Zero to $41 Million in Five Years: Building Elite Recruiters with $800K Desks featuring Adrian Byra

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
2025 is going to be the best year that you've ever had, and we're going to help make that happen. We got two summits heading your way. First of all, in January, the Sales and Business Development Recruiting Summit. Make sure to get registered free for the live sessions or go VIP for the replays. And then the Recruiting Growth Summit is coming back for March. These events are going to help you start strong, run strong, so that way you can finish strong. So let's go. Make sure you get registered.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:25]:
You'll see the link in the show notes. All right, enjoy the podcast. Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast, literally, they're about ready to kick you out the country, and the only job that you could pick up was a job as a recruiter.

Adrian Byra [00:00:36]:
I was literally trapped. It doesn't really matter what I care about the people within this company. What are they going to do and where are they going to go? And if their growth means they want a team, okay, then we grow headcounts. If their growth means they want to do $2 million, then okay, we're going to grow rev. We're not going to grow headcounts, and that's okay, right? But as long as you bat the people within, then that umbrella almost gets more and more powerful.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:59]:
Welcome Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host.

Adrian Byra [00:01:03]:
Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:06]:
It takes to win in the recruiting game.

Adrian Byra [00:01:08]:
We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:17]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. The reason is my guess. Him and his team have gone from zero to $41 million in the last, what is it, five years. But here's what's most important about this. It's not just the big top end number. It's what the recruiters are actually doing. With the average desk of about 800,000, that means his recruiters are winning. These recruiters are doing something right.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:41]:
The organization has figured out how to make their recruiters elite recruiters. So I am so excited. From. I can't even say the other side of the pond, but the other side of the world right now. Adrian Byro, welcome to the podcast.

Adrian Byra [00:01:53]:
Thanks so much for having me, man. Yeah, I'm really excited to be a part of it. And thanks for accommodating our time zones. Somehow we figured that out as well. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:02]:
It's evening time. It works. My son's in bed already, so it's perfect. But before we get started, do a deep dive on how you guys are helping make recruiters elite. Real quick, 30 seconds. Can you talk about your company and everything?

Adrian Byra [00:02:15]:
Sure. So lead group started. Yeah, like you said, five and a half years ago. I was with Randstad for a number of years and kind of moved through the ranks there. And I think we aligned ourselves, me and my partner of essentially, he was this elite recruiter that could do 1.6 million in per billings. He was going to make money and I was going to spend it and build. Build something great. And I think both of us align to this idea that particularly big globals, but a lot of recruitment scales based off of meteorocracy.

Adrian Byra [00:02:46]:
And in meteorocracy, nobody wins except for the company. Right. The company grows and the individuals do not. Actually the opposite in a lot of the globals, they work off of this. Okay. It's a 180 cost model GP to FTE cost line. If we can average everybody 220, we win. We take our 40,000 clip and we replicate and then we mass scale and there we are.

Adrian Byra [00:03:10]:
Right. Our plan was how do we build an environment and a culture that grows people. We're not focused on growth of the company. And I could give a shit if we have, you know, a hundred people, 200 people over the next 10 years. It doesn't really matter what I care about the people within this company, what are they going to do and where are they going to go? And if their growth means they want a team, okay, then we grow headcounts. If their growth means they want to do $2 million, then okay, we're going to grow rev. We're not going to grow headcounts and that's okay. Right? But as long as you bat the people within, then that umbrella almost gets more and more powerful.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:45]:
Yeah, that is perfect. We got a lot to unpack.

Adrian Byra [00:03:48]:
We both went in to say, how do we make something scalable that can actually add value to the employees and actually grow people rather than an organization?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:58]:
I love that. So before we start talking and unpacking that whole part of the conversation, how the hell did you even end up in this wonderful world? Recruiting.

Adrian Byra [00:04:06]:
Like most of us in Australia, we needed a visa. I'm Canadian, which I don't know if you know by my accent, but 14 years ago I moved here. The classic case of move for a girl who's now my. My wife and I had two kids with her and all of these things and have stayed and I got the recruitment actually in. In Canada at the time, 14, 15 years ago, recruitment was very infant. Like they're just you didn't really know a lot about it, or. I certainly didn't. But over here, I went to a recruiter.

Adrian Byra [00:04:35]:
They got me a job with a direct competitor of a manufacturer that I worked with. I was a sales manager in manufacturing and with a direct competitor. That company hired me a week before my Visa ran out. They said, sorry, we couldn't sponsor you because the government said we haven't gone through, you know, and interviewed enough Australian people and whatnot to sponsor your Visa. So I was going to be kicked out of the country. And then the recruitment company that put me out there said, well, we'll hire you, right? You're not going to be a manager anymore and you're going to get about half the salary that you we're about to get. And you have to live in Bondi beach, which is like the most expensive place in the world. But, yeah, you'll figure it out, right? Probably actually the worst way to hire somebody under duress.

Adrian Byra [00:05:17]:
But, hey, you know, I was screwed. So I took it. And then, yeah, I entered the Visa and by the time I had pr, you know, my career in recruitment had far surpassed what I was prior to recruitment. So here I am, right. I guess along, yeah, I fell in love with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:33]:
So literally, they're about ready to kick you out of the country and the only job that you could pick up was a job as a recruiter.

Adrian Byra [00:05:38]:
I didn't totally agree with the business structure and management of the first company I worked with. And so I tried to get out of recruitment and then realized I had been sponsored on a recruitment visa. So I couldn't change my visa into manufacturing. What I. What I knew. So I even tried twice to get out of it for a couple of years. I was literally trapped. So, yeah, if anybody says, oh, instantly I fell in love.

Adrian Byra [00:06:01]:
You know what, great at recruiting because I fell in love with it right away. And it's a journey, right? There's not many people that love it.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:07]:
Me and Clint, you were legally trapped.

Adrian Byra [00:06:11]:
So, yeah, that gets wild. Hey, I wish it was a bit more of a honeymoon, but it was not.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:16]:
That's phenomenal. Well, okay, so, like, you know, you worked at a few different places, you worked at Rossdot, you grew your career. What finally decided for you guys to like, just say, like, you know, screw it, let's go start our own thing.

Adrian Byra [00:06:29]:
I've been fairly entrepreneurial my whole life, you know, and that's kind of what I've been. I own clothing stores when I was younger. Then I started working for a manufacturer in Raw commodities and in manufacturing. And the only reason I did that was because I was buying stuff, you know, 10 cents on the dollar. And then I was buying up houses and renoing them for really cheap with all of those goods so that I could flip those houses and then rent them out and do do all of this stuff. So I was just always obsessed with that recruitment because I was on a visa, I couldn't have my own company. So rather I said, all right, I mean, while I'm waiting to get pr, I'm going to ride the journey and learn as much as I can and join a global and understand the dynamics there and figure everything out so that when I finally do it, I know how to scale. You know, basically I'll spend eight years learning everything.

