From Fired, To Laid Off, to $1.6 Million In Her Own Firm with Sarah Englade

Sarah Englade [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. My guess has gone from fired, laid off, to not making a placement for six months after she started her own firm to $1.6 million in revenue. After that, we're going to talk about the story about how all that came together, how she got fired, what she did when she got laid off, really what she did during those six months, and just kept the faith, kept the work going. But then also, we're going to talk about what changed to getting that $1.6 million and how she crushed it as a solo biller. Now she's building her own firm. So, Sarah Ingleyte, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome.

Sarah Englade [00:00:53]:
I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:56]:
All right, before we jump into this story, actually, we're probably going to weave this into the story. First of all, what are you doing now? And then we'll roll into how you ended up in this wonderful world, recruiting.

Sarah Englade [00:01:06]:
So what I'm doing now is I'm a solopreneur. I own a recruiting firm here in Houston that specializes in direct hire, accounting, finance and hr. And we're killing it. So life is good. Yeah. It took me a while to get here, but I'm happy to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:22]:
Awesome. So take a few steps back in this journey. How did you end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Sarah Englade [00:01:29]:
So it's been a while. So, twelve years now I've been recruiting. And before I was a recruiter, I'm from Massachusetts. I was a licensed medical esthetician, and I worked for a national brand in medical spas. Essentially, I was in sales. Right. So I just had this thing inside of me. It was a burn to kind of get out of Massachusetts and try something different.

Sarah Englade [00:01:50]:
I put in for a transfer, which got me to Houston, Texas. So I moved here 16 years ago from Massachusetts and was working for this medical spa for another few years. Left, went to a competitor. And that competitor, it was a great. Honestly, it was a great experience for six months. And then the last three months was scary. Cause it was one of those companies that took off without checking its fuel engines to make sure it could. It was like a crash and burn.

Sarah Englade [00:02:17]:
And basically I needed to figure out my next plan. So I gave my resume to a girlfriend of mine who just started in recruiting at a really big firm that I had never heard of up until that point and gave her my resume and asked her to help me find a job. So that's actually what sparked the conversation. So, Benjamin, I went into the interview, and I'm thinking that I'm being interviewed for them to identify where they could place me, you know, what companies would be hiring my skillset. But my resume was floating around this company. They were trying to figure out where they could place me internally, like what division, what part of Houston. So they had to really sell me on recruiting. And I just remember at that time just believing that, you know, it was worth taking a leap of faith into something that I had no idea what I was stepping into, but I believe that it could be something amazing.

Sarah Englade [00:03:07]:
So I took a chance, and I took my first job in downtown Houston in temp staffing. So temp and temp to hire in the admin, HR customer service space. So that was an adventure. And I did that for two years. I tell this to everybody. Listen, if you're a new recruiter, if you can get into recruiting in the temp side and you can master temp staffing, you honestly can do anything. You really can.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:34]:
I agree with you on that 100% real quick. So, like, you got into that large company, but one of the things that you did that I know I didn't do, and I know many other people didn't do, you actually grew to an executive level there.

Sarah Englade [00:03:46]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:46]:
Can you talk about even, like, how you got to there before, like, everything else.

Sarah Englade [00:03:49]:
So those titles, I think, are misleading. They decided to jack the titles up, I think, to gas us all up. I had a, and I think an assistant VP and then VP title with the company, and it took time. I'm not gonna lie. It took me, honestly being a sponge, and this was back when we were on site five days a week. I didn't know what I was doing. So when I was there, I paid attention. I listened to everyone around me make cold calls, what they said, how they did it, how they overcame objections, and I spun it into my own, I guess, flavor, and started to kind of mimic it because it was working for them.

Sarah Englade [00:04:26]:
So it had to work for me. Right. And I just kept going. I never quit. And I became a top producer from honestly, just listening to others in the way that they did it and doing it eventually better than them, I think, and kept growing and kept growing. I think, too, that my team, the people that were on my team, we really worked well as a team. So they also helped to kind of elevate the whole division. But my first two years in staffing, I really did master it.

Sarah Englade [00:04:55]:
I became very, very good. I became a top producer very quickly, quickly. And I was a division director, and everything was going great. And then I got really bored. I was really, like, driving to work, just like, God, I wanted to, like, turn my car around. I'm like, do I really want to take calls at 630 in the morning? Because the receptionist didn't show up and, you know, now they need this. And it was just, it was always pure chaos, and I was really burned out from it. So I remember calling my manager at the time and just saying, hey, when I get to the office, can we talk? She was like, is it bad? I'm like, I don't know.

Sarah Englade [00:05:29]:
It depends on how you take it. But it ended up being a great call or a great meeting. I got there, we walked right off the floor, and I just said to her, I'm like, look, I'm burned out and I'm bored. I don't want to do this kind of staffing anymore. What are my other options? And she was like, you want to give accounting a try? I was nervous because I'm like, I don't have an accounting background. And she was like, you'll learn by, you know, asking questions to your candidate. So I said, sure. And literally, I think it was the next day they had moved my division, and I then became a staffing manager for accounting, like a transactional accounting, AP, AR, staff accountant and senior.

Sarah Englade [00:06:05]:
And I mastered that quickly. And I ended up growing into a division director there and ended up, you know, taking over and actually was the manager over all of the inside recruiting for basically almost the entire city of Houston outside of, like, two other divisions. So it was a cool ride. It really, really was. I was very, very good at it, but I did not fit in with the culture of this company from probably the very beginning. I really didn't.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:29]:
Do you mind if I ask why on that?

Sarah Englade [00:06:31]:
Yeah. So the management style was nothing that I had ever experienced. I was a manager, so I worked for a company, like I said, in the med spa world, female dominated industry, and I was a manager for, for six and a half years managing women, and it was a great experience. Never had any issues. I never had any kind of, like, what you hear people say, like, oh, it's so toxic or drama this. It was honestly great. And then I get into recruiting, and I don't know if it's because I wasn't used to the cutthroat nature of recruiting and the high sales, competitive environment, but it wasn't for me from the start. I was really good at my job, but the way that I was managed was I was micromanaged to the fullest extent.

Sarah Englade [00:07:13]:
And they also really managed us with fear tactics. And, you know, every day I had anxiety going to work. I would just walk in and, you know, you go to badge into the door, and I'd be, like, saying a prayer to walk in to, like, get my day done, because it was like, benjamin, if I, like, walked away from my computer and see, like, my little DM thing went from, like, active to yellow to then red, I would get a text message or a phone call within seconds. Like, hey, Sarah, how's your day going? What are you doing? Where are you, Athenae? Like, I'm in the restroom. Like, it was bizarre.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:45]:
And weren't you, like, a top producer?

