Now Is The Time To Go All In with Brent Orsuga

Intro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the elite recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, 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 [00:00:19]:
Before we get started with this awesome podcast interview, few quick announcements. First of all, the recruiting growth summit is About a month away, so make sure you get signed up for it. It's gonna be epic. Bringing some of the best coaches in the industry together under one place To help you grow and have the best 2024. It's gonna be awesome. So can't wait for you guys to join us. And all the book club, book of the month, Atomic Habits, Leaders are readers, so make sure to join us for that too. And, keep an eye out for what the book is gonna be for next month.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:52]:
So excited to have you guys listen to this podcast. It is going to fire you up. Alright. Here we go. I am excited about this episode of the elite recruiter podcast. I have my special guest, Brent Orsuga, and here's the thing that we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about how he grew his his staffing firm, Pinnacle growth advisers from literally the bedroom of his house to In. 5,000.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:19]:
And we're gonna we're gonna talk about everything from his dealer routine, like, what he does on a business development basis, and what it takes to succeed in the recruiting game. Brent, I'm so excited to have you here.

Brent Orsuga [00:01:31]:
I am too. I appreciate you asking me

Benjamin Mena [00:01:33]:
to be on. We always get started with in. First of all, how you In ended up in this wonderful world of recruiting.

Brent Orsuga [00:01:39]:
Yeah. My story in pretty easy. It was by accident, like, having most people. So I actually after I attended Arizona state. I'm from Northern California. I came out here to go to Go. Started working at Enterprise Rent A Car. You know, they have a really good management training program.

Brent Orsuga [00:01:52]:
They recruit a lot of ex athletes. It It was just a really good model for me, and there's a local MRI office out here in Scottsdale, which is one of the biggest MRI, facilities they have, And it's in funny because they brought me in as a candidate. Hey. We are looking at you for, like, a sales manager type position. What I didn't know is they had a motto. It was called keep the place the rest. Right? So as soon as I got in there, they were like, oh, we're not placing you anywhere else. We're gonna keep you for ourselves.

Brent Orsuga [00:02:21]:
Right? You know how to hire. You know how to train. You've been interviewing people. We're gonna turn you into a recruiter, and, literally, that's how it all started. Now the benefit for me is I got mentored and placed under the number 1 recruiter out of 1100 offices that they had. So you all about falling into a good situation? I fell into it. Man. Okay.

Brent Orsuga [00:02:46]:
So real quick.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:46]:
Did you play college sports? All. Okay. Because I know now the Brent was in the rental car company? We always went after college athletes, and I started off my Recruiting crew at AeroTech, so we'd go after them because they've already trained them up, and they were used to working 90 hours a week in a suit.

Brent Orsuga [00:03:03]:
All, look, I mean, being an athlete, you're wired differently. Lee, right, I'm a competitive person. It's something that you can't teach. I'm still a dom to this day at almost 47, and it's just something I can't turn off.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:12]:
And I I will sales, I I follow you on LinkedIn on Instagram Mhmm. And you've hit so many, like, 2 and 3 pointers. I'm like, I never wanna even come close to a basketball arena With you.

Brent Orsuga [00:03:23]:
Riding a bike, man. Riding a bike.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:26]:
Alright. So you started off there. Yep. You'd learned the ropes. Mhmm.

Brent Orsuga [00:03:30]:
How long did you stay

Benjamin Mena [00:03:31]:
at that MRI office before you went somewhere else?

Brent Orsuga [00:03:34]:
Yeah. So and it was funny because I got put into construction. I knew nothing about That was I mean, that's not renting cars. Right? So I had to learn a completely different industry as well. So even at the time, this in, like, During all it 03 to, like, 0 eight ish when my cons when, the construction industry was really hot, especially here in Arizona, But I didn't know what a project manager was. I didn't know really what a superintendent was, what their functions were. And so I had to learn a newly new industry as well that had a lot of success there. And then I was there for just a couple years then had an opportunity.

Brent Orsuga [00:04:07]:
I've kinda got recruited away once again to go run a sales organization here locally, which I did, and then I, built that up to over a 160 people within a year.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:17]:
Wait. Wait. So you built that up to a 160 people? Yep. Wow. Okay. Go, like, new

Brent Orsuga [00:04:22]:
Recruiting's in the blood at that point. Right? Because now you go from more of a, I I guess I don't wanna use the word transactional, but more lower volume recruiting, especially like at a Go, MRI type model Where you're displacing 1 person getting a huge fee where I went in a model of where it was more high volume, in, almost I hate to use the word call center type sellers, But it just involved adding a lot more people. So that was a skill set that has, you know, carried me to this point as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:50]:
Awesome. And so you when to a few other places, recruited there, what fella pushed you to make the jump up for your own firm?

Brent Orsuga [00:04:58]:
Getting burned by a partner like most peep Woah. So, yeah, this is a pretty interesting story. I don't go too deep into it because it's still a chip that I carry on my shoulder to this day, which serves me well. But, May 1, 2014, after being with somebody for 5 years, got a phone call that, hey. This is done. No heads up. No red flags. Go, hey.

Brent Orsuga [00:05:18]:
I'm thinking about doing this. Just done. Within minutes, my whole life had changed. So at time I was 37, I had a 1 year old kid, and then I'm at this crossroads. Right? What do I do now? The reality is you go 2 ways. Either I'm gonna go back and get a job, Or I'm gonna bet on myself. That was the crossroads I was at. And within 48 hours, after making a couple phone all, tapping through my network, I said, I'm not gonna let anybody ever do that to me again, and I've Brent on myself, and I started Pinnacle with 0.

Brent Orsuga [00:05:48]:
Nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. I mean, there was no business plan. There was no cash reserves. There was no business agreements. There was no client. There was no website. There was no email.

Brent Orsuga [00:06:00]:
There was not the LinkedIn presence that you see today. I need 0. Nothing on a phone and Wi Fi. So when I'm able to speak to recruiters about, hey. If I can do this, anybody can. Promise me, I've been at the rock bottom absolute zero situation.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:16]:
So you made that decision. Those are early days. Yeah. And what did your work ethic look like?

Brent Orsuga [00:06:22]:
Same as it does today. All offense, 100% go all the time. Look. Because when you're starting out like that too, you gotta remember. You gotta have Clients before you have candidates. Getting candidates is the easy part. So you talked about having to sell. I had to sell myself.

Brent Orsuga [00:06:37]:
I had to sell people to give me an opportunity, give me a chance. And at the time, my my angle was easy. Look. I have reasons to win that nobody else does. There is nobody that is gonna work on your stuff harder than myself. You give me an opportunity. Just let me perform. Right? It's contingent.

