8 Months Without a Placement Before It All Came Together with Parker Chaney

00:00:18 Exciting interview, events, community, recruiting, inspiration, overcoming challenges.
00:03:14 Finding purpose through humor led to sales career.
00:07:37 Moving on, new plans, self-guidance, life-changing.
00:09:40 Initial success from YouTube, learned from Nader. Used job search tactics while working. Confusion with work and personal calls.
00:14:05 Confidence, indifference, personalized videos boost success.
00:16:05 Having a child gives motivation and purpose.
00:21:06 LinkedIn outreach, adding 70-100 connections, 8,000 followers, AI program Typing Mind for ChatGPT prompts.
00:23:22 Embrace the suck and stay focused.
00:25:49 Simplify your strategy, delegate tasks, gain success.
00:30:08 Focus on one thing, don't do everything.
00:34:29 "I try to focus on three things: building a strong foundation, hiring more people, and expanding our services."
00:37:07 I bring revenue, trial with customer saves money.
00:39:56 Don't be hard on yourself, it'll happen.
00:41:45 Slow start, but now awesome podcast success.

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 [00:00:18]:

Before we get started with this amazing interview, I wanna give you guys a heads up on a few things. Got some events that we're putting together So that way, we all grow together as a community. And then on top of that, on November 1st, the elite recruiter community is gonna be up and live. That way you get a chance to connect with other recruiters out there that are chasing their dreams, growing, and really look forward to everybody leveling up and crushing it in 2024. So but back to this podcast, and you guys are gonna love this one. I'm excited about this episode of The elite recruiter podcast. I have my guest, Parker Cheney, with me, and we are gonna talk about What can happen and what you can do when your back is against the wall? So I'm excited to have Parker on here because he jumped into this business. He didn't jump into, like, a recruiting chair.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:09]:

He jumped into being a recruiting business owner With 0 recruiting experience after getting let laid off twice. And I'll let him share the story, but, like, Didn't make a placement for the 1st 8 months and now has figured out systems, branding, technology, where he's consistently pulling in 50 k plus months. And because of everything, is working if he wanted to, he can work less than 5 hours a week Because he's figured out the systems in place to be a superhuman recruiter. So, Parker, welcome to the podcast.

Parker Chaney [00:01:45]:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:48]:

So I know you're gonna probably gonna tell your story by the you're having your back against the wall and there's you had nowhere else to go except for Fighting your way back out. But before we get there, let's talk about what you did before you got in the recruiting space.

Parker Chaney [00:02:03]:

Yeah. So I guess kind of a long short story. I started doing manual labor right out of high school. Took a year off, quote, unquote, And really didn't have any plans to go back, but that's kinda what I told everybody. Wasn't a huge fan of school, and so right out of high school, got a job making hot tubs, And it was hot. It was $10 an hour. I thought, hey. I'm gonna start a family.

Parker Chaney [00:02:23]:

I'm making all this money, you know, going from seven 7.25 to $10 an hour. I thought, oh my goodness. I'm rich. I can start a family. Turns out that's not the case. That's not a lot more money. And so did that for 2 years, right before I got married to my high school sweetheart, I got a job at a CNC shop, and it was great. It was air conditioned.

Parker Chaney [00:02:44]:

I could wear jeans and a sweatshirt all day long, put my headphones in, be with myself, watch YouTube. I was like, this is great. I'm never leaving. Turns out $16 an hour, still enough to raise a family. And so, ended up switching jobs to a different CNC machine shop And was making, like, $25 an hour there thinking, oh my goodness. We can start a family now. Turns out, still not enough money. And at that point, I was kind of like Like, I I I don't enjoy this anymore, and I can't make enough money unless I'm working 80 hours a week.

Parker Chaney [00:03:14]:

I wanna be around my wife. I wanna have a kid. Like, I've gotta figure something out. I don't I had to go to school. I had no degree or anything like that, no skills other than just manual labor, and I thought, like, okay, what can I do? And just cover some self reflection of, like, what do I actually enjoy? I don't know what I enjoy. And the only thing I could really go off is Always been the funny, witty guy and really easy to make people laugh. And so one of the guys was like, hey. You should maybe do sales because they talk to people a lot and, like, you're really good at, making people laugh, and so that's kind of like the start to all this journey a couple years ago.

Parker Chaney [00:03:48]:

And so for about 6 months, 12 hours a day, 6, 7 days a week, just listen to any and all sales books I could find. I probably listened to how to win friends and influence people, like, Twenty times at least, like, within a couple weeks, and just kinda just soaked up as much as I could, and I kinda just let everybody know there. Hey. I'm gonna get into sales. I don't wanna be here. I'm getting into sales, and he was kinda, like, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Parker Chaney [00:04:11]:

Whatever. You know? Good luck with that, and ended up telling my boss there after getting written up, Like, a couple days before I quit, and he was like, hey. Like, what's going on? And I was like, I really don't wanna be here. He's like, yeah. I know. And he's like, what do you wanna do? And I was like, I wanna get into sales, and he He said, what the what the heck he's gonna do in sales? And I was like, I'm gonna make a lot more money than I'm making here. And he's like, oh, you know, you can make $100 here, blah blah blah blah. I made $100.

