How to Become a Magnetic Recruiter by Niching Down with Parker Chaney

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Parker Chaney [00:00:03]:
I don't want to limit myself, but if you want to make 200 grand a year, 500 grand a year, $10 million a year, you can still be extremely niche and only service one or two type of clients for the first gosh, like two months. I just spent all day long on LinkedIn. Comments are absolutely massive because if your post gets five views but the person who commented on it gets 20,000, there's an extra 20,000. Eyeballs have potential to see you.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:25]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. The reason is I have a returning guest. This returning guest. When they got started in the recruiting game, they didn't start at agency, they didn't work anywhere in the recruiting space. They Learned from freaking YouTube and took YouTube learning to 50k months. Let me say that again.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:04]:
Knew nothing about recruiting. Learned from YouTube and took that to 50k months. So I'm so excited to have him back because I've been friends with him for a while. We've been having some killer conversations and I think some of the success that he is having is because he did not learn some of the ways that we did things in the recruiting world. So he's happy to kind of invent himself along the way and inventing himself along the way. He's gotten $500,000 in inbound fees by becoming a magnetic recruiter in his space. And, you know, it's something definitely like, I feel like I should learn about. I'm excited that you're going to learn too.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:39]:
And he's going to share kind of like what he's actually doing. How did he become magnetic? How did he become the go to person where companies are actually chasing him down and he has a waiting list of companies that want to work with him. So. Parker Cheney, welcome back to the podcast.

Parker Chaney [00:01:55]:
Thank you, man, it's good to be back. It's been a while since I've been here. I think almost a year, if not longer, maybe less than that. But yeah, a lot's changed. Life's a lot different. But going good, going great. Love it, every second of it. And always happy to be on the podcast and here with you and love every second of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:10]:
For the listeners, like, please go back and listen to our last conversation together because he talks about what he did Those early days, he talks about the pain that he dealt with. It took him eight months to make that first placement. Eight months of working, learning the space. And then the waterfall came and he talked about how he grew his agency up to the 50k month mark. So please go back and listen to that conversation because we're not going to do a deep dive into how he got here. We're going to do a deep dive into what he's actually doing that's working that you can implement right now into your recruiting business. But the only question I have just for the listeners, those eight months, how many times did you want to quit?

Parker Chaney [00:02:51]:
Every time. Every time. I mean, if I didn't have a kid, I tell people if I didn't have a kid that, like, I don't know if I would have been able to push myself like that. I would have just got another job like everybody else does, play it Safeway. But in doing that, I got laid off again. And so if you guys watch the last podcast, so I got laid off twice, had a baby in between that. And just a little recap, the last time I got laid off was the same day my first candidate ever started. And so I was like, please, Lord, like, stay these 30 days.

Parker Chaney [00:03:16]:
Like, I'll give you a couple grand if you stay. I didn't end up saying that, but, like, I was ready to, like, I'll give you some of the placement money if you stay. Like, I am. Like, we just got out of the negative. Like, please, this is not fun. Like, please stay. They ended up staying and it was great. But yeah, those eight months, it were fun.

Parker Chaney [00:03:31]:
It wasn't fun. I had to just figure it out and just had no time to do anything else but take massive action. And so really from having a kid, that really puts the pressure on you, especially when your wife doesn't work and you have no money because you don't have a job and you have no income. I mean, that really, when push comes to shove, you, you really figured out, that's for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:49]:
That's awesome. Okay, so fast forward to today. Let's talk about this. Like, you know all this inbound work that you've actually showed me some of these messages, like, what's going on? Especially because, like, there's so many recruiters out there struggling for business.

Parker Chaney [00:04:05]:
Yeah. So the first eight months, all I was doing was the NPC method that everybody does tried and true, get you a resume, pull the info off, send it to a bunch of client or potential clients, try to like, get them to respond to you and then go on the call and ask for the business. Right, Typical. That wasn't really working that well for me. And I was sending thousands of emails, making thousands of cold calls. And with everybody coming Inbound with the LinkedIn post, it's like been a complete game changer. And so a couple things that have been huge for it is niching down, which I say everybody needs to do. And a lot of people, like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that or not.

Parker Chaney [00:04:39]:
Like, I don't want to limit myself. But if you want to make 200 grand a year, 500 grand a year, $10 million a year, you can still be extremely niche and only service one or two type of clients. Right. You still can make a bunch of money that way. So niching down has been huge for that and the inbound clients. The reason for that is from posting on LinkedIn and then I really only work on like one to two positions that are high in demand in my industry. Nobody else is really doing a great job at that. So that's been huge for me as well.

Parker Chaney [00:05:07]:
But yeah, I literally have them fill out a form now that takes them 20, 30 minutes. They fill out the form. It goes into my list of hundred some companies that have taken time to fill out the form, like whenever I can open it back up, we can have a conversation. But it's been, I think, just about 12 months since I've onboarded in the client because we just don't have the time and resources to. And our current clients keep us super busy. So it's been. Yeah, it's a lot different.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:30]:
Okay, okay, so real quick. So I know npcing is one of the things that everybody talks about when it comes to getting new business.

Parker Chaney [00:05:36]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:37]:
Out of curiosity, we're going to dig into this. Like, why was MPC not working for you? Was it just like the type of the industry? Was it the type, the level? Like, you know, why.

