The Art of Building a High-Performance Team with Mike Lejeune

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]:
I know I've been talking about the recruiting growth summit, so make sure you're signed up for that. It's gonna be phenomenal. But Michael June, the guest speaker on this podcast, is Actually hosting a virtual conference also. What's cool about this virtual conference, if you have any of the certifications through, like, the American Staffing Association and other places, It actually counts for credits, but on top of that is gonna be an absolute game changer also. I have a code in there. You can find in the show notes, accelerate 2024 for $30 off the discount or conference registration. It's gonna be awesome. So definitely make sure to sign up.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:52]:
Make sure to check it out. These are 2 incredible events that can really shape your business and move your business forward. So Hope you guys enjoy this podcast. It's gonna be an absolute game changer. I am excited about this episode of the elite recruiter podcast. I have a Special guest with me, Michael June. And some of the things that we're gonna cover, we're gonna cover how do you build a self Sustaining business where you're not having to chase, you know, every all the time. And on top of that, Mike does have experience of growing, Scaling and selling his recruiting firm.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:26]:
So I wanna talk about how do you build a high performance team, a team where It's full of winners winning, a team where the, you know, everybody's making great money, and a team where everybody's working together To win together. So, Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Mike Lejeune [00:01:42]:
Oh, it's an honor to be here, Benjamin.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:44]:
So I've been looking forward to this interview. First of all, Before we do a deep dive in how you even got started here with the recruiting, I know you have an upcoming event for the recruiting Can you talk about that real quick?

Mike Lejeune [00:01:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited about this. Got the final confirmation last night on my last speaker, mid February, February 20th, 21st, and 22nd. We are, hosting in conjunction with the Texas Search Recruiting and Staffing Association. My company's hosting a virtual conference. Started this in a pandemic when nobody was leaving the house, And it it became so popular that I just kept it year after year. And, this year, we have, just an I I believe the the strongest lineup Speakers, keynoter is Samidro Small from Canada Canadian Olympic athlete, 3 time medalist, gold 2 goals in bronze.

Mike Lejeune [00:02:27]:
With the woman's hockey team, she is the goalie of the hockey team. And, I mean, just and just amazing growing up and and and how do you overcome, adversity and obstacles and work your way around things, Which is the recruiting industry. Right? We've got And Russia. People speaking on sales, recruiting processes, using artificial intelligence, and we got this wizard gonna be joining us that the guy by name of, Benjamin Minna, and so, which I'm really honored. I'm excited about being able to hear his thoughts and and So, Benjamin, I just loved our conversation about the approach you've had taken building your business, and what do you do to create a personal connection with people Using technology, where technology isn't something on the side. It's a driving force to create this interaction, personal interaction with people, which is the heart of our business.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:16]:
Absolutely. And thank you so much. Definitely excited about being there, and I'll I will make sure to have information about it in the show notes, so definitely click on the show notes for more information about it.

Mike Lejeune [00:03:26]:
Yeah. They can also find me on my website. It's mikelejeune.comorlightingthepath.net. Yeah. Look there. There'll be some information there for you too.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:34]:
Perfect. So we always get started with this podcast. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Mike Lejeune [00:03:42]:
Yeah. It's up. I've I've I'm asked that question a lot. Matter of fact, I asked that question to a lot of people because this is a strange business, isn't it? It it's not something you go to college. You know what? One day, I'm gonna grow up and be a recruiter. It happens rare, And, I fall in a category. I moved to Houston, Texas from South Louisiana, 21 years old, right out of school. Went to work at I went to interview with an organization That had 44 desks in 1 room, and I looked around the room, and out of 44 desks were all filled except just a couple of them, and they were all women except for, like, 2 guys.

Mike Lejeune [00:04:13]:
And I went, this is the place for me. And so that's that's my great market research, and I like to tell you, I I I selected this, had a great stuff, but I'm going I got started. But what I Fascinated by and what my interest was is I want to learn about business so I could figure out what I wanted to grow. I was I was Thought thoughtless. I know I did clueless on on what I wanted to be. Well, so I started working, and it started being a journey to kinda answering questions. I looked up after about 2 years, and I found out I was Gotten pretty good at it. And, after 3 years, I found out that while I was good at the transactional part of the business, making the deals with one thought, you know, higher producers in the company.

Mike Lejeune [00:04:50]:
I found out what really got me excited was teaching it, was was training and developing people, watching people get excited about this business. And, and that's that that got me started. And so over the years, I went from working for a company to eventually starting up my own firm To, 10 years ago sold our company. I'd gone to work with with my wife, and, and when I got married to her, my my Dad said you signed the ultimate noncompete agreement. So, yes. That's true. But, she looked at me one day and said it's time for you for me to sell, for you to go and And and do what got you ready to do, which is to, help leaders increase their ability to engage and ignite performance in their people and help people, particularly in the recruiting industry, Scale and and and learn how to do better at recruiting and business development and break barriers. And so that's the journey I've been on.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:38]:
That is awesome. Well, let me jumping to your journey. You know? First of all, I love how you get got started to walk in. You're like, oh, there's only 2 guys here. Perfect place for me. That's it. But secondly, Out of all that time, what convinced you are and why did you make the jump to go start your own firm rather than just stay Where you're at?

Mike Lejeune [00:05:58]:
We're we're going through an economic downturn, and, company I was working with at the time We're scaling back. We're pulling offices back in, and I learned that that that people follow leaders. They don't work for companies, And I was watching business decisions being made that were violating what I felt were ethical and the way they were treating employees, making decisions, and I I did not wanna be aligned with that. And so I I spent some time trying to to think about, Do I wanna do this or do this on my own? And interviewed around a couple places, and I just decided to hang up my own shingle and get started. And then Eventually took that and merged that in with a friend of mine, and we formed a company together. Then then grew that. And I liked entrepreneurial, and then when Then we decided to shut our Houston office down and consolidate it with with, up into our home office up in Tulsa. I realized I had devoted myself out of a job because I don't wanna move back up Tulsa because I had an office up there one time.

Mike Lejeune [00:07:00]:
And I I looked around and trying to figure out what what I wanna what I wanna do, And I interviewed with all the big the major companies that reached out to me, in Houston. Some of the one of the largest privately held recruiting firms, some of the big national firms. And it was a heavy time because people were saying, you know, you wanna come work with me. You know? But I I just I I I I joined up with Stevenson, which is a small boutique company, specifically because I wanna see my thumbprint on on the wall. And that's what I found when people look at trying to go out on their own from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I had a choice to go out doing it by myself, but I felt it was better for me to line up with with somebody who's you know, be Be part of a team of growing things forward. So, I went through both lines. I went out on my own as a solopreneur, and that's a tough road. Right? You know that.

Mike Lejeune [00:07:49]:
You know? And so it's it's tough. You have to have a certain mindset, and I found that I was really worked well within a coalition of people to be able to drive things forward, but not in a big monolith. I I wanna be able to when I went to work, I wanna see the efforts of what I did in direct correlation and not be limited by, you know, politics and silo.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:07]:
Well and that that kinda goes into my next question. We're gonna be I'm jumping a little forward more than I normally do. But when you were looking at building and scaling, Was it better to have a coalition of people or just go be the lone wolf charging building your solo company into a bigger company.

