← The Amazing Authorities Podcast
The Amazing Authorities Podcast
How Recruiters Make $20,000 Per Placement — The Hidden Business Opportunity Most People Ignore
00:29:06
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.
- [00:31]
B
Have you ever thought of a business that you could do on the road, anywhere you want, anytime you want and make a very healthy income helping people? Sounds like an ideal, but today's guest, John Chintana Road, Tanner Road. I had. That's a mouthful. And you'll get to hear from him in a second. Has created this opportunity not only for himself, but for loads of other people that get to live the dream. And we're gonna learn all about that today. John, welcome to the show.
- [01:08]
C
Thanks Mitch. Excited to be here?
- [01:11]
B
Yeah. And I'm in Thailand. You're in the U.S. i was born in America, as you were. But you come from Thai parents and we had a chance to just to care, you know, to shout about that to each other and share. The world today is global. It truly is because of the Internet, because of the lifestyle of that that came out of the pandemic because people had to start doing business virtually. I mean, it was a blessing in disguise. For those of us that choose to live outside of our 9 to 5 confine and tell us about what you do for people.
- [01:54]
C
Sure. I help people who want to start their own recruiting business and often do it part time on the side without having to quit their 9 to 5 job until they're ready. Right. And business takes off. So what's funny is a lot of people who consider like, and they're evaluating business opportunities or looking at agencies or you know, E commerce or something, they always find like it's hard to picture themselves with that learning curve and sometimes it's technical and it just doesn't feel like them, doesn't feel like a solid thing. And recruiting just makes sense for a lot of people. So a lot of times they're not even actually aware that professional recruiters, recruiting firms and agencies, they charge 20% of their candidates first year base salary as a fee. So if you're my candidate, that's healthy. That's. Yeah. Because if you are making 100k as the average, you know, candidate place and I got you a job at my client, then that client pays me $20,000. So that's what you get paid to help one person find a job. But you know, so people like the appeal of that course and the overhead cost is very low. But then there's a lot of question marks about how do I get started, get clients, all that stuff. So that's kind of where we come in.
- [03:03]
B
Well, but you get to just, you help people find a job, you help the employer find a, an appropriate employee or contract worker. I mean, in making 20%, I had no idea until I met you today that that was the commission for retained search. And you know, one time I was an employee and I was, I went through a retained search and I, and I was, I realize now why the, the recruiter made what he made, you know, and he drove a nicer car than I did and.
- [03:32]
C
Yeah, and he was incentivized to help you and make sure you cross the finish line with an offer.
- [03:37]
B
And he did. And I think, don't you have to stay for a certain amount of days before the commission is paid? Or is it, I mean, is there a 30 day trial period? Or do you.
- [03:50]
C
Yeah, a good question. So the, the payment term is typically net 30. So if today was your start day and you're my candidate, then I would invoice my client today. Once I confirm you show up to work, everyone's happy that no other surprises. Then I invoice a client and then that invoice is due within 30 days. So net 30 is a typical invoicing terms. But then we guarantee our candidates for the most part within 90 days. So I can say Mitch, if you work with, you know, work with Mitch. Right. Within any, within 90 days, if any, for any reason, it doesn't work out, he leaves, you let him go. That we'll do a one time good faith replacement with at no cost. So we back it up. And so if they push back, always offer a money back guarantee, that's usually fine too. But yes, we make sure they're sticky for at least three months. And then at that point.
- [04:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, if I were in the business, I would prefer. Okay, we'll replace him for free because you've already spent the money, you've incurred the overhead cost. Yes, all this, you got to feed yourself and food is necessary. I mean, you look lean and fit, you know, but I like to eat. You know, there's such great food here in Thailand, but it's all right. So you get paid 30 days later after the placement has been employed and you move forward from there. And what is the typical amount of employees or executives that people place in a month or in a year? What is the normal expectation?