Sarah Englade [00:07:47]:
Yeah, I was. I was a top producer, like, on a scorecard at the company that I came from, we had weekly scorecards that came out for basically, like, the United States, for everyone that was in the division. And for years, I was at the top, like, within the top, whether it was the top five or top ten, for years. So I knew what I was doing and I was very good at it. But it was never enough. It was never, never enough. I remember even one time I had gone to, once a year they have this big event that they send top producers to, and I had gone to this event, and you're there in Vegas. It's an awesome, awesome thing.

Sarah Englade [00:08:22]:
Like, you work for this, right? You've got, like, four days off from work where you don't feel, like, the stress. You actually feel appreciated. And I came back from that, and I remember being asked, how come you didn't hit your interview numbers? Why didn't you hit your goal for, you know, your placement goal? And I'm like, I was in Vegas. They're like, well, you're gonna have to make that up next week. It was very, like, nothing was enough. It was super intense, and it was. Yeah, it was a lot. We had high turnover because of it.

Sarah Englade [00:08:52]:
I mean, you know, there was something definitely wrong with me during that time to even stick through that. I think about that a lot, and I know that it was likely a lot of, like, lack of self esteem, but, yeah, I kept showing back up to, you know, for the money and the abuse of. I just kept showing up.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:07]:
Well, and let me just kind of, like, dig into this a little bit, because we're definitely going to talk about how you're absolutely crushing it. You know, $1.5 million with your own business. But you also took this job, and you didn't have a college education. Do you think that was part of the reason why you stuck there?

Sarah Englade [00:09:20]:
Oh, a thousand percent. That was probably that. And the fact that I was making what I thought at the time was an insane amount of money. Like, the amount of money that I was making at that time compared to family members and my closest friends that had degrees, I was, you know, doubling or tripling their income. So for me, I'm thinking, okay, I can't leave this job. Like, I don't have a degree. If I left this company, where am I going to make this kind of money again? And I was even told this and sort of brainwashed by management at this company that I would never be able to make that kind of money again going to another competitor, because the company that I was at was the best and the biggest, and, you know, you wanted to work there, right? And so there was a lot of that, but 100%, the lack of a college degree and just my, like, lack of confidence because of that was a leading reason why I stayed, for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:13]:
And let's kind of fast forward again. You got fired.

Sarah Englade [00:10:17]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:17]:
Getting fired, getting laid off are some of the most pivotal moments in somebody's career, and getting fired is even harder. Like, what happened there? Like, walk us up to that. Walk us into that, and then let's talk about what happened after.

Sarah Englade [00:10:28]:
So I definitely, towards the end of my time there, I became, like, a shell of who I am today. After you work in such a toxic environment for so long, like, I had golden handcuffs on. I wasn't leaving, but I was miserable. And I think everyone around me could tell I definitely was taking on, like, toxicity myself. I had these walls up. I was unapproachable. Like, I was not the easiest to work with, and a lot of it was because, you know, management did not like me, and I knew that. I think I had been isolated by them for so long, and I just felt manipulated a lot.

Sarah Englade [00:11:05]:
And I was in defense mode a lot. I was not very pleasant. So I can say now, looking back on it, I played a big part in my firing. But I got pulled into an office on a Tuesday and after lunch, and I was told there was the manager that fired me, and then there was a witness, and I was told I was being let go because a week before, I had told a colleague at a happy hour that I didn't want to be your friend. So that was the reason they gave me, and I can't make this up. I mean, that's what they told me. It's crazy. And I just remember sitting there, Benjamin, the only thing that came out of my mouth during this entire firing was, okay, that's the best I had.

Sarah Englade [00:11:47]:
A lot was going through my head, but really what I was feeling was, honestly, complete relief. Like, it was weird how it hit. I thought that I was going to be like. Like, fight back or say something back or fight for my job. I didn't do any of that. I was like, okay, I think this.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:03]:
Is absolutely strange, because the company that you're at, the company that I was at, had very high turnover. So I completely understand. I got sat down a few times. I needed to spend more time at happy hours. And I'm like, I don't get paid for happy hours.

Sarah Englade [00:12:13]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:14]:
But I was just like, you want. Everybody want the camaraderie? And I'm like, the camaraderie isn't helping my spread. So.

Sarah Englade [00:12:22]:
When.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:22]:
That's just the way I looked at it. Back. Back in. But, like, talk about excuse my money was just shitty way to go.

Sarah Englade [00:12:30]:
I know. Like, that was the reason you gave me. I mean, I think it would have been honestly wiser of them to just have been honest in the meeting to say, listen, you don't like working here, and we don't like you working here. We know you're really good at this, but you need to go do this somewhere else. Like, I think that would have been the honest way to actually handle the conversation with me versus you told a girl you didn't like her at happy hour, and, you know, based off that, today's your last day, which was the most idiotic and stupid thing, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. But again, I was so relieved, like, when I walked out, no joke. So you can't leave the room. It's the most humiliating thing in the moment to be fired.

Sarah Englade [00:13:09]:
It really, really is. Like, you sit there in a room. I had this manager across from me, you know, just hitting, like, you know, her little, like, are they the forms you have to sign your separation forms? And she's really hitting it hard. And then she looked up at me and she said, you know, I'm really disappointed that I had to drive here and do this today. I mean, I said nothing. She had to keep making it worse. You can't go in the bullpen, so once you're fired, they don't allow you back in the bullpen. So somebody has to go and empty your desk and fill your boxes.

Sarah Englade [00:13:38]:
And so I was there for over six years, so everyone knew me as a top producer. So when I tell you people were tripping out. Cause I was a top producer, they were tripping. My phone was blowing up. I hadn't even left the building. And I have other recruiters being like, what's going on? Is everything okay? What's going on? They're packing your desk. So the receptionist comes over, who I knew, and I loved her and we just had a good relationship. She hands me my two boxes and she looked like she was about to just bust out crying.

Sarah Englade [00:14:04]:
And I just remember looking at her and I was like, it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna be okay. And they were kind enough to let me go out the side door. So I went out the side door and kind of snuck out the building. I wasn't even out the building. I'm holding two boxes and I'm also on my phone, I called my husband and I'm like, I just got fired today. He's like, there is no way you got fired. And I'm like, there is.