Parker Chaney [00:04:34]:

It's like that's not I can't there's no way. I can't do that with 80 hours a week. Everybody here is working 3rd shift, AD hours a week, hates their job, doesn't wanna be around their families, tired all the time, and that was kinda like, hey. I don't wanna do this. You know? I wanna have a good family. I wanna be around them. I wanna make money in 40 hours or less. And so after some applying, got a job at a logistics company In freight brokerage, which I won't go into detail, a lot of people don't know what that is, but within the 1st 3 months of that, I was doing I was bringing 40,000 in gross profit for them every single month, and it was like, oh, okay.

Parker Chaney [00:05:09]:

This makes sense. Like, the sales thing, it's not too difficult. I mean, it is, but, this is kinda like where I'm supposed to be, and then that went really well for about 10 months. Ended up getting a job, doing the same thing remote, Making, like, 70,000 a year or so, and that was like, okay. Now I think I'm making enough to have a family. Let's let's start having a kid. I'm working from home. I can be there as much as I want, and that was, like, the goal.

Parker Chaney [00:05:32]:

She cannot work. We can have a kid. I'm here. Got that job. It was going good, And ended up getting pregnant, and he was due in August of last year. He just turned 1. And on April 11th, not that I remember the date, got a call saying like, hey. You know, we've decided to go in a different direction, and, you know, I'm sorry you got your baby on the way, and you're gonna lose insurance and everything like that, And your wife just quit your job, you know, we're gonna have to let you go.

Parker Chaney [00:05:58]:

And so that was a really fun feeling, about, you know, the one time in my life I have to be a provider and make all this money and and care for the family. I I'm not. So that was a very fun feeling, where the one time that you have to, Yeah. You have to be the provider you're not, and so that was not not a fun feeling. And so that was when I decided, like, okay. I need to figure something else out. This is not a fun feeling. I've got the baby coming.

Parker Chaney [00:06:26]:

We're running out of money. I didn't even know how to apply for unemployment. I didn't know about unemployment, like, nothing about insurance or Medicaid. Like, I was so in the dark and didn't even end up filing for months after that, and then, Still didn't have a job couple months before that. He was born on 8th, and then that night, I took out of just, like, you know, looking at him just like, hey. I I gotta figure this out, and, like, I'm gonna figure it out for you. You know? And so from there, I got a I guess, 2 weeks before he was born, got a job and flew to New Jersey. And 60 days into that job, I'm laying at bed at night.

Parker Chaney [00:06:59]:

My recruiting business is starting to get busy. I'm working full time. I'm tired. I'm not sleeping. I got the baby. We're taken care of, and just everything altogether is overwhelming. I was like, look, I just I don't know if you're religious or not, but, you know, praying, like, hey. Show me what you want me to do.

Parker Chaney [00:07:15]:

Like, can you make it clear? Show me what you want me to do on a Sunday night. I'm like, just like recruiting business is getting busy. Work's getting busy. I'm tired. I'm a father. Like, I'm trying to get this figured out. What do you want me to do? And turns out, be careful what you wish for because that morning That morning, I get a get a Zoom invite, from the HR and the vice president. Get on there and basically said the same thing.

Parker Chaney [00:07:37]:

You know, we're gonna go in a different direction. We're looking to do some separate stuff and just you're not a part of that plan, and so that was really fun. But it was it was like a a weird calm feeling like, okay. This is This is what's supposed to happen. I kinda did it to myself because I asked for guidance, and he gave it to me. And funny enough, it was the day that my 1st candidate started, their job. And so I had 30 days to just scrape by, and they ended up paying, like, a week late, but still did that. And then the 1st month, Which is 8 months after I, started the business, I made $36, and so that was just, like, Completely life changing.

Parker Chaney [00:08:16]:

But that's kinda how I got into it, long story short. But yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:21]:

So, And I wanna we were chatting about this offline. So 8 months of your recruiting business where you were learning the business and you still did not make a single placement, But you were also doing this outside of a day job or in between, like, working, not working, but you had a day job kind of supplementing your income.

Parker Chaney [00:08:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. So I was working full time, probably 40, 50 hours a week remote, and then you throw in also having a kid, first time dad as well, and so it was It was fun. He, you know, would sleep maybe 45 minutes at a time. So we're waking up. We got the lights on in the room to make it feel like daytime because he wouldn't sleep at night. And so you got that having absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I have no money to invest in a coach or anything like that, and just YouTube University watching videos online, Just figured it out one way or another, but I knew, like, as long as I don't quit, it's gonna work out one way or another.

Parker Chaney [00:09:13]:

And so just Kinda just, 1% better every day in the, just 1 more day mentality where as long as I can keep going on. You know what I mean?

Benjamin Mena [00:09:23]:

K. So no placements for 8 bots. Then after that, 300 k came in the door.

Parker Chaney [00:09:29]:

Your your

Benjamin Mena [00:09:30]:

entire Or 36 k, but it grew to 300 it grew to 300,000, like, shortly afterwards. Mhmm. Your learning was all from YouTube?

