From Layoff to $200K in Less Than 6 Months: Blueprint for Recruitment Success by Launching His Own Firm with Tyler Rossi

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast, you mentioned you have your process dialed in. What does that mean?

Tyler Rossi [00:00:06]:
Yeah, I have a process dialed into where a lot of business is recyclable and comes to me. I know that, you know there's going to be hard times in life and there's going to be adversity that you have to overcome, but I don't know if you know this, I don't know if I've broadcasted it that much, but I was born actually without a left hand, so I am. Yeah. Looks like a little bit of a shock to you, Ben. 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 [00:00:49]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because this is a podcast about what is possible, what is capable, and what people are actually doing. My podcast guest today got laid off. His wife was 32 weeks pregnant. First time ever being laid off. And he made the choice, do I go start my own career? Do I go start my own recruiting business? Do I make things happen, or do I go back and get another job? And it wasn't an easy journey. He did not make a placement for the first six months. But here's the thing. Six months later, absolutely crushing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:24]:
The next six months, over $200,000. After we figured it out, we're going to talk about everything that he's done. The launch, the process, the hardship, but also what's working right now, because what worked in 2022, 2023, it's a whole different ballgame in 2024, going into 2025. So I am so excited, Tyler, to have you on the podcast, buddy.

Tyler Rossi [00:01:45]:
Wow. Well, thank you, Ben. I mean, as you know, I'm a huge fan, and you're probably one of, if not one of the only reasons I'm even here right now. So I'm sure we'll get into that, but appreciate it. It's an honor.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:56]:
Let's go ahead and get started. Oh, first of all, American Dream Search, what is your focus?

Tyler Rossi [00:02:02]:
So right now, the focus is on the steel industry and in particular, metal sales talent. So might not be the sexiest of all industries out there, but there definitely is a need. I'm probably one of a handful of other headhunters that you could probably literally count on one of your hands that just specializes in that space. And we've niched down to just sales talent within that industry. So that's something I want to get into in this podcast as well, is how important it is to really carve out a niche. Because it's probably one of, if not one of the major reasons why I've been able to scale the way I have.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:35]:
Well, let's go ahead and just dive right in. Okay. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Tyler Rossi [00:02:40]:
Yeah. So how long you got? So, well, it all goes back to, I guess, when I came out of college, right. So like many, had no idea what I wanted to do and kind of was caught at a crossroads, right. Getting rejected from interviews, not landing a job. But I knew my cousin worked at Indeed, which all of us recruiters probably know is the largest job site out there. So I heard he was selling for them, heard he was doing pretty well. So I said, you know what, let me give this a shot. Got referred in, did the interview process, had the mock cold call, all went well.

Tyler Rossi [00:03:12]:
And I spent about five years at Indeed selling for them, doing mid market sales, enterprise sales and learning what the recruitment landscape was. Right. Wasn't necessarily a recruiter, have zero formal recruiting training. I've never been part of an agency, small or big, but I did get exposed to that landscape, being at Indeed and selling to, you know, employers around the country. But I've always had that itch or that entrepreneurial bug to go and start my own business. Never was a big fan of metrics, never was a big fan of, oh, you got to make 80 dials and have 120 minutes. And that was never fun. So when the pandemic hit and we were all trying to keep our sanity going on hour, two hour long walks, I started plugging in podcasts and I started doing some research in terms of what's a good business opportunity that I can get into.

Tyler Rossi [00:04:02]:
You heard a lot about E commerce, you heard a lot about digital marketing, right? But then I came across recruiting and I want to say rest in peace to Ben Nader. He was one of the first videos that I came across on YouTube, some of his recruiting recruitment trainings and started going down a whole YouTube rabbit hole. Then I started plugging in podcasts. The Resilient Recruiter by Mark Whitby was one of the first as well as Ben's the Elite Recruiter podcast. And I just started hearing from these success stories where people were scaling 10, $15 million agencies from their basement and doing it themselves as a solo operator. And I was like, how is this even possible? Since somebody bill, you know, high six Low seven figures as a solopreneur with very little overhead. You know, a lot of the businesses that you hear, especially, you know, my dad was in construction, have some family members that were, you know, in the more blue collar sectors. You hear a lot about overhead, hear a lot about costs associated with a business.

Tyler Rossi [00:04:58]:
Recruitment's one of those things where you can get started maybe with a couple hundred bucks and just get going. So the profitability of the business really interested me. The fact that I had the recruitment expertise somewhat from Indeed, I started to feel like this was kind of where my calling was. But there was one problem. I had a very nice cushy paycheck indeed, was treating me pretty well and it was a very good job while it lasted. But I kept plugging away, I kept doing my research and I actually started my business on the side part time, completely under the radar while I was at Indeed because it was a very clear conflict of interest that couldn't be doing both. But I did Ben's training, Ben Nader's training. I started along with that in 2022, the first year, did a ton of things wrong with mass email marketing and not really carving out a niche or anything like that, but I was getting my feet wet.

