$2.4 Million Year: Business Development Mastery with Mike Anderson

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
2025 is going to be the best year that you've ever had, and we're going to help make that happen. We got two summits heading your way. First of all, in January, the Sales and Business Development Recruiting Summit. Make sure to get registered free for the live sessions or go VIP for the replays. And then the Recruiting Growth Summit is coming back for March. These events are going to help you start strong, run strong, so that way you can finish strong. So let's go. Make sure you get registered.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:25]:
You'll see the link in the show notes. All right, enjoy the podcast. Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Mike Anderson [00:00:31]:
If I can take a new recruiter that wants to do coaching with me and they can get them to do a deal and they can see the light in what we do as an industry, that is more exciting to me than me doing a 50, 60k deal or whatever. Like, I was like this big, like, look at me, look at me kind of guy, like, running around loud on the phone, the whole thing. But I was. I was miserable inside. I was lonely, I was overweight, I was depressed. I was doing a bunch of cocaine on the weekends. I was drinking, I was using, I was sleeping around. I was being a total.

Mike Anderson [00:00:54]:
Like, I was just not a good dude. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:14]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because I have an absolute big biller here. Share. He's going to share kind of the things that he did to have these huge numbers. And we're talking huge numbers. Best year was 2.4 million. Is that true?

Mike Anderson [00:01:29]:
Yeah. $2.4 million. That was my piece of the pie that I built that year.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:33]:
Okay, so I got a question for you on this. And this kind of goes into, like, we'll walk through how you got there, but the 2.4 is just your side of the pie. Like, technically speaking, you didn't handle the candidate size. So this is like the 2.4 split. So, like, did you say you technically build 4.8 this year or do you just cover your side of the split?

Mike Anderson [00:01:51]:
It's all 50, 50. So if I had an account, if I'm working with Nike and I play Steve Nike for 200,000 at 25% and they pay me 50k, 25k, that goes to my numbers and 25k goes to the recruiter's number. So if you add up my 25k, however many times in that scenario, you would get 2.4 million. If you take the whole 50k, which is the number we build to Nike, which Nike paid to my company, then you take that. That's the 4.8 million. So we've technically brought in his company 4.8 million in fees from revenue that I generated. But 2.4 goes to me as far as what I'm paid out on.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:23]:
I love that. I mean, we'll kind of talk about, like, how you got there, the strategies and all this stuff, but, you know, before we get started and do a deep dive on how you got into recruiting, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Mike Anderson [00:02:33]:
All right, cool. So Mike Anderson, 37 years old, single, never married, no kids. Fell into recruiting like anybody else. I sort of, after college, didn't major recruiting. I did baseball and communications, which was just like, you know, a get me over. Just a thing that I could do to get a degree, get out of college. I start working out at the gym. They're like, hey, you know, you should work here.

Mike Anderson [00:02:54]:
And I was like, all right, well, I'm here anyway. I might as well save 30 bucks a month on the gym memberships. I started working 44 Hour Fitness. And you know, they're like, you should be a trainer. So I was like, all right, I'll be a trainer. And then I was like, give me some people to train. And they're like, what do you mean, give me some people train? They're like, go get them. I'm like, what do you mean? You want me to just go tell people? Train with me? So they're like, yeah.

Mike Anderson [00:03:11]:
And I didn't know this at the time, but that's like crazy. But I did it. And I went on my first day and I ran with like five people at nighttime that didn't look like they know what they were doing. I was like, hey, you should train with me. And I sold up like three of them on training memberships. Cause they had seen me in the gym and they were like, whoa, this guy could sell. And I didn't even know that sales was a big part of being a trainer. So I moved up the ranks in training at the gym.

Mike Anderson [00:03:32]:
And then they're like, hey, sell memberships. And I crushed that. And then I moved into, like, management and this whole thing. So I realized I was good at sales. And then that was going on for a couple of years. And then, you know, one day I'm sort of looking up, like, if I wanted to move up in the company that I was working at, I would have to like move to New York for the gym. And I didn't want to do that. And so I sort of frustrated and I remember thinking to myself, like, where can you make like money in like in sales? That's uncapped commission.

Mike Anderson [00:03:56]:
And so I just like googled like uncapped commissions, you know, whatever. And I remember like recruiting came up and throughout a series of crazy events, I just applied to a job. Not even know recruiting was, because all I thought it was was you know, being a, like college recruiting for high school sports or like military recruiting. I didn't even know that this was an industry. And you know, I walked in 11 years ago, I took like a, like a $60,000 pay cut to take this job for uncapped commissions because I knew that I want to do that. I was like 24 or 25 years old. And then I walked into to work, Ridge, learned the job and it was game on from there. And I've never looked back since.

Mike Anderson [00:04:31]:
And it's been the craziest, funnest, wildest nut, baggiest ride. And if you're in recruiting, you know what I'm talking about, if you're not in recruiting, you're like, why would you ever do something like that? And it was the best, so worth it, whatever. So that's my stories.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:45]:
You literally went to Google, looked at uncapped commissions and it said recruiting as an option. You went and found a recruiting job literally based on that dude telling you.

Mike Anderson [00:04:55]:
Another thing that happened. I had had a CTO or sorry, a CFO of a recruiting firm. He had come into my gym and he wanted a tour. This is another part of the story that I didn't go into before, but he had wanted a tour of my gym. And he comes in, he's like, hey man, I want a guest pass. And I hear that as a sales guy and I'm like, okay, well I'm not selling you a guest pass, I'm selling you a membership. So I took him on this like 45 minute tour and at the end of the tour he ends up swiping his AMEX Black for like $13,000 and like four gym memberships for his entire family and one year of personal training for everybody. And when he handed me the MX black, he was like, I told you I wasn't going to buy or I wasn't here to buy or get a membership.

Mike Anderson [00:05:35]:
And I was like, ah, natural board sales guy. And he ends up being the cfo. At a recruiting company, and he gave me his card, and he's like, if you ever think about recruiting, you should check this out. And I just. I sort of just tossed it. Didn't think anything of it. And then later on, when I looked up on commissions, I remembered that he had said that. And so that's kind of where it all came from.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:52]:
Have you ever gone back and reached back to that guy?

Mike Anderson [00:05:55]:
Oh, dude, Yeah, I talked to. His name's Peter. I talked to Peter probably four or five times since my career sort of took off. He's a good. He's a good dude. He's the one that told me. He's like, whatever it is that makes people good at this, you got it? And so I was like, all right, let's go. It's weird how when you're doing this a long time, there's people that have impacted you, and the way that you end up into it, I mean, there ain't nobody I've ever met.

Mike Anderson [00:06:13]:
This, like. I majored in recruiting. I wanted to be a recruiter before. My first word was, you know, was client. My second word was candidate. Like, no. You know what I mean?

Benjamin Mena [00:06:21]:
Okay, so you were there for a little bit of time, and then you jumped over to cyber coders. Like, talk about that.

Mike Anderson [00:06:26]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:26]:
Yeah.

Mike Anderson [00:06:26]:
So I was over there at workbridge four and a half, five months. I don't know. I did a handful of deals, and it was cool. I sort of just wanted to get out of there, you know, after. After being there four and a half, five months, to just go take on cybercoders. Because at the time, cyber coders, I heard, was like a feeding frenzy for, like, hey, you could go just. Just take your skills, and however you recruit, there's no real rules. You kind of do what you need to do, and, you know, you just have fun with it.

Mike Anderson [00:06:46]:
And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna go check it out. And I went over there, and I. I met a guy that is one of the most impactful people in my career. A guy named Kyle O'Neill. That guy, man. That guy spent a lot of time with me, and I was a. I was a nightmare. I was a nightmare.

Mike Anderson [00:06:58]:
I was a big builder with a big ego, But I was a total. I was not an upstanding, quality guy. The guy that I am today, the way that I do the job, I was not that guy then. He had to put up with a lot of my BS for a long time. At the time, I hated it because I thought he was just treating Me, like a, you know, like a bad student. But now I look back and I see how much he actually invested in me to try to help me and stuff like that. I reached back out to him since. Since I got sober.

Mike Anderson [00:07:18]:
That's a whole another conversation. And I made my amends with him and talked to him and we'd become really close. And him and I have always stayed, remain friends since then. But yeah, that's my cybercoder story. I was there for three and a half years, did a bunch of billing, made a lot of money, and then I went up to collaborate from there.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:32]:
I know you've mentioned in like, a few other podcasts and like, even some of your. Your LinkedIn posts, like, you've been pretty vulnerable about your personal story. Like, you were absolutely crushing it. But behind the scenes, oh, dude, I.