Parker Chaney [00:09:40]:

Yeah. So the initial 8 months was all from YouTube. Ben Nader, rest in peace. I I mean, that thing's where everybody starts. He was honestly still one of the only people that pops up when you search anything, other than you and a couple of you guys that have popped up And learned some stuff from him and, you know, watched his contract video, copied it while he's talking, did some emails and stuff, Found the most placeable candidate on Indeed, didn't even reach out to him, sent in blank resumes, scheduled him on Sundays to send out throughout the week as I'm working, Took calls on my lunches, like, it was it was rough. It was rough. And, yeah, I when I answered my cell phone, I didn't have a work phone for either the business or work. I didn't know if it was somebody calling me for the recruiting business or for the business or as I was working for, my job.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:25]:

I I just I wanna think that's awesome too. It just I I wanna share the store share that story because so many people when they hear about, hey. You need to become a recruiter or I would like him to become a recruiter. The number 1 piece of advice that I see is go work at a agency for a few years, which is great advice because most of us, That's what we did. That's how we learned the business. Somebody else kinda taught us that, but I also think, like, it's 2023. There are different ways to learn How to build a business and how to grow your career outside of making somebody else money.

Parker Chaney [00:11:01]:

Yeah. Absolutely. A 100%. That's I'm not not a huge fan of working for people, so I guess that kinda helps. And maybe that's why I got laid off twice, but not a huge fan of Of working for other people and being told what to do. So it all it all worked out in the end then. Not fun, but it all worked out.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:16]:

And at least for the listeners, what niche are you in right now?

Parker Chaney [00:11:19]:

So I'm in, like, a subniche of logistics called freight brokerage, which not a lot of people know about, and I think the biggest thing that That work design was in the industry before, and they're not one that are really susceptible to outsiders. If you don't know what they're talking about, They don't they don't want you. They don't wanna talk with you. And so I think that was kind of my my end, and there was a lot of variables to that, Picking the right niche, but that's the industry I'm in. And like I said, they they don't like outsiders, and so it kinda just worked out. Like, I'm not gonna go recruit for a doctor or nurse. I have no idea what that is. You know? And so, that that helped a lot for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:56]:

And, one more thing for the listeners before we we jump into something else. You don't have a college degree. Right?

Parker Chaney [00:12:01]:

No. No college degree. I think I have, like, a 2.6 GPA in high school or something like that maybe.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:07]:

So no cause agree. You're you're having, like, 50 k plus months. Yeah. Like, you're seeing success. Like, that's this is what I this is what I love so much about the recruiting industry is You don't need all that educational stuff that, you know, I went through, unfortunately, to to succeed. You just need to, like, learn, Have some grit, have some conversations, and hop on the phone and just go or, you know, email and just go. So Once again, like, I'm excited a anybody that I have on this podcast, it's like, hey. I I didn't get the college degree.

Parker Chaney [00:12:42]:

Exactly. Yeah. It's it's not it's not necessarily needed unless you're going to something specialized. And I think even more These days that it's it's becoming more and more just not important, and people wanna see results rather than degrees. And so I think as long as you can provide results, Whether you're working for yourself or somebody else, that's all you really need to do. And so and just take an action regardless, and so that's kinda that's pretty much what it comes down to.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:07]:

So one of the things I kinda wanna dig deep into, you've utilized systems and technology to grow your firm, and you you had to do it because A young one and yet a full time job, but everything that foundational stuff that you put in place has helped with your success. Like, Are do you call it, like, some of this, like, your superpower?

Parker Chaney [00:13:27]:

So I guess some of my superpowers would be, like, just Being confident, like, overly confident in a way, like, knowing without a doubt that I'm, like, convicted, like, hey. This is gonna work out as long as I keep going. And I think the best way to show yourself and then build real confidence is to do something, and from the from your actions, You're showing yourself, hey. I am who I say who I am. And so that's been one of the biggest things, like, over and over again. Like, I believed in my head, but then once I hit that $36,000 Month by very 1st month I made money, I was like, I know how to make $10,000,000. I know how to make a $100,000,000. Like, I'm fully confident.

Parker Chaney [00:14:05]:

Even though I'm a might be a little bit delusional, the confidence went through the roof, and I think that's that's one of the biggest things. And then the other thing would be, I've never really cared about what what other people think of me. I don't know if that's just not being a whole way or anything, excuse my French, but I I've never really cared. And so, like, sending personalized videos is what I do a lot, And, sending them to people to meet them in the industry, get new business, sending them to candidates. Like, people just aren't comfortable doing stuff like that. And I just think that, okay. Well, if I'm gonna make money, and this is gonna help me, it's gonna be easier. Why am I not gonna do it? You know? Why wouldn't I Do something that's going to make me money, make my life better, and help me reach my goals.

Parker Chaney [00:14:46]:

I really don't care what anybody thinks because they're still where they're at, and and I'm doing things. You know?

Benjamin Mena [00:14:51]:

Well and I think it's those, like, personalized videos and that personalized outreach also has a much higher impact than, You know, sticking 50,000 people and 50,000 different industries into 1 funnel, and

Parker Chaney [00:15:05]:

then hoping you're gonna Exactly.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:06]:

Hoping you're gonna get, like,

Parker Chaney [00:15:08]:

Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:08]:

You know, 1 1 person out of 50 k is gonna get, like, hey, I need help.

Parker Chaney [00:15:12]:

Yeah. Yeah. I I I honestly, I don't do any outreach at all now at all. It's all personal brand. Going to eventually, obviously, because you gotta be able to sustain that, but with LinkedIn branding and And, having that really big and referrals coming in from people that I don't even recruit for, I mean, things things are going well. I mean, I'm turning business away, and so It's it's nice to have that authority and be able to tell people, hey. You know, I don't wanna work with you or I can't because whatever, and I get to work with the best type of clients. And it's It's honestly I I I just think I got not lucky, but I read the right things at the right time and learned the right things at the right time.

