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Clark Harvey: From Two Layoffs in 11 Months to Recruiting Firm Owner · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is Clark Harvey, president and founder of
0:20
Arrowhead Talent Solutions. Clark grew up in small town
0:24
Ohio, navigated layoffs and setbacks and turn those
0:28
challenges into a mission connecting people with
0:31
meaningful work and supporting community needs.
0:34
After years in HR and recruiting at major manufacturing firms,
0:38
Clark launched Arrowhead to deliver honest, values driven
0:42
direct hire recruitment for mid market manufacturers, helping
0:47
honorable companies build teams while refusing to work with
0:50
organizations that mistreat people.
0:53
He is also the driving force behind Brighter Days Foundation,
0:56
which funds cancer care scholarships and essential
1:00
services for families in need. In this conversation, we're
1:03
going to dig into the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, how
1:07
hardship shaped his approach to hiring and mentorship, and the
1:10
practical systems he's built to scale relationships and impact.
1:15
Get ready for a candidate hopeful conversation about
1:17
resilience, leadership, and doing business with purpose.
1:22
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back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:14
today, the president of Arrowhead Talent Solutions,
2:16
Clark Harvey. Thanks for making the time to
2:18
Share your story today. Thanks for having me, Anthony.
2:21
So, fun little side note for the listeners, Clark's business is
2:25
based in my hometown of North Canton, OH, And when I started
2:29
to do a little bit of research on him, I saw the address.
2:32
It was on a street name I was familiar with.
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I'm like, wait a minute, that's a residential area, You know,
2:36
how can he have a business there?
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And then I saw a picture of this giant red barn that their
2:41
business is located in and I was taken back to memories from
2:46
30-40 years ago is a big landmark that told us where to
2:49
turn, how to get to our our friends houses.
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But I just, I had to throw that in there in case there's any
2:54
North Canton listeners. These guys are right there on
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the corner of Brumbaugh and Cleveland Ave.
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Main St. All right, easy to find.
3:02
Easy to find. Yep.
3:03
Can't miss it. All right, So, Clark, tell me
3:06
about an early memory growing up that really shaped, you know who
3:09
you are today. Well, there's of course a lot of
3:13
them, but I would say just generally sports for me was an
3:17
athlete, my dad was a coach for pretty much every sport I
3:21
participated in. So there's some advantages, but
3:24
very distinct disadvantages to having your father be your coach
3:28
and all your athletic endeavors, especially mine.
3:31
He was a real driver, expected nothing short of excellence, I
3:34
would say. And, and so I think there's some
3:38
negatives you can take away from that, especially for somebody
3:40
who's a little bit more sensitive like I am.
3:42
I'm inclined that way. But I think the positive that
3:45
you can glean from those experiences would be, and it
3:48
sets you up for a life of motivation and you have those
3:52
expectations for yourself because someone else expected
3:54
that of you from an early age. So I remember the highs and lows
3:57
of athletic competition. Thankfully, you know, baseball
4:01
and track and and basketball, I did fairly well for a small town
4:06
athlete. So the results were pretty good.
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But I think those lessons always stuck with me from an individual
4:12
perspective of expecting excellence from myself from a
4:16
very early age. And then the team aspect was
4:19
really important, too. I was lucky to be on some really
4:23
good high school sports teams, in particular basketball.
4:26
Great memories, but also really good life lessons embedded in
4:30
there that you don't realize until you have the benefit of
4:32
hindsight. So I learned how to be,
4:34
hopefully I learned how to be a good teammate, a good leader, a
4:39
good cheerleader for my friends when I was hurt or sick or, you
4:43
know, not playing or whatever. So I, you know, I think you
4:46
learned a lot of good lessons along the way.
4:48
So sports early on in life really formed me and I think
4:51
those good teams really helped a lot too.
4:55
What? Which small town did you grow up
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in? Oh, man, no one's going to know
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what it is. If you do, I'll give you $5.
5:01
It's called Lucas. OH.
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And so if you've heard of Mansfield, we're about halfway
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between Cleveland and Columbus. We're a very small town of about
5:09
6 or 700 people right outside of Mansfield, OH.
5:13
OK that is a small 1 and I drive through Mansfield all the time
5:16
and Nope I've never heard of Lucas so you can keep your 5
5:18
bucks. That's great.
5:20
Blank and you miss it. Yeah.
5:22
So I want to go back to those early days.
5:24
It sounds like there's some combination of gratitude as well
5:30
as, I don't know, tell me if I'm reading this right, Like a
5:33
little bit of angst against some of the hard driving things that
5:40
you experienced from your father in the world of sports.
5:43
Oh heck yeah. I mean, there's there's good and
5:45
bad to it for sure. I tried to give you a little bit
5:47
more of a sanitized version there, obviously.
5:50
But yeah, there's there's good and bad and the bad is that it
5:54
creates a little bit of angst in you anxiety and I would say a
5:59
lack of security moving forward in your life if you're not
6:03
careful. Then I think over the years I've
6:05
had to really focus on that and ensure that those stories don't
6:10
necessarily serve me as much as they used to.
6:13
And that's hard work, even for a, you know, 40 something year
6:17
old adult like me. Because what you had an early
6:19
formative age, You're learning those lessons from a parent
6:23
who's the most important person in the world to you at the time.
6:26
You have to make sure that you're telling yourself the
6:28
right stories as you get older. But yeah, for sure.
6:30
And we've got someone always looking over your shoulder as a
6:33
kid and making sure that you're the best player out there.
6:37
And and a lot of stern, you know, messages coming from dad.
6:41
Yeah. Angst for sure accompanies now.
6:44
What were some of the stories that you had to learn to let go
6:48
of, and what did you replace them with?
6:51
Well, I think I'm still trying to let them go, to be clear,
6:54
Anthony. And I think the stories that
6:57
would be reinforced early on are things like you're not good
7:00
enough or you're only good enough if you're perfect.
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So even if I had an outstanding game, let's say a basketball
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game where I, you know, hit 10:50 shots, 4 assists, 5
7:13
rebounds, 1 turnover, my dad would often focus on the one
7:17
shot I missed or the turnover I had or when I was out of
7:19
position on defense or something like that.
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So those are things that you really absorb without realizing
7:26
it consciously, especially when you're a kid.
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And so those would be the two, you're not good enough.
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The second being a little bit more profound.
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I think that you're only a good enough if you're perfect or
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something like that. And so those are hard things you
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know, to to listen to and absorb.
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And those run those stories run unconsciously in your mind, in
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my opinion. And you have to catch those
7:49
thoughts and redirect them and hopefully develop new mental
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pathways as you get older. But I still get caught up in
7:56
those patterns quite a bit. What's that personal development
7:59
work look like for you over the years?
8:02
How have you been trying to resolve this?
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Oh boy, I don't want to move my camera because I want to be
8:09
mindful of the, the audio visual and all that stuff on this this
8:12
podcast. But I could position my camera a
8:15
little bit and you'd see bookshelves full of books.
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So I read a ton and that would be one of the starting points.
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I think reading and learning about how your past impacts your
8:26
present and your mindset. And I think that's probably been
8:29
the biggest self development I've done over the years.
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I've got a great relationship with my wife who's thankfully
8:35
supportive and listens to listens to me a lot and that's
8:40
been extremely helpful. So those would be two.
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And then I think, you know, just through personal development,
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through groups that I'm involved into different, different social
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groups. I've got a good group of
8:51
friends, a board of directors who functions as you know, also
8:56
a really good group of friends who through my business journey
8:59
have said that doesn't sound right.