Mike Lejeune [00:08:26]:
You have to look at how how you're wired. For me, personally, it did didn't fit my wiring. In other words, if you look at the the disc, You know, personality assessments, which is one of my favorite tools to use. It was it was it was game changing when I started saying, okay, this is how I'm naturally wired. And I found out that that I need to be involved in a situation where there's there I interact with people as us. Let's go. Let's do it. I'm more for the cause to make things happen.

Mike Lejeune [00:08:50]:
You have to decide if you're a visionary. In other words, can you see things that aren't here yet? Are you systems and process driven? Can you create systems and process? And what I found is that I there are other people who are better doing that than me. I'm I'm the engagement guy. You know, give me something. I can light a candle. Right? I'm I'm good at it. People said, my cue. It's not even sell, ice cubes to Eskimos because you can just you can get people fired up about things.

Mike Lejeune [00:09:16]:
And, that's where I would, you know, get called to doing some of the extracurricular activity I do, which is the, on the board of the Texas Search Recruiting and Staffing associate trade association for our recruiting industry here in Texas. Ministries I'm involved with, you know, it's, I enjoy going in and and firing things up, but I were I realized And looking at myself, I work better if I have people or systems and process that can help me build that, help me to to come alongside. So you have to decide what is put with what you're calling. I've got a client that I work with with some of the consulting that I do now, and, she's a master at systems of processing. Not doing, but being risky enough to say, hey. We're gonna add this in. Let's find somebody we can find best product. Let's let's implement this, and and and willing to go out there and build those things Trying to have what's not working.

Mike Lejeune [00:10:00]:
We need a process around. And and because of that, she's she's she's scaling her business really effectively in a multi city, type of operation.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:09]:
Now that is awesome. Okay. Well, I mean, that actually per plays perfectly into the next question that we I have is, like, you know, when you're looking at building your business and scaling your business, of course, Every business, unless I mean, even in a sole premier, you're still, like, dealing with people in this world. But to grow to grow a recruiting company, It's a people business. It's a team business. How do you build or slash you know what? First of all, how do you find high performers?

Mike Lejeune [00:10:37]:
Oh, man. That's I I think that is that's the question I'm asking most often, especially in today's marketplace. And I I think better than finding them, how do you ferret them out? You know? Because what happens is I call them the gonna be's versus the wannabes, and there's a lot of people who wanna be high performing. The question is, who are they gonna be? Who are the ones who make it? I'll give you an example. Nicole Self, who is a partner with a company called Regina Roberts. And she's a 7 figure Year after year producer. She's an amazing force of nature, and one of the most kindhearted, Personal, personable people you'll ever meet. So she's not an in your face gunslinger type of deal cutter kind of person.

Mike Lejeune [00:11:17]:
Her background was in college. She was a, a a gymnast, a nationally ranked collegiate gymnast. So and she said, I wasn't the most talented. I just developed really strong work ethic and practice, and so she gets into our business after coming out of school and trying to sell, like, cosmetics programs and stuff, processes and systems, and kind of a network marketing kind of deal. Wasn't really satisfied with it, and somebody said, hey. You wanna try recruiting. And so what she did is she came into this business, and she applied everything she learned from being a gymnast. She applied everything she learned from the multimarketing, you know, program And used her her strong direction of practice, of knocking on doors and knocking on and it was the discipline that she had developed, and that was that's made her the success over the years.

Mike Lejeune [00:12:07]:
And so and it has made her consistent over the years. And so when when you're asking where do you look, yeah, it's great to be able to go find somebody who's working for a competitor, that there's something It's broken there, but if they came to work with you, it would improve. That's hard to do. You know? I made that mistake a lot of times because I said, you know what? I'll pull out my screwdriver, and then I'll sit there and, oh, they're working. Oh, I'm better than that. Tweak it up. And guess what? 80, 90% failure on that. Very seldom did we bring somebody in who was a really high performer.

Mike Lejeune [00:12:39]:
Now when it did work is if somebody were working with a company, a national We ever were successful with a few of those, and they but they they got tired of like, I was working with a big structure. They wanted something that was so much more Much more personal, not more flexible because you'll find that then you you understand this as being a, you know, solopreneur, entrepreneur kind of thing Is that being in business for yourself does not give you more flexibility. Matter of fact, I think it it requires more regimentation. You just don't have anybody else to regiment. You gotta regiment yourself. And so that's the downturn. So in which you have to do is you have to look for people that wherever they were before, they were successful, But there was something that was missing from the wheel, where they're giving the guidance and the training. I've got one of the clients I work with, they're a training company.

Mike Lejeune [00:13:24]:
In other words, they hire people who wanna be trained. Well, the the the the what I call the the solo gunslinger doesn't work well for them. The other person's like, I know how to do this. Just give me a desk and a phone. There's no reason to go to work for that company. There's another organization that hates training. They hate leading people, but they built a business model that says, Come to work with us. We're gonna give you a lot of flexibility and freedom.

Mike Lejeune [00:13:45]:
We'll cover your overhead. We'll put you in a team. We'll make some things happen, but you better be able to to to guide and teach and train yourself. Because if you can't tighten up your own belt, you're not gonna get it here. 2 different examples. And so as as leaders, we have to find some we have first identify what's our culture, what's gonna be the magnet that's gonna draw somebody, and then you look into the marketplace into, avenues where somebody has been given an opportunity to, to perform and accepted the challenge where they're managing projects. There's, there's assessments that are out there that help us understand, are they farmers? Are they hunters? Right. And in other words, are they out there are they hunting for are they good hunters? Prospectors, in other words.

Mike Lejeune [00:14:28]:
Are they better? And and and you'll see this in the staffing side of the the recruiting industry where it's it's more of they get an account, and I gotta manage that account, and I gotta make sure I squeeze everything out of it. Well, they use outside salespeople to prospect, bring the business in so that the farmers can sit and be able to manage. And so if if that's a kind of a long answer. You know? I know you're asking, Mike, is like is do I go to a bowling alley to find the best people? Where where where do I go? It it has to do with environments where people are in a high interaction with others, high interaction in some form of fashion. And in that interaction, they had to do something to instigate things themselves. I hired somebody out of 1 well, I'll just mention it because it's a good company. Yeah. Robert Half is one of the largest in if not the probably not.

Mike Lejeune [00:15:15]:
One of the largest in the business. Hired somebody out of their organization, was not happy. And he came to work for us, and he was one of their top performers, and he failed miserably for us. And I went back and I started thinking what what happened there. And what happened was the challenge he faced was he was used to working for this big machine, this big crunching machine. You know? Just it was Robert Half system Advertising, all these traffic coming in and coming out, attraction of clients. I mean, other people, you know, high regimentation, high numbers. I mean, you gotta hit this thing.