Parker Chaney [00:05:47]:
So I'm not a percent sure on why the MPC method didn't work. I mean, I was sending a couple thousand emails every single month and cold calling as much as I can grant it. No experience. So take that into the case. And I mean, these clients are extremely busy and they get messages all the time from recruiters that are doing the MPC method. It's kind of got a warrant on it from what I was getting from talking to them. Like they get these kind of emails all the time. It's kind of annoying.

Parker Chaney [00:06:11]:
Like, I understand, depending on the position, it works great. It Keeps working to keep on doing it. But with the NPC method, it was just, I mean, I was begging for these calls, begging for these clients, getting on the sales call, like, I'll take 10%, I'll take 12%. Like even taking that little bit of money, like they still weren't wanting to sign up. And so I was like, I've got to try something else out. And so the npc, like, I personally don't like it that much. Granted it was the only thing on YouTube you could learn at the time. And it works great for everybody else.

Parker Chaney [00:06:35]:
But I'm not sure why they weren't a fan of it. But granted, I was fairly new.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:40]:
I feel like I've seen NPCs work better in some spaces than I do for others. Do you think it was just the niche that you were focusing on? Or at that point in time, were you also focused in like 50 different directions?

Parker Chaney [00:06:51]:
Yeah, so I think it was a lot of, number one, the type of positions I was focusing on before I niche down. I just said like, hey, I'll just do supply chain and logistics like everybody else does, which can mean an array of things. It can be a forklift driver, it can be your operations manager, it can be a sales rep. Like there's so many different things and I was reaching out and having to relearn all these different roles all the time. And so not only am I learning a brand new business, I have no idea what I'm doing. Any sort of open rec that I get, I have to relearn. Like, okay, what does this position actually need? What do they actually need? And I have to learn this new client in this new industry or type of space that I have no idea about. I think that was a lot of my issues as well with that method and not being niched out.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:33]:
Okay, and when did you discover and when did you actually niche down?

Parker Chaney [00:07:39]:
Yeah, so in January of that year or the next the following year. So this had been two years ago, January 22nd, niche down. Alex from Mo's book came out a hundred million dollar offers. And the first thing he talks about in there is niching down. And I forget what the four variables are, but they have to be in massive pain. They have to have money to pay you with. They have to be easy to target. And there's one other, I can't remember, but I was like, okay, I'll niche down.

Parker Chaney [00:08:03]:
And so I was like, well, what do I know? And then went through his little system, ended up going with freight brokers and freight brokerages which is the industry I came from, which kind of just like, made sense. And they have plenty of money. Believe me, they make a lot of money. And so they were also high in demand. Like, these people, the position I was recruiting for, like, they were starving for it. That was one other thing. The last point, they had to be a starving crowd. So to be absolutely dying for whatever it is you're offering.

Parker Chaney [00:08:25]:
And so I think a combination of niching down to that also saying, like, hey, you know, you guys are starving. I'm the only hot dog stand out here. Like, let's do it. And that worked out really well for me.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:35]:
Do you think too many recruiters are not looking at places where companies are starving?

Parker Chaney [00:08:42]:
I definitely think from a lot of people that are struggling, especially now, a lot of it is, I just don't think you're specialized enough. You can't get on a call with these clients and say, no, this is how it's going to happen. This is what you need to do. This is what the position needs. This is what you need to pay them. This is the type of person you need to look for. Like, these people that are going to be successful in this role, like, you can't take that authoritative stance on the calls with the clients if, like, you don't specialize in one thing. If I was doing a bunch of different, it'd be a little bit more difficult.

Parker Chaney [00:09:12]:
But I think that's been huge for me was being, like, being able to get on the call and be like, no, this is how it's going to go, because I'm the person that has the success with it. You've been having no success for the last 10 years. I've been having success with it. Let's do it this way. And they go, okay, like, this is the way we got to do it. And so it makes relationships a lot easier because I can kind of, you know, say what I need to say. And this is how it's going to go. And if you don't want to work with me, I've got 99 people behind you waiting in line.

Parker Chaney [00:09:37]:
So, yeah, it's really nice.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:38]:
And we want to talk about how, like, recruiter can become that go to person. So, like, there are 50,000 ways I feel like we could start to get there. But one of the things I want to ask you is, like, you really started shifting your LinkedIn presence. You know, you really started, like, building out a network in your space. Like, how big is that space and how big is your network within your niche?

Parker Chaney [00:10:02]:
Yeah. So My niche being so narrowed down, I feel like I've either met everyone or talked to everyone or been connected with just about everyone that at least is active on LinkedIn. So freight brokerages, there's not. There's a couple thousand. I can't remember how many. There's probably over 20,000 of them. Probably way wrong on this, but I'm even niche down farther to a position that only maybe 5,000 of them have. And so, like, we're talking, like, very, very micro niche.

Parker Chaney [00:10:26]:
And so there's probably 5,000 of those or so. And then, you know, working with only two or three at a time, it's pretty narrow. And so in terms of how many people I've connected with and how big it is, it's not that big, but I think I've networked and I know just about everybody in the space and everything in the space, and it's been really critical for our business, and it's been huge. So I hope that answers your question.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:47]:
And then fast forward. Okay, so now you've connected with everybody. You've spoken on the phone with everybody, but you're playing now a LinkedIn game, so you're now sucking them into your ecosystem. How are you doing that? How did you shift your LinkedIn profile from what it was like when you first started to where now you were, hey, can we work with you?