9:01
What you're saying about yourself right now isn't an
9:03
accurate reflection of how we see you as a person, as an
9:07
entrepreneur, as a leader. So having good people in your
9:10
life who can speak the truth to you is super valuable and that's
9:14
been a life rap for me, especially at low points in my
9:17
business career, I would say. Yeah.
9:19
You know, and we're going to get into sort of the way that you
9:23
founded the company and the success that you've had along
9:25
the way and some of the, you know, the struggles that you've
9:28
overcome in building the business.
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But it's interesting to me, even Clark, you know, somebody
9:33
sitting here today with a very successful business that you
9:36
continue to doubt yourself, right?
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And, and I'm putting you on the spot a little bit because I want
9:41
others to hear this and know that they're not alone.
9:45
You're sitting there and you're doubting whether you can do this
9:48
big project at work or if you're starting a business or you have
9:51
a business, if you can overcome the hardship or, you know, work
9:54
your way towards better growth. And most people, they, they sort
9:58
of get trapped in their own heads and think I'm the only
10:00
one, I'm the only one who struggles or doubts myself or
10:03
suffers. Everybody else looks like
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they've got it all put together. And so we're kind of pulling
10:07
back the curtain a little bit. And you know, Clark's saying,
10:09
yeah, I've I've got this successful business here and I
10:12
still need people around me to build me up and support me and
10:15
remind me of who I am and what I can do.
10:18
Oh gosh, yeah. I mean, you're not alone if you
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have those things, those thoughts rather.
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And, and I'm an open book, probably to a fault, and I think
10:25
it makes some people uncomfortable.
10:27
And so I try to temper that. But for the sake of this
10:29
discussion, I feel like I owe it to your listeners to be very
10:34
honest and unvarnished. And, and I apologize that that
10:37
makes anybody feel a little bit like I said, I'm comfortable.
10:39
But yeah, I mean, I think many, many people doubt themselves.
10:43
And I had the privilege to talk to folks way more successful
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than me with bigger companies and all sorts of things.
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And they're still riddled with self doubt and fears.
10:52
And I think we're all human, but heck, yeah.
10:55
I mean, it's very kind of you to say that I'm successful.
10:58
Most days. I don't even wouldn't even give
11:00
myself that moniker, honestly. And I go, what are you doing,
11:05
man? Like, what?
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What are you doing with your life?
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What have you done today that's even worthwhile?
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That I hear that a lot and feel that a lot.
11:12
And so, yeah, I think a lot of people feel that's more
11:16
universal than we realize. You know, I, something I tell my
11:19
kids and remind myself of often is that growth comes from the
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uncomfortable edges of life. So we embrace the discomfort
11:27
here, Clark. We welcome it.
11:32
You know, I, I'm curious is you talk about that bookshelf behind
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you, Is there one book in particular that you would point
11:38
out as being, you know, particularly helpful?
11:41
Oh boy, there's there's a lot. I would say one that's that's
11:44
the easiest to read is called soundtracks and that the
11:48
author's escaping me, but it's again called soundtracks.
11:52
It was written in the last few years and it kind of talks about
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what we just went through a little bit, how you have in the
11:56
back of your mind or in your subconscious, whatever you want
11:59
to call it, soundtracks is what he refers to them as.
12:02
But these mental scripts that are running in a lot of times
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you're not even fully conscious of what you're telling yourself.
12:07
These are well worn mental pathways in this, this author,
12:11
John Acuff, I just remembered JONACUFFI believe talks about
12:17
about ways you can counter those and then overcome those.
12:21
And he's a big believer in in affirmations and those sorts of
12:24
things that can be a little woo woo for my taste.
12:26
But I still try to make myself do some of those things and and
12:30
hopefully absorb those messages. So that's been very helpful.
12:33
That's the most probably practical and and easy read that
12:36
I've that I've come across on the subject in the last couple
12:38
of years. You know, and I'm, I'm hearing
12:41
you talk about and I, I respect the fact that you have got a lot
12:45
of self doubt, right? And you say, you know, most days
12:49
you wake up, you would not even characterize yourself as being
12:51
successful. And it reminds me of
12:54
conversation I had with a previous guest who talked about
12:57
this very thing, labeled it imposter syndrome, right?
13:00
This idea that I think I'm not good enough that, you know, I'm
13:04
going to wake up one day and everybody's going to discover
13:06
I'm a fraud. And I just got lucky to get to
13:08
where I am. And it was interesting because I
13:11
hear a lot of guests talk about this.
13:13
A lot of high achievers have that imposter syndrome.
13:16
But what's interesting about his mental approach was he had
13:20
flipped it around and kind of turned it into his superpower.
13:23
He actually, he says that that imposter syndrome is what kicks
13:28
him in the butt every morning to get out of bed and get up and do
13:31
a better job and to just continually improve himself.
13:36
And so I, you know, I'm guilty of imposter syndrome on a pretty
13:40
regular basis. And I often think back to that
13:43
conversation like, OK, how can I take this and sort of flip it on
13:46
its head and leverage this for for good for myself?
13:51
Yeah, you just have to embrace your ignorance.
13:53
And then in a weird sort of a way, and I have a friend who's a
13:56
whiz and all things mergers and acquisitions and finance and all
13:59
these things. And every time I hear him talk,
14:02
I feel Dumber. But I know I'm learning a little
14:05
bit in the process. And so I'm just like, hey, man,
14:08
just teach me. I'll call him and listen to him
14:12
opine on these topics. And it's so edifying and
14:15
interesting. So if you embrace that, I think
14:17
it, it can be good for a couple of reasons.
14:19
Just one, that you're learning your edification.
14:21
But then two, I think when you express vulnerability to people
14:25
or just very real raw honesty to people, it breaks down barriers
14:30
so quickly. And if I'm in a discussion with
14:34
a stranger or someone I'm trying to get to know better, or even
14:37
an old friend, if I'm the first to kind of confess something,
14:40
you can feel the posture. Everything in the room changes
14:44
in a good way. You can see people's postures
14:46
change. You can see them lean forward
14:48
more because the conversation gets more real and everyone
14:51
wants to be part of a real conversation.
14:53
And I mean, I don't want to go to any more lunches where I'm
14:56
just talking about EBITDA and all these financial and, you
15:01
know, entrepreneurial terms. I can do that anytime.
15:03
But if you're having a real discussion with people, that
15:06
kind of talk really is authentic and, and shortens the distance
15:11
between two people. And then it helps you just
15:13
outsource your life too. I'm very honest about what I'm
15:16
good at, which isn't much candidly.
15:18
So I just know like I've got a buddy who's good at XI, asked
15:23
him to help me with X. I've got a buddy who's good at
15:25
Y, She helps me with Y. I'm get better because I
15:28
leveraged the talents of others and everybody wins.
15:31
So I think it's good for those three reasons.
15:34
Yeah, I love what you're talking about here.
15:37
And I think people listening might ask the question, well,
15:40
you know, how do I, how do I get the ball rolling on that kind of
15:44
conversation? Because what I'm traditionally
15:46
comfortable talking about is the weather and sports and how was
15:50
work today and tell me about the kids.
15:52
And it's often times it's, you know, all those topics you can
15:55
go deep in, maybe not the weather or sports so much, but,
15:59
you know, you can go deeper in. But it takes somebody willing to
16:04
engage in the risk of being the first one to pull the curtain
16:06
back and get vulnerable. Yeah, for sure.
16:08
I think there are a few ways you can do it, But I think as you
16:12
meet more people and more strangers, you become more
16:14
socially graceful if you really try to develop some skills.
16:17
And so things like I've actually taught my team at my business
16:21
about this. I hosted a series of lunch and
16:23
learns about social graces and networking basics.
16:26
And one of them was how do you get someone to open up?
16:28
And OK, so one of the things we learn about human nature is the
16:32
99% of people like to just talk about themselves.
