Zero to Booked: How Andy Roads Started His Own Firm and Landed Clients Instantly (No Bullshit)

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

Andy [00:00:03]:
It was insane, Ben. It was literally like every week two desks were emptied out. One day I like panicked, got home, my wife's like, well, put your resume on monster.com. this is like how long ago this was. So I literally posted the resume that evening. And the next morning at like 8am, I walked into work and I heard Andy get into the office right now. And I walked in. I'm like, here we go.

Andy [00:00:26]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:44]:
This episode is brought to you by Remote Assistants, the go to partner for recruiters who are done wasting time on operations, sourcing or marketing. Their remote assistants are pre vetted and fully trained for an entire four months. We're talking sourcing, candidate follow up, backend automation, marketing support, all the things that pull you away from actually growing your business. So if you're serious about scaling your agency and want to buy back your time with real plug and play talent, go to www.remoteassistance.AI and get matched in under 48 hours. I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast because my guess is in a position that many people have spent a decade working in a search firm, putting their blood, sweat, energy and equity day in and day out, growing the firm, knowing that they're one day going to help take it over. But what happens when that one day doesn't work out? What happens when the day that you've spent the last decade preparing for just doesn't happen? What do you do? Do you start over again? Do you go look for another firm to go spend another decade with and grow? Or is it the time that you might have to go create your own path? And that's why I'm so excited to have Andy on the podcast. We're going to talk about, like some of the things that he did the first three months for some absolutely incredible growth out of the gate. Everything from messaging to how we got the client.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:09]:
So I am so excited to have Andy on the podcast. So welcome.

Andy [00:02:12]:
Hey, thank you. I've been listening for, gosh, over a year now, so it's an honor to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:17]:
So before we get started and how you even ended up in this wonderful world, real quick 30 second snapshot of what you're doing now with your recruiting company.

Andy [00:02:26]:
Yeah. So High Altitude Recruiting is a executive retained recruiting agency. We have two industries we support. They are complete polar opposites. So I run our food and beverage and my father runs aviation, which is an industry he's been in for over 30 years. And yeah, like I said, we're senior managers up to C suite.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:48]:
That is definitely exciting. So let's take a step back. How did you end up in this.

Andy [00:02:53]:
Wonderful world of recruiting?

Benjamin Mena [00:02:55]:
Of recruiting?

Andy [00:02:56]:
Yeah. Crazy story. I was actually going to school to be a physical therapist and it was a seven year program. I was in year five, got an internship at the hospital to work on an orthopedic floor. Had met my now wife very early into the relationship. She said, you're pretty miserable. If you're going to like propose to me, can you be happy with your career? And so I ended up dropping out of the PT program and just through networking, I became a recruiter for a travel physical therapy company. And essentially like, it was a Super high volume, 100 calls a day or like 10 hours a week on the phone type of a role.

Andy [00:03:40]:
Really high turnover. I was fortunate enough that I got to go to a lot of like college fairs and recruit like brand new physical therapists because I could kind of speak the vibe and like just, hey, this is what the role is going to entail. Go to this hospital, do X, Y or Z. And crazily, like, I saw this turnover ratio, it was insane. Ben. It was literally like every week two desks were emptied out. Yeah, I mean, if you weren't meeting the quota of that hundred calls a day or 10 hours on the phone, or if you just weren't booking business, you were basically yanked. And so one day I like panicked, got home, we just bought a house in Colorado and my wife's like, well, put your resume on monster.com.

Andy [00:04:22]:
this is like how long ago this was. So I literally posted the resume that evening. And the next morning at like 8am, I walked into work and I heard Andy get into the office right now. And I walked in, I'm like, here we go. And she's like, why'd you post your resume on monster.com? i'm like, how did you see this so quickly? And I'm like, well, I kind of sat down. I'm like, you're firing everyone. She's like, you're doing great. Like, just keep doing what you're doing.

Andy [00:04:47]:
But you got to take your resume off. So I went back to my desk and literally took it down. And within that, however long few hours it was posted, I got a call from a healthcare company in Denver and they're like, hey, we're looking for HR generalists. Are you interested? And I was like, you know what? Yeah, there's stability, you know. And so that company gave you the opportunity to bounce between HR teams and again landed in recruiting. And I was like, absolutely, absolutely love it. I managed like Canada down to Baltimore and all of the hospitals and clinics, mostly New York. And I was like, this is for me, like getting to talk to new people every day, getting to work with multiple hiring managers.

Andy [00:05:25]:
I basically hired everything from people mopping floors to physicians and everything in between. I absolutely loved it.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:32]:
Okay, let's go back to this first recruiting place. The absolute crazy turnover that I'm just constantly.

Andy [00:05:38]:
I.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:38]:
The problem is I feel like I know like so many good recruiting leaders, but there are so many like places that are just absolute shitholes. Yeah. That people just keep on like going to non stop.

Andy [00:05:50]:
You know what it was? Yeah, it was a great culture in the sense of like the people I work with were phenomenal. I still talk to a lot of them today. And the woman, Jen, who managed our. Because the company was based out of Florida and they had a satellite office here in, in Denver, she was great with her training methodology. She just had to stick to the corporate policy of meet these KPIs or you're fired. And I remember getting a lot of valuable insight from her. But my God, it was like, it was, it was sink or swim, dude. I mean, it was literally like miss your quota one week and you were on a pip and you had like three days to fix it.

Andy [00:06:30]:
And as you know, like any good recruiting sales cycle, it takes a minute to get in and like, and I don't know that that company operates under the same name anymore, which would be a massive red flag, right, that they changed the corporation and llc.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:46]:
And once we're done, I might ask you the name of it. I was like, oh, based in Florida. Okay, I think I didn't. I think I have ideas now. But anyways, that's another story for another day. Out of curiosity, when you kind of went internal, did you actually make more money?

Andy [00:07:00]:
So yes, but not much. Like DaVita Healthcare Partners, which is based here in Denver, are really well known for underpaying their employees, but overworking them, but even better training them. So I always tell people that come to me fresh out of college that are here in the Denver metro, go work there because your resume after two years will just be packed. It's a great like, like I said, they overtrain you, but they underpay you. So I think I was making like 40,000 as an HR journalist. Like it wasn't a ton, but it paid the bills and we just bought a house like I said. So my wife's like, stability and even there. I started off as a, as like a temp employee.