Parker Chaney [00:15:48]:

And although it did take me 8 months to learn anything, I think, it eventually like, once the momentum is built, I mean, it just it just takes off.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:57]:

And 1 more question into your beginning story. Why did you not quit during that 8 month time period that you didn't make a single at all?

Parker Chaney [00:16:05]:

I just knew that if I was gonna do it anytime, now would be the time. And I also think having a kid is like, I tell everybody, you wanna accomplish stuff in life and you're not motivated, have a child. Like, there's that's one of the easiest not say easiest ways, but, like, You want some motivation? You look that child in the face, and you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing, you know, and you're not where you're supposed to be. And one of the I've got a sticky note on my, On my in my office that says set the standard, and so becoming the the man and father that I want my son to be is the biggest thing. And so if I'm not doing it, but I expect him to, you know, that's not the case, and so I need to be able to set the standard for him no matter what it is. And, yeah, like I said, have a kid. It is the biggest thing. Like, I I don't know what I would do without him.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:52]:

So outside of the advice of having a kid, what advice would you give to somebody else that's going through that That that slow start, that's 5, 6 months in. They haven't seen the success. What advice would you give them to keep on doing what they're doing?

Parker Chaney [00:17:05]:

I think that anything good takes time, and you're gonna be confused for a very long time, and you're still gonna be confused. You're never not going to be. Things are gonna start making more sense. You might be less confused, but the longer you can put work into something, the higher the reward's gonna be. And that's kind of how I always thought about it. Like, As long as I keep on doing it and keep watering the plant, like, eventually, it's gonna start growing. And so, like, no matter what, if I don't stop watering the plant, it's gonna start growing. Whether it's, now we're in a couple years.

Parker Chaney [00:17:34]:

I I don't really care. Like, I've got no choice. I've gotta I've gotta figure this out.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:39]:

Awesome. So, Like, I know one of the things that we also were chatting about beforehand is, like, there's there's so much advice out there when it comes to, like, Recruiting comes to building a business, comes to doing these things. And I I loved what you said. It was just like many times you know what to do. Mhmm. You just need to do that. Can you explain that to the listeners?

Parker Chaney [00:18:02]:

Yeah. And so I think our brain tries to protect us from Doing something that doesn't feel good. And when you do something, like learning something new, it doesn't feel good. You feel stupid. You don't you you feel idiotic. Like, it's not fun, and your brain's sitting there Just spazzing, and you can't figure it out, and it's gonna take you I think it's, like, at least 20 hours to figure that out. And so I think I got a little sidetrack there, but, yeah, you just need to Just just keep pushing through, pushing through it.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:30]:

Okay. Awesome. And one more thing that you I I I love the conversation that we had earlier on about being self aware and how important that is. I think that's been a huge theme for a lot of people in 2023 is self awareness. What is learning self awareness and what does self awareness mean to you?

Parker Chaney [00:18:47]:

So I think if you don't ever think about how you're feeling or why you do or do not like something, That's that doesn't help you at all. You know? You can say, hey. I don't like my job. Well, why don't you like your job? Have you thought about that? Oh, well, my my boss sucks. Okay. But why does he suck? Okay. What what about the job do you not like? Being self aware, like, I I think maybe because I'm 25 and my brain's fully developed now, it just, like, finally hit me. But just it it's as simple as I eat something like frozen pizza, for example, which I used to do a lot because it was easy and fast.

Parker Chaney [00:19:20]:

Every time I would eat it, I would feel like crap. I feel like crap. All my all my thoughts were super negative because my brain's slowing down. I'm I'm processing all these Horrible foods, brain slowing down. All of a sudden, my thoughts are negative, and I was like, okay. That doesn't make any sense. I need to eat something that is healthier and Won't affect me that way. And so I was like, okay.

Parker Chaney [00:19:39]:

Well, that makes sense. How can I clear my mind up? My mind's foggy. Go online. Look it up. Go for a walk. Start working out. So I've started working out. I've lost, like, 80 pounds or so in the last year, I think.

Parker Chaney [00:19:49]:

And so thank you. Yeah. Almost hit 300. Should've should've hit it when I got the chance. But, yeah, I lost like £80, and so just being reflective on on the way you're feeling and and what you think about things. Like, if you don't ask yourself, you're not gonna know. And so you just gotta that's just the biggest thing is being self aware, and no matter what it is.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:10]:

Okay. Great. And you I never like to ask people their age, but you've mentioned that you're 25. Uh-huh. So it's a I don't wanna say this is, like, a common theme for people in my age group and older. I'm In about a week, I'm gonna be in in a week, I'm gonna be 40.

Parker Chaney [00:20:25]:

Oh my goodness. No way. Well, hey. Happy birthday.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:28]:

Thank you. But and when this goes live, it'll be, like, definitely after my birthday. But I think I it's I've seen this common theme with people in, like, your age group around your age. You guys are able to utilize technology and, like, all sorts of different tools to be able to, like, almost, like, self multiply better than, Like, my elder millennial Gen X generation out there, like, what kind of tools are you using? Q what? You wanna talk about that?