16:35
So this frankly makes me a little uncomfortable.
16:39
I'm probably in the 1%, which makes me sound like I'm
16:42
bragging. I promise I'm not.
16:43
But if you can just get people to open up a little bit and talk
16:46
about themselves, then you open that window.
16:48
And so it's things like where you from, what's your hometown,
16:51
you have any brothers or sisters, all that kind of stuff
16:54
opens up doors just a little bit.
16:57
And as you become more comfortable with one another,
16:59
the opportunities for vulnerability will, will emerge.
17:01
And, and sometimes I think if you're sincere enough, and
17:05
that's the, the miracle of being a good interview interviewer,
17:08
rather like you or anything, people will sense that you care
17:12
and that you're showing them some real authentic love and
17:15
care and attention. We don't get that in our
17:18
day-to-day. We just don't, we just do not.
17:21
And so the vulnerability will just leak out of them.
17:24
And the honesty happens because everybody wants to be known and
17:28
loved and feel like they had a connection.
17:32
And so the only danger of being good at this is that you'll have
17:35
a lot of people who just constantly want to talk to you
17:38
is, is my guess. So but I think if you really
17:41
show true interest and love for another, no love just in a
17:43
purely, you know, friendship sort of a way is all I'm saying.
17:47
But if you demonstrate true interest and love and a sincere
17:51
way for another human being, it's almost impossible for them
17:54
not to open up and share. Because that's what we all want
17:58
in life. Couldn't have said it.
17:59
Better myself. I love every bit of that, Clark.
18:02
OK, So what started your path into HR and recruiting?
18:06
Is there a moment that you knew that, hey, this is what I'm
18:08
going to do? There were a few.
18:10
Moments where it happened, but I never planned on doing it.
18:12
And I initially wanted to go to grad school and be a
18:17
psychologist. And when I was in my master's
18:20
program at Walsh University in North Canton, I was asked by the
18:26
head of the admissions department to come work for him
18:28
full time. He said, hey, I'll give you a
18:30
salary and benefits and I'll pay for your grad school.
18:32
And I thought, oh boy, when do I, where do I sign up?
18:35
So that was my first big, you know, big boy full time job out
18:38
of college. I was an admissions officer or
18:40
admissions counselor, and so I would recruit high school
18:44
students to come, you know, to attend Walsh.
18:47
And so I learned the basics of recruiting there and I parlayed
18:51
that experience into a corporate recruiting job at a big
18:54
manufacturing company in, in North Canton.
18:57
So how did I get there? I, I knew that after a time at
19:01
Walsh, I wanted to spread my wings a little bit and I liked
19:05
recruiting. I liked relationship building.
19:07
It was kind of like the Nexus of sales and HR and marketing and
19:11
all those things that I felt like I was pretty good at.
19:13
And so I was able to thankfully have a, have a person take a
19:17
chance on me and give me my first job in the corporate world
19:20
from there. So that's how I got on the path
19:23
over the years. I thought I should probably do
19:25
other things and different things, but at some point you
19:29
can't look the gift horse in the mouth and you just have to be
19:32
thankful for the skills that you have.
19:34
And so I've embraced those now. Did you end up?
19:37
Finishing that psychology degree I did.
19:40
I got a master's. I got a master's in counseling
19:43
and that was hard. You had to do a 600 hour
19:46
internship, so it was pretty hard to do while managing a full
19:50
time work schedule. And my wife was pregnant with
19:52
our first at that time. So a little a little
19:55
challenging. That's when I started drinking
19:57
copious amounts of caffeine. So it was a tough time, but we
20:01
got through it. Let's Fast forward a bit.
20:05
Walk me through your last corporate role and what prompted
20:09
you to leave. I was at.
20:11
A big company in Northeast Ohio. Again, at the time, I was the
20:15
human resources manager for the corporate headquarters.
20:18
Very good job, stable company, all those sorts of things.
20:23
So it was going relatively well. But it's kind of funny, my
20:26
sister's married to a pro golfer.
20:29
They have a charitable foundation in their name and
20:33
they, you know, kind of one day just said, Hey, we really need
20:37
you to help us with this thing. And I won't get into all the
20:41
reasons why I said I don't know anything about that.
20:45
I don't I've never run a charity or a nonprofit before.
20:48
I've never been in that world. But the more we talked about it,
20:51
the more I was convinced it was the right move for me and felt
20:54
like it would be a fun learning opportunity.
20:56
And, you know, I just, I jumped at it.
20:59
So I was able to leave on good terms from that position in that
21:06
company, start the work with the foundation and I had to do a ton
21:10
of learning and and that was fun.
21:13
And then very soon thereafter I was able to start Arrowhead my
21:17
business. And it was just a small part
21:19
time side gig, I guess you would say at first.
21:21
But the company I left the the latest company I left, they are
21:25
one of my first corporate clients as well.
21:27
So everybody kind of won or I'd like to think so anyway.
21:30
So that's how we, you know, just some of those initial seeds were
21:33
planted, OK. I think I did a a disservice
21:38
here We've I had you Fast forward a little bit too far.
21:40
I want to rewind now because I understand that there was a
21:44
period in your life where you got laid off twice in the span
21:47
of 11 months. Now everything was.
21:49
Perfect in my life, Anthony, I don't, I don't know what you're
21:51
talking about. Yeah.
21:54
So I was, I was at a really big prominent employer in, in this
21:58
area again. And it, it was going pretty
22:01
well. I, I was there for a number of
22:03
years, got promoted quite a bit and felt like, yeah, I just felt
22:08
like I was on not necessarily a glide path or anything, but
22:11
things were going well and I was working really, really hard.
22:14
And I think that that effort was being recognized to the extent
22:17
that senior executives at the company were kind of sharing
22:21
signals with me that they wanted me to find a long term home at
22:25
the organization. And it was very exciting.
22:28
I got promoted into a pretty high profile, fairly high
22:33
profile position in the company and pretty exciting as well.
22:37
But that came to a pretty abrupt end about four months after
22:41
receiving that promotion. I got called into a conference
22:44
room on a Friday afternoon, typical kind of Black Friday
22:48
sort of a thing in corporate America.
22:50
I got caught up in a very large scale layoff.
22:54
And so it was, you know, to put it nicely, pretty, just pretty
23:01
hard. I'll say it that way.
23:03
And I, I think you feel those feelings all over again when you
23:05
talk about these experiences. So that was really hard.
23:09
And that was my first layoff. Took a while to find another
23:13
position and then eventually did.
23:17
But I know you may want to ask follow up questions here,
23:19
Anthony. But the next company I, I, I
23:23
joined also laid me off due to some pretty tough financial
23:27
realities that they were facing. So two times in 11 months, it
23:30
was not a fun time of my life, I can tell you that.
23:32
What time period? Was this what year are we
23:34
talking about? I want to say like. 20/14/2015
23:39
maybe 2016 as well, but some something in there.
23:42
It's it's all a blur. I'm sorry, I don't remember.
23:45
Yeah, trying to black. It out huh A?
23:47
Little bit this first company. In that first layoff and you
23:51
thought you were up and to the right here like this was great.
23:55
You got a promotion they wanted. They talked to you about finding
23:57
a long term home there. You thought, hey, this is where
24:01
I'm going to work for a long time.
24:03
And then something internal, something with the economy,
24:06
something with the industry shifted and they needed to let a
24:10
bunch of people go. And you are human collateral
24:14
from that. What?
24:15
What was that? Tell us just about that moment,
24:18
that first day, What was that like?
24:20
Shocking. Really awful and every negative
24:24
emotion that you could probably think of.