Adrian Byra [00:07:17]:
So when I hit go, I'm ready to go.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:19]:
Okay, so let me. I know nothing about the visa process in Australia. Like you shouldn't do anything or start your own company for eight years. Like you were kind of like almost tied to the recruitment industry.

Adrian Byra [00:07:29]:
It's a big, big process. Yeah. And you gotta, you gotta get your company to sponsor you into pr and there's a lot of, a lot of processes to get done. And actually if you look at a lot of the recruitment industry in Australia, a lot. Well, actually uk, but they've come over because the country's beautiful and really nice to live in. Especially when you're used to like Canada. Like I was in the cold and. Yeah, you just, you know, get your sponsorship for four years and yeah, convert to PR after that fact.

Adrian Byra [00:07:57]:
So I was, I mean, honestly, I was building the modeling and the plan for this company years before it started.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:04]:
And when did you meet your partner in all this? Your recruiting partner?

Adrian Byra [00:08:07]:
Yeah, so we had overlap in oscore, so maybe five years before. Before I started and I guess or before he started this company and I, I kind of watched his journey. Oh, I'm embarrassed for myself. Back then, I think he gave me a good lesson of what great looks like. I was in a company and I became top biller very quickly in the company. But when I say top biller, we're talking like 431,000. It was my biggest year I've ever done. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:08:31]:
Which is quite sad considering I now talk about being great. I remember I was the biggest biller of 30 people. He started in that company, you know, and in the first couple of weeks I was also running a team already and, you know, I only ran a desk for 18 months. That I moved into management far too quick. I remember going down Taking him to a meeting. And I remember spieling off like, one day you could be like me. You know, like that kind of attitude. Like, hopefully not that bad.

Adrian Byra [00:08:57]:
That's what I remember in my head though. And I know he was looking at me just like mad. I crush you is ultimately. But he was super nice. He's like, oh yeah, great, right? Listening and stuff. And then I left. I left Dawes Corp to join Randstad to continue my career up and move up. And I watched him after I leave do like a million dollars in like the next six months, you know, and just me just so embarrassed.

Adrian Byra [00:09:20]:
And still 10 years later, I'm embarrassed for that conversation of me saying one day you could be like me. Like my God. Anyway, so that's when we met and I kind of just watched his journey from there. And then two years before we started it, we had mutual friends and connected and chatted about it and kind of realized we were very aligned and realized I think balance is so important. And even when we go down to a desk level and we'll talk about that down the line, but understanding your weaknesses and your gaps and rather than fixing them, just finding somebody that aligns, it's just so powerful. Right. And same with on our broader culture. Understanding the gaps of the culture at any one point and that's a moving target and just plugging those holes.

Adrian Byra [00:10:01]:
He is a monster. Right. He was a freight train that is always cares about right now, always cares about tomorrow, always is pushing to go. And I'm always looking at two years from now. Right. And what today impacts and that complements each other so well.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:17]:
Was he like really good on the sales side and you're really good on the operation side. Is that kind of like how you guys like have this like broken down? Yeah.

Adrian Byra [00:10:24]:
I mean, he's still running his desk and he should be considered what you call a pace setter in the company. Right. And enjoying that side of things. I guess I would be the managing director or CEO, whatever you want to call it. I don't like calling that because I've got kind of a servant style leadership and I feel like I just work for all the people under me. I think that's kind of how we work. We, you know, he helps steer in the background. Ricardo Naguera, who also runs a million dollar desk, is also the finance side of our business too.

Adrian Byra [00:10:51]:
And since we've been doing this, he grown himself. He's done a master's in that and continued to to push himself on the finance side. So the three of Us kind of work together and steer the company and I take direction from them and then just keep pushing things before we start.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:05]:
Talking about the recruiters. Like, wait, your finance guy also has a desk too?

Adrian Byra [00:11:09]:
Yeah, yeah. And he doesn't want to leave.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:11]:
That's awesome.

Adrian Byra [00:11:12]:
They make too much money, right? Like, it's so. It's just everybody does but me. And actually even I do it a deal, a quarter because I really like it still. And I, I don't know, I have, have clients still. I also just want the team to know that no matter how big this thing gets, I'm not too good for it. I still love it too. Right. We all have that passion and it keeps me in touch with what' new.

Adrian Byra [00:11:33]:
And, you know, at least I know what they're talking about when they're doing it. And I'm honest to learning too. Right. Even after 14 years, I think you can never stop in recruitment. So.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:43]:
No, with you on that. All right, so let's go back to like talking about the recruiters and let's talk about the team and talk about some of the things that you're doing. Like, how did you guys start writing a different path for your recruiting team?

Adrian Byra [00:11:55]:
I think anybody that told you it was a defined journey of like, wow, we had this idea, like, I think it's such a, such a funny thing when people look from an outside of an organization and say, you know, and I did it too. Everybody does, right? Oh, Uber. What a good idea, right? The idea, the concept was there from the start, right? But where we are today and where we were there is just little ideas and little tweaks every single day and continuous improvement, I think was is all I can really say. Right? But what it was was when we, you know, sat ourselves in a room and it was myself, Lee, and then Ricardo, who started with us from day one as well. Me just watching these two and seeing what they did differently than, you know, Meteorocracy, Like I was talking about within Randstad and just writing it down and then understanding it and then saying, oh, you can't kind of standardize this stuff. And I was like, but what if you can, right? And just, you know, while I was running a desk, just trying what they do, volume based stuff because I think I went into it with this idea that a great recruiter can't bill that much because of the dynamics of our industry. And I think that's a really flawed thing within our industry. But I was always, or I classified myself the 400k as a great recruiter because I have the same five clients for 14 years.

Adrian Byra [00:13:17]:
Right. And I've created this value proposition that just can't be fucked with. I've created such a big moat for myself by placing let's say a hundred people within that organization. So I know 40% of them that no one can get that depth of information from on an external perspective. It's so I become invaluable. Right. And so that's what I see is greatness within recruitment. But I always, until meeting them was under the belief that you have to trade off.

