I Made $1.2 Million with a Simple Outbound Process

Hey guys, welcome back to yet another episode of Top Billers Toolkit, where me and my twin brother interview top billers from all around the globe to unlock the secrets to their success. Today's guest is Mike Williams. Mike billed $1.2 million last year, and when he set up his business just under 3 years ago, he billed $900,000 in his first year, all on his own. Mike has mastered a simple and effective outbound process and he's built 7 figures of revenue by building his brand on LinkedIn. And I've got to say, Mike is just an all-round really lovely guy. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about Mike's exact outbound process that he uses to bill $1.2 million, why Mike decided to build his brand on LinkedIn and how it's helped him generate 7 figures of revenue, and how Mike is scaling his company and how he's managed to turn over $2.4 million with a team of 5 billers. Ben and I really enjoyed this episode. We hope you enjoy it too. And as usual, grab a cuppa or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this. And let's get into it, shall we? Hey Mike, how you doing, mate?

Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, pleasure, Mike. I have been subtly stalking you behind the scenes for many years without sounding too creepy. I love your brand. Your business is doing amazing, and I just think you're doing really cool things, man. So Um, I wanted to get you on to share your wisdom with our audience, so thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure. I'm a fan of you guys, watch your podcast and everything, and I'm excited to be here.

Awesome, man. We're going to start, um, the podcast with this famous top billers question, which is what's the number one tool in your toolkit, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software? What would you say, Mike?

I love this question because let's just get right down to the number one thing right off the bat. Why waste time? Uh, yeah, so I mean, there's so many things you have to do simultaneously to be a top biller, but if I'm gonna distill it down to one thing, I think it's a mindset of learning and development, just constantly trying to get better every day. When you have that, it's a very gratitude-inducing type of a mindset, and it's a very low ego type of mindset because you're constantly saying like, I know I'm not the best, I can improve. I know I'm not the best, I can improve. So even the name of our company, Carnegie Search, I read this book you guys probably know of by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Yes.

And it came at an important part of my life. I just graduated college. I was trying to find a job. And that book was just like a mindset shift for me of like, whoa, you can really, you know, I'd never heard about like self-help books until then. And so, you know, coming into the name of the company, I was like, I want to bring that attitude of like, You can learn, you can improve yourself, you can do better. We try to live that here in the company.

Wicked. Is there any— sorry, Ben, I just want to ask a quick question off the back of that. Is there any skill you've developed the most, Mike, that you think's had the biggest impact on your business?

Well, there's, you know, you got to have the grit, the resiliency to be a recruiter. So like, I'll give you an example. Like right now we got a new recruiter on our team. It's just his first month. And he really wants to close the deal in his first month, which, as we all know, is really hard. But he's got one out to offer stage that it looks like it's probably going to be a turndown.

Okay.

You know, but that— me, after 8 years of recruiting, it's like water off a duck's bill. Like, you know, as you win deals, you kind of get that like callus on you of like, it's okay, it's going to— it's going to work out. But like, just constantly fortifying that because Higher levels, greater devils. Like, you know, like it's not just about losing a deal. It's about like now someone quits and it's a reaction the same way that you feel devastated. You lose a deal. Now it's like you lose an employee or like, you know, you lose a big contract or so. But it's always just about like refining up that grit and mental fortitude.

Love that. Ben, sorry, did you have a question before I interrupted?

No, I was actually just saying awesome. That's all I said. Okay, cool.

All right, let's jump into the, the, the juicy stuff, which is you and your team, which you have a team of 5 recruiters including yourself, Mike, and together you managed to bill $2.4 million last year, which is pretty damn good, man. I, I, we have a lot of recruiters on the podcast, and for such a small team, that's a really good amount to be billing. So just want to say awesome to that. Um, and I guess my other question to follow on from that is, how is such a small team able to bill so efficiently? Like if you were to dissect your process and give some advice to other small teams that want to get to that level, what would you say, Mike?

It happened really organically for us, and it's related to the way our business is structured. So the best way for me to answer this is just tell you a little bit of like the chronology of like how we got here. So I've been a recruiter for 5 years. I worked at an agency I learned the basics of recruiting and even the more intermediary and intermediate and like advanced levels of recruiting even. So like I was Rookie of the Year in my first year. I was 5 Presidents Clubs in a row when I decided to quit, start my own business. So the first year it was just me and I worked really hard. I was like more hair on fire, just like nervous, scared to fail than I had ever been in my life. So I worked harder than I'd ever worked. And I end up billing $900,000 with just me.

Nice, man.

