I was honestly happy if I made twenty thousand dollars a year I was gonna be happy if I made fifty or seventy thousand like I'm set I made it but somehow in my first year I was able to build over hello hello and welcome back to another video if you're new here welcome my name is Preston I run my own recruitment agency in a technology industry for eight years have done a little over seven figures worth of placements and happy to provide value to you all but before we get started please consider supporting a fellow recruiter to give us a like subscribe click that Bell really means a lot let's get started so as you can see from the title of this video I'm here to share with you how you can make six to seven plus figures as a recruiter these are lessons that I have personally used over my entire career to help me generate over multiple seven figures worth of placements most of it on my own desk as a solo recruiter now running a small agency so let's go ahead and get started so before we continue I do want to make it very very clear this is not me bragging at all it's just to show you my journey what worked for me and what I was able to do really majority already on my own desk through hard work and consistency and hope that it provides you some sort of value also apologize for any spelling and Chronicle errors on the slides as I just whip these up real quick hoping to get these out to you as soon as I can my recruiting career if you've been watching me for quite some time you probably already know this but if you're new here let's just kind of speed through this I started my recruiting career at a nationwide staffing agency here in the US I was only there for a year biggest regret to date was I wish I stayed a little bit longer so I can really understand how to manageable effectively how to grow and scale teams and and tools but I was there enough to see a level of success that I was able to leverage to my career afterwards so my first year that I was there somehow I don't know I was able to build over five hundred thousand dollars on my own desk with really no client handouts I built literally everything unfortunately as agencies go I was only paid about thirty thousand dollars roughly around that point I'm like you know what I learned a lot after a year I went from being one on the bottom to one of the top producers if I just stay to just be more money money wasn't a priority at that time for me it was all about learning and challenges I kind of wanted to see it was grass greener on the other side in the internal corporate world I left my agency job I joined an early stage startup to really get a taste of the internal corporate recruiting life and lo and behold no surprise there my salary again was thirty thousand dollars it wasn't even a step it wasn't even a small jump at that and unfortunately my tenure at this startup was only about like five six seven months because they ran out of money and I wish I did better when it came to interviewing and really asked those hard questions because I could have probably have spotted these red flags and problems from the get-go but anyway when that finished I'm like what am I gonna do I'm like you know what I had such a good experience at the staffing agency I still had the skills I loved the ride I love sales I'm like you know what maybe I can bet against myself and just go for it so that's exactly what I did and if you haven't seen my video make sure you watch the video of how I started my agency and what that was like but I worked my butt off I dedicated seven days a week probably not the best if you're in a relationship or you have other priorities in your life but that's what I did and I think just to kind of defend it a little bit I think that's the mentality you need to have if you want to start an actual business or a successful freelance career you have no clients you have to build everything from the ground up and that takes a lot of work and just action execution and so that's what I did I worked about eight nine ten hours average a day seven days a week for the first year again don't know how I did that but was able to Bill about five hundred thousand dollars in my first year on my own desk and this time I was able to keep it all minus New York City taxes tier but either way unfortunately this experience of the early stage startup was pretty short it lasted about six seven months the start running out of money which I was able to kind of dig into that more while interviewing maybe I would have just joined another company instead anyway I had such a really good experience at my Staffing game to see I really learned the systems and tools really well and I knew I had the work ethic to make some sort of money and so that's exactly what I did I made a decision to have a leap of faith to bet against myself and to start my own solo independent recruiting career and I worked really as hard as I could worked about seven days a week about eight nine ten hours a day a I think a part of it is necessary if you're creating a new business uh something from nothing you have to really inject a lot of work ethic and energy into that and again if you have other priorities every relationship it's going to be very very difficult to juggle everything but that's just what I did I'm not saying one's right way or another but I just went all in on this and I was completely obsessed to make it happen I was honestly happy if I made twenty thousand dollars a year I was gonna be happy if I made 50 or 70 000 like I'm set I made it but somehow in my first year I was able to build over half a million dollars a year was able to collect it all on my own desk which is absolutely incredible because I've never been able to experience or taste money of that sort of level in my entire life I do want to clarify that for the majority of the beginning of my career especially the first four or five years I didn't use any VA didn't even know what vas were I didn't have any employees or part-time it was only after about four or five plus years I started experimenting with maybe bringing a partner on full-time part-time Contracting freelance only recently I made my first full-time hire the past year and experimented here and I'm always kind of trying to find a way to like run a great business how to optimize it to make things better but for the most part everything was on me my desk no handouts no vas I just learned the fundamentals from a job put it into action to see what happened and that's exactly what happened and from then onward off to the moon like changed my life still in this because I love it and I hope that this resonates with you I'm still a full desk recruiter right now even though I managed to run a small team like I still do everything Biz Dev canvas negotiations process calls I love it and it's gonna be