depth
This is where the human element comes in, but 1Recruit saves us hours and hours in the areas where it can be automated using AI – it targets the right person for the right role — faster and more precisely
We’ve found efficiency creates space, space allows quality, and here we build trust- our name is known and our reputation evident in our ride to ‘adulthood.’ That’s been one of the biggest shifts in our 18-year journey, tons more in store, buckle up.