So, but the point of that is like overnight success happens in 5 years. Like, it's not like my first year of recruiting was $900,000. My first year solo after I'd already learned the hard way of recruiting. And at that point I said like, well, I have this cash. What do I want to do with it? I think I'm going to hire people, grow and build this thing out. So I'd already like had a foundation of clients and skills and all of that. And then like every time you hire people, it's just building on that and training them and teaching them. So in some ways it's kind of like the natural progression. Like my desk keeps getting bigger. I'm hiring people to support that desk. They're finding candidates for my clients and it's just blossoming, you know, kind of every quarter, every month that goes along.

Hmm. Awesome.

I want to go back to that first year when you build $900,000 because like, again, some recruiters will be listening to this thinking, how the hell did Mike come out of a, of a corporate job and set up his business and build $900K in his first year? What were you doing to win business? Because you essentially started a book from scratch, I'm guessing, Mike. You might have brought over a few clients, but to get to $900K, I'm guessing majority of it was from building a brand new book. So what were you doing to win new business during that time, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

Yeah, definitely. So I attribute a lot of our fast start to our strategy of our business. There's obviously tactics and like we could talk about like how to make a cold call, overcome an objection, how to differentiate, but a lot of people just kind of overlook the strategy and it's critically important. So like what I mean by that is when I was in agency, I worked at a company that was just like in my hometown. And my hometown was like not a hot market. It was 2.5 hours west of Boston and an hour north of Hartford. Small, like rural area. So you can imagine like it wasn't a ton of fast growing companies. It was just who was in my backyard. The company I worked for all did temp. I was actually the first ever perm hire in that territory and they were under the, their belief was perm wouldn't survive in that territory because there wasn't enough market for it. But a new VP came in and he was like, well, hey, every other office has perm. Let's hire perm for that office. And so they gave me the job. Um, me being kind of blissfully ignorant, like, had no idea how hard it was going to be to set up perm in an office that was ice cold. Hmm. So that was hard. I can imagine. On top of that, they were temp for accounting and finance. And there wasn't much accounting and finance of a market for— they were right about that. Like there wasn't much accounting and finance market on Perm in western Massachusetts. It was a rural area. What there was a lot of was manufacturing. So I made a deal or two as like with an accountant or senior accountant. And then I was like talking to my clients like, what can you use me for next? And they're like, we can't use you for anything unless you can find me a manufacturing engineer. Interesting. So obviously me, I'm like, I can find you manufacturing engineers. I do that all the time. What it was. But one thing led to another and I started to learn that that market was viable in that area. So actually one day my boss's boss called me and she's like, I don't know what you're doing with this engineering stuff, but it's going to fail. And if it fails, we're going to let you go. You got to call an accountant.

Oh my God, crazy.

Not even, not even like good luck and like do work. If you fail, you're gone. That's crazy.

It's literally like you're— no, it's not even like if— it was like you're gonna fail. Oh, Christ. Because like there's probably 500 recruiters in the company and they all did accounting and finance.

Wow, that's crazy.

But I already, I knew I was gonna fail if I did accounting and finance in Western Mass because I knew it wasn't there. No one else's boots on the ground there. So I kept doing it and it worked.

Um, wow. Did you ever get back, go back to that lady and, and stuff it in her face? Or, man, I can't remember, I don't know what you said, but did you ever get that opportunity?

Or not until the day I quit, which was pretty sweet.

Just to confirm, Mike, you—

oh, sorry, mate, no, go ahead.

What were you gonna say? Let me just— so yeah, I'm, um, because, sorry, like, it, um, like, it does tie into our first year of our business because, like, The point of it was like I had a strategy that made sense. Like I was calling on the right people in the right territory. So I learned that like that's critically important. And so then when I set up this business, I said, I'm going to pick the hottest city in the country for my niche. And I did a ton of research like for 6 months before I started the business. I was like visiting cities. I was looking at cities' growth rate, population growth rate. I was looking at manufacturing activity, new plants that went up. Very similar to where like a private equity company would choose to invest in a business. I did. So then when I set up here in Charlotte, this market was going like blistering hot for manufacturing. And so it was just much, much easier knowing what I already knew of tactics to make the strategy work in this market.

That's so fascinating. Yeah, I've never heard that before. Like people starting off and doing that much heavy research on the, on the niche you're about to go in, even to the point where you're visiting different cities. That's crazy, man. That's amazing. So you attribute that research and kind of catching the market at the right time, obviously from research and being open-minded, to your success in your first year, Mike? Only part of it, I know, but that was a big part of it, I'm guessing?

Huge part of it. So like, if I was doing it over, or like, for people that ask me like, hey, I want to like get off to a fast start too, like, it's the two things that— one, I'd already been a 5-year President's Club recruiter. Like, I knew the how to recruit, but then I picked the right strategy on top of it. So that's what I think it takes to kind of hit the ground running that fast in your first year.