Mike Anderson [00:07:43]:
Was a dead man walking. Dude, I was. I was a zombie. I was. My life was riddled with big commission checks, but midweek loneliness, I was like this big, like, look at me, look at me kind of guy, like, running around loud on the phone, the whole thing. But I was. I was miserable inside. I was lonely, I was overweight, I was depressed.

Mike Anderson [00:08:00]:
I was doing a bunch of cocaine on the weekends. I was drinking, I was using, I was sleeping around. I was being a total, like, I was just not a good dude and all of that stuff. Like, it felt like freedom. And I was sort of like, you know, that Wolf of Wall street mentality. And it was like, I believed at the time, like, it was fool's goal, but it was like the pinnacle of success for me. But the reality of it was I was going nowhere. You know, I'm looking up and all of a sudden I'm 27, 28, 29 years old, and the people that I'm partying with are, like, still staying at 24, 25, 26.

Mike Anderson [00:08:27]:
The people that are getting older are getting married, getting, having kids, and, like, they're doing these things, and I'm sort of like stuck in that same wash, rinse, repeat cycle, that hamster wheel. And I didn't know that. I was so depressed inside. I didn't know it at the time, but I was. And so, you know, from. Honestly, from 2014 to 28, I'd say even before that, 2013 to 2018, that was five years of just. I mean, I remember maybe half of it, and I'm not proud of any of it, but, like, it's part of what happened. And then May 26th, May 25th of 2018, Friday night, I get pulled over red and blue lights.

Mike Anderson [00:08:57]:
Third time in 10 years. I got a DUI in 2011, another DUI in 2012, my third DUI in 2018. And I remember when, I remember when I saw those red and blue lights, I remember thinking myself like, this is it. You're done. My attorney on my second DUI said, hey, don't get a third DUI in 10 years. That's like a death sentence in the state of California. When the cop was walking up to pull me over, I had been up for like 36 hours straight. I was high on drugs.

Mike Anderson [00:09:18]:
I had drugs in my pocket. I was drunk, I was toasted. And the cop was walking up to my car. And I remember I just had this feeling like, whatever happens, just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. Like, I don't know what that means, but just tell the truth. So the dude walks up to my car and the cop comes up and like, he doesn't even not. He kind of leaves a knock, and I roll my window down and he looks into me, he goes, yeah, you know, it's 8:00 on a Friday night.

Mike Anderson [00:09:38]:
It wasn't even late. It was 8:00, and I was driving to. To a buddy's house. He's like, you know, I pulled you over and I just remember looked up and I was like, have my hands on. I was like, no, but I've had about 35 drinks and I have two eight balls of cocaine in my pocket, so you should probably just arrest me. And he goes, you just ran a stop sign. And I was like, oh. So I basically confessed everything.

Mike Anderson [00:09:58]:
And he's like, I'm out of the car, you know, whatever. I go to jail. This whole thing, I think I'm going to lose my job. Craziest thing ever of all time because I told the truth to him. The next day, I actually wake up in the jail cell. He comes into my jail. He's like, you know, there's only been three times in my career. He.

Mike Anderson [00:10:15]:
He's like, I've been to 25 years. I remember this vividly in the jail cell. May 26, 2018. That's my sobriety date. I've been sober since then. But he comes to jail cell and he says, you know, there's only three times in my career where I pulled somebody over and it just been like, hey, there's a body in the trunk, or whatever. They just kind of, you know, they just start spewing. He's like, there's something different about you.

Mike Anderson [00:10:32]:
He's like, you need Help, for sure you need help. You know, at the time, I'm 30 years old. He's like, you're 30 years old? I got kids your age. I'm not going to put in the police court that you had two a balls of cocaine. I'm going to put that you were on drugs, but I'm not going to put that you had there, because if I put that in there, you're going straight to jail today. And I'm going to release you before your court date on your own recognizance. We're giving you a gift here. Get the help you need before your court date, otherwise it's going to be a really bad day.

Mike Anderson [00:10:53]:
And he's like, you need some help. So he, like, gave me this. This out. At the time, I was like, I didn't really think anything of it. And I go get my phone and I had 7% battery left on my phone when they gave me my phone back from the day before. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I better have a bunch of missed calls, texts, emails, everything. I didn't have anything. And I remember it was very dry.

Mike Anderson [00:11:11]:
My phone was dry, there was nothing on it. And I had enough just to order an Uber to get to my car. And I remember thinking I was the lowest of low at that point. And I just remember I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Five days later, I walk into my first AA meeting and I've been sober since. I haven't picked up drugs or whatever. I went through a court program for a year and anyway, kept my job, told my boss the truth, everything, and now I speak about my story openly. Because if there's people like there that are running their job the way that I used to run it, like, you don't know how broken you are until you get broken.

Mike Anderson [00:11:41]:
And you realized how broken you were. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, that was where I was at. I didn't even know. I thought I was living the high life. Was literally I. But, like, I thought I was living the high life and I, you know, anyway, I sort of went off on a tangent right there, but hopefully that was kind of what you were looking.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:53]:
For that next morning. Like, what was the biggest thing, the biggest wakeup call? Was it just like not a single person realized you were gone, or was it just like, I actually need a freaking change?

Mike Anderson [00:12:03]:
So I've always said, if I'm going to write a book about my life, it's going to be called 7% the life and times of Mike Anderson. Because the 7% is a number that I remember seeing on my phone. And that's just like where everything was there was know, taken up and that sort of a metaphor for where I was at. I mean, I was, I was at the end of my rope. And you know, what's wild is the next weekend, the guy I always bought drugs from, he sold. I think so. This is not verified, but I think he sold someone to somebody else and ended up passing away from fentanyl. And so oftentimes I wonder if that would.

Mike Anderson [00:12:30]:
Could have been me. I don't know. So pretty wild, pretty wild there. But anyway, so 7%. I remember waking up sitting on that curb and I remember thinking to myself, like, dude, what does it come to? Like what? Like where, where, where did my life go? You know, at the time I'm making, I don't know, 500,000, $600,000 a year, half million bucks. I'm killing it. Like, everything's good. I can't stop gambling, I can't stop drinking, I can't stop using.

Mike Anderson [00:12:49]:
Like I was at the bottom. It was the most facade, like it just whatever. And I remember thinking to myself, the big worry in my head was, what are people gonna say when they know that I'm no longer partying? Come to find out, that was the least of my worries. Didn't even think about that because people were just like, yeah, dude, we knew you had a problem the whole time. I'm like, did. Why anybody tell me? They're like, we tried to. You didn't listen. But anyway, that's sort of where it happened.

Mike Anderson [00:13:11]:
And I honestly, truth be told, I only went to Alcoholics Anonymous because I wanted to win favor with the judge. I didn't actually go because I thought I was an alcoholic. But I walked in and I started listening and there's like, you know, a 20 year old, a 30 year old, a 50 year old, a 70 year old, you know, a janitor, a CEO, a football player, a basketball player, a golfer, a caddy, a Uber driver. I mean, every walks of life and they're all just staying their stories and they're talking and they finish everything with, you know, my name Steve, I'm an alcoholic. My name's Wendy. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Billy. I'm an alcoholic.

Mike Anderson [00:13:38]:
And I'm like, son of a monkey. I must be an alcoholic. Like, it all made sense to me. So I'm like, good, if the shoe fits. So in that moment, I realized I was an alcoholic. And my dad was an alcoholic. And I remember thinking myself, I'm never gonna be like him because he had died in 09. And I remember thinking myself, I'm never gonna be like him.

Mike Anderson [00:13:52]:
And sure enough, here I am at the time, nine years later, and I'm exactly my dad.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:57]:
It's easy to say that you're gonna stop. It's easy to say that you're gonna change, but you actually did. I don't know how many days you're at now, like, you know, based on like some of the stuff that I've seen, but like, you stopped. Did you ever have like this drawback or you were just, I'm moving forward, dude.

Mike Anderson [00:14:13]:
Oh man. There's three times in my first year, I remember them all. I'll tell you about one of the times. My first, I was 56 days, maybe eight weeks over. I had been to court. They had told me, I'm not going to go to jail. They gave me a gift. They said, you can enter a program that keeps you out of jail, you keep your job.

Mike Anderson [00:14:27]:
That was a gift from God, like for sure. And I was able to be in this program. But I'm, I'm, I'm three and a half weeks in to this program. And there was a day, it was a Friday night. I remember vividly in my office and my company, they had done this contest and anyways, they got some buses to go to an angel game. It was like a half an hour drive, whatever. But like all of this stuff had happened. There was like, we worked with a bunch of.

Mike Anderson [00:14:49]:
There was obviously attractive girls. There was like, people were partying. It was all the stuff, it was all the stuff that I would normally be a part of. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I can't go to that. Which I would normally go to that. At the time, people knew that I wasn't drinking. They knew. But it was only like seven or eight weeks.

