how to make f*ck you money with recruiting

In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to make fuck you money with recruiting. But before I do, let me just tell you what we're not going to do. We're not going to grind 60 hours a week making money for somebody else. We're not going to start an agency that replaces the job you already have with worse hours and more stress. And we're definitely not going to build something where if you take one week off, the whole thing collapses. Because what we're going to do is build a recruitment business that runs on a system, one where you can step back and clients call come to you. Candidates get sourced automatically, and your revenue compounds month over month, whether you're at your desk or you're not. I've done this for myself. I'm actively running my own recruitment business, and I've helped others go from zero to $30K in literally 3 months. I have someone who's tracking for $100K in 3 months. Hopefully I'll share them with you very soon. I've helped some go from $5K to $36K, and even employed professionals with no recruitment experience to now running a fully fledged recruitment company on their own. And this is the exact model I followed and exactly what I showed them. So first, let's just define what we're actually building here, because most recruiters are building the wrong thing. So for most agency owners, if you put a chart like this and you've got time, and then you put money here, then what usually happens is their time is about this much, and then the money that they make is about this much. So all that means is that if you want to increase the amount of money that you're going to make, then you have to put in more time. The problem is, is that you will burn out. And then this will happen, then that will happen. Okay, that's a problem. Because what we actually want is a business where your time stays consistent, but your income probably does something like this, and it continues to grow despite the amount of time that you put in. All because these are the two different types of recruitment incomes that you can have. You have linear income, this is where your time is connected to the amount of money that you make. You are always on, maybe even the entire business is founder dependent. Whereas the other one is compounding income. This is systems leverage, the ability to step back. And for most recruiters, they only ever build the first type and then they wonder why they're exhausted. So it's important to know what is founder dependency in a recruitment business and what does it actually look like day to day. And the issue is this, everything stops with you. Problems with your team, they come to you. Problems with your clients, they come to you. Someone's not paid a bill on time or an invoice on time, it's your problem. Someone's not turned up to their interview, it's your problem. And a client wants a refund, that's also your problem. Like, everything comes back to you. And the difference between making $30K for yourself and running a business that generates $30K is that it doesn't depend on you. Candidates and clients will get generated irrespective of whether you take time off or not. Because despite how I started this video, The real answer to this question is not necessarily how much money you specifically make, because the amount of money that you're happy with is different to an amount of money that somebody else is happy with. The ultimate thing that really begins to play out is optionality, which is how many options do you have? When can you take time off? When can you not take time off? And what happens if you do? It's not necessarily that you've made a boatload of money. The issue is how much control do you have over your time outside of your core working hours? Because if you can maintain your income but have significantly more free time, then you know that by increasing your time, you're going to make more money. As long as you can repeat that process, except if your income is directly tied to the amount of hours that you put in, then you take time off, everything stops. So I'll tell you what's more important than starting a recruitment business is actually understanding what you're building, because what you definitely don't want is another job that pays you potentially a little bit more, but also gives you less free time and more stress. That's not the business that you want. I can tell you from experience, it's not nice. And here's the problem. And I see this with almost every single recruiter who comes to me. A lot of recruiters who go to start their own business, they forget for a moment that there is an amount of time, energy, and cost associated with running the actual business. When you're working as a full-time recruiter, you don't have to submit tax accounts. You don't have to have a meeting with your accountant. You might not even have to chase invoices. It's not just the individual task that is the problem. It's the amount of time that it takes away from you being able to conduct revenue-generating activities, which is ultimately sourcing clients and candidates. And yes, you can amplify that with AI and automation, but it still requires a skill to actually build up that software as well and make it work for you. So when you consider the typical recruiter, it's pick up the phone, make as many dials as you possibly can, charge as much as you possibly can, repeat all of that. And that's exactly why there's a ceiling that you eventually hit. That ceiling for you might be $5K, it might be at $10K, it might even be at $100K. And this is exactly why most recruitment companies, they stay independent or even solo solo because what