Tyler Rossi [00:05:51]:
And then in 2023, still part time, I landed my first client which happened to be a steel service center. So that was my first exposure to the metals industry. Never had exposure to that before. Did a little bit of work with them in 2023 and made a couple placements part time, which was great, right? A little bit of extra cash in your pocket, but still never had the ability or the, you know, willingness to kind of jump from that nine to five. And actually just to plug this into, in 2023, I did switch from indeed to a company that I'm not going to name. They were a small healthcare focused RPO and really didn't work out. Lasted there for about a few months and you know, not going to get into too much details there, some disagreements, but very blindsided by a situation that happened literally almost exactly a year ago today from this recording, which is where, you know, I had that sudden message, that sudden call that you were laid off. It's, you know, it's not working out.

Tyler Rossi [00:06:49]:
And I had a decision to make, right Am I going to go back and get another nine to five, get that six figure base pay which I had and was very comfortable, or do I go from scratch and say, hey, I'm actually going to do this? Because a lot of the time recruitment isn't A part time business. And we probably both know this too. I mean you cannot do this 360 crazy recruitment cycle part time, managing both. It just really doesn't work. So I had to take the plunge. Like you said, wife was 32 weeks pregnant. She's literally due with our baby in two months. And you know, it was a wild ride.

Tyler Rossi [00:07:23]:
Like you said, first six months, zero dollars in placement fees, rejection after rejection, but kept the nose to the grindstone, had great support from her. I'm sure you probably saw my LinkedIn post the other day too. There was a little bit of a sign from up above that this was my calling too. So I'll get into that if you want.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:41]:
Yeah, get into a second. But let me just take a few steps like okay, part time. And I don't wanna say a mistake because you learned a lot about the industry, you gained a lot of the industry. When I was working part time, guess what? Nothing happened for me. It wasn't until I got laid off.

Tyler Rossi [00:07:54]:
It ain't easy.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:55]:
Oh shit. What's the role? But like you got let go. Health insurance is tied to people's jobs. Like you know, you get COBRA and all this stuff. Like you're going looking at a pregnancy and pregnancies in America are super expensive.

Tyler Rossi [00:08:06]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:07]:
Like you really just at that point in time like had a decision that you had to make and like it could have been easier for you just to go back and get another job of finding another six figure salary or six figure base. Why did you not?

Tyler Rossi [00:08:19]:
Good question. So a couple things. First of all, I just want to shout out my incredible wife Courtney for continuing to work throughout her pregnancy. She had a real tough pregnancy. She had hg, which is basically extreme morning sickness. Literally every morning throughout the entire nine months was throwing up. Would have to make sure that she was properly eating right and just mitigating all that sickness. On top of it, she was working from home and she works for one of the largest charities in the world and she does a phenomenal job and luckily, fortunately they do have great insurance.

Tyler Rossi [00:08:49]:
So that was one thing that she was able to carry. I could talk a whole other podcast, Ben, about health insurance in America because that is one thing that I think is completely overlooked. The fact that how high health insurance costs are specifically for small business owners. It's probably a major inhibitor to entrepreneurship and innovation. So I could get into that if you want. But if she wasn't working, if she wasn't holding that health insurance with how much pregnancies cost and you know, all the Other things that can go wrong in that scenario, yeah, I probably would have scrambled to get another job. And even if I got another job, it was still before that 90 day probationary period where I probably could have got new health insurance. So we would have been screwed.

Tyler Rossi [00:09:30]:
I mean, that we would have been looking at a $50,000 of medical debt. So salute to Courtney, salute to my wife. I do appreciate that. But another thing I had was her support, right? She knew that I always wanted to do this again. I was always plugging in your podcast and Mark's podcast when I was at the gym or going for a car ride, trying to fuel my brain with knowledge for eventually when I would go into this part time. This was just that calling, right? It was that sign because I had this, the foundation built. It was already there, was already ready to go. It just needed my willingness to actually take that step.

Tyler Rossi [00:10:04]:
So now that there was no paycheck, you really had no other choice. It's either now or never. And I'll never forget too, that weekend I did get laid off. You know, my wife wanted to cheer me up. Obviously, it was a big shock and everything. So we went to one of our local grocery stores and it was a football Sunday. So big into football, wanted to make sure, like, you know, we had a nice spread of food and all sorts of stuff, right? So we're going shopping and trying to enjoy the day and everything. And all of a sudden, two girls from their local church, volunteers come up to us and they say, hey, we're selling posters raising money for our church.

Tyler Rossi [00:10:40]:
Would you like to buy one? And I said, sure. Like, you know, I want to support you and everything. First picture that they brought up was this. It was a sign of Jesus holding out his hand to help you cross troubled waters. And I looked at that and I said, you know what? That's a sign. And I was never the most religious person. I mean, I've always believed in everything, but wasn't somebody who, you know, was raised on going to church every Sunday and everything like that? But to me, that was just God's calling to say, hey, everything's going to be okay and this is what you're meant to do and give trust in me and everything's going to be all right. And so I did.

Tyler Rossi [00:11:18]:
And in the next six months, literally that Monday, I got laid off Friday, literally that next Monday, fired up my laptop right down here where we're recording, went downstairs at 4am, started plugging away, started doing everything. Made a lot of mistakes the first six months, but you know what? We stayed through it. I always trusted that it was going to work out. And sure enough, it did.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:37]:
Let's skip the mistakes part. Let's talk about the mindset. Five months in, you still have not made a placement. You're still working every day. You're balancing childcare also, you know, with a baby. What is going on in your head?