- [05:15]
C
Yeah, so. Good question. So yeah, in terms of like general recruiting terminology. Yeah, there's, there's different levels to recruiting that we have executive recruiters, like you mentioned, you have a colleague that places like CFOs, those executive recruiting firms will do very low volume, but they're placing people like a half million dollar plus comp package so they don't have to. It's like you're selling multi million dollar homes as an agent or in realtor, you don't have to, you don't have to sell that.
- [05:40]
B
But not 6%. It's 20.
- [05:42]
C
Yeah, it's. Yeah, it gets very expensive because that job is so difficult and long cycles. And that's often kind of where the term retained search comes from because those executive recruiters can ask for payment upfront. Would say, hey, to retain me like you would retain an attorney, you'd pay like a one third fee upfront for me to even begin working. Then one third due upon like a short list I present to you and then 1 3rd after you make the hire. And so retained search means that you know, you pay a retainer upfront. For the most part though, we always recommend contingency search, which I know you know as well where you paying me as, as you're my client is contingent on me actually delivering you a candidate that you offer a job to you and they accept.
- [06:25]
B
It's a bigger carrot.
- [06:26]
C
It's. Yeah, it's, it's performance based as well. So because of that it's, it's fairly straightforward and easy for a company to say, you know what, I'll give you a shot. Why not like you're, you know, my industry, I like you and I don't have to pay you unless I hire your person. And there's no upfront commitment, no upfront cost and you guarantee them for a period of time. Like pretty straightforward value prop, I think or conversation.
- [06:54]
B
How do you compete with. For example, I saw an ad on Facebook where a company was hiring a copywriter for an organization and this is before AI came in and pretty much slaughtered the industry or obliterated it is if someone's paid $100,000 as a copywriter, which is not an unreasonable amount, but a little bit high high for somebody newer. And the employer or prospective employer was saying, if you refer somebody to us, if we hire him, we'll give you $1,000. How do you compete with that? And come in and say, no, I want 20 grand.
- [07:31]
C
Yeah, yeah, good question. That, that's the exact strategy that most companies have when they're trying to grow. They ask their employees offer referrals, they tap their network, they post jobs on LinkedIn. Indeed. And they sort through resumes to have someone, their team. Those will fill a lot of the easy to fill jobs. Those are not the ones that they paid fees on. They, they pay fees on the role that's been open for six months. That they've interviewed people and had some false starts and now it's causing real problems to the business.
- [08:02]
B
They need that gap filled.
- [08:04]
C
Yes. There. So typically a company would use. It's funny because like when you talk about companies people say well why would, yeah, why would a big company work with someone like me when they can work with the big agencies out there. The Robert Half the. The Aerotex Corn Fairy Corn Fair. Exactly. For exact search and the idea and the reason if you, if you target companies that are too big. Fortune 1000 let's say like when I worked at Google there was a entire building just for recruiting as far as I could see. All recruiters so they have an army. So of course it's hard to offer value when they have so many resources. But on the other hand if you try to work with small mom and pop shop businesses, they won't be able for your fee or if they do, they hire from you once and never again. They're not really growing that much. But somewhere in the middle like these small to medium sized business that's the sweet spot because they're growing but they don't have, they can't afford like a team of internal recruiters yet. So but they're growing. So it's kind of like awkward stage where they rely on outside recruiters for very specialized hard to fill role. So we get the hard stuff because otherwise, you know, it, it'd be easy. Everyone would do this. It does require skill. So it's not a get rich quick opportunity. It's a real business that requires nuance and skill.
- [09:17]
B
Well, you're not selling widgets. If you count people as widgets then I guess it is. You know, it's a human widget, isn't it?
- [09:24]
C
Yeah. Human skills. Yeah.
- [09:26]
B
And so if someone is like you have a program where like I said, you know, first person I've run into that actually teaches the recruiting business. I guess you have a workshop online program. I don't know. It's a tutoring mentoring program where people can do this. So I think the eyes got big of the listener when they oh man, I get 20% and you know, I know Joe gets paid 200 grand. That's $40,000. That's a steak dinner too, isn't it?