Adrian Byra [00:13:44]:
Okay, am I going to be perfect value proposition or I'm going to make a lot of money. But how do you make a million dollars or $2 million or $3 million while also creating the strongest value proposition you can? I think that's always in conflict with one another because it's really easy. You know, I always say 20, 20K. You know, a 20K perm fee is like literally the most expensive impulse buy of fixing a short term problem I've like ever seen. Like it's not, do you know what I mean? Like it's like you can catch somebody on the right day and they're like, oh sweet, tomorrow it's done and you've made 20 grand. And so it's like, it's hard to compete with that. It's hard to say how do I build the right long term growth by building long term partnerships and ensuring the value proposition. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:14:28]:
While also capitalizing by triple touching on everything. Yeah. So I think that's kind of where we started. I still cross little, little tweaks and by the way, I'm keen to not talk in weird methodology and actually give some action points to anybody listening to this as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:43]:
Okay. So like, you know, I love how you guys kind of like thought about it where you guys went, kind of like started mapping out. But fast forward, you guys started like hiring recruiters or having to hire higher recruiters. How did you guys start like figuring out how to take what you three have and start implementing it into, you know, Jim, Bob, Kim, Jennifer and all these people that are now on your team?

Adrian Byra [00:15:05]:
Yeah, I think probably step one was what I understood that you know, I was in a specialization space for 10 years. It's something called pump manufacturing. Okay. We're super, super specialized. Knew everybody in it in two weeks. I realized from working with Lee and Ricky that like I had been in this space for years and years and I actually only knew half the businesses because I never like most recruiters had time to properly map the industry. So I know every single thing, right? And this is something that, you know, manufacturing, when my company had 30% market share, we knew everything about every competitor and every client and everything recruiting him because it's so fragmented. Ran said biggest company in the world that has 1.8% market share, right? No one, it's just, it's big abyss and everybody scraps around and no one actually is aware of what it looks like.

Adrian Byra [00:15:58]:
And so I think step one that we've replicated 100% is before you do anything, and by the way, if we get a new desk and somebody's going to start with us, we spend two months mapping their desk before they start. Because speed to productivity is number one, right? We hire a resourcer for them in the Philippines. So we have a huge support system in the Philippines. And we have our recruiters have a one to one relationship all the way up to three to one relationship to run that desk for them. And that is, you know, globalizations happening and that's becoming bigger and bigger. And I think successful recruiters are ones that can build processes, take what in their head, map it out so that they can have either automation do it, AI do it, or an autonomous worker doing it. It's really, really important. So I think step one was mapping out the old market so we understand the depth of what it looks like and then start driving talk of funnel volume that no one has that kind of volume.

Adrian Byra [00:16:54]:
I think what Lee and Ricky became amazing at, no, he is not a great salesperson. Actually, I was so underwhelmed about his sales ability. But what it is, is he was always in a power spot because his top of funnel was so big that if somebody called him and said, hey, yeah, oh you know, I want, I work at 15%, he said, wow, sorry, I work at 18, so take it or leave it. Right. He was so much more aware than most that all we need is 1% market share. So we have to make 99 enemies and one friend in a hundred calls. Right? And the quicker you realize that, the quicker you can win.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:29]:
Okay, so you said like the guy that was billing a million dollars a year wasn't the greatest salesperson, but he was such great at the top of funnel. When you say top of funnel, what exactly do you mean?

Adrian Byra [00:17:38]:
So I mean he was great at mapping out 4,000 different targets within one specific area and then recognizing the little subsectors within those 4,000 contacts to understand what a perfect person looks like to those 20 and then having the whole thing mapped. So everything, if you could say An Excel spreadsheet. Right now we're building it in the back end because we got a bunch of developers doing weird shit in the company, but having it all mapped so that the day he talks to somebody, literally he could be talking to somebody on the phone. While doing that, he would know the 19 perfect people that that person's right for. And he would be able to contact them and then hit three touch points. And then he would have five calls because he, you know, seven touch points to make a sale. You want to. The faster you get those done, the quicker you make a sale.

Adrian Byra [00:18:28]:
Right. So he would, boom, boom, boom, get it done. He would have five opportunities for that candidate within three day period, while the competitors haven't even started.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:38]:
Well, most competitors have even mapped out 4,000 people or let over 400.

Adrian Byra [00:18:42]:
No one does. Right. So we map 2,000 before somebody starts. Always. It's why actually I was getting criticized. I don't know if we're friends yet on LinkedIn. Sorry, our friends. Hey, I don't know what, what do you call LinkedIn connections which get criticized the other day for interview process.

Adrian Byra [00:18:58]:
Right. Like, because I said what our process is. We do four interviews with a recruiter. I also don't offer them unless they're in a power spot. So unless they have other offers. No. And if they don't have other offers, I say go get some other offers because I want you to choose me. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:19:13]:
Anyway, I got ripped apart on LinkedIn. Most of those trolls didn't really understand the concept that I was going after. And I'm not great at communicating and writing. So I, I understand there's probably some gaps on it, but the reality is we have to do that because we're literally. We probably spend three, you know, $30,000 before the person starts just prepping things. So I better get the person. Right, Right. It's a big thing, but I think it all starts.

Adrian Byra [00:19:39]:
It all starts with that and data analysts. And we know data is the biggest or most valuable thing in this world right now. Well, I'll tell you right now, data is a shitload more valuable to a recruiter than they believe.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:51]:
Well, you know, you getting kind of ripped apart on that. I think it's kind of funny, especially that since you're talking about $30,000 spend before somebody starts. But it's kind of funny. Like, I know another recruiter on LinkedIn who has, I think just 6,000 followers of connections just like you, also pulls in 45 million with his team. So maybe it's like the secrets to have less connections and you know, there's more money happening behind the scenes.

Adrian Byra [00:20:14]:
Yeah, that's right now. Yeah. I quite like it. Right. I've actually burned the. Because you're right, I don't. I've never been super, super into the followers. But I mean now the algorithm, when I do my little write ups, I'm starting to get, you know, a couple hundred thousand views and stuff like that.

Adrian Byra [00:20:31]:
And I know you gotta be right on that fine line to create some conflict. You do that and then people start chatting and then you have the opportunity to kind of fine tune your viewpoints. Right. Which I think is the most valuable part. The original post is irrelevant. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:46]:
I wanted to talk more about the careers and we talked about this offline is you guys are obsessive with process. And one of the things you mentioned is like, you guys sit down. I was it like every year with your recruiters and try to figure out what is taking time away from their desk and then finding ways for you guys to do something with it. Can you talk about that?

Adrian Byra [00:21:04]:
Yeah. Firstly when you say every year is every week.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:08]:
Sorry, every week.