Mike Anderson [00:15:01]:
It's kind of new. They didn't all know why. A few people knew why, that I was close to that. I, I told them the story, but not, not everybody. But I remember there was that day and I remember when they had all brought in a bunch of booze in the office. They were all getting ready to go party and have a good time and whatever, you know. And that like that situation was a Mike Anderson one on one situation that was, you know, pockets full of co. Partying, having a good time, you know, let's see what happens.

Mike Anderson [00:15:22]:
Going to be the man. All the stuff. And that day I wanted to Drink. That was. I remember going to AA that morning, telling my meeting about that, saying, hey, guys, I'm gonna. This is gonna happen tonight. And I could already feel myself being pulled. And they're like, stand strong.

Mike Anderson [00:15:35]:
And they're like, you know, all the stuff they teach you to do, which is call your sponsor, find a meeting, have an exit plan, all the stuff that, like, you, you set yourself up to so that you don't have to put yourself in a situation where you can't say no. So I did everything they said, and I still. I remember having, like, a visceral pull. So I called my sponsor at the time, it was like 4:30, 4:30pm on a Friday. I'm like, dude, I really want to drink. Like, I'm about to say, eff it and just go do it. Like, I just want to go. And he's like, don't you dare.

Mike Anderson [00:15:57]:
He's like, you're going to regret it. He's like, get your. You know what? Into your car and get to an AA meeting. I literally Irish goodbyed. Walked out of the office at like 4:00 on a Friday. Everybody else is drinking. I. I didn't say bye, just left.

Mike Anderson [00:16:08]:
I got in my car. I drove like 100 miles an hour in the carpool lane by myself to get to a meeting, to get to an Amy. True story. It's like the meeting starts off at like 5:00 or something. I get there, it's like 4:52. I'm like there. I'm just like sitting at my table, just like ready to go. Just like, they could just see I'm huffing and puffing.

Mike Anderson [00:16:25]:
The meeting starts and they're like, all right, does anybody want to share? And they're like, all right. Clearly Mike does. So I'm like, this is bs. I hate this thing. I hate alcoholism. You guys are alcoholics. I'm not. This sucks is a life sentence.

Mike Anderson [00:16:36]:
This is brutal. This is terrible. I hate it. Like, I should be out there partying. They're partying because we hit our goals that I help. I help them hit our goals. Like, I should be there. You guys suck.

Mike Anderson [00:16:45]:
This is a stupid disease. I hate alcoholism. I'm just going on and on, right? And I get done and I just. And I'm just spewing at the end. I get done after just yelling for like five minutes, and everybody's just like, you're right where you're supposed to be. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is brutal. Apparently me doing that was exactly what I was supposed to do. And I remember, I look back on that time, that specific event, and I always think to myself if I would have giving in on that event.

Mike Anderson [00:17:12]:
I always wonder if I would have stayed sober to. Now I don't know. I'd rather not ever not have to know. But I've been sober since. Oh yeah, it was hard. I had a commitment. I looked at it real simple. For me, to drink was to die.

Mike Anderson [00:17:22]:
That was it. That's the way I looked at.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:24]:
And how is that change that you made impacted your recruiting career?

Mike Anderson [00:17:30]:
Oh, dude. Well, first of all, I. I'm alive. So there's. That wouldn't have a hus. Wasn't. But that's. That's one.

Mike Anderson [00:17:39]:
But there's that. But the other thing is there's some basic principles that I. It's weird, you know, these as a person, like, you know, you grow up, tell the truth, be nice, share, you know, whatever. Da, da, da, da. And for whatever reason, I did everything. Not like that. I was a manipulator, I was a liar, I was a thief, I was a cheat. I was all the stuff.

Mike Anderson [00:17:55]:
I was just a disgusting. Like there was nothing good about me at all. And I get Alcoholics Anonymous and they start like, hey, dude, why don't you just tell the truth? Like, what's the worst that can happen? Why don't you just start and he gave you some basic stuff and you're like, tell the truth. Like, why would I ever do that? Like that's. Who's that going to? You know? And you just like these b basic things and they actually made sense. And for whatever reason my mom taught me them when I was three. They never landed. And then now I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous and some 72 year old named Jack who hasn't had a drink in 41 years and who's just sitting there with his cane, who talking about how beer used to cost a nickel is telling me to tell the truth.

Mike Anderson [00:18:27]:
And I'm like, oh, that makes sense. And so it's because the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I wasn't ready to hear it at that age, but now I was ready to hear it. So. And what they told me was they're like, hey, you can tell the truth in here and you cannot drink in here. If you tell the truth out there, you won't drink ever again. And like, they told me that and I was like, you mean tell the truth about me drinking? They're like, no, tell the truth in all your affairs. Like in everything you do.

Mike Anderson [00:18:47]:
Tell the truth. So I was like, I'm gonna go now. I'm gonna go back to my business that I only know about, you know, omitting information and, and being a slippery guy and, and closing a deal and making it work and doing all the, you know, all the stuff that a lot of people know that I'm talking about and just start telling the truth. He told me, just tell the truth. And they're like, yeah, we do. And I remember, okay. Like, okay. After that, when I heard that, the next call I had with a client, I was like, so I'm a recovering alcoholic and everything I'm going to tell you is going to be the truth.

Mike Anderson [00:19:12]:
And they're like, okay, thanks. Like, congrats on your sobriety, whatever. And so I just. I told him everything. I was like, this is why it cost 25%. This is why I want money. This is why you should hire from me. And I said everything just factually true, like, no bs.

Mike Anderson [00:19:29]:
And they were just like, okay, no problem. And then I started selling candidates. I'm like, hey, I don't think you should take this job. Doesn't make sense. You said you want. This is what you're looking for. And then if you take this job, even though it's for me and I make money on it, I don't think it makes sense. And they just been like, it's like counterintuitive to what I'm trying to do.

Mike Anderson [00:19:42]:
But what I found is that telling the truth is like, it come back to me tenfold. And my ability just took off. And I didn't have to do nearly as much business development because I didn't have clients running away from me once they found out that I omitted truth or lied or whatever. And they kept coming back to me because they're like, dude, if nothing else, we're going to get the flat out facts from Mike. So I started doing that and my career just took off. And like, that was, I mean, this client right here, Chime, right? I did like 1.8, 1.9 with them. And over the course of, I don't know, a year and a half or so, and that relationship started out with me telling the flat out truth. And they were just like, I was just another recruiter to them.

Mike Anderson [00:20:14]:
And then I just sort of took off and built a relationship with the VP of engineering, the head of talent there. Like, it just sort of took off. And like, that's an example of one example. I've got many of those examples, but like, that's. That's what I'm talking about. So, you know, it wasn't like I didn't find people, that I wasn't a better sorcerer than people I wasn't better. Like, I just knew that in every call, whoever I was talking to was going to get the truth and they were going to get the fact that I wanted to make money and that if I couldn't make money, I was going to at least tell the truth and build a relationship with them for when I could make money from them. And I was no problem with that.

Mike Anderson [00:20:38]:
And I think people appreciated it. So I'd say that that's the biggest impact it made in my career. And it also made it really nice not to have to look over your shoulder, you know, like, you're crossing your fingers that a placement makes it to 91 days because you told them something about a company that's really not true or. Or you tell them that, like, you know, hey, they're going to get a bonus when you know they're not going to get a bonus, and you place them in May, so the bonus wouldn't come until December anyway, so you're fine, right. Or you move your start dates to hit certain metrics to get your bonuses or just all the stuff that just is the manipulation stuff that's easy to do, that you don't think twice. I mean, you do think twice about it, but you do it anyway. I stopped doing that stuff. And then, ironically, I'm more money than I ever have.

Mike Anderson [00:21:11]:
So, like, if you look at my career as in the first five years of being drunk and high and all the stuff that I was doing, made a lot of money, spent a lot of money, gamble a lot of money, snorted a lot of money, pissed away a lot of money. Look, the last five, six years made more money than I ever had, kept more money than I ever had because I wasn't doing a lot of stuff. And my relationships were as strong as they ever been. So, like, I mean, it's a tale of two. It's a tale of the same guy and two careers. Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:21:30]:
So, well, before we start talking into, like, some of these, like, strategies when it comes to sales and business development, you also went out on your own. Like, what spurred that?