Sarah Englade [00:14:21]:
Cause I've got my two boxes and I have been terminated. So, yeah, crazy.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:26]:
We've had some conversations before this, so I know where the story's going. And Sarah is just talking about a little bit of the shell of who she was, but I think a lot of it was the environment, personally, I think it was environment that was there because we're going to jump into this fast forward a little bit. Like, oh, my God. Like, so if they wanted you to just work somewhere else, they would have let you just work somewhere else? Yeah, they didn't, like, talk about the non compete since, like, non competes are a huge issue.

Sarah Englade [00:14:52]:
Yeah, huge. So when you first get into recruiting, right, you sign a non compete. They all have them. I was new to recruiting. I signed the non compete because I didn't really care and I didn't know better. I didn't, like, research what this actually meant. I just didn't. So, you know, I get fired, I'm fired from my job.

Sarah Englade [00:15:11]:
They take my job away. No more paycheck for Sarah. But they wanted to make my life hell, to be honest with you. They really wanted to stick it to me. And so part of my non compete was that I could not work for a competitor in Houston for twelve months. So immediately, you know, as I'm trying to look for jobs, I had six job offers in two weeks from being fired. And I had to keep saying I was fired. I was fired.

Sarah Englade [00:15:34]:
Like, me sharing I was fired in these interviews. Never held back anybody from giving me a job offer because a lot of them knew the company that I came from, and some of them actually knew the person that fired me. I mean, I was given a lot of grace. And I think because I was honest about the whole thing, it was, for a lot of people, unbelievable. But a lot of people actually understood it. So I remember when I finally landed a job, I had gone to lunch with two of my ex team members from my company. I loved these girls. These were my, like, my actual friends at this company.

Sarah Englade [00:16:03]:
And so we went, we had lunch, and I told them I got a job. I didn't tell them where I got a job. I didn't tell them, really any details about my job. I just said, I'm good. I'm excited. Within 24 hours, Benjamin, I've got a FedEx envelope at my front door. It was overnighted from the legal department of the company that fired me with a copy of my non compete. Seeing the manager that fired me on it, reminding me of my obligation to my non compete, accusing me of soliciting, listing the girls names that I had gone to lunch with and letting me know this was my warning that if I reached my non compete again, then they were going to pursue me in court like crazy.

Sarah Englade [00:16:44]:
So I didn't solicit. You're just sending letters to honestly scare me. And it did. And harass me. And this is the biggest problem, I think, with non competes, is that companies will use them against their biggest competitors. If you are a competitor of theirs, they're going to stick it to you. And then you hear people say, non competes don't hold up in court. Well, you're held up in the court system until they come to that conclusion.

Sarah Englade [00:17:06]:
Right. So it can be, court's expensive. It's insanely expensive. They do it to drain you. They really want to make your life hell. So, like, for me, I respected the terms of my non compete, which is why I accepted a role with a company who created a role for me in Memphis, Tennessee, so I could continue recruiting and doing what I love and not be brought to court for it. So it was just a crazy experience.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:32]:
Honestly, these companies that hire so many people straight out of college or earlier in their career, there's a ton of people that leave these companies, and they don't chase every single person down.

Sarah Englade [00:17:42]:
They don't. They pick and choose. I do believe that it's the people that are their biggest competitors. And honestly, too, like I said, I wasn't well liked I mean, they wanted to fire me. Cause I told a girl I didn't want to be her friend, and then they're like, we're really going to stick it to her and we're not going to allow her to work. They were just being really nasty and mean. To be honest with you, getting that letter, it confirmed everything that I felt for years about this company. It just did.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:08]:
All right, so you literally picked up your entire life.

Sarah Englade [00:18:11]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:11]:
And you moved to another state.

Sarah Englade [00:18:13]:
Basically, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:14]:
So you could keep on recruiting.

Sarah Englade [00:18:16]:
Yep, I sure did. So that was my only option. Right. So I accepted a role with the company. So when I was going through the interview process, I was going for feels I really was. Cause I was in my field, I was feeling a certain way, and I really wanted to join a company that believed in culture, that was fun, that didn't micromanage. And I found this company that it was exactly that. And what sold me was three of the founding members of this company had started this company at that time, 17 years before.

Sarah Englade [00:18:42]:
So part of their onboarding was really cool. They shared videos of the company, and one of the videos that was shared with me was the CEO at the time. And he's in there and he's thanking people. He's like, you know, I thank everybody for standing by me this entire time, for supporting us, for believing in our mission. And he got choked up. And he goes, I didn't want to cry in this. I wish I didn't cry in this. But honestly, watching it, I choked up at the same time.

Sarah Englade [00:19:03]:
Like, I was really feeling not so great during that time, right? Trying to figure out my next move and just seeing how passionate about the people that he was. Like, he was so passionate about them. I was like, I'm sold. So, yeah, that was the company. They created a role. And three weeks out of every month, I had to go to Memphis, Tennessee. I worked remotely for one week. I did that for six months.

Sarah Englade [00:19:26]:
So I was fired in 2019. So in April of 2019 was when I was fired. I started my new job in May of 2019. So I had to do six months in Memphis. Then I was done in Memphis. So then they moved me. I had to then remove myself, and I had to go to Dallas. So then I was in Dallas for the remainder of my non compete.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:49]:
And they chased you down a few times. People were like, you were telling me offline that you were getting messages and people were constantly looking at you.

Sarah Englade [00:19:58]:
They didn't leave me alone.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:59]:
That's just insane. The culture that they're still trying to chase you down so much later after firing me.

Sarah Englade [00:20:07]:
It's like, you think, when you fire someone, why do you care so much about them? You just fire them, move on. Why do you have to stalk them on social? So, after I got fired, I decided to put some boundaries down. And my boundaries were, I was blocking people that I worked with that I didn't have a good relationship with, including the people that fired me and the girl. I said, I don't want to be your friend. You know, I went ahead and blocked them, right? But I had a ton of people from that company constantly viewing my LinkedIn profile. But they wouldn't dm me, they wouldn't text me. They wouldn't say, hey, how are you? We're thinking about you. Nothing like that.

Sarah Englade [00:20:41]:
They were just constantly checking to see if my LinkedIn had updated. I didn't update my LinkedIn until, I think, may or June of 2020. But I remember one day I was packing for a vacation with my husband. My phone goes off. I've got four different people texting me. One's an unknown number. I don't even know the number. And all of them were like, they found you.

