$100M Staffing Producer Quits at the Top — Mike Mello Reveals the AI Playbook to Crush Sales & Future-Proof Your Desk

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

Mike Mello [00:00:03]:
I've failed many times. You know, I got physically removed from a client office years back. I got physically kicked out of a client office and I went into a Starbucks and I cried my eyes out. If you use AI and you have a bad sales strategy or a bad process, it will destroy your organization. It will hurt you. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:42]:
Every minute a recruiter spends on paperwork is lost time making placements. That's where Ascend steps in. A modern employer of record and back office solution built to boost the bottom line. Ascend automates onboarding, payroll compliance and invoicing in one streamlined platform. It integrates effortlessly with all your tools and scales as you grow, saving you hours and cutting your operational costs significantly. Want less paperwork and more placements? Head over to ascend.com and see how Ascend can make the difference for you. I am excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. My guest has crushed 100 million in revenue in the staffing world with 20 million in profit.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:21]:
And here's the thing, I'll be honest, I thought I was a hotshot at aerotech at like 15 to 20k spread. Like, I thought I was rocking and rolling. Like this guy, this guest was cranking out at 75k weekly spread. Here's the crazy thing. He's walking away from it all to go do something new. Like, he sees the future. He's going all in. And here's the thing, like, I'm actually glad that we're having this conversation because, like, I was chasing him down all last year because I wanted him on the podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:48]:
He was doing a zero to a hundred contractors in one year. And just like I got sucked into his story. I wanted him to win so bad. And I'm like, dude, you gotta be on the podcast. You gotta share what you're doing. Cause, like, you're crushing it while doing great content. And I think he was just too busy for me. But you know what? It all worked out perfectly because I have him here now to share with you guys what he thinks and truly firmly believes is the future of recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:16]:
So, Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Mike Mello [00:02:19]:
Ben, that is. That is the best intro I've ever gotten. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Excited.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:24]:
Well, before we get all started and everything, quick 30 seconds, self introduction for everybody.

Mike Mello [00:02:30]:
Yeah, awesome. Been in staffing since 2015, as you mentioned. Got my book of business up to 75k in weekly spread. Brought over $100 million in revenue, $20 million in profit. You guys might notice me from LinkedIn. I love our industry, I love the work we do. And crazy to say I'm walking away from it all to start my own revenue operations agency. That's going to help with content, it's going to help with lead generation, and it's going to help with internal automations.

Mike Mello [00:03:00]:
And I love staffing and recruiting so much that my agency is going to be specifically designed for small and midsize staffing and recruiting firs.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:11]:
So we're going to break down so many questions about, like, AI, but I'm also going to dig into, like this, like, how you got to being so good on the sales side.

Mike Mello [00:03:20]:
Thank you.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:20]:
Because, man, I thought I was crushing it. Like, you know, most of the other recruiters are like a 5 or 6k spread. I'm like 15 to 20. I'm a rock star. And then of course, you know, my world gets blown up by people like you. Like, oh, yeah, 75k, a weekly spread. Here we go.

Mike Mello [00:03:33]:
Bro, you are crushing it. Don't. Don't even think like that. Yeah, well, anyway, different situation.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:39]:
Anyways, anyways, we could talk about that later. It's not about me, it's about you.

Mike Mello [00:03:43]:
All right.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:44]:
Dude, how did you even end up in this world of recruiting?

Mike Mello [00:03:47]:
Oh, yeah, great question. So I'm a military guy. So I got out of high school, I went right to the military. I did four years, three deployments. I loved the military. I loved, you know, the travel. I loved everything. But after three deployments, I was ready to be done.

Mike Mello [00:04:04]:
Came back, and my cousin was actually working in staffing, and he was crushing it. You know, he was on the road, he was meeting with customers, he was making a lot of money at a young age. And he got me an interview at the firm that I was hired at. And I fell in love with him, man. I fell in love with the grind. I fell in love with the hard work, the problem solving. And I had a really good team around me too. And not everybody gets that.

Mike Mello [00:04:29]:
And I'm very fortunate because a lot of my success, tons of hard work, right? Tons of grit, but you don't get those type of numbers if you don't have a really, really good team around you. Great leadership and a good process in play.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:40]:
Okay, three deployments. Are we talking like, Afghanistan, Iraq? Are we talking.