Mike Lejeune [00:15:43]:
Somebody's sitting with a thumb on you all the time. Work for me and go, this is that. Let's go. Let's make something happen. Use your territories to make something happen, and he he didn't have the ability To be able to to to turn the machine himself. And I didn't so if you're working in a a boutique company, you gotta be the you gotta be the spinner. You gotta be the person putting that that focus in each and every day. And so you're looking for somebody who had to do that someplace else.

Mike Lejeune [00:16:05]:
So you go look for people who, of course, Maybe sold someplace else or somebody who had a business on the side growing up. Somebody worked their way through school. You know? It there's always, you know, great information. Somebody who was in a situation where the company is going through a downturn, and you ask the question of what did they do to help steer the ship. Now what did the bosses do? What did they do to help steer the ship? You start looking for individual contribution of self initiative, self drive. The other question we used to love to ask, which was, what was the greatest challenge or problem or difficult time in your life that you ever faced with, and what you're looking for is somebody who's faced adversity. And the reason for that Is that, one of the people on on on my, you know, strategies for Mars leaders, you know, you YouTube series I run, Michael Petrach was and I were talking about this. He calls it the, the the number one trait that it takes to be successful in this business is resilience.

Mike Lejeune [00:17:05]:
The number one trait, More than smooth communication skills, it's resilience, it's ability to to have resolve, to be able to move through things. Because it's not a question you're gonna run into an obstacle today. It's which one and how many, and you have to have some you have to have resolve to get through that. And so we would ask that question looking for somebody who's had to overcome Death in the family, some some been, some major thing. And, the the person we didn't hire when asked that question was a you know, it was fairly recent out of school, and when I asked her the question, what was the biggest difficulty you ever had? You know, she looked up, and she got kinda misty eyed. She said, my dad took away my credit cards in college, and I had no money left. I went, okay. Fine.

Mike Lejeune [00:17:50]:
She didn't get hired. Nigga, you know, that's the best you can do. You want somebody who's face life And grab the horn bull you know, bull behind the horn, so to speak. I had to steer it in some form or fashion. It's that internal drive so that no matter What situation there, and they will find a way to become successful, and you don't have to be the catalyst. What you have to be is the guide.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:13]:
Okay. So We now have found the right people. How do you build that into a cohesive high performing team?

Mike Lejeune [00:18:22]:
I think that the, Benjamin, the the the first thing, it has to do with making sure that that as a leader, you embrace the word clarity. And what what what I mean by that is that, when people come together and they're trying to work together as a team, you have to be clear On what the objectives are that you're trying to accomplish. You have to be the one who is pointing the light in the direction for people to step up, and what what are we trying to You have to be clear on the systems and processes that need to be used. Now in our business, we hire a lot of independent A lot of times, but what I the the big mistake I've seen leaders make time and time again is they hire people, and they they give them too much rope. Now I'm not talking about micromanaging, but it has to do with bringing people in, and this person does this their way, and this person does it their way, and then this person does it Their way. And there's no sort of standards, no floor for people to stand on. No acceptable levels of performance. No acceptable way of doing things such as Like the CRM system.

Mike Lejeune [00:19:27]:
Right? I I had, you know, somebody who's a really high producer for us, and I I had to wrestle With her, she she turned out to be the highest producing person. I've worked with her for 14 years. Amazing work one of my favorite people. But I had to to to Consistently try to move her out of her spiral notebook of writing stuff down and having this pump file type of thing to able to put information into the system. Right. Because because that's a waste at heart. Well, you know, it really isn't if you're running a business, you know, if you're running a business, and we were running a business. And so we had to have people that said this is systems of process, and it wasn't for control purposes.

Mike Lejeune [00:20:05]:
I knew personally. I knew that whenever I went from a manual system to my very first computer system. Yes. I am not a dinosaur, but I'm I knew that thing. What happened was, for 6 months, I thought it was a waste of time to put data into the because I was faster if I just did things on my own, look at my own file. Well, 6 months out, I ended up making a placement that with somebody that I completely forgot about. Gotta go on the system and plug the search engine, a person's name popped up. Well, now the system's working for me, and I started realizing that once I get enough data in there And I I'd learn how to use it and work with it, then what takes place is the I've got systems and processes to help me scale.

Mike Lejeune [00:20:43]:
And so it's as a as a as a leader of an organization, we're trying to build the team. It's important to to to have clarity on systems and processes, but it's important that, for for the team to understand. I I call them sandbox rules. So in other words, as a team, here's how we operate, and we're gonna operate for the the broad. We get to You get to do this. I get as long as we stay in the sandbox, it's okay. What happens is we can't do something well this time. I'm gonna work on this particular situation, And then next month, I'm gonna work on another situation.

Mike Lejeune [00:21:12]:
That situation's in kind of in your territory, but it's because I know somebody. I'm gonna I'm gonna it it's like, what's the sandbox rule? What's the sandbox rules that says that whenever you know, if we're working on a a a project together, then I'm gonna give you feedback, get feedback to you, get you involved in the process. What's the sandbox rule that says you're gonna stay out of my way when I'm trying to do something, and you're gonna give me slack? It's what are the rules? Because if if we understand guidelines on those lines then, We we had a chance to operate collectively collectively as a team. And, I think the third part of it has to do with with as a leader recognizing that you have Build a culture because you used the word high performance. Right? You know, you you have to you have to build a culture where people are focused on raising the bar. And the reason we're afraid to raise the bar is we're afraid to fail, meaning that I I'm gonna shoot for this, but if I don't hit that, I feel like a failure. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shoot for this. Shoot shoot shoot at this level because I can hit that level.

Mike Lejeune [00:22:10]:
But what happens is in our in our business is that if if you aren't raising the bar on what you expect of yourself or your company doesn't expect of you or you expect of your company, there are economic forces that will push you back. There's no there's no staying still. When I first got in the business, you know, it's like, it's I work we're we're working for a company. We're scaling fast, and 1st role is you know, 1st time I had 1st 1st leadership role hit our goals. I was all excited about it, and VP came and said, ah, good job. Everybody raising our goals for next year 15%, And then I went out there and, you know, we went after again. Hit that, and then, you know, I'm tongue's hanging at the end of the year. Oh, great job.

Mike Lejeune [00:22:47]:
Guess what? 10% next year, we increase it. I'm like, is this man never happy? Can we not satisfy this guy? And then understand that that You have to always be leaning leaning forward. It's like skiing. Right? I I I'm not a big skier, but I learned to ski later in life. And what was hard for me is to be an effective skier. You gotta lean down the hill. You gotta it makes you feel like you're about maybe maybe I'm gonna fall on my face and, like, Fall down the hill, but what happens is when you lean lean into your lean into your skis, not over the skis, but lean into it, not back. What happens is you pick up momentum.

Mike Lejeune [00:23:19]:
And same principles works for us in business. Is that if you're not leaning forward, if you're not pushing in there, their forces will Sit there and we'll literally knock you on all of that knock you off stride. So those are sort of I'd off top of it sort of, I guess, I had, what, 4 different caveats that you have to look into to build high performance team.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:36]:
Cool. Right. And I love that skiing example, and, you know, leaning forward is important, and I know there's some skiers listening. I made the mistake my first time Skiing, leaning backwards.