Sarah Englade [00:21:03]:
Management is here. They're saying that based on your activity and some posts that you liked on your LinkedIn, that they've narrowed down that you're at. They said, I was at a deco. They were like, that you're at a deco, and they're here slapping, high fiving each other, and damn near tears. They're like, we found her. We found her. We found her. And I verified with all four people.

Sarah Englade [00:21:23]:
I said, I just want to verify. Like, you're 100% sure they're saying a deco? And they're like, yeah. They're like, she's at a deco. And I wasn't. So I was like, keep looking. So they never really found me, but they never stopped stalking me. They were following me on Instagram. I had a branch manager's mom following me on Instagram.

Sarah Englade [00:21:45]:
My manager, my old manager's kids would follow and check my page. It was just, honestly, it was harassment, and it was just another form of honestly, like, what I had experienced when I was there. So, yeah, it was a crazy, toxic environment.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:00]:
We're gonna move on. But if you're one of those people that was checking up on Sarah, I get it. It was part of the culture and the environment that you were in. But, like, looking back on it now, like, what do you personally think about that? If you were one of the people that was requested to follow Sarah is that the kind of person that you really just want to be? Is that the culture that you want to work in? Is that the type of recruiter that you want to be? I don't know. Let's move on. We're going to talk about the good stuff because we are going to talk about making money.

Sarah Englade [00:22:24]:
Yeah, we are.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:25]:
Before that. So you literally lived at other places through your non compete?

Sarah Englade [00:22:29]:
We did.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:30]:
Then once your non compete was done, you were finally able to move back to the city that you've been probably, like, paying. You're still paying bills in.

Sarah Englade [00:22:36]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:36]:
Like, you've had to help someone.

Sarah Englade [00:22:38]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:40]:
Let's talk about getting laid off. To launching your firm.

Sarah Englade [00:22:44]:
Yeah. So the pandemic hit in April of 2020. My non compete was over, but there were no jobs. Everyone, you know, it was the pandemic. It was pure chaos. Nobody knew what was going on with the world. And so my company ended up going through one round of layoff, and I knew I was going to get hit eventually, and I did. In September of 2020, I was laid off due to the pandemic.

Sarah Englade [00:23:04]:
The great thing and the biggest difference here was this company that created the role for me. I actually had a non compete with them, too. Benjamin. And that non compete was for Memphis, Tennessee, Dallas, and Houston. And they released me from my non compete. They were like, we want you to leadership. Yeah. It was so different.

Sarah Englade [00:23:22]:
It was awesome. So they allowed me to fly. And so the day that I was laid off, we're recruiters. What do we tell all of our candidates to lean into your network? I leaned into my network, and I saw who was in my DM's, and I had another big global firm in there, had set up an interview that day. And then the next day, I had a video interview with them. And I'm like, you know what? I can do this. I can do this on my own. I came from a huge company that I was with for six and a half years that was heavy in Dimetrix.

Sarah Englade [00:23:49]:
So I was like a machine. I understood the science behind and the foundation of recruiting very, very well. The second company that had laid me off, they kind of taught me that I was entrepreneurial because that company, they didn't believe in metrics. So they were super core, you know, values driven. But they were just like, just figure it out, you know, be happy here. Was like, hey, how is anybody making money here? So you really had to. You had to be entrepreneurial, spirited. You had to be self driven.

Sarah Englade [00:24:18]:
And so I learned that I was that. So when I interviewed with this other company. Second interview, I talked to my husband. I'm like, do you believe in me? He's like, I do. And I'm like, I can do this on my own. He's like, do you wanna start your own company? I'm like, yes. And so it really was that. And then I didn't know what I was doing, so I had to Google, how do you start a recruiting firm? And then I reached out to my parents, my in laws, and my grandmother and sold them.

Sarah Englade [00:24:49]:
You know, I had to go to them. And I'm like, would you like to be an investor in my company? I'm gonna work for myself. And all of them said yes, like it was immediate. I really didn't have to sell myself too much. They saw how hard I worked for years. They believed in me, and so they all invested in me. There was a person here in Houston, I do want to plug him. So I don't know if you know him on LinkedIn, but Jeremy Jensen, he runs a search firm here in Houston called Encore Search Partners.

Sarah Englade [00:25:13]:
And he is somebody that, when I got fired from Robert half, I actually dmed him on Instagram. Now, I've never met him, but we follow each other on Instagram and on LinkedIn. And I had dmed him on Instagram, I think, when I got fired, just saying, hey, can we go and have lunch? And I'd love to pick your brain. And he goes, listen, I'll save you the lunch. If you're trying to pick my brain about whether or not you should go back into agency or go work for yourself. Listen, you can either come work for me and make me a bunch of money, or you can start your own company and make yourself a bunch of money. And I was like, and I never forgot that he said that. But I wasn't ready at that time to go and start my own company.

Sarah Englade [00:25:48]:
I didn't have the confidence. I just got fired after I got laid off. I remember doing my own google thing, and then I hit him up again. I said, hey, I'm gonna start my own company. And he actually was the one that was like, hey, you're gonna need, you know, he told me what I'm gonna need. You're gonna need an invoice. This is the invoice I used when I first got started. You need your w nine, you know, and if you need anything else, you just let me know.

Sarah Englade [00:26:07]:
So he actually still. We have never met, but, you know, just out of the kindness of his heart. And I think he knew that I was such a hard worker. He wanted to see me succeed, so I had a little bit of that mentorship in the beginning, but I had a lot of just heads down, hard work and free marketing classes took on.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:24]:
So we're going to get into this in a few minutes. But you had somebody that worked at another firm that could have easily capitalized and tried hiring you that just said, excuse my language, listeners. Fuck it. Go for it.

Sarah Englade [00:26:33]:
Yeah, he did. He sure did. He's like, you can come work for me and make me money, or you can just go work for yourself. Make yourself a bunch.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:40]:
So you launched your own firm, and real quick, you had people believe in you, but, like, so many other recruiters during that time window, like, went to go look for another job. Why didn't you do that? You had the two paths. Why did you jump down the entrepreneurial path?

Sarah Englade [00:26:54]:
So I chose this path because I really wanted to create. To be honest, it was selfish in the beginning. I wanted to create a safe space for Sarah to be myself as the recruiter that I knew I could be. You know, when I worked for a big company, the first company, we had scripts. We all sounded the exact same. We couldn't have our own personality. We couldn't have personal brands. We couldn't have opinions.