Mike Mello [00:04:45]:
No, no, no. So I did three of the Exact same deployments. So I was in the Navy. So I was on a surface ship called the USS Ponce, named after Ponce de Leon. So I did three of the exact same deployments. So I went over to Europe, went to the Middle east, stopped in Europe, you know, went to Italy, Portugal, Spain, all over. All the places I went into the Middle east were in combat zones. So I went to.

Mike Mello [00:05:07]:
Fortunately for me, my experience was very good. And I know that's not the same experience for everybody, but, yeah, I went to Dubai a couple times, went to Jordan. I went to Egypt. So my experience, my deployment experience was fun. It was different than many of the service members.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:21]:
My only complaint about being a military brat is we never got to live overseas.

Mike Mello [00:05:28]:
Yeah. Do I have friends who. I have friends who were stationed in Italy or Japan and they never came back. I know they never came back.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:35]:
Okay, so let's fast forward. Like you. You got into the first staffing job. The pay is wildly different than the Navy. Like, how was that first few months, like, rolling in? And, I mean, talk about a transition.

Mike Mello [00:05:47]:
Yeah, look, I'll be very direct. I struggled at first. The military is an organization where you can be very direct with people. Everyone is held to a standard. You get feedback right away. So jumping into agency staffing was hard for me at first, and I didn't do very well. So I got lucky on my first placement. My first placement was me doing a reference check, hiring manager picking up, me mentioning the candidate's name and a manager saying, oh, I know him.

Mike Mello [00:06:15]:
I would love to hire him. Here's a job number. Put him to this. I'll bring him back. So that was my first placement. I didn't make another placement for another year, literally. So my.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:25]:
Yeah, okay, we have to unpack this. Like, you didn't make another placement for a year. Like, why did they keep you?

Mike Mello [00:06:30]:
I had a good relationship with my boss. You know, I had a really, really great mentor coming up. And he knew I was working hard. He knew that I was doing all the right things. I was always on the phone. I was on the road. I was getting meetings. I just wasn't getting business.

Mike Mello [00:06:45]:
And fortunately for me, he believed in me and gave me some leeway. And then by year two, I started to ramp up, and by year three, I had a strong book of business that I had built.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:57]:
Why did you not quit that first year?

Mike Mello [00:07:01]:
I thought about it. Yeah, I definitely. I thought about it. So my first year, I was a personal trainer in college, and I was doing personal training at night back then. We went Five days a week into the office. I'd go into the office, I'd be in the gym training people after. I definitely thought about it. But one thing that I was very fortunate with is there were three or four top producers in my office.

Mike Mello [00:07:22]:
And I'm talking like people at like 70, 80k. So for me as a 25 year old kid, calculating how much they made, because obviously I know the percentages right on our commissions, that gave me a light at the end of the tunnel. So I was always striving, working, and I would tell myself, if that person can do it, I can do it too. And in our industry, if you're a top producer, the money's life changing, you know, like this. This is a very lucrative industry. If you do it right and you can excel, you can put yourself in a really good position and more importantly, your family in a really good position as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:56]:
Mike, you want a good buff at something?

Mike Mello [00:07:58]:
Please. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:59]:
When I was struggling to help pay the bills, I was delivering pizza in the evening. So I was like doing another 40 hours a week delivering pizza. But I was looking up at these people making like on 12 grand in spread. I'm like, could be one of those one day.

Mike Mello [00:08:11]:
Yeah, I love it.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:12]:
And you just happen to be like, talk about it. Like, I don't want to use the word luck because everything happens on purpose, but you literally landed in like a room of killers.

Mike Mello [00:08:22]:
I think luck is often disguised, right? I think you need to work extremely hard to get anything of value in this world. But you do need to have a little bit of luck too. You need to be in the right place at the right time, you need to be around the right people, you need to meet the right clients, you need to have the right mentors. I would go into that office and I would watch how somebody who was at 80k in weekly spread, how they carried themselves, how they spoke, how they communicated with their clients. And that gave me a very clear roadmap that, hey, if I can do this, this, this, this, I can get there too. There's someone who, I think it's fair to say I probably looked up to her for many years and how she carried herself and how she communicated. You know, she gave me a book I still remember, like my first, like couple months. She's like, hey, here's a really good book that I read.