Parker Chaney [00:20:55]:

Yeah. So it's it's pretty simple. I use Loxo for our ATS. That works great. It's got everything you need. Yes. It's More expensive, but it's gonna save you time. Spend the extra $100 a month.

Parker Chaney [00:21:06]:

Right? It's gonna save you so much more time. We use a software called Sky Lead, which is great for LinkedIn outreach, Adding 70 to 100 people a day on there and getting past LinkedIn's, maxed out of a 100 a week, that's been huge. I mean, I've gotten 8,000 followers in, like, Since January, I think. So it's it's absolutely crushing it. And then just I mean, Google Docs, Staying organized, that's pretty simple. And then one of the biggest things that I use right now, everybody wants to know AI AI AI. I use this program called typing mind, And it's basically just like a new user interface for ChatGPT where I can save all my prompts. I have different personas in there where, you know, I've got a persona for helping me with certain parts of the business that are saved, write a LinkedIn post.

Parker Chaney [00:21:54]:

I need advice on something. I've got so many things in there, and I literally there's probably not an hour that goes by where I don't use it for something. And if there's something I need to think of that's new, I'll usually go on there and and and pick its brain. And so that's been absolutely massive on there. And so Typing Mind is great. I would definitely look it up, and it's cheap, and it's a great tool and and one of the best, and I need to show you probably later after.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:16]:

Awesome. Yeah. It's just I it's just a common theme that I've seen. It's just like I don't wanna say, like, the younger generation knows how to run circles. I think it's the The older generation knows how to just, like, grunt work until you succeed. The generational difference is There's a ton of technology that you can utilize to superhuman yourself so that way you can also succeed and spend more time with your family.

Parker Chaney [00:22:39]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I think a lot of these tools, like, My wife is like, you haven't taken a call in a while, or you're not really on on working that much? I was like, look. I've got all these things running in the background 247, reaching out to candidates, Not spamming them, but, you know, reaching out, getting conversations. When they respond, I'll grab my phone and respond and have a conversation with them. Like, it it's it's pretty easy, and you can do everything from your phone, which Great. But combine that with automations, like like I said, I went, like, a month and a half working, like, 5 hours a week, like, once a day Cut a deal. And so, yeah, it it it it's it's a lot different.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:13]:

That's awesome. Well, before we move over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you'd love to share listeners about your background, your success, and your story.

Parker Chaney [00:23:22]:

So I think the biggest thing would be just like, You don't have to be good at something and just like embrace the suck, which a lot of people say, no matter what it is, it's recruiting. And number 1, you should have pick something. I think the biggest biggest lesson I've learned in life was the one thing it's it's a book. I forget who it's by. But, basically, the premise is you focus on one thing. You can't accomplish anything if you're trying to do 50 different things at one time. And so if you can give it 6 months, a year, 2 years, 3 years, focusing on Focusing on one thing, eventually, it'll it'll end up being, working out, and you'll reach that goal of whatever it is. Like, as long as you just stay focused, tunnel vision, And, you know, don't go all over the place.

Parker Chaney [00:24:02]:

Oh, I need to do this business. I need to do that. Because if you're all over the place, it's working on 10 businesses. You're gonna be 10 years down the road, and you're still Not working for yourself. And so I think, focusing on one thing is the biggest thing for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:15]:

Awesome. And now for the the quick fire questions. What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just starting out of the industry?

Parker Chaney [00:24:25]:

So advice for a brand new recruiter, I think listening to the right advice would be number 1. There's some bad advice out there that did set me back for sure. I think, honestly, there's a couple books that they should read. They should read a $100,000,000 offers by Alex Hormozi, Specifically, the part where he talks about picking your market and niche, that is gonna save you so much time. I'm not the best at sales. I don't have an organized sales call, but since I'm in the right Mark in a niche, and I've I've I've done everything that he needs to do in there. That's helped me out so much. So don't be a generalist.

Parker Chaney [00:24:58]:

Nobody cares if your generals or not be specialized. Later down the line when you have 50 employees, sure. Go do something else and expand your niche, But you need to specialize first. That's be the absolute first thing, and then if you are full time, build your personal brand on LinkedIn. I could talk for 5 hours about this. It's made my life so much easier. Like I I've I've I just signed a client for a retainer for $25 a month for for 12 months, And she emailed me on LinkedIn wanting to work with me. So, like, there's opportunities out there on LinkedIn, and it's just been the absolute biggest thing.

Parker Chaney [00:25:30]:

But if you don't niche down The right way, niche down the right way, read a $100,000,000 offers, and then building that brand on purse putting your brand on LinkedIn and any platform you can is huge.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:42]:

Awesome. And what advice would you give to experienced recruiters that have been in the game a bit longer than you?

Parker Chaney [00:25:49]:

I think probably the same thing. Like, if you're having issues and you've been around the same, the revenue for the last couple years, have you been in it at least 5 years or so, And you're kinda confused on what's going on. Everybody else is having the success. And, okay, you're just a logistics and supply chain recruiter, niche down, build a personal brand, And then also, what are you doing every single day? You probably need to buy back your time some sort of way. I just hired a VA that is an executive assistant, And she does all the stuff that I freak out about and wanna do that doesn't make any money. And so she does all all the organizing of our SOPs. She transcribes all of them, summarizes them. Right now, she's actually looking for podcasts for me to get on for the in my industry and making a list of them and their contact stuff to get on.