they're trying to hire, they're trying to hire without any systems or any value underneath the business. That's why it's so difficult to hire a really good recruiter because why the heck would a really good recruiter come and work for a business where nothing is organized and nothing is set up for their success? So if there's no system underneath the business, then the revenue is not predictable. And that's why the employees, especially if you're interviewing good recruiters, it's really hard to find them, attract them, and even get them to work for you because they don't have confidence in your business model. You probably don't either. Harsh reality. And this problem glows and it shines, especially when you know you're always on for clients calling you. You're available in the evenings and the weekends. You don't get any real downtime and everything is running through you, the founder. And the moment when most recruiters realize that the model is broken, hate to say it, is usually when they feel like they need a break. It's like, I've been doing this hard work for so long, maybe even making okay money, but what do they do to try and fix it? They will hire a couple of recruiters thinking, okay, this is going to lessen my workload. Heck, like, you've got problems in your business as it is. You now hire more recruiters, you have to deal with their problems, and that takes you even further away from generating clients and candidates, which is ultimately the thing that's going to help you make more money. And this is exactly the situation that Qasim fell into. He felt that if he put in more hours, he could earn significantly more, but he had some time constraints. He's got a family that he has to take care of, including kids. So yeah, you can put in more hours, but that comes at a cost that he didn't really want to pay. And the issue that he had was systems and infrastructure. Once the infrastructure was in play, then he made a hire. Like, this is somebody who has been running their own business for several years. They previously grew a recruitment business. Qasim previously grew his recruitment business to 6 employees, then closed it down to start again. And we started talking. This time round, it was not a recruiter. And when he hired software and employees to remove all of the things that don't generate revenue for him, everything became easier. All of a sudden he started to make more money. All because what? His time was being spent in an inefficient manner. I'm saying that. Respectfully. His time was being spent on business development, generating candidates, and then doing all the things that I mentioned earlier— invoicing, chasing clients, etc. Except that wasn't going to help him make more money. What was going to make him money is going to be placements. So we needed the shortest, quickest, fastest route to success with the highest leverage on his time to help him make that money. And to this day, he says that this employee that we're talking about, who is not a revenue-generating employee, was the best hire that he has ever made. So let me show you how this model actually works. And this is exactly what I use, and this is what I teach too. Now, in recruitment, you've typically got two different business development cycles that are running at the same time. One is focused on clients, and the other one is focused on candidates. Now, when you first make contact with your clients, they are ultimately going to be cold. And the same thing for your candidates, they are going to be cold. As they get to know you, they work their way down this little pipe, let's call it a funnel, work their way down this little pipe. And this section is known as nurturing. This means that maybe the clients and the candidates are not ready to change jobs just yet. So that means they very slowly work their way down this particular pipe. And when they get down here, they become active. This is what we want. We want loads of active clients and candidates. The issue here is to find active clients and candidates. This is the most time-consuming thing that you can possibly do in recruitment. You are constantly prospecting. This is where you're cold calling. This is where you're trying to find candidates on job boards. Everything falls in play here. And getting a candidate all the way down to here to active, this is the most expensive and time-consuming part. And the same thing for clients, because now you're calling, you're emailing, you're messaging, and you're trying to present to them suitable candidates. And it takes a lot of time. And once they become active, this is where recruitment actually starts, because now all of a sudden you have to organize an interview. And only once you've organized an interview, you're going to get an offer, and then you're going to start making placements. Okay, this is basically where money is made. Now there's another thing that comes into it, and that is once the placement is made, then you go into this section, which is now you've got an invoice. And even that becomes time-consuming. And once you've invoiced that's the end of it. It hits a dead end because there's no reason for the client to come back to you ever again. You've found them the candidate and you've made a placement with them, and that's the end of it. So if this is stuff that is stressful and time-consuming, and this is also stressful and time-consuming, then how do we improve this process? Because the reality is, is that as you're working your way down this process and eventually you get to this place where you're making placements, you're so happy and you're excited for making placements, that you haven't had time to spend up here. And