Sarah Englade [00:27:17]:
And then the second company, you could have all of that, right? But then there was certain things. Cause it's their company. You have to just behave a certain way or say things. I started Monarch because my mission is to put humanity back into hiring, and that has always been my mission. I could finally say it out loud, and so I wanted to create a company where I could do that. I could do it my way, and I didn't have to answer to somebody else. So it was really more of a safe space for me. And because I believed in it so much, the second part is probably, you know, once I ran the numbers, Benjamin, and was like, okay, this is how much I was making this company, and this is how much I took home.

Sarah Englade [00:27:54]:
And this is like, it's endless, what we can make in recruiting. And I was just like, it's a no brainer. Like, I'm gonna make way more money, and I'm gonna be able to be Sarah, and I'm gonna be able to do this myself. Like, I just went all in.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:09]:
Awesome. So you went six months without a placement?

Sarah Englade [00:28:12]:
I sure did.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:13]:
Six long months.

Sarah Englade [00:28:14]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:15]:
Before we jump into, like, what you did, the things that you were doing, how did you keep yourself going during that time of not making placements?

Sarah Englade [00:28:24]:
That was a long six months. And I was talking about this recently, like, I knew what I was doing as a recruiter, but when I started the company, I didn't have business development experience, per se. I did a little bit of bd work for maybe a year and a half or two in my entire recruiting career, which I had eight years before I started monarch. So I didn't really know how to do business development. So, Benjamin, it was difficult. Like, I'm trying to find new clients. It's during the pandemic. I started a recruiting firm as a solopreneur during a pandemic when nobody even had jobs.

Sarah Englade [00:28:55]:
It was crazy. It was a crazy idea. But I think really what kept me going was, I don't have any quit in me. So when I set my mind to something like starting a project, there's nothing that's unfinished here. I finish everything I say I'm going to do. There was no plan B. I didn't wanna go back to agency. I didn't wanna pivot my career.

Sarah Englade [00:29:16]:
The plan was for this to work. And, you know, we were always told, if you compound your activity, if you compound your effort, hard work pays off, it will pay off. And I had to keep reminding myself of that because, you know, self doubt, it creeps in the negative self talk. I was hearing those voices, you know, that bitch voice that, like, David Goggins always talks about. Yeah, it was right there a couple times a day. And you have to tune it out, and you have to make a choice to tune it out. So, I don't know. I think it was.

Sarah Englade [00:29:45]:
I believed in it so much, and I knew it was going to work. I didn't know when. My husband was very supportive during that entire time, so he wasn't putting pressure on me. I was putting a lot of pressure on me. So I think between my discipline, my belief in myself, and about a dozen crying sessions in the shower, it just all worked out.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:07]:
What were some of the things that you did during those early days to get new clients, especially because you didnt have the true, quote unquote, business development training?

Sarah Englade [00:30:16]:
Yeah, I didnt. So during that time, I actually. So my niche is accounting and finance and hr. A lot of those folks found themselves, especially in a manager level, like the decision making level. A lot of those people were furloughed or laid off, so they needed help finding a job. And so I actually really was spending a lot of time with those people. I didn't realize what the payoff was gonna be until much later, but those folks are who I was doing interview preps with reformatting resumes for optimizing LinkedIn profiles. Like, we were spending a lot of time together.

Sarah Englade [00:30:50]:
And I was doing that for lots of. Lots of people during that time because, you know, I was doing bd work, I was MPC ing, I was doing cold calls. I was doing all of the things. But then I, you know, from a recruiting perspective, I was trying to get leads, but nobody was hiring. So when I'm recruiting in all these people, there's not really any leads that they're really sharing. But what they were sharing was that they were struggling, that they felt lost, that they were depressed. And so for me, I spent a ton of time with those people, making sure that I was giving them every bit of knowledge I had and every ounce of energy I had to help them to be able to compete, have the best resume, have the best optimized LinkedIn know how to answer these questions regarding their gap of employment, whatever. So really what happened was those people found jobs not through me, because I was still, like this new firm that didn't really have many clients.

Sarah Englade [00:31:42]:
And those people were decision makers. And when they were hiring, they reached out to me. My first client, though, came from traditional old work, the work that people don't want to do. You know, like, in recruiting, they want to take, like, the easy road, you know, to success here, but it's a. The same activity you have to do. So I was doing NPC calls, I was doing ad calls. I was just placing cold calls, doing intros. I'm doing all these things.

Sarah Englade [00:32:08]:
I'm recruiting, following up on leads, creating content. So I had never created content before I started my own company, and I became, you know, obsessed with it. I knew I needed to create content and post on LinkedIn every day. Cause I needed to build a brand for myself. So I continued to do those things. And then finally, a woman at my best company, now she's still there, still my best client. They were my first client. And she reached out to me and said, hey, I have a controller position.

Sarah Englade [00:32:36]:
This is my first opportunity. I'm like, oh, my God, it's six months in. I really needed this. She's like, can we jump on a call? I said, yes. We jumped on a call at 07:00 the next morning, and she asked me questions about my core values, like, it was a very different vetting call. She's like, talk to me about your core values. Why did you start your company? And then she was like, look, you align with us. Like, we want you to be entrepreneurial, spirited, like your mission and what you do aligns with our company.

Sarah Englade [00:33:00]:
I said this, and no one's ever had a vetting call with me like that before. Like, ever since then. It was, like, the first time, and it was so unique, and it was so cool. And then she says, sarah, how many controller positions have you filled since you started monarch talent solutions? And I was like, zero. Because I hadn't. I was honest. I'm like, I haven't filled any yet, but I really hope you give me an opportunity to change that. And she did.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:21]:
I feel like a lot of other recruiters might not have said zero.

Sarah Englade [00:33:25]:
I know they would have lied. I know we're taught that. I did not. I'm very honest. I'm honest all the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:31]:
It's very rare for a client to be, like, core values, and, you know, maybe this is. You planted. You planted so many seeds in the soil, in the ground, something came up and was forced to come up. Curiosity, like, what are your core values?