- [09:54]
C
The light bulbs go off for like, each of our, like, client profiles. For the agency recruiter who, who's like, compares what they bill for the agency to what little they take home in their paycheck and that becomes soul crushing. Then they can do the math. If I just did all my own deals, kept the whole thing, I'd be wealthy, right? And the corporate recruiter who's slammed and she's working at like, IBM or some meta or something, and then they're overworked, underpaid. They can fill above and beyond what they're asked to fill. They won't get paid a dime extra because they're on a fixed salary. So then they're looking for legit supplemental income stream where they could leverage their skills but also not get in trouble with their boss. So they're. But they see the opportunity there. That's when the light bulb goes off or they're afraid of like a company hiring freeze and they just get let go. Like, you know, layoffs are happening all
- [10:43]
B
the time and, and they have kids in school and they, they get their medical cover, they've got a medical condition, all those. It's like, do you risk security and go out and do that? God forbid I have to call mom for a loan. I mean, there's.
- [10:58]
C
It's insane right now. It's a wild west. Like there is. I have a recruiter told me recently that there is no safe haven for a recruiter for a job because there's no stable job out there. Like, those days are gone. So corporate recruiters get it. And then for like, people, maybe more like you, that are industry professionals that don't have a formal recruiting background, they often say that they've helped a lot of their friends get jobs just making connections in their network because they're a people person, a natural connector. And then somewhere along the way they realize, wait, professional recruiters are charging $20,000 or more for the exact same service I've been helping my colleagues with that I've been giving away for free. And I'm like, wait, maybe I should consider monetizing this and, and kind of do what I do, but get paid to do it, because why otherwise? Like, I'm just doing them $20,000 favor. So those are kind of times where they start exploring options and then, you know, we come up somewhere.
- [11:53]
B
What does. Just to understand this, because this is a business opportunity and I think people are leaning in on this. Get the 20% mark, it's like, oh gosh, if I do two of these a month, is that a realistic placement opportunity? Do some of them do that? Or is it, would they count on one placement a year or one, you know, let's talk volume.
- [12:13]
C
Sure. So typically we see most of our clients make their first placement within the 90 to 120 day mark. So three to four months. Because if you kind of work that backwards, they long, well, normally they launch and then within 30 days get their first client and then let's say they have a month or two to fill that role, which is how we got to that 90 day mark. And as you know, now they pay a month later. So month four is usually the earliest most people make. We've had people who come in with more experience that beat that, of course. But yeah, and we've had many people that end up going, going full time, billing over half a million and keeping, you know, all of it. And so it's, it's been fun to see lives being transformed for people that normally came to me saying they're stressed at their job, they hate what they do, they hate the commute, and now they get to just have this location independent life that we talked about earlier, like living in Thailand and doing their own thing, hand picking their own clients, only recruiting for people that they want to recruit for and then keeping the entire fee that they, you know, did all the, they did all the work, so might as well.
- [13:14]
B
Well, there's also a mindset of what I learned because I did have a job. I, I, I sought out a recruiter, an executive recruiter during the pandemic because of what I was doing as a, as a solopreneur for years, all of a sudden came to screeching halt. I came from the live events business where I was producing live, and that got tanked. I mean, I had no one. And I ended up talking to different recruiters, thinking, okay, I need to take a VP of communications job or VP of marketing or something. I don't want to be a CEO again. I don't want to deal with that headache. And I'm just not a numbers guy, so to speak. And I remember talking to a couple of the retained recruiter guys and one of them wanted, he says, well, we got to update your resume and my fee is $5,000. I thought, wow, is that another opportunity to make money? Because he said he wanted to help package me and he wanted five grand.
- [14:11]
C
We work with a lot of career coaches and they kind of like, recruiters will think, hey, like I help people with a resume and give them advice. My candidates might as well offer that but then end up doing a lot of work. That guy's charging obviously a premium. Most of them would do hourly, hourly rate here and there to polish a resume. Like, wait, this is not. Why don't I make a placement? Like that's where the room.