Brent Orsuga [00:06:57]:
I mean, I look back at some of the fees I was working on back then. I didn't care. I was just trying to get momentum and get activity going. Right? But that was my angle, And in I just made it honestly really hard for me to for people to tell me no. Really hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:10]:
And these are clients. Right?

Brent Orsuga [00:07:12]:
Yeah. These are clients. Candidates is easy. I can always get candidates. I was never worried about that. But, look, here's the formula within recruiting that I gotta think a lot of people have gotta remember. I had to pay my dues. Coming out where I was, I couldn't just go grab 8 clients.

Brent Orsuga [00:07:26]:
It's like a video game. You gotta pay your dues. I had to work on c, which unfortunately means I had to take c candidates there. B b, now we're at the a level. You have To pay your dues. Right? And it's gonna serve you better, but the formula is always there. If you're working on c clients, you can't take a talent there, Just like you can't take a talent to see clients. So for anybody that's listening to this that is a recruiter, you gotta understand The value is in the clients.

Brent Orsuga [00:07:56]:
That's why business development is a 247 game. In this game, You are only as dangerous as the logos and the teams that you represent.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:04]:
So you've got your first few clients. Yep. You started recruiting momentum. You started going from, c clients to b clients to a client. When when did you start growing past just you?

Brent Orsuga [00:08:14]:
Yeah. Go, again, honestly, it took almost 4 years Because I was so head down. We're going on year 10 now. So for the 1st 4 years, I was head down. I had to produce. I had to get this baby off the ground, if you will. I mean, it took me 3 months to get a $75100 Chuck, what you're gonna see is right behind me right there that I never forget. Right? Because that's a monumental moment.

Brent Orsuga [00:08:36]:
Because I knew if I could do it once, I could do it a 100 times. But for me, again, I was paying those dues by myself before I brought in other people, and I was trying stuff behind the scenes to see how to scale, how to kind of, You know, make things bigger, but you gotta figure a lot out on yourself too before I was able to do that. So and, honestly, it took almost 4 years before I did that.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:56]:
Okay. So real quick. To take a step back, it took you 3 months to get your 1st check.

Brent Orsuga [00:08:59]:
Yeah. $75100, felt like 1,000,000.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:02]:
What like, how long be between that and your 2nd check?

Brent Orsuga [00:09:05]:
Oh, then the then the snowball happened. Right? Because I was building pipeline and everything else. So, the first one was just it was monumental to me because it was proof of concept too. You know what I mean? I was proving My family, I was proven to other people that I can do this. Right? So what it did, it was not just a monetary thing. It was a belief thing. It became real at that point.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:24]:
And so, you you mentioned another thing. A lot of people like, you need to get your strikes. You need to put your work in. Yeah. I see a lot of recruiters that are just getting started. All of a sudden, they're wanting to hire people on their team, and I've you know, they're new in this industry. They're new recruiting, and I feel like you need to figure out your systems and what works for your organization. What would you say to them when they're, like, looking to initially hire somebody versus when they should probably start mastering the recruiting techniques To win for themselves first.

Brent Orsuga [00:09:54]:
Well, look, I've always kind of been taught there's 3 levels of early stage businesses. You have 0 to a1000000, you have 1 to 10,000,000, then you have 10 and above. Right? At every level, you're becoming a different version of even yourself and at a different each level is gonna be about systems and processes and tools. So early on, I don't know that you need all this overhead, all these people, all these moving parts because you have to get results first and foremost. So for me, that was always important. Right? How am I gonna bring other people into this system, into this team in it's not on autodial to a degree? If things are not in place. I don't have an actual system, a formula, if you will, to work off of. Right? I'm setting people up to fail.

Brent Orsuga [00:10:37]:
And here's the other thing too. If you're coming from the place of, like, a leadership seat, it's really hard to understand that not everybody's you. Right? Tempering those expectations because I can't assume that everyone's gonna work as hard as I'm gonna work. Their reasons to win might not be as hard or as big as mine. Right? And so I've always believed that as a leader, You have to be the one that shows up. You have to be the one that's gonna do the work. Do you know, do everything for these other people to be set up to win. Is that gonna happen on day 1, month 1, month 6? I don't know, man.

Brent Orsuga [00:11:11]:
I think you gotta have proof of concept first.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:13]:
Okay. And you just hit another big thing. Yeah. When it's your your company, your organization

Brent Orsuga [00:11:18]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:19]:
It it's all you. Yeah. When you're hiring people, how do you I don't wanna see, like, build that belief or build that work, but it's not it's do you see where I'm going?

Brent Orsuga [00:11:31]:
Like, how do you how do

Benjamin Mena [00:11:32]:
you find that high performer That's willing to buy into your vision.

Brent Orsuga [00:11:36]:
Because they got on two reasons. Number 1, they have to understand you personally as a leader, where are you taking this thing? Right? People bet on peep If you really even study shows like Shark Tank, it's not always about the product. They're betting on people. I'm a good Brent. Because, again, I know exactly crystal clear exactly what I'm trying to accomplish, where I'm taking this company, and everything else. So that is what I sold. You get around me, you're gonna in. Black and white.

Brent Orsuga [00:12:00]:
There's no in, ands, or buts behind it because then by then, too, think about it. I had proof of concept. I had years of success. I had a brand established. So that's where that became easier for me to add people at that point is because of that. It wasn't a true Startup. Hey. Let's figure this out.

Brent Orsuga [00:12:16]:
Let's just wing it. No. I know exactly where we're going. And so I think that from a belief stand point that's where people bought in. They just wanted to be around you because, look, you're gonna have a winning infectious energy, and I've always said this too about recruiting. Recruiting and sales is nothing more than an exchange of energy. You want people to feel you, believe in you, buy into you, bet on you, think that Being around you, their life is gonna get better professionally, personally, and everything in between. And that is what gravitated People towards me is because because of that.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:50]:
That's awesome. So in saying that, did your team kind of find you or did you find your team?

Brent Orsuga [00:12:55]:
You know, it's funny. A little bit of both, but I'll be honest. A lot of these people have come to me. They've seen me on LinkedIn. Right? They've said, wow. I just wanna get to Talk to you. I wanna get to know you. This happens all the time.

Brent Orsuga [00:13:06]:
There's probably another week that goes by that I don't get hit up by somebody and be like, I don't know what it is, But I just wanna be around you. Right? I want I want that infectious winning energy. I wanna be part of a winning culture. I wanna be part of a winning team. You know, what can I do to be, in join your team? Now look. I have very high standards for a very good reason because I have very good clients. We represent Very good candidates. I'm a big believer in high performers until I run throughout the day.