Mike Lejeune [00:23:46]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:47]:
And ended up somehow on my back. Ski's still going, going down the hill. Oh my god. Like,

Mike Lejeune [00:23:55]:
I know exactly what you're saying.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:56]:
Stop. What? No control.

Mike Lejeune [00:23:58]:
No. I grew up in South Louisiana. We didn't snow ski. I mean, it's like I always thought of skiing, but but I'm gonna go up on a mountain and put 2 pieces of wood on my feet and throw myself off the side of a mountain. What how can that be fun? So a group water Well, what is skiing exactly? The op to hold the rope. You gotta lean back into it from attention standpoint. Well, skiing is is is the opposite, and it's learning how to control that momentum. So use using the energy of the mountain, and that's why that's what we're trying to do with our business.

Mike Lejeune [00:24:24]:
You know? We're trying to use the energy of momentum, use of coalition, Pulling together, being able to lean into each other, being able to to drive, and that's where doors will that that's where doors will will will kick open.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:34]:
So okay. So we've now Found the team. We're now built the team. And how do you make that A business that's gonna be that's gonna keep on going. It's gonna be, like, self sustaining because that's really, like, the goal of a lot of owners.

Mike Lejeune [00:24:50]:
Right. Yeah. It I've been thinking about that a lot. And if you were to ask me my favorite technology, I I would say it's a CRM system. I say, a, because there's a lot of great ones out there. It depends upon your company and what you're involved with, what have you. But when I say CRM system, it's customer relation management system. Right? Well, the the mistake that, I I see us making is we don't build the value of our contacts.

Mike Lejeune [00:25:19]:
Yeah. In in other words, I have to build a system as an as as a company that I'm tracking down. I'm spending a lot of time and energy and effort in making sure that I have documented who are hiring authorities, who are prospects, who are influencers from a business development standpoint so that I can do 2 things. 1 is I can develop Call campaigns, getting people on the phone, making outreach phone calls to them, developing relationships with key targets. The second is, and from a recruiting standpoint, recognizing is who I talk to today is not who I'm placing today. Who I talk to is probably gonna place tomorrow. Or more importantly, who who who I'm talking to is gonna lead me to the 3rd level. And what I mean by the 3rd level is is recruiters Is the 3rd level is I'm talking to somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.

Mike Lejeune [00:26:11]:
And the 3rd level is the person I'm probably gonna place. Not the first two. But that's that's the magic of our business is to build something that you can have that much churn, that much information going in the marketplace So that you can literally push buttons and push information out into the marketplace to make sure that your name is Where it needs to be heard and known and and and established and recognized. It's it's really funny. Yes I it the I didn't think about this. Yesterday, I was talking to my who I know really well. She's part of my my coalition I have. I I run a mastermind group for for recruiting owner recruiting owners and managers.

Mike Lejeune [00:26:50]:
And, I was talking to her yesterday, and she goes, I'm not getting your email. And I said, I can't have I mean, I've checked. I mean, it's like I know it's coming to you. And she goes, what's it coming from? I said, no. It's either coming from me or it's coming from my company, lighting the path. He goes, what's that? Oh, lighting the path. Let me go check.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:05]:
Oh, here.

Mike Lejeune [00:27:05]:
Here's lighting the path. I didn't recognize that. I didn't recognize your name, so here here's my new system. I gotta go back now, and I'm gonna get my my my my CRM manager, And I'm gonna get her to say, okay. We gotta anything that comes out, it's gotta come up with my name on it. Gotta come up with my name on it. But what happens is You you want to as a as a business owner, how do I how do I build something that that the the the the data sitting inside of my company is gonna produce successful searches and successful candidates, because, LinkedIn is a awesome tool, phenomenal tool. It was supposed to put us out of business, by the way, just like, You know, Indeed was or, you know, the job boards were.

Mike Lejeune [00:27:49]:
And instead, they all became the greatest resource for recruiter. You know, they don't need us anymore because LinkedIn can find all the people. What LinkedIn did is it took a while the low hanging fruit, meaning that HR managers can put somebody out there and go and find easy people. They'll they'll post something and people respond maybe. But, you know, with with the advantage that you have, whenever you're competing in the marketplaces, whenever you build Silos when you develop networks of of people within certain areas so where you can work on on on on, Increasing your visibility in certain marketplaces, that increases, what I call sustainability from a long term standpoint. The second part of it is I I and this is my my new the platform I'm standing on a lot right now, because I think the biggest weakness that we have in the recruiting industry, and this this is if you're an owner, it's important. A manager, it's important to understand this. If you're a recruiter, It's important to understand that is that we are the weakest industry I've ever seen on on on planning, And what I mean by that is that we we we we don't or I know I don't.

Mike Lejeune [00:28:58]:
I know my people didn't and my my client. We don't we don't plan our next day as effective. We don't we don't put an importance on it. What happened? We put an importance on making phone calls and putting on recruiting people and getting business people. Whatever time is left over at the end of the day, we'll put a to do list together. Well, a to do list is not the same as a plan. It just says I'm gonna do these things, but a plan is, here are the results I wanna get tomorrow. Now let me I'm gonna spend 45 minutes, maybe an hour.

Mike Lejeune [00:29:25]:
I I don't know. I've been loading my guns up today. So when I'm firing tomorrow, I'm I'm a laser beam. I'm not a shotgun. And what I found is the more time I invest at the end of my day to load up for the next day, the more productive my next day is. The more I think about tomorrow. This is what I wanna accomplish, not do. This is what I wanna accomplish.

Mike Lejeune [00:29:48]:
In order to accomplish this, now I have to do this. And so the planning part of getting people, like and be because we have the ability today. If I'm gonna make if I'm gonna make 30 phone calls tomorrow, As do I spend time researching and looking, who are these people I'm calling, why am I calling them, and who are they? What what am I gonna say? What am I gonna do? So we used to think that that that was a waste of time. You know you know, that that's it's, they called it paralysis by analysis. I didn't do things. I spent all my time analyzing, and it's true. I don't need to spend an hour reading a resume to decide if I wanna call them. I should be able to do that in less than 2 minutes.

Mike Lejeune [00:30:25]:
Yeah. And there's no no reason to spend more than 2 minutes reading a resume. Maybe a minute because I'm looking for, do I wanna talk to this person? If you spend more than that, that's paralysis to my analysis. But there's a difference in that and looking at saying, okay. Here's where here's where I'm headed tomorrow. And so if you build that type of culture in as an organization where people really spend time effectively putting together Their their action plan for the

Benjamin Mena [00:30:48]:
next day. You

Mike Lejeune [00:30:49]:
know? And, going back to the leaders, if you're listening to this, If if I tell you to plan on your time, not my time as a leader, I'm telling you this isn't important. If I'm willing to say, I'm gonna give you part of my day, my business day, and let you plan on my dime, I'm now elevating its level of importance. As a leader, am I coming back and say, hey. How's your plan going on? Which what what do you got planned for this And if if somebody's newer in the business where you have to kind of shepherd them a little bit more, actually sit on and spend time reviewing them. Building a culture that planning is important, is, it actually helps people feel more confident because they're they're gonna know what to say. They got an idea what to say.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:35]:
I I love this because, by the time this episode goes live, another episode that I just did with $1,000,000 biller, Rich Rosen.