Parker Chaney [00:11:04]:
Yeah. So initially, having no business, I was just like, okay, someone told me, hey, you should post on LinkedIn. This worked well for me. And so I just kind of went, okay, cool. And they just went crazy with it for the first, gosh, like two months. I just spent all day long on LinkedIn. I was finding the people with the most amount of followers in our industry, the most amount of engagement, the posts who do well. And I had a list of like 60 people.

Parker Chaney [00:11:25]:
Every day I'd pull up their LinkedIn. I'm going, I'm commenting on there. And when I see my comment, it says, you know, freight broker, recruiter, freight agent, recruiter under my name on my headline. And they go to my profile, they visit it, I get a profile view that's huge. Comments are absolutely massive because if Your post gets five views but the person who commented on it gets 20,000, there's an extra 20,000 eyeballs have potential to see you. Those comments are absolutely massive. And then there's also obviously making posts showing that you are who you say you are, giving some backstory on yourself. Like the story of myself about getting laid off twice.

Parker Chaney [00:11:58]:
People really resonated with getting burned by the industry. Pretty common. People resonate with that. And then also showing like, hey, I actually do know what I'm talking about. I have industry experience. Here's the examples of that. Here's a success I've had. There's a bunch of different things too as well, but that's kind of the basis of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:13]:
So real quick, you went and found the 60 most active people within the niche. What'd you do, put them on a spreadsheet and just went to their profiles, like every single day?

Parker Chaney [00:12:22]:
Yeah, so I just made like a Google Chrome folder on my profile and I'd go to their activity and I would star it. And so every day I'd right click on the folder, open all 60 of them, and I go and I'd make sure I comment on it. I check out a couple times a day. And yeah, I mean, that was huge. I was getting thousands of profile views every single week with people reaching out. And that's just a hundred X is your chances of people seeing you because you're everywhere. And I would ask them, you know, if they sent me connection requests, like, hey, thanks for connecting. Was there anything about me or my profile that made you shoot me? Connection.

Parker Chaney [00:12:50]:
Like, you know, where'd you find me? A lot of people would say, I found you from so and so's comment on this or that. And it was just like, holy cow, like, comments are massive.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:58]:
I think that's key. Like, I know a lot of people have talked on this podcast about, like building out that dream 100. Like, you know, your perfect list of companies, but you've built out a I'm going to the 60 people or the hundred people that the dream 100 of people that you're going to comment on every day or every other day. And so like, everybody started seeing your face over and over again. So I think that's like probably one of the smartest moves I've heard when it comes to creating that inbound with maybe without posting constantly.

Parker Chaney [00:13:25]:
Yeah. And at first I was like, I have no idea what to write. And so what I would do was just like, I'd go to someone's profile that's got like, good copywriting and I would like take their post and then like, try to think of some sort of idea and just like rewrite their post with my information on it. What do they say? Good artists create, Great artists steal. And so kind of like taking what's working for somebody else, obviously, and then just implementing it into your own life and obviously changing it, not copying them, but you See what's working. And you can do that any area of life, which is huge. LinkedIn has just changed my life drastically and the brand has just been amazing.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:56]:
So. And here's one of the things I think a lot of like, old school recruiters don't get. I consider myself an old school recruiter, especially since I've been in this game for almost two decades now. LinkedIn has been completely different. The first 20 years it existed, it was a great place to connect with people, message people, but it is turned into the place of the content creator and the content engager. So, like listening to what has been working with Parker, who did not come from the old dog space of recruiting, like, I'm going to go do that literally tonight, build out my dream 100 of like, people that I need to start commentating on within my space to help build that authority. Like, okay, so you did that, you started doing great copywriting. What else were you doing that was working to make sure that you became a magnetic recruiter?

Parker Chaney [00:14:45]:
Yeah, so there's a couple different things. I use this automation software called Skylead, which you guys can look up. And what you can do is you can add. At the time, you could add a little bit more. I was adding about 70 to 100 people per day on LinkedIn, sending connection requests to my ideal clients every single day. So Instead of that 100 on LinkedIn, I was sending 72, 100, which, I mean, that's what, 700 to a thousand a week, which is crazy. So it's kind of like botting your account, but also like, these are real followers, real people, real potential clients. And that was huge.

Parker Chaney [00:15:17]:
Another thing with that, there's a bunch of different hacks you can do with that. You go on LinkedIn search bar, you have a competitor, you click search, go to followers of on the advanced settings, put those competitors in there, and then you put, you know, CEO, hiring manager, whatever their title is, and then you can copy that, put it into the system and it'll pull all of their followers that are your ICP of people that already follow somebody that is doing the same exact thing you do, and then you can basically steal them. And I got a lot of business from doing that because, like, they already are. Pause, pause. Willing to.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:47]:
Okay, wait, wait. Okay. So you are using software to literally steal other People's followers on LinkedIn, basically, yeah. And you've gotten sales from that?