Mike Anderson [00:21:39]:
Well, so going out on my own was. I mean, it was something that I had thought about for a long time, and relationships are, you know, a big part of it. And I knew from a corporate standpoint, I wasn't, you know, I'm pretty out there with some of the things that I talk about that I Say, and in the corporate world, it's not always the most welcomed, I guess you could say sometimes. And so I sort of knew, like the writing was on the wall and it was like, when am I going to do it? When am I going to do it? And so finally one day just, you know, decided to. So, you know, September of 2023, I launched and here we are. And now we're, what are we? A year and 16 months into it. It's been great. And that I just knew that I wanted to be like, I always talked about, like, I could bill, I can crush, I can do whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:22:13]:
And I always skip analogy is like, what if I drop you on the middle of a foam or middle of the desert and gave you a phone and Internet, could you make money? And like, I always knew that. I preached that people could do that and I was like, can I do that? I was like, I know I could do that. So I went and did it. And man, it's been, it's been, it's been awesome. I just. The freedom is great. I mean, I always say that when you own your own company, every day is president's club.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:37]:
I absolutely love that. Let's talk about like some of the things that you've done. Like, you know, a $2.4 million a year because you're so good at relationships, you've had, what is it, at least three or four clients that you've built over a million dollars with. Like, every time I see somebody talk about like, you know, they've had a client where they build like a million dollars from like, is that a fluke? But the thing is, if it's more than one, more than two, it's no longer a fluke. It's about what you're actually doing. So how do you actually get there? Business development wise? How do you even find these clients?

Mike Anderson [00:23:07]:
It's not even about finding. It's not like our client wakes up and says, I'm going to be a million dollar client to Mike Anderson. They don't wake up. Oh yeah. It's called client development because you develop the client. Like that's, that's what you do. And relationship development is development, business development is development. I think there's development, development piece day one is not the same as the client is on day 31, is day 61, day 91, whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:23:25]:
And so you build a level of trust, you figure out who they are. I mean, it's like, it's like anything else. And so the ones that you can build strong relationships with, like, I'LL say this. So I have at least three, maybe four.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:35]:
Four.

Mike Anderson [00:23:35]:
That's like right on the cusp of being a million dollars. This other client I'm thinking about. So, but anyways, let's say it's three for sure. All three of the ones that I'm thinking about. The three clients I have Chime being one of them. They didn't start off like a great foot of like, I mean, it took like a while to like build that relationships and like crack that door, figure out the code, how to figure out to like get in the door, build up, you know, all of the stuff. Like I had been told to, you know, kick rocks f off a bunch of times. Like it was not like it's never smooth sailing, just right to the top.

Mike Anderson [00:24:03]:
Because I just found some, like, whatever. There's always relational issues. I get told I'm aggressive a lot, which is true, but like I get told a lot of stuff and I have to be able to deal with that. And also it takes, you know, at the time, it takes a really good team behind you to be able to source for you and fill your funnel and like make sure. And so like, yeah, I'm client facing, but like, if I'm not filling the funnel, I got nobody to invoice them for. And so I had a really good team. What I got really good at was making sure that my team heard directly from hiring managers exactly what they're looking for by putting them on calls, letting my team ask questions. Like it was not as big game a telephone because I wanted them to hear it.

Mike Anderson [00:24:36]:
Like, I knew at the height of my billing weight was just insane. And it was like, I mean, there was one time I had 32 different companies hiring for me and I had 77 candidates in process. Like, it was, I remember being like, how can you breathe? There was like 13 interviews happened on a day who. I don't even know who's where, what it was. It was crazy. But like, I remember in those days and the way that I built those million dollar businesses, those million dollar clients, the client was important for sure. No question about it. I'm not saying they weren't, but something that I sort of figured out quickly was my clients are actually the people that are recruiting for me.

Mike Anderson [00:25:05]:
I need them because they're the ones that are bringing me the talent that keep the client happy. I can keep that relationship. I can keep talking. I can, you know, whatever, like a good detective, just keep the suspect talking. I could keep them doing that. I could do all that. I can you know, wave my hands, you know, dance on the tree, whatever I got to do to keep them just looking at me. But at the time, I need the business to be happening behind me.

Mike Anderson [00:25:23]:
So, like, I was always doing stuff to keep these guys and these girls that were working on my stuff, like, engaged and doing that. So I looked at sort of. My clients were actually the recruiters that were recruiting for me, and the clients were just the ones that were paying us for doing that, if that meaning that.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:37]:
So it makes perfect sense. And I love that you're also highlighting, like, the team, what the team does.

Mike Anderson [00:25:42]:
Yeah, I've had a really good career and a really great career, but I don't ever think for a second, then I'm here, where I'm at, if it wasn't for a lot of people teaching me a lot of stuff and a lot of really, really good recruiters that wanted to work on my stuff, wanted to spend time and, you know, they liked how I account managed, for sure. They knew that I would push their stuff to the top. They knew I could make it happen. They knew I could get quality offers. They knew I could negotiate high fees. They knew I could do all that stuff. So, like, they wanted to work on my stuff, granted. But they still did a really good job.

Mike Anderson [00:26:06]:
They didn't have to work on it, but they chose to, which I obviously certainly appreciate. I learned this a long, long time ago. Management, which is what I was doing, was not about me getting where I wanted to go. It was I would get to where I wanted to go. If I helped everybody else get to where they want to go. All I knew was that everybody had goals. They had families, they had kids, they had, you know, And I just was like, I gotta fill. I gotta put money is in their pockets.

Mike Anderson [00:26:27]:
I knew if I was doing that, I was gonna eat too. Like, it wasn't worried about that. And so, like, that was a big, big thing for me. And I know it sounds like super Sunday school answer, but, like, that was. I. I figured that out pretty quickly. And, like, it might sound obvious, but when it hit me, I was like, oh, my gosh, I need these cats. Because if they.

Mike Anderson [00:26:39]:
If they walk, the client's the next thing to walk. You know what I mean? Because trust me, you don't want me sourcing. Like, I'm not some guru on candidate. No, it's not my deal. I mean, I'm good at it. I can do it. But, like, put me in front of a client all day long, just, nah, not good. I'm not A sorcerer.

Mike Anderson [00:26:55]:
Never been good at it.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:56]:
Okay, well let's jump into the client development or client sales. I know you just dropped a course, so if people want like a full on breakdown of that, they can hop in the show notes or reach out to you directly for the link for that. But you know, when it comes to actually getting clients, like what's the secret to it?

Mike Anderson [00:27:10]:
I would say, I mean there's some, there's some basics, there's some ABC 1, 2, 3 stuff. And I've talked about it before, but I focus on size of company, I don't focus on revenue and I don't focus on industry and I don't focus on whether or not they're hiring or not. For me, it's strictly size of company. And the philosophy is real simple is if Ben and I have a company and we start, you know, greenmousepad.com and that's our company and we have 79 employees. Like if I'm a recruiter trying to break in to recruit for our company, I don't need to go to the careers page. Like I don't need to do that. What I need to do is I need to, I need to think fundamentally that because a lot of recruiters are going to go to the careers page, they're going to see that we don't have any jobs posted. That means most people are not hiring.

Mike Anderson [00:27:46]:
But it's like that's not remotely true at all. No way. You and I woke up one day, said, hey, let's build a company and get to 79 people and stop hiring. So I'm fundamentally assuming that you're going to hire a good person if they come along because at the stage you're at, your goal is to grow. Like that's what I'm fundamentally assuming. I'm also coming from the stage of there's probably not a lot of red tape. I'm not dealing with a lot of HR and ta. And there's nothing wrong with HR and ta.

Mike Anderson [00:28:05]:
It's just that when there's less of it, I have a higher value add to a client. It's not that I try to go around them when they're there, I have no problem working with them. It's just that it's a harder sell when there's a team that's already doing that internally with what you're trying to do. So I've got to just avoid that sell altogether. But the game that I played, the game that I played really, really well was break into a company when they had 40 50, 60, 70 people, they're doing, you know, 10, 20, 30, $40 million in business, whatever it is not ridiculous numbers. But break into there when they're at that stage, right. And try to figure out a way to break in. However, I would do it through my business development approach, which more often than not was just pitching a specific, doing what we call an MPC pitch.

Mike Anderson [00:28:38]:
But what I was doing that was a little bit different was I was comparing it to somebody that already worked there. So like, you know, you hired Bob, we'll check out Steve or whatever, something like that, right? And corner sort of doing like a what we call a clone pitch. And I'm doing that to break in, you know, and I've got my sequence, which is a four email sequence over a one week period. And I'm doing my sequences, I'm doing the stuff that I do. I know how to follow up, I know how to play the game. I'm really, really good at creative writing. Like I've always been good. Anybody that coaches with me knows that creative writing is probably outside of creating demand out of thin air.