Tyler Rossi [00:11:48]:
Yeah, and it was a lot because we didn't have childcare. Right. It was my wife and I, and she had a little bit of maternity leave, but still needed to heal. I still needed to do my part. You know, we never put her in daycare or anything. The baby actually is fully breastfed and that she also had a little bit of colic and reflux that she was dealing with as well. So with that, it was really impossible to get her on a bottle, to even get into childcare, even if we wanted to. So it was incredibly hard.

Tyler Rossi [00:12:13]:
Right. You're trying to be a present father, you're trying to be a present husband, but at the same time, you're trying to get this business off the ground because you need to. So, you know, very fortunate that, again, she was able to work and bring in some money on her end, support the bills, and very fortunate to have saved while I worked part time a pretty considerable amount to where I could weather the storm a little bit.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:33]:
Let's not talk about the storm like you're sitting there, like, banging out these phone calls, banging out these emails.

Tyler Rossi [00:12:37]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:37]:
You're five months in, you haven't made a placement. You got the stress of everything.

Tyler Rossi [00:12:41]:
Mm.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:41]:
What is going on in your head at that moment?

Tyler Rossi [00:12:44]:
Is it gonna work? Is this actually gonna work? And that is when I ultimately turned to get some help. I'm in the herd group like you are on Facebook. And I reached out to one of the headhunters in there. I wanna shout out his name. His name's Scott Tuttle, head of Huntington Search. I believe it is. Scott had helped me tremendously. We had worked weekly on coaching calls, NPC marketing.

Tyler Rossi [00:13:06]:
He taught me how to do certain agreements, certain terms that we should be putting in there. And the other thing that I did that helped out as well is I started niching down. The biggest mistake I was making in those six months is I was going too broad. I thought I knew about sales. I thought I could recruit everything. Sales. But you're just another pencil in the pack when you're doing that right. You need to have that X factor.

Tyler Rossi [00:13:28]:
You need to have a certain value to yourself. And it wasn't delivering Enough value just competing against millions of recruiters when you're more of a generalist. So I understood that. I knew the little bit of the steel industry from doing it part time. I had some candidates there. I knew some of the terminology just from speaking with some of those folks. So I said, you know what, Let me go all in on this. I think there's an opportunity.

Tyler Rossi [00:13:49]:
And sure enough, there was.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:50]:
And I want to take one more step back before we start digging into the intricacies. So 2023, the world is falling in recruiting. Everybody. If you pop into a bunch of recruiting groups, everybody says, don't jump into recruiting. Recruiting is the worst industry. Like layoffs all over the place. People aren't hiring. And this is not a pitch for my podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:07]:
Okay, but I want to talk about the environment that you put in your head. It's so easy to listen to all this noise online where everything sucks in recruiting. Yeah, but you didn't. Can you talk about that?

Tyler Rossi [00:14:20]:
Yeah, the recruitment industry. If you listen to Ben's podcast, if you listen to Mark's podcast or the others that are out there, I'm sure you will understand. And this is with every industry, too. There are those that dominate and there are those that go away in a recession. Right. And sometimes these down markets weed out some of the folks that really shouldn't be there. To be frank, I understood that there was always going to be an opportunity because there's always a need to hire. There's always a need for people.

Tyler Rossi [00:14:47]:
And whether that need is up or down, that doesn't mean it's going to go away entirely. So the recruitment business, as I'm sure everybody listening knows, there are high margins, right. There's great profitability to be made. There's low overhead. So you're not going to be saddling yourself with tons and tons of debt, especially if you're doing this lean and as a solo operator. There's a lot of possibilities here. And even in a down market like we were in and believe it was 23, it's always going to bounce back. And I had confidence in that.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:15]:
Looking towards the future, Definitely smart. Okay, so you started niching down in the steel industry. You, like, ran through everybody's sales. There are so many recruiters that have not niched down even though they've been in the business for years. Is there just something like, was it the coaching or is it just like, you saw money hole and you just started digging?

Tyler Rossi [00:15:31]:
Yeah, saw money hole and definitely started digging till I found gold. That was nice. But no, you Know what the biggest thing? And so the recruiters that haven't niched down. Here's my thing. I didn't have eight hours to work on my business every day, right? I'm a full time dad, full time husband. We had no childcare. I had to make sure that my day was as efficient as, as possible, right? Because we're both juggling work in this child that we need to take care of. So what I needed to do was if I niche super, super, super down, right? I understood that when I start a search, I don't always need to start from scratch.

Tyler Rossi [00:16:08]:
I always don't need to pull up a sourcing list, find 100 or 200 candidates, send out messages, you know, do that whole sourcing process. I could already build a database. And if I've talked with somebody that, let's say, wasn't a great fit for this other job, that doesn't mean the next role that comes down, I can't just place them immediately. And that's what I started doing. One of the things that I've been doing in my business, and just a quick plug here is LinkedIn automation. Very, very impactful. Definitely helped me save time in my day, but it's also helped me build a network to where I just speak with people that are open to opportunities. I put them in my database once I speak with them, and then I help place them.