Brent Orsuga [00:13:33]:
That's what I want around me as well. I don't I don't look for mediocrity. I don't look for average. I don't speak that language. So as you're building a team, this is how you gotta look at it. You only wanna be able to bring high performers, but for you to bring on high performers, You gotta be a high performer yourself. So before you go out and start adding people, you gotta do a little bit of a self assessment. Am I gonna set these people up To win, am I gonna be able to provide them the best resources, the best tools, the best clients to work on? Because otherwise, they're just gonna go there for a couple weeks and fizzle up, And you're gonna go through this cycle over and over and over.

Brent Orsuga [00:14:09]:
But to go back to where we started, you gotta work on yourself first And get things dialed in before you bring other people onto that team.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:17]:
Mhmm. Powerful.

Brent Orsuga [00:14:19]:
Now when

Benjamin Mena [00:14:19]:
you were sitting there looking, you went from literally Nothing. Yeah. Your world changed overnight,

Brent Orsuga [00:14:25]:
and

Benjamin Mena [00:14:25]:
you realized you had to hustle probably like, you had to you had to bet on yourself. Yep. But when did you make the decision to actually start really scaling your organization?

Brent Orsuga [00:14:35]:
Yeah. It was I mean, once once I got to the point when there was this too much business where I couldn't Serve clients at the caliber and expectation that I have because there was a lot of business coming in, and and it's hard. Right? Because even as an early stage recruiter, You know, you hate to say no because when you say no in sales, 2 things happen. Number 1, they call somebody else at a necessity. They still have a need. And number 2, the next time that need comes up, they may not you may not be the one they think of. So all you're doing when you close the door is opening it for somebody else. Really hard for me to say go, but early on again, you gotta pay your dues.

Brent Orsuga [00:15:12]:
I wasn't early on in a place where I could say no. I needed yeses. That's why I was working on crap going back to it, right, or low level stuff. But that's the ultimate Power play in recruiting is when you can say no to clients because now you get selective. Now you get picky. Now you can work on really the good stuff In your terms, not theirs.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:35]:
And this kinda goes into a question, like, when you were by yourself. So Yeah. I I know some of the people that you associate with Mhmm. And they're absolute High performers that I think everybody should follow. Yep. Were you associating when you were out there by yourself, really, just for the 1st 4 years, Were you around other people? Were did you find those kind of people, or did you create that environment?

Brent Orsuga [00:15:56]:
Both. So I've always been a really good networking. I've always around, what I would say success people to a degree, and I seeked out mentors. I was a sponge. Right? I didn't know what I didn't know. So I would really tap in, well, 2 sides of the coin. Number 1, not only did I have to tap into individuals, but I really tapped into personal development. Right? I didn't watch TV, but I was listening to as many podcasts as I could, reading as many books as I could because I could control that.

Brent Orsuga [00:16:23]:
I could control what I can put in my brain. So the personal development aspect is as important as anything else. One of the biggest things that I did was I joined an organization called the Entrepreneurs' Organization or Go as it's known. And what I did at the time is you had to join what they called an accelerator program, which is if you did under $1,000,000 in revenue. But what it did is it got me around other people, other entrepreneurs, other people just getting off the ground. What are your pain point? What can I learn? And they actually brought in a mentor to teach us. Now the other side of the coin, the competitive side of the coin of that in to get out of that, What I consider JV in varsity, you gotta get over a1000000 in revenue. So you wanna talk about a driven, hungry person, Not only did I have that chip on the shoulder of what happened.

Brent Orsuga [00:17:11]:
Right? And I never forget that person that did that to me. But number 2, now I had a target. Now I said, okay. Now I gotta get to this next level, and that drove me as well because there's different people at different levels. And so I wanted to get around other people, and that drove me to get past that 7 figure mark at the time too.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:30]:
How did you find a that EO organization?

Brent Orsuga [00:17:32]:
Yeah. It's in almost every city. In almost every city. I think a lot of people need to look into this, whether it be that accelerator program or whether it be actual EO, which you have to cross the $1,000,000 mark to get into. But, again, there's one thing to learn from recruiters. I built that recruiter network. I love talking to recruiters. I pick stuff up every time.

Brent Orsuga [00:17:50]:
Hopefully, these people pick things up on this today. Business is business is business. All I did was trade the sport court for the business court. This is my new stage. This is my new court. Right? This is a new game that I'm playing. So I wanted to learn from people about financing, about hiring, about technology, about scaling, about all these different things, But you can't just go to your friends, neighbors, cousins, and ask those questions. You gotta get around people that are playing the sport Understand what they're doing.

Brent Orsuga [00:18:19]:
That's what the organization has done for me, and I'm still in it today, 6 years later.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:23]:
And I I think I've seen you on Instagram, actually meetups and Stuff up there. Just and I I think that's one thing that a lot of listeners or a lot of recruiting, you know, many of us are solo, many of us are work at small agencies, but There's so much power in getting in person or or in around a community. Mhmm. Yeah. Oh, that's really just,

Brent Orsuga [00:18:44]:
I mean, guys that you know. Right? Donnie Gupton. Everyone knows Donnie. Right? Him and I connected years back, and it's like, man, what are you talk you're talking to a lot of recruiters. What are you In, what are you seeing? I'm always having conversations. That's what I'm saying. There's no downtime during the day. Recruiting is not necessarily an 8 to 5 job, but I make it so.

Brent Orsuga [00:19:03]:
I make it so because I'm talking to people. I'm networking. I'm talking to candidates. I'm talking to clients. I'm just figuring out what people do. See the value in all organization like that too. You never wanna learn things the hard, long, expensive way. Learn from others.

Brent Orsuga [00:19:19]:
Just today, before this call, I had a call with somebody who's just getting started, and he was asking me, questions around, like, a 10.99 contractor model, all these things. I'm like, let me tell you some of the stuff that I learned the hard way. Right? I'm gonna save that person a lot of pain that I had to endure some in some cases Just by other people's experiences. There's one thing to get advice. There's another thing to get what I call experience shares. Hey. Do it this way. Don't do it that way.

Brent Orsuga [00:19:46]:
The better the more you can find that for yourself, the better it's gonna serve.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:49]:
Awesome. Hey. Okay. You're talking about, like, work ethic and everything. What does your day actually look like?

Brent Orsuga [00:19:54]:
Yeah. I'm a robot. So, I wake up at 4 o'clock. Right? What I'm doing is I'm going to the gym from 5 to call it 6 fifteen, I got 2 little kids, daughters, 7 and 10. I'm playing dad from 6 15 to 7, and then I'm in the office. I'm coming to the office. Right? 1st one in. So from 7, I'm here all about 5.

Brent Orsuga [00:20:14]:
I go home, once again, play dad 5 to 7, then I'm going back Online button up the day. I'm one of those people. My email's gonna be at 0. My LinkedIn inbox is gonna be at 0. Like, I'm clearing out the day. The last thing that I'll do is I'll set the intention for the next day. I'm never walking in here winging it. I always have a plan, an agenda, a playbook that I'm gonna execute on.