Awesome. Um, I'm gonna jump in now, Sam, if you don't mind. Yeah, of course, go ahead. Um, that's really interesting, Mike. So can we go down into— let's go a little bit more granular and let's say, so I understand you had the experience, you had the strategy, you, you were in the right market at the right time in the right place. How did you get your foot through the door? Was that quite simple, or did you have to, like, was it speccing in CVs? Was it just cold calling and handling? Like, how did you actually get that conversation started with net new businesses once you started, you know, um, started doing BD?

Yeah, I mean, we definitely do a ton of cold call and speccing in resumes and everything, but honestly, I think even before that is like, so number one is the strategy, and then I think number two is the marketing. And niche positioning. And this is like why I think this is a tough question because people always want to know like, how do you get clients? Like, and what they're really saying is like, tell me what to say and I will say it. No magic phrase. Like there's no open sesame. Like here's the clients. I was at a conference last week and we were all talking about how it was a group of guys were all talking about how we met our wives. And it was like one guy bumped into her at a bar, another guy, it was his sister's friend. Like, and it was like, if same thing, like if you ask me like, hey, I'm single, I want to meet someone, what do I say? Just tell me what to say and I'll say it. It doesn't work that way. There has to be a little magic alchemy like that makes a relationship start. And so that's why, like, even before I talk about what are the tactics, I'll be like, what is your strategy? And then what is your marketing and your niche positioning? So that was like the next thing we did. I was like, I'm going all in on this manufacturing niche to the point where like all my website is manufacturing, all of my LinkedIn is manufacturing. My LinkedIn content started off being a lot of just manufacturing. Every time I get someone on the phone, my pitch is more like, hey, I'm Mike, I'm a manufacturing and engineering recruiter. We're 100% manufacturing and engineering. In fact, we get offered searches in accounting or legal, we turn them down because it's hard enough to be world-class at one thing, and we want to be the best of the best at this. Um, so that marketing piece of it was really critical too, because then you position yourself as the market leader.

So I'm, I'm gonna— so I, in my mind, that makes perfect sense, Mike, but I guarantee you there's going to be like, I don't know, 100 other manufacturing recruiters that that didn't have the same success as you. So what, what were you doing differently apart from that marketing and positioning? Was it, you know, I know you're prolific on LinkedIn now, so was it that? Like, what were you doing differently, do you think, as well as the marketing and positioning, do you think?

Yeah, so like once you have all those things in place, now we're like really like, what is your tactic? Like, how do you differentiate? How are you the best of the best? Um, you're gonna win some business just for being in the right place at the right time with the right niche. So like, that's huge head start. But then like what I like to do is we're very obviously relationship driven and I'm a very in-person and on the phone type of person. So we blend the old school with the new school of like new school to me is like digital marketing and emails and all that. But like I want to get you on the phone right away and then I want to get you out to lunch, dinner, like sending our clients gifts.

Nice.

Excuse me, that kind of stuff. I think that when we started the business, it was, it was right after COVID. So there was almost like a demand in a way for in-person relationships, like the same way there was pent-up demand for just hiring and everything else. There was pent-up demand for just like shaking someone's hand and hanging out.

That's interesting.

Interesting. We took advantage of that.

It's pretty cool. Sorry, I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep digging, Mike, a little bit. I hope you don't mind. Yeah, push back and tell me to shut up if I'm going too much, but no, I love this, and you're giving us great stuff, by the way, so thank you. This is really interesting. Um, so I, I kind of got that, and so I guess you said it's a mix between digital marketing, uh, new school and old school. Can you give me an example of maybe just one of the ways that you, one of the most successful ways that you've managed to get your foot, book that meeting, that in-face meeting? Was it Did you literally like just give them a— was it a cold call and introducing yourself? If there was someone just watching this and they wanted just a little nugget of something tangible, could you, could you give us something, do you think?

Yeah. No, I mean, I'll tell you our exact pitch.

Awesome.

But I really just don't think that it's like the problem isn't as much of like getting a bite on a lead. It's about like, how do you turn that bite into one of your best clients? Like, we all have a pipeline of clients if you've been in this long enough and like some of them call you back with 15 orders. And others, it's like one and done and you never hear from them again. So, um, like we're constantly like, how do we turn that one client into our repeat business? And then I'm off the hamster wheel of constant biz dev. I'm just like filling orders, right? So like, that's, that's good. But, um, I mean, some of our first clients that we land would be cold call. Hey, I'm Mike. I'm an engineering recruiter and like MPC method. Like I've got a really good quality engineer with 7 years experience, certified quality engineer living right in the same town as you. Would you be up for checking out his resume?

Cool.

Just like jump right into it and like knowing your niche, knowing that quality engineers are really hard to find is, you know, a good thing to MPC. I'm trying to MPC the hardest to find thing.

Cool.

It's also like—

Go ahead, man.