Andy [00:07:41]:
It was a 90 day contract and quick, crazy story. I started off on this team called the welcome Wagon and they're like culture Kool Aid. Like you can Google Davita Kool Aid, like culture. It's insane what they do. They threw these like massive parties. Like the CEO one day entered a party on a zip line. Like he paid like $15,000 to get a zipline installed and he was wearing a musketeer outfit and he like ziplined in. But anyway, I loved working there.

Andy [00:08:08]:
Some of my best friends to this day were people I met, but we were doing a carnival to close down our office and move into a new location. And I was like, maybe a week away from my temp role being like expired. And they made us pick out of this bowl, something you were going to do at the carnival. And I picked out having to do a ribbon dance. And my really good friend Matt now, who's one of my employees, said to me, he kind of trained me. He was like, dude, if you go out there and like give a performance, you'll get a job. And you remember Will Ferrell from old school, a date recreated that like ribbons dance. And they literally, like an hour after getting back from the carnival, I was called into the office with an awful letter on the table and I was like, that's all it took?

Benjamin Mena [00:08:57]:
You're my boy Blue. Do you think if you didn't do that river dance, your contract would have been over?

Andy [00:09:02]:
No, I think I would have been hired because I was good. It was an HR generalist. And so you were onboarding Inas. I was meeting all the numbers they wanted and I was like a team player. And I was young in my career, early to mid-20s, so I think I would have been high. But I think that was like, hey, this guy gets it right, but he was part of a culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, that's awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:25]:
Okay, so you went internal for a bit. How did you end it back up in the. The agency side of the house?

Andy [00:09:31]:
Yeah, I got recruited to a little firm in Golden, Colorado, and I think they reached out to me and it was essentially like, hey, you spent a lot of time in college in the Midwest. And I love hiring people from the Midwest because of the values of family and work, life balance and culture and all that. So I got recruited to this agency. I knew nothing about it. I literally went for an interview, met with the entire team and we went out for lunch. They said don't dress up. So I dressed up. I was the only one like in a suit.

Andy [00:10:03]:
Everyone's in like jeans and shorts because it was in the middle of summer. I'm like sweating. And yeah, I got recruited into it and it was again one of those, hey, we know that you're probably managing 50 plus requisitions, which I was. And we know that you've been trained well. And so yeah, got the opportunity to go agency and really kind of went in blindly because I'd never done it before. I didn't know anything about it. Learned the whole world of retain versus contingent and yeah, so glad that I took the leap.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:35]:
Is that the place that you spent a decade at?

Andy [00:10:37]:
Yeah, I was there for 10 years.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:39]:
Talk about like the internal growth that you had there to even get to the conversation of potentially looking at taking it over.

Andy [00:10:48]:
Yeah. So I started off like entry level. They call them talent athletes, which I thought was kind of a cool title. But essentially I was just a recruiter working on executive roles. And these would be anywhere from direct level and above. And you know, as a recruiter you would always manage no more than five projects. That was like the sweet spot. My first ever role there.

Andy [00:11:10]:
I think I almost got fired because I was so used to the corporate okay, let's post it and let's just kind of let it, you know, ferment online and you're going to get applicants. Well, we didn't post. It was all pure headhunting. And it was a VP of supply chain for Dairy Queen International. So this person was like supporting the Asian oceanic market. And I'd never really worked in LinkedIn recruiter before. And so it was like a whole new world. And I just remember like struggling.

Andy [00:11:41]:
Cause I was like, this is brand new to me. And Eric, the owner, who's my mentor today, like sat me down and was like, dude, you need to do X, Y or Z. And really like held my hand through the process. It was phenomenal. And so I just kind of slowly worked my way up through the company, right. Taking on more responsibility. Once I got into a really good rhythm of managing clients, he was like, hey, I actually want you to like lead this project now. Right.

Andy [00:12:08]:
So we had a three interview kind of step. I would interview twice and then he would come in, do the final interview and he would present to the client and he was like, hey, you're ready now to present. So it's just slowly during that process, I gained like, his trust and the trust of my team and just kind of ended up running operations for the company for probably three years.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:33]:
Awesome. You know, in seeing this, like, I know the initial hook of the title or the hook of this conversation was like, what if it doesn't work out? I actually have a good friend kind of grew within the organization and just bought his old company, which is a 30 person firm. So, like, there are plenty of stories where this does work out, but just for the listeners, this is Andy's story. Okay. Yeah. So I also want to go into a little more things for the people that will actually want to grow and not start, like, their own company. Like you said, you take on additional things. What kind of additional things did you take on that really helped you grow internally?

Andy [00:13:08]:
Yeah, so one of the big projects that I led, so we had a good CRM system, but it was back in the day where it was like Salesforce talking to, like Bullhorn talking to our internal system. And so I'd said to Eric and the team, like, we need something way more streamlined. So he was like, go find something better. So we went out and we interviewed like Loxo cre. We had like a ton of companies come in and pitch us, but we're very transparent with our search. And that's something I still do today, is like, hey, Ben, you're the hiring manager from day one of the project starting. You have full transparency of what we're doing and what you're paying us for. So we needed a CRM or, sorry, an ATS that allowed our clients to log in and really, like, see everything that we were doing.

Andy [00:13:56]:
So that was my first big project. And then kind of outside of that, it was okay. Like, AI is becoming a thing now. So, like, what tools can we use to, you know, help us from like an AI perspective? And then in addition to that, it was just like cost cutting procedures and savings. Right. Because we went through Covid. And so that was where I kind of. I left the company very shortly during COVID because, as you know, the world shut down.

Andy [00:14:22]:
And I got an opportunity to go help a tech startup here in Denver supporting the clinical trials. So I left for like six months, but then came back. And so it was little operational things. And the one thing I loved, and I would say to anyone who's going to an agency where you would get the opportunity to buy out or maybe invest in, find that mentor and partner who gives you the opportunity to Sit on every meeting. Like, I remember Eric saying to me, like, if you're gonna really, truly do this, you need to be on all financial calls, accounting calls, tax calls, client calls. Like, you need to do everything right. He's like, I don't want you to take this over and then be like, well, you never trained me for any of this. So I was really fortunate that I got to sit in and have him say to me, you make the decision now, right? Like, what applicant tracking system do you want to use? You know, like, what AI tool do you want to use? And there was some money wasted because we took gamble, but it was really great that he was like, hey, you're head of operations, you make the decision.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:24]:
So were you head of operations while also still closing deals?

Andy [00:15:27]:
Yeah, still doing like, full, full cycle recruiting. Right. So still managing clients, still showing up, still interviewing, and then also running the operations as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:37]:
Which ATS did you guys end up selecting?