Brent Orsuga [00:20:35]:
To start the day, here's the other thing that I do. I play what I call offense, not defense. K? Offense to me is I'm coming in, and I'm setting the tone for what I want to accomplish that day. What meetings am I gonna set up? What clients am I gonna reach out to? What interview am I gonna move? What candidates am I gonna attempt to find out a status update? That to me is offense. The minute that you open yourself up to the big bad world of email hell, you're done. That is defense because now I'm playing defense. Now I'm putting out fires. Now this interview didn't show up.

Brent Orsuga [00:21:08]:
Now I'm dealing with a counteroffer. You see what I mean?

Benjamin Mena [00:21:11]:
Mhmm.

Brent Orsuga [00:21:11]:
When I'm in the office, I'm offense first, then I'll let the day come to me, but I control it. It doesn't control me.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:18]:
Now when you say, like, let the day come to you, about what time of the day do you finally like?

Brent Orsuga [00:21:22]:
You know, look. I mean, that's usually a good 45 minute run where I'm pushing out. And I'm I'm on the West Coast. Right? So I can do that. I think on the East Coast, it's a little bit different. I think you guys tend to dictate the day where I catch up to the day, So it allows me to do that, but that was something I always did. And, again, it goes back to a tangible Hit list, if you will, that I'm going to accomplish. Every single day, I have a list.

Brent Orsuga [00:21:48]:
I'm not leaving this office until that list is complete.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:52]:
How how big is that list typically?

Brent Orsuga [00:21:54]:
It varies. It could be some days 3 core hot and heavy items. It can go up to 10 and everything in between. Every day is a little bit different, but I dictate it the night before. And then what I can do throughout the day, I may add to it. Now that's going on the next day. You see what I mean? So I just let it compound, but I'm clearing stuff out. So everything I do is very intentional.

Brent Orsuga [00:22:15]:
Everything I do is very intentional. Every minute that I'm in the office, every phone call, every conversation, every client intake, every candidate call, I take them very serious because you're only gonna get so many at bats through the day. Why would you not show up as a 10 to 10 in every interaction that you're gonna have?

Benjamin Mena [00:22:34]:
Oh, fire. Say that one more time for the listeners.

Brent Orsuga [00:22:36]:
Well, yeah, because look. You're not on an autodialer. You're not putting on a phone call where you're just slouching over who's the next call, who's the next call. I look at every interaction I have like a performance. I may go a day where I'm only having 4 client calls, maybe 2, maybe 1. I may only talk to 2 or 3 candidates that day. Those candidates, those clients, they're getting the best version of me. They're getting 10 out of 10 experience, That's a keyword experience when they engage with me.

Brent Orsuga [00:23:06]:
They're gonna get the highest energy level. They're gonna get my tonality. They're gonna Feel me. Right? Because that it goes into the word experience. Just like when you go to a restaurant, a hotel, a sporting event, you're gonna have an experience, good, bad, and different. That is something I always took great pride in. What is somebody's experience when interacting with You know, you all about, well, why do I have such high energy levels? Because, again, recruiting and sales is an exchange of energy. I want you to feel my intensity, my passion, my desire, And drive for what I do.

Brent Orsuga [00:23:38]:
I can do that over Zoom, even more dangerous in a rope. That is awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:44]:
So recruiters. Yeah. I think that's another miss

Brent Orsuga [00:23:47]:
I yeah. If you hit a

Benjamin Mena [00:23:47]:
point that I I think recruiters don't do enough of is creating this experience for their candidates, experience for their clients because, You know, we live in a world that's very experience driven, but we haven't figured out many recruiters haven't figured out how to create that experience. How does a recruiter create experience In the phone or via Zoom, that they're always gonna be remembered.

Brent Orsuga [00:24:06]:
Confidence comes from competence. Confidence comes from competence. How well do you know your industry? How well do you know your clients? How much Diligence have you done on the individual or the company you're gonna, speak to, or are you just winging it? See, I do so much homework before I get on the call that I come from a very educated level. And here's the thing too, talk about experience. I guide people. You know, recruiting is one point of what we do. You know who we are? We're life coaches. We're consultants.

Brent Orsuga [00:24:41]:
We're financiers. We're parents and talking about kids, and, I mean, we're all over the place. Right? We're getting real granular. The most dangerous thing that we did, going back to the word experience, I knew these clients. I went to visit these clients. I went to their offices. I sat in the conference room. I met with leadership.

Brent Orsuga [00:25:00]:
I can close my eyes right now. You name a company, I can describe a 100 different offices. What you have out there in the marketplaces, you have a lot of recruiters Telling you how great a restaurant is they've never eaten at. Versus myself who can tell you where to sit, the waiter to ask for, and the secret menu. I'm dangerous as far as that goes. Right? So that's what you gotta ask yourself from an experience standpoint, how much more dangerous are you to sell an opportunity If it makes sense, not because you make a need a commission check. If it makes sense to do that introduction to that person because you need it Or notes. You powerful.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:39]:
And before we start, like, talking and before we hit the record button, you've been talking about a little bit of how powerful LinkedIn has been.

Brent Orsuga [00:25:46]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:47]:
And you you've been do going, like, ham on video. Yeah. Why video?

Brent Orsuga [00:25:51]:
Because no one does it. People are people that I come across, it blows my mind. I don't like how I look. I don't like how I sound. I don't have a good setup. Okay. If you don't have that self belief, What in the heck are you portraying to the market? What do you think somebody's gonna think when they get on the phone with you? Right? If you can't get on video and Speak in a very clear, concise way for a minute or 2 minutes, that's concerning to me. You gotta understand, we live in a visual world.

Brent Orsuga [00:26:21]:
I don't care if it's TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. The reality when it comes to branding and LinkedIn and everything else, you fall into 2 categories. Either you consume or you create. That is it. You're watching or you're doing. Right? So I'm gonna choose the latter. I'm gonna make sure that in the feed, I am a consistent person every single day. Here's the other thing.

Brent Orsuga [00:26:45]:
When it comes to video, Again, I want people to understand how I speak, how I present myself. You think this backdrop is here by accident? I get on a phone call, and this tells you everything you need to know about me without me saying a word. How many people have a bedroom door, A closet, no picture, no offense. You can control that backdrop. I'm painting a picture and a story without me even telling to you. I had a designer come in and build this for me. This In. 5,000 was a blank space until I won it.