Mike Anderson [00:29:05]:
That's like a superpower I would say, is my creative writing skills. But anyways, you take that creative writing and I would be able to get responses back and then I could really turn those and I could convert really, really well and getting those responses good, better, indifferent onto calls, taking those calls and then maximizing profits, maximizing revenues, whatever. Like that's what I was really, really good at. And so anyways, but the game I would play is I would do, you know, four, five, six places with a company, right? And that's call it an average fee of 35 grand. Six placements. You're talking, what is that? $210,000. So you've got $210,000 going out that invoice hits that director of finance or that head of finance or whoever gets that accounting or whatever at their company that they get that and they're like in the first, you know, three, four, five months, six months, whatever it is, and then they see $210,000. They see the line item to Mike Anderson or my company or whatever it is, and they're like, dude, who is this guy? This guy's pretty expensive, whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:29:51]:
Like it just doesn't make sense. And so then they go back to the VP of engineering, go back to whoever they go to, and they say, hey, we got to shut this down. We got to hire an internal recruiter. I mean, we can't spend this or whatever. So they come back to Me like, Mike, we really appreciate the help, but we can't do it. You know, like, we got to hire somebody. Internal, whatever. At that point, what I was always saying.

Mike Anderson [00:30:04]:
And even if they didn't say that they needed to hire somebody internally, I would suggest to them, hey, let me find you an internal recruiter. I know a lot of good ones out there. I know people that do it well. I'll put them to work for you and I won't charge you a fee for it. And so what I would do is anybody like. And I mean, I probably faced, I don't know, 12, 13 internal recruiters in my career now and just placing them. And I want them to go in there and genuinely do well. But they were, you know, invariably, if there's a high growth mode, one recruiter, two recruiters ain't going to do it.

Mike Anderson [00:30:32]:
They're going to come back. And when they need to come back, obviously, first call. And if it's an external recruiter, a lot of times it was somebody that even used to work for me that I would put at a company, I. E. Because they were filling the roles already for themselves. So now I'm like, hey, I'm going to get you a job. You want to go work there? If you want to go internal, it's up to you. We can do that.

Mike Anderson [00:30:46]:
We can talk about it. Now we're. Let's. When it time is to open, turn on the water faucet again for agency hiring. What's up, Mike? Like, first call. So I sort of played that game and I played it pretty, pretty well. And, you know, and then that's how you kind of take off to the 3, 4, 5, 600, 700, and then crack, you know, a million dollars if you get to that level.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:03]:
So, okay, so real quick, which is phenomenal. I love the breakdown. I love how you also your MPC campaign that you said is, you know, four messages over one week based on a clone. Now, like, did you actually like have a candidate clone or were you just like grabbing a resume?

Mike Anderson [00:31:17]:
No, that was. That's part of my transformation when I got sober, was telling the truth, like what I said I had. I have, like, it wasn't. There was not. Not a bluff. I really had somebody that was like that. Now, is it subjective on what's a clone? I don't know. I think I look like Benjamin Mana.

Mike Anderson [00:31:30]:
I'm Benjamin's clone. There you go. Right. So I mean, I don't know. Like again, so a clone's a clone. Now here's the deal. Right. Like, anybody on the other side of that's going to read that and be like, okay, like, let's see, like, whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:31:42]:
And so even if they came back to me and they're like, this is not even close, or whatever, clone whatever, they would say, like, I was good enough to turn that, like, you know, hey, kick rocks, kid. To, like, oh, just breathe. Just breathe. Read, like, what about this one? You know? Or like, whatever I had to do to turn it around or whatever. I wasn't like, I'm not out to, like, lie to people or anything like that. But, like, my goal was to get responses and to get bites, nibbles on the hook, and then be able to convert those. And so, like, I did it as best I could. And honestly, the candidates that I use were really, really good.

Mike Anderson [00:32:10]:
Like, I wasn't bluffing with whatever. So even if it wasn't a perfect clone, it was still a good candidate. So, like, they might be like, well, he doesn't look exactly like Steve, but he does look like Leslie, so let's talk, or whatever. You know what I mean? Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:20]:
You also said something a minute ago about creating demand out of thin air. What does that exactly mean? How do, like, invalid?

Mike Anderson [00:32:27]:
It means that, like, somebody has not been marketed to. They don't know who I am. They don't know anything about what I would offer anything. And I could pinpoint in their head what I think that it is they need. And I can create a pitch that I think will get them to bite based on who they are as a person. And, like, that demand out of thin air is very. Like, it's not, you know, well, whoa, hold the phone. Like, you know, I hope you're sitting down.

Mike Anderson [00:32:51]:
Check out this candidate. It's not like that. It's very. It's very relatable. It's very personable. And what I'm doing is the demand is literally created after the first email. So, like, the first email I send it. That's the bait.

Mike Anderson [00:33:01]:
That's what I put out there. They get back to me. They say, either, you know, send a resume. Kick rocks, you know, we're not hiring. Leave us alone. Check back your Q2. Go to hell. Whatever they're gonna say, once I have that response, from there, I can create a real amount of demand.

Mike Anderson [00:33:12]:
Like, that's where my real, real thing is. So it's sort of bait to demand is a better way to say it.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:18]:
Now it sounds like you're able to just think fast, like, is this something, like, you were trained on? Is this something that you. You learned. Is this something that, like, other recruiters can learn how to duplicate?

Mike Anderson [00:33:27]:
It goes back to, like, I don't know, elementary school. Like, I always got out of getting in trouble. Like, I mean, except for when I got arrested, but for mo. For, you know, in. I'm back in school, and I always got out of, like, I can talk my way out of anything. I weasel my way out of whatever. Like, I could, you know, I could always not study for tests and pass. Like, I could always get, like, I just sort of just flew by the seat of my pants and I sort of taken that mentality into recruiting.

Mike Anderson [00:33:49]:
And so what I do is I'm just. Yeah, very creative in my writing. My main focus every time I write something is, what's 95% of the world going to say in this email? And what am I going to say? Like, we have the same exact goal, me and every other recruiter. This is how 95% of them are going to say it. And this is how I'm going to say those 95% are only going to get responses when the demand is great. I might get the response when the demand might not be great, but I'll still get the response to build a relationship. You see what I'm saying?

Benjamin Mena [00:34:16]:
I see what you're saying. Like, how does a recruiter learn how to copyright better? Like this? Because I've seen these emails. Like, I'm almost, like, two decades in this space where I'm like, this is the same freaking format and same email you've been copying since literally 1980.

Mike Anderson [00:34:28]:
Yeah, yeah, 1980 called. They want their AOL dial it back. Yeah, no, I get it. I've seen it. Trust me, as a coach, you know, I'll start with, hey, what are we working with here? And it's just like, okay, like, sit down, buckle up. Like, let's talk. No, I get it. Here's what I'm trying to tell you.

Mike Anderson [00:34:40]:
Like, it's the creative piece. How do you get better at it? First of all, you start trying stuff that's uncomfortable and you send it, and you stop worrying about the result. Like, you start doing stuff that happens, and you stop worrying about how the other person's on the other end is going to think of it. We're in this world where, like, everything we put out there is we're worried about, like, how it's going to be received. What's going to happen? Are we going to get canceled or whatever? And the reality of it is, is that if you get canceled, it's because that person was never looking to buy anyway. Or they don't like you. That doesn't even matter. You got to work with people you want to like.

Mike Anderson [00:35:06]:
This is like number one for me. Be yourself. Because if they work with you, they like you. People work with who they like. And like I've always said if I woke up today and I called every one of my clients and said, hey, I'm no longer recruiting, I'm selling car insurance, they'd be like, okay, well, we'll buy car insurance from you, like, whatever. Because they like who I am now. There's a lot of people out there who don't like me, but I would rather take my 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 clients that really, really like me, work with them, you know, build my 6, 7, 800, 900,000 million bucks, whatever it's going to be, call it a day and be fine. And it starts with like, everybody I've ever built a relationship with, right? I always will ask them.

Mike Anderson [00:35:39]:
You can ask any of them. You can be like, hey, how did it work with, with Mike? Well, he sent us this frigging ridiculous email that was like, so left field didn't make any sense, like, whatever. Like, I just investigated and then it sort of just washes away from them because they don't remember exactly what it was. And then insert actual Mike and the relationship starts to build. What I'm really good at then is getting down. There's like a recruiter guard between everybody, between a client, recruiter, candidate, recruiter, whatever. There's like this guard up and you're sort of playing this game of like over the fence, over the wall. I'm good at bringing that thing all the way down and just free flowing of information really quick back and forth, wide open, like, whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:36:11]:
And there's literally nothing I won't try. I'll send voice notes to candidates on LinkedIn. I'll call a candidate, I'll send them Starbucks gift card. There's nothing that I won't do or don't do. Because here's my rule. As long as not illegal, as long as not immoral, give it a shot. Like, what do you care? Like, what do you care? And so the creative piece, if that's my mindset of just getting them to like me, for me to be myself, like, that's cool. And I'll tell you this right now, if I was to write an email like some of the ones we're talking about, like the 1985 and the, you know, hope you're having a great Tuesday.