Tyler Rossi [00:16:46]:
I'm very rarely pitching an individual job and it's because I'm so niche down that my candidates are more recyclable in the sense that, you know, I could be more of an advisor to them. Even if they don't get placed in this role. That doesn't mean the next role that comes down I can't place them in. And that's going to save me a ton of time as an operator.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:03]:
And let me ask you about this, like, the sexiness when it comes to recruiting. Like, there are industries where it's just absolutely sexy, cool. And then like I'm sitting there like, you know, I'm hosting the Pinnacle Take podcast for the Pinnacle Society. And there's some like, I hate to say this, boring industries that, where recruiters are just making bank. Like, did you ever feel like you needed to chase that sexy industry versus, like, what you ended up in?

Tyler Rossi [00:17:33]:
I think I'm sexy enough myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:36]:
Damn good looking, buddy. Damn good looking.

Tyler Rossi [00:17:38]:
No, look, there was always that itch to go into SaaS and go into tech like many have, but frankly, I don't want to be competing against Rich Rosen. I don't want to be competing against some of these other million dollar billers that are playing in that space. And I knew that the steel industry was very much untapped. Just how having been talking with people and dealing with that space. So no, it's not always about the sexiness of the industry. What's sexy is being able to make money and grow your business. So if the industry isn't going to be able to do it, at least look at the end result. And if that's money in your pocket, regardless of what space you're playing in, I think that's going to be sexy enough.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:15]:
A lot of people get stuck in this identity of what they were, what their contacts are and that kind of stuff. But as you've been building this business, and especially after the first six months, you still kept on going. You started landing your clients and started talking to these clients. Your clients are looking at you as an authority figure.

Tyler Rossi [00:18:31]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:32]:
How did you become an authority figure with that small amount of time? But also like, how did you deal with the imposter syndrome that, you know, we chatted about beforehand when you're working with all these new clients in a space and everything's brand new.

Tyler Rossi [00:18:47]:
Yeah, it's a great question because I literally knew nothing about the metals industry prior to coming in. But here's the thing. I did know how to talk with people. I did know how to sell from my days at Indeed. And your job as a recruiter isn't to be this, you know, person that could actually do the job in the industry. It's nice if you can get there and that's always the goal. But your job as a recruiter is to connect great talent with opportunities. It's to find the best talent for your clients.

Tyler Rossi [00:19:15]:
And I knew I was able to do that just from speaking with people, just from my process, just from giving people a great experience. And I think this is something that in the recruiting industry you have to have to prioritize as an agency owner is what is the candidate experience, what is the client experience? Because if you're niche down enough, people start talking. Right. The steel industry is one where everybody kind of knows everyone. So even if you don't know all the terminology, even if you don't know all the players in the space, if you could leave that candidate with a great experience and leave them feeling that, yeah, that recruiter, Tyler, he really cares about me and I really feel like he helped me in that conversation. Word's going to spread. You're going to get a referral. That referral could lead to a candidate, that candidate could also lead to a client, especially if they're director of VP level.

Tyler Rossi [00:20:02]:
So the recyclability and the word of mouth that is possible when you niche down, as long as you just give a great experience, that's what really matters. And then as you gain that expertise, as you talk with people, right, Even if the candidate isn't a great fit for the role, there's always information you could extract from that conversation, right? Why are they looking to leave their job? Have others left their job that need to be placed? Where else are they looking? Right? So who else is hiring? What are they making in their role? Is that comparable with what you've heard from others? Now, you can be, you know, an authority figure on compensation, right, for your clients. So there's a whole way of gaining that authority in that space. And what you have to do is just have as many human conversations as possible. Anytime I've ever been in a sales slump, whether that's at, indeed the other RPO I was briefly at, or, you know, in my recruitment business, I always made a goal. Let me have as many human conversations as possible. And then the magic just starts to happen, right? So have the conversations, and once you have the conversations, write it out. Put content right.

Tyler Rossi [00:21:04]:
LinkedIn is a massive, massive tool, and you have to use it correctly. And what I've done is I've automated my connection outreach to where I built up a network of three or four thousand people that are, you know, just in this industry, and then I put out content. I brand myself as the steel recruiter, the recruiter of steel. We'll get into that in a little bit. No pun and pun, pun very much intended. But all my content is said around there. People are liking the content. People are seeing the content.

Tyler Rossi [00:21:32]:
They're seeing me as an authority figure. One of the companies that I recently spoke with, you know, a $300 million service center, their HR person said, yeah, you know, our CEO saw your profile and saw some of your posts and said, ask for us to reach out to you. I mean, that's totally inbound. A lot of the business has. So wait, wait, has.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:51]:
Wait, most of your business has been inbound?

Tyler Rossi [00:21:52]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:53]:
Okay, so, like, I got two more questions in this. First of all, like, when you were running through a sales hump and you said you want to have human conversations, what kind of people were you having human conversations with? Is just people in the industry. Were you trying to make it, like potential clients, candidates, or just in general?

Tyler Rossi [00:22:08]:
So here's what I Do I automate my LinkedIn outreach to connect with as many people in the industry as possible? Potential candidates, right. I don't pitch them a job. Here's my message. You could steal it if you want. Just don't be in my industry. I say, hey, Ben, I place top sales talent in the metals industry. Would love to connect and be a resource for you down the line, right? Boom, they connect. 50% of them connect a couple of days later.