24:27
I think that for a lot of people who are motivated to succeed,
24:31
and this comes back from childhood issues, of course,
24:33
that we mentioned earlier in the discussion, but a lot of your
24:35
identity is wrapped up in your work, your success, all those
24:39
sorts of things. And it's not necessarily
24:41
unhealthy if you if you don't do that too much.
24:44
But mine was probably wrapped, my identity was probably wrapped
24:47
up in my my work life too much to an unhealthy extent.
24:50
And so in addition to losing your job and your income, being
24:53
the sole income earner, you also lose a big portion of your
24:57
identity in the process. So it's pretty unnerving to put
25:01
it kindly. So when I got laid off, it was
25:03
in the, I think early afternoon. I didn't go home Friday
25:06
afternoon. I didn't go home.
25:07
I went to some random parking lot.
25:10
I fired up my laptop and I got on my phone and I called,
25:14
emailed and texted about 70 or 75 people in my network
25:19
immediately and let them know what was going on.
25:22
So I pretty quickly pivoted to action even though I was in a
25:26
state of abject shock. So I activated my network.
25:30
In other words, didn't wait. I, I waited to go home until the
25:34
normal time and acted like nothing was going on.
25:37
And then when we put our kids to bed, I told my wife what
25:40
happened. And I don't want to, you know,
25:43
I, I, I hesitate to say this because it'll sound like I'm bad
25:46
mouthing my wife, but it's not. I mean this in the purest way
25:49
possible. When I told her I would never
25:51
forget the way she cried and it ripped my heart out and it still
25:56
does when I think about it because the way she cried it was
26:00
just this pure panic. I I don't know how to explain it
26:04
but it was almost like a primal thing and it was just.
26:11
That may be the worst moment in my life, honestly, when that
26:14
happened because I just thought I, I felt I was dying inside and
26:19
I had to act like I wasn't. And she was, She felt like I
26:25
felt. But we are, we are sharing it
26:27
differently. And that marked the beginning of
26:30
a really bad period of my life, which I'm grateful for in
26:34
retrospect. But man, I don't want to ever go
26:35
through anything like that. So, Clark, I want to.
26:38
Unpack this step by step a little bit here you.
26:43
What really surprises me is right after getting the news,
26:49
you didn't go home. You didn't go to a bar, you
26:52
didn't drive to a friend's house.
26:54
You went and parked yourself in a parking lot and you got to
26:57
work. You know, is somebody who's most
27:02
people have been through this. But if you haven't, you know, a
27:05
situation where either a business that you've started has
27:08
has gone under or you've exited or a job that you had where you
27:12
attached your identity very heavily to it and that's gone
27:16
like it. It's not just the loss of the
27:18
income and the security from that, which is enormous, but
27:22
it's also like you put at the loss of identity.
27:24
Like, wait a minute, I was this guy who fit into this role and
27:28
help these people do these things.
27:30
And now I'm no longer that person.
27:32
Like, where do I fit into this world?
27:33
Where what? How am I connected to this
27:36
world? How am I adding value and
27:37
purpose? And so while you are immediately
27:41
suffering from all of these huge and valid emotions, you got to
27:45
work. Yeah.
27:48
I. Mean.
27:49
I just felt like I didn't have a choice in the matter.
27:51
And I think looking back, I'm I'm happy I did that and I think
27:56
that activity eventually led me to my next job and those sorts
28:00
of things. I think it's all good, but I
28:04
don't know why I did it. Honestly, I really can't sit
28:08
here and explain a rational reason why other than it's
28:10
probably just the way I'm wired to always think about how I can
28:13
work and work myself out of a problem.
28:16
And I knew I didn't want to go home in the afternoon before
28:19
5:00 PM or 5:30 because I knew my wife would just not be able
28:25
to handle that. And it would have been really,
28:26
really bad. And I wanted to protect her in
28:29
front of our kids. And, you know, I made the
28:30
conscious decision early on that I wanted my kids to think
28:33
everything was good, everything was normal.
28:35
Thankfully, they were very young during that time, too, so we
28:38
were able to shield them from a lot of the consequences of being
28:40
laid off. But yeah, I guess I can't think
28:43
rationally about exactly why I did that other than it's just
28:46
was almost like an instinct that I knew I had to do it.
28:49
And some of the outreach that you did that day in your car
28:53
eventually opened the door to the next opportunity.
28:56
Yeah, yeah. It eventually did and I'm, I'm
28:58
really grateful for that. And it led to a lot of people
29:02
checking up on me, which is really cool.
29:04
And I think something I learned from those times as you'll never
29:07
forget who really cares about you and you'll never forget.
29:14
You'll never forget how people treat you when you're really
29:15
down. And I'll never forget those
29:18
lessons. I will never forget those
29:19
people. I will never forget my wife's
29:22
family who cared for us during that time.
29:25
And great lessons in there too. So Fast forward to today.
29:29
I want to help everybody I talked to.
29:31
I want to give everybody hope. I talked to you for a lot of
29:33
those reasons. I can't.
29:35
I can't help everybody. I can't give everybody a job
29:38
that I talked to. But I want to.
29:40
So if I can make the time and share with them my story or some
29:43
encouragement, I hope that helps pay it forward a little bit and
29:48
makes the world a little bit brighter because I don't wish
29:50
that stuff on anybody. I just don't.
29:52
Yeah, you. Know, and you go home and you
29:54
tell your wife and she has a very normal human reaction, but
30:00
the side effect is that it takes you from feeling as bad as you
30:03
were already to feeling even worse.
30:06
You know, and this is you know, I think one of the the great
30:09
things about a terrific marriage is that you know, you can
30:12
support each other and you can, you know prop each other up.
30:15
One of you is having a tough time.
30:17
The other one come in. This is a moment where both of
30:20
you were suffering, and you did your best to put on sort of the
30:23
happy face, and you talked about how this was, you know, one of
30:27
the worst periods of your life. Then going forward, how did you
30:30
get through that time? I didn't, I didn't get through
30:34
it well. Honestly, I think sometimes
30:38
that's how it's supposed to be, though.
30:39
I think you're supposed to suffer a little bit and it comes
30:42
out and it's a redemptive experience, but man, when you're
30:45
going through it, you can't see that.
30:47
So I think our faith helped us quite a bit.
30:51
But it did, again, it didn't feel like that at the time.
30:53
I kind of felt abandoned by that, if you want me to be
30:55
candid about it, during the whole thing.
30:58
So I I struggled through that, struggled through a lot of that.
31:03
From a faith perspective, I think that we leaned on one
31:06
another. My wife and I did quite a bit.
31:08
Our kids being little helped because they were a source of
31:11
entertainment and levity. My wife's family are very local,
31:16
so they were very willing to help any way they could.
31:19
And my network, like I mentioned, helped quite a bit
31:22
too during that time. My family lives a little bit
31:25
farther away, so they weren't necessarily present as much, but
31:29
they were supportive too. So those things were great.
31:32
Those elements of our lives really kept things together, I
31:36
would say. And we needed as much of A
31:39
support as we could get because once I got laid off, we went
31:42
through this really weird. Just, I don't know how to
31:45
explain it. It's just the worst time of my
31:46
life. I mean, we all got like while I
31:48
was job seeking, we all got a flu that lasted almost two
31:52
weeks. So I'm trying to find a job and
31:55
I had this flu that won't go away.
31:57
We had a puppy. We had to take him to the
31:59
emergency vet at least twice during that time.
32:02
Each of our kids had to go to the ER at least once.
32:05
Meanwhile, my insurance ran out and pain, cobra, all this kind
32:08
of stuff. And yeah, so we got ill.
32:12
Then it kind of culminated in my getting a little bit of an eye
32:15
infection, or so I thought. Took some antibiotics and on the
32:18
last day of the antibiotic dose, I developed like or hives all
32:23
over my body, extremely painful and I couldn't walk because they
32:27
were on the bottom of my feet. Never.