Parker Chaney [00:15:58]:
Yeah, yeah. Most of my, the beginning clients, most of them were saying like, oh, yeah, you know, I saw you followed so and so and like, oh yeah, we worked with them, you know, not really anymore. They did work with them currently. And you know, I took over that business, but won a lot of business that way. But it was kind of nice because it's like, let's just say if you follow Joe Rogan and I see that you follow Joe Rogan, then more than likely, you know, we have that thing in common. You like Joe Rogan. I do. Like, I could sell you a Joe Rogan shirt or something like that.

Parker Chaney [00:16:23]:
You know what I mean? Like, they already followed a recruiter in my industry that does the same thing. Like, it's super cool, it's a lot of fun, it's great.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:30]:
Okay, so you've done copywriting, you've commenting, now you've done stealing connections and followers. What else are you doing?

Parker Chaney [00:16:39]:
Gosh, there's so many different things that I do now. It's way different. I probably spend maybe one hour a week on the whole process. Really got it dialed in. Another big thing with those sixty to a hundred people. You find in your industry that you comment on their post, after a while you become friends with those people, you're engaging on their content, you're talking back and forth. You know, after you message them a couple or if you reply on their post a couple times, send a message like, love your content, whatever, start a conversation, help them out any way they can. I've got like so many referral partners just from doing that.

Parker Chaney [00:17:09]:
Like I'll hop on a call. Even though I can't sell them, we can still, like, how can we help each other out? Love to meet you. Like, it's like networking and going to all these in person events. But on LinkedIn, one of my biggest clients came from a referral from somebody who I can never give money to and vice versa. Like it's just a network. We talk for half an hour and he sends me referrals all the time. Clients and candidates and very well respected in the industry, which, I mean, that's massive. So building those relationships is huge.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:35]:
That is awesome. Okay, so what else? What else are the secrets?

Parker Chaney [00:17:39]:
So we've got the software, got the posting, now I've got stuff to where the AI. I can basically take information about me and my company and then have a bunch of post templates. And I can, gosh, last night I wrote some templates for or some posts for a client. In about half an hour I read about 20 posts, which now you do three posts a week, that's gosh, two months worth, give or take. That speeds the process up so quickly.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:03]:
Wait, you just said that you're writing posts for clients too?

Parker Chaney [00:18:06]:
Yeah, yeah. So the branding stuff was going super well for myself and a big pushback from the position I was recruiting for, which is freight agents. They have a lot of issue with trust in the industry. Trust is a big issue in our industry. And so especially in their case this position, freight agents have their own book of business. And so, you know, they're worth 1 million, 2 million, 3, $3 million, sometimes up to $10 million. And these companies are trying to recruit them to come over to their company and bring their whole book of business. Right.

Parker Chaney [00:18:36]:
But a lot goes into that. And so these conversations are having. All the pushback is like they don't trust them by the time they get on the call with them. And so these clients that I was working with, I was like, hey, this branding thing worked out pretty well for me. Like, you came to me because of it. And they're like, yeah. And I was like, you already trusted me when you got on the call, right? And they're like, yeah. And I was like, I charge you a lot of money up front because you trusted me already, right? And they're like, yeah.

Parker Chaney [00:18:57]:
I was like, let's try it out and do this branding thing for you and, you know, get you guys set up with all the tools and systems and softwares and little hacks that I use and start posting on LinkedIn and see what happens. I was like, give me six months. Like, I don't know if it'll work. Work great for me, but like, just want to make sure. Because with recruiting, that was the only difficulty we were having was like, they don't have a presence online. We don't trust them by the time they come to them. And so I was like, all right, let's just try it out for six months. Whatever.

Parker Chaney [00:19:23]:
Got two clients now on a retainer for that, which has been huge and a lot of fun. And I knew it was going to work. But in the first month they went from like one to two hires a month. This is with four full time recruiters. Okay, one to two hires a month max. It's an unlimited position. They hired seven in the first month and added like, I don't know, $30 million in revenue from those hires in their first month. And I was like, I wrote you guys like five posts.

Parker Chaney [00:19:46]:
Like, this is crazy. Like, the software is already warmed up yet with adding people. Like, this is insane. But yeah, I've got two different clients I do that for. And it's been going Great. Helping out a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:55]:
When did you decide that you can open up additional lines of revenue within your recruiting business to still support your recruiting business and your clients?

Parker Chaney [00:20:03]:
Yeah. So since I've been only recruiting for the same clients for the past year, year and a half, I mean, under five clients, I've gotten different ways or different things that I can see. You work with somebody so long, like, hey, here's a constraint you guys have. Like, this is the issue you guys are dealing with. I can only provide so much value as, like, giving you guys leads. You can't close them. We've got to work something out here. And so I probably talked for six months about different ideas of what we can do together and ended up on the branding thing.

Parker Chaney [00:20:29]:
And I was like, look, let me just set this up in a system. If it doesn't work in three months, you know, we can stop the retainer. No big deal. But, like, I'm pretty sure this has got to work. It works well for me. And so, gosh, it. It's helped so much also with the recruiting side, with us recruiting for them, it makes our job so much easier because they have a brand now and they have a presence on LinkedIn and people trust them. And so our placements are going up because they've got a brand that's established.

Parker Chaney [00:20:51]:
And so it's just been. It helps so much.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:53]:
Yeah, you're charging them for marketing, and then you're charging them for the placements right after that.