Brent Orsuga [00:27:18]:
You think it's by accident right behind my head? Everything I do, going back to the word intentional, has a purpose behind it.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:25]:
All, I absolutely love that. And for the listeners, if you want a good laugh, were doing video calls when we first moved into this place, and my wife got done with in. We got done with a video call. My wife is my partner. Yep. And she's like, We're on the Zoom with a client, and you look like you were a hostage in Afghanistan. So she actually went and build out this entire wall of background. She's like, You have to look professional.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:46]:
We we have a professional business. Like, you absolutely love that you said that.

Brent Orsuga [00:27:51]:
No. Look. Well, look, man. We're 3 years into this too. 3 years. If by now you have not invested in the importance behind that, I'll even give you the listeners a little tip. Like, I am endorsed or anything by this company, but what I use is a company called CenterCam. CenterCam.

Brent Orsuga [00:28:09]:
What it does is strategically drops the camera go there's direct eye contact in the center of your screen. Because, again, it goes back to those very basic items. I want you to see me and steal me so that you feel that I'm right there with you. Right? Eye contact, Direct. There's no weird angles. I'm not luck in off to the side. I want you to feel kinda my energy, my tonality, my facial structures, everything when you engage.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:36]:
And real quick, I've I've seen the commercials of Firstutter Cam. I've always wondered about the video quality. If you're listening to this right now, he like, Brent has looked at me the entire time Yep. And I thought he was just so good with the camera, and the the video for the center camera is actually pretty good. So Yeah. Little little quick endorsement from the other side of the camera. So thank you, Brad. What do you think is the reason why you've been winning, you've been growing, you've been scaling, while others haven't.

Brent Orsuga [00:29:05]:
You wanna remember the the real truth in number 1, that chip on the shoulder I talked about, I've never taken off. Number 2, I look around and unfortunately see a lot of mediocrity. I don't think that people really understand their clients as much as they do. Number 3, I don't like the word recruiter because I think when you hear the word recruiter, you think of people trying to pitch something for their own personal gain. I like the word talent adviser. I'll even go back to old school headhunter a little bit more. Look. As 23 was hard on everyone, don't discount that.

Brent Orsuga [00:29:39]:
Right? 24, there is a demand for talent right now like never before, and here's why. Everybody clean house in 23. There is no more average mediocrity. Hey. Nice person. Let's take him back. Every hire right now is a bull's eye. They're filling a hole.

Brent Orsuga [00:29:59]:
Do you not think that to fill that hole, that person's probably working for somebody else? Do you not think that all of a sudden head recruiting Versus recruiting in at a premium. Do you think that companies really need us just to post a job description, remove their company name, and blast it out and post and pray? Or do they need killers? Do they need Dom? Do they know people that know how to poach and go sell on their behalf to the market? So you wanna know why we in us because of that. Because high performing companies wanna deal with high performing recruiters To bring high performing individuals into the office. It is a three touch sport. So, again, why do you win is because number 1, we compete like crazy. Number 2, I go all day long, Hard as anyone can be. All gas, no breaks. Number 3, I have that chip on the shoulder.

Brent Orsuga [00:30:50]:
And number 4, I don't know if this is healthy or not, But I play a lot of mental games with myself. I observe other people in the industry, other people recruiting, and I come at them. They don't know about it, but I use them as fuel in you wanna be honest. That's the competitive son of a gun in me from the sports background. Right? I look across the field, I find an enemy and I compete. It's not even about them, but I use them as triggers. That serves me every single day because I can create that intensity for myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:19]:
So 2 questions on that. How does a person go find a trigger person to compete against?

Brent Orsuga [00:31:25]:
Yeah. Look. It it can be in your office. It can be in your house. It can be a family member. Look. Again, I'm not saying that it's the most healthy thing, but it works for me. Patrick Bet David, if you know him, he his new book is exactly around that.

Brent Orsuga [00:31:38]:
It's called choose your enemies wisely. You know, look. You have to compete. I've always come from a place. I'm not feeding my family. Like, what you don't see is the, in here on the wall. It says if you don't kill it, your family won't eat. Oh, have this above my wall.

Brent Orsuga [00:31:55]:
The other one says no one cares, work harder, because that's the god honest truth as well. K? So to create that enemy, again, it can be anything. It can be a bill that you have to pay. It can be a trip that you hadn't missed out on last year because you weren't closing enough deals, but you want this year. It can be an enemy that, oh my gosh, I really wanna get my kid into that private school. And Guppy, an enemy of I wanna drive an Escalade, not a Honda Pilot. All of a sudden, I wanna use that anger to drive me into motion. You see what I mean? It's not always about a person.

Brent Orsuga [00:32:25]:
In can be a place or a thing, but you gotta be able to create these triggers and work a little angry, which leads you to work intentional throughout the day.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:33]:
And the okay. So I love that. Yeah. The next question I have is you happen to just Land in one of the best MRI offices. Yep. You didn't you didn't have to, like, pick up everything that you did. Not every recruiter out there

Brent Orsuga [00:32:48]:
The game

Benjamin Mena [00:32:49]:
was blessed about being their 1st recruiting job around such incredible recruiters. And like I said, There are other recruiters in the office I can guarantee that did not learn as much as you did. Mhmm. But for those recruiters that wanna just grow, Wanna learn more about the in? Wanna wanna get better? What would you tell them? Where would you point them? What do they need to do?

Brent Orsuga [00:33:11]:
Look. There's a high performer in every single office. Every single office. Things are caught, not taught. So as much as you wanna teach yourself all these little hacks, why would you not gravitate towards somebody who already has proven results and Ask what they're doing. Ask to sit next to them. Ask to take them to lunch. Ask to take them and and be on their calls, whatever the case be.

Brent Orsuga [00:33:35]:
No one's just gonna hand you anything. No one's gonna give you a golden platter and say, oh, you wanna be a 7 figure era? Wow. That's great. Here you go. Here's the playbook. You again have got to play Offense, not defense. Defense is sitting on your hands, waiting, in, and praying and wishing that somebody's just gonna give you this golden ticket. Playing offense is going out speaking in these individuals.

Brent Orsuga [00:33:56]:
You know on LinkedIn who's producing and who's not. There's a lot of noise, and there's a lot of people chasing likes and comments. I chase production in dollars. There's different things that I chase. Right? You gotta find out who the real hitters are and not just the noisy people and gravitate towards them. Find the sales, not the pigeons.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:14]:
So you said one thing that I think was huge in my early career was getting around those winners. Yes. And Thank god I moved my my chair back at AeroTech

Brent Orsuga [00:34:26]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:27]:
To be close to those high performers in the office because there were there were 2 performers that were Fucking awesome. Yes. But if you actually now that you've said that, I kind of, like, mentally looked at a a money map of the entire office. Mhmm. And it It was the 2 corners that had the most money that outproduced everybody else in the middle. And it was just like the the people that were closer to those high performers actually made more money than the people that were you know what?