- [14:32]
B
Because I hadn't looked for a job in Deck. I mean, I hadn't been an employee since I was in my 20s. And I was also thinking, geez, if I have to do this when I'm almost or 60, you know, was a little bit older and thought, man, am I going to. I needed to work because I was bored. I have to work mentally. But it was, it was a shocker. I thought, okay, I didn't do it because I ended up. The world opened up and I was able to resume doing what I did, thankfully, because I would consider myself unemployable. Now let's talk about is this a good job for people who are in retirement and seniors just to supplement their income? Is that another opportunity? Somebody of my demographic, yes, we have
- [15:16]
C
a lot of people who are, you know, 50s, 60s and beyond. And because I think that's industry agnostic, not just recruiting, I think naturally when people kind of start to face ageism in the market or considering semi retirement, they look at consulting as a natural transition because they have all this experience and network and they can kind of help out companies. So similarly, this is the exact same thing for anyone that wants to consider consulting and they feel like they're people person and they would enjoy helping people find jobs, helping company find hard to fill talent and making an impact and getting paid well then, you know, that attracts those type of people to recruiting.
- [15:58]
B
So the better candidate is someone who's got a little bit of a nest egg, who's willing to make the leap, believes in, has a network, because you've mentioned that word a couple times. Or does this on the side while gainfully employed.
- [16:12]
C
Yeah, well over 90 of the people we work with do this part time on the side while gainfully employed. And they're like, okay, let's. I want to get out of the business. I so when people who say that to me, I say, well, cool, let's build the getaway car and earn your right to give your. To resign.
- [16:30]
B
I like that. Get the metaphor of the yeah, let's build your getaway car. Yep.
- [16:35]
C
Yeah, and earn the right. Don't just quit because, you know, suck it up. Build a getaway car, it'll motivate you to build it faster. We'll help you. So that's. That's what we always have.
- [16:45]
B
Well, that was kind of your story, wasn't it? You had to. You had a couple clients who said, okay, we'll support you, John. We like you. And then that was your. Your landing pad, wasn't it? Or soft landing.
- [16:57]
C
Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, once I got laid off, my entire division got laid off from a recruiting job I had. It was because of my top two clients that said, hey, we'll follow you and we believe in you. And I still remember, if it wasn't for those two, Tina and Jeff are their names. If it wasn't for them motivating me, being that external, guiding, nursing, you know, supportive nursing, nurturing hand, I wouldn't have probably made the leap in my, you know, leap of faith. So now it's nice to kind of full circle, be that encouraging hand for other people who don't have clients saying, I'll follow you. Right. Like, we get to be that supportive guide. Because it's hard to make a change without as, you know, like an external force. That's why people hire personal trainers and stuff, because they kind of, you know, get you to take action whether you feel like it or not.
- [17:44]
B
Oh, personal trainer. Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's put in the reps and understand the concept. You don't get big biceps by thinking about it. You've actually got to do it.
- [17:54]
C
Yeah, yeah. And. And, well, that was the idea initially. Like, you know, we'll show them the exercises to form, and then we'll let them just come to the gym and get results. That worked for a while for, like, the top 20 percentile of the people who are already high performers. Sales background, recruiting background. But the other 80%, like, this is one of the mistakes that we were doing at the time was we're a group coaching only, like, hey, Mitch, sign up. Here's some videos, some PDF files. Wish you best of luck if you get stuck. We'd come out to one of our group support calls. It was very scalable, had three salespeople. We, you know, we. We grew revenues up, you know, six figures a month in revenue. But then we saw time and time again, people kept getting stuck in the same places. Like, they picked the wrong niche. So they're like, they're not seen as a specialist or, or they don't pick one at all. Right. And people seeing it as a generalist, they. Their branding looks off. So when companies look at it, it doesn't Have a professional look and feel so they don't reply back or their message sounds like every other recruiting vendor that's bombarding that hiring manager that day. Or they tried to do the automation thing with LinkedIn automation, which we implement, but they get tripped up in the tech, they push the wrong button they weren't supposed to push and that grants to a halt. So we're like, after seeing that for a year, you know what, forget it, we're just gonna do it for you. So I made a decision to wind down the old way of doing things and relaunch from the ground up. And now we're like, hey, we're done for you. We will build the whole recruiting business for you, help you pick your niche, do your branding. We do it all in house and we'll launch your automations. You don't push any button. Like we won't let you break it this way. We'll build it to spec to best practices and then from there coach you 101 to help get you clients, make placements at scale, hire team, you know, ad marketing channels. Like lots of ways to grow to a million dollars a year, right? So this is a million dollar a year opportunity and it's not that many hires for doing, you know, 200k salaried employees. Like that's two a month, not that big. Yeah, yeah, two months. We'll get exactly two. If you can help two people get jobs a month that are, you know, high level, then a million dollars a year actually becomes a true target.