Mike Anderson [00:36:38]:
We Specialize in IT staffing. Do you want to see resumes? Like, just. First of all, I would retire if I started doing that. If I start doing that. If you ever get an email that has my. My signature on that, send it back to me. I'll quit. Like, no.

Mike Anderson [00:36:49]:
Like, that's never gonna happen. Think about this. If you're gonna do that, like, if that's your in, okay? Like, first of all, how do you expect to build a relationship? Number two, how are you ever gonna separate? Why would they get back to you versus the 712? It's just. They're just gonna get back to the next one in their inbox, right? Like, we wonder why stopping it's such a bad name. If a company is teaching a certain. This is how we do business development. This is what we say. This is what we want our pitches to be.

Mike Anderson [00:37:10]:
And they teach 150 people to do that. And then whichever ones got lucky, in other words, got five or six responses at the right time because they hit. Those are your president's club winners. Those are your killers. The other 142 wash out. And then you hire another 142 to see if you can get some more presence pub winners. And the name just goes down and down and down and down and down. One of the problems with agency recruiting is the barrier entry is like, do you have a pulse? Like, I mean, for real? Like, you know what I mean? So it's.

Mike Anderson [00:37:33]:
It's like, dude, you got to stand out. Like, anyway, I go on and on about that, and I'm probably not giving exactly specific details because I don't want to share what my creative writing is all about, because that's part of my course. But, like, trust me, it's pretty good.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:43]:
So looking at all this time that you've been a big blower, what does your day actually look like?

Mike Anderson [00:37:48]:
I'll give you an example. So, like, I'll do yesterday, since today I'm on the podcast with you. So yesterday I wake up at, let's see, my alarm went off at 4. My alarm off, 4:30. I woke up, I read my Bible. I legit read my Bible. I'm not just saying that I legit do that. Then I listened to some Cascade holiday Christmas music to fire me up, got in the shower, got out of the shower, had a 5:30am coaching session with a guy on the east coast, did that for an hour and a half, was done at 7am left that chugged a Red Bull, went to the gym, two and a half hours at the gym home by 9:30.

Mike Anderson [00:38:24]:
Shower up. Actually, yesterday was recruiting because I'm right now I'm upside down with Rex. I have too many wrecks. So yesterday was recruiting. So I recruited for like two hours and then I took eight. I spent a half an hour to eat lunch at noon. I had two more coaching sessions, noon and one. Then 2 o'clock I was back in and I had three or four candidate calls, two client calls, a new job, work call.

Mike Anderson [00:38:42]:
I finally wrapped up my day around 7:00 and then, you know, I'm a true crime junkie. So I finished the true crime and that was my day and I ate a couple of bags of Skinny Pop because that's my new addiction and drink some Diet Pepsi and that's where I'm at. So skinny.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:54]:
Skinny Pop.

Mike Anderson [00:38:55]:
Skinny Pop, yeah, that's, that's wild.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:59]:
So while you're coaching right now and like, you know, coaching recruiters and how to be better, you're also getting new clients, you're also filling jobs and, and all that stuff at the moment also too, Right?

Mike Anderson [00:39:09]:
Correct. So I have three revenue streams, three income revenue streams. Right now I have my own company which is, you know, recruiting billing, which is like 65% of my income. And then I have my coaching business called another 25%. And then I just launched this course which has actually been for three weeks out, and we sold a bunch of them. I didn't really, I didn't know it was going to go that hot. And it did and it's been great. So my actual, my 2025 goal is to, I would like to net seven figures and have all three revenue streams be six figure revenue streams.

Mike Anderson [00:39:39]:
Obviously coaching would be in and my hope is to get the, the course to do that too.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:43]:
Phenomenal. Well, before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share about, like your personal story? The struggles, business development, client attraction.

Mike Anderson [00:39:53]:
I don't know when this is going to go live, but we've been in this market where 2021, 2022 were incredible years. A lot of people made a lot of money. It was awesome, like you know, coming out of the pandemic, whatever. Right. And so a lot of people made a lot of money and back into 2022, 2023, 2024 obviously has been a down market and starting to, we're starting to see an uptick. It's starting to come back a little bit. Right. But I would say this, like, no recruiter is ever good enough to beat a bad market.

Mike Anderson [00:40:18]:
The Only thing that beats bad markets is relationships. And like I am so big on there's never a bad time to build a good relationship. Like there just is. It's worth talking to somebody. And I know we have this mindset of like make money every call, like all that kind of stuff. I have no doubt in my mind that a great recruiter can understand that you might not be making money with a person, but like a good recruiter understands who you're gonna make money with. A great recruiter understands you will make money with everybody. Just a matter of when.

Mike Anderson [00:40:42]:
I learned a long time ago that no work ever goes unpaid, you just don't know when you're gonna get paid for it. And so like that. And I fundamentally understand that. So like I would say this, there's going to be another downturn at some point. Like it's going to be an uptick and we should ride it and ride that wave, ride that wave, ride that way. But don't ever neglect the idea of building a relationship. Because when you get to a place where I've been at it for 11, 12 years now, like I honestly believe that I probably have another maybe two years of business development that I need to do where after that I don't. It gets just past relationships coming back, when they come back, at the time they come back and there's enough there that I can just, I'll be able to feed.

Mike Anderson [00:41:20]:
And I always say that like, you know, I'm not here to fill a job, I'm here to fill a department. The only way you can fill a department is through a relationship. There's old adage, right? Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for life. You can say that, do a deal, eat today, build a relationship, eat for life. Like that's the big thing. I know it sounds so cliche but with the AI stuff and the automations and whatever, people are starving for communication. Real, real conversation. Whether or not they say it or not, they just are.

Mike Anderson [00:41:44]:
And if you're going to automate your way into everything, you're going to miss the mark and you might be able to automate your way to some deals. I'm not saying it doesn't work. What I'm saying is the long term play, if you want to make this thing a career and you don't want to stress about it and always be chasing your tail for new business development and new clients and new, new candidates and all that stuff, build relationships. I've never heard anybody say man I really regret that relationship that I built a year ago. Like never. I never heard that anybody say that. So that's what I would say. And it's really easy to do when you start to become a human being rather than just a recruiter.

Mike Anderson [00:42:12]:
Let people get to know you. I promise you, they like working with people they get to know.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:16]:
Awesome. Well, jumping over to the quick fire questions, Mike, the next two are probably going to be like, great questions for you. But let's just say, like, you have a brand new recruiter that's reaching out to you, like just to getting started in this space. You like, low barrier to entry. They're like, hey, is a career that I want to do. What advice would you give to them to win?

Mike Anderson [00:42:36]:
It'd be three things. No matter what happened the day before, show up the next day. Don't ever take anything personally. When you want to quit, don't. And when you're crushing it, keep going. Like, those are the things that we talk about. Show up every day and honestly, to show up every day and don't take things personally. That's 95% of your battle.

Mike Anderson [00:42:54]:
Every recruiter that I've seen, that I've seen, they psych themselves out of this business because they can't beat their own head. I still do this today, and this is sort of a tangent. When I get a response back for somebody and they're like, you know, you could say having a bad day, f off. You guys cause cancer. You guys are the scum of the earth. We hate recruiters. Go to hell. You know, I've gotten it all.

Mike Anderson [00:43:13]:
I've had some, like, crazy ones. I'll literally get those back. Obviously not, I'm not gonna do anything with them. But I save into a folder. I'll go back six months, a year, a year and a half later, and I'll just read them and just for a good laugh, for a giggle, just to be like, and I'm still standing. It's okay. The sun still came out today. It's all good.

Mike Anderson [00:43:30]:
You're going to be okay. That's the thing. And so I think a lot of junior recruiters will fall in love with clients too quickly. They'll fall in love with candidates too quickly, and they'll take everything personally. It's like, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Show up every day and do the work. Those would be the things that I would say, you can teach anybody to recruit.

Mike Anderson [00:43:44]:
What you can't teach somebody is how to be mentally stable.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:48]:
Love that. Same question Though, from somebody that's been in the game, we'll say 5, 10, 25 years. What advice would you give to them to keep on seeing success or, you know, cross that next barrier?

Mike Anderson [00:43:58]:
I would have said something different a year and a half ago before I launched my coaching business. I would have said something generic like, you know, don't ever stop building business development, or you want to see if you have good relationships, call your clients and see if they answer. Like just something. Something nimble, just some basic thing, right? But now what I would say, honestly, that I've been doing this coaching thing and what I've seen, and I've done this myself too, I'll almost call somebody that has been the game. I would say it doesn't even matter. I'd say at least five years, right? I've been in for 11 now 12, going on 12. I'll call somebody that's at least five years experience. I'll say, hey, dude, let me give you a state of my desk right now.