Adrian Byra [00:21:09]:
Which is 52 times, I guess. But no, we have, we had a process that in their link ups I pushed. They are tracking everything that they do more than once in a day and they're writing it down and then we're understanding how can you build a process out of that. Right. I think the goal is if you want to work 40 hours a week. Well, arguably the pinnacle is you are selling for 40 hours, I. E. You're on the phone or in a face to face meeting for 40 hours, be that a candidate or a client.

Adrian Byra [00:21:41]:
If you do that, you win. Right. So anything else that's happening, we should be at least dissecting it and saying, is this possible? What value do you create in doing this task relative to automation, AI and outsource headcount? That would be, you know, would just make more sense for.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:02]:
What are some of the biggest surprising things that you guys decided to like take off a recruiter's desk that I, I think like most recruiters would just probably call like normal.

Adrian Byra [00:22:10]:
I don't know if it's surprising. I think the hardest thing is, look, we all know or I don't know most listeners, if you are a senior recruiter or an owner or anything like that, you'll know that with a big or major successful recruiter, control is one of their biggest strengths and weaknesses, if you will. And candidate control, client control, they're obsessed with controlling the process. And so I Think overcoming that is by far the hardest thing. And the hardest thing to do that is every recruiter says, no, my space is different. Adrian, you don't understand, right? This is. No, there's just. It's so intricate that I could never outsource, you know, or a machine could never know the perfect companies for this candidate.

Adrian Byra [00:22:57]:
And I could never lose that control of them doing it for me. Right. And so I think, whether it's surprising, I think I always knew there was a way, but that was probably the hardest thing to overcome was how do you build in? And the key is again, the data and them having control of the data. So as soon as they download their brain to basically. And I'm. Sounds ironic, but you know how people say like, oh, how do you lead people if you don't know anything about their desk or their space or things like that? Right. And a lot of, you know, as, as people rise up in their, their leadership career, that's probably a first thing. How do I create value for this person without knowing their intricacies of their company? Well, it's a blessing that I don't know anything about their spaces because then I ask the right questions because I'm like, no, no, no.

Adrian Byra [00:23:47]:
But if I don't know, then your autonomous worker is not going to know. And if they don't know, then they're going to be calling you and wasting time, right? They need to know exactly what to do on a daily basis so that you should only be talking on 10 minutes a week to say great job or bad job. This is where you can improve and everything else should be built for them so they can do every single thing, right. So that always comes up like, well, they say, oh yeah, you know, they'll build a folder. So these subsectors, when we say 2,000 clients, we replicate those same subset of folders in candidates so everything is exactly the same so that the recruiter can say, okay, go into this folder. So a resource or would know without calling them that they see, all right, this role that's just come in sits in this folder, which means I can look at the exact same candidate folder that says Sydney based pumps, sales reps, let's say as an example. And all of these people will be perfect for this. So I can now start my top of funnel and start my touchpoints in this folder without talking to anybody.

Adrian Byra [00:24:53]:
Because I know this is correct. Because it's all mapped perfectly, right? Like it has to be dummy proof. And dummy proofing or simplifying things is so difficult unless you're an idiot like me and don't know anything about it because then I can say, well, I can't do that. Nah, it doesn't make sense. Right. And so a lot of these desks, we're talking 250 different folders, you know, that are all segmented perfectly. But guess what? They're replicated on LinkedIn, right? They're replicated in search strings so that you have daily running of, you know, databases in the back end of Seek or deed or things like that, that they're doing searches based on these certain client base every single day to get the right people in front of them each day. So all of these processes are just driving into this person.

Adrian Byra [00:25:36]:
Does that make sense?

Benjamin Mena [00:25:37]:
Like, I hope that makes perfect sense. Like you did a good job, like breaking down, like what you guys are doing behind the scenes. And what I want to talk about next is kind of what you are doing with the recruiters. So I want to talk about goal setting and then I want to talk about how you are taking a recruiter up to becoming an elite recruiter. So when it comes to like working out goals and developing goals for your team, how do you do that where it still matches the desire that the recruiter has so that they have ownership of it?

Adrian Byra [00:26:04]:
I don't. No, just kidding. Yes, I do that, by the way, that's the right thing to do. What you articulated. Yeah, I think exactly what you just said. You can't teach somebody to do something they don't want to do. Right. So that's back in interview stage.

Adrian Byra [00:26:19]:
What do you and I think offline, we just talked about this, that I say I look at the alignment of where they want to go, right? And if somebody is happy to be a 600k biller, it's not my job to get them above 600k. Right. It is my job in the interview process to say, 600 is not good enough here. So you need to make a decision if that, is that what you want or do you want more? Right. We gotta know where the top of the mountain is for you. And until I come up with that, then, yeah, there's no alignment to our company and them, then you shouldn't be there every single week. I say there's two people in this room, right? And if you're not one of these people, then you should put your hand up and say, you know, maybe I should look at something else. Right? Which is you are a recruiter in this room or you are a recruitment team and resources are accountable as to your recruitment team.

Adrian Byra [00:27:07]:
On this team that is striving to get better every day, and every single day, you are on your way to being the best you can possibly be. Right. And then there's the rest of the company, which is the support structure. And if they're not every single day looking at the support structure and striving to be a better support structure, then they also shouldn't be here. Because if those two don't rise together, there's going to be a problem down the line. Right. And if we have all these recruiters becoming the best, guess what, the best have lots of options. So if our support structure doesn't keep building as fast as the recruiters do, they're going to go find somewhere that fits them.

Adrian Byra [00:27:43]:
Usually that'll be probably their own company because we're beating most of our competitors. And that happens, right? No, but, but the reality of that has happened and we've had three people leave and they have started their own companies and, you know, we're still friends and actually I still sometimes help them or give them some advice on things because I think that's, that's important. Once you start the journey that you stay on that together.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:04]:
That goes into another question. Like, you have a team of high billers. You have a team of, like, people that are doing great. Like, how do you keep them as part of your team when they could? Just like you said, three of them decided to go off on their own. Like, yeah, I can do this.

Adrian Byra [00:28:18]:
Yeah. I think sometimes you have to recognize you can't. Right. I think, you know, if somebody is leaving me, then it means there's a value proposition out there. Better for them. Right. And I think that's, that's why I'm saying, you know, actually we had somebody leave to start her own company back in March, and she did tell me when she started with us, I do want to start my own thing. I just don't think I'm quite there yet.