Andy [00:15:39]:
God, I knew you were going to ask me. My grain is, like failing me right now. Why can't I think of it? I can't think of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:45]:
Well, and when it comes down to it, also, like, did you, like, initially start this conversation? Like, hey, I would love to one day grow into leadership? Like, how was that initial, like, question asked?

Andy [00:15:54]:
So when I came back from COVID having that short stint away, I had said to him, if I come back, I need to head into my 40s. Clockwork. Sorry.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:07]:
Oh, clockwork. Okay.

Andy [00:16:08]:
Awkward. Absolutely love it. It's great. If anyone needs like a good ats, there's cheaper out there, but it's great. So when I came back from the COVID six month hiatus, I had said to Eric, like, hey, I'm about to turn 40, I have a young son at home. My wife is like, absolutely crushing it in her career. I want to do something that leaves me like a. Not a legacy, but I need to have something that I'm working towards.

Andy [00:16:37]:
I basically said to him, like, I want to buy in. And he had said, well, I actually was going to buy into a company, I invested and I lost it all. So I'm not going to let you do that because we're still coming out of COVID And so I'll tell you, like, Eric is like a second dad to me, right? So he was like, what I will do though, is I will let you sweat equity in. So he's like, let me think about it. So over a week, he came back. I remember him walking into my house, sat down with my wife, and he's like, here's the sweat equity plan for you to buy into the organization when I'm ready to retire. And it was an amazing, amazing option on the table, like too good to say no to. And then the caveat in there, which was really helpful was no matter what happens, if you leave the company in good standing, I'll cut you a check for whatever the equity is and you can fly.

Andy [00:17:25]:
And so I was like, how do I say no to this?

Benjamin Mena [00:17:28]:
Yeah, how do you say no?

Andy [00:17:30]:
No. It was, yeah, phenomenal.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:32]:
And you guys are still friends today, right? And he's your mentor.

Andy [00:17:35]:
Yeah. So we'll get into it. But like, when I left, the biggest thing for me was keeping him as a mentor. Right. He's been in the industry for 40 plus years. I love his vibe, I love his style. And we still not talk as much as I would like to, but we still send stupid Instagram reels to one another, stupid text messages, like probably on a daily basis. So we haven't lost that relationship, but he's going through a lot.

Andy [00:18:01]:
And so I'm just kind of like, yeah, we'll figure it out. But yeah, no, I need him as a mentor down the road for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:06]:
Okay, so like fast forward, like you hitting the point of looking at the conversation of leaving or buying it out or whatever. Like real quick walk up to that and then kind of let's talk about that.

Andy [00:18:15]:
Yeah. So he had kind of gone through some evaluation of the company when some companies were coming in to buy it, but it was pre Covid. And so he had a number in his mind that he wanted to sell it for. I'm fortunate enough that I have a VP of finance for a wife, right? So like, pennies don't go spent in our house without her knowing and accounting for it. So she had said to me, like, the value is way too high for what he wants and really, like, you just need to like, either shit or get off the pot. Sorry for the language. Right. So we sat down and this was like a couple months conversation where we would go over, like, what we should do.

Andy [00:18:56]:
And I just could not get my head around the valuation of the company. And I would share this with Eric and I would say to him, like, hey, I just don't see it. And he's like, well, what I would sell it to someone else wouldn't be what I'd sell it to you, but the value was just too high. And then my wife was like, you know what if you took your equity check and you left, you could do your own thing. You could be your own boss. You wouldn't have to really fall into a partnership. And then I was on a call with Eric one day and he just said to me, I don't think you'll fully comprehend how to run your own business until it's a hundred percent yours. And that was like the kick in the backside I needed.

Andy [00:19:34]:
And then like a week later, I just called him and said, hey, I think I got to go do my own thing. And that's kind of how it started. And so it was like a kind of a combination of my wife being like that cheerleader, like, just go and do it. If you fail, at least you can say you did it. And then Eric being like, you're never gonna get this unless you go do it yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:55]:
Oh, man. Yeah, the inflection points of, like, two different, like, lines come together right there.

Andy [00:20:01]:
Absolutely. And I don't think he intended to create that moment, but he created it, you know, And I'm a big believer, like, hey, the universe is like now telling you, like, two of your biggest, like, supports are, like, you said, meeting in the. I gotta do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:18]:
Oh, man. So you made the jump.

Andy [00:20:21]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:22]:
You started your own thing.

Andy [00:20:23]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:24]:
Let's talk about that.

Andy [00:20:25]:
Yeah, I know.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:27]:
I want to share what you did because we've had these conversations behind the scenes, but we're not going to talk numbers. Yeah, but you had incredible success coming out of the gate, day one. Or we'll just say the first week of your own business. What did you actually do?

Andy [00:20:41]:
I had a non compete with my old agency. And, you know, nowadays non competes are like, no good. Right. But I needed to, as we talked about, like, I needed to maintain the mentorship. And I remember the first day I went live on LinkedIn with the company, I got a text, we need to talk. And it's from Eric. So I call him immediately and he's like, first, congratulations. Second, don't take any of my fucking clients.

Andy [00:21:08]:
And then the third thing was he's like, now let me tell you everything I did when I started my company and where I failed and where I succeeded. Right. And so we had this, like, beautiful conversation. He was like, let's grab lunch next week. I'll give you your equity check. Like, yeah. And so he was a man of.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:26]:
His word with that.

Andy [00:21:27]:
Oh, absolutely. It was in our contract. Right. And like, I mean, I've seen things.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:32]:
In contracts and I've seen it become like, total hell.

Andy [00:21:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. No, it was like, yeah, it was great. And so the one thing I was always until this day, like, I have a year non compete, I still won't touch clients even two years from now. If they call me, the first thing I'll do is call Eric. Being like, you still in business? Because they're wanting to do. I don't know the answer. Right.

Andy [00:21:51]:
But so I decided I was like, okay, I need to go to market and let people know who I am and what I'm doing. So first I reached out to my entire, entire network of like, hey, I just started my own thing. So I created a drip ofy campaign with just, hey, we haven't connected for a while. Do you have five minutes? Want to tell you about my new venture.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:08]:
Pause right there.

Andy [00:22:09]:
Sure you did. Everybody in your LinkedIn network, everyone that I was a first connection with, that I had either worked for, not worked for, but I had either knew from college people that we had pitched in the past that we didn't get business from and. Or just people that I had interviewed in particular roles that I was really close with. And like, Ben, we were, we were with some amazing, amazing clients. So I'm talking like the president of Mars Pet Care. Like, the Rolodex is amazing. So I was just like, I gotta get this out there and let people know what I'm doing. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:44]:
And the reason why I wanted to pause you on that is because so often I think, like, a lot of people don't take advantage of their own personal network.