Brent Orsuga [00:34:55]:
That know if you saw the close idea today, but there's a really good individual that talks a lot about this named Cody Sanchez. And there's what it is, it's based around actual studies that depending on where you sit in an office, depending on who you are around, You are in getting better or worse. And here's the thing too. This is wild, but I do a lot of talks about, like, even as people onboard folk. Think about this. When you're a new employee and you go in a company, really, you gravitate or can gravitate 2 ways. Number 1, you're gonna have what I'm gonna call High performing group. They're in doing their own thing, hand down, just doing action.

Brent Orsuga [00:35:32]:
And you're gonna have the welcome committee, The bubbly people bouncing around the office, wanting to go to lunch, wanting to leave and hang out. Right? Happy hour crew. It's real easy to gravitate towards them, but I guarantee you, those are usually 2 different calibers of people. Who are you choosing to be around? Who are you communicating with your leadership? Now, look, I'm not here to play games. I'm not here to Go to happy hour and have small talk and hang out. I'm here to perform. Stick me next to those people. And I used to compete too.

Brent Orsuga [00:36:04]:
I used to walk into an office And be like, who's the number 1 person? Show me the top 3 people in this office. And I had a little swag around me too where I'd be like, hey. I'm coming for you. Because look about this. If you've ever run before, do you not feel when someone's behind you? You don't feel that energy when someone's coming for you? You always do. Right? So I wanted to put a little pressure on that. Now management loved me because now they knew the young guns coming in to put some heat on these guys, And that was the reality too, but I used them going back to my triggers, going back to my enemies. These were friends, but I used them As triggers for myself in order to compete, how many people are doing that in an office? It's not even about them.

Brent Orsuga [00:36:45]:
You use them.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:47]:
Oh, awesome. Well, before we move over to the other part of the podcast, is there anything else that you wanna cover about, like, your growth, how you've scaled, like, The future of your organization.

Brent Orsuga [00:36:58]:
Yeah. Look. I mean, again, I I think that it's really important, this In 5,000, as much as it's awesome in a contingent only model. Right? We start at 0 every day of every month of every year. That's why that one I take a lot of pride in. But the importance behind that one as well is it didn't just happen by accident. I'm a really big believer visualization. I'm a really big believer in goal setting.

Brent Orsuga [00:37:22]:
I'm a really big believer in Verse engineering, communicating your goals, being an open book, being transparent, and I was that. In 2019, I had a graphic made, A graphic made from the future, and it said year 2023, In five thousand in, because I knew you had to do it on a 3 year run, so I knew I was gonna do this in 2021 and 22. Now in March 2020, I didn't know I was gonna lose 95% of my business, but that made it more fun. I don't like easy. Right? But I was vocal about that. I communicated into it. I created a belief. There was not anybody around me that was like, wow.

Brent Orsuga [00:38:00]:
I don't think you're gonna do that. So I didn't get the haters. I didn't get the naysayers. You know what I got? Believers, rooters, cheerleaders, people that wanted to see you win. So now as I went throughout my day, I had people believing in me, betting on me. Right? So I worked differently as well. So as I'm communicating with other recruiters, I always ask them, what do you want? What do you want? Right from the future. Let's reverse engineer that.

Brent Orsuga [00:38:27]:
You wanna make a certain amount? Let's break down what that looks like per deals. Let's carry ourselves as though it already happened and work away, not towards. There's a lot I can get into that, But my belief system is so strong. It does not allow me to take days off.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:43]:
So when Back in 2019, Yam made this out.

Brent Orsuga [00:38:47]:
Yep. It was on my screen saver on my phone. It was on the TV in my office. I have a whiteboard when my daughter, Drew, you're the best dad, and you won the In 5,000. Again, I was vocal about it. I wasn't shy to tell people what I wanted to accomplish. Think about it like this, but what you don't understand too is in order to get that, much like I told you, I had to cross that 1,000,000 threshold, You gotta cross 2,000,000 to get there. So now the belief had to happen.

Brent Orsuga [00:39:12]:
The activity had to happen. How do we become a a company that's gonna be able to cross that 2,000,000 mark? What kind of clients do we need? How many placements do we have to have? What kind of systems do we need in place? You understand? So as much as it's about the award, It's about who you become on the journey to the award that is the impactful part.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:32]:
So you put this vision out there. You worked every day for this vision. Like, this vision became a reality. Mhmm. Did you build out plans for your team to hit this, or did you Build out an environment where your team built out their own plans to help them hit their own goals.

Brent Orsuga [00:39:48]:
I kinda don't mind the game plan because, again, I'm really big on math. Look. In Any recruiting company, there's more data available than you would think. There's not 1 recruiter or recruiting company That shouldn't know their average fee. I dumbed it down. Average fee. Right? Let's just do let's just look at math. Let's just say that your average fee It's $22.

Brent Orsuga [00:40:10]:
Right? I think a lot of people kinda play in that 18 to 20 by rage. I'm gonna go $22. So all I do is say, okay. Well, if I gotta go 2,000,000 Divided by 22 gram, that's 90 deals. Ken, 90 deals doesn't seem like many. If I break that down over 4 quarters, of 22 deals. If I break that down over 3 months, that's 7 deals a month. I think that's doable.

Brent Orsuga [00:40:32]:
You see what I mean? So I named the number smaller, not bigger. And then every time we did a deal, I worked away. So I didn't go, 0, 14,076,200 and 30,000. No. No. No. I went the other way. I went 2,000,000, 1.9, 1 75, 1.6.

Brent Orsuga [00:40:51]:
I went away as though it already happened. So then over the course of a year, that number became smaller and more attainable and And boom, we crossed it.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:00]:
So you you crossed it the 1st year. How did you make sure that the because a lot of times when people, they hit their 1st goal. Yeah. I don't wanna say that they take their foot off their gas, but, Like, we got there. How did you keep the team moving?

Brent Orsuga [00:41:12]:
Momentum and belief. Right? Oh, that's doable. That's attainable. Imagine what else we could do. Right. It starts with the leader. What are you conveying? What message? What buy in are you getting? Wow. Didn't it feel good to have your best year? Didn't it feel good? You gotta involve emotion to a degree.

Brent Orsuga [00:41:29]:
Didn't you feel good to be able to take your family on a trip? Think how many lives you impacted. Right? Because here's the thing. In recruiting, we win last. The client wins, the candidate wins, and we win last. When you put others first, it's gonna be very rewarding to you. You can never mess that formula up because I guarantee you, every candidate is gonna know when you need a check, When you need a deal, when you're playing tight, you come at a different angle. And we've all been there, Myself in, there's not early on. There's not times where I didn't need 5, 10, $15.