Mike Lejeune [00:31:43]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:44]:
And that was one of the things that we, like, we talked about because at least early in my career, like, planning was hopping into your day timer and, like, you know, here's what I'm gonna do Tomorrow.

Mike Lejeune [00:31:53]:
That that's the doodle to do list. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:56]:
Yeah. And so every time I've heard some of these I don't wanna say, like, you know, people that have been in the game a while, but people that have been in the game while they're talking about planning. Well, you gotta plan your day. You gotta plan your day. And most people that have not been around will say, like, an MRI or some of those circles When they thought planning their day was just, alright, goodbye to do list. Here's the 3 things that I wanna accomplish tomorrow.

Mike Lejeune [00:32:16]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:17]:
I had to nail down Rich Rosen about a year ago, and I'm like, you keep on talking about planning. Excuse my language. What the fuck are you talking about? And he was like, no. Like, I'm building out my list of 50 people to call tomorrow. That is planning.

Mike Lejeune [00:32:29]:
Mhmm. And and I know and as he builds his list because I know Rich. Alright. As he builds his list, the people on the list for a reason. Here's why I'm calling them no more, and it's clear. Because what happens is if we have clarity of why, now when I call you, You know, I can the call can go instead of, hey. My name is Mike is what I'm doing rev you know, but and I'm gonna sound like, you know, the the adult in Charlie Charlie Brown cartoons. You know, instead, I pick up the phone and I call you, leave you a voice mail, and say, Benjamin, Mike Lejeune, the reason I'm reaching out to you It's because of who you are.

Mike Lejeune [00:33:03]:
I found out of your role, your presence in this podcast universe of having one of the most outstanding voices, in the recruiting industry with what you're doing, you seem to be doing some cutting edge stuff. We'd love an opportunity for you and I to spend just a couple of minutes together. I got a project I'm working on. Here's my number. And what's the chances you're gonna call me back?

Benjamin Mena [00:33:21]:
Much higher?

Mike Lejeune [00:33:22]:
Yeah. You know, versus, hey. I'm Mike. I've got this. I got this job. I got this in other words, you can personalize it more. There's more of a reason why when I when I do outreach. And so now, again, you're not gonna spend a half a day To put a plan together to make an hour worth of phone call, that's that's that's not productive.

Mike Lejeune [00:33:40]:
That's that's overdoing it. You don't need that. But if if you're not investing 45 minutes to an hour to get your gun loaded for the next day, if you talk about MRI or the some of the larger Organizations, they have their click on roll up list or call list or whatever. The idea of planning was run the search, put the list together, got a 100 names, take your phone calls. Well, now I got this list, and it's like we're going. Unfortunately, that's that's that's stage 1, step 1 of maybe putting a plan together. But the question is is now, why am I calling these people? Who are they? Out of out of that list, I'm a prioritize them. The first 20 are here.

Mike Lejeune [00:34:16]:
The 2nd 20 are here because out of all that list, are there are there companies that I really wanna go after? Are there somebody that I've heard about? I will tell you that, you know, you're making me think about when it come on the subject of planning. Am I planning to look for leads? I I think that in our business, You know, nobody likes to we used to call them cold call. Well, the reason you stopped the cold call today is you're not pursuing leads. That's information to mark gathering market intel about projects that are going on, acquisitions, mergers, divestiture, new technology, You know, something. I mean, somebody comes up with a new piece of technology, guess what? It's gonna it's gonna stream its way down through the production and operations and accounting. So now I'm calling him to look. I understand this is what's going on. You got a new piece a new division you're launching.

Mike Lejeune [00:35:04]:
It's a totally different way of being perceived in the marketplace, but you got you gotta be have a year to the ground. You gotta be asking people. You gotta you got a quest you have questions along those lines.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:15]:
Well, that's awesome. And, yeah, so if you're listening to this whether you're a leader or not a leader, like, I dare you I dare you to spend 1 week with the last hour of your day planning in the way that Mike and Rich have talked about, And I'd love to hear from you and see how, like, that challenge goes. Oh, Mike, before we head over to quickfire questions, I do wanna touch on one more thing. You built and sold a company. You're you've now had interactions coaching mastermind groups with many other leaders. What do you think are the 3 principles that either helped you or has helped other people that you've consulted with Sell their company, like, the building part to sell.

Mike Lejeune [00:36:02]:
Let me reverse engineer that for you. Let me tell you about the things that that that that I learned that are most important. Number 1 is that, you have to have strong systems and processes So that an organization is not just buying your client list. Right? And that that's a key factor. So if you're looking at one day of of Scaling to be able to have an exit plan. You really wanna have systems and processes in place. Now having systems and processes in place help you helps people working with you, they'll be able to operate more effectively. Right? But the the end game is it makes it, you know, when outside looking and going, I can this is this is a well run business.

Mike Lejeune [00:36:40]:
Look at the process to have a way of doing second of all is that, I know when we're going through the the the vetting process, one of the things that they looked at was client mix. You have to have a diverse climax. I'm not talking about industry. I'm talking about you gotta look at and be be be leery of having a business where I've got one of my clients that I work with, the new coaching with. He's currently at 90% of his business is coming from 1 company. They're doing well. They're doing a lot of business with that company. That business is it diminishes its market value Because what happens is is what happens if what happens if that particular line that loses And especially when you go through a a, an acquisition, you know, the chance of people staying there because of the change and stuff, there there's a risk there's a risk factor so that It gets deescalated.

Mike Lejeune [00:37:31]:
The value gets deescalated. So you need to look at what am I doing to grow to make sure I'm spending time of of of diversifying my My my client my client mix. So you got systems and processes. You've got client mix. And then the third is gonna be from a succession plan standpoint. Do you have somebody who's been vetted, trained, and developed to come after you. In other words, when you leave the field and you hand the keys over to somebody else, is there somebody internally From a management standpoint, that can keep things running. So in other words, do you have you built your right hand? Are you built somebody to come in who can do these things? Because if not, what happens is the value goes down because they're gonna have to take somebody else and plug them into that value increases if you can Stay as a self sustaining business unit that adds on to what what what they're what they're already doing.

Mike Lejeune [00:38:21]:
So though those are the sort of the 3 caveats as I went through the process the standard that that we were being evaluated by.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:27]:
Well, let me kinda add in one more thing. Is there something that you thought Would've that was would've been important in your eyes that ended up not being important at all when it came to building to sell? Yeah.

Mike Lejeune [00:38:43]:
Goodwill. The technical you know, it's like the the name of our company. Right. Yeah. So we've been we've been in business almost 30 years, and we saw a lot of value in there. Look look at the value of this. I just helped another client of mine go through an internal acquisition where they're looking at value system of, their their 3 3 top producers taking over for the the founder of the firm and was selling it internally. And he was, with the same place I was.