Parker Chaney [00:26:35]:

Like, you need to buy back your time, stop doing accounting stuff, get somebody to do that, hire some recruiters. And I guess the first step would be, if you're gonna do that, Hire something that's gonna get your time back, not somebody that's gonna scale your business because if you're really good at one thing and you hire somebody for the other thing, You're still gonna be working a lot because you didn't buy back stuff that's taking the majority of your time up that isn't making you money. And so I would say, do that for sure, but which I learned from the book, buy back your time, which everybody should read.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:04]:

It's a good book. I'm actually listening to it right now during my runs.

Parker Chaney [00:27:07]:

It's great.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:09]:

What advice would you give to somebody that's looking at building their LinkedIn brand?

Parker Chaney [00:27:13]:

On on branding, it's it's pretty simple. Keep it straightforward. You wanna, like, call out the exact person that you're trying to help. And so like I said earlier a 1000 times, pick your niche. Like, I'm at freight brokerage. My title on there, everybody knows, freight broker recruiter. They look it up online. I'm showing up on LinkedIn.

Parker Chaney [00:27:32]:

K. They know exactly what I'm doing. I probably had a 100 or so messages where I'll ask them, hey. You know, why did you add me? And they say, oh, well, I looked up freight broker recruiter, and you popped up. Okay. That doesn't help if it just says logistics and supply chain recruiter, but I'm specializing in in freight brokerage. Like, that doesn't do anything, and so that's really big. Put a color behind your face on there, on your profile picture, people remember you.

Parker Chaney [00:27:54]:

I'm the purple guy. I was on LinkedIn for, like, 2 months, went to a conference, and people were you're that purple guy, aren't you? I'm like, yeah. I'm the purple guy. And it was weird that, you know, in in short 2 months, I've I've been able to do that. I would take Justin I think his name is Justin Welch. He's got, like, a $150 personal branding course that explains everything super in-depth, And it's it's great. I don't have you taken it before? I have. Yeah.

Parker Chaney [00:28:18]:

It's great. And it it dumps it down to where it's super simple, How you can generate your ideas, and comments are huge. I ask people when they add me like, hey. You know, thanks for connecting. Was there any reason you added me? And they say, oh, I found you from So and so's comment or this, and the comments are probably honestly bigger than than Brandy. When you can find them both, it's it's huge. And so that's it it's pretty simple. Just network posts on LinkedIn, make it really obvious what they're doing, what you're doing there, and and people will find you.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:46]:

I've heard a few people recently, like the LinkedIn experts, Talk about how important common commoning is right now. Mhmm. Like, is that you said it's been having a huge impact on Your growth and people seeing you.

Parker Chaney [00:29:00]:

Yeah. Yeah. Commenting on on other creators' posts. I have a folder on my Chrome of it's called engagement, and it's got, like, A 100 or so people on there by the people that are most in my niche and have the most amount of followers and engagement. I mean, you go on there. It doesn't always have to be something Insightful. Like, you don't have to write the most thought out con thought out comment. Doing it is just half a battle.

Parker Chaney [00:29:21]:

Right? I'll go through spurts where I don't do it for a couple weeks. I get back into it, And it always helps. And so to do that, just find people in your niche that are that are, posting a lot. All the creators reach out to them, Like their stuff, comment on it. They love it. And then people go on your comments even if it's not even if you're just laughing, they're saying or something or responding to it simply nothing in insightful. They see, okay, Parker Chaney, freight broker recruiter, right under with my title, and it's super simple. That's it doesn't say your favorite recruiter or whatever it is.

Parker Chaney [00:29:51]:

Like, no. It says freight broker recruiter. You're gonna know exactly what I do from my comment. You click on my profile. I have hundreds of views every single week. But, yeah, commenting is huge.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:01]:

Awesome. Has there been a book that you that you have read that has had a huge impact on your career and your business?

Parker Chaney [00:30:08]:

There's there's been a couple, and I wrote I wrote down a few, to make sure I don't talk about all 70 of them that I've read in the past couple of months. $100,000,000 offers for sure. I know if you've got a couple people on your podcast recommend that. But the one I mentioned earlier, the one thing, I think it's by Gary Keller, if I'm not mistaken, talking about you have to pick 1 thing. You have to tumble vision on it. You have to stay focused. You have to work on it every single day No matter what it is, literally no matter what it is, just focus on one thing and have tunnel vision. And I think another big book Combined with buyback your time was who not how, explaining that you don't know how how to do everything.

Parker Chaney [00:30:46]:

You don't have to know that. There's somebody out there that can do it, and it's not necessarily, how you're supposed to do it, it's who can do it for you. And so I think that, really understanding that, and I brought on a a partner Who's gonna own a piece of the business that she's really good in the account management side, which I am. I just hate getting on calls. It's not for me. Like, You give me one call, and my brain's fried the rest of the day. Like, I don't book anything till after 3 o'clock now. She's been taking a lot of that off my off my plate.

Parker Chaney [00:31:13]:

And so those those books have been absolutely amazing.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:16]:

So And I I you've listed a bunch of, tools In our conversation already, a bunch of different software. Do you have, like, an absolute favorite that you would love to share with us for the quick fire section?