Tyler Rossi [00:22:33]:
I say, appreciate the connection, Ben. Any chance you're open to new opportunities this year? Yes or no? Right? The ones that say yes, let's talk. I might not have anything for you right now, and I'm transparent about it, but I say, you know what? I'm playing in the space. I'm going to be getting new opportunities. When something comes down that you told me is a fit for you, I'm going to reach out because I'm going to be that advisor to you. So I just have as many conversations like that with candidates. I do the same thing with leaders in the space, directors and VPs, even if I don't have a job for them. I say, hey, you know, I'll keep you in mind.

Tyler Rossi [00:23:08]:
You know, I have certain companies I'll see if you have a need for a sales leader. Oh, and by the way, if you're hiring, I have a ton of individual contributors I can send you. So just keep me in mind for that as well. And then it works because you're not coming across as pitching a job, you're not pitching your services. You're just having a human conversation, genuinely trying to help someone, whatever they need, and it just works on the backend.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:32]:
How are you keeping track of this, like, everything in your ats or like, are you using postcards?

Tyler Rossi [00:23:37]:
I use Crete. And, you know, I'll parse the profile into Crete. If they respond to me, I'll make a little bit of note of what they said and then, yeah, you know, I always make a task for myself to follow up, check back, even if there's not something there. But CRE is my ats and so far it works pretty well. Or CRM works pretty well.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:53]:
I love that, like you just said that, you know, your last six months has just been incredible, that most of your stuff has been inbound. You don't have to give names or anything. But how did you land your first three clients?

Tyler Rossi [00:24:04]:
They land the first three clients. So. First three clients. Okay, so the first one was part time, right? That was due to LinkedIn automation. And actually one of the clients seeing One of my podcasts. So they related to my podcast. They got my message on LinkedIn automation, and then they had reached out that way. The second client was an MPC email followed up by a cold call.

Tyler Rossi [00:24:25]:
So that one I did do a little bit of proactive outreach to, and the third one was an inbound from one of the content pieces I put out on LinkedIn. We were connected, saw the post, and proactively reached out to me. So all different forms.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:39]:
If somebody's looking at making the jump to start their own recruiting business and like, the reason why I wanted to interview you is because you were in the process. You were doing this like, I love Rich Rosen to death. He is amazing. But he talks about some of the things that. How he got off the ground. But you're right now you're still feeling it. Somebody else listen to this podcast, and I'm looking at starting an agency. What advice would you give them, especially with the six months of not having a single placement?

Tyler Rossi [00:25:04]:
Yeah. So shout out to Rich Rosen. I'm actually in his training group right now, along with Tricia Tamkin, and it's great. We get to meet once a week and talk in the morning, and he gives a great Q and A session. So shout out to Rich. Seven figure. Bill. I've been doing this probably as long as I've been alive, so great person to learn, too.

Tyler Rossi [00:25:21]:
And yeah, Ben, when you asked me to come on this podcast, you know, I did have a little bit of imposter syndrome because it was always a goal for me to get on here, but I felt like it would be much further along down the road. I'm nowhere near where I want to be. I do want to get into the running for a Pinnacle Society member. I do want to eventually, Bill, you know, high six, low seven figures. That's always a goal for me. But to start out, to have the success that we've had and to have a process that's dialed in and to show a little bit of overcoming of adversity those first six months. I do think that there are some folks out there that could hear that, because, you know, if you're listening to this, like Ben has said, if you're just starting out, I was in your shoes. I was listening to his podcast before I even launched my firm.

Tyler Rossi [00:26:02]:
And what I would recommend is fuel your brain with as much knowledge as possible. Connect with the folks like Rich Rosen. Connect with other headhunters in the industry that have been doing this for a while. Fuel your brain with the knowledge. Fuel your brain with Inspiration and then build out that foundation slowly. Right? Don't just leave your job right away. Build out that foundation, understand the business, and then when you're ready to go, go on full force. But the key is you never, ever give up and you have to niche down.

Tyler Rossi [00:26:32]:
Niching down has been a godsend to me. It's helped me save time, it's helped me get inbound business. I recommend to anybody, you know, try to be that go to authority in your space, however small it is, and whatever that space is, right. Become the go to authority there. Because you might not think it, but there is plenty of business to have even if you niche down very far.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:53]:
You mentioned you have your process dialed in. What does that mean?

Tyler Rossi [00:26:57]:
Yeah, I have a process dialed into where a lot of business is recyclable and comes to me. I have a process dialed into where the candidate outreach is pretty much automated, but it doesn't feel automated. Right. Because it's specific, it's industry focused. It doesn't come across that way. I have a process dialed in to where when I do speak with a candidate, there are notes there that even if they're not ready for that job, they're in my database and I can easily pull them for that next opportunity. It's about creating a process that's going to work for you and that's going to save your time. Recruitment, especially as a 360, you know, recruiter and solo operator, can be very, very time consuming.