Andy [00:22:51]:
It's huge. Right? It's like, I quickly found out, and I think every recruiter knows this. Like, you get so many people who reach out to you with like, hey, here's my resume. Can you find me a job? And it's like, there are a lot of recruiters who can do that. But I'm like, sure, I can help you with your resume to find you a job, but like, I'm actually working for a company. Like, I'm like an extension of their HR team. So unless your background perfectly aligns. And in my 15 years of recruiting, literally this week is the first time someone's reached out to me, like, hey, I need to find a new job.

Andy [00:23:23]:
I'm a chief of staff, and I know of a chief of staff opening, and I just ping the hiring manager. Like, I don't want any comp on this. I'm just trying to help a friend. Can I connect the two of you? Outside of that, it's just now because the roles are just so specific. Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:37]:
If you want a good laugh. I think that's only happened to me once because it's always a thing. I've always tell people, like, hey, like, we don't find people jobs. We help companies find people jobs. But had somebody coming off out of the military, a friend of mine in South Carolina hit me up like, hey, you know, coming outta the military looking for a job, you got any hookups? I was an internal recruiter and I had one position in Charleston that I've ever had. And he fit it perfectly.

Andy [00:24:01]:
It never happened.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:02]:
I'm like, I literally was just like, this never happens. Like, yeah, it does. This is an anomaly. Do not ever believe this will ever happen again.

Andy [00:24:09]:
Yeah, no, no, no. And like, the role that I currently, like, I'm literally in a slack group for food and beverage companies. And someone posted it and I've never talked to this CEO or founder. I literally messaged him like, I don't want anything from this, but it's a friend, so I would like to introduce you. And he was like, yeah, great. But it never happens that way.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:27]:
Anyways, okay, so back to the things that you're doing your first week. Okay, so you just stripify campaign, talk to everybody, start conversation with everybody. What next?

Andy [00:24:36]:
So then like, this is where the storm gets a little bit crazy, right? So we, as I said, we had two verticals. We got food and beverage and aviation. So the largest aviation conference in, I would say the world Dubai kind of matches. This is something called nbaa and it's in Vegas. So my dad's like, we gotta fly out, we gotta get our name out there and we gotta shake hands, kiss babies. So we booked a trip to go to Vegas. And the reason I'll get back to that, because I truly believe in like the trade show, walking the floor and meeting people. But a massive deal was.

Andy [00:25:07]:
But on the other hand, I'm like, okay, food and beverage. I've got some amazing candidates in my, like, Rolodex, but I've worked with even better brands. So I created the, you know, icp and I was like, I know the six or seven people that hire retained agencies. So I created like just a very simple. Hi, I'm Andy. This is my experience as a recruiter. Here are some of the brands that I've worked with. I will do your next search for $10,000.

Andy [00:25:39]:
And I hit send and I think I sent to maybe 25 or 50 people just to drip a fi. Right? So did the whole, like, look, a profile connect if I wasn't connected? And then I got six positive responses, three of which were, can we talk tomorrow? And then another three that were like, hey, we're not hiring right now, but this is an amazing deal. To which I just responded with, keep this as a receipt, like, I'll do your search. And then I went in and pitched Ben my whole thing because I was reading Alex Hermosi's book at the time. Provide an offer that's too good to say no to. And so I'm like, I know I'm a good recruiter. I've worked with some amazing household brands that's going to turn heads, give them an offer they can't say no to. So then when I went into the pitch, I said to each of the companies that wanted to talk about that first role, anything after the first role, I'm going to charge you a percent of first year salary.

Andy [00:26:35]:
But I'm going to be way lower than the competition. I just want to get my foot in the door. And so knowing industry is anywhere from 25 to 33%, I was like, I will go lower. And I had like, honest conversations with the HR teams of like, hey, what are you paying now? Because I'll beat it. And like, every company told me, oh, we're paying 28%. I'm like, great, 25. Hey, we're paying 25%. Great, I'll come in at 22.

Andy [00:27:00]:
I was like, I gotta create. And so my wife was like, hey, are you actually making money already? And I was like, yeah, we're two weeks in. And we're like, now I'm panicking. Cause I'm like, I don't have an applicant tracking system. I don't have like a billing software. I was like, I'm just gonna run this with Google Sheets, LinkedIn. And then the craziness of this all. Ben is like, LinkedIn recruiter.

Andy [00:27:23]:
I called Eric and I was like, hey, you've got seven seats. Not being used because he did this massive deal. I'm like, can I rent one of those from you? And he was like, hell yeah. He's like, what's going on? I'm like, I dipped these deals. And he was like, sweet. That's money. Like, I'm paying for it. And it's going, you know, not used.

Andy [00:27:39]:
So, yeah. Wow.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:41]:
Okay. Out of curiosity, that initial pitch, that. That fi. That was way under market that it's so good that people actually had to message you back.

Andy [00:27:50]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:50]:
Do you still use that hook?

Andy [00:27:53]:
Not now. Just because we're kind of rocking and rolling and we've gotten some really great clients. But I will say this, when you're in the executive space, you don't want to spin your wheels on roles that take up a ton of time, right? Like, speed is everything. So when I did the $10,000 thing, a lot of the roles that I got were lower level, which was fine. But with the two clients that I closed my second week of business with, the two roles, I immediately went to them with a slate of candidates that then created more work under that first year percentage deal.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:30]:
Right.

Andy [00:28:30]:
And those were higher level positions. So it was kind of like a, hey, let's try this guy out, see how it goes. And so that's where I think I was really born, like really lucky. And I talked to another recruiter through networking and she was like, oh, I only ever charge 10,000 for roles. And that's where I was like, oh, there's something there. And then with the Homozy book, reading that line of like, create an offer you feel stupid saying no to. And I'm like, let's just try it. So I was thinking of maybe going back to it, but I also want to have the team around me that could probably support it.

Andy [00:29:05]:
So if I get to a point where I hire like a junior recruiter, maybe doing that and saying to them like, hey, you manage these roles start to finish. And kind of doing what Eric did for me with like, hey, be the ball and just go do it real quick.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:17]:
Eric called those what are said I guy talent Athletes. Yeah, I love that name.

Andy [00:29:22]:
I like that name too.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:23]:
It's definitely genius. And you mentioned also like the like, you know, for people that aren't familiar with like the retained search world, that there's like six level six type of people that typically sign those kind of deals. What are those six?