Parker Chaney [00:20:57]:
Yeah, I'm not charging them for their placements that they get with their own recruiters. But, yeah, we're getting more because they have a brand now from the candidates we send them. They're like, oh, yeah, I've seen them on there. You know, that's cool. Blah, blah, blah. Tell me more about them.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:07]:
Yeah, that's epic. That is so much fun. I feel like, you know, we're talking software, we're talking LinkedIn and copy. We're talking about using AI. You know, how does a recruiter start learning how to work with all these systems and how to do this themselves and how to almost, like, copy Parker.

Parker Chaney [00:21:26]:
So recently I've created a group. So I've been creating all this training for these clients, right? For their recruiters, their team in house. And after I realized, holy cow, this is working really great, I was like, well, I need to, like, take this training that I've already built and, like, show other recruiting business owners, like, how to use this stuff. Because I've seen, obviously everyone talks about branding, but I haven't seen anyone do it in the same way that I do it, as far as I know. And so I put a bunch of stuff together and I've got a free group called the Recruiter Kingdom that you can join. And I've got probably six, eight videos or so. I'm recording some more. Just kind of just showing everybody, like, here's my whole process.

Parker Chaney [00:22:01]:
It is a, here's what I do, here's how I do it. And like if you do just a fraction of it, you should see results. Like, I'm not going to guarantee anything, but I'm just going to show you what's worked well for me and what's helped me out a lot. And I've already helped out a couple recruiters and they're getting great results from it. And I mean, the brand is the best thing you could do for yourself, in my opinion. Do for your business. Like instead of spending all week long doing business development and bringing on new clients, you just like work with the same ones that give you a bunch of money because the ltv, the lifetime value goes up sky high. I think ours is like around 80,000 per client and growing.

Parker Chaney [00:22:35]:
And so, you know, my issue was bringing on new clients. Got to learn a whole new client. Got to learn the process, got to learn them. Spend those three, six months. Okay, They're a terrible client. They don't want to pay you anyway. With the brand, like everything changes. These companies like you before they even start working with you.

Parker Chaney [00:22:51]:
It just makes the whole exchange, whole exchange better. They stay with you longer, they pay you more, there's less friction. Like it's the best. I don't do any outbound at all.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:01]:
When's the last time you've done outbound?

Parker Chaney [00:23:03]:
Probably early last year. It's been at least over a year, year and a half since I've done any client outbound. Everything's outbound. Yeah. Even just like an automated message on LinkedIn. Like, no, I haven't done any of that. Like all the people that was adding in my industry, I didn't do anything. Like they'll see my post because I'm everywhere.

Parker Chaney [00:23:20]:
They'll see my comments. Like they'll see me eventually. And so that's just been my strategy on that. And I also don't have time to do an outbound or any need because I've got a hundred people that are filling out forms to work with me. So.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:32]:
Yeah, because you've like semi automated this, like, and I know you have a family. Out of curiosity, like, how many hours do you typically work a week.

Parker Chaney [00:23:40]:
So how many hours do I work? I probably work about 40 because I just love work so much, which is a good thing. Now these are times we're like, hey honey, I don't feel like working too much this week. I mean, maybe five hours or so at most is really what I need to do. I just love work. I just love work so much. It's the most fulfilling thing other than having a son and the family. For me, like, I just absolutely love working and can't get enough of it. But yeah, maybe five hours.

Parker Chaney [00:24:04]:
And it's really nice because all those times I would spend those 35 hours a week doing outbound and having sales calls and begging people for money and getting beat down. We want to pay you less. We need six month terms. Like, no. Like our terms for our W2 positions are you pay seven days, 60 day guarantee. Like, and people are paying 25, 30%, which is nuts. And so, yeah, like, the brand helps a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:29]:
Where are recruiters failing out there when it comes to inbound?

Parker Chaney [00:24:32]:
Yeah. So I think maybe not failing per se, but like a lot of the sales calls that I would have during those eight months is like me trying to convince them that like, I know what I'm doing and I have to build all this value while I'm on the call and convince them that I'm worth this much price and they need to pay me this and I can actually fulfill the job. Right. But with the brands and just a little bit of activity. Post a couple times a week, leave a couple comments, do a couple things like that people come in, you know, they could have been seeing your content for the past year and then they finally decide to reach out to you. And so it's like being top of mind for every single potential client in my industry. 24,7 was kind of the goal. And so like, that might not work with me now, but eventually when they do, like, I'm the person they're going to go to.

Parker Chaney [00:25:15]:
And then when we get on the call, I don't have to convince you that I am who I say I'm. Like, you already trust me. Which is crazy because, like, I had zero recruiting experience. Zero. I had no idea what I was doing. And like, just got my first placement and then hired a coach. I was like, please, like, can you show me how to use LinkedIn, Sales Navigator or Recruiter? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, what tools do you use? Like, I'm lost.

Parker Chaney [00:25:35]:
Like, if I could do that, anybody can. But yeah, that's why I think they're, they're not doing it. They're focusing too much more on like the traditional methods, which they work. That's fine. But I just think with the branding, give it an hour a week. Once you learn it, it'll change your life.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:48]:
You jumped like into recruiting without any experience. What advice would you give to somebody that's looking at jumping into their own business, but they've been a recruiter before.