32:29
It was terrible. And then within a day or two,
32:31
those, it got into my joints. So I, I was like the Tin Man.
32:35
That's an old reference, but I couldn't move.
32:38
And so one day it'd be in my fingers and then the next they'd
32:40
go to my shoulders. And it was the weirdest thing.
32:44
But trying to do to go through all this stuff while finding a
32:50
job, it was there and there were more things to it.
32:53
We had a death in the family that really impacted us during
32:55
that time. It it was a real valley.
32:59
And thankfully after I'd, I'd say 3-4 months, the job activity
33:04
heated up a little bit and it culminated in three interviews,
33:06
one in Columbus, one in the Akron area and one in
33:09
Philadelphia. They were all right around the
33:12
same time. All three wanted to give me an
33:15
offer or at least advance the interview process significantly.
33:19
And then ultimately the Akron area company gave me an offer
33:23
first and it was time to get back to work.
33:26
I'll just put it that way. Yeah.
33:27
So that's how it kind of happened, didn't really.
33:30
Test it. I mean, you guys really put
33:33
through the wringer. So you take the Akron position
33:36
doesn't end up lasting that long.
33:38
And what? Was the transition from there
33:41
into the the nonprofit? Yeah.
33:43
So like a. Little story there.
33:45
I was told when I got hired at this company that I'd get like a
33:48
review and a raise around six months.
33:50
I was there for six months and you know that my boss said we're
33:53
working on it. I just can't get a hold of the
33:54
right people to give this to you.
33:56
So seven months in, I was on vacation.
33:59
My. Boss called me.
34:00
On vacation and said, they're going to give us give me a nice
34:03
raise. And I was like, wow, that's
34:05
amazing. That's really big.
34:06
And so it it was a it was a difficult experience at that
34:10
position. I'll just leave it at that.
34:11
But the the big raise helped came back from vacation, I think
34:16
my second day in the office, I was told by somebody, I was
34:19
asked by somebody, hey, do you got a minute?
34:21
And I said, yeah, sure. And I walk in the conference
34:24
room and two executives, one of whom was my boss, said, we've
34:26
got to let you go. And I started laughing.
34:29
And I said, you guys just gave me a paycheck.
34:32
Like you gave me a raise. And I didn't even get one
34:34
paycheck with my pay amount. And they, you know, it was, it
34:38
was a really tough time for the company.
34:39
I'll just leave it at that. And so a lot of people got
34:42
caught up in a layoff there. And so I, yeah, that was my last
34:48
day on the job. When that happened.
34:50
I said, when's my last day? And they said, how about today?
34:54
And I said, OK, packed up and left.
34:57
And so from there embarked on a similar journey and and did my
35:03
best to pick myself up. It was sadly a little bit easier
35:07
to absorb the news of being laid off the second time rather than
35:11
the first, but it still was hard.
35:13
And so was back in the same kind of a situation and applying to
35:17
positions again. My network helped me find that
35:20
next position and it moved quickly once I was connected to
35:26
the hiring team at this that this company at my last
35:28
corporate job. So, you know, thankfully that
35:31
all worked out and resolved itself.
35:33
But man, 2 times in 11 months it, it got really bad and
35:37
really, really dark. Wow.
35:42
Yeah, and I can tell, and you even said it out loud, that, you
35:45
know, talking about these times sort of brings up a lot of those
35:49
really awful feelings. Again, I appreciate you, you
35:52
know, being willing to do that because I think not only will
35:56
your stories help other people who have gone or are going
35:59
through something similar, understand that there is a light
36:03
at the end of the tunnel. You have to keep trying 1 foot
36:06
in front of the other. Activate your network, get out
36:09
there, you know, be active, talk to people.
36:12
But I think it also helps to lay the groundwork for why you do
36:17
what you do now at Arrowhead Talent Solutions and why you are
36:21
so emotionally invested in helping all of the folks that
36:27
come to you. Yeah, Yeah.
36:28
I mean. Great question, and I think it's
36:32
weird how it all works out. You have the benefit of
36:34
hindsight, of course, 10/12/15 years later, but it's really
36:37
cool to see how this, this story has evolved and it's a little
36:40
bit of a redemptive arc, I guess.
36:42
So when I was able to start working for the foundation and
36:47
start my business, it was, I knew I always wanted to do my
36:50
own thing but didn't know how, where or when.
36:54
And then it kind of just happened.
36:56
I mean, a lot of old friends found out I was a free agent, so
36:59
to speak, and said, hey, I want to go to coffee with you.
37:03
I don't know what I'd want to do with my life.
37:05
I think you could help me with that.
37:06
I had a lot of people asking me that.
37:08
And I thought, wow, what a really, what an honor, you know,
37:12
to sit and talk to somebody about what their destiny might
37:16
be. Then I started getting requests
37:19
to help people with their resumes.
37:21
And I was like, yeah, sure. So I just started charging
37:23
people a little bit of money. And I think I started with like
37:25
50 bucks. And then I kept just upping the
37:28
price until I got a little bit of hesitation.
37:31
I knew that was probably where the market should be.
37:34
So I started doing resumes for people.
37:36
And then that first year of Arrowhead, it was 2018, my old
37:40
company hired me. And so I started doing
37:43
recruiting work for them. And then by the end of that
37:46
year, I had pretty good resume business.
37:49
I had three corporate clients, all came to me through
37:52
introductions. And I was a, you know, doing
37:56
that on the side while I was doing the foundation.
37:58
And it just grew steadily from there.
38:01
I think I, you know, look back on that time and I think when
38:05
you're trying to do the right thing and be a good person in
38:07
the moment, you think, man, this really stinks.
38:09
I'm trying to do the right thing.
38:11
And everybody else was taking short cuts and they're getting
38:13
ahead. And I'm not, I look back and go,
38:16
well, I probably wouldn't have gotten all these introductions
38:19
and referrals to these clients and things if I had been a jerk.
38:22
So I, I think if you look back and go, I sometimes doing the
38:26
right thing pays off. It's a little bit of a longer
38:28
game, but I had friends and colleagues and former colleagues
38:31
who respected me enough to help with introductions to make my
38:35
business, you know, to get my business off the ground and it
38:39
grew steadily. I was a solo preneur for the
38:41
first few years. What were some of those
38:44
shortcuts that you saw other people taking that you avoided?
38:48
I think the biggest one in the corporate world was just being
38:51
so disrespectful to everybody else.
38:53
And, you know, I, I sat in a lot of meetings that were tense and
38:59
if not outright hostile. And it always just struck me how
39:03
nothing was ever productive in most meetings in corporate
39:07
America. And I always thought we're on
39:10
the same team here. Like, I want to help you.
39:13
I think you should try to help me.
39:14
I don't understand why we're going against each other.
39:16
But a lot of it just comes down to fear.
39:18
Everybody's scared, everybody wants to feel safe, everybody
39:22
wants to protect what's theirs. And you see that a ton in the
39:25
working world. And, and I think most people
39:28
fall prey to that. And I try not to judge that
39:30
because again, we're all human. We're all scared.
39:33
We all deal with our fears and insecurities in different ways.
39:36
And so I saw that at time and the higher up you got, it seemed
39:40
like a lot of folks were fairly arrogant and dismissive and
39:43
didn't want to listen and didn't want to learn and just unethical
39:48
behavior too. Saw a lot of that over the
39:50
years. I've been taking shortcuts when
39:52
it was clearly the wrong thing to do.
39:55
And you know, I'm not trying to puff myself up.
39:57
I'm sure I was a jerk and all that to other people too.