Andy [00:29:36]:
So depending on the size of the organization, like if you're looking 5 to 15 million in revenue, it's usually founder, CEO, whoever's leading operations. Right. And that could be any title from Director of Ops, VP of Ops, Head of Ops. If they have an HR team, it would be like an HR director or manager. A lot of the companies we work with don't have a talent acquisition team. They have a generalist who's already like overwhelmed and overworked, but they hand off the recruiting now. Same at, we work with clients at my old agency like Nike Whirlpool. And so they had a talent acquisition team.

Andy [00:30:11]:
So it would be like Director of Talent Acquisition who would hire us.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:15]:
Okay. And yeah, and you were like, some of these messages were actually just reaching out to like the founder and also the HR director.

Andy [00:30:20]:
I would reach out to all of Those titles. Yep. And just let them know, like. And interestingly, two of the deals were founders and CEOs that were like, hey, I'm going to put you in touch with who does our hiring now. And I got connected to human resources.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:34]:
And you said the first. And we were talking online. You said the first 10 messages you sent, you got a 60% response rate, and you got clients right away.

Andy [00:30:42]:
Right away. So we had landed in Vegas for that conference. I had my family from England in town. I'm in the Uber going to our hotel, and I'm on the phone talking to, like, a head of HR while my son and my two nephews are in the background, like, goofing off. And I'm like, can you shut up for a minute? You know? And my wife's like, what are you doing? Like, this is not the time. Like, they're calling me. I can't not, like, pick up the phone, you know? But, yeah, it was immediate response, but I was very specific with who I reached out to. Right.

Andy [00:31:13]:
Like, I was. That ICP was very, very specific. Like, I was making sure that when I was reaching out to them in the organic food space, that the two people I put in my message of, like, here's who I've worked with in the past and recruited for were either direct competitors or, like, very similarly aligned business models. So I knew that they could either call that company and be like, hey, have you worked with Andy before? Or, hey, if he's recruiting for them, he can recruit for us.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:44]:
And was there any other things that you were doing BDYC do so well out of the gate like you did?

Andy [00:31:49]:
We did email campaigns that did not work. And then I called people I just called, picked up the phone and dialed, and went that route.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:57]:
Out of curiosity, were these cold calls?

Andy [00:31:59]:
They were calls to people that I had either recruited but hadn't talked to for years.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:04]:
Okay.

Andy [00:32:05]:
Yeah. So someone that I had hired. Sorry, not people I had hired because I didn't want to touch the old companies, but people I had interviewed that I, you know, really liked. We presented, and maybe they were just. They weren't the right candidate. The people I just, like, had great rapport with. So they were cold in the sense of, like, they weren't expecting me to pick up the call.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:24]:
Okay.

Andy [00:32:25]:
And a couple of them were like, how do I know you again? And, oh, I recruited you, like, a few years ago for this. Oh. And then that conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:31]:
Gotcha. Okay. And this is something I probably should have highlighted at the very, very, very, very beginning. So it's my fault for this. 90% of you, the business that you have is referrals.

Andy [00:32:42]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:42]:
Okay, let's talk about that.

Andy [00:32:44]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:44]:
So you're not out there pounding the pavement every single day right now?

Andy [00:32:48]:
Oh, no, I still am, because I feel like you have to do that. But every client that I work with, I do ask the question of, like, who in your network? So as you know, right, like. And honestly, Julia, when we. I remember asking back in January on your summit series, do I niche down? And Julia was 100% like, you got a niche down because I was still flirting with the food and beverage aviation.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:14]:
Okay?

Andy [00:33:15]:
So niching down was huge for me. And the reason I bring that up is because, as you know, the world gets really small in certain industry, right? So when I finished up with a client, I would say, hey, do you mind writing me, like, just a recommendation or being a recommendation in the future? And who do you know right now, competitor wise or maybe partnership wise, that could be using recruitment. And a lot of the times that drummed up one piece of business for me. And then, conversely, I consider this a referral. I interviewed a president and put him through our paces. He ended up not getting the role, but he was like, I really liked how you recruited. Can we hire you? So I, like, actively seeked him to headhunt him, and then he turned around to be a client, like, three weeks later.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:04]:
Okay, so what are you doing different that people just.

Andy [00:34:10]:
We spend a lot of time hiring for culture, and culture fit. I am a massive proponent of getting on site with my clients. So luckily, one of the first clients I booked was an hour drive north of Denver. So I remember vividly on the phone call, signing the contract, sending it back and forth, and then I said to the head of hr, hey, when I'm back from Vegas, when can I come up and come on site? She's like, why would you do that? And I was like, well, I want to walk through the front doors of the company that I'm trying to recruit for. I want to learn from, you know, your senior leadership team what it's like to work here. I want to walk the manufacturing floor. I want to see the whole thing, if I'm allowed. And she was like, absolutely, you can come in on Tuesday.

Andy [00:34:58]:
And she's like, I'll give you a conference room if you want to work here for the day. And I literally sat in the conference room, and I met the founder, I met her daughter. I met the senior leadership team that was going to cross functionally work with the Director of food safety that I was hiring. And then Ben, when you go to interview these candidates, to be able to say, like, yeah, I was up there talking to X, Y or Z, who you're going to work on this project with, your value add is so high. And so I'm just a massive proponent. And something I learned from Eric is like, hey, you need to go meet the company. Like, we had a company that we worked with 10 years ago that was a car manufacturing, like, OEM. They made, like, the knobs and dials that go on your car.

Andy [00:35:41]:
And like, I would never have known this, but when you walk into their facility, you're literally going through one of those doors that, like, flushes out all of the germs on you. Like, like, kind of cleans you with this spray. And then you have to change into a jumpsuit to be able to go into the facility. And so to be able to share that with people that you're recruiting, they're like, oh, this recruiter actually knows, like, and has been on. And I also kind of very much go like, hey, I'm the recruiter. I can't answer a lot of these questions because they're really high level, but I'll get you in touch with who can. So it's like a fake it till you make it kind of mentality, but also knowing when to draw the line to go, hey, these are questions that are better suited for the hiring manager. Oh, wow.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:23]:
What piece of advice would you give to somebody that's about ready to go launch their own company based on, like, the success that you had in such a short amount of time? Or what's the best advice that you would give to somebody to relaunch themselves into what they're doing?