Mike Lejeune [00:39:08]:
Look at what I've done for 40 year. Look at the with the look at the look at the the goodwill. Now The name of the company will have some continued goodwill. I thought it had more good more value more value than what it did. What has more value is literally the current relationships I've got with the companies I'm that that I'm doing business with. What's the depth of them? Yeah. What's the knowledge base that they have of us and we have of them? How diverse am I, established within an organization? Am I established a point where it's just with the HR manager? Am I tab am I am I at the suite c suite? Am I in with different department managers? Am I if I diversify? You know, it's it's it's do I do I again, going back to it, do I have a marketing machine that's capable of generating business? You know, new business coming in. You know? So from a value standpoint, most acquisitions in our our space is very much asset based acquisition.

Mike Lejeune [00:40:03]:
You know, that meaning that what's who are the clients? What's the receivables running with those clients? What are we having? I'm not talking about desks and chairs and computer systems. I'm talking about the, the the the run rate. In other words, right now, based upon where we are, what's the projection for the future? You know? And so it's you wanna be looking at, are you trending up, are you trending down? The value goes up if you're trending up. If you're trending down, it gets diminished, And that will overshadow this awesome goodwill that that that that that that does. It's not that it's meaningless. It's not that it's meaningless, but it it just I I thought that it was, Just a higher marketplace value put on it than than than especially after I put my blood and sweat and tears and and just bled for years and, you You know, went through economic downturns and, you know, all all the the challenges we have as entrepreneur. At the end of the day, It's a it's a numbers deal. They look at the numbers on the book and they extrapolate it out, and they said, I'm gonna pay you this.

Mike Lejeune [00:41:01]:
And the expectation is that, I need to be able to recoup that in my profits and within a 3 to 5 year period of time. And at the end of the day, that's that's where my that that's that's gonna be the offer that I'm gonna get for my company.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:15]:
Well, before we move on to the quick fire questions, Mike, is there anything else that you wanna share about any of the topics that we covered?

Mike Lejeune [00:41:20]:
No. I really love the, the conversations we've had with, about what it takes to to sort of scale. And everything we we talked about From a leadership standpoint, I hope if somebody's listening to this, well, I'm not a leader. I'm a recruiter business development person, senior person, junior person. It it it cascade. The message is just as relevant for you as it is from a leader standpoint because what makes a good leader in this business is what makes a good recruiter. You know, it's the ability to go out there and manage yourself and be able to drive. You know, what do you wanna accomplish in in in in this business? What do you wanna get out of your career? I think that in as I was preparing, you know, my thoughts for our call today and and annoying you know, trying to guess what you were gonna ask me, there's one thing that kept coming back to mind is that when I look back over my my career, and the the growth that I've gone through, I recognize that every year, I had something that I wanted to try to learn, and I think I learned as much, if not more last year than I did the 1st year in the business.

Mike Lejeune [00:42:22]:
It was different. 1st year of business, I'm learning how to dial the phone and, you know, you know, what do I say? How do I introduce myself or whatever? And so last year, it was it was bigger picture. It was learning how to have business conversations with people about large scale projects and systems, and In my case, talking to leaders about what goes on inside the heart and the minds of the people you're trying to lead and in your what battles you're facing. But I think that if if somebody really takes that kind of ownership in their career to say, this year, I'm gonna invest this much money, this much time in learning how to do this new, more, or better, and that the key thing and and having a target on that. Because then what happens is you see yourself growing. You see yourself, you know, moving forward. You see yourself becoming. So when you look over your shoulder, you're not just repeating last year.

Mike Lejeune [00:43:10]:
It it it takes a different shape, but you you end up going from 1 platform to another to another to another. What you're doing out of your design As opposed to just responding to what life throws at you.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:20]:
I absolutely love that, Mike. So on to the quick fire questions, And these are gonna be fun just because I love your insight.

Mike Lejeune [00:43:28]:
A quick fire. I don't know. It doesn't

Benjamin Mena [00:43:30]:
And this is gonna be fun just because, you know, the insight that you have, The people that you're coaching, the experiences that you had, what advice would you give to a recruiter That's just getting started in this industry this year.

Mike Lejeune [00:43:43]:
Mhmm. Learn how to spell the word network. Now what I mean by that is that if I were gonna do do do a do over because I I predate LinkedIn. I've been I've been at this for a while. Right? I wish that I'd embraced the subject of network earlier in my career where I was intentional on building A network of people that I could be in contact with so that if I grew my network, the goal is Next year, I want my job to be easier than this year. The way I do that is I have to learn how to get better at the job, and I have to know more people. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grow my network every year. I've got a a target of people now at this stage of my career That I wanna grow my network this year, and I've got sort of a pool of people that is I need to get to know more people in this space.

Mike Lejeune [00:44:33]:
Some of them I've already identified, some of them I haven't yet. But, in this space, I'm gonna go and grow my network. And so if you're just getting started in this business, you wanna think about How do you talk to people? How do you build people that you can call and talk to who are as as, my dad taught me this phrase, bird dogs. Yeah. Because he raised he raised his angels, changes like they go man bird hunting. I used to love watching them because they'd get out in the bush and they'd sit there and, You know, there there's a bird off in the brush you couldn't see, but all of a sudden, the dog would stop and its its tail would stick out behind him and nose would point to the pointer. That's what they'd point. Well, I I wish I had a list of all the placements that I made over my career where somebody pointed me to something.

Mike Lejeune [00:45:15]:
Well, wouldn't it be great have been more intentional of developing the pointers, the bird dogs, the influencers, as opposed to just kinda stumbling into them. And I think that it if you do that, Then what happens is you're building a network for yourself that that network takes on high value because it that network produces The results that you need because it's information coming at you, and this is an information management business. That's what we're in.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:40]:
Phenomenal. And I'm gonna ask the same question, but for People that have, I would say, been around the block. 5, 10, 15, 20. You know, I'm almost 2 decades in this in this wonderful world.

Mike Lejeune [00:45:49]:
Oh, measuring decades now. I like that.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:51]:
I know. What advice would you give to, you know, an experienced recruiter to to see success?

Mike Lejeune [00:45:56]:
I'm sorry. With with an experienced recruiter, somebody who's Yeah. Well, again, in a Texas term, long in tooth. Right? So, If if you're if if somebody's been at this for a while, and I'm gonna I it depends upon challenge that that they may be facing or what they wanna try to do. The question is, do they do they, Is there a spark that needs to get relit? One of the best ways to light a spark. I hadn't thought about this before. Now let me tell you what's coming to my mind right now. Best way to light a spark is to find somebody like Benjamin that you can mentor.