Adrian Byra [00:28:41]:
Right. And so I said, okay, give me three years. Right? Three years, and then I'll help you set up your company. And that's, that's all good. Right. And then we're on the journey and our journey is aligned. And that makes sense. And I'll get you to where you need to.

Adrian Byra [00:28:53]:
She quit at two years and one month, which she's pretty apologetic about. But, you know, the reality is she went from what, 510 was her biggest year, and then she did 920 when she left two years later with us. Right. And she said, I'm sorry, you Just can't brew me faster than I thought would happen. And so now it's just like the money start to get big that I'm losing anyway. And then, then somebody's taken over her desk. And you know, he was saying the other day, hey, can you, can you try to stop helping her? Because like now she's my direct competitor and you know, I'm really good with the, you know, we agree to, hey, you keep these clients, I'll keep these. You know, I don't, I don't want non compete stuff.

Adrian Byra [00:29:34]:
Like that's ridiculous, right? Any conflict just takes us away from our focus. And I said, yeah, I mean I can. But I think the coolest thing, man, is I know you're worried about her, right? Because she was, she left on high and she's got all these great systems that we built. And that's, that was his worry, right? He's like, well, she's got all the same things I do. And I was like, nah, she doesn't know, man. She had what we had in March, six months later, dude, like, do you know how many different processes have been built since then? And guess what happens? The gap is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger every month. And she's just going to, she's going to stay exactly where she got off. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:30:15]:
So that's why, you know, to reinforce what you're saying. How I believe, you know, people will stay, which they do, is that our support system keeps growing. And I gotta maintain that pressure on the support system because if it starts to go down, yeah, they're gonna go find somewhere else better. Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:30:32]:
Okay, so, you know, we talked about that, but let's just say this, like you have a recruiter that's like doing everything right, activity, level, the interest, the want, the desire, the goals. But they're running about a, you know, 200k, 250, 300k desk, but like they're committed. How do you grow some of these recruiters to becoming elite on your team?

Adrian Byra [00:30:52]:
Yeah, I mean that's deep dive diving the problem, right? And understand the problem. When you say they're doing everything right, clearly they're not, but they're 2 and 250 or 300. Like you're just not right. I don't think. But I think it is important to recognize that you've got the person and the environment and there's going to be one problem. So like we have kind of a thing, everybody should be on a journey to a million dollars. But our expectations are 600 minimum of everybody and I hold myself accountable to way up every day. If that person's getting there and they're only doing 400, maybe I gotta tweak the environment.

Adrian Byra [00:31:29]:
Like, maybe I gotta tweak that desk. Maybe we gotta analyze the margins that are sitting on the temp desk. Or maybe we gotta look at the average interview length relative to average placement fee, you know, and just dissect a bunch of the numbers to say, hey, are we shedding this person up? Like, I know they came in because this is their niche and this is what they knew, but is the environment capping in them or they capping themselves? I think that's probably the first question that a lot of. A lot of companies don't really look at a lot and they just standardize the person and then don't weigh up. Is the environment, right? And that's why too, you know, when I talk about top of funnel, when I talk about some of the spaces we can't grow the way some people do. Like, it's why we've opened in Ireland over the last six months. Because I don't want massive market share. Because massive market share means pigeonholing people and pigeonholing desks and shrinking the top of funnel to maximize market share.

Adrian Byra [00:32:24]:
And if you maximize market share, you are creating mediocrity within the environment. Because you're saying instead of, you know, working with the best 1% of that industry, which I said, put yourself in a power position and then choose the perfect people to work with on both sides, right? Instead, no, no, no, you're pinched so much, you need 20% market share, right? Well, guess what, 20% of the market. I don't know what. Fuck, I'm work with a lot of dicks, right? Like, there's a lot of people that you just don't like. And so what are you going to do? We. We were talking earlier about authenticity. I believe in it, because. Right back to the point, what I was saying with Lee is you got to make 99 enemies.

Adrian Byra [00:33:06]:
So I am going to be exactly who I am, like I am on this chat. And guess what? Probably going to be a bunch of people listen and say, adrian doesn't know what he's talking about, but there's probably going to be one person, a hundred, hopefully two maybe. They said to him, wow, you know, he's right on some figures, right? And that is power. And so we have to make sure every single desk has that power. And if you have that power, they should only be looking at themselves on accountability to getting to those numbers.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:36]:
You Mentioned a second ago, you expect everybody. Keyword expectation. The journey to a million dollars, is that part of like the company, like almost the company culture?

Adrian Byra [00:33:46]:
Yeah, it is. It's something that is talked about all the time. Is something that when people come into the business, our first interview is 45 minutes of me letting them understand the daily operations within this business and the expectations within this business and the expectations that I would have for them over the next five years. And they can go away for 48 hours and think about that. And if that's not them, that's cool. Like they'll write back even. I don't care. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:34:14]:
And a lot of you don't, by the way. See, a lot of people say, oh, trust me, I love it. And then they throw right back. Two days later I'm like, okay, whatever. Scared that guy, I guess not. Sure. Yeah. Like, it is, it is.

Adrian Byra [00:34:26]:
Literally that is what we talk about internally is how do you get to a million dollars? And I look at people all the time and say, like, you're not getting there, man. Like, there is no way you're getting to a million dollars based on X. You know, based on how you're mapping things or your habits, on the fact that you're just not consistent on what you're doing. Right. They need to form habits and just stick with them. Growth comes from those little habits that we know is right. And you start doing it, you form a habit over 13 weeks and then you just don't stop. And then you work on to the next new strength habit.

Adrian Byra [00:35:01]:
Right. And that is growth. If you can't do that, then you're never getting there.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:06]:
Love that. Well, is there anything else that you want to cover when it comes to building your recruiters up to win?

Adrian Byra [00:35:11]:
Yeah, look, I think what's probably coming across so far is we haven't talked about the ability to sell. I think I probably don't focus on as much because that is all I am. That's what I'm good at. We have internal training every week that I spent an hour on good to great training, which is targeted, kind of a 5 to 10 year recruiter on elevating them. I do that every year for four months. And then four months I do a leadership training because I want to promote everybody within because we care about the growth of our people, not the growth of the company. So I invite everybody in the company and train everybody on leadership and then we train everybody on business. And the business aspect is because when I talk about sales, sales is about your personal value proposition.