Parker Chaney [00:25:58]:
Yeah. So number one, have a kid and quit your job. You'll figure it out really quick. Don't actually do that, but that does help, believe me. I would say for somebody that's starting out, but they do have recruiting experience, you've already got a leg up on me. What I would do while maybe building a brand is like get some splits in the industry, work with somebody that you can fill those roles in the agency, but you're still working for yourself type of scenario, and start building that brand on LinkedIn and really niche down into a micro niche, if you will, positions that are high in demand from companies that have money to pay you, that they're just absolutely starving for this type of position. Like work with those, establish yourself as an authority in that industry. Talk about yourself, talk about your experiences, everything like that.

Parker Chaney [00:26:40]:
Start building that up and then just like watch the invalid leads start coming in. If you do a couple things, it's really not that hard to stand out because the bar is so low right now. Like, it's never been easier to start a business. It's never been easier to be successful. I just think like, you just gotta do a couple steps and you're there. So that's what I would recommend for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:59]:
Do you think too many recruiters are focusing on areas like that are sexy compared to areas that are starving?

Parker Chaney [00:27:05]:
Yeah, for sure. Like I think everyone on their brother starting a tech recruiting company or you know, a software engineering recruiting company, all the hot jobs, if you will, or crypto or whatever it may be. I think that tried and true, like Mike Campbell, his last name is, has got the manufacturing engineering recruiting company. He's, he's hired like his fourth or fifth person. I think you might have had him on this podcast. I'm not sure. He's got a brand on LinkedIn, believe it or not. And he's crossing it, believe it or not.

Parker Chaney [00:27:28]:
It's crazy. And he's also niche down. That's crazy. He's killing it. I think, like it's not the most sexy industry, if you will. I mean, it's Recruiting engineers in the manufacturing space. Like, it's nothing super cool or crazy, but clearly it pays well. I think he did like over a million bucks in his first year, which I didn't do that, but whatever, you know, just messing.

Parker Chaney [00:27:48]:
Yeah, that's what I would do is niche down. Do you want to make money or do you want to be sexy or do you want both?

Benjamin Mena [00:27:55]:
And do you think it's possible to do both?

Parker Chaney [00:27:58]:
Once you have money, then you can figure it out. Yeah, for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:01]:
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Parker Chaney [00:28:02]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:02]:
I also help with the Pinnacle Society, their podcast, and I actually just got done interviewing Mike last week for an episode with them. And we were talking like, you know, is next year in business and building out a firm and all that stuff. So. But it's one of the interesting things that I'm seeing is people that have niched down in extremely unsexy industries are living sexy lives. But there's a lot of people, you know, including myself, you know, sharing this personally, have chased sexy industries. And you're like, hey, maybe things could be better.

Parker Chaney [00:28:33]:
Yep. Yep, for sure. Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:35]:
You know, maybe I can make my life a little easier so I can focus more time on the podcast.

Parker Chaney [00:28:39]:
Right, Right. I know you need to quit by the end of this call. I'm getting you to quit your job podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:45]:
I think my job is my company.

Parker Chaney [00:28:46]:
I sure, I know. Put your two weeks in.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:50]:
I'll go tell, walk over to the mirror and give myself to notice.

Parker Chaney [00:28:54]:
Yeah, yeah. Just like. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:56]:
Is there anything else that a recruiter should be thinking about when it comes to inbound? We covered a bunch, but is there anything else?

Parker Chaney [00:29:02]:
So we covered the setting up the automations and we covered posting content and networking is the massive part. If you can spend 15, 20 minutes a day just commenting on people's posts and then you have your profile optimized. Where your niche down, of course, number one. But you have like on your headline, you're like, I had freight broker and freight agent, recruiter. And so any comment I left on anybody, anybody with a big profile, they made a post and they comment. So many people saw my comment and went to my page and I saw, okay, here's some info about am I about. Even when I wasn't posting comments, even brought people in about, like, it's really not that hard to stand out. It's insane.

Parker Chaney [00:29:38]:
It's crazy. You don't have to leave massive value comments. You can just say like, I just say woo all the time or amen. Like I'm just there doesn't have to be extremely valuable. But I don't think there's really anything I left out. I'm sure there is, but networking and commenting and at least, like, build friends with people in the community because people will connect you with other people because they like you. And people will work with you because they like you. And people will continue to because they like you.

Parker Chaney [00:30:03]:
And that networking is probably the biggest thing for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:07]:
Okay, well, let's jump over to the quick fire questions. And like I said, they don't have to be quick answers. But I know we just talked about, like, what advice would you give to a new recruiter? You've kind of covered some stuff that, like, an old school dog like myself needs to freaking learn. So let's just go ahead and jump into, like, your favorite book. Has that changed?

Parker Chaney [00:30:24]:
I can't remember what I said last time.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:25]:
Okay, then what is it now?

Parker Chaney [00:30:27]:
Gosh, my favorite book, I read, like, a book a week. I feel like. I think probably from a mindset perspective that really helped was Psycho Cybernetics by I can't remember. His thing is Waltz or Maxwell Waltz. I can't remember what his name was, but that was a big shift in my mindset of you can just, like, trick yourself into believing, you know, you are who you say you are in your head, and you can become that type of person. And then that combined with atomic habits, that one for sure is. Is huge. I think mindset is the biggest thing over anything Maxwell Malts.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:58]:
But you mentioned tricking yourself into believing something. Like, when you started actually making these placements, you know, were you dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome?