Mike Lejeune [00:46:32]:
I just use you as a name. In other words, find somebody you can go out and mentor. And I'm doing that right now personal with people who are speakers. I I I, they were calling in that. I just I like helping people learn how to use their voice bigger, better, better, because I think our industry needs it. But I love watching People grow and develop, just I did early in my career, except now it's I I kept just people I'm trying to shepherd along those. And you know what's really fascinating? As the more that I give away, the more comes back to me, and that is what I've learned throughout my career. And for somebody who's got a lot of experience of this, you have a lot of resources that you could share, and sometimes we run into this fear of giving things away.

Mike Lejeune [00:47:14]:
But the reality is is the more that I can help somebody, Take it from a spiritual standpoint. I think you get blessed. Take it from a, you know, the universe rewards or whatever you wanna call it. Whatever your walk is. But I I truly believe that the more that we can we we can pour into others, the more it gets poured back into us. And what happens is we get lit up. And sometimes as we get more experience in this business, it becomes rote, and we need we need more of a challenge. And sometimes people get to a stage where they They feel like, I'm burned out.

Mike Lejeune [00:47:46]:
I wanna do something different. And the reality is is that they don't need to do something different. They need to stay in the same field that they're in, but find other ways to Be able to get filled back up while they're doing stuff that historically might be draining to them.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:01]:
I love that re finding a way to relight your fire Yeah. By mentoring.

Mike Lejeune [00:48:06]:
Mhmm. Love that, Mike.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:07]:
Mike, has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your career?

Mike Lejeune [00:48:11]:
There's a couple of them. The the first one that pops to mind is leadership is an art, and it's an older book because it's one of the ones one of the very first leadership books I ever read. It's only about that because I read my guy named Max Dupree, who's the chairman of the board of was chairman of the board of the furniture company. Come to me later on. But anyway, but he wrote this book all, it it was a we're we're world class organization, and, the it's What I found fascinating about it is he spent so much time talking about these truisms, about the heart of the leader and the heart of the people. And we have to recognize that that the leadership in today's, world, you know, is not a, an order giver. It's not the the person who's sitting there in charge up the hill. A leader in today's world is somebody who creates An environment that people are gonna choose to follow them.

Mike Lejeune [00:49:05]:
Well, one of the greatest ways to ignite people and get them connected to you is if they feel like you value them, You value and appreciate the people who are part of the team, and you're doing things to make sure that they feel valued. And the only value does not putting a foosball or ping pong table in the middle of of the floor. Houston was a big deal. California started this stuff, you know, Silicon Valley. You know? So I love talking about California. It's just like You know? I I I've gotta be careful. My wife's gonna give me a hard time for this. I'm not gonna go down that road.

Mike Lejeune [00:49:37]:
But it I mean, there's just some some stuff that came out of Silicon Valley that from a cultural standpoint, it's really hard for me to put in my company. Right? Yeah. I mean, serving wine on Friday afternoon. It's ain't gonna happen. It's just not going to, but but it it's it's what happens is Where people get truly engaged is if the people working for you feel like you're interested in their development. And I think that that leadership is an art. It's the word about around art that that really kinda caught my my attention with. And so that, you know, that that would be 1.

Mike Lejeune [00:50:06]:
The second1 That would I would pick that would be I'm going I'm actually going all the way back to the beginning of my career because it was just so transformational for me. You know, it's it was it was, I think it's Maxwell more small to the name or something. It's the magic of thinking big. Right. And, it's written by psychotherapist. And the reason why it it struck me was I remember some stuff he wrote about in there about he was a he was a a plastic surgeon, And he would go in and he would do all of these, he would do, you know, reconstruction facial things on for on these people. And after he did it, he put them in front of a mirror, and they would not see the change because they just still saw themselves the same as as they were before. They didn't recognize the chain, and it just it struck me as he talked about how do I think higher of my capability than whatever my circumstance and situation calls for today.

Mike Lejeune [00:51:04]:
And so there's a whole lot of books that fall into that category I've read over the years that has to do with how do we shape our mind to be able to see what I call is possible As opposed to what will probably happen. I I don't make that shift. And, so, I mean, those so that's why I picked magic of being big is Is that's it falls in a category. There's a lot of more current things along those lines that are out there that address the same thing. You know, business owners traction is a great book that's out there right now. Talks about EOS. Sorry, the US culture. And, but it's the the heart of what it's about, it's about systems and processes and And learning about how do I make sure that they're operating with maximum efficiency and effectiveness, and what are the ones that are most important, what I refer to as having hyperfocus, Not focused.

Mike Lejeune [00:51:49]:
Hyper focused on the steps that we need to take. Bring clarity. Here are the steps we need to take and to be able to stay focused on that to get the resolve that we want.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:58]:
Awesome. Well, let me kinda keep it in that same gear. What do you think has been a huge impact or a huge player in your own personal success.

Mike Lejeune [00:52:09]:
And the first word pops out of my mind is faith. That this is my faith walk, and it's been like this for a period of time. And, the the the biggest driver for me is the closer I became to recognizing the person that god created me to be And to to seek that and to step in that direction. As a friend of mine pointed out, he said, Michael, when are you gonna Quit swimming upstream banging into rocks and start turning going downstream. And, because, I mean, I was arriving our company filled with stress, filled with anxiety. We don't have time to get into it, but I get talking to somebody who lived, like, 14 13, 14 years with massive panic attacks To the point that I couldn't ride elevators, escalators, couldn't get on an airplane, and, you know, and just my little world just kept shrinking down. And, I mean, for me to do what I do today is and when it's it's it's just there's a god miracle in there. The 2nd part of it has to do with just an unbelievable blessing, that, I've had to recognize that there there's, there's specialness in inside of each and every one of us.

Mike Lejeune [00:53:15]:
And how do we embrace? How do we look for that? How do we develop that? How do we for me, you know, panic attacks I was extremely uncomfortable. Right? In a panic, I'm freaking out of pain, and so I would run from discomfort. And now, I I I try to figure out what am I uncomfortable with, and so now I gotta go do it. And I don't you know, I'm I'm not gonna skydive. I don't wanna I'm I'm not skydive. Why would anybody throw themselves out of good airplane? I'm not gonna do it. But, I mean, I think that it is there a person that that I'm a little bit uncomfortable talking to? That's the person I gotta call and talk. Is there something is there something I'm hesitant about doing? And I gotta go there because what happens is it's in our discomfort That's where our growth comes from.

Mike Lejeune [00:53:57]:
And so what can I do to figure out, I'm working on a program right now, but, you know, you know, are you willing to live in your freak out zone? You know, the the place where because what happens is when you go there and you learn how to breathe through it and recognize whatever the situation and circumstances dealing with, You're gonna get through it. I mean, I I'm wrestling with that right now. You and I were talking earlier. My wife has been battling with pneumonia for this past week. I have to tell you, I've been in my freak outs on all week long. Pneumonia in the hospital for a week, you know, with them sticking IVs and masks, and I was just like going and watching her just struggling breathing. The good news is we came home last night, so I'm back home. I'm in my studio now,

Benjamin Mena [00:54:39]:
and

Mike Lejeune [00:54:39]:
she's doing okay, and so we're having we we're doing some stuff at home now. But I'm telling you this, I had to every day, I had to tell myself, we're gonna get through this. Now what do we do? Alright. We're gonna get what what what new thing what have we tried? What have we not tried? Having conversations with doctors who know 99% more than I do. When it comes to medicine, I am that's not my gifting. They use words, and I'm going, what the heck did he just say? But recognizing that I'd still need to go and ask questions. I need to go find out what's going on. I need to say, look.