Andy [00:36:40]:
Honestly, for me, and I didn't know this when I was doing it because I feel like I jumped head first and I had the experience of like, okay, I've been in this world, I know what it's like. But it was the baby steps of the small, like, incremental, like, growth, right? Because when I finally got my first client, which came quickly, as I said, I was panicking because I didn't have the ats, I didn't have the CRM, I didn't have all that stuff, but I knew what I could use, right? But because I had laid the foundation of, like, baby steps along the way of, like, okay, I've got my website, I've got my brand. I know what I'm doing here. When the snowball started to roll, I was kind of Just ready to go. So I would say to people, like, you're not going to get immediate success. I was extremely lucky. But I was very, I was very specific with that success. Like, sorry.

Andy [00:37:28]:
I was very specific with what my action plans were going to be, which led to the success. So it doesn't happen overnight. And like, and I've been in a low Q1. Like, it hasn't been great. Like, my wife was like, hey, Q4 was awesome for you. What's going on in Q1? I'm like, well, the tariffs, like food and beverage, it's just, it's ha. You know, it sucks. There's stuff out of your control.

Andy [00:37:48]:
But I was talking to Dom yesterday, who, by the way, one of the first episodes I ever listened to was him on your pod. And now he and I are like super close because I reached out to him like, hey, heard you on Ben's pod. Absolutely love you don't love the Detroit jersey in the background. We just had banter and he literally called me like five minutes later. And he's like my biggest sounding board. And so my other piece of advice for people starting off is like, there are going to be recruiters in your network that are going to support you and build you up and there are going to be some that don't. But having that community has been huge. Like Dom's roundtable every Thursday.

Andy [00:38:25]:
Today there's a call with multiple recruiters that Thomas, I forget his last name holds every Friday. Yep. Like being on those calls and just getting that, hey, what problems are you seeing? Like, what are you encountering? But if I were a new agency owner today, I would say find your niche and if you've got previous clients you've worked with, go in with that offer. Right? Here's who I work with, here's what I can do. And here's this like, lowball offer. Just get your foot in the door. That was my biggest thing. Get my foot in the door.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:56]:
And so remember back when Eric told you, you really don't know until you actually, it's a hundred percent your company. Is there a thing that you were like, oh, shit, he's right.

Andy [00:39:07]:
Yeah, what is that? My seven year old running around the house and realizing, like, you have to like, provide for him. And like, I'm very fortunate that my wife has an amazing job and she said, go do this. But it's like keeping the lights on. Right. And like for me it's that legacy piece. Like, I've always had five year goals in my life since I was 20 and it was like, hey, find a fiance, get married, get a good job, make a hundred thousand dollars, have a kid, buy a house, own your own company. So, like, meeting those goals along the way, but for me, it's providing for him and giving him a good life.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:46]:
Was it like the realization, like, this is now on my shoulders?

Andy [00:39:49]:
Yeah, it all falls on me, you know?

Benjamin Mena [00:39:52]:
And you didn't have that when you were working at the company or not as much?

Andy [00:39:56]:
Honestly, I didn't. Even when I was heading operations and I was running it, and the, the conversations were very deep into, like, do you want to own this? Like, I never got that sense of, like, this is mine. I never got the sense of like, if I take this over, I will be able to run it the way I want to run it. Right? Like, there was still, hey, this is a founder who's been running this for 20 years, and things are going to remain the way that they're remaining. And, like, I never felt like I could post on LinkedIn the way I wanted to post. I always felt like I was always like, oh, I shouldn't do that, because I'm not. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if you've ever gotten into one of those bad mood days where you respond to someone on LinkedIn and you go, you know, I don't care how the response, because it falls on my shoulders. Right? Like, I'm not working for someone else.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:41]:
You know, I've had those phone calls too. Anyways, that's another story for another day. All right, so you just talked about LinkedIn like, you just had, like, was it last week, like, 500,000 impressions?

Andy [00:40:51]:
Yeah. So over the last two weeks, like, it was six. I forgot what I shared with you. It was like 636, 636,000. I was doing a call with a hiring manager and they said, can you run some comp data for me? Because I didn't feel like. So one of the things I do when I go to market on a role, like, I think the other thing you should say to new recruiters too, or people starting to earn, say, no, right? Like, I don't want to go work on a role if they're fishing with no bait. So if you're coming to me with a really low comp, I'm spinning my wheels. So I always run comp data for hiring teams, and I should say, I fix my fees so I have no skin in the game.

Andy [00:41:28]:
When the contract signed, if we're hiring at 150,000 base and they hire for 180. I don't get money on that $30,000 difference. Right. Fees are fixed. So I always tell the client like, let's go to market with the right dollars. And so I just ran the market data and the CEO was like, man, this is really valuable. You should share this. And so I posted it on LinkedIn and literally, like sitting in Palm Springs, my phone notifications, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, all these like, requests.

Andy [00:41:59]:
And I went in, I'm like, wow, it's like a hundred people in two days who want to like add me or connect with me. And then all of a sudden I go to post like impressions. And it was just like growing, growing, growing. And then last week did another pitch and I was like, I should share this again. And it's just.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:17]:
Yeah, where'd you find this market data? Is this something that you internally built just for people that might be looking?

Andy [00:42:22]:
Yeah, good question. So I use internal data from the past year of hires that we did both at my old agency and then up, you know, to this day. Forest Brands release their data, which is huge in food and beverage. You can go to the U.S. bureau website. Right. I've honestly been. We paid a company $300 at my old agency to run market data.

Andy [00:42:47]:
And what they would do is take the job description, management, all that stuff, and then they would give you like a spreadsheet. While that was happening, I would secretly go to OpenAI, I'd go to ChatGPT, and I would run the prompts. And the numbers were damn near similar. So I was like, why are we paying $300 for this when we could get almost to the $10,000 range? You know, and when you're talking big dollars, like 10,000 kind of falls by the wayside. Yeah. You know, you go in with like, hey, we're seeing these averages. So I've been doing a lot of like the deep. What is the AI that they're calling it? The deep side research.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:24]:
Deep research.

Andy [00:43:25]:
Yep. So I'm doing that. And then if I need to, like, if it's really a client who's like, I need very, like, tuned in dollars, you can find third party agencies.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:35]:
You know what, that's another great thing for AI that you don't have to do like the deep research. I mean, they have all the freaking data.

Andy [00:43:40]:
Oh, Dom and I go on like these Friday rabbit hole of like, what could this deep research do for us? And like, you should probably join the call because we just.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:49]:
I have a podcast episode almost every single time. Like, you Guys are on the call. Trust me, I want to.