40:00
But largely I tried to be a good guy and and hear you a code of
40:03
ethics that I thought, you know, I thought that was really
40:05
important to guide my behavior. Well, so you were solopreneur
40:10
for the first few years. Sounds like even by the end of
40:13
year 1 you were doing pretty well.
40:14
Nice resume business. You had a few corporate clients
40:18
and all this was on the side. And at what point did you decide
40:23
to go and do this full time though it?
40:26
Just happened in a way I I probably am simplifying it too
40:30
much but 201819 and 20 I grew through COVID even a little bit.
40:37
21 and and 2021, we even were growing through that year.
40:44
And when I say we, I mean me. So the company was growing even
40:47
through that year. I decided good friends of ours,
40:52
their babysitter, it was a college student looking for an
40:55
internship and they said, hey, would you help her find an
40:57
internship? So I was doing that and then I
40:59
had an epiphany. I thought, why wouldn't I just
41:01
hire her as my intern? I'm kind of sick of doing all my
41:04
social media. So I did.
41:05
She was a marketing student. And then within a month or two,
41:07
I thought, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
41:09
I'm getting all this time back and I'm forgetting what your
41:12
question was, Anthony. But anyway, so I hired her and
41:16
she was our first, my first foray into hiring another person
41:19
and and seeing what scaling could look like.
41:22
And I'm going to stop because I forgot what you asked me.
41:24
It was just when did you? Decide to step away from the
41:26
foundation and focus on Arrowhead full time.
41:29
That's the evolution. Yeah, thank you.
41:31
So I'm still doing the foundation, but it's definitely
41:33
kind of flipped now where the foundation's more part time and
41:37
the the business is, is full time and then some.
41:40
But by 21 is when the business got to a point where the work
41:45
was coming in at such a pace that I was overwhelmed.
41:48
And, and my team always jokes now and says that every time I
41:51
am in the fetal position is when I hire a new person.
41:54
And I think that's a pretty accurate way to describe it.
41:57
So it was before the big charity event for Brighter Days one year
42:02
in 2021. I was onboarding so many new
42:05
clients and it just happened that it was the craziest thing.
42:08
I said to my wife, I don't know what I'm going to do.
42:10
And normally I can produce mass quantities of work and I don't
42:14
get overwhelmed like that. And I go, I can't even think
42:17
what to do right now. And she goes, I'll call Andrew.
42:21
Andrew's her cousin. And he was between jobs and he
42:23
thought, yeah, I'll do it. I'll help him get through this
42:26
crush of work. And that's all he thought it was
42:29
going to be after a few months of seeing what he was capable of
42:33
doing, with minimal training, I might add.
42:35
And they remind me of that every day, too.
42:37
I gave him a job offer unannounced one Friday night,
42:41
and I bribed him with a pretty rare bottle of bourbon and said,
42:45
hey, look, man, I thought about this a lot.
42:48
I want this to be more permanent.
42:50
And he was so shocked he didn't even know what to do.
42:53
But he accepted the offer and by 21, we had a team of three.
42:58
By the end of 21, we had a team of three, my intern Andrew and
43:01
me. And then 22 is when we actually
43:05
4X our revenue from 2021. I couldn't have anticipated
43:09
that. And that's when my life just
43:11
really super changed, I would say.
43:14
What do you mean? Super changed in what ways?
43:17
Well. Did you see these guitars behind
43:19
me? I had the best of intentions as
43:20
a middle-aged man to learn to play guitar during that time.
43:23
And then my business took off that way.
43:25
I just said I can't play guitar anymore.
43:27
Every waking minute in 2022, I was working.
43:31
I'm not even kidding. Like wake up in the middle of
43:34
the night and start thinking about stuff we just were
43:38
getting. It was the great resignation,
43:40
which obviously was a big factor if everybody remembers what that
43:44
term is. But if you don't, that's when
43:46
post COVID, a lot of people were getting their jobs back.
43:49
And so there were there were a ton of opportunities rather for
43:53
recruiting firms to hire and place people.
43:55
But my also things just kind of happened for us.
43:58
It wasn't all the great resignation.
44:00
So we were on boarding a ton of clients.
44:03
I became a glorified order taker.
44:05
We did not have systems, processes and tools set up to
44:09
handle the volume of work. I was still doing everything on
44:12
a notepad. I'm ashamed to say when Andrew
44:14
came on board, he said, no, no, no, we're not doing this
44:17
anymore. And he goes and to to our, to my
44:20
credit, I'm humble enough. I go, look, you want to change
44:23
something, you tell me because you're probably smarter than me.
44:25
And they're all smarter than me. So you guys, no, no, no, we're
44:28
doing this on a spreadsheet now. I said fine, I don't even care
44:30
anymore because I couldn't even think.
44:32
I couldn't even process anything.
44:34
But it was just mental overload all the time.
44:37
And so I was still able to do the foundation work.
44:41
But 2022 is when my life changed.
44:43
And it was all good stress, but it was still very, very
44:48
stressful. And I knew that we needed to to
44:52
make some major systemic changes to the business.
44:55
I needed to make some major changes in my personal life.
44:58
So. Before we talk about those
45:01
changes, I want to understand how you forex growth in one
45:04
year. Was the social media just
45:07
becoming really effective? Were you guys getting lots of
45:09
referrals? How did this happen?
45:11
Mostly referrals. Yeah, I mean, I would get.
45:14
It was the craziest time. I look back on it and I'm like,
45:16
that couldn't have even been real, honestly, Anthony.
45:19
But lots of people would call and say, hey, so and so told me
45:23
about you guys. I really need your help filling
45:27
a few jobs for my company. Or I would get an e-mail
45:30
introduction from a client or a former colleague who would say,
45:35
Clark, this is so and so. I've told them about you.
45:38
I think you guys need to have a conversation about their talent
45:41
needs. And my thing from a sales
45:44
perspective, I never tried to close anybody.
45:47
I have just always say, hey, I'm here if you need me.
45:49
I think I can help you. Give me a call if you want to
45:52
work together. And it, it really works because
45:56
I think people want to, again, it goes back to what we talked
45:59
about just being a human being. And I, I try to just show people
46:01
how much I care about them, not that I want to make a bunch of
46:04
money off of them. And I think that probably helped
46:07
us quite a bit too during that time.
46:09
So lots of referrals and introductions and the network
46:12
really got activated big time. So we are thankful for that
46:15
because it told me we were doing something right to get those
46:18
kinds of referrals too. And so.
46:23
Actually, let's talk about those changes that you made.
46:25
Yeah, I want, I want to hear where Arrowhead is today.
46:28
But first I want to hear because it sounds like you got to a
46:30
point where like I got to make some changes in the business of
46:33
my life. What were those?
46:34
Yeah, I'd say just from the the personal life, I had to jettison
46:37
things like little projects, learning the guitar as an
46:40
example. I had to focus on what was
46:42
absolutely essential at the time we had a baby.
46:45
And so I said anything I can do to just go to the most essential
46:50
elements of my life, I'm going to do.
46:52
So it was work and family. That's really all I had the
46:54
capacity for. No hobbies, no interests.
46:56
I used to read a ton and I had to stop doing reading and it
47:00
just, we had to strip everything down.
47:02
So that was the first thing on the personal life side.
47:05
On the the business side, we had a lot of stuff, but it was in my
47:09
head and and that wasn't good. So we had to create or I rather
47:15
had to create processes for our business and document them and
47:21
then of course streamline and improve those along the way.
47:23
So the old business adage building the plane while you're
47:26
flying, it really applied to us in in 23, early 23, I hired a
47:32
gentleman on our team who was very process oriented and he
47:35
started documenting everything really, really well.
47:38
And he did it without me even asking.