because you haven't spent any time there, guess what? You now end up in this situation where you don't have any clients or candidates because you haven't spent the time generating clients and candidates. Really weird situation to be in. So here's where it gets interesting. This section here, this is not where you want to be using— I mean, there's a few bits in between, but you don't want to be using AI and automation in here. However, what if you could use it up here? What if you can use it here? What if you can use it to take care of all of this. Then if these sections are the most time-consuming elements of recruitment, and these sections here— sorry, just include this bit up here as well— if these sections are the most profitable part, then what we want to do is spend the most amount of time here and the least amount of time in what I've highlighted in green. So that's the places where you use AI and automation. This, this is what I've been doing. So now if we can use AI and automation just to start the conversation for both clients and candidates, then it's inevitable that they will become active in it's inevitable that they will go through this process, and it's inevitable that we're going to be sending invoices and making placements as well. So that's where you apply automation and where you don't apply automation. The next thing that comes in place is how do you grow this operation? So let's just start from the beginning. You've got a person here, and this is a recruiter who has just left to start their own business. Might even be you, and you have a load of responses. You have invoicing, you have clients— I'm abbreviating all of these— you have candidates, you have emails, you have socials. And you can imagine this list can become really, really long. Heck, man, you got bills, LinkedIn, recruiter invoices, software. You got to be in charge of all of this, and all of this is your responsibility. This person's got a headache because they come straight into that person. Now, what I was describing earlier about how hiring more recruiters, what this person will do is they're gonna come along and say, hey, look, what if I just hire 3 more people? And now they move in to hiring these 3 people and they think, okay, you know what? That's gonna make life a lot easier because I wanna make $150K a year. So now if this person does $150K, this person does $150K, and this person does $150K, then for me, my $150K becomes irrelevant because they're all going to make the money for me. But they didn't account for one thing, that is that all of these responsibilities get copied and pasted here. So this person has all of that. This person has all of that. So now all of these people carry the same weight and responsibility as what you do. But now when they have problems, they come to you as well. So now even if you were making $150K a year on your own, that's like, you know, without you hiring all of these people, you were making $150K a year. Now all of a sudden this has to get divided by 2. So at best you're going to make $75K in a year. Now all of a sudden it's not really worth it. It's like, okay, this is a tough business because, you know, why would you take home 75K when previously you were able to take home 150K, but now with more employees, you're not making as much money. It doesn't make sense. And that's because these people, unless you're hiring experienced recruiters who are actually better than you, they're not going to be able to perform as well as you. They're only going to become as good as you. So if they are as good as you, they're going to struggle to make 150K. The reality that actually plays out is that you're going to get one person that's going to be underperforming and they cause you the most amount of grief and stress. And then you're going to have one person that is doing okay, but on their own it's not really worth it. And another person that's a really high performer. This person is thinking, why the heck am I working for this guy when I could just go and set up my own business? And then they leave and then they start again from the situation that I described earlier where you're one person on your own with all of those responsibilities and that cycle just completely repeats. Now the way that we change this is this. Instead of hiring these 3 people, all we do is we do what I described earlier. Instead of carrying the weight of all of these responsibilities, we use AI and automation. They are different. AI and automation are not the same thing, but we move all of these responsibilities down to here. Now I also described earlier that there were some things that you don't automate. So all we need is another person. Who is not a revenue-generating employee, i.e., a recruiter, and we use them together. So now when these three work in absolute harmony, then what you find is that you have more free time and you're able to generate just as much, if not more money than what you were doing before. So what do you do in that situation? Now you actually have the ability to hire because you could jump out of this position, moving you over here, and this actually becomes a really good opportunity for a recruiter, one of these people who's not happy in another company to come here. Because guess what? They don't have to have any of these responsibilities and they can earn well and they get the support from a team and the business is well structured and organized. So previously where you're trying to grow and copy and paste this entire recruitment business model only to find that it causes constraints and has more problems. Now what you're doing is you're copying and pasting this entire recruitment business model