Us, level of position that we fill is like usually like engineer with like 5 to 8 years experience. And there's usually like in a manufacturing plant, like 5, 10, maybe 12 people at that level, and they're constantly being promoted, fired, quit, uh, whatever. So like you fill one, then there's repeatability of that search. So like if you can get that, obviously it's hard, right? Like you make a cold call like that 100 times a day, or like say it's even 30 times a day, you're probably going to get 30 nos most days. But like if you get one yes and you just stick with it, then you're in at that level of a position that has high repeatability and you're the guy who fills that job. Every time someone is quitting, relocating, whatever, like I can fill 5, 7, 10 quality engineers or, you know, individual contributor engineers with one company. Whereas if I was filling a CFO search, it's like one every one time, hopefully every 5 or 10 years that they need a CFO.

Makes sense. It's subtle, but I think the fact that you knew your niche like the back of your hand and knew that there was a demand for a certain candidate and then went in and pitched that I think that is really powerful, and I think people should know that. So you're playing it down, Mike, but I think that's a, that's a really useful strategy. So, uh, was that like 80 to 90% of your success, do you think? Which was like, I know which candidates they need, I'm gonna go straight in and pitch them on the phone and hopefully get a bite. Would, would you say that would be like 50%, 80%, 90%? What's your thoughts, Mike?

Yeah. So like our, my biz dev go-to-market strategy has always been just all NPC pitches.

Really interesting. Cool.

For our outbound anyways, we generate inbound from the LinkedIn and other stuff we can talk about too. But cold call, NPC, follow up with an email and then follow up with that with a LinkedIn connection request. That's how we generated the biz.

Love that. Please, anyone listening to this, there's so many top billers who have said NPCs is like the way to go. I feel like there's just no you know, there's so much overwhelming evidence to suggest that's the best way. I just—

yeah.

And then a recruiter comes to me sometimes and says, oh, I don't want to do— I don't want to do that. It's like, oh, it's so frustrating, Mike. It's so frustrating.

Sorry, we're like, well, I've been doing this for 7 years, like, I don't have to make NPC calls anymore. That's like a rookie thing to do. But like, if it works, I'm doing it.

That's what I'm saying. I think so. People need to— I think that's the problem nowadays. People need to remove the emotion and just do what works. That's the most important thing. It's just do what works. And if 5 top billers or 10 top billers are saying NPCs, then, then that's what you need to do.

Um, sorry, Ben, can I just— no, that's good, it's really good. And I love that we're getting into, um, some more juicy bits. So that's great, Mike. So we understand NPC is like the driver of your outbound, and that's awesome. So you know what candidate is sought after in your market, you give them a call, you pitch the, the NPC, and then you, you said you follow up with an email and then a LinkedIn message. When do you follow up the email and when do you follow up with the LinkedIn message and what do you say in those emails and LinkedIn messages out of interest? Is it similar to the phone pitch?

Yeah, pretty much. We don't really have an exact cadence. We probably should, but we'll call, leave the voicemail, and then we'll email right then. So like all those three right at once. Then like if we're doing it, if I was creating the cadence right now, that what I think is the best way is like LinkedIn connection, maybe the next day or the day after that. Um, I don't like to do the connection message because it feels so salesy to me. I like to wait for them to connect back and then after that be like, um, I'm a, you know, thanks for connecting. I'm a recruiter. I got this candidate. Is there anything you might like? Um, and just stay on them. We actually find, so like, um, I think a lot of people don't like doing the NPC calls because they're hard and it's like, you know, hung up on and stuff. But more often than not, they don't answer and then they hear your message though, and then they respond to your email or your LinkedIn message.

Interesting.

I think it's because you've gotten their attention. Like they know you're not automation because you're a voice, an actual voice. So yeah, you don't even have to like be scared that like, oh no, they're going to answer and be mean or what. Like you might just leave a voicemail and then that directs them to the email.

Interesting. So it's really about having multiple touch points with the same message because that you might not catch them on the phone but they'll read the email, they might not read the email or they might, but the LinkedIn message will bring them up. At what point do they usually respond? Is it typically an email, Mike? Is that where most of them respond, or is it on the phone or LinkedIn message?

It's all— it all depends. It depends on what type of call you're doing too. So like in my mind I have ad calls, which is like something that's posted, and then I have target company calls, which is just someone who's in my niche who's not actively hiring. And like, what I'll tell people here is an ad call can get you a quick job order, and a target company call can get you a great job order. Because it's posted, there's probably other agencies on it. Some knucklehead is charging 15%, and we want 25% or 30%, and they're like, I got another agency doing it for 15%. It's really hard to get them to go up on price. Multi-listed, they have other candidates already sent out, but they're posting it. So they probably really need someone. And like for recruiters I'm training here, it's like, well, we need to fill up your pipeline. So get a few that are multi-listed. It's fine. Like spray and pray, but I would rather you calling on presidents and vice presidents of companies who are not posting it. And although it's going to probably take you 5 times more calls to get a yes, when you do get a yes, they're not working with anyone. It's probably not even posted. It's just a job they so happen to know about. 25 or 30%, they're not working with other agencies right now, so they don't have anything to benchmark it against, and you can get exclusive.