Mike Mello [00:09:06]:
I think this will help you. So not everyone has that. I did. And I am not ignorant to the fact that I'm very fortunate because I'm sure, as you know, a lot of folks in agency recruiting don't get that.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:16]:
I remember if they like wanting to walk me out the door because I sucked. And I've seen them walk other people out the door. So I absolutely love that. Like, it was the work ethic that you were doing. They weren't going to quit on you because you weren't quitting on yourself.

Mike Mello [00:09:28]:
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I made a lot of mistakes. I still make a lot of mistakes like you. I'm sure you see through my content, right? Like, I experiment, I do different things, I push limits. Most folks who. What's that?

Benjamin Mena [00:09:41]:
I said, you quit your job.

Mike Mello [00:09:43]:
This, you know, number two producer at a billion dollar staffing company. I just resigned. You know, so I pushed the limits. And in the military, sometimes they tell you to tone that down. I was very fortunate that when I first started in staffing, I was encouraged to do that. My boss, I had a boss who would push me to push the limits and always had my back if I made a mistake.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:07]:
All right, we're gonna. We're gonna talk about some sales stuff in a bit, and we're gonna go deep on AI and what is versus what's actually legit. But I want to talk about this. You sucked me into your world on Instagram last year. It was like the. I think I've ran across you, like, contractor number 20 or something like that. You're like the road 100. I want you to talk about this because, like, I think this is something that, like, every recruiter should, like, have, like, a rally call.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:37]:
And the rally call, really what, it builds you up, but, like, it creates the energy around you.

Mike Mello [00:10:42]:
A hundred percent. Yeah. So I'll start you from the beginning of last year. So it was probably, like, it was probably February, maybe, maybe early March. And I looked at the numbers that I was doing. I was, you know, very conscientious of the conversations I was having with my clients. And I had a really good synergy with somebody on my team. She just like me, very outcome focused.

Mike Mello [00:11:04]:
And I said, I was like, I think this year's gonna be unreal. Like, I think I'm gonna crush this year. And I started to tinker and play with video. LinkedIn had just given you the option to. To make videos. And I started learning how to edit. And I said, I'm gonna document this. Like, I'm gonna document my day.

Mike Mello [00:11:22]:
If I go to Phoenix, if I go to Sunrise, if I'm doing a contractor event, Like, I'm gonna start to document Some of this, and I'm gonna create content around it. I think people underestimate how exciting our job is, especially for the outside sales folks. Once I started to create content around it, I started to get a lot of traction and I started to get a lot of people to ask me questions about it and how am I doing it. And then I started to get customers asking me about it and customers reaching out and prospects. And that's the moment where I said, I have something here and I double down on it. And, you know, I post two to three times a week on LinkedIn now at anybody in our industry. I encourage you to just like you're doing with this, right? Like, put yourself out there, tell your story. It will benefit your career, it will increase your income, it will help you bring in leads.

Mike Mello [00:12:06]:
Like the value that posting on LinkedIn and putting yourself out there, it's unmatched.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:13]:
I think another thing that you did with this is you spoke out your goal almost every single time I saw you online. You were projecting that into the universe.

Mike Mello [00:12:23]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:24]:
Like, let's fast forward a little farther into the year. Like, you're 75, 80. What was your headspace like?

Mike Mello [00:12:31]:
Yeah, I was locked in. You know, I was locked in. So, you know, my daughter was born October 2023. And, you know, last year, last year was tough. You know, last year was like. And, you know, right. You got a little one sleep deprivation, being pulled in different directions. That voice in your head saying, you know, am I spending enough time with my kid? I on the road too much.

Mike Mello [00:12:51]:
You know, I'm someone who, you know, I had that voice in my head a lot when I spoke that goal. And when I said, all right, I'm going to make a hundred placements, I'm going to be loud about it and I'm going to put it out there. It pushed me to be a hundred percent locked in, into doing it. I'm super goal oriented. Like, I, I write all my goals down every day, multiple times a day. I look at them. In our industry, you have so many things, and I think this is a good point with AI too, in automation, right. You have so many things that are grabbing at your attention.

Mike Mello [00:13:23]:
Right. The most important thing that matters is your production and the outcome, because that's what benefits you, that's what benefits your family. So speaking that goal, writing those goals, being focused on them, that gives me direction every single day.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:38]:
And you didn't hit your goal.

Mike Mello [00:13:44]:
That's right. Yeah. That hurt. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:49]:
But you'll tell everybody, like, what you ended up with, with you not hitting your goal, was it still higher than you've ever done before?