Tyler Rossi [00:27:37]:
And if you're going to be going after this industry, that industry, starting a search from scratch, as soon as you get a job order, it's going to take a lot of your time. You want to conserve that time. This way you could focus on what matters, get jobs filled quicker, and make sure that each and every minute that you spend on the phone or in your CRM or on your email is time well spent.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:58]:
All that. Before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share about your story?

Tyler Rossi [00:28:05]:
Yeah, I mean, the key is to never give up, right. There were really hard times those first five, six months. I wasn't sure if it was going to work out. Right. You know, you have to keep plugging away. You have to understand when you see a sign, literally like the sign I was sold at the grocery store, you got to take it and you got to understand that if this is your calling, then you got to go after it. And the key is to never give up. I'll also say you have to have a support system as well.

Tyler Rossi [00:28:30]:
Again, Shout out to my wife and some other members of my family too. Very supportive of the business and I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. And I'll also say this, you gotta niche down. You're gonna hear me say this all throughout the podcast. You have to focus on being a go to authority in your space. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be accountants on the east coast, it could be women in cybersecurity, it could be recruiting ex athletes into sales, whatever it is, right? When you identify yourself as that go to authority, you could then build a business around you, you could build your LinkedIn network around you. And then when you put out a post, right, let's say you get a job order, you put out a post of what you're looking for, you start to get interaction, you'll get some engagement and then you'll get some inbound very qualified candidates, right? Not like just posting a job.

Tyler Rossi [00:29:21]:
You'll get some very inbound qualified candidates that you'll be able to use and it'll save you so much time.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:27]:
You know what I was going to ask you, like the typical first quick fire question. What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter? Boom, there it is.

Tyler Rossi [00:29:34]:
Become the go to authority in your space. That's what it is. It doesn't matter what it is. You need to dominate, right? You have to dominate and you can't dominate the entire industry right out the gate. One of the guests that I admire that you brought on was Jeremy Jensen, right. And the way he's built out Encore Search Partners and one of the things that you can clearly see there, how he's scaled his agency to, you know, eight figures now. He's hired people that are already those go to authorities and they're building out a division and a practice around them. But he didn't go out start targeting all different industries himself.

Tyler Rossi [00:30:09]:
He doesn't have the time to do it. So just focus on dominating a specific niche. Once you've exhausted that niche, once you've dominated there, then you could slowly expand or then you could bring on others that have, you know, authority in other niches. But for you as a solo operator, the best time well spent and the best way to get business to come to you is just dominate a specific niche.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:31]:
Here's an interesting question, especially since like you're newer, so if you had somebody, but you've also been having success this year where there's other recruiters that are hurting. If you have a bill or a recruiter that's been in the industry for two decades reaching out to you to chat because you know you're having a great year. What advice would you give them?

Tyler Rossi [00:30:48]:
Do I dare say it again? I mean, look, you have to look at their situation, right? Because everyone's situation is unique. I'm going to ask this, right? What space do you play in? Where do you feel you are in that space, right? Are you the dominant figure in that space? Or can you continue to gain market share there? And if you can continue to gain market share there and you're going to completely the dominant recruiter in whether it's IT or cybersecurity or the steel industry, right, Then you have to make that decision, right? Are you capped out and that is your time completely strapped? Like, do you have more time in your day to take on another industry yourself, or is it time to start building out your business and hiring people? And again, just to bring it back to Jeremy, who I listened on your podcast, that's the way he structured his business, right? He made an incentive paying high W2 salaries to get people on board that were already dominant in other industry figures and built out a business within his encore search partners. So shout out to Jeremy for listening if you're listening to this. But I thought that was really informative because if you're looking to scale, there's only so much one man can do, right? There's going to be a situation where you're going to need to hire out. And if you get to that point, you have to make the decision, right? Do you just want the lifestyle business? Are you content where you are, or are you willing to take it to the next level?

Benjamin Mena [00:32:05]:
About that, it's been a book that's had a huge impact on your career.

Tyler Rossi [00:32:09]:
Not so much of a big reader. Ben. I'm always on the go and it's hard for me to sit down and open a book like that. But I will say this. I'm an avid listener to podcast. I have a podcast myself. It's called let's Talk Talent. But I'll announce now we're rebranding it to be the Recruiter of Steel podcast.

Tyler Rossi [00:32:25]:
So we'll be putting in some folks from the steel industry in there, as well as some continued talks about recruiting and other things like that. But Omega podcast, as you know, I'm a huge fan of this one. I'm a huge fan of Mark Whitby's the Resilient Recruiter. And I'm also a fan of some others out there too that are motivational and on the business sector. So I consume a lot of podcasts, a lot of information that way, not so much on the book side.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:49]:
All right, you've shared multiple times that you have this magical tool for 910. I'm guessing it's probably your favorite tech tool. What is it?

Tyler Rossi [00:32:55]:
I wouldn't call it magical. I mean, everyone knows about LinkedIn automation, right? It's just how you use it and it's just. It saved me a ton of time. So, you know, there's dripify out there. You can use that. I personally use Sky Lead, which helps automate my connections and my network on LinkedIn. Again, the biggest way it's helped me is to not have to individually connect with everybody and individually message people. Right.