Parker Chaney [00:31:27]:

Mhmm. So I think, like I mentioned earlier, Typing Mind was the absolute best. It's typing mind .com. You can you can buy it for, like it's, like, $30, And then you plug in your, your own chat GPT, API, which is free to get. And then after a month, you get GPT 4, And then you're set. You can use as much as you want. I mean, I'm spending a couple $100 a month just doing that, but it's not it's not limited or anything like that. But I literally use it for for everything.

Parker Chaney [00:31:52]:

Like, I wrote my my ideas about what talk on the podcast and how to summarize it for me. I I do it for literally everything. I think that is the absolute biggest one, and nobody really knows about it. I don't know why, but it's amazing. It's way better than than using just a regular GPT for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:07]:

Awesome. Is there been something that you feel has been a huge part of your own personal success?

Parker Chaney [00:32:15]:

Yeah. Like I said Before having a kid, 100%, not everybody. This is not this is not life advice. Don't have 1 if you don't need 1. But having a kid Back against the wall and then, just the overconfidence, but being convicted that this is going to work out as long as I keep doing it Is is huge. Absolutely massive. And if I didn't convince myself that it's going to work out, it probably wouldn't have because I probably wouldn't have keep pushing forward. And then, Also, I've I've always kind of been over positive with how I think things are gonna go, and it drives my wife absolutely insane Because I can get laid off twice, and I'm like, hey.

Parker Chaney [00:32:52]:

Things are gonna be okay. Like, what we're not gonna lose the house. K? I'm I'm gonna be able to get another job. I have a skill that people want. This just it's very unfortunate for the moment. Like, I'm not stressed out about it at all. And so I think that's kind of not necessarily something you can teach, you can learn over time, I think, but I've always just been like, You know, if if something really bad happens, I'm gonna wait for it to really be bad before I'm gonna worry about it. And a big thing with that is I think that People always assume that whatever's happening to them at that moment is horrible, but if you look at it on a on a longer timeline that it's actually like the best thing that happening to you at that moment, you just didn't know it.

Parker Chaney [00:33:32]:

And so I say last year is, like, the worst time of my life, but also the best crucial Life changing time of my life where I got laid off twice. I'm having a kid losing insurance. This is the worst other than having a kid was the best. And at the time, I thought, this is horrible. This is absolutely horrible, and I don't know how I'm gonna get through this, but turns out, like, man, I'm so thankful that happened. Life would be so different if I still had a job, you know, and I wouldn't be working for myself. I might have eventually gotten tired of it, but Just being able to know that whatever is happening that's bad in the moment, life always gets a lot better right after. And so knowing that It's it's gonna get better and and have that positive outlook.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:14]:

And here's actually a a curiosity question. I'm sure the listeners would love to hear. You went from 0 Great months to now consistently 50 k months and and growing. What does your day look like? So how do you plan your day?

Parker Chaney [00:34:29]:

Yeah. I I I put a couple. I try to keep just 3 things on my plate every single day. Right now, trying to make sure the foundation of the business is great, trying to hire, like, 3 to 5 more people before the end of the year, virtual assistants, of course, And not all just recruiters, maybe 1 or 2, and then some operational side to buy back even more of my time so I can do what's fun. And right now, we're actually adding 2 different services to our business. I don't have the thing that Hormozi talks about in his book is If you can solve as many problems as you can for your customers, they're just gonna love you even more, and you're gonna make more money off of it. And so after I got, somebody else doing the recruiting part of it, somebody else doing the account management, buying back some of my time. I've got the executive assistant, Adding other things to our service.

Parker Chaney [00:35:16]:

And so, like, the retainer I was telling you about, we implemented an ATS for them that they didn't have. We built it out for them, and it didn't take us too long, but They're a $3,000,000,000 company and have no internal ATS. And I'm like, guys, what is going on here? Like, I don't understand. And so explain to them how many deals they're losing, How much better their life's gonna be for it, and they're, oh, so excited for it, and it's going live next week. Do you have something to say? You're good?

Benjamin Mena [00:35:40]:

No. I was gonna say, I kinda Kinda wanna dig dig into that for a second. Many of us, when we have our recruiter hats on, we think contingent recruiting, retained recruiting, and engagement recruiting or staffing, But you're finding different solutions that you could charge, like, that are still technically recruiting, But not just the placement things, but you're and you can make money off there.

Parker Chaney [00:36:02]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And so I I'm thinking that it's a great client. I love working with them. There's couple things that they could do better. If I could make their life better, we're enjoying working together, we're having success, they're paying me lots of money, and I see something that I could easily fix, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that for them. And so getting on the calls with them, it was like, hey. My goal is to be an extension of you guys, not to be, just a contractor that you hire when you need somebody.

Parker Chaney [00:36:27]:

Like, I wanna be in the weeds with you guys. What is it that you guys are doing right now? Do you guys have an ATS? How are you tracking all these candidates? Is there anything we can help you with that and do it better? Like, do you need another recruiter? And they're like, right now, we don't have an ATS. And I'm like, How world are you doing that? Like, I'm sending them, like, 30 candidates a month probably, and they hire, like, 3 to 5. And so which I this doesn't make any sense. We need to figure this out. And so, doing that for them has been absolutely crucial. And then I just had a call today for a different service, for AI personalized, emails and outreach for for basically lead gen. A big pain point of my customers is they need sales guys because economy's down.