because you're out the picture. So much more easier and way less stressful. So your client and candidate generation is now on autopilot. It happens without you. It doesn't take much time of your day and it carries on running even when you're on holiday. And the same thing for your backend processes, including your invoicing process and so on. That all happens regardless of whether you're there or not. In fact, it's a good test to take, which is why not just book 2, even 4 weeks off on holiday? Don't do anything. Sign out of everything from a work-related perspective. Come back, let's see what happens. And if your business is still there, you've got a good— if you come back and now you've got a mountain of problems, they're all the things that we need to remove from your responsibilities. So if you want to do this right from the get-go, then the first thing that you need is a good niche. Pick a clear niche, one that has critical hiring built into the decision-making process, one that a good candidate is in seriously high demand for, and one that pays well. At the end of the day, like, if you're going to charge 20%, you're better off charging 20% on a million than you are charging 20% on 30K. I usually find that there's a middle ground that balances well because the amount of jobs that pay a million a year where they will use a recruiter for it they're fewer than the amount of jobs that are available that pay $100K a year where they are happy to pay 20% for. So when you use AI and automation to help you generate both clients and candidates, then all of a sudden you become a specialist. You're no longer a generalist. Everything happens on autopilot and not everything stops with you. So finding a good niche is often a very critical decision and sometimes the actual hard part in recruitment, because if you pick the wrong niche and you put all of your time, energy, and effort into it over the next 6 months, then the only thing that you might learn is the niche isn't actually that good. So picking a really good niche is the priority, one that is AI-proof, one that has a consistent demand, one that has a growing demand would be a bonus. And even if you can find one that is recession-proof, even better. Put all of these things together and guess what? You've got yourself a good niche. And then step 2 comes in play. The diagram I showed earlier, client and candidate acquisition, put that on autopilot as fast as you possibly can. Not just post on LinkedIn and try and become a LinkedIn influencer, although regular LinkedIn posts has its place, but put client and candidate acquisition on autopilot because then it doesn't take any time out of your day. If you ask me, my go-to channels are email and LinkedIn. And how good your client and candidate acquisition system works for you depends an amount of confidence in hiring more people. Because if you've got somebody who works for you and you give them a load of clients and you give them a load of candidates and they know how to do recruitment, then at the end of the day, they're going to make money for you. So if the biggest constraint for every single recruiter out there is how many clients or candidates do we have, then why not just build them a system that brings them a load of clients and candidates? Like, they literally can't go wrong. And when you've built all of that in play, then guess what? Clients and candidates will just keep coming back to you without you having to do all the manual work on LinkedIn over and over again. And do you want to know the worry that a lot of recruiters have is that automation is going to kill the human touch. There's a right and a wrong place to use AI and automation. Let's just say you get a text message from your bank saying that there's some fraud that's being committed on your account. It's automated. You know it is. Bank knows it is. They're not even pretending that it's not automated. But that message is very well received because you're going to pick up the phone and say, what the heck is going on? Who the heck has taken that much money out of my bank account? Whereas if somebody sends you an automated message and you can tell it's automated and they're trying to pretend that it's not automated. A bit like when your friend sends you an invite and you see that little forward sign at the top of WhatsApp. It's not as well received. Imagine getting a wedding invite and it says forward at the top on WhatsApp. You know it's not personalized, doesn't feel as special. Don't do that. And that's exactly where we draw the line. There is an appropriate place to use AI and automation. There's also an inappropriate place to use AI and automation, which leaves you with one more thing, which is you hire a VA or a non-revenue generating employee, somebody that has no tie to making money for the recruitment business, because that's your job, certainly to start with until you begin to hire more team players. But that VA's job is not to help you make money, but to take off your plate all of the things that stop you from making more. And that is the first core step and pillar that separates you from day-to-day work in the business. Because if a good chunk of your work is handed off to AI and automation, and another chunk of it is handed off to a human that can actually do your work and replicate your messaging and your words, That creates the first layer and allows you to build a business that is no longer linear in terms of how much time you put in and how much money you make. And that leads me on to the next step, which is building your team. Because your team, if you are hiring inexperienced professionals, they will only ever be as good as you. But you also need proof of concept and confidence that your business will continue to grow even if you change route. So the best thing to do is start by hiring people who are less experienced, replace yourself, and then hire people who are better than you. And that's exactly how revenue compounds. And it's no longer linear and the growth is exponential because 99% of the time the real bottleneck in your business is actually you. So when you do take a step back, let me show you what it actually looks like. You're not disappearing, but you're having an option that by the end of a given day you can stop working. So now it's important to understand how this actually works and why it works from an economic standpoint. So let me explain the numbers to you. So 10 grand a month is not even a question in recruitment. 