Interesting. I love that. You're right, so it is more upfront work, but there's a much bigger payoff, isn't there, from, from doing it that way, which is interesting. Um, I feel like it'll be silly not to talk about your LinkedIn journey, Mike, because you are like— I love your content, you get a ton of traction. Um, I'm really interested, um, in one, why you decided to start doing it, because, you know, you could probably still do— I'm guessing you could still make a ton of money without LinkedIn. And then two, what difference you found it's actually made to your business, um, if any. Maybe you could, uh, go down that, uh, we could go down that route for a little bit.

Yeah, um, I'm trying to think back why I started. It was probably like just an ego, like, like recruiters like us, like, we love the spotlight and like being number one on the, you know, whatever billers list and Um, so like when I first, first started the business, that was when I started posting. Um, because I don't know, I think when I worked for an agency, I was like, I don't know, I'd be afraid to say what I really felt because I didn't know if I was speaking for the company, which I obviously wasn't. And then like, I, you know, got in trouble or something. So, um, it just like really never even occurred to me to do it until I started off on my own. And then like, I'm in the first year of my business. I had moved from— I left everything I'd ever known behind, all my friends, family, took my, you know, me and my wife. And like, this was not her dream, you know, like to go move and start a business. Like she wanted to buy the house next to her parents and have kids and like, hey, they can run across the street and like be with their grandparents. And I was like, let's move across the country and start a business. Like the level of desperation to succeed was quite high because I was like, I'm not going home with my tail between my legs. I will do whatever it takes. So like, I was just like cold call, cold email. What else? What's next? Okay. LinkedIn post. Let's do that. Like all the time. Okay. What's next? In-person meetings, networking groups. I was just like, I can't fail because like I can't let her down and it would just be mortifying to, to lose. So that's like what the germ of this idea— like this is where it came from, was just like, I just have to find a way to get business. Hmm.

Really interesting.

And now, so you're— you initially did it probably out of just not wanting to fail. And what difference— what's the journey been like and what difference is actually making, do you think, to your business at the moment? Have you noticed it made a difference to calling? Have you had more inbound? Like, what difference has it made tangibly, do you think?

It's enormous. It's crazy how much it actually does. This is like the one thing in my business and like my recruiting journey that I feel like I was just like blessed in a way. Like I just like took to it. Like I was just good at it. Like I, as soon as I started posting, like it started getting traction. I went to school for English. Which didn't help me much in my professional career, but like I knew how to write and read and like write things catchy and get right to the point. So like marketing again, like I look at this as digital marketing. Like when you're an employee, like you don't have a say in the marketing of your company, but when you have your own business, you do. It's up to you. So I just found that fascinating, like right off the bat, like, whoa, I can like position us. I can say that we believe in this or that. And like everything in recruiting is relationship driven. So if I'm thinking to myself, like at the core level, like I want to drive business to our company. Well, what do I need to do? I need to create relationships with people in position of authority that are hiring in their company. Okay. How do I create that relationship? Well, there's like so many ways you can call them, you can email them, you can try to get them out to lunch, you can get their attention online. And like, that's now what we do is like we connect with the people who look like they're hiring managers in our niche. and then we post like crazy. And then if we post something that they identify with, they reach out to us. They'll send us a note like, that was a cool post. Then they click on your website, they click on your LinkedIn page, they're like, whoa, you're specialists in this? I didn't even know that was a thing. Like, we've won an enormous amount of business from our LinkedIn presence.

Really cool. For other recruiters that want to try and, um, duplicate your success on LinkedIn, Mike, are there any things you've discovered along the way that kind of move the needle forward the most in terms of grabbing attention or style of posts or when to post? I'm just curious if you spotted anything.