Sarah Englade [00:33:43]:
So we have, I think, eight of them. So they spell out humanity. So, like, a few of them, like, hold yourself to the highest standard, united in freedom. Make a difference through your work. Act with integrity and honesty. Improve by 1% every day. So it's all about really, like, to be honest, being the best version of yourself, being the best version, you know, showing up, doing the right thing, never making a major decision in a valley that went there specifically for me, because, you know, sometimes I find myself if I'm overwhelmed and, you know, stressed out, because we. We're in the business of people.

Sarah Englade [00:34:16]:
People are stressful. So sometimes things happen in business, and, you know, I'm that person that can react, but that's a big value that we have for me, because it's like, we don't make decisions and values. We take walks and we rethink these things through, because the first thing with us is relationships first. Like, we don't want to be a transactional firm. We just. I want high caliber clients that utilize me. I don't want the companies that are using every firm in the city of Houston. Like, I get those companies reaching out.

Sarah Englade [00:34:45]:
They're like, hey, can you help me with this position? It's been open for four months. You've got ten other firms on it. No, like, I don't want to work that. I want to work, like, high caliber roles with good clients. I want to fill positions that are career opportunities, not roles that constantly have turnover. And I really don't want to work with companies, too, that are, like, this is how we've always done it well, that doesn't work anymore. So for us, you know, what I provide. It's more of, like, that white glove service.

Sarah Englade [00:35:11]:
I want to have clients that respect that and value that. So those are the companies that I target 100% when I'm doing my marketing and my business development.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:21]:
So you started the company during the pandemic, didn't make a placement for six months. Yes, sir. If you were starting just today because you spent a lot of time with, like, you know, doing, like, leadership calls and coaching calls, if you had to start over today, what would be some of the things that you would do to get your first few clients?

Sarah Englade [00:35:36]:
To be honest, I don't know if I would do a single thing different, because everything that I did, it, it just turned into something so beautiful. I failed so much in the beginning, Benjamin, because I didn't know what I was doing. I don't love cold calling. I don't love doing all of that stuff. I'm still weird about it. I feel like I'm still cringe. I'm still trying to learn that, right? Three and a half years, almost four years into business, but every single time I've, like, flopped or, like, had that moment when I'm like, ugh, why did you do it like that? Or whatever. I've learned so much from those that I don't know if I would change anything because I wouldn't want the outcome to change.

Sarah Englade [00:36:12]:
This has been the coolest ride, the most humbling ride. I've totally. I don't even know who that was that worked at the first company. Four years ago Sarah. Five years ago, Sarah. Like, you know, I'm not her anymore. Like, I don't know if I could be this without everything that I had to go through to get here.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:28]:
Okay, so we're now jumping on the accelerator.

Sarah Englade [00:36:30]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:31]:
What did you do to go from that first placement to that 1.5 million?

Sarah Englade [00:36:36]:
Oh, it was a fun ride. So, first and foremost, I don't think people really love my answer on this. But it's the truth, and it's the honest truth. You've got to make time for this. There's not enough time in the day. You know this. Like, I think sometimes people come on and they talk about being like, you know, I'm a million dollar producer. You know, this.

Sarah Englade [00:36:52]:
You hit a million dollars one time, and then that's like, you know, your coin. You say you have flexibility, but you don't. In order for you to be successful, you have to be completely obsessed with this business. So I did everything that I was supposed to do according to what I had learned from a lot of different people. I created content every single day. I made sure that I was connecting with new people on LinkedIn, but specifically building my network were accounting, finance, and HR and Houston. That was it. Like, the majority of the people that I am connected to on LinkedIn are those people.

Sarah Englade [00:37:24]:
My buyers, my candidates. That's who I want to see my content. That's what I want. Circling around to those I was showing up to, every networking event I was going to on site visit. So if a client called me and said, hey, you know, we have some openings, this is the role. Can I stop in today? I can be there in an hour. I would show up. I do a lot of different things, too.

Sarah Englade [00:37:44]:
I actually still write handwritten letters to clients. Like, we have, like a brochure we send out with writing. So it's seven to nine touch points. I'm specifically obsessed with this. I have 50 companies that I targeted. Out of the 50 companies, you know, you're only making like, 80% of your income from, like, what, 20% of those companies? That's really what it is. So in order to get those, Ben, you've got to do it all. You've got to cold call them, you got to email them, you got to follow up with a LinkedIn request to connect with them.

Sarah Englade [00:38:11]:
Then you got to send them the voice memo on LinkedIn, then you got to send them some mail, and then you get on a call with them. And when you show up, this is the beauty of showing up to meetings. You don't just meet them, they introduce you to everybody. So when I'm being introduced to not only just the controller, I'm there with the CFO, I'm there with the finance manager, and they all see me, and they all see my enthusiasm and my honesty. That's really what was, I think the biggest differentiator was that I'm willing to show up and go above and beyond, but I'm also willing to be very honest and educate you. So there's been a lot of those calls or meetings that I've been in where companies were like, we've had this role open a year and a half, and no other recruiter has said these kinds of things to us about the market. Like, you guys are paying way under. Nobody wants your role because it's not attractive.

Sarah Englade [00:38:57]:
I'm going to change this and this if you're okay with it, and I'm going to get your position filled, and literally within four weeks, filled because I'm willing to be honest. So I think it's like the going above and beyond. I was willing to do it. I brought on some contractors, too, because the volume of job orders started to just come in. It was insane because I'm doing all the things, and we made a ton of money. It was just. It was insane. So my first year in business, I only had a, you know, paychecks for six months.

Sarah Englade [00:39:23]:
Cause it took me six months to make money. About tripled my best year at my first company. The company that said, you'll never make more money, tripled it.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:31]:
So six. The last six months of that year, you tripled what you did at that company.

Sarah Englade [00:39:36]:
Yeah, my best year, I tripled it. Yeah, it was crazy. It was awesome. The next year, I couldn't even believe how much money I was bringing in. Cause it was insane. I mean, our revenue was like 1.6 million in a year and a half. We were just fricking, you know, grinding and killing it and enjoying it and having a good time. Like, I have 1099 contractors.

Sarah Englade [00:39:57]:
And listen, we were having a great time, too. We were taking off on a Tuesday. We were getting champagne and nice meals, and it was great. But we were working our asses off for those. And I think everybody, too, that was a 1090. Everybody that's worked for me came from other firms, mostly, so they understood this. And this felt like, for them, finally, freedom and for us to really deliver and for us to be able to stand up for ourselves, too, you know, because sometimes I think recruiters, we get shit on a lot. You know, we get shit on by the hiring manager.