Mike Anderson [00:44:31]:
And I'm just gonna tell you where I'm at. Poke holes in whatever doesn't make sense to you, and I'll just start talking about, I've got this client, I've got this, I got this, I got this, I got this going on this. What am I missing? And they don't know anything about what I'm talking about other than they just know recruiting, which is what I want. I want them to poke holes in it. I think oftentimes we get scared to ask for help because we don't. We think we see it all. And I'm telling you, every recruiter has a blind spot. I've got one, I need it.

Mike Anderson [00:44:57]:
My business partner will call me out on it when I don't see what I'm doing. You need to figure out your blind spot. And the thing about the blind spot is, is that you figure it out, there's another blind spot. Like, you're never not going to get through your blind spots. And like, so what I've seen is because I've coached people that 10, 12, 15 years. I just did a guy with 18 years of experience, he's billing 650 grand a year. And we've been working together for over a year and a half now. And now he's doing, he's gonna do 8 or 900,000.

Mike Anderson [00:45:21]:
And I've got another guy that I would love to talk about on this if we can go a little bit longer. But like, those examples are, dude, you don't know your holes in your game until somebody else can poke holes on them. It's like, don't be your own therapist and that.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:32]:
Which is perfect. But also you mentioned the other guy.

Mike Anderson [00:45:35]:
Talk about him, so. And I got his approval to talk about him. It's kind of a cool story. So I had a guy, you guys can look him up. His name is Randy Stats. He's okay with me sharing his name. He's an awesome dude. Randy came to me in August.

Mike Anderson [00:45:47]:
I want to. I want to say August, maybe September of last year of 2023. We worked together for like four, four or five months. Right? And the first four months of us working together was literally me seeing his business. He'd been here for eight years, and the amount of things that he didn't know that he didn't know. And again, I'm not knocking it. I've talked about me sharing this, but. But it was like mindbogging me.

Mike Anderson [00:46:08]:
He had never been in an agency. He had never been coached. He just figured everything out by the seat of his pants, which is great, but kudos to him for having a no quit mentality. But there was some stuff. There's some major stuff that he was missing. How to negotiate fees, how to do fall. Like, just some stuff that, like, you got to have in this business that's only going to help you. And so there were some major holes in his game.

Mike Anderson [00:46:25]:
The other holes was he had no clue how to run his business from a hiring standpoint and stuff like this. So we spent the first four months getting rid of people and dealing with, you know, he owed some weird debts to some. To ridiculous SaaS products that he bought that they sold him on some idea that was never going to happen. Whatever. We had to basically strip his business. Okay. The guy's doing. I don't know.

Mike Anderson [00:46:43]:
Again, I prove. We'll talk about it. But he was doing 3 to 350 a year. But he's doing 50, 60 deals. I mean, he's doing 5, 6, 7k placements. I mean, we're talking like ker l deals. Like, nothing. Like these are.

Mike Anderson [00:46:53]:
It's not even enough to pay your. I know. It's like. And. And he. Whatever. So December comes around. I'm like, cool, dude, you can take the time off.

Mike Anderson [00:46:59]:
He's like, no, dude, I'm. I'm upside down. I got to make money. I got to work. He posted about it. It's all talking about he had $500 left to his name. So he took money out on a credit card to literally buy my coaching to continue because he had seen the fruits of what I had brought to him so far, but he was still not getting ahead because we were spending a whole time getting rid of all the bad stuff. And so I was like, dude, I can help you, but, you know, you got to pay me.

Mike Anderson [00:47:19]:
So he ends up signing up with me, and he had $500 to his name. End of December, he gets a contract signed with a new company based on the approach that I gave him, and he gets a 25% agreement done. They have an abundance of openings. Whatever. January, like, third or fourth, he got a candidate to start with them. You know, it does a $32,000 deal. He had never sniffed a deal over 20k in his career in, like, eight years. He did a 32k deal.

Mike Anderson [00:47:41]:
He's like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, yeah, dude, it's possible. Like, you can do this. Like, it's not. This isn't crazy. Like, I'm telling me you could do that again. You could go do another one. So now fast forward to where we're at today.

Mike Anderson [00:47:51]:
The business that he was doing, the 350k, there was two specific companies he working with. They were like, 7% of his current business. He now has 95% of his business with fees that are at 20% or higher. He's doing an average fee of 28. Like, $28,500. He's going to bill over $750,000 this year. He's absolutely changed his business. He's changed his son's life.

Mike Anderson [00:48:10]:
He's changed his future. And, like, he talks about it all the time with, like, his back was against the wall. And the two things that he did that I just talked about when you said, what would you tell a new recruiter? Is he didn't quit. He didn't take anything personally. I was tough on him. I was hard. We were at two sessions a week. I was.

Mike Anderson [00:48:22]:
Was drilling him. I was getting into his business. Like, I was doing stuff because I knew. I knew he could do it. I knew he had it. And when I look at that perspective, I'm like, here's a guy with eight years who didn't know he didn't have holes. And so I've seen that multiple times where people are like, I think I run a healthy business, but can you just, like, audit it for me? And I'll go through it, and I do it, too. I need people to do it too.

Mike Anderson [00:48:40]:
And the thing is, when people work with me, I share about my business, too. So, like, I'll get Ideas from them, I'll bounce an idea off them. It's not just a two way street, but it helps and it helps and it helps. But Randy's story is a wild one. It's been awesome. I've gotten to know his wife and he just asked me to be his son's godfather. So that was a very special day for me. So, like, anyways, it's the comeback story of the year.

Mike Anderson [00:48:56]:
He just didn't know what he didn't know and he reached out on a leap of faith to get it. And it's been, it's been great. So that was a pretty cool story that I told him I was going to share that and he gave me permission to share that.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:04]:
Awesome. Kind of turning the light back on you. Even with all the struggles that you had, the self inflicted struggles, like, you still crush it, you're still top of the game. Whether at the gym, after the gym, your own business, fast forward. What do you think has been a huge contributor to your own personal success?

Mike Anderson [00:49:21]:
I mean, it sounds cliche, but it's gonna be my faith. I mean, my faith is number one. I mean, it's just the most important thing to me. My sobriety used to be number one and it was. My faith was number two. But now my faith in Christ is number one. That's absolutely what it is. My days are numbered.

Mike Anderson [00:49:32]:
I feel like I'm living on borrow time. That's what I feel like. And whenever it's all said and done, like, I just want to be able to walk up, look my king in the face and just be like, how'd I do? And he's like welcoming my good and faithful servant. That's all I want to hear. And so, like, it's just a desire to do things the right way, impact people. Like, I'm telling you, Ben, I know this sounds so cliche, but I swear to you, I used to care about commission checks and how big my bank account was and all that stuff. And when I cared about all that stuff, it wasn't that big. And I was all snorting on partying all the way.

Mike Anderson [00:49:57]:
Now that I don't care about it, it's bigger than it's ever been. But it's not even about that. What I care about even more than that is the people that I get to work with and impact. And like, that's the stuff. I kid you not. I've said this a thousand times. If I can take a new recruiter that wants to do coaching with me and they can get them to do A deal, and they can see the light in what we do as an industry. That is more exciting to me than me doing a 50, 60k deal or whatever.

Mike Anderson [00:50:17]:
Like that, like, that's fine. But when I teach somebody how to do it, like, that's the stuff that gets me going. So, like, I want to have a story that can be passed on. That's what I want. Like, I don't have a wife. I don't have kids. So I kind of live through LinkedIn and meeting people and talking to people. It's sort of what it is, and I go for it.

Mike Anderson [00:50:33]:
And I just like being vulnerable to people because I realize when I do that they get a chance to be who they really are. And, like, I think the world is starved for people being their authentic selves because everything's online and nobody ever knows, so that's sort of where it comes from. So my faith is number one. And then just hoping I get that approval at the end of my days. I'm the king upstairs.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:50]:
Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your career?

Mike Anderson [00:50:52]:
I mean, the obvious, the Bible, Alcoholics Anonymous would be number two. But if I was going to say a book, I'd say the Dale Carnegie book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's an older book. My dad gave it to me when I was, like, seven. I, you know, used it as a coaster for 30 years and. Or 20 years. And then I picked it up one day when I was bored and I started reading. I was like, dude, this stuff is.

Mike Anderson [00:51:11]:
And I don't even know it was written. It was written a long time ago. 30, 40, 50 years, whatever it was. But it's like, so it's practical. How to Win Friends and Influence People. And like, I've always said, if you. If you have no other ability other than ability to sell financially, you'll be just fine.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:26]:
What's your advice on recruiters? On increasing that ability to say, like, where should they go? Where should they learn? Like, what should they do?