tough to give any of that up but I love it so much and I'm just gonna keep doing what I know how to do best so moving forward couple tips to kind of share with you some of the highlights of my career number one I would recommend that you be hyper focused don't be a recruiter that recruits every single position underneath the Sun be focused on a specific industry specific Market specific type of job specific experience as niche as you can and just be a master at that because that will give you credibility that will give you validity to just be able to leverage with clients in canvas to kick-start a successful business the reason why you need to do that is it's just there's so many reasons but for example to relay it back to my story I only focused in product and ux in my first kind of year doing this in Tech in New York City I got telemarket really well got to know the industry skills and Trends it was able to develop competence and be able to talk about these with authority with Executives Founders executive boards and candidates I was able to maximize each candle that I brought by presenting multiple jobs there from the get-go really increasing the chance and the probability of getting them into process starting multiple processes and then getting offers or multiple offers from one candidate I was able to just also develop a reputation for just a great track record great work within that market that again begins to compound and snowball over time so again consistency and Hyper focus is something that I would continue to Yelp from the mountaintops until the day I stopped this career I only added software engineering later when I established a track record in my initial markets to me it made sense is one of the most competitive every tech company is looking for engineers once I really mastered product and Tech I was able to really just expand into engineering and to be able to provide really great kind of offerings and services to the clients I work with and then if you've been watching me recently and my some videos and you're seeing wild person you're doing marketing position sales Finance you don't seem that focused well provided yes that's true now but like eight years ago I was extremely focused also just to kind of add to that I am still relatively focused right now I like to spend about 80 90 percent of my bandwidth my mental bandwidth onto positions that are in our specialty and if I ever do positions underneath the side it's because I think I can confidently find great candidates and close them why because these are types of positions I know really well myself I have strong interests I've been studying a lot and this is really kind of referring to for example sales business marketing love these types of positions a lot of fun and I love talking to talent in these respective markets number two I reinvested into my business constantly and kept my spending low I didn't take take money out of my business to spend on frivolous or unnecessary things I kept it in there I took out a decent salary to live off of when I did well enough and then I just kept everything in there with a purpose of for example stabilizing the business during tough times which really really helps right now when the market is absolutely insane and competition is through the roof recruiting is extremely Rocky and unpredictable and you never want to just assume that just because you did X Y and Z this month you can do that next month just because you did XYZ this year you can do it next year right I think when you do things like retainers or subscription or something like that that brings you more of a constant Revenue every month that's easy to forecast on if you're doing primarily direct placements some months you can do amazing other months you can do zero and it's very very difficult to kind of build a strong foundation so in my mind I'm like it just made sense to leave as much money as I could to just be ready to deploy when I need it when I say deployment or utilize what do I invest it in like new tools and products to help optimize my business and workflow invest into new talent and then being able to just move very quickly when needed I only focus on on a small handful of tools and didn't waste time or money on many different things the biggest thing you need to test right now is like your business hypothesis do I know this Market well can I get business can I get candidates and then can I make money like nothing else should matter and if you're if you're spending most of your time on like I need to research 30 different products here 30 different products here and you're not cold calling you're not cold emailing you're not reaching out the cans you're not actually making any placements to me like you're just not prioritizing your time correctly you know you should be a little bit more efficient focus on the main things that get your business off the ground once it's moving then you can allocate some time on the side maybe during early mornings or evenings or weekends a non-essential non-critical activities on researching all the other tools out there as well right now even for me I use a core Tech stack right but aside from that like I still try to double dabble and Test new things all the time our space is fantastic because there's always new technology coming in always new improvements and Innovations so I really want to do my best to stay on top of that but if you're starting brand new the last thing you want to do is sort of figure out what technologies am I going to use sign up for like 50 of them and then you just have analysis paralysis when I started it was super Bare Bones like Google Gmail Google Docs Google Sheets to track my candidates and clients and processes and it was free and I focused on can I just repeat the main activities clients candidates deals money and can I just do that consistently can I do it faster can I optimize it and then at what point do I need new tools to be able to optimize if you think about new tools too early on your monthly burn or spending just shoots through the roof because even though one software might not be that expensive if you have like five six seven ten of them it adds up and that just adds to the stress to an already unpredictable business you just want to get some cash make some cash and get cash in the next thing that I did is I always focused on the long term and never the short term when I started this business I started with business telling myself I'm not gonna do this for three months and six months and just see how it goes maybe quit and change businesses if it doesn't work out I told myself that when whatever was going to happen I'm going to be here one two three five years from now and that's the same advice that I would give to anyone looking to start this business if you're just