Andy [00:43:55]:
It's. Whenever everyone jumps off, he and I are like, okay, let's nerd out. And me, him, and Tom will be like, what can we ask this AI to do that would alleviate work for us? And every time, we're always like, oh, we're like, weeks away or months away from this being amazing.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:10]:
I do consulting in the DoD space, and I had a client that hit me up. It was just like, hey, by chance, do you know any oral coaches? And I'm like, oral coach. Google oral coach. And it's actually like, some of the proposals require you to orally answer all these questions. There's entire coaches that have, like, million hundreds of millions of dollars of wins helping orals. And I'm like, deep research. Yeah, I need oral coaches in the D.C. metro.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:36]:
Da, da, da. Hit, go. And then literally 20 minutes later, I'm like, here's my beautiful list of oral coaches, right?

Andy [00:44:42]:
We had a client in Chicago, and I remember doing an intake call with them, and this was like, our eighth search. And I'm, like, taking vigorous notes. And it was just around the time that I was starting to goof off with Chachi Beatty, right? And I remember uploading the notes and being like, create a job description for me. And it immediately comes back with this beautifully written one. And I send it to the hiring manager, and he was like, oh, my God. Like, we only talked 15 minutes ago. This is phenomenal. And I was like, have you heard of chatgpt yet? He's like, no.

Andy [00:45:11]:
And I go, should probably research it because it's pretty great. Now all job descriptions look the same, but back then, the formula was like, just cut and paste into word. And I was like, yeah, incredible. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:21]:
Well, anyways, so if you're watching this or if you're listening to this, you can't see what's behind him. But you have a podcast also. About eight years.

Andy [00:45:32]:
I do.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:33]:
Talk about that real quick before we jump over to the quick fire questions.

Andy [00:45:36]:
Yeah, yeah. So I was born in. You can't tell from the accent. I was born and raised in London, England. Moved here when I was very young and basically massive Arsenal fan playing the Premier League. And a friend and I, they came over to the US For a preseason tour, and we were on a flight and we were talking about the team. I'm like, this would be really good as a podcast. He's like, really? And so next day, we were in, you know, hotel room, and we sat around a laptop.

Andy [00:46:02]:
We started talking and consistency. We Did a handful of episodes, and then all of a sudden, it kind of grew into this. Hey, these guys don't talk X's and O's. They're more goofy and make dick jokes. And, like, when the team loses, it's still fun to listen to them. And. Yeah, and we were eight seasons into it. It started off with two of us.

Andy [00:46:22]:
Now we have a team of six. We've got people around the country or around the. The globe who, like, come on as regular guests. And we stopped counting at our hundredth country. I don't know if you, like, you did this, but we were, like, so into the numbers of, like, how many listens are we getting? And then we got the advice from someone very early on, like, don't worry about that. Just do it for enjoyment. We were like, okay, the only statistic where we're gonna watch in Data Point is our hundredth company, and it was Mozambique.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:52]:
That's cool.

Andy [00:46:53]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:54]:
I always tell people, like, my first hundred episodes, I didn't even look at downloads.

Andy [00:46:57]:
No, we looked like the first, like, 15. And then we stopped, like, reading the comments because you get people with like, oh, Americans, what do they know about football? It's like, well, okay, I have the accent, but my passport's not American. No, it was right from. From the uk. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I. I actually, like, used to live in the shadow of the old stadium, like, you know, but, no, I would say, like, I would be remiss without mentioning it.

Andy [00:47:23]:
Like, we were very much early on in the process told, never podcast for money because your opinion changes very quickly. So we agreed that we would cover our fees, and then anything we made from the pod would go to a foundation that we created called Gooners versus Cancer, because my co host's dad a few years before had passed away. And so we created this foundation, which then led us to the most amazing opportunities within the actual club. So every tour, they go on preseason, we get press passes, we get to meet players. We get players that come on the pod. I mean, it was phenomenal. And so I mentioned to you just before I'm launching a second pod called Altitude and Ambition, where I'm interviewing founders and CEOs of Food and beverage companies that have seen tremendous growth in short amount of time. Recorded my first episode Tuesday of this week, and I've got five booked for next week.

Andy [00:48:17]:
And these are, like, household brands that you see in Costco. And one thing, Ben, that I learned that I'm reminding myself I was talking to the CEO of one of these companies. And she goes, bain and Associates just listed us as like, the new up and comer food and beverage company. Me. She's like, we've been doing this for seven years. She's like, and now we're a new up and comer. And she's like, andy, I know you're like grinding and you're going to continue to grind. Like, it's not an overnight thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:46]:
I love that you've done an industry pod. I tell everybody to do an industry pod. I keep on telling myself that I'm going to do an industry pod.

Andy [00:48:55]:
But you got such a good thing, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:48:57]:
Like, I always joke around that, like, you know, the summits are awesome and they help pay for the editor, but the podcast is like the biggest nonprofit in the recruiting space.

Andy [00:49:04]:
It really is. It really is. I will say, I think when you get into the industry specific, you expand your footprint and like, selfishly, for me, it's a little bit of like, hey, I want to get on the radar of certain companies.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:16]:
It is such an amazing way to get on the radar. Before the crypto market went crash and I lost all my money and some other thing. Like, we were looking at expanding into a whole new industry out of GovCon. And by the fifth episode, I had hiring managers calling me up asking for help. It really adds yourself as an authority in the space out of the thousands and thousands of recruiters. Love that you're doing that.

Andy [00:49:37]:
And you know the other thing I'll say to new recruiters because you asked. And it was something I posted on your first summit back in January when Brent was on. And I said like, hey, I have a podcast that millions of people have listened to, but I'm afraid to put my voice on LinkedIn. Like, my video, right? Brent's like, what's your problem, dude? Like, and I remember you gave me shit and we barely knew each other, but I was like, I love it, you know, because, like, why am I not doing this? And so I was listening to a podcast yesterday. I think it was actually Alex Hermosi, because I love his, like, just his 30 minute fire chats. And he gave the advice of, like, you get so caught up with, oh, my God, what are people thinking about Andy or Ben or whatever. They're not thinking about us. They're only thinking about you.

Andy [00:50:21]:
When your content hits their feed, then they think about you, right? But he goes outside of your, like, family and friends who follow you on a regular basis and are actually curious about what's happening in your life. Like, why are you afraid to do It. And I remember Brent kind of giving the very same advice. Right. And so for me, I was trying all of these different things of, like, I didn't want to go viral, but I wanted people to see my content and found very quickly that people care about computer. So that's where I'm going and like, leading and then peppering in with, like, the video content. But I just did one the other day, a video on, like, just resume advice. And Ben, I literally got a call from a buddy who goes, hey, I just wanted to let you know I shared that with my new girlfriend, and she changed her resume and got an interview.