- [20:00]
B
You can almost afford a house in the Bay area.
- [20:02]
C
Exactly right. Or live forever in Thailand. Like live like the king.
- [20:07]
B
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's serious money here. You know, that's the one thing I'll say about it. When someone gets into this field, like you mentioned personal trainer or sales background, Is that the ideal background for somebody to embark on this or. Or should they come from hr, which is really a function of human resources by definition?
- [20:31]
C
Yeah, it's a great question. Interesting. HR people are rarely doing this because I think the type of person that falls into HR is a very process driven. They like kind of like dotting their eyes and crossing the T's and checking boxes and following the rules. So for them to like you know, be edgy and start their own business on the side, like it's a little bit too risky for them. That's not right. What we tend to find are people who have a. I think as long as you're a people person, a bit extroverted or even if Introverted, like you feel like you can, you want to help people, you like to connect people. People tell you all the time, hey, you know the type of person I go to when I need something. You always know everybody. Like you're always a natural connector. So if you have that plus an entrepreneurial drive, then that's all you need to, to give us a shot. And of course to get started, you just need a laptop, a computer, some tools and kind of know what you're doing and you can. So you don't need a license or degree or specialized anything. It's just like go out there and help people find jobs that, that companies need help with. So kind of.
- [21:35]
B
So what you're offering today is, is a business opportunity in a box and you set the whole thing up for them. So they walk in, it's like, here it is. We've helped you define your niche based on your background. For example, like I, I wouldn't be a great guy for CFOs, that wouldn't be my, my bailiwick. But finding niches in the, in the, in the background that I have would be appropriate. Is that where you direct somebody? Do they go through an intake so you find out their strengths?
- [22:03]
C
Yeah, actually I do all the initial calls because I personally want to make sure it's a good fit before I invite anybody to have my delivery team work with them. But yeah, I talk to everybody, make sure that they, it's just the right thing for them, that they have the right headspace, the right target. We talk goals and really get to know their background and what they're looking to do specifically. Right. There's no one size fits all, like roadmap I can implement. I wish. But everyone's very unique, their situations and then that way if they like the roadmap, but they feel like they want help implementing it, then usually I talk about how we help. And yeah, you know, I tell people it's not a course, it's not a group coaching program. It's a, we do this for you. So it's one on one implementation and that way we make sure everything gets done properly and it's a real team behind this. Right. For example, Jesse Tuggle, my head of client strategy, like my right hand man, he started his agency in recruiting three years ago, scaled it and sold it last April and exited for seven and a half million. So he's. Yeah, and so he's the real deal. He's leading a big recruiting consulting firm now and, but he works with me. So when, you know, when Jesse works with people. I tell them, hey, like Jesse's not coming from a place of theory when he's telling you what to do. Like it's coming from a been there, done that. And I think the way I evaluate consulting companies or coaching, coaching programs is like what's the quality people I get to work with, not the, the guru, the, the face of the business, but who's like my account manager, who's going to be the one that's that worthy working with me and are they qualified or, or have I done more than they have? And so I brought in Jesse so that way no one can say, oh I know more than these guys because you don't. If you're looking to do this at scale,
- [23:46]
B
how are you contending with AI today? Because there's, there's LinkedIn, there's Indeed. And then there's AI. Or is the shift finding AI engineers or Andor consultants to come in and help companies. Is that, is that the opportunity or the disdain?