Yeah, just being— having the courage to do it and to be yourself on there, which is harder than you think because like all social media in my opinion, but particularly LinkedIn, is like a groupthink Like everyone's kind of got these same opinions, like, and right now it's usually like the hiring manager's bad and the candidates got the tough time out there. And like, yeah, we are nicer to people like who are looking for jobs and like, I get it because when you think about who's on there, like it's a lot of people who are looking for a job. That's why they're on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

Um, but like that message gets very tired, like when every single post is that and like If you have the courage to be like, I kind of disagree with this thing that people are all agreeing on, um, quite refreshing. So like, I've done a good bit of that. The other thing is like, so I would say the theme, like, it's like bucking the trend and like the other like trend to buck is people will tell you like marketing 101, like think about who you want to hear this. It's a hiring manager. So you should speak to them. Well, like I make a lot of posts that are just like speaking to other recruiters. Which you would think would be like the opposite. Like, why do you want their attention? They're your competitors. Like, you want to give them your secrets and answers or what? And like, but think about how many other recruiters are on there. There's a ton. And then like, think about like what you know and what you're good at and what you can truly add value for. I write posts about like how to win clients or how we've lost deals that other recruiters find interesting. If that hits, you get 2, 3, 500 likes, 1,000 likes. Then the target hiring manager in your market sees it and they're like, who is this Mike Williams guy? Like 1,000 likes and like 700— like, that's like a person in business. I think I want to know. Um, it's like showing up there makes a big difference.

I think that's a good lesson as well for people that what you're doing is driving traffic to the top of the funnel. Like, you're getting people to notice you and then doing more specific posts about manufacturing and then probably hires and then And I think that's really a really great strategy. And that's exactly what me and Sam would do as well, is, um, yeah, you know, get, get a ton of traction and then you can push people down the funnel with more specific posts. Um, really interesting, Mike. I, I absolutely love your content, mate. I just think it's brilliant. And I, and I, I've noticed that you're not afraid to speak your mind, and I think that is almost a— it's a disease for a lot of recruiters, I think, especially the more, the more experienced they are, the worse it is. They're so afraid of saying the wrong thing. They're so afraid of upsetting people. They're so afraid of losing clients or losing candidates. It's like, it's not everyone, but a lot, a lot of recruiters. And I think, I'm not sure if you have any words of wisdom for them, but it's a really difficult psychological barrier I think that a lot of them are coming up against. And I agree with you when you said that's probably the, you know, one of the hardest things is getting people to push past that. Um, did you ever struggle? Like, did you ever have doubt, or did you just go straight in with like absolute confidence?

Oh, I definitely had doubt. I mean, it was, it's kind of terrifying. Like, I'll write, I mean, I've been doing the LinkedIn thing for since I started the business. So 3 years now. So I'm pretty used to it. Like, but I'll write posts that get scorched.

Like, just like, me, us too. Yeah. So I had to delete and block quite a few people.

Like, like, like 50 likes, 300 comments.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh no. Like, this is not good. And like the first couple of times you do that, you're like, should I delete this? Like, are my clients going to freak out? But like, somehow I thought through. I was like, I'm just leaving it. Like, I don't care what these people think. Like, this is what I believe.

Yeah.

And then the more times you get like scorched, you're like, whatever. Like, it's a LinkedIn post. This is going to come and go literally tomorrow. No one's going to care about it.

Yeah, 100%. And I'm guessing nothing bad has ever happened off a scorched post, Mike. It's just been like one post that's done, you know, gotten a few maybe different responses, but then they forget it the next day. Am I, am I right in saying that?

I've gotten like in-mails of like, you're a dirtbag.

But I mean, that's the extent. It's just, it's just a bit of disagreement, like nothing big. A client hasn't reached out and been like, I disagree, Mike, I'm leaving you. Nothing like that's happened, I'm guessing?

Uh, not for like— no, like we have— we lost a client once, one time, but like I'll tell you the story of it too, but like we've gained, I don't know how many, like dozens and dozens. So like, it's so worth it.

Yeah.

It was like a brand new client and I knew they weren't going to be good. And they were like having me work with only HR and internal recruiting and like they were just, um, you know, adversarial right from jump street and like, yeah, the candidate wanted $150,000. They offered him $150,000. Oh shit, I can't believe I'm telling this story. I'm definitely not going to win their business back. But the candidate wanted $150,000. They offered $145,000. The candidate was like, I really want this job, but like, it's $150,000 or nothing. And I was like, guys, can you kick in the $5,000 more? And they were like, nope, $145,000.

I remember that post. I remember that post. That was brilliant. That absolutely popped off, didn't it? That got so much traction. If I'm not mistaken, it did really well.

Viral. And then they message me. Yeah, they're not allowed to do it.

But as you say, you've won dozens. Like, if you could put— if you feel comfortable saying this, how much would you say you've won from LinkedIn, like, off the back of your posting, do you think? Like, roughly, finger in the air figure.

7 figures.

Wow.

I mean, that's insane.

That's insane. Like, anyone, any recruiter listening to this, please stop posting.