coming in here and you're seeing all these crazy numbers of money you're like wow you know I can have a certain lifestyle in 30 days and then you don't hit that you face your first wall of obstacles and challenges and then you get demoralized and the Press then you quit you do something else in my opinion it's hard to find success you really have to dig deep and commit and you have to commit for the long term and back it with hard work and consistency relationships and my mind can turn into an amazing opportunity for the future the reason why I mention relationships here is recruiting fundamentally is a relationship business your developing relationships with attendance your developing relationships with clients the better that you can do that the better that it can compound and bring many other opportunities that you're not really seeing or thinking about right now into the future if a client or Canada for example is difficult I still have a tough time I will always do whatever I can to just be positive try to resolve it positively or be professional right because that client can refer you to other clients that can they can refer to other cans or clients if you start Burning Bridges not only can that hurt your reputation but you're also hurting for example the planting of the seed of it turning into multiple seeds or other connections that you're just really underestimating right now referrals if Done Right is one of the strongest things that you as a business owner need to be able to think about and the best way to kind of think about that right now and put into practice is just focus on your relationships now and do things with a longer term Horizon re-engage with open roles with clients and candidates again opportunities are endless with what candidates and clients can give you currently and into the future also do your best to just be transparent so like I'm doing my best on YouTube for example to be transparent with you on my week in life videos I try to show what we did well what we didn't go well and just try to be honest right I'm not trying to position myself saying I'm a master I Know It All I Know Myself fundamentally there's so many other ways that I can improve especially when it comes to working with clients working kids I'm not perfect at all I'm always want to be a student to see like what can I do better and just never settle and kind of reached a point where I'm like I know it all because I don't and I know that there are people in recruiting that have been doing it 10 20 multiple decades more than I have and so for me I'm just sharing with you what's worked for me I'm always a student I'm trying to find a way to better myself as a person a human being and a professional and it's really really really important I think to be transparent I think coming into a sales industry like recruiting or real estate you can start seeing a lot of professionals or businesses take a lot of shortcuts right to either get more money quickly to you know sabotage a relationship to get a client or something and for me I'm like you know what that's kind of I've seen those practices and I don't really resonate with that I'd rather take some money a little bit less off the table but if that meant at the end of the day I can sleep better I can develop stronger relationships or clients and candidates I know in the future long term because my mindset's on the long term not the short term I'm building something for the long term that I know that it can pay out right rather than taking shortcuts now so common practice is that agencies do is they just they're very nebulous they're very vague on the salary and when they submit can and there's never Ken told you I'm looking for 70 this and that the cancer 90 or 100 to the client right hoping that they can kind of jack up the commission if you're talking to candidates for example and they're like hey what's the salary ban for this and you're just kind of secretive about that like I'm just I just try my best to be honest I picture our role to be the middleman to connect the company that's hiring to the candidate and try to make that process as best as possible and the way that we can do that is just by being transparent to both sides as much as possible yes there are situations where like you know a candidate feels like you're taking a client-side a client takes the can inside it's all about communicating and over communicating and knowing that hey whatever you do now it may or may not work out but it can work out in the future if for example if I find a situation where I'm like talking to my Canon like this candid I don't think at the end of the day like what you're looking for is what this company can offer you I will just tell them honestly and that might make the candidate not take that job and I don't get that offer but I do know that there'll be multiple opportunities in the future I can engage with that candid again maybe that will become a client maybe they'll refer that can only happen if the candidate like I shared with them advice that kept their best interest in line and so that's what I try to do and if you don't do that that's fine I'm not saying one way is right or another and you might be like oh Preston like you know you're dumb because you're just taking easy money off the table that's cool but like I've been doing this long enough where yes money is important commissions are great but I also just want to do what I can to be transparent in an industry that's known to be extremely secretive and very competitive I don't take unnecessary shortcuts I'm always doing my best to give everyone a positive experience and leave with a good impression all I want for my candidates is whether or not they apply for my client whether or not they get that job they I want them to have a good impression same thing with clients and cans if they work with me or my team whether or not they get the job I'm hoping that hey they get a good impression if they don't I will learn from that and see how we can prevent that with future scenarios or situations moving forward plant the seeds now and don't underestimate ever the power of word of mouth and referrals Biz Dev so regardless of the state of my business I never stopped reaching out and developing new relationships with clients bringing in new business seriously is the lifeblood of agencies more inbound of clients coming in means there's more opportunities to do consistent placements every month throughout the year the worst thing in my opinion that you can do is just Bank on one or two clients like hey I have 10 20 rules everything life is gravy all I can focus on is just you know placing and closing these deals it's fantastic but what if something like for example the market condition that we're in happens right now what if a global pandemic