Andy [00:51:03]:
And he's like, I think it was because of the Instagram reel you created. So thank you. And I was like, that's awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:08]:
You know, there we go. Awesome. Well, you kind of answered the first question a few minutes ago for the quick fire questions. We're jumping it there because I've totally lost track of time. Sorry. No, it's a good problem. It's a good problem to have. So we're just going to jump ahead in the quick fire questions.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:24]:
What is a book that has had a huge impact on your career?

Andy [00:51:28]:
So I'm very fortunate that I've gotten to talk to him and gotten a lot of great advice from Dan Martell. But it's buy back your time. I absolutely love that book. I think a lot of it is a common sense, but it puts into perspective of, like, what you should be focusing your time and effort on. And I love that it provides a good work life balance. And then I absolutely loved her Moses, like a hundred million dollar deals because again, I think it gives you a really good foundation of how do you build your brand and how do you capitalize on that brand. And so those are the two that I love.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:05]:
Dan Martell has been on my wish list for a podcast guest.

Andy [00:52:08]:
Yeah. And like I said, I was very fortunate that I went on a podcast right before his wife. And the guy who hosted it and it hasn't dropped yet, is from Canada, and he and Dan ski together. And so he just connected us. And Dan, I had a really, really thoughtful text conversation. I would say, Ben, you should reach out to him because I think you'd be able to get him.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:29]:
Cool. You know what? I'm going to do that this weekend.

Andy [00:52:31]:
You should. Well, next question.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:33]:
Do you have, like, a favorite tech tool or rec tech tool that you absolutely love?

Andy [00:52:37]:
Cannot live without Dripify. Right. Like, I don't love spamming people. I don't love just like email, cold Drip Campaigns. But one thing I learned, and I can't remember if it was Brent who said it, but it's like, don't sell serve. So I've had really good luck creating a dripify campaign with all of my first level connections in the food and beverage industry and setting up a campaign where I just give them knowledge and provide information on what we're seeing from the recruiting side of the industry.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:10]:
Yeah, your drip campaign isn't even like a ask for service. You're just sharing shit.

Andy [00:53:15]:
Just sharing it. Like in one of the messages I put, like, you know, I can't remember specifically, but it was like a statistic from Harvard Business review of like 76% of people are not looking for a job when they're happily employed with good compensation. And like, you know, if you think about that, like on a granular level, then what if they're not happily employed? Like, 76 is a massive number. Right. So I just drop those little nuggets and I have it time to go out like every 10 to two weeks, 10 days to two weeks. And then that way you're just planting the seeds, staying top of mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:50]:
Absolutely love that.

Andy [00:53:51]:
And I actually had a CEO yesterday, reach out, being like, andy, I know these are automated messages, but I love them.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:58]:
That is awesome.

Andy [00:53:59]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:00]:
All right, well, you know, being a recruiter is hard. Like, how do you get yourself out of those funks, man?

Andy [00:54:04]:
I've been in some this quarter just because it's been slow, but remembering that, you know, as that CEO of the food and beverage said, you gotta live your life in business in dog years. That's what she told me. Like, you don't become successful overnight. That's a 0.01% thing. If you just grind. And remember, it's a process and it's a sales cycle. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:25]:
Well, you know, you're in a lot of chats. Like, you're part of these roundtables. You're part of like, you know, groups in the community. I'm sure, you know, especially like some of the success that you've had. If people actually knew the numbers behind the scenes, they'd be like, hey, give me tactical answers. Give me this, give me that. What's the dripify campaign? But of all those questions that recruiters probably have, like, what do you actually wish they would ask you?

Andy [00:54:46]:
That's a good question. I like. It's such a tough answer. Yeah, that's so hard to answer. You know, honestly, if you ask me the question I would like to be asked most, like building the brand Is how do you best put your name out there? And as I said, it's getting out into your community, into your industry. Going to the trade shows, walking the floors, meeting people. We didn't get to it, but, like, when we were in Vegas, we literally closed a $40,000 deal by shaking hands on the carpet of a expo floor. And that would never have happened if we hadn't gone and hadn't just, like, started small talk with random CEO of an organization.

Andy [00:55:34]:
And I think people are so afraid, especially in the recruiting world, because they were kind of right now, very salesy, and there's so many of us serving, not selling. Right. That was the biggest thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:47]:
Awesome. Well, two things before I let you go. First of all, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Andy [00:55:53]:
You can find me on LinkedIn. Just Andy Rhodes, Instagram, the same. I gotta get to your blue check mark. 11,000 followers, Ben on Instagram. My God, you're crushing. And then highaltituderecruiting.com is the company website. And yeah, please connect and please ask any questions that you have, because I promise you, when you start figuring out, like, who your recruiting teammates are, like, that run other companies. Like, Dom and I both hire for execs.

Andy [00:56:21]:
We both also share secrets. Right. Like your summit series. Phenomenal. Like, I would tell every recruiter, whether they're tenured or they're brand new, like, go back and pay for Ben's vip because just the value, like, Julia's mind. Like, my God, I was like, I just want to follow her for a day. You know what I mean? Like, she's just, like, to sponge. That information from her was incredible.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:44]:
You know, one day, if the podcast really turns any money, like, I would love to do that. Like, all right, let's bring an entire.

Andy [00:56:49]:
Media team and you just follow, like.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:51]:
A high performer today and just capture that.

Andy [00:56:53]:
Yeah. You know, I'm not Brent, where I wake up at 4am and, like, start my day. I'm waking up with my alarm and drinking three cups of coffee. But his energy and seeing the grind, I'm like, you can just learn from it.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:06]:
You know, if Brent does listen to this, like, I think it's Brent's fault this week. I've been waking up at 4am every single day, whether I want to or not.

Andy [00:57:14]:
I'm waking up, like, and you just. You don't want to think about it, but you're like, don't think about work. Don't think about work.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:20]:
Well, anyways, this has been an awesome episode. And time absolutely just flew. So, you know, we'll have to like recap again down the road to really capture all the quick fire questions, but it's been a pleasure. Before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Andy [00:57:32]:
No. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you for this resource and this tool. Like absolutely love it. And please connect with me and ask any questions if you have them.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:40]:
Awesome. Well, I just want you guys to absolutely crush it. No matter if the cares are hitting your market or Doge is hitting your market, you know, there are ways they still go crush it. There are ways to learn from other recruiters and put in the work. Because I truly believe, even with everything happening, that a rising tide raises all ships and we can all go win together in 2025. Go crush it.