Parker Chaney [00:37:07]:

They want income producers. I bring in the revenue, but it's hit and miss with the guys that they say they can do really good stuff. And then the timeline to see any sort of return is usually, like, 6 to 12 months on them to before they're paying for themselves, and they're paying them 60, 80, 90 k, sometimes up to 1 20. And so, ended up actually meeting a guy Couple weeks ago, and I've really hit it off with him and kinda doing a trial one with 1 of our customers, meeting again on Monday. And they've been wanting a sales guy, and so This is gonna save them a lot of money and add about 10 to 15 k in in monthly recurring revenue for at least 90 days is what I told them. And so, adding that to it, just whatever way I can help them, there's ways to make money. There's so many ways to make money. People just Just don't figure it out.

Parker Chaney [00:37:53]:

And so, as like I said, as many, pain points from your customers as you can figure out and and solve for them, they're gonna love you, they're gonna Pay you a lot of money, and your life's gonna be a lot better.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:04]:

Right. And I love that you shared that because, like, in the GovCon space, there's challenges and other stuff that we do, like, outside of just placements that Our brings in business for her money for our business. So but I, you know, love that you're sharing something, like, I mean, this is the freight world we're talking about.

Parker Chaney [00:38:21]:

Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:21]:

So if you're able to figure that out in the freight world, what else can us recruiters do at other places to help be a better Solution driver for our clients. Mhmm.

Parker Chaney [00:38:31]:

So I think number 1, having an expertise and authority in one area with, being niched down and being able to talk to their, talk their language and know exactly what they're going through, it helps if you've gone through it, of course. And so I kind of knew a lot going in that this is kind of how most places are run. I know you guys don't have any training in place. You're doing 3, $400,000,000, and there's no training. You got high turnover. I know what to fix that. Anyone can look up online how to stop or how to turn down turnover. You know? And so, there's there's just a lot of things you can do.

Parker Chaney [00:39:05]:

I think the biggest thing would be is you can't you can't do it alone. Don't think that, Okay. I can do 500 k billing by myself. This is great, but in order to bring on another service, you're gonna need more people and be able to leverage them. And so bringing on, other team members and investing a little bit money can be scary at times, but you you've gotta get over that hump if you want to be able to do all these other service offerings. Wanna be able to do it myself. That's for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:30]:

Awesome. Great. And I love that you finish it off saying you would not be able to do it all yourself because many of us try to be super Superman or superwoman, And I can do it all. I think that's right. Everything that you know now and this is, like, but my my favorite question. Everything that you know now, if you could literally sit down, have a cup of coffee with yourself, when you just started your recruiting journey, what advice would you give yourself?

Parker Chaney [00:39:56]:

I think maybe don't be too hard on yourself because I did go 8 months without it. I think that I since I did End up continuing to push through it and and get through it every single day and worked on it day in and day out. That that's probably would have been the advice I gave myself, but since that's what I did, probably just, like, don't be too hard on yourself, like, no. It's it's coming, and look on it a little bit more positive for sure, that it's it's going to work out, and Joe, you'll see the fruits of your labor. It might not be as soon as you want, that's for sure, but it'll eventually it'll happen.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:26]:

Awesome. Well, Parker, before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Parker Chaney [00:40:31]:

Yeah. So I've got I've got a look couple things down here, that I that I wanted to share, That I mentioned earlier, if you can be confused, the more you can be confused, the better the outcome will be and the bigger the fruits of your labor be just continue to push through it is is the absolute biggest thing and and have confidence in yourself, put yourself out there. Nobody cares about you. They're not gonna remember. If you get embarrassed, Nobody cares. No one cares. Like, no one's gotta remember, and it you just gotta so you just gotta keep doing it. Like, it's it's not fun.

Parker Chaney [00:41:04]:

Nobody actually enjoys Going from 0 to 1, but going from 1 to 10 is so much easier than 0 to 1. That's the hardest part. And so just just know if you put in 8 months, A year, a couple years in, it's eventually gonna happen. And I know 0 to 8 months didn't take me terribly long. It's still fairly long, but The journey I started on trying to figure things out was 5 years ago reading those sales books. And so everybody's seeing, okay, hey. Parker's Already hear this is crazy how to do that such a short amount of time. Like, no.

Parker Chaney [00:41:32]:

I started doing stuff to improve myself barely every single day 5 years ago. Like, this is not Overnight, like, I've been working on myself for a very long time, and so, just staying consistent and and pushing through.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:45]:

Awesome. Well, man, this I I Can't wait for people to hear this podcast just because you we hear all the stories of people just busting out of the gate and just like, life is great. I made, like, $700,000, but, you know, I was a slow starter. Yeah. Yeah. 8 months without a single placement as you started your recruiting journey. I mean, I I I know the listeners have heard this a few times, but few months in, they sat me down. They're like, well, you suck.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:12]:

Yeah. Yeah. Wait.

Parker Chaney [00:42:13]:

You don't need to That's great. I really do.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:15]:

Suck. And, you know, and, you know, it's the the recruiting journey, the recruiting industry is such a great place for any to be anybody to be in And for anyone to succeed. So, thank you, Parker. And for the listeners, keep crushing it, guys.

Parker Chaney [00:42:30]:

Thank you, man.

Intro [00:42:31]:

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