Parker Chaney [00:31:07]:
Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, I had industry experience, so I knew what questions to ask. But in terms of, like, a whole recruiting, like, I'm watching a YouTube video before, I'm hopping on this call, this onboarding call. Like, what do I need to know before the call? Like, extreme, extreme imposter syndrome. But I feel like once that first check hit and like, oh, crap, you know, like, this is kind of nice. I feel like you just have, like, a complete, like, switch in your brain go off. And I went from this person who's not confident, who believes it can happen, but doesn't really believe it, who just, like, has to see it happen, too. Like, if you told me, like, hey, you got a year to be Mr.

Parker Chaney [00:31:41]:
Olympia and bodybuilder champion of the world or whatever, I'd be like, sure, yeah, I can do it. Even though I've never. I haven't been working out for the past Couple of months. Like, I'm so, like, utterly, like, completely delusional, but confident in myself that whatever it is that I can put my mind to, I'm going to complete it one way or another. Like, it's weird. I got that from my mom too, so she helps a lot. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:00]:
I was going to ask if you've always had that self belief or did that, like, you breaking through that imposter syndrome is what kind of solidified your confidence as a recruiter.

Parker Chaney [00:32:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. So my mom owns a Chick Fil A now. And she. She's mid-50s, lower-50s. I don't. She'll probably watch this podcast, so I apologize if I'm wrong. And she instilled in me growing up.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:21]:
40S.

Parker Chaney [00:32:21]:
Yeah, exactly. 35, I think she instilled in me that, like, you can do whatever you set your mind to. Like, there are no limits. And my whole entire childhood was. That was things she really drilled into me, which has been phenomenal. And so she raised five kids. She's a rock star. I mean, we have one now and.

Parker Chaney [00:32:37]:
No, thank you. You're crazy. And she raised five kids, coached basketball, has a lot of successful basketball players that own big multimillion dollar businesses that are going on Shark Tank and all that sort of stuff. Like, she's got some great stuff there. And then she also, once all of us got older, decided, like, hey, I want to own a Chick Fil A. I haven't worked in, you know, 25 years, but I just raised five kids. I want to own a Chick Fil A. And she put her mind to it.

Parker Chaney [00:33:03]:
And for like five or six years after applying twice became one of, I think 40,000 people apply a year. She applied twice, got rejected the first time, and then applied again. You have to wait two years. She finally got her to Chick Fil A about a year and a half ago. She was actually just on a podcast a couple weeks ago, and they asked her, like, did you ever, like, not believe that it would happen? She's like, no. Like, no doubt. My mind. I was getting one and I was like, that's exactly how I feel.

Parker Chaney [00:33:26]:
And that's where I got it from. So that's been huge for me and love my mom. She's great.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:31]:
What is your favorite tech tool at the moment?

Parker Chaney [00:33:34]:
I just use GPT for everything. I mean, everything. Every step of the way, everything. I do. If I have notes or I get off a call and I want to write stuff down, I'll just throw up all these information over it. Like, before we got on this podcast, I wanted to remember what I need to say so I can have notes so I can look at. And I just talked to it for 20 minutes, just dumping all this information over it, and it just organized it all for me. So I use GPT for literally everything, but other than that, Taplio is great for content creation and generating ideas.

Parker Chaney [00:34:03]:
That's a good software to use. I think that's probably one of my favorites for sure. And then Skylead, of course, because, I mean, for the last two months, I've gained. I haven't posted because too many clients are messaging me inbound. I literally have to make it stop. I haven't gained, like, over a thousand followers just from that. And it's like my ICP still. And so, like, my LinkedIn's still growing.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:24]:
Wait, you haven't posted and you. You're still growing?

Parker Chaney [00:34:28]:
Yeah, yeah, still growing. I still get messages every day now, too. And I just like, ugh, I can't. Here's a form. I'll let you know. It's been a year since I onboarded someone, FYI. But. And people fill it out.

Parker Chaney [00:34:38]:
People will fill it out.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:39]:
So you didn't quit, like, during that eight months, you've been growing, you've scaled, you've built it up. What do you think has been a major part of your personal success?

Parker Chaney [00:34:48]:
So I think, number one was telling myself over and over again, like, if I don't quit, I can't fail. Like, sure, I might have some rough months. Sure, I might run out of money and be in the negative, which I have been multiple times, especially during those eight months. If I don't quit and I continue to do the actions that will bring that result, the result will come eventually. And, like, I just have to keep pushing through and only focus on that. And that's been, like, the number one thing, regardless of skill, regardless of talent, regardless of me having industry experience and the niche that I'm in. Like, regardless of that, you can do anything as long as you just, like, tell yourself, I can't lose if I don't quit. I'll figure it out eventually.

Parker Chaney [00:35:25]:
It might take five months, it might take five years, might take 50 years. Like, long as I keep pushing towards that goal, I'll get it eventually.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:33]:
And I know I asked you this question about a year, something months ago, the last time we spoke. If you can go back in time and have a conversation with yourself, what would you tell yourself when you just started your recruiting career? Once you maybe, like, move forward a little bit, once you got things Moving a little bit.