- [24:05]
C
You know interestingly like AI hasn't really affected like the core of our business much in recruiting because recruiting is one of the few businesses like maybe a therapist or a real estate agent or something where it's all built around relationships and trust. And as an AI right now can't reach out to a top performing candidate at a competitor of my client and who never takes calls from recruiters, who's not interested in looking at all. And I pique his curiosity and intrigue him and bring him to the table and he ends up getting hired for my client and he changes the trajectory of that business forever. AI can't do that. Right. So that's why we get paid to live in this kind of human trust building world. So now there's AI tools to make our day to day like admin stuff easier and faster which is great. But yeah, I think for now it's, I'm lucky to have been in the AI kind of insulated industry for now and it hasn't been decimated like graphic designers or software engineers, copywriters like we were talking about.
- [25:08]
B
Well, is there an opportunity and I'm trying to weave this in for people to a take on your services, teach them the whole structure, the business. But placing AI related executives. Yes and, or I think that's a real.
- [25:25]
C
Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of people doing like tech related to AI so like language learning models, machine learning, all the things that a prompt engineer roles didn't exist. Right. A few years ago.
- [25:37]
B
That's a new category.
- [25:38]
C
Yeah, it's Right, exactly. So there's opportunity there. But for the most part though, people like, it's easy like you said, look at your relevant background, what you're passionate about and you probably already have a gut feeling of what industry you want to serve. And regardless of what AI is doing, there's always, I think it's like as long as there's a need, as long as companies rather are competing with each other for the very best talent, I think there's always going to be a need to have people find them that talent. And whoever gets the best candidate fastest wins, regardless of if you're AI or a human being.
- [26:10]
B
Well, and I, I see the opportunities if you know somebody that is an LLM engineer.
- [26:15]
C
Yeah.
- [26:15]
B
They're easier to place. They're in the driver's seat in terms of picking the opportunity because the demand is so strong right now, I would imagine.
- [26:23]
C
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So 100 like people are making a killing placing AI. Yeah. Engineers. Cool.
- [26:30]
B
Well John, where can they get in touch with your opportunity?
- [26:34]
C
Sure. RecruitingLaunch.com is our website, so recruitingLaunch.com and there, there's videos, there's explainer videos. I've recorded a bricks on our process the team page and lots of interviews with people across different industries. You can actually choose a drag down menu and pick the industry you're in your niche and then just only listen to the relevant stories. So hopefully that inspires you. And of course there's links to book a time with me if you have some questions. Happy to chat. Wow.
- [27:02]
B
Well, great guest, great opportunity. I think you're on the cutting edge. Like I said, I haven't, I haven't encountered anybody, at least not in the 200 plus interviews that I've done that's been anything remotely close to this. And there's always a need to place humans and I don't think the robots are going to take over yet. Skynet isn't here yet.
- [27:22]
C
Yeah, not yet.
- [27:23]
B
Arnold's about the sunset.
- [27:25]
C
My kids are screwed. My kids screwed. But we're good for now.
- [27:28]
B
Yeah, well, but they could learn something AI related. But there's always going to be a need. But I think graphic artists have taken the ax, copywriters have taken the ax or just reallocated and it's just brutal. I mean even Fiverr the little site that for for small task they tanked.
- [27:47]
C
Wow. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Why hire a VA when an AI can just build that logo for you in 30 seconds.
- [27:54]
B
In 30 seconds. And also it can create write articles for you. The all the whole writing articles and press releases in Chat GPT can do an outstanding job instantly. You don't have to pay for for a gig and wait, it's done.
- [28:10]
C
Yeah, it's. It's insane. Yeah. I used to pay 5k a month for a copywriter then now Claude does that for me for 100 bucks a month and it's quicker, easier and, and Claude is great.
- [28:21]
B
Claude is fantastic. I have Claude and Chat GPT. I use both every day and for tasks. It's just like wow, I'm blown away and we're all there. You just have to use the tools correctly. But John, you've been a great guest. Thank you for your time today and
- [28:37]
C
kapkunkrup yeah Kop Krap thank you.
- [28:41]
A
Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.