Mike Mello [00:14:00]:
No, no. The, the most placements I ever did was like 160 in one year. And that, but that was, that was post Covid, though. So you, you remember that month, that was, that was like, that was just ridiculous, you know? So in my head, I almost, I almost don't count that as real because of, you know, variables that we're never going to see again. At least. Hopefully. Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Mike Mello [00:14:24]:
Yeah. But as far as last year, I'm more proud of the work I did last year than I am the work I did in 2021, because those. And I missed a goal by one. Right. So I was trending the entire way. Q1, Q2, crushing it. Q3 started to slow down. Q4, I was like, oh no.

Mike Mello [00:14:43]:
Q4 I was like, it's unlikely I'm going to hit it, but obviously keep pushing. But yeah, even though I didn't hit it, that's okay because I learned a lot about posting about it and I learned a lot about brand and content. And it's kind of interesting, right, because if I didn't put that goal out there, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. Like, I essentially just quit my job to start an agency that's going to help staffing and recruiting firms with lead generation automation, but also content. Right? Like, that's a huge part about what I'm doing. So if I didn't set that goal, do that goal, and maybe even miss that goal, I wouldn't be in the position that I am right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:19]:
Like us. 99 out of 100. Awesome. It's closed.

Mike Mello [00:15:23]:
Yeah, it's right there. I called a couple of managers. I was like, just, just hire this person, please. Like, when did you really hit this goal? What am I going to say? I like Dan, Come on.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:31]:
So, okay, so what were you doing sales wise that was like sucking these, or I want to say sucking manager. But what was working business development wise for you to even like hit these numbers?

Mike Mello [00:15:41]:
Yeah, so. So I'm a business development rep first before I'm an account manager. So I have scaled accounts to a hundred plus people. I have brought on enterprise accounts by myself. Not, you know, and I've only been doing this for 10 years. So this is not 30 years of relationships. I got on enterprise accounts through hard business development. So for me, my day starts with business development, not the emails.

Mike Mello [00:16:07]:
Right. If I look at my inbox, I have 60 problems by the time it's 8:47. The first thing I do is business development. The first thing I do. So it's emails, it's calls, calls still work for me. So, you know, I'm sure you hear this folks say, oh, cold calls don't work. They still work for me, right? I mean, maybe people have a difference of opinion on what the percentage should be of how many calls should turn into a meeting. But I start my day every single day business development.

Mike Mello [00:16:35]:
The brand building has helped a lot. So I got a lot of meetings last year through content and I got a lot of my tougher customers to warm up to me because they saw essentially behind the scenes of who I am, right, and my life. So that expedited the rapport building process with them. But yeah, every day my first hour is just business development. That's till this day and that'll be for the rest of my life.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:00]:
And you know, being a high producer, like what does the rest of the day look like after you've crushed that BD hour?

Mike Mello [00:17:05]:
The thing is like when you have a hundred plus contractors on filling, like a lot of your day is solving those type of problems, right? A lot of your, your day is maintenance. A lot of your day is getting ahead of new projects. A lot of your day is communications with recruiters, right? Like that's a very important piece of it, communicating with delivery. But yeah, for me, the most important part of my day was always business development. And the second best way to get new business is to do an amazing job with your current customer. So obviously getting feedback from them, having them introduce you to folks, right? Like I know so many reps where for me, every customer that I would work with if I were to place that person or even if I didn't make a placement with them, I always ask, who can you introduce me to? Did you have a good experience with me? Yes, Mike, I did great. Who can you introduce me to? Not is there anyone you can introduce me to? Who can you introduce me to? Right? So even the way you frame and word your questions, that has a big difference in the eyes of your customer. If they're going to actually refer you.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:05]:
To other people, you always ask for a referral, like 100% of the time.

Mike Mello [00:18:09]:
Always, always.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:10]:
Do you think that's a mistake a lot of recruiters make?

Mike Mello [00:18:12]:
Yeah. Yes, 100%. So if I don't do a good job, I then learn, right? So if I work with someone and let's say I make the placement, let's say I don't make the placement at the end of that process, I say, did you have a good experience with me? What were your thoughts on the process? What feedback do you have for me? If the feedback is good, right then and there. Wonderful. Who can you introduce me to? Who, who else should I speak with here? Right after every single intro, if for whatever reason I didn't make the placement, I asked for feedback. Oh, hey, hey, Mike. You missed out to your competitor. Okay, great.