Tyler Rossi [00:33:18]:
Because at the end of the day, if you're not ready to make a move at all, you're probably not ready to have that conversation. Right. Unless you're really a great fit for an opportunity. And I'm going to cold call you and pursue you that way. But I want to at least build my connection network to. When I do put out content, which I do every day on LinkedIn, that it's seen by everyone in the industry and that when one person reacts to it, a ton of other people see it, a ton of people engage and all of a sudden you're known as that authority figure. Right. Tyler's always posting about the steel industry.

Tyler Rossi [00:33:49]:
He always has new jobs that he's putting out. His posts are really informative, or I find them entertaining or whatever the case may be. Right. People start to talk and then people come to you and the inbound business. I don't think there's anything better than that. So that's what I've enjoyed.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:04]:
Love that. So, like, you're driven. Like I've known you for a while, you're driven, always excited, you know, always putting good stuff in your head. You know, going without a paycheck for six months is hard. Going without a placement for six months is absolutely brutal in this industry. What do you think has been a huge proponent of, like, internally for your success that you've had, like. Indeed. And also now I'm confident.

Tyler Rossi [00:34:29]:
I know that, you know, there's going to be hard times in life and there's going to be adversity that you have to overcome. But I don't know if you know this, I don't know if I've broadcasted it that much, but I was born actually without a left hand, so I am. Yeah, looks like a little bit of a shock to You, Ben, so probably don't notice just from looking at the chest up here, but I've always been the underdog. I've always had to overcome adversity. So it's no issue for me. I know that eventually we're going to overcome it. We're going to have success. And I'm confident again with the information and the knowledge that I fooled my brain with that I could.

Tyler Rossi [00:35:05]:
At least as long as I do what I need to do day in and day out, as long as I put my head down and focus and execute, I'm going to be able to, to do this right. And it might take a little bit more time than we need or maybe like you said, six months is a little bit longer than we anticipated. But now you keep your nose to the grindstone. You have faith in yourself, you have confidence and, you know, you trust the process.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:27]:
Oh, I was going to dig in and ask if it was like a learned confidence or, you know, internal confidence that you had, but it sounds like you had to learn some lessons probably early on and as a young and with the, you know, not having a hand.

Tyler Rossi [00:35:40]:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, here's the thing. The world isn't going to slow down for you. Right. The world's not built for someone with a disability or whatever that you're dealing with. So at the end of the day, you need to rise to the occasion or you don't. And that was my mindset this whole time. Right. This is my opportunity to go full time into my business.

Tyler Rossi [00:36:02]:
I don't have the cushy's paycheck anymore. And if I can't make this work, I'm probably never going to go back because I'll have blew my chance. So I'm going to make this work. And yeah, probably took a little bit longer than I had wished. Right. But you had to iron out the kinks. I had to learn from my failures and all that. But yeah, you got to have faith and you got to keep going.

Tyler Rossi [00:36:22]:
It doesn't matter what the situation is.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:24]:
For somebody listening, you've been taking care of a tiny human, making sure that they're alive, taking care of everything that they need. And some. Sometimes it's a lot. I get that. How have you been able to, for somebody else listening out there, balance that early childhood life while starting a company at the same time?

Tyler Rossi [00:36:41]:
It was extremely hard. I'm not going to lie again. Thankfully, she's better now and she's feeling good and all happy. But the first few months were rough. I mean, if anyone has ever had a, a colic baby or, or any baby struggling with something, right. It's, you know, there's no way to console them. You just want them to feel better. And it breaks your heart at times.

Tyler Rossi [00:37:01]:
That period was very rough. Right. And I tried to be as present as possible despite trying to get the business off the ground too. You know, it's not an easy balance. Right. Sometimes you're going to have to give a little bit more to the business and sometimes you're going to have to give a little bit more to your family. But the key is to never give up. The key is to see the bigger picture.

Tyler Rossi [00:37:21]:
And what I saw this business as was a way for our family to have the best life possible. Because that's what you want to do as a mom or a dad or anybody, right? You want to provide your family with the best life possible, but you also want to be present. So you got to marry the two. We both knew that this business was going to pay more than any W2 job out there, right? And the amount of freedom and flexibility it's offered as well has been great. One of the big reasons I always wanted to do a recruitment business was because I wanted location freedom. I like being remote and it's provided, you know, me to see her first steps, me to see her start babbling and talking because I could just run upstairs and say hello. So the freedom and flexibility has been great. The earning potential is phenomenal in this industry.

Tyler Rossi [00:38:04]:
I would recommend it to any mom or dad or parent out there. It's a great business to be in.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:10]:
You identify this as a business and not just being a recruiter. Do you think that has had some of the reasons why you've scaled like you have?

Tyler Rossi [00:38:23]:
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, I am the main headhunter, right. I am the recruiter and I acknowledge that. And do I have a team of 30, 40 people behind me? No. I do have a few folks that are helping, my wife helps and we have our sister in law doing some sourcing for us. But no, I mean, look, I know that there's a lot of places we could take this business and I'm conscious of that. I'm also conscious that we could have a great lifestyle with a lifestyle business.