Mike Lejeune [00:55:08]:
Go slow down. Help me understand. What are we talking about And go into that space and take take a step. That's life. That's life. That's business. And that's what our business This is recruited in this in recruiting industry, because that's our market, right, that we're we're speaking to, is that you're talking to people each and every day thrown in a brand new situation that you don't know anything about because it's a brand new client or a brand new person. And so you develop the the the the skill and the heart To recognize that I can ask enough questions because I talk to this person to figure out a way to solve this situation, But I gotta be willing to be uncomfortable while I'm doing that.

Mike Lejeune [00:55:45]:
I gotta be willing to be able to stretch myself. I gotta be willing to take a breath when I hit that roadblock that I can't figure something out. No. Making easy placements, though. I called the lay downs. You know, client calls you up and gives you this job order and you scratch it. How am I gonna find that person? The next phone call you get from a candidate With that background, and they're looking for a job, you know, and you walk away feeling like you're a super recruiter. No.

Mike Lejeune [00:56:05]:
You just took a breath. That's that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about sustainability and con consistency comes from from being able to to look each and every day, but how do I Stretch myself to go, okay. What am I gonna do different? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do better? And how to be uncomfortable doing that. Recognize that you will if you keep taking steps, You keep taking steps, you know, what I call move the ball. You know, if you if you if you move the ball by the way, that's a I wrote my new book that I'm writing this year. You know, move the ball. You know? You'll be amazed Amazed at where you stand up one day and you look over your shoulder.

Mike Lejeune [00:56:42]:
You know? And I'm not freaked out stuck in my apartment trying to figure out, oh my god, how am I gonna drive to work So literally jumping on an airplane and flying to South Africa to give a program. You know? So it's a amazing amazing an amazing journey.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:59]:
That's awesome. Well and this kinda, like you know, this is one of my favorite questions. You've seen a lot in the recruiting world. You've been through a lot in the recruiting world. What if you were able to go have a cup of coffee with yourself? The 1st week that you just got started. Mhmm. What would you tell yourself?

Mike Lejeune [00:57:16]:
You're gonna make it. You're gonna make it. Because what happens is this business you from for most of us. Now there's some of us that are egos are strong enough. You got you have no doubt you're gonna make it. You're just gonna go you're gonna make it. You're gonna Kicking in. Right? But it's it's when the the the the the no start comes up.

Mike Lejeune [00:57:34]:
The counteroffer hits comes in that do that derails you. It knocks you off your feet. You question yourself. Is you gonna do this? Whenever you've you've you've worked on a search for a month and a half and you finally got the offer, And the person turns it down. Now you gotta start to search all over again because you don't have another candidate in the link in the link. You're gonna make it. Second thing, I would I would wanna make sure if I'm having coffee with with with we'll call them Loomite, is that measure yourself this week by what you've learned, not what you did. Dress yourself by what you learned, not what you did because you make a lot more money off of what you're learning than what you're doing.

Mike Lejeune [00:58:14]:
That's that's what I think is the sustainability. You talk about Rich. I mean, guarantee if you ask Rich what did he learn this last year, you know, versus his 1st year, Yeah. Massive. Because he's a he's a, chronic learner. He's he's a stretcher. He's he's he's willing to it's it's all it's what he does. That's why he's ranked as one of the top 25 recruiters in the country.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:34]:
Well, Mike, first of all, before I let you go, recap about the event coming up.

Mike Lejeune [00:58:39]:
Oh, yeah. The virtual conference. Sure. It's, recap on it. We're gonna have 9 sessions, but then I take the. We're gonna have 11 sessions over 3 days. There are an hour, about hour breaks. You know? So it's it's 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 1:45.

Mike Lejeune [00:58:55]:
And then We're gonna have some amazing leaders people speaking on business development and on recruiting processes and systems, and I guarantee you're gonna walk over to something with with with something like. Also gonna walk or pick people specifically who are, gonna breathe fire into you. In other words, you will be inspired by the time you finish. You'll be poured into in a massive way. And then there's 2 days. There's an owner manager only, Zoom meeting on on Wednesday that, I will have Our Zoom room's set up, and we'll be breaking the breakout rooms. And you'll be networking, and and I'll be facilitating discussions on subjects such as KPI KPIs and issues that the people We're rest resting within today's time. And then Thursday, I'll do the exact same thing again.

Mike Lejeune [00:59:38]:
But this one is for recruiters, and we'll be looking at business development recruiting guy, and I'll be facilitating a discussion with other people within with with other counterparts. Give me a chance to meet other people in the business. Like I said, there's 9 sessions behind that that are how to. The cool thing about it is I'll have a final approval on this probably next week or so because that American Staffing Association and the National Association Personnel services will count all these sessions for a continuing education for anybody who has any type of certifications within those organizations. So, it's gonna be a monster day. It's gonna be a monster week, February 20th, 21st, and 22nd.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:13]:
Awesome. And outside of that, Is there anything else that you wanna share with the listeners before I let you go?

Mike Lejeune [01:00:20]:
I hope you recognize the importance that you play in the lives of the people you're serving. I I believe that, and I saw this early on, that every day that I woke up and went to work, there's a chance that today I will do something. I will do something today that will literally change somebody's life. Man, that's that's what a blessing. What an amazing blessing to be rewarded that way. Counter to that, what a phenomenal responsibility you're taking on your shoulders. That the work you do, that if you're willing to to hold yourself to a standard of excellence. See, what happens is being good is no longer that's just that's that that gets you in the door maybe, but excellence is what gets you business, And so you have to be able to excel at this.

Mike Lejeune [01:01:03]:
Can't go through the motions. Can't do average. There's too many people out there. There's too many Options that companies have. You have to excel at this. So when you do, when you're willing to put that much of yourself out, Three things are gonna happen. You will impact the company. You will impact the lives of the people that you're serving, and more importantly, you're gonna grow into who God created you to be.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:24]:
I love that. Well, Mike, I'm so excited that you got to share. Yeah. Incredible experience. You've been around a lot of, like, incredible opportunities and incredible people.

Mike Lejeune [01:01:35]:
Yeah. And I've been doing this for decades. You can go and say that if you want to.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:38]:
But for the listeners, I do wanna remind you about halfway through, we were talking about Planning. And I'm gonna challenge you one more time, just bringing it up to the end of the podcast. Mike really talked about planning your day and planning for tomorrow. Do it for 1 week, and feel free to shoot my message. Like, how did it go? How did it change? Was it a better week If you spend, like, 45 minutes to an hour before you ended your day to prepare for the next day. So so excited that you guys got a chance to listen to this. Mike just spent a good hour pouring into you. And what we do as a community, we grow as a community.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:18]:
So let's go together, guys. Until next time.