Sarah Englade [00:40:25]:
If we don't do a good job, it's our fault the candidate. So now it's like, okay, our standards are very, very high. We don't accept people talking to us a certain way. We say no to a lot of business, to say yes to the right business, and we do not work with people that nickel and dime us. Our fee is our fee. We do not discount.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:42]:
Do you have different setups with your fee? Or is it just like, this is what the fee is?

Sarah Englade [00:40:47]:
My fee is my fee. So the only time my fee changes is if I go into, like, a position that's paying over 200,000 for a base salary. So if it goes up and it's going to be a harder position for us to fill. So my standard fee is 25% at a net ten term. So they have ten days to pay me. I've had to change that only, I think, three times, and I won't go to 30. I'm stingy. They'll say, we have to do net 30.

Sarah Englade [00:41:10]:
I'm like, net 25. So, like, I'll negotiate all that. Cause it's like we work our butts off here, you know, and I'm a contingent firm, so we want our money to come in and we do not refund. So we do not refund. We have a 90 day guarantee, no cash value if the candidate doesn't work out. This has only impacted me one time, and we have a one time refill to give our best effort to refill it. So there is that. But, yeah, no, the only time I'll change it, and I usually will go up to 35% if the salary is like, 200 and above.

Sarah Englade [00:41:40]:
And that's never been a problem because they're kind of used to that.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:43]:
I love that. Well, before we shift gears to the quick fire questions, we've covered a lot. Is there anything else that you want to kind of, like, jump into or talk a little more on? Out of everything we've covered, I think.

Sarah Englade [00:41:55]:
The biggest thing that, you know, with my experience being fired, then laid off, and then starting a company and becoming successful, there's a lot of people like me. I don't think my story is unique. I don't think that a lot of people talk about their stories of being fired or laid off because a lot of people think that's something to be embarrassed. Embarrassed about. But all I can share about it is the more you talk about it, the more the shame gets taken away from it. And you can reinvent yourself an unlimited amount of times. If you don't like something in your life, change it. So that's what I would leave with, that.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:24]:
Awesome. Well, jumping over to the quick fire questions, what advice would you give to a recruiter that's actually just getting started in our industry this year?

Sarah Englade [00:42:33]:
If you're getting started as a recruiter in 2024, like, good luck. So 2024 has been a crazy year, and recruiting, this is actually probably a great year for somebody to get started in recruiting because they get to feel the low. And so in our industry, it's ebbs and flows, and you're not going to always feel like you're on cloud nine all the time. So good luck in 2024 as a new recruiter and don't quit. Do not quit.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:57]:
Same question. But for somebody that's just getting started with their business, what's the number one piece of advice that you would give.

Sarah Englade [00:43:04]:
Just getting started in recruiting, like a recruiting business.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:07]:
Like, they're launching their own business.

Sarah Englade [00:43:09]:
They're, do not compare yourself to anyone else. Do not do it. Don't compare yourself to other people's success. And you need to get mentors. You need to lean into self development and getting mentors. When I first started my company, I actually reached out to a couple of people locally, here in Houston, outside of Jeremy, a couple of other folks, and was like, can we go to lunch? Like, I'm starting my own company. I saw that you had yours and they were unwilling to help me. They did not want to have lunch with me.

Sarah Englade [00:43:33]:
They viewed me as competition. They weren't very friendly about it. They would answer things like, my DM's like, sure, period. Like three days later, I'm like, yeah, no, like, I'm good. So what I ended up having to do is really seek out some mentors. And so I have quite a few now and I lean on them. And I think if you're starting a business, you can't do it alone. You're gonna have a lot of questions, you're gonna have a lot of ups and downs.

Sarah Englade [00:43:54]:
So, you know, I have mentors for, you know, running a business. I'm part of an entrepreneur program called RT Syndicate that helps me with, you know, running my business seamlessly. I have a mental toughness coach. I actually have a meeting today to potentially, you know, join and get a recruiting mentor, which I think is going to be very valuable for me. So I'm looking into that. And then of course, you know, like, lean into other people that are willing to help you. Like, one of my best mentors is Brent or Suga out of Scottsdale. He's been amazing and we met on LinkedIn three years ago and I'm inspired by him every single day and he gives me really sound, good advice.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:32]:
That is awesome. What has been a good book that has helped impact your career?

Sarah Englade [00:44:37]:
So I'm actually a pretty avid reader, so I have a lot of books, but the compound effect was the first book that I picked up for self development back in 2018. And the compound effect, I've read it like five times. I love this book. So huge impact on me. The sales Bible by Jeffrey Gittemore. I'm actually now picking it up for the second time, so I'm reading it again. I actually really loved that book. And then the last book would be, it's called relationships first, and Emily Forsella wrote it and I went to one of her women in business summits last year and I think that's when the book came out and her values and what she talks about aligns with me.

Sarah Englade [00:45:16]:
It's all about the relationship. Relationship first, people will never forget how you made them feel. So you've got to start with them.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:22]:
When it comes to your own personal success. So you crushed it at the first firm, top Biller got VP level, second firm, you were doing so well that they kept on moving you around until the pandemic. You had an incredibly tough six months, but you completely turned it around. And you didnt just turn it around and have some success and take your foot off the gas, you kept on going. What do you think has been a personal huge contributor for your success? Whats driving you?

Sarah Englade [00:45:48]:
So it's funny because my mental toughness coach is wanting me to like really identify my burn and what's like that burn that fires me up every day to do this. I'm still having a hard time identifying that specifically. But I really think that for me, the way that I was raised, I do actually contribute that mostly to my level of success today. Like, you know, I was raised in a very humble home, you know, lower middle class Massachusetts home. My dad worked for the United States Postal Service. He still works for them. He won't retiree. My mom is close to retirement but probably won't retire either.

Sarah Englade [00:46:22]:
And she worked for a high school and so we didn't really have much and so I always had to work. So we had everything we needed but the things that we wanted, I had to work. So I've always had a work ethic. They instilled that in me. So I think that, you know, watching my parents and being raised by two people that never called out of work ever like would drive in the snow with 2ft of snow to go to work. Like they never called out a stomachache, wasn't keeping my dad a headache, wasn't keeping him home. Like, I was raised with that. So I think that really being around people like that, that have such strong work ethics and then being on my own, like I moved away at 23 to a completely different state, I don't have a college degree.