You know, like, one more thing about this too is like, because people Okay. So like when people are thinking about like, I want to post on LinkedIn, it dovetails what we were just talking about with the biz dev stuff. Yeah. Because they're like, I don't want to make NPC calls. Just give me any strategy to not make cold calls. It's like, okay, I get it. And it does work. Like you can post and you can win new business and you can get a ton of money from it. But we've won more of that 7 figures, not from just like you post someone you've never heard of hits you up like, hey, who are you? That's cool. Like We have that, but more often what we have is we get into a client the traditional way, like MPC. They do a little bit of businesses with us, but they're like, whatever. Like we have one job, like here, just fill it. Then they see you on LinkedIn all the time. And then you're maintaining that relationship because you're showing up in a different way. Like back in the day before LinkedIn, what did we used to do? We just called them up like, you have more work for me? You have more work for me? Hey, I have this other candidate. Hey, can you check out my contract? Like, And it's just annoying. Like you're not adding any value to them.

Yeah.

Now when I show up and I'm like getting those touchpoints, it's posting stuff that maybe they find interesting or cool or like, who is this guy? And they're following up with us with more business. So there's a whole account management perspective of this too.

That's so interesting. I don't think anyone's framed it like that before. Account management and like, yeah, that's fantastic. That's really interesting. Awesome.

I'd love just to touch upon the kind of scaling the business, Mike, because you've grown pretty quickly in 3 years and you're billing, um, you and your team are billing quite a lot. Like, what, what was the first hire you made and how was it? Have you strategically scaled or has it been more of a kind of intuition thing? I'm just curious to understand how that's worked for you.

It started off intuition and now it's getting more strategic. Because I hired people in the beginning because I couldn't keep up with the work. And I just said to myself, like, I need to hire people to fill these jobs faster. I need recruiting side help. Then over the last 3 years, we've done that, done that, done that. And like, we're at the point now where again, we need more recruiting side help. But what I learned last year in particular was we started the year with like 4 of us. And I was like, we're going to try and get to whatever the number was, 8 or 10. And we hired enough people to get there, but then 2 people quit and I was like, whoa, so wait, if I just say I'm hiring 5 people this year, that doesn't mean we're growing by 5. That just means we hired 5 people this year. So like what I learned is we're trying to double the business from 7 people to about 15 people this year. So that doesn't mean hiring 8, that means hiring like 12. Interesting. So we're getting more strategic about how we do this.

Cool.

Interesting.

Go ahead, Ben.

Sorry, Mike, me and Sam always have to negotiate with questions because, uh, brotherly competition. Exactly. Um, I'm curious because I saw a really cool post. Um, one of your consultants made quite a lot of money in one month. I can't remember, but you were like, he's a top— I think he's a top biller in your firm, he must be. And he went home with like— I can't remember what the figure was, but he went home with like a lot of money for one month. Do you remember what post I'm talking about? Yeah.

So this is Isaac from our team. He was the first guy who I hired. I got so, so lucky to find him. He's— we're just like perfect culture match. He's the leader in this business. He helps me, you know, with so much. And so that was a very lucky thing that happened. It's like if you nail the first one, now you're starting to build a culture that attracts people of like, this is what we're about, not just this is what we're thinking about. Owners about or whatever. But he— that's a true story. So he had a few good months in a row. He had a couple clients pay late and a couple pay early, so they all paid on the same paycheck, and he had a $52,000 paycheck.

Crazy, man.

In one month.

That's so cool.

Crazy. 22 years old.

Crazy. Oh my God, that's mad. Yeah, what a great post. I absolutely love that.

That—

I was like, well, that's awesome, man.

I'm like 34 and married with kids and I'm like jealous of this guy. Car and like keeps the money.

Oh, 22. If I was 22 and I had a $52K, I would like— that'd be dangerous for me. I would, yeah. God, I would— I'm glad I didn't make that much money. That— I would just have gone absolutely mental. Did you have a question off the back of that, Ben, or did you just want to— um, yeah, well, I was going to say he kind of answered it. I was interested in on your kind of methodology, because I think everyone wants to attract like the best performers, and this guy Isaac sounds like a top performer. Um, but what you said was really interesting, which I didn't think of, which is hire one— your first hire, make them— make sure they're a top performer, and then it builds a culture of other top performers want to be around more top performers, right? Is that your kind of thinking, Mike, around that, um, in terms of hiring?

Yeah, and we're still trying to do that because like now I'm like, hey, if we can get 10 like they're all kind of cut from the same cloth, then maybe it will create like a magnet. But The truth is it's a little easier to make your first one be successful because they get so much of your one-on-one time. And like, as you start to grow and scale, like you can't give anyone that much individual time, but like before you're making your first hire, know that and be picky because like they're going to get all of you until you get the next person in there. The other thing is like some of our business model. So we're doing this thing called Hybrid Rainmaker. Mm-hmm. Which, um, what we do is like when someone starts with us, um, usually they're right outta college, no experience, they don't know what they're doing. This business is super hard. A lot of people quit. So I want them to get quick wins and I want them to contribute to the company. So what I have them do for their first month or two is just, they just make this one call on the candidate side over and over where they say, Hi, my name's Isaac. I'm a recruiter. I see that you're a mechanical engineer and I've got a mechanical engineering job open right here in Charlotte. Would you be open to hear about it? If they say yes, then they go, awesome. When could you talk to my boss, Mike Williams? He's available later today.