Parker Chaney [00:35:49]:
Yeah. So to go back, I'm probably honestly going to say the same thing. I can't remember what I said, but the last time, because I remember you asking me this question. If I were to go back and talk to myself, I think I would just, like, let them know, like, you don't have to be worried about all the details and worry about everything that's going to happen or the bills. Like, everything's going to work out eventually and it'll be all right. Just, like, continue working on it, continue pushing forward. Things are going to be okay. And no matter how bad life gets, life always gets a lot better after bad things happen.

Parker Chaney [00:36:18]:
And I know that for sure because I've had a couple things in life where crap hits the fan, and right after that, life gets a lot better. And so anytime something horrible happens, life gets a lot better. And so just letting myself know that it's going to get better, you just got to just wait it out and be patient.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:32]:
So I know that you've had some recruiters reaching out to you, kind of like asking, like, what the hell you've done, you know, especially since you didn't have the background in recruiting, and you're doing great as a recruiter.

Parker Chaney [00:36:42]:
Thank you.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:43]:
But with that, like, I'm sure a lot of the questions are tactical. Is there a question that you wish somebody would actually ask you, and what's that answer?

Parker Chaney [00:36:51]:
Ooh, that's a great question. All the questions are probably technical. If there's something I wish people would ask me, what would that be? I think the people's biggest issue is, like, maybe if they would ask me, like, what actions am I not taking to breed this result? And, you know, what am I not doing that I need to do? Because I feel like most of the people that I talk to that I've wanted help, that I've hopped on calls with for free, I'll tell them, here. Here's literally everything I do. I'll spend an hour, two hours with you. Here's everything you got your brand in a box. Recruiter. Never have to do outbound again.

Parker Chaney [00:37:20]:
Here's everything you do. And then you see they never do anything. And it's just like, what are we not doing here? Right? And they want to hop on another call to pick your brain and do this and do that, when it's just like, you know exactly what you need to do, just do it. And so I think that'd probably be the question that I would have them ask, if that makes any sense at all.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:38]:
You were talking earlier about how you were, you know, negative with a family in the bank account. How did you power through those hard weeks and those hard months?

Parker Chaney [00:37:48]:
I mean, you don't really have much of a choice. I mean, I didn't even know you did. I could file for unemployment. Like, I had no idea about that. I'd never been laid off before. Like, I went, gosh, probably six of those months without ever filing for unemployment because I had no idea. And so I don't even know how or what I told myself then, but it was just like, it'll get better. It's just only temporary.

Parker Chaney [00:38:08]:
That's the only thing I told myself. I'm more of a glasses, overflowing, full. Everything's good and happy, go lucky. And my wife is the other way around, which is fine. We need to balance each other out because I'll go crazy sometimes. But I don't really know what it was. Just like, it'll figure it out. I'll figure it out.

Parker Chaney [00:38:22]:
Like, I have to. I have no other choice. And so it's like I joke about have a kid, lose your job. You have no other choice at that point, like, push comes to shove, you'll figure it out. And so, yeah, that's. I hope that answers your question there.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:34]:
Oh, that's good. Well, for anybody that wants to follow you, I know we've been talking about branding and everything. How do they go about doing that?

Parker Chaney [00:38:42]:
Yeah, so on LinkedIn, it's Parker Chaney. We just type in. You'll find me on there. I've got a red background now, no longer purple. And then also, if you want to join my free group called the Recruited Kingdom, where I have everything broken down there on how I built my brand, all the softwares I use, you can see everything. I've got post templates in there. Putting a bunch of stuff in there to help recruiters out and having some great results there. You can join that.

Parker Chaney [00:39:01]:
That'll be on my LinkedIn page. But yeah, just I'm on LinkedIn and I'm in that group and that's about it.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:07]:
Outside of that, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Parker Chaney [00:39:09]:
I would say that if you're going to try this whole branding thing out, don't overwhelm yourself with trying to learn all these things. Just do a couple simple tasks, start commenting on people's stuff, make sure you're niche down, write a couple posts. If it's a skill, it can be learned, it can be acquired. Writing is a skill, but it is A meta skill that trickles down into everything. It'll help your communication, it'll help your emails that you send to clients, it'll help your emails you send, your messages. It'll help everything. So learning that skill of writing, just like, give it some time, it'll be well worth it. You spend an hour every Sunday writing five posts for the week that brings in all your business.

Parker Chaney [00:39:46]:
I have candidates come in bound too, as well. Like, it helps everything all around. Like, I can't stress that enough, but yeah, just give it time. Give it 20 hours or so. I think that's what they say for learning a new skill. Give it 20 hours to be proficient at it and just do the action steps required.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:01]:
Awesome, man. It's been awesome to catch up with you. It's been exciting to just absolutely see the growth. One of the reasons why I loved our initial conversation in this one is because there's so many people out there that are like, you know what? I want to start a recruiting company. How do I do it? What do I do? How do I go about building a successful business for myself and my family? And we are definitely a testament to just fucking figuring it out.

Parker Chaney [00:40:24]:
Thank you. Yeah, but.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:26]:
But excited that you came on today and just shared how you've become this magnetic recruiter, where the business has come to you, where you've stopped doing outbound for well over a year now, and the work is still there, the brand is still there. So excited about this episode. And for the recruiters out there, I know we're coming up into the tail end of 2024. Whatever you do between now and the rest of the year, it's going to set up the foundation. It's going to set you up for 2025. So make sure you prepare, put in the work so that way you can crush it. Keep going, guys.