Mike Anderson [00:51:33]:
I'll say this. I think a lot of people don't know how to have a real conversation with them in the mirror. They wake up and they do the same thing they've done every day, and they make, you know, they make their paycheck, and that's fine. That's what you want, that's what you want. But if you want to go to another level, you got to do some stuff that you've never done before. So the next time you don't want to do something, do it next time you don't want to call a client and call them out for not holding up their end of the bargain, do it like you have to. There are things that you have to do that are going to make you uncomfortable. But I always say that, like if you operate in safety zone and the clients over here, you honestly have this much wiggle room to push.

Mike Anderson [00:52:07]:
If I push and I get here and you stay here in safety zone, I'm working with all this extra relationship and all this extra leeway that you're not getting because you didn't even push. And that is like to me, are they throwing away the buffalo wing when they're still chicken on it, right? Like there's still meat on the bone. Like, what are we talking about? Like you got to push. And I'm not saying you push just to push, but I'm saying there's like this thing, right? Something happens to you, you're at an agency, something happens to you. Client piss you off, candidate piss you off. Something happens, some go sideways. It always get nature of the business. We deal with people.

Mike Anderson [00:52:36]:
So you're like, I'm so mad. This shouldn't happen because of blah, okay? So you tell that to your next door neighbor and you guys go to lunch and you vent about it at Chipotle, okay? That's what 98% of the world's going to do. What you should do is what you're feeling. Tell the client, tell the candidate, tell the whatever and I do it professionally, do it respectfully, but tell them exactly what's happening. If you do that, 10 out of 10 times, three times they're going to tell you to app off. Three times they're not going to want to work with you. But four times you're going to get what you want. And the four times going to be farther down the road than you ever were possible.

Mike Anderson [00:53:04]:
And you'll get better at it and you'll tweak your skills and you'll start doing stuff that you'll start to realize that you don't have to operate in this cookie cutter box shell that's like whatever. You might live in a world where you're getting five star Yelp reviews, but you're not paying your bills. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? You know, people not complaining about you, doesn't pay your mortgage commission checks do like, you know what I'm saying? And so like you've got asked for what it is you want. I mean, one of the biggest thing that blows my mind, this is from like three years ago. I'd read this in a couple places so I don't know if it's still accurate the same numbers but I heard that 95% of self proclaimed salespeople don't ask for the sale 95% of the time. That's a problem. That's a massive problem. You need to ask for what it is you want.

Mike Anderson [00:53:43]:
People are scared to ask them what they want. So what they do is they hide behind. Let me know if you're interested. That is not a call to action. It never has been, it never will be. That's never been a call to action. A call to action is do you want to interview Steve? Do you want to work together? Can I send you the resume? Will you make an offer to Barry if he does well tomorrow? That is a call to action. That's a yes or no question.

Mike Anderson [00:54:02]:
That is a line in the sand that gets them to go. Sales is not you changing someone's mind. It never has been. I'm not good enough to change someone's mind. You're not good enough to change someone's mind. Susie's not nobody. We're not going to do that. But we are good enough to do is to get to the answer now.

Mike Anderson [00:54:15]:
You're not good enough to change your mind. All sales is, is getting someone to go where they're already going to go, just faster. I always say good recruiters get the answer eventually. Great recruiters get the answer now.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:25]:
Love that.

Mike Anderson [00:54:26]:
It's true, I'm telling you. And so the biggest difference between the 250k bill and the 750k biller isn't that there isn't. It's not effort, it's not nothing. It's getting to the no, quicker. Getting to the yes, quicker. The time saved. They can do more with a lot less because they saved their time in so many other areas.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:42]:
We're going to take this question back over to you and let's kind of just like look back at, you know, everything that you've gone through. Ups and downs, the, the coke, the drugs, the partying, the commission strikes, million dollar years. If you got to sit down with yourself and have a cup of coffee or a Red Bull at the very beginning of your recruiting career, what advice would you give yourself?

Mike Anderson [00:55:04]:
I'd say these two things. Whatever is going to happen in whatever situation you're in, it's never going to be as good as you think it's going to be. And it's never going to be as bad as you think it's going to be. It's going to be somewhere in the middle. So just roll with the punches and don't think the highs are higher than they are and the lows are lower than they are because they're never every day like nothing's life and death in this business. You can always get another client, another candidate, another interview, another commission check. There's always more out there. Hiring will forever be a thing until the end of time.

Mike Anderson [00:55:33]:
So we're not worried about that. So don't ride the wave, so to speak. As much as I have, it's never as bad as it's going to be. It's never as good as. It's never as good as you think it's going to be. Never as bad as it's going to be. It's usually somewhere in the middle.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:43]:
Since I started following you and connected with you on LinkedIn, I've actually seen, like, the comments. I've seen this stuff. I'm sure recruiters, like, reach out to you constantly, like, and ask you questions like, hey, how'd you do this, this and that? Like, how do you do business development? What's the question that you wish they would actually ask you and what's the answer?

Mike Anderson [00:55:59]:
Oh, man. The question that wish they would ask me is, can you teach me the art of relationship building? Can you teach me the art of transparency? Can you teach me the art of having an open dialogue with somebody that might not benefit me? Can you teach me that art? Most people that reach out to me are because their backs against the wall on a draw, they're up against it. They got a bill. Do they got something? They got to make money, they got to transact now they got whatever. Which I get that. I understand that. But usually if you're reaching out at that point, you're reaching out too late. Like, I'm not a magician, but I can poke holes in your story and get you better.

Mike Anderson [00:56:28]:
If people want to, like, build a career, that's what I want. The best way to say it. Is there a way you can teach me how to make recruiting go from being a job to being a career? You asked me that, I got you.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:38]:
This has been a phenomenal conversation for anybody that wants to follow you. How do they go about doing that?

Mike Anderson [00:56:42]:
LinkedIn is the main area to follow me on. Mike Anderson, you know, I'm a co founder, Jay Taylor. I own the recruiter bill print. That's a play on awards for recruiter blueprint. But you can check that out. Yeah. If you want to follow me I try to provide content that's useful sometimes funny sometimes whatever put it out there. My target audience is other agency recruiters.

Mike Anderson [00:56:59]:
That's like what I'm really after. I don't do it for business development purposes other than building my coaching and my recruiter bill print business. So you should get useful stuff there. I will say this, a lot of stuff I put out there. People will then follow up with me on DMS and say, hey, can you explain, can you elaborate on this? The answer is I can, but I gotta charge you for it. And that's what the coaching is for and that's what the recruiter bill print's for. So check out recruiter bill print. I promise you this, if you watch this and you like what I was talking about, the recruiter bill print, it's specific, it's detailed.

Mike Anderson [00:57:25]:
If there's any questions you have based after this, I'm about 99.9% sure I answered it in the recruiter bill print 100%. So check why out, it's worth it. Follow me on LinkedIn and you know, also do one on one coaching. I've also got four approved coaches that have worked with me now for over a year that I've seen how they operate, their businesses taken off and they actually will coach as well underneath me and they're a cheaper rate than I am. So if you have any interest in them, I can introduce you to them as well. That's the areas where you could follow me. So myself, Mike Anderson, Randy Stats, Michael Austria, Chris McIntyre and Camille de Brun are the five of us. But check out the recruiter bill print and hopefully you'll like it.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:01]:
Awesome. And before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Mike Anderson [00:58:04]:
I'll say this, I sort of already said it, but this is my big plug. Like there's never a bad time to build a relationship. So build a relationship. If you got off a 45 minute call and you felt like you got nothing out of it, I prom promise you got something out of it. You just don't know what it is yet. So information is gold. Whoever has the gold makes the rules. Just conversating with people is going to win.

Mike Anderson [00:58:21]:
If you spend more time on the phone, you do over email, you're probably going to build more next year than you did this year, I'll tell you that right now. That's what I like to say.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:27]:
You know, personally, I'm probably going to check out the course that he just dropped. Talk about gold mine. I'll make sure to have that in the show notes. So if you want to check it out or feel free to reach out to Mike yourself. Mike, I'm so glad that you came on. And honestly, like, just the conversation that we had, you know what I've seen online, probably the best thing that happened was that night in jail. Like, you know, when you mentioned that person. That following week, somebody died from fentanyl.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:51]:
I've seen people die from fentanyl. It could have easily been you. A completely different life story. But it's just amazing the impact that the recruiting career has had on your life.

Mike Anderson [00:59:02]:
Yeah, I don't take any of it for granted. I'm grateful. So, yeah, no, it's crazy. The goodness is the exact reason why I'll never go back. Because it's. My life is way too good. Why would I mess it up?

Benjamin Mena [00:59:11]:
Well, Mike, thank you so much for coming on. And for the listeners, 2025, put in the work and make it your year of personal abundance. Let's go, guys.