Brent Orsuga [00:42:06]:
Right? And I you never wanna camp come from the place of pushing or forcing. You cannot mess with people's careers and livelihoods,

Benjamin Mena [00:42:13]:
and you've hit this goal. Good year. Congrats. What's next?

Brent Orsuga [00:42:17]:
Yeah. I mean, now So we've been pretty recruiting heavy. So now I have what I call 5 streams to 5,000,000. So now what's gonna be about branching out into other segments. Right? So, yes, recruiting is always gonna be in there. We're gonna get deeper into, mergers and acquisitions because now I'm like, well, forget to place people. I'm gonna whole company. I'm gonna go sell a whole company to someone.

Brent Orsuga [00:42:40]:
Have high interest there, and I got relationships in place. I also do think that not everybody can use us from a pure in standpoint, but there is a consulting arm that can be offered. Right? You Brent me in an organization. I can tell you How to recruit, retain, hire, culture, all these things that are very important. That's worth something to somebody. On the other side, I'm gonna get into, He notes speaking because as you can tell, I have a lot of passion around this. Right? And even though I play

Benjamin Mena [00:43:07]:
in my passion,

Brent Orsuga [00:43:09]:
even though I play in supply chain, The hardest part of every company is people. The number one competitive advantage of every company is people. You and I both know it is a broken system within so many companies. If I can go out to the world and speak Around again, hiring, recruiting, interview process, retention, culture, high performance. You are what you tolerate. Any of these things, It's only gonna elevate everything around us and make everyone better. That is very passion driven for me, but I'm gonna turn it into a profit as well. And then I've been asked a lot To actually coach recruiting, and, when people ask, sometimes you gotta listen.

Brent Orsuga [00:43:49]:
So there might be something there too I have in the works.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:52]:
Well, there's it's one thing I have seen with the interviews and the podcast and the conversations I've had out there. Like and that's why I asked the question. Not everybody really had that good start They came to recruiting. And, you know, they didn't have that good environment or they're good manager, and it's they're finding that online and they're Looking for coaching or looking for ways to grow, which is one of the the things that I love about this recruiting community is people wanna grow.

Brent Orsuga [00:44:16]:
Well and look. It's reps. All all it is, all that makes me better than somebody else is reps. I've taken more shots just like basketball and golf swings, whatever. I just have more reps. I've been through more situations. So going back to what should people do early on, you wanna be having as many reps as possible, was many emails, as many AB analysis beta testing, as many phone calls, as many rejections, as many, counteroffer in. This is only going to serve you.

Brent Orsuga [00:44:43]:
You gotta remember, there's no such thing as lawssons losses. Excuse me. They're lessons. Embrace it. Flick the mindset. Oh, wow. Wouldn't do that again. Now I know how to navigate those waters.

Brent Orsuga [00:44:54]:
That's where you get dangerous in it's just repetitions that we have over others.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:58]:
Well, Well and that goes to you just answered the question of how to how what advice you would give to a Brent new recruiter? What advice would you give to a seasoned professional that's been in the game for a while?

Brent Orsuga [00:45:08]:
Don't take your foot off the gas. Never assume deals are done. Don't ever get too comfortable or 2023 is gonna happen again to you. Too many people won. Too many people thought it was easy, and they got exposed really fast.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:23]:
Do you have a a book that has impacted your personal career and success?

Brent Orsuga [00:45:27]:
I'm I'm an avid reader. There's so many. I read books Around I mean, I can go old school, the originals, the think and grow riches. I read a lot of books around mindset. I read a lot of books about selling. I mean, here's a book that I think many should read that's gonna resonate with you. It's called You Are What You Click. This is a 2024 thing.

Brent Orsuga [00:45:46]:
You are what you What it means is you are what you consume. Right? So everybody needs to do an audit, especially as we're early in 24. What am I consuming? Right? What am I paying attention to? Because it's real easy to swirl on TikTok for 2 hours, get lost on In, watching other people's lives that you don't even know. Imagine if you remove that, tricked the algorithm into positive messages, Really good things. Use it as, wow, I wanna see this trip, this car, that house I wanna be a part of, Those family moments, what if you could trick the algorithm to feed your brain there as opposed to all the doom and gloom, all the negativity, all the comparison game? Don't do that to yourself. Read that book. It will change your mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:35]:
Oh, and gonna order that? Huge fan of that. I've been a huge proponent of, Curating your friends list, curating who you're following because it really just has such an impact in your day. Like, you scroll or In, win, success, like work.

Brent Orsuga [00:46:51]:
And look and here's the thing. You cannot compare yourself. Right? I'm on a 10 year journey. 20 really 22 years of recruiting, 15 in chain 10 on my own. Somebody that's 10 months in is running a completely different rate the race. There's no good, bad, indifferent. You gotta stay in your lane. You can learn from others, but don't compare yourself against others.

Brent Orsuga [00:47:10]:
Right? I don't pay your mortgage. You know what I mean? Like, stay in your lane and dominate what you do. Control the controllables. Control the we can go real deep here. Control what you eat. Control if you're working out. Control if you're drinking or not. Control what you're consuming.

Brent Orsuga [00:47:27]:
Control what you're putting in your mouth. Control what you're putting in your ear. Control your daily activity. Control the clients you're engaging with. Control the experience people have with you. Those are controllable items. You know what I can't control? Economic win, political in, social wins. I can't control that, but I can control the stuff that is between my 2 hands.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:45]:
Awesome. And I love what you said about, like, working in your lane, and don't compare yourself because there's so many times, like, you're out there looking at other people, like, Well, I just needed that or look at that.

Brent Orsuga [00:47:56]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:57]:
Your story has been completely different than most people, but still go book be focused on writing your own story.

Brent Orsuga [00:48:03]:
And the story should resonate with many literally from 0. 0. I mean, I'm talking about where that $75100 check, I needed that. I needed that. Right? So I've been there back to the all, no plan b, but that's another thing that I never gave myself an out. I never gave myself a plan b. I never gave myself a hey. Let's just try this for 90 days and see if it works.

Brent Orsuga [00:48:23]:
When your back is to the wall is when you find out what you're made of. I've never not taken that approach now 10 years later.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:33]:
Do you have, like, a favorite recruiting tech tool that you love at the moment?

Brent Orsuga [00:48:37]:
You know, there's a couple that I've been exposed to that I've definitely beta tested and tried. There's a really cool one called Talin, t a l I n. I don't know if you're familiar with this. I got introduced to the owner directly, but it's, it's really around outreach. It's an AI focused tool where you can be able to, Half different people go directly to their email versus LinkedIn. If they don't respond after a certain amount of days, you can actually send them a connection invite again. It's just really one that I've embraced because Mattha and I haven't fully embraced AI, but I will be honest. I'm a little bit of a slow adapter.