Adrian Byra [00:35:54]:
Right. And when a recruiter did something the other day, when a recruiter talks about you want me to fill a role, I fill a role, guess what that does? That creates a transactional value prop for the client. If they start saying, you know, starting understanding business dynamics and the impact that recruitment has on the business and the ins and outs and empathy around every aspect of the business, that's where their value prop strengthens, right. In their conversations. So yes, I think easy wins often are round process and top funnel and just doing more and putting them in a power position for those combos and maximizing the time selling, but then also the sales process itself. We know with automation, AI and where this world is headed, if I can get the best salesman in the world, that is how we win, right? More time on the phone and better time on the phone. If we do that, that is how we beat everybody. You know, that is what I'm actually obsessed with.

Adrian Byra [00:36:50]:
It is the sales process and understanding the human dynamics and control factors and how to present and influence essentially and talk about influence. So we do, we do those training every year over and over again. I tweak those all the time. We have something you should probably mention when you talk about journey and keeping people, that's probably the centerpiece of our business is I'm obsessed with, with the people in our company growing. And the reality is yes, a lot of people are going for that million dollars, but also there's burnout in recruitment. And also often people get to a million bucks and then they want to leave recruitment. But guess what? They can't make 300 grand doing anything else. And so what else they do, right? And then they, they have golden handcuffs and start getting miserable and then goes downhill from there.

Adrian Byra [00:37:39]:
And that happens a lot more than you think it does, right? Or maybe you do. You talk to a lot of, a lot of people in this industry. So because of that we have a long term incentive that creates a journey for everybody. So Everybody's on this $1.5 million journey. When they start, there's a countdown weekly so they can see exactly how much they have to bill to get to zero when they get their 3% of their billings is saved. So $45,000 we save for that individual. They can use that money to basically buy a value add acquisition with the company. A value add acquisition.

Adrian Byra [00:38:10]:
And there's, I don't know, I took a weird acquisitions course, so I know some theory on it. But it's how do we create, look at companies that we create from our viewpoint, doing exactly what we do daily, how do we create value to another company? Yeah. So as far as I know, recruitment companies don't really do that. We do. An example would be we have a million dollar biller in trades. So she does joinery and carpentry labor hire stuff. It's a skilled labor hire. One of her biggest clients, we've bought out 49% of that company with her so that she owns a bunch of her biggest client now.

Adrian Byra [00:38:43]:
And that is because she supplies 15 joiners to this company. Now we have vertical alignment. So she makes the margin to the company and now margin to the end user or to the builder. So now she's doing the exact same task. But guess what, she's taken a clip on both sides. Right. And so that is love for her.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:03]:
Okay, so let me just unpack this real quick.

Adrian Byra [00:39:06]:
Yeah. Honestly, there's so much we can chat about about our company.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:11]:
So you, you literally have, when somebody starts with your company, you have this countdown to $1.5 million. And once they hit that countdown, you have an acquisition budget of. Through a certain percentage. So yeah, 3,45,000.

Adrian Byra [00:39:26]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:27]:
But then you take that acquisition budget and with that recruiter go acquire something in their space or help like partial acquisition. So now they have like, you know, semi quasi ownership of what they're recruiting on.

Adrian Byra [00:39:41]:
Yeah, yeah. And guess what that does when we're learning about business internally. And guess what that does when they're talking to clients every day. Candidates every day. It gets them so obsessed with learning in their industry and having dynamic conversations of like, maybe this candidate would be a good partner for me or maybe this client is. In this case, the two partners are feuding and one of the partners wants to leave the company. So maybe we can buy out one company. Right.

Adrian Byra [00:40:07]:
They're looking for these opportunities far above and more dynamic than their everyday recruiting that like the sad reality is most million dollar builders done it for a long time and know how to do it very easily. Sort of, you know, limited learnings. All of a sudden it just gets them obsessed. Yeah, that's exactly what we do. You know, there's a guy, another example of it, Beth, he does accounting consultancies. And we have so the outsource people, which is the entity in the Philippines that houses all our internal resources at operational heads in the Philippines. We give resources to my competitors through Australia. And so we, we are an outsourcing company over there as well.

Adrian Byra [00:40:44]:
Quality outsourced people. And we supply that within talent acquisition as well, which creates stickiness with our clients. So that you know, we have people that we're selling into our people in a way anyway. It's cool, cool, fun stuff. But he is in accounting consultancy and he said, well, I want to use our entity in the Philippines, top or the outsource people. And now I want to do accounting support for that so that I can now it's a share of wallet play to his accounting consultancies because he's like, now I can drop in a bunch of accounting support. I have a temp base in arguably a market that doesn't have temp. And I own part of that company that I'm doing.

Adrian Byra [00:41:22]:
And it just gives him in a second sell to his clients. Right. And creates the stickiness internally. He can also then build his accounting team out underneath him and have all them selling his business as well. So now he's enthusiastic about the company growth because that actually is in his best interest down the line. Right. So that's another example. But you know, it's endless, right? Everybody talks about, everybody talks about if.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:46]:
You do it, but how do you like, you know, keep the recruiter still focused when they're like, hey, look at this. I have like all this other stuff going on. Like, how do you still keep them focused on the recruiting?

Adrian Byra [00:41:55]:
I think that's about the value add, like alignment. Right. And that's why it has to be approved by me. And I have to look at the alignment and say, can you do, you know, does it add value to what you're doing every day? Right, okay. Or it doesn't though, right? Like, and that's okay because guess what? Now I've helped them go on a journey and maybe they start not liking recruitment as much. And maybe, you know, as an example, the joinery or the girl within the joinery space, she's now said, I actually really like this, this joinery company stuff. And so we're talking about, hey, maybe we can do this route to market in some other sectors. And now she wants to shift her job into a GM where she's managing those companies that, I mean, technically my holdings company owns a large portion of them anyway.

Adrian Byra [00:42:39]:
So I did create continuation for her, Emmy. So does it really matter? Do you know what I mean?

Benjamin Mena [00:42:44]:
Yeah, if you want a good laugh. I was very to ask you before you brought this up, like, you know, how do you keep your recruiters from burning out? And that's one heck of a way to do it.

Adrian Byra [00:42:53]:
Yeah, it's. It's like at least. Okay. I actually, I used to have this before I took the accusations course. And that's where I really thought about it when I had this pipe, you know, this pipe dream back when I started, you know, I said, it's been a journey of how we've come to where we are. I used to just say, man, I want them to just have the money and they get to do whatever they want and I'll back them in it. So if they want to own an ice cream stand, awesome, right, Go do that. And I remember telling, telling Canvas, I won't name him, but a, a bit of a guru that I had a meeting with and I told him the dynamics.