Mike Mello [00:18:46]:
What did Joe do that I didn't do? Right. Where did I miss the mark? Right. What are one or two things I can improve on? If you start to ask your, your prospects and your customers those questions, they're going to look at you in a different light. A lot of people ask me, how do I become more of a consultant? Right. As opposed to just somebody who's sending resumes. Ask for feedback. Your customers will tell you exactly what they want from you and they will tell you how to service them if you have the courage to ask the right questions.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:14]:
Okay, before we go to AI, is there anything else that you want to talk about? Sales and how you are so good at it?

Mike Mello [00:19:21]:
Yeah, I mean, I would encourage everybody to start posting. Like, put yourself out there, right? So like it's twofold, right? Let's say you're someone who's been in the game for five plus years. You have experience, you have placements, you have a story, you have an icp. Talk about that, right? Talk about the things you've done. Tell your customers that you are someone who can solve their specific problems. And the way you do that is through content, it's through engagement. I spoke with somebody like a month or two ago, someone who reached out to me on LinkedIn to pick my brain. And this person was hyper successful.

Mike Mello [00:19:56]:
And I said, I've been following you for a year, maybe six months. I've been following you for six months or so. I had no idea you were this caliber person in our industry. Like, tell that story. Put that out there. That will help your business development, that will make your outreach warmer. And for the folks who are new who might be saying, well, I'm brand new, what do I talk about? Talk about being new. Talk about your experience.

Mike Mello [00:20:20]:
My first two years in staffing, maybe even my first three years, my messages were, hi, I'm new, I'm learning about this organization. I met with Joe, Tina, I thought you'd be a good person to meet with. Does it make sense to have a quick 15 minute intro? I did that for three years and I got meetings off of it. So it's okay to brand Yourself as someone who's new. And it's okay to put content out there about being new and about your experience.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:45]:
Awesome. All right. Artificial intelligence, it's the big thing. It's the buzzword. Is it overhyped? Well, actually, here's a question for you. Do you think that right now, keyword, right now, there's a lot of fluff in these AI discussions?

Mike Mello [00:21:00]:
Absolutely, Yeah. I think it's a hot new thing. And let me give you some context to this too, Ben. So about three months ago, I went down a rabbit hole with AI. I looked in the mirror and I said, AI is going to take my job. I'm not going to have a job. Right. All the hype, it got to me.

Mike Mello [00:21:16]:
So I took a deep dive. I started, I looked at N8N. I looked at make, I looked at Clay, I looked at Apollo. I did hundreds, maybe not hundreds of hours, but I did, oh, maybe a hundred hours, maybe a hundred hours of YouTube videos, learning everything I could about AI in fear that it would take my job. I don't think AI is coming for sales reps. That's my personal opinion, especially at the enterprise level. I think if you have a good sales process and you're a good salesperson and you use AI effectively, I think that's going to help you tremendously. I think AI is going to take away some of the, and I hate to use the word lower level, but let's say, let's say entry level positions like pure sourcers or pure customer support.

Mike Mello [00:22:02]:
I think some of those jobs will go away through AI. But I think for folks in our industry, if you use AI the right way, it will 10x what you're doing. That's good. But I also think if you have a bad process or you don't understand your niche or you don't understand the pain points of your customer and you use AI and automation, you're pouring gas out of that process. And I think that's going to hurt you 10x more than it will help you.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:28]:
Oh, see that, See that last part again?

Mike Mello [00:22:31]:
If you use AI and you have a bad sales strategy or a bad process, it will destroy your organization. It will hurt you.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:41]:
All right, so with AI, what do you see as fluff right now? And then we'll get into what's working.

Mike Mello [00:22:49]:
I think agentic AI so far is fluff. Right. I think the agentic AI and I think it's helpful for your audience if we define some terms.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:57]:
Okay, cool.

Mike Mello [00:22:57]:
Agentic AI is AI that can do something for you autonomously. Right. And you program the brain into chat GPT, which is really just a source of memory. And people brand that as agentic AI. Right. I'm going to sell you an agentic AI agent, and that AI agent is going to run your business for you, do all the recruiting for you, talk to candidates for you. Right? I think that is fluff, and I think most of that is nonsense. And I think what folks are really talking about is automated workflows.