Tyler Rossi [00:38:52]:
I'm not sure which area I want to take it in right now. I think where my head is at currently is I'm still the steel sales headhunter. I want to dominate that industry. I want to be the go to guy There we still have a ways to go, but once I reach, you know, max market share there, then we'll probably look into getting to some other side areas of the industry, some adjacent parts. But then it's going to be time to scale. Right. And you're going to have to make a decision. Do you want a lifestyle business or do you want a scalable, well oiled machine that is, you know, the sky's the limit.

Tyler Rossi [00:39:23]:
You know, I got a lot of years left in me. I'm 28 years old. We could be doing this for another 30, 40 years. Right. So I don't know when I'm going to stop. So it's going to be interesting.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:33]:
Yeah. The reason why I wanted to ask that because I think a lot of people like, when they've been in the space for a while, they like the identity is being a recruiter. You'd say you have to put on the business mindset when you actually start your own recruiting company.

Tyler Rossi [00:39:45]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:45]:
Jumping into that. Next question. If you can go back in time one month, maybe two weeks after you got laid off, you hit go, you started moving forward and you got a chance to talk to yourself. What advice would you give yourself?

Tyler Rossi [00:40:00]:
It's a good question. What's funny? One time, my wife and I, we've been together for like 12 years. We met in high school, high school sweethearts, and we were on the seaside boardwalk and we said, hey, let's go to the psychic and see what they have to say. You know, we weren't thinking anything of it, we're just curious. And she's like, you're gonna get married at 26, you're gonna have three kids. She's like, to my wife, you're gonna be in marketing and you're gonna be traveling. She's like, you, success doesn't come quick. And I'm like, thanks.

Tyler Rossi [00:40:26]:
Okay. So sure enough, we did get married at 26. We have one baby open to a couple more and she is in marketing. She does travel here and there to her campus. And success didn't come quick. I went to wait six months to get a paycheck in the door. So I would say yes, success is not going to come quick. But learn from your failures, put your head down, never give up.

Tyler Rossi [00:40:51]:
And it will come eventually if you do the right thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:53]:
I'm sure after this podcast you'll get recruiters reaching out to you. Kind of like, hey, I'm looking at starting too like this and that. Give me, hey. Most of the time recruiters ask like a technical question. Or like, hey, what does your messaging look like? And you've probably already got some, like, questions recently.

Tyler Rossi [00:41:07]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:08]:
But if a recruiter is going to reach out to you and, like, what's the question that you wish they would ask you?

Tyler Rossi [00:41:13]:
How did you do it? How did you get through the hard times? Because it's not easy. And the key is, again, I'm going to point to that poster. Okay. Because I don't think there's a clearer sign than that, than literally Jesus putting out his hand and saying, hey, I got this. You're going to be okay. Trust that there is a higher power. Whatever your belief is, as long as you do the right thing and as long as you execute, everything's going to be okay. But you have to never, ever give up.

Tyler Rossi [00:41:38]:
Understand and learn from your failures, make adjustments where you need, but never, ever give up.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:43]:
If a recruiter that's listening to this podcast wants to follow the Steel recruiter, how do they follow you?

Tyler Rossi [00:41:48]:
How do they follow me? So LinkedIn is great. Tyler Rossi. You can also check out my podcast, which is going to be rebranded to the Recruiter of Steel podcast. Right now, it's let's talk Talent, but we're going to the Recruiter of Steel. You can also check me out on LinkedIn. It's Realtyler Rossi at Instagram. Or that's. That's Instagram.

Tyler Rossi [00:42:05]:
Right. So LinkedIn, Instagram. I'm on Twitter as well. Not too much, but really LinkedIn. And the podcast is the best way to follow me.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:12]:
Before you let you go, Tyler, is there anything that you would love to share with listeners? Anything else?

Tyler Rossi [00:42:17]:
Yeah, you know, I think so. I had a little bit of imposter syndrome going into this. Right. I mean, I've always been listening to Ben's podcast. I've been listening to Marks. I've been really looking up to a lot of the recruiters that are guests on here because that's where I wanted to be. And just being here in and of itself is an honor. So thank you, Ben.

Tyler Rossi [00:42:35]:
But I have a ways to go. I'm nowhere near where I want to be in my career or in my business at all. So follow the story, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect and share any information that I can, but there's a long way to go, and we'll see what the story holds.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:54]:
And guess what? We could do a continuation of the story later as you're trying to get into Pinnacle or getting into Pinnacle.

Tyler Rossi [00:43:00]:
We'll see. Hopefully. Hopefully we're still around we'll stay.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:06]:
But, man, I just want to say thank you so much. Like I said, this is a story that is relatable to so many people. You're in the fire. You're in the trenches. You were going through the initial year to year and a half to two years, which is the hardest, the absolute hardest, when you start your own business. The absolute toughest time. You've gone through the dark days. You're now seeing the light.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:31]:
And now you've figured out something that works that you could share with other people that are just right there with you. So that's why I wanted you on Tyler. And like I said, we'll get you back on down the road.

Tyler Rossi [00:43:41]:
We're just getting started. Thank you, Ben, for the listeners, whatever.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:45]:
You are doing for the rest of this year, dial in, figure out your systems, like Tyler said, figure out what you need to do. Because from now until the end of the year, what you do right now is going to set you up for a successful 2025. And I want you to have the best Q4 ever. But also 2025 be the year of abundance. Keep crushing it, guys.