Sarah Englade [00:47:01]:
And so for me I think it's always been that I am not gonna quit and I'm not gonna fail. And it's that knowing that I'm not quitting on myself, I have no plan b and this is gonna work. So I do think that the way I was raised in the fact that I do believe so much in discipline, so I really contributed to all of that.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:19]:
I'm going to jump back over to a question before I go into my favorite one. You're crushing it. What does your tech stack look like?

Sarah Englade [00:47:25]:
I'm like super basic, so I really am. I use LinkedIn recruiter pro now. I had lite, but I like the pro version. I think it's great. I've compared that recently to a couple of other AI's. Like some of the new AI sourcing softwares that have come out that people are hyping up and they're okay, they're okay. But I'm finding kind of the same talent on LinkedIn Pro, so I haven't really had much to change there. I have a basic CRM, I have bullhorn.

Sarah Englade [00:47:50]:
We're getting ready to launch automation. I've never even had automation up until this point. So. Yeah, like, I don't know if I have a favorite canva because I mean, I create my marketing there. I don't even know.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:02]:
And she does a great job with like her videos and stuff, so make sure you hit the follow on her for Instagram and stuff. But. Okay, so real quick, you don't have like an automation program, but you build that much. How are you keeping track of all your touch points?

Sarah Englade [00:48:14]:
Like I told you, like the first firm that I was at, if we didn't log it, it didn't happen, so we had to log our activity. So I'm no joke, I log every conversation. I log everything. Now I know that there's software out now that you can just talk and it like, you know, does it for me and maybe I'll get that because I have a lot of conversations. I don't know, but I get the basics in the system and then I set a task. So that's how I know how to keep up my activity because I've got to hit numbers. I have metrics that I've made for myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:40]:
What are your metrics?

Sarah Englade [00:48:41]:
So. Well, my metrics are a lot lower, but I have them written here. So canva again, I'm like no joke, I measure everything I do. I have to do five social media posts. So I post Monday through Friday, I do ten odd calls a week, I do 25 NPC's. I try to pull in five new recruits a week, which is kind of up now because the market is so wonky. So I'm kind of up to like twelve recruits a week. It's wild.

Sarah Englade [00:49:04]:
I need to log new contacts, so I've got to get five new contacts in the system. I've got to be able to have connects and emails to 40 people. So it's a lot. And then leads five, I need to get five leads. So, when I'm talking to my recruits and I'm saying, where are you interviewing? How long ago was that? Who did you interview with? That's a lead. I got to follow up on it. So, 95 is my goal, and I'm going to be honest with you. Wearing all the hats, it's hard to hit 95, but I usually do crush it and usually bring in about, like, 75 connects a week.

Sarah Englade [00:49:34]:
Yeah. So I'm that recruiter that people probably are like, God, that's so old school. But, like, it works, so I'm sticking to it.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:42]:
Awesome. So, jumping fast forward again to my favorite question, and we're going to ask this twice. If you get the chance to sit down and have a conversation with yourself back at the early days of your recruiting career, the start of it, what would you tell yourself?

Sarah Englade [00:49:55]:
I would tell myself it gets better. It gets better. And also, this environment is not normal. Cause I didn't know any better. But I think that would really be it. Like, it's gonna get better. You think that this is good? You think you're doing a great job now? Just wait.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:10]:
Same question. But the start of monarch, a month or two into monarch with, you know, where the story's at. If you had the chance to sit down with yourself, give yourself advice, what would you say?

Sarah Englade [00:50:21]:
God, that's a really good question. During that time, when I first started, I think that I was scared to do a lot of different things during that time because I was new, but I think I probably would have said something like, it's a saying, honestly, now that I think about a lot, and it says, like, go for it. Because missed opportunities hurt way more than rejection. And I think that if I had believed that back then and knew that, I probably would have made 2 million, you know, in a year and a half, but I think it would have been that, like, just go for it. Cause those missed opportunities are gonna hurt you way more than rejection.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:59]:
Where do you see yourself and monarch five years from now?

Sarah Englade [00:51:02]:
I don't know. That is the question. Benjamin. I'm kind of in a little bit of, like, a crossroads here with myself, which is why I really want to get a recruiting mentor, somebody that can really help to mentor me and maybe help me figure this piece out, because do I want to scale it? Is that an option? I did at one point, and then I didn't. So where do I see it? Still around, still kicking ass, still, you know, humanizing, hiring here at Houston, helping as many people as possible. We have a huge brand now. On Instagram. So our content on Instagram goes pretty viral, which is great.

Sarah Englade [00:51:35]:
And we get a lot of really good feedback. So we know we're helping people. We know we're helping people maneuver the market and navigate it and be successful as they're going through it. So I still want to be a big part of that, but I hope that I can break more into speaking and helping, you know, really to spread the word to and to help as many people as possible. So I guess in five years and ten years from now, I hope I'm still able to help as many people as I am now, if not more.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:59]:
And making an impact for the listeners. If they want to follow you, how can they do that?

Sarah Englade [00:52:04]:
LinkedIn. So we are heavy on LinkedIn. You can follow my personal page, Sarah Englade, and our company page, Monarch talent Solutions. But we are pretty big on Instagram. So monarch talent HTX is our handle. And we're also on YouTube, just under monarch talent solutions.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:21]:
Before I let you go, we've covered a lot. Is there anything else that you would love to share with listeners?

Sarah Englade [00:52:27]:
Yeah, if you're a recruiter and you've been thinking about going into business for yourself and you're scared, that's normal. Everyone's scared initially when they think about it. But the sky is the limit and everything. There's no reward without some risk. And when you place a bet 100% on yourself, you're going to win. You're going to win. You're going to be successful. And like I said before, you can reinvent yourself however many times you have to.

Sarah Englade [00:52:52]:
But if you're gonna go into business for yourself, be the best at it. And don't skimp out, and don't ever compromise integrity. Just be the best. Treat the people the best, and go to bed happy at night knowing that everything that you gave today was your best.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:07]:
Absolutely love that. Well, man, I'm so excited that I got to share your story. There are so many people that struggle to make their first placement when they make that jump themselves. We all hear stories of somebody that, like, made five or six placements their first month, but that's not normal. It's not normal. So I'm glad that you came on and shared your story. And from zero to six or from zero all the way through six months to just absolutely crushing it. So I can't wait to see where the future goes.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:32]:
And for the listeners, I want 2024 to be your best year yet. Keep crushing it, guys. Thank you for joining.

Sarah Englade [00:53:39]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed hit subscribe, subscribe and leave a rating.