Mike Mello [00:23:28]:
So a specific automated workflow for a specific line of communication or a specific number of objections is different than an AI agent that can essentially run your business for you or do all of your business development. So a big part of my new business, right, simple site AI, is going to be automated workflows. It's custom workflows specific to your customers, specific to the problems you solve, but they are built with GPT, right. And we prompt it based on the information that you give us. So it's not, it's not autonomous, Right. It's not an agent that thinks and does completely by itself. And I think that right now what I'm seeing, that's the biggest area of fluff. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:10]:
I mean, I've seen some really good, like, stuff, but I see like, constantly, every five seconds, like, this thing can run everything for you. This thing can run everything for you. I'm always like, if it's so good, like, I would keep it to myself.

Mike Mello [00:24:25]:
Yes. Yeah, it's. You're, you're showing me how to do something. You're bringing me to your landing page and then you sell a course for $10,000. You know, like, yeah, look, I'm super excited about automation, right? Like, I want to be clear about that. Like, I think there's a huge place for automation in the future of staffing, recruiting. I just quit my job to start an agency that a big part of the business is doing that with.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:53]:
Like, you looking in the future, I mean, top producer, absolutely crushing it. Quit your job, you've gone it all in. You were afraid that AI was going to take your job. Like, where do you see the use cases, the actual use cases and not just the bullshit use cases?

Mike Mello [00:25:08]:
Yeah, that's a great question. So the specific use cases for, and I consider it automation with AI tools. Right? So, like the right AI tools, Clay Apollo, those tools are great if they're used, right. If you customize them again for the customers that you saw. But if you're just sending out generic messages, that doesn't work. I think in our industry, I think the back offices are Going to get extremely lean. I think you can have one or two billing folks and I think you can cover hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue just through one or two billing folks with the right automation. So I think staffing and recruiting big back offices are going to get very lean.

Mike Mello [00:25:48]:
I think your top sales reps are going to take more market share. Right? So a common phrase that we hear in our industry is that 80% of the results come from 20% of the workforce. Right? I think like 5% of the workforce is going to produce 95% of the results. Because if you're doing the right things from an outreach perspective, if you're doing the right things from a content perspective, if you're doing the right things from a prospecting perspective, you can essentially do that at scale now, right? So what used to take me 3, 4 hours to compile research of my ICP of their problems, another hour to contract messaging. I can do that now in 30 minutes. Right? So that's the difference. But I also know how to do that. So if I didn't know how to get that information, if I didn't know the communication that I need right, for the prompts, it would be hard for me to do that.

Mike Mello [00:26:42]:
But since I already understand how to get it, the automation gives me an opportunity to 10x the output.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:50]:
I want to go a little deeper on this 5% with 95% market share, like in the future, what does that person doing? What does that person look like?

Mike Mello [00:26:59]:
Such a good question. That's such a good question. So I think, I believe that we are in the beginning stages of seeing the, the salesperson operator, right? Maybe they're called the account operator, but what they do is they bring in business. Right? So they're a salesperson for a staffing agency. They bring in business, they grow accounts and then they create automated workflows to be able to support those accounts. And I'll give you a couple examples. Anyone who's on the enterprise side, we have SLAs we have to meet, right. Service level agreements.

Mike Mello [00:27:32]:
I can tell you from experience, we have to hire people to help with those SLAs. We have to find the information, we have to pull from different data sources. Right. The right Automations completely automate SLAs. Right? Surveys. Right? Surveys and research and data. We would hire folks to do that. I believe that in a couple years, maybe it's two, maybe it's five, But I think your salesperson is going to work as an operator.

Mike Mello [00:27:58]:
So they are going to be able to automate their those processes and they're going to be able to cover the reporting, the analytics, the sales, the account management, the strategy. Right. They're going to cover everything for one account. So instead of having 25 people that support an enterprise account, I think you might have five.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:20]:
So one of the things about AI and all this stuff in this automation, I'm not gonna lie, the tools that like recruiters use that with AI built in like are good. But learning how to build AI, it's almost like this operator, this high revenue salesperson needs to be so good at their craft. How do they take the time to learn AI? Or is this like something that every organization, I've been calling them a recruiting engineer behind the scenes.

Mike Mello [00:28:50]:
Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:51]:
But like should this high level rock star start learning how to build all these things or is this something that needs to be outsourced?

Mike Mello [00:29:01]:
That's a great question for folks that own agencies. Right. So if you're trying to scale your agency, it doesn't necessarily make sense for you to try to learn N8N and Zapier and make right off the bat. Right? I would. And you know I'm biased obviously because I'm going to be selling service but. But you can expedite your learning curve by bringing people in. And I say this because I did the exact same thing. So even when I was starting simple side I said I'm not going to be able to learn every single thing.