20K a month is the normal target. $30K a month and beyond. This is as an employee. This is when you start stepping into the realm of what is a high performer. And there are recruiters who are making $500K a year, $1 million a year. I've heard of one person making $2 million a year for their employers. So when you consider the old model of recruitment, it's very heavy because you're gonna be spending $1K to $2K on tools per recruiter, and then you're having to pay their salaries as well. $30K, $40K, even $50K a year, meaning that you have to make $150K a year just to cover payroll. Whereas the model that I described where you implement AI and automation and then one VA, a VA you could get for $500 a month or even close to double that depending on where in the world you hire them. And then your tool stack shouldn't cost you more than a grand a month. So for all in, $2,000 to $3,000 per month, you can potentially 2 or even 3x your business without even hiring a recruiter. That's leverage because you've increased your revenue without hiring revenue generating employees. So ask yourself the question, you've got recruiter one who is completely solo, stuck at $5,000 to $10,000 per month. You've got another recruiter who is a scaling maniac stacking is trying to hire as many recruiters as possible. Yes, on paper they make a lot more money, but profit margins are way thinner, and one bad month could put them in a terrible situation. And then you've got the third type of recruiter who's using leverage— AI, automation, VAs— to basically get a good chunk of their work done, and they can work way less hours, and they can work from anywhere in the world. Who's actually in a better position? And when you consider each of these three scenarios, what happens over 5 and 10 years? What does the growth actually look like, and what is the breaking point? Because I can tell you this: when you consider the problems and challenges that you variance in your recruitment business, just times them by 20 and have 20 other people telling you that they have this problem and they need your help fixing it. And just imagine what your life looks like in that moment. I promise you it's not enjoyable. So now when you consider the amplification effect of the third type of recruiter that I described, this includes all the examples of people who have helped, you end up in this situation where competitors just can't keep up with you because you're operating from a higher leverage compared to what they are. So now the gap between you and them, it just gets wider. Now This model actually works, but it's not for everyone. And I want to be really upfront and transparent about that. So if you are somebody who is desperately trying to make money, this isn't going to be good for you. It's probably going to cause more stress because there's new skills that you have to learn. But if you're an experienced recruiter, maybe you already have a niche and you want to start your own business, or you want to become independent, or you're a small agency owner and you're looking to grow and you find yourself in that trap of founder dependency, or you're an employed corporate professional where you're constantly being hammered by recruiters And you know that you can do the job better than them, then I'll tell you what you need. A willingness to build systems, not just to make money. An understanding of your niche and the ability to think like a business owner rather than an employee. This is not for anybody who wants to get rich quick, who wants to see results without any effort, or people who aren't yet confident in their own recruiting ability. And if that is you, just stay on my YouTube channel, go through all the videos. But I want to be honest about the timeline as well. What's realistic in 3 months, 6 months, and even 12 months? Because it is realistic to make $30,000, $40,000, even $50,000 in 3 months. It's realistic to make your first hire within 6 months. And it's realistic to have a small team within 12. Can't guarantee it's going to happen exactly like that for you. Might take a few months more, might even take a few months less. But the proof is in the examples of all the people that have helped. And this is the exact system that we help build inside my program from start to finish. Find your niche, set up client and candidate acquisition, hiring the right way and building the right team. Every step in order with someone who's doing it and is still doing it today. Aiimi. If that's something that you want help with, then I've left some details below. But if you just want to keep watching, that's cool, because if you click this video, you'll see exactly how I'd build this from zero this year with no clients, no team, and no existing book of business. This video breaks down the full step-by-step on from how to start all the way through to finishing. I'll see you there.