47:41
So one day I had people up to the office and they wanted to
47:44
know the wireless password. I don't know what that was, but
47:47
I knew my colleague would and I just knew it.
47:51
I knew he was documenting everything.
47:53
And I go, hey, Brian, what's the wireless password?
47:55
And he immediately looked it up on this document he was
47:58
creating. And that's when I knew we had
48:00
something. So we created and documented and
48:04
streamlined processes, tons of process improvements that we
48:08
made about 145 in 2023 that I documented, we added to the team
48:15
and, and built the team out, created a more, you know, I did
48:20
an org design that that made sense for us.
48:22
And I created good compensation structures for the team that
48:27
properly incentivized everybody. And I only hired people at the
48:30
time who I knew I trusted with my life.
48:33
I knew they were smart. Pretty much everybody I hired
48:36
and brought in did not have recruiting experience.
48:38
They were just nice, awesome people and I just poured into
48:42
them as much as I could. And it was a definitely a big
48:47
learning curve and I had to do a lot of investing up front.
48:51
But that investment has paid off hugely in the in the present
48:55
day. So I'm grateful for those
48:57
decisions I made. So there's just some of the
48:59
things. But like the guy said, you can't
49:02
car. You cannot.
49:03
Every time we get a new job, write it down on your notepad,
49:05
dude. We don't know what that means.
49:08
So then they did a spreadsheet and then they moved the
49:10
spreadsheet to like a Google Sheet.
49:12
And then we got applicant tracking software and then it
49:14
just kept improving and snowballing.
49:16
And then I got a business coach in 2023, which helped us a lot,
49:19
too. So it sounds like you very much
49:23
hired for personality and said, hey, if they're good people, I
49:28
can teach them the skills that they need.
49:30
Yep. Are you a good person?
49:32
Do I trust you? Are you smart and do you want to
49:36
learn? That's all I care about.
49:38
And they came from one came from environmental health and safety.
49:42
Another was a marketing student. Another was a higher Ed
49:46
executive. Another worked for, like, parks
49:50
and campgrounds. Yeah.
49:53
And another was just a grad student.
49:56
We we brought in not just a grad student, he's extremely bright.
50:00
One person I hired was a recruiter, but I hired as her as
50:03
an intern years ago at that company.
50:05
So that was kind of cool too. So two people I brought in are
50:08
recruiters by training. One of those when we were
50:12
talking, I said, I think you're a sales guy.
50:15
And he resisted that initially, but now he's the most amazing
50:20
sales and business development guy.
50:22
So thankfully we put him in that seat.
50:24
So the one recruiter I brought in is not even doing recruiting
50:26
for us. And as I understand it, you take
50:30
a somewhat similar approach to your clients in terms of you'll
50:34
only work with good people. If you find a client that is
50:38
misrepresenting or mistreating employees, they're done.
50:43
Yeah. And.
50:44
We're probably not perfect at this, but we, we definitely want
50:47
to guard. We just want to protect our
50:50
brand. But we, we tell that to our
50:51
clients too. Hey, we want to protect your
50:53
brand. We want to ensure that that
50:57
candidates see you in the marketplace has a good ethical
50:59
player. And so we don't have a formal
51:02
system for evaluating clients. But if there are enough
51:05
infractions ethically, we definitely don't want that work
51:08
anymore. And so that usually comes in the
51:10
form of little sleight of hand tricks where let's say low
51:15
balling on an offer where every step of the way the candidate
51:18
says, hey, I need 50,000, you know, salary to make this work.
51:22
The client company acknowledges that every step of the way.
51:25
And they furthermore say pay ranges between 50 and 60.
51:28
And they go, yeah, 50 is cool, we can make that work.
51:31
And then when it comes time to make the offer, they want to
51:33
extend an offer for 44,000. And we go, guys, come on, like
51:38
we can't do this. This is this is not what we want
51:41
to do. It's not how we want to
51:42
represent ourselves and we don't want to represent you that way.
51:45
So we've seen those patterns, thankfully not a ton, but life
51:50
is too short, I think to to take on those kinds of partners in
51:55
the world. And the nice part about there's
51:57
a lot of bad about being an entrepreneur, I think.
52:00
But one of the good things is that you get to create a world
52:03
based off of your values and you get to live those out to the
52:06
extent that you see fit. And something that I really want
52:10
to do is create a world for our team and our clients where
52:15
everyone cares for each other deeply.
52:18
And you've got a partner and an advocate in US and I I don't
52:23
want my team to to work with individuals like that.
52:26
We don't judge that behavior make a lot of times it's again,
52:29
fear based, control based. So we don't judge that, but at
52:33
the same time we don't need to associate with it so.
52:37
Present day at Arrowhead Talent Solutions.
52:40
What is your specialty? What industries do you work
52:44
with? What types of roles do you help
52:45
to fill? Yeah, so.
52:47
Being in Northeast Ohio, there's about 7700 manufacturing
52:50
companies here and still to this day.
52:53
So that's pretty cool. So by virtue of my network and
52:56
our geography, we focused in on manufacturing and industrial
52:59
companies. Your intro was was really great.
53:03
It alluded to mid market. That's pretty good.
53:06
Yeah, pretty good summary. So I'd say small to mid sized
53:09
manufacturing industrial companies.
53:11
And then inside of that we fill professional and salary
53:13
positions. So things like specialized
53:16
individual contributor position. So maybe like a super niche
53:19
controls engineer all the way up to executive level jobs.
53:23
And I mentioned a former EHS guy is on our team.
53:26
So we love filling environmental, health and safety
53:29
positions. We have a niche in engineering
53:32
and then we do particularly well in human resources jobs too.
53:35
So those would be our kind of niches.
53:37
And we're nationwide. So we don't just fill jobs here
53:41
in Northeast Ohio, we'll fill them all over the country.
53:44
And what is your biggest growth lever today, presently?
53:48
Is it still referrals? Is it social media?
53:50
How are you guys growing? Yeah, we don't know.
53:52
Honestly, we're trying to figure all this out.
53:57
I, I again, I'll be very candid with you.
53:59
Sometimes we think what's working.
54:01
I don't know. But I think referrals are great
54:04
for us. That's still very helpful.
54:07
And we've gotten to a point now where we're trying to be very
54:10
targeted and targeted rather and intentional about the prospects
54:14
we reach out to. And so John on our team is our
54:17
sales and business development person.
54:20
He spends an inordinate amount of time finding organizations
54:23
who we think would align well with our approach.
54:26
So we think values, relational, those sorts of things and then
54:31
we'll make very intentional outreach efforts to those folks.
54:34
And then if we have mutual connections who can refer us in,
54:38
that really helps. So we try to triangulate as much
54:40
as we can and that tends to help us breakthrough.
54:44
And we know many times that an organization doesn't need our
54:47
services or doesn't care to work with a with a recruiting agency.
54:51
But if they're at least acknowledging our presence, we
54:54
know some of the tactics are working.
54:56
So that's kind of what we would say.
54:58
But we're used to being told no a lot and that's OK too.
55:02
That's. Part of the normal sales
55:03
process, yeah, for. Sure.
55:05
So what is the? Future of Arrowhead talent
55:07
solutions look like where are you guys headed?
55:09
Well, we want to. Keep growing in the traditional
55:12
sense, but we also think about growth for our team because it's
55:16
hard to explain, but I mentioned kind of creating a little world
55:19
at Arrowhead. We, we really care about and,
55:24
and love one another a lot and I want to protect that and
55:27
everybody else does too. So the growth we want to, we
55:30
want to keep growing. We want to add to the team, but
55:33
we want to be very careful about who we add because we know we
55:36
don't. It's a, it's a special group.
55:39
And because we have such well behaved and ethical people, we
55:42
don't have a lot of policies and procedures.