Adrian Byra [00:43:27]:
He said, I think you're nuts is what he told me. So I said, you know, that gave me determination to prove wrong, to be fair. And actually I was in a talk with him, you know, a couple of months ago and he said, oh, how are things going? I was like, better than you thought they would. But anyway, so that helped me. But also it, it allowed me to kind of steer a little bit more of how do I create a continuation journey? And that's what it's. Right, it's about. If you talk about, you know, why people have golden handcuffs in general, it's value continuation, right? How do they transition and create the same amount of value as they are in their current role for another company doing something different, it's impossible unless you build out this long term journey. That's in our conversation in interview, right? I love hearing and I'm like, no, no, no, don't tell me what you think I want to hear.

Adrian Byra [00:44:12]:
Tell me like in three years, statistically you're probably not going to be here. I'm saying, where are you going to be in three years? Because that's the exciting shit, right? Because if I can help you get to where you want to be in three years, then we're riding the same train. And when you talk about engagement and purpose now, it's their purpose and it's their journey and it has nothing to do with my company. My company just facilitates that journey. And that's the important part to get right in the interview process. Right. Probably translates to recruiters as well. But when you're looking for the right fit for your clients, same thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:46]:
I love this. Anything else that you want to talk about before we jump over to the quickfire questions?

Adrian Byra [00:44:51]:
No, no, go, go for it.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:53]:
They don't need to be quick answers. Okay, yeah, yeah, sure.

Adrian Byra [00:44:56]:
Sounds good.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:57]:
What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's literally just getting started in our industry this year?

Adrian Byra [00:45:02]:
So they've Already made the decision to start in it. That's key.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:05]:
They've made the decision to become a.

Adrian Byra [00:45:06]:
Recruiter and they're in it. Yeah. First advice is when I look at experience in recruiters, I have met a hell of a lot and I KPI myself to interview two people a week. Just so I'm just always pipelining. Right. And always know what's going on out there. When I interview somebody with four years experience, four years is irrelevant. It's how many calls have you experienced? And you can make a thousand calls in four years or a thousand calls in one year.

Adrian Byra [00:45:35]:
And you probably have the same amount of experience. And so the quicker you climb the mountain and it's not about a yes or no because no one cares again, because you only have to find one friend. Right? So it's the quicker you make the connections, take the rejections, navigate through things, the more that you experience. That's the journey. It's not getting away. I think that is easily. If I could now. Okay, I have to start a desk.

Adrian Byra [00:46:03]:
I'm moving to. Where do you live, Ben? Somewhere in the states.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:06]:
Richmond, Virginia. Yeah, somewhere in the states.

Adrian Byra [00:46:10]:
Richmond. I know nobody in Richmond. They throw a desk on me. I'm forced to do a desk that I know nothing about is all I do. I'd have one KPI and it's just talk to as many people as possible. I don't give a shit about the outcome. My goal is to build genuine connections, as many as I possibly can, and get off the phone the moment I realize that person I don't like, but find people I like as quickly as possible. And that journey can take four years or it can take a year.

Adrian Byra [00:46:41]:
And it just depends on how hard you or how many calls you want to make. That is honestly the easiest recipe to be successful.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:49]:
Same question. But for a recruiter that's been around the block, you know, 5, 10, 25 years, what advice would you give to them to either I would say see success or keep on seeing success.

Adrian Byra [00:47:00]:
I think that if you've been five or 10 years and you're billing roughly the same, you're sitting on a rat wheel. And you're sitting on a rat wheel because your growth now is probably coming from teaching others on what you know. And that doesn't have to be in a management sense. That could be on an extension of resource or sense or automation. And so until you learn how to simplify what's in your head and which is tough for a lot of people, particularly good builders that are seven years in and they want to say, no one, I'm good because I know all these little intricacies. The quicker you can simplify your implications, that's the quicker you can create growth. And the quicker you can create that growth, you're getting off a rat wheel. And guess what? You get to learn new shit because you're probably going to manage somebody.

Adrian Byra [00:47:43]:
Or you learn about automation or you learn about how to input it into AI. Yeah, easily. So then you get excited again and that cold pass. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:51]:
Well, because you do a lot of teaching, I'm guessing you're doing a lot of learning yourself. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your own personal career?

Adrian Byra [00:47:59]:
I don't read books because I use an app called Blinkist if you know blinkist.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:08]:
Yep.

Adrian Byra [00:48:08]:
Now, yeah, German app. Right. And it's like audible but it condenses it into 20 minute quick, quick kind of chatter. I've been listening to 4 Blinkist a day for 6 years. That's probably actually if I could say the biggest growth for me in my life has been that blinkist. I owe a locked Blinkist, I think. And I don't sell Blinkist, by the way. If you guys are thinking this is a weird infomercial, I also go a lot of masterclass.

Adrian Byra [00:48:32]:
I would say Daniel Pink, probably. Who's the best. Every single book that Daniel Paik has written is probably the easiest. The way he simplifies a lot of the processes of selling and what selling looks like. And I think applying that to recruitment is awesome. If you've ever read any books from Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, I think that's probably the biggest. He's the most impactful person that to me in building culture and understanding people and understanding how to lead people in the right way. Yeah, that would be it.

Adrian Byra [00:49:05]:
Sorry, I almost teared up there. That was weird.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:08]:
Anyway, you know, you talked about tools, you talked about tech, you talked about AI. Do you have a favorite like tool for that you absolutely love and cannot live without when it comes to like technology?

Adrian Byra [00:49:17]:
Yeah, there's a few that are probably. I love the ones that a lot of people don't use just because that's, you know, a unique value prop we have or edge. And now I'm going to ruin that by saying that. Nah, it's starting to get big thing. But try call, we use a lot and a really like try call is it injects a voicemail on a mass, a mass mail sense. So that is incredible because you can, you can record, let's say 10, 10 voicemails, label them, whatever, and then have your resource or banging out a hundred voicemails to a hundred mobiles instantly and you don't even know what's happening because they're just wailing away over there doing it. And it's your voice injecting into. I think that one's really powerful.

Adrian Byra [00:49:59]:
I actually think that's one of the more powerful as far as external apps that we would use.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:05]:
Awesome. You know, you guys are seeing a ton of success. You know, you were a great builder yourself. You guys have been growing. What do you think has been a huge contributor to your own personal success that you've had?

Adrian Byra [00:50:17]:
I actually just mentioned it though. Like, I think, I think Blinkist, right? Forming a habit around learning. It was actually for sure most powerful. You know, when we stem back to sales, people will buy a salesperson and probably everybody's heard this is fairly simple and simplistic, but a salesperson needs to believe in what they're selling, right? So if you're selling a product, you need to believe in it or you're going to be inauthentic and knock it buy in, right? Recruitment's tough because you're selling yourself. And so if you don't believe in yourself, you're fucked, right? Because they ain't going to believe in you. And you can't fake that. Being a leader is the same thing. If you don't believe in your own leadership, people aren't going to buy into you.