Brent Orsuga [00:49:09]:
It's just that old school headhunting, smile and dial person in me, but I know it's coming. You gotta adapt or die. Awesome. Like, I know we've talked

Benjamin Mena [00:49:19]:
a bunch about success, a bunch about how you've been driven, a bunch about how you you play to win. You're always on offense. But if you could take take it down in, like, one quick thought, What do you think has been the biggest driver of your own personal success?

Brent Orsuga [00:49:32]:
2 things. Number 1, chip on the shoulder. I know that I keep talking about that, but it has served me well to Create that fire every single day. And number 2, it's what I call reasons to win. Look. I got 2 little kids. I got a wife. My dad passed in 16, so now I got a mom that, you know, you become the man of the family.

Brent Orsuga [00:49:53]:
Those to me are reasons to in. And I'm a big believer. Anyone that knows me knows I I, you know, have been fortunate not to be coached by people like Ed Mylett. And one of the biggest things I learned from him is this. Look. In every family every family, there's 1 person that changes the trajectory, changes the belief, Change is the trips you go on. Right? All those things. Why would that not be you? What do you gotta do? Leave that to a sibling? Leave that to one of your children to be that 1, or is it gonna be you? As soon as I heard that, and I think a lot of people when they hear that, You know when you're the one.

Brent Orsuga [00:50:32]:
You know when you're that person in your family. Not only do you know it, but as weird as it sounds, Everyone else kinda knows it too. Once you embrace that, you work differently. You carry yourself differently. Expectations are different. I work that way every day. I'm that person. I'm that one.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:53]:
So a lot of people, know Ed. Yep. You went from nothing in your bedroom to being coached by him. Yeah. How did you get in those doors?

Brent Orsuga [00:51:02]:
Yeah. That was actually really cool. It's through the RIT in the name of the coaching program, so Tim and Andy for selling. So I joined that back in 19. Prime example, you asked me around circles and rooms and how do I get around that. That has a culture. Right? That's a pretty high in personality type environment, but I seek that. There's recruiters in there I've met a 100%.

Brent Orsuga [00:51:24]:
There's a lot of other business owners. There's a lot of other men. There's a lot of other fathers and parents and husbands. Right? But I created that environment for myself. That's what resonates with me. Those are the people I wanna hang out with. So, again, it just goes back to being part of that in, but, initially, that was personal development. I didn't just wake up one day and end up at Andy Fussello's house in St.

Brent Orsuga [00:51:47]:
Louis. Right? I had to listen to the podcast by myself. I had to put in that work behind the scenes before that opportunity even presented itself.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:56]:
Awesome. Go I'm gonna ask this question twice. Yep. Like, everything you know now, everything you've gone through, if you could sit down with yourself at the very beginning of your your own business. It's like when you were sitting in that bedroom trying to get that $75100 check. What advice would you tell yourself?

Brent Orsuga [00:52:13]:
Put others first. Because, again, early in, not that I did this every time, but I needed deals. Look, man. I needed deals. I had bills to pay. Right? When you come from that angle, the universe is not always going to reward you Because you're going against the grain that we talked about. The more people you help get what they want, The more you'll get what you want in return. There's a famous quote we've all heard at Jim Rohn, but it's really true.

Brent Orsuga [00:52:41]:
You have to serve others in order to be served. Early on, never forget. We win last. Wyatt wins? The candidate in, And when we do what we're supposed to do, we'll win as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:57]:
Awesome. And so this is the same question. Yep. But first, if you go a chance to sit down with yourself, Right when you got out of college, maybe even before you took that, the rental car job, what would you tell yourself?

Brent Orsuga [00:53:11]:
Dream bigger. Because, again, I've been able to tap into a lot of manifestation, visualization, create a movie script for myself. This stuff is real. You know what I mean? Here's an exercise I think everybody should do. I didn't do this till probably mid thirties. Take a piece of paper. Write down it's December 31, 2024. This year, I and go.

Brent Orsuga [00:53:35]:
What did you accomplish? What did you handle physically? What trips did you go on with your family? And, again, it's like a movie script. Right? Involve emotion, but pen to paper. Read it throughout the day. Share it with others. Remind yourself on the hard days what you're doing, what you want. Not what your coworker want, not what your cousin wants, not your neighbor, what you want. Having that Concrete information in front of you at all times. Focused on these goals.

Brent Orsuga [00:54:08]:
You don't just get in your car and drive, do you? Imagine how dangerous you'd be every time you got in your car, you utilized the GPS. Would you land where you're trying to get? Why would you not do that with your business in your life? Why would you not narrow down exactly where you're trying to go, what you're trying to accomplish, The exact amount of money you're trying to make and focus all in on that. I wish I did that earlier on because it works.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:39]:
Awesome. Well, Brett, before I let you go, and this has been Fucking awesome. Is there anything else that you wanna share with the listeners?

Brent Orsuga [00:54:46]:
Look, I think that, again, you cannot involve emotion. One of the best things that I learned from Ashley Ed is this. The minute that you involve emotion in business is the minute you go back to being an employee. There's a keyword that I learned called equanimity, staying calm under duress. You never saw Tom Brady rattled in a 2 minute drill. You never see mock Michael Jordan not want the ball at the end of the game. They never got too high. They never got too low, and they stayed calm.

Brent Orsuga [00:55:22]:
Learning that skill In a game of recruiting of highs and lows and everything in between is the key to long term success.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:32]:
Awesome. Well, Brett, I just wanna say thank you so much for coming in, sharing with the listeners. I I truly believe 2024 is going to be a year that's going to change a lot of recruiters' lives for the positive. I would agree.

Brent Orsuga [00:55:48]:
I would agree. Look. I think 23 was probably as bad as it gets, and I think for some people, that was the first Hard market they went through. Now here's the last thing I wanna lead people in to. If you're gonna deal with hard markets, then you better become hard. You better become hard physically. You better become hard mentally. You better become hard financially, whatever it may be to weather those storms.

Brent Orsuga [00:56:11]:
Again, offense versus defense. Don't let the markets play you like a puppet. Get real dialed in. Get real dangerous. Get real clear on how to navigate these waters so that you're not just going at the mercy of the market.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:28]:
Perfect way to end this. For the listeners, if they wanna, like, follow you, connect with you, where do they do that?

Brent Orsuga [00:56:34]:
I think LinkedIn's the most common place, obviously, go it's Brent Orsuga on there. I think I have a pretty good Instagram page because I show a lot more of kinda behind the scenes, like day in the life type stuff. You're gonna see me driving to the gym at 5 in the morning. You'll see me doing drop off with my kids, going to EO events, charity events, out here hustling. I just think it makes it more real with people too. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:54]:
Well, Brent, thank you so much for coming in. And for the listeners, let's grow let's grow, guys.

Intro [00:56:58]:
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