happens right now what if as a bank in California explodes right and then your client stops then what happens you go from having a business that's relying on one client to know business at all and to me that terrifies me and I want to do whatever I can to make sure I'm not in that position so that's why just me the way I'm wired I'm always going to do business regardless whether it's strong or maybe it's a little bit kind of thrall back because business is good I don't ever want to be in score one I'm sure you don't want to ever be in square one two and so even like for me if I do well on one month I don't want to be in a situation like what is going to happen next month right I don't have any business coming in and to me also my perspective that's not a business you're just kind of Lucky and you're just really uh depending on one Olive Branch or Lifeline which is one or two clients that are just basically supporting you and your team's livelihood to me like that can be very very dangerous that's a very fragile business if something happens things can change very very quickly so next tip is always have business on always cultivate new relationships because man I'd rather you have too much business coming in but not enough find yourself in a really really bad pickle always work with a sense of urgency so recruiting is absolutely and especially all types of recruiting is very competitive you're competing on the agency side against internal teams against other agencies against other external third-party recruiters a small way for you to get an edge is just speed schedule a call faster with clients or candidates don't wait three hours try to schedule them within an hour or two don't wait two to three days schedule them that day try to shorten or move candidates through the process as fast as you can with quicker feedback and responses don't schedule a candid five days for the first interview try to schedule the first interview three days out or two days out the faster you can do that the faster you can then schedule the second round so instead of having just one interview for example in that week you can potentially have two maybe more three rounds of interviews for that candidate and one week if everything is compressed if an offer is coming out on Monday can it come out on Thursday or Friday right try to find Opportunities to just shorten that time Gap if you get an email from a client maybe it's late in the afternoon or evening respond as soon as you can don't wait till the next morning try to talk to them that day because chances are for example if they're a new client and you know they emailed back another recruiter that recruiter might hustle faster than you pick up that role faster than you and then by the time you talk to the client like hey nice to meet you but I don't need your help anymore like that's your worst nightmare so do whatever you can to just move quickly compound urgency with more work if you're reaching out to 10 new companies per week can you do 20 can you do 30. if you're reaching out to 20 candidates per day can you do 30 can you do 40 and remain targeted and consistent it doesn't matter if you found an amazing candidate but if it took you a long time you're already losing an edge to other recruiters to internal teams ultimately you can present the perfect candidate and your clients like hey we close the roll and do not want that to happen last but not least having a prior sales and or working for yourself experience really really helped me a lot so I started my own startup before bounding my recruiting agency crash and burned I then worked on sales having a recruiting career or job is tough but doing it on their own it's extremely challenging especially if you're independent or on the agency side because in my opinion it's an entrepreneurial sales job and a career it's not just enough to know how to find candidates and how to find clients that think that you can switch working for yourself and succeed this is why I think most corporate developers internal who switch to external side fail it's why a lot of external agencies who crush it at their job fail when they work on their own a lot of it I think is two parts one one it's very much sales right Outreach personalization following up agreeing on engagement terms negotiations pitching jobs to candidates pitching cans to clients managing relationships all of that is sales the more that you sales that you've done before you've learned best practices you learn what to do what not to do all that really really helps but the second thing that you really can't really practice until you start working on your own is the mental component of it right dealing with rejection constant failure over long term dealing with like a headache of just even running a corporation or a company taxes legal Finance HR not knowing like how you'll do this week this month this year and still having to show up as if everything's okay and you have to do your best over and over and over again and not have any sort of just safety net of a salary to help you having to Pivot improve your business offer new products and services adapt to changing working conditions on top of everything else that's why this is so so tough having previous Contracting experience or freelancing helps if you were a founder of another company that really helps if you have prior sales experience I'm not saying that if you didn't have sales or you didn't have a prior working for a self-experience you can't do well all I'm saying is they can really tremendously help ramp up or prepare you for the hardest thing you'll ever do aside from that get a job and recruiting get a taste from recruiting as well like for me I didn't know what recruiting was until my first job and I just found out somehow I'm okay at it right and this is why I'm doing it right now so you might find out recruiting is not for you that's totally cool but if you are really serious on embarking on your own taking that leap of faith being able to start your own company and your recruitment agency just trying to be as real and transparent with you having prior sales can help prior having business experience can certainly help it definitely helped me a lot helps into this day I'm still learning I'm still trying to get better it's really helped me to kick start my business help me find success relatively quickly and again it's just something that I think if you also had a similar experience like I did it can help you too well I hope you learned a thing or two and learned some value from this presentation I had a lot of fun making it I hope that it made some sense to you come wait to see and hear of all the great successes in the conference you all do this year let's keep our heads down let's keep working our best and I'll see you on the next one [Music]