Clever.

So clever, man.

Very good. Very good. You can teach someone how to do that pretty quick. And like, then all of a sudden they're filling up your calendar with interviews, which is what you need. And then you're filling those jobs and you're like, whoa, you just closed your first deal. It's not a full side deal, but it's a deal. And they start to feel like, man, maybe I can do this.

Clever, really clever. Very simple. But yeah, that's a really—

they get smoked and they quit, you know.

What is the— what of the, uh, I mean, you kind of just described it, but what, what change have you seen in people since you start? Do you start everyone off with a 90-degree?

Every new person starts at a 90-degree, Mike, unless they come in with experience, which we've hired a couple experienced recruiters now, and it's like there's no need, like We hired one girl from direct competitor and like, um, she's awesome, but she'd already run a full desk and built 300 something. So like, I'm not gonna ask her to do that.

Yeah. But what have, what, what, um, differences have you seen since you've started people off at their 90-degree? Like just, I know you've mentioned a few of them, but is there anything else that you've seen? Like not throwing them into the deep end and starting them off slow.

So I think it's good and bad. Like what I like about it is you can like train them and have them feeling confident and successful, but like The tough side is it takes longer to figure out if they're really built for this.

Interesting.

I had a guy last year who was a good biller for us. He billed $185,000 in his first 9 months.

Wow.

And he'd never done recruiting before. So, wow. But then in his, in his 10th month, he built zero. In his 11th month, he built zero. And halfway through his 12th month, he was at zero and he quit.

Wow.

And I was telling him all, every step of the way, I was like, man, you just started off so hot. Like just, hang in there, I have full confidence in you. But he second-guessed himself and he quit, which is really kind of foolish because he was going to turn it around.

That's crazy. Wow.

The problem is like he had never built up that like resiliency to have failed early.

So you got— what a shame. He sounds like he's an absolute star. That's such a shame.

Um, I was bummed out.

God, that— yeah, that must have been an absolute— you must have been absolutely— you must have been so frustrated watching that because you're like, oh my God, you're like 3 feet from gold. Like he's just closed a ridiculous amount in his first year. Wow. Yeah, sorry, I'm not trying to rub it in, Mike. I'm just kind of vocalizing it. It sounds like that, but what it shows you—

and this is why every top biller comes on the podcast and says mindset is the most important thing, isn't it? Because like, you could be billing a, like, a million in 6 months, but then if you don't have the mindset and you just give up because it gets a bit too tough, then it means very little. So, um, yeah, man, completely hard. Yeah, it's a hard profession, man. It is. Um, Cool. I think that's everything, uh, all the questions, dude, unless there's anything else that you want to say that we haven't mentioned. I think I've asked all my questions. Ben, have you got any last questions to ask?

Um, I don't, even though I'm— I know I'm gonna kick myself. I'm like, we have Mike on the podcast and we haven't asked this question. No, Mike, maybe just the open question: is there any lessons that you've learned or things that you've gathered over the last few years that we haven't mentioned that you think will be really valuable for other recruiters? You know, these guys want to make more money, they want to be better recruiters, they want to win more clients. What kind of— is there anything we haven't talked about today?

Yeah. Well, hey, first off, thank you guys so much for having me. 40, 50 minutes just flew by.

I feel like we just had a crazy— isn't it a pleasure to have you?

I really enjoy the conversation. So like, parting words would be like, my company is going to turn 3 years old here in the month of February. When I look back on these 3 years, by far the thing I'm most proud of is the people we've hired, trained, and introduced into this business. So if I was talking to someone who's got a small recruiting business, I would say like, really think about hiring and like bringing people into your company because it's so much more fun. If I was talking to someone who's just a biller and wanting to like bill more, I would say think about the company that you're in because if they're not like training you, teaching you, developing in you, making you have fun, like flip side, like, are you in that company? Like, are you working for that person who's looking to grow something that's fun and about learning? Um, then that's where you need to be.

I love that. I've never heard anyone say hire because it's more fun.

I love that.

But it makes sense. Like, when you find lovely people and you get to see them every day and work with them, it makes business like 20 times more fun. But that's a really great lesson and a really great little golden nugget, Mike. So thank you. Really appreciate it. Um, and thank you for coming today, bro. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on. Lots of wisdom. Really appreciate your time.

So much fun. Thank you guys.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify. Tune in for another episode next week, and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Peace and love.

Mm-hmm.