Adrian Byra [00:50:55]:
People aren't going to be attracted to working for you. They're not going to, you know, trust you when you lead them in a certain direction. And if you can't do that, you will fail. Linkist me, you know, for the last. Actually I said six years, seven years, me listening to 28 Blinks every single week for seven years. That compound effect has made me believe in my own intuition so much because I surrounded myself by every book. I don't know the names, I don't know the authors because it's in and out, but I know my bubble knows more than everybody, right? That's probably not true, but I believe it. And so because of that, anybody that sits in front of me, I believe that they're going to be in a ten times better place working for me than anywhere else.

Adrian Byra [00:51:44]:
And I believe that. And that's because I know more, right? My competitive edge is the compound effect of just learning so much. Or when I'm sitting on this and you're doing quick fire questions or I'm sitting on a panel And I'm, you know, I got talent acquisition experts. I am just not worried about what's going to get thrown at me because I'm like, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I've learned something somewhere that is right. And so my intuition or my gut feel is going to be right now. And that's so powerful. And so again, when you say, say back to your question of what should you do if you're starting recruitment? Get on the phone and learn as much as possible and start blanket store or something similar, whatever, you know, everybody learns differently.

Adrian Byra [00:52:26]:
Right. That works really well for me, listening rather than reading. But yet just learn as much as you can and the compound effect will be so powerful.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:35]:
I love that. Well, for this question, looking back, you know, pretty much looking back at all the success, everything that you've done, the hard days, the weeks, the hard, the failures, if you had a chance to sit down with yourself at the very beginning of, we'll say the first month or two when you, you guys started the lead group, what advice would you go back and give yourself?

Adrian Byra [00:52:54]:
Probably that you don't actually need a plan in today's world. And I think that probably stems, I don't know that's going to be a weird answer. But I think when you have fear, you try to try to deal with fear by planning because planning makes you feel like you've controlled the uncontrollable which makes people, you know, have decision issues and so on. And I think I just, you know, maybe it's the off read of starting a company and then six months later Covid happened and realizing you plan all you want, want. Yeah, you're going to get hit. I think that would probably be it. Like I think today's strategy can't be a three year plan. Like I think you have to have an end goal, end destination, 20 year.

Adrian Byra [00:53:36]:
You know the BHAG people talk about, we're in some called metronomics, which they use that term but you know, 20 year goal, which we want to be the best consultancy in the world for the best consultants. Right. Best support system for the best consultants in the world. That's what we want to do in 20 years. That's our goal and that's our trajectory. And then you know, having a quarterly steering around the obstacles that come, that's the right strategy. And I think I was way too into how do you build a proper business plan for three years and stuff that there's just no point, it's, it's just proven too fast. You know, agility is what wins.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:15]:
So anyway, well, in this next question, I, you know, based on where you're at, what you guys have been doing, you probably have recruiters reaching out to you, like asking for help, asking for tactical advice, like, how do I increase my billings. What's the question that you wish a recruiter would actually ask you and what would be that answer?

Adrian Byra [00:54:32]:
I wish they would ask me, what do you think my gaps are based on this 30 minute question or question and answer we just had? That's what I wish they would ask because I have the answer, but I don't know them well enough to just lay it out to them unless they ask. I mean, I could do it, but I don't know how people can handle, you know, I haven't read into them well enough to know, hey, is this person, is this going to negatively. I mean, I don't care what they think of me, but I don't want to negatively impact the trajectory of anybody. So I wish they would ask it because then I would give them, give them the truth and tell them how to shift. Yeah, that's probably it.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:09]:
I love that because, you know, it's hard asking for that reflection. It's hard asking for those answers, but sometimes it can absolutely free you.

Adrian Byra [00:55:18]:
Oh, for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:19]:
Well, before I let you go, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Adrian Byra [00:55:24]:
LinkedIn's probably the best, right? And I do push myself to make random comments and juggle on there a couple of times a week. So I think probably LinkedIn would be the best bet. And I do, like, genuinely, I'm limited on time, but I do, I do respond, I do try to help people every time I have an interaction. My goal is to create value, even if it's in 10 seconds, by steering that person or helping them with a question and stuff. So I would encourage anybody to reach out and anybody to write me because I'm a big believer that helps somebody when they need it. It'll come back.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:01]:
I absolutely love that. And I'll have your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, so you could just scroll down and check it out. Yeah, well, before I let you go, I know we've covered a lot. Like, we've talked about so many things. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners that like, maybe we didn't cover? Maybe something that you just want to recap?

Adrian Byra [00:56:17]:
No, I don't think so. Look, I don't even remember what I've, what I've said, to be honest. So yeah, like I said, feel free. Feel free to listen to things and if I miss something or you want to deep dive, you could. You can reach out to me. I'm happy to answer accordingly, I think, because, yeah, I have no idea. Like I said, I just got this jumble of information in my head, so when people ask me questions like you, I'm dying to spit shit out, you know, so.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:44]:
Well, you know, this has been an incredible interview. Like, you know, I came in wanting to talk about, like, how you grew recruiters to, like, an average of a 800k task and how you guys have literally gone in about five years from zero to. I was on track for 41 million this year. But you know what? Some of the things that I really got out of this was also how you keep your recruiters. I think you guys are doing something absolutely different when it comes to our industry. And I think one of the most powerful things that you could do is not only build your recruiters, but build an environment where they want to stay and give them the opportunities to grow. And you guys are doing absolutely that. So, so glad that you reached out.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:19]:
So glad that, you know, it's, you know, evening time, my time, you know, during the day, your time that we were able to get this conversation figured out. And for the listeners out there, 2025 is going to be your year of abundance. Put in the work, make it happen, and make this your year. Thank you, guys.

Adrian Byra [00:58:15]:
So, yeah, if anybody says, oh, instantly I fell in love, you know what? Great at recruiting, because I fell in love with it right away. And it's a journey, right? There's not many people that love it. Me include.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:26]:
You were legally trapped.

Adrian Byra [00:58:30]:
So, yeah, that gets wild. Hey, I wish it was a bit more of a honeymoon, but it was not.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:37]:
That's phenomenal. Well, okay, so, like, you know, you worked at a few different places, you worked at Rostod, you grew your career.