55:45
We've got unlimited vacation. I don't know what anybody's
55:48
doing like right now. If you said, what's John?
55:50
I, I don't know what John's doing.
55:51
I don't know where he is. I, I don't care.
55:54
I know he's doing a great job. That's all I care about.
55:56
And we can't let people come into that culture unless they're
55:59
really a good fit. So we want to grow in the
56:02
traditional sense, but we also talked about helping more people
56:05
and growing our impact. That's really important to us.
56:08
And we feel like through all the growing pains over the last
56:10
couple of years, we've got a wonderful process and a system
56:14
that works time and time again. And we want to help more
56:17
companies find great talent. We want to help more individuals
56:21
find a dream job for an employer who will really care about and
56:24
respect them. And we've started a small
56:26
consulting practice, which we want to continue expanding upon.
56:30
Beyond that, I have some ideas. But, you know, part of the
56:35
beauty of our team is that I encourage everyone to shoot down
56:39
my ideas. So I'll bring 10 of them,
56:42
they'll go nine of these nine are just not that good, let's be
56:44
honest. And I, I accept that.
56:46
But the 10th might make it through.
56:48
And So what if it survives their pressure testing?
56:52
Then we start thinking more about those ideas.
56:55
So I've got some of those and works, but not sure where those
56:58
go. But we want to grow, want to
57:00
expand consulting practice and double down on what's working.
57:03
And we're, we're cautiously optimistic for a great 2026 and
57:07
beyond for our company. What's the?
57:08
Consulting business surrounded by it's mostly.
57:11
Human resources consulting and what we've ended up kind of
57:15
finding is that people will come to us with vague problems and
57:20
go, I don't, I just need to talk to you guys.
57:23
So that's been our biggest challenge is talking to a
57:25
business owner. He's so stressed out and
57:26
overwhelmed and helping them articulate the problems.
57:29
And I went through all this myself.
57:31
So I feel like I can help them define and understand those
57:34
things and give them a little bit of, you know, affirmation
57:38
and say, hey, just went through this.
57:39
What you're feeling is totally normal.
57:41
And so that's, that's been part of our learning is to help
57:45
people define what those problems are and then allow them
57:47
to help us because letting go of control of your business is
57:51
really hard for most people. I was the opposite, I brought in
57:55
my team and as soon as I saw them work I thought I would be
57:58
the absolute fool to hold any of these people back and they
58:02
proved me right time and time again.
58:03
So I'm the exception rather than the rule and I don't.
58:07
Again, don't judge that. So we do mostly HR consulting
58:11
projects and that could range from compensation analysis to
58:15
creating an org chart or an employee handbook.
58:18
But it usually bleeds into bigger issues, things like what
58:22
are your values? What are your goals for this
58:24
company? Why do you, why did you start
58:26
this thing? How can we help you really
58:28
understand who you're who you are?
58:30
And that will help inform what your business really is too.
58:35
Clark, what is your superpower? Well.
58:39
I think a few things. I think 1 is that I am pretty
58:42
good at moving work forward and managing a lot of projects
58:46
simultaneously. So very efficient.
58:49
I think I probably got this from my mom that just really caring
58:59
for people and letting them feel.
59:04
I think a lot of it comes down to people want to feel safe in
59:07
life. And I think people feel safe
59:09
with me and they trust me and they know I care.
59:16
And so I think that's probably my my biggest superpower, if I
59:20
had to guess. And then I found that I'm really
59:23
not that good at many other things, honestly, like I said
59:26
before, but I think if people know that you love them and care
59:30
about them and want to help them, then it breaks down a lot
59:32
of barriers. And that's what enables us to
59:34
help other companies and, and people so much is because we all
59:37
take that approach. What's something?
59:40
Fun you like to do outside of work?
59:43
Oh. Man, I love killing bonsai
59:44
trees. I've killed like probably four
59:48
or five. And I recently, so as my life,
59:54
my life has changed, I've got such an amazing team.
59:56
And over the last couple of months I, I go into the office
59:59
and I'm like, Hey, can I make a call?
1:00:01
Can I help you guys? And they're like, no.
1:00:03
And I'll say what's my job? And they go to stay out of the
1:00:07
way. And they really mean that and
1:00:10
they joke with me about it, but they they mean it in love.
1:00:13
So my pace of my life has changed and I work where before
1:00:17
it was every waking moment. I was on my phone all night
1:00:20
doing emails. And man, it was crazy to now
1:00:24
where I'm still working hard, but I can actually breathe a
1:00:27
little bit. I'm so grateful for that.
1:00:29
Like I can't even articulate how grateful I am.
1:00:32
So my wife and I went out, we got a bonsai.
1:00:34
I got a bonsai tree again last week and I'm looking at it right
1:00:37
now and I haven't killed it yet so I really want to get this
1:00:41
right. I don't know why I like bonsai
1:00:43
so much but I think it's so cool and I just want to make it work
1:00:48
once. I just want to make a tree live
1:00:51
longer than like 3 months. That's that's that's probably a
1:00:54
fun thing about me. Yeah, for those folks who didn't
1:00:58
pick up on Clarks sarcasm, he's not actually trying to kill
1:01:02
bonsai. No, don't want any angry
1:01:05
messages here. I love him.
1:01:07
I. Love him so much, doesn't have
1:01:09
the he. Hasn't found his green thumb
1:01:11
yet, 100%. Well, Clark.
1:01:13
I've just got one more question for you today.
1:01:15
But before I ask you, I want to do 3 quick things.
1:01:18
First of all, anybody that wants to get in touch with Clark
1:01:20
Harvey, you can find him on LinkedIn and we'll have that
1:01:23
link in our show notes. But if you search for Clark
1:01:25
Harvey and Arrowhead Talent Solutions on LinkedIn, you will
1:01:29
find him. Also their website, super easy
1:01:32
to remember, Arrowhead talentsolutions.com.
1:01:35
What's behind the name Clark? Well, do you want like the
1:01:38
shorter version or the longer version?
1:01:40
Yeah, give us the summed. Up version all right, the
1:01:42
easiest. Way to say it is it's a great
1:01:44
metaphor for targeted. You know, it's a great way to
1:01:47
talk about searches and finding talent.
1:01:49
It's targeted, it's hitting the mark, it's all those kinds of
1:01:52
things. So and I love arrowheads.
1:01:55
They're personally meaningful to me.
1:01:57
And so I'll just leave it at that.
1:01:59
OK, Arrowhead. Talentsolutions.com.
1:02:02
Also, as a reminder, if you want to get more staffing employees,
1:02:05
access to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds that, as
1:02:08
paradoxical as it seems, actually increases the company's
1:02:12
net profits, reach out to us at Add Back benefits.com.
1:02:16
And finally, if you're enjoying the show today, a quick comment
1:02:19
or review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way
1:02:23
towards helping others discover our show.
1:02:25
So thank you in advance for taking a moment to do that right
1:02:28
now. All right, last.
1:02:30
Question for you now, a year from today, Clark, what is 1
1:02:34
specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
1:02:39
Another year of of growth in our business and I don't know how to
1:02:48
say this other than it's a feeling.
1:02:50
But I want to feel as if the business ran more and more
1:02:56
without me guiding it and knowing that it's a sustainable
1:03:01
engine and I'm not driving it and everybody on the team is
1:03:07
driving it. If I have that feeling at the
1:03:10
end of this year, early next, that will be a huge success for
1:03:14
me. Clark Harvey from Arrowhead
1:03:18
Talent Solutions, I want to be the first to thank you for
1:03:21
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:03:24
I really appreciate. You thanks for having me folks.
1:03:27
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:03:30
Thanks for learning with us today.