Mike Mello [00:29:28]:
And I partnered with an engineer. So I have an automation engineer that does the larger automations. Right. 10 plus node automations. I think the next generation of salespeople, I think that this is just going to be part of our process and what we learn. So the same way that we would learn Discover. Org and you learn how to navigate through that. I think the onboarding process is going to be down the road eventually and this could be many years away.

Mike Mello [00:29:51]:
But I think people are going to learn N8ed right. The same way you learn a CRM. Right. People are going to start to learn some of that. There's without a doubt a learning curve. But once you dive in and if you do it the right way, it's definitely something that salespeople can pick up. They may not be creating 20 step no workflows, but it's without a doubt something that, that I believe that a lot of staff and people are going to be using.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:18]:
Do you think as time goes forward some of these programs, I mean the programs are going to change, but do you think they're going to become easier to learn and operate, or do you think it's going to get more complex?

Mike Mello [00:30:30]:
Yeah, that's a great question. It depends where the tech goes, right? One of the reasons I started simple side is because I know that there's so many new tools and so much tech coming out, there's no way someone could take that all in and learn it, right? So, like, that's part of the idea of simple side is to help bridge that gap. I think there is a simple side to AI and automation, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. I'm not 100% sure if they're going to become easier to learn or harder to learn.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:59]:
Well, okay, let's put a pause there on this. Pretend that I'm listening to this podcast and I'm like, oh, shit, like, AI is coming. I need to learn something. I'm recruiting, doing 360, a thousand other things that I'm dealing with. Family, little kid, dreaming about sleep. Maybe dreaming about a good glass of Bordeaux wine and. Bordeaux, yeah. Where should I start with this learning process?

Mike Mello [00:31:25]:
The first tool, if you're in the sales side, that I would learn is Clay. Clay is, in my opinion, it's one of the best automation tools out there. So essentially, what Clay will do, it will scrape LinkedIn, it will give you emails, it will give you numbers. It's the more expensive plan. But if you are willing to do that, you can create webhooks. Right. And you can essentially automate some of that outreach. Right? So you'll still craft the messaging.

Mike Mello [00:31:49]:
Clay is a great place to start. I also think anybody who is willing to put some extra hours in and learn the no code, low code automation, I think there's a huge opportunity there. So N8N is tough. Make is a lot easier. So make is what I started with. The templates are there, you can learn make fairly quick. N8N is harder. There's more.

Mike Mello [00:32:12]:
There's some JSON, there's some JavaScript. That's something where you will have to watch more tutorials. But I would start with Make. I would start with Clay. But you know what's so funny, Ben? I would make sure you have a sales foundation first. I feel very strongly about that.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:27]:
But that's not the fun part.

Mike Mello [00:32:28]:
Right. I know that. Well, that. Well, that's. That's the thing with the AI, right? So the, the AI and the tech folks, they want to brand it as if these tools will make your job easy and they won't like, I'm sorry, you can learn Clay. You can learn, make. You can create workflows. Working in staffing and working recruiting is still hard.

Mike Mello [00:32:48]:
And if you're going to build a book of business, you're still going to face rejection and you're still going to have days where you want to bang your head against the wall. That's not going away through AI. And that frustrates me sometimes because I feel like that's becoming the consensus where the AI and the automation guys are saying, these tools will make your life easy. It will make your job easy. Maybe it'll make it easier, but it's not going to make your job easy. It's not a shortcut. It's in addition to. Right.

Mike Mello [00:33:13]:
It's in addition to a good process and a good sales strategy.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:17]:
The Elite Recruiter podcast has multiple summits coming up that you need to make sure that you are registered for. We have the AI recruiting summit 2025 coming up.

Mike Mello [00:33:25]:
Up.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:25]:
And on top of that, finish the year strong. These two summits are going to help you move the needle, help you achieve your goals, help you achieve your dreams, and make 2025 the year that you started out and you want it to be. Make sure you get registered and also stay tuned. Got something cooking for you guys. Working on another project that you guys.

Mike Mello [00:33:43]:
Are going to absolutely love.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:45]:
All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon. So my Instagram feed is flooded with what feels like agencies to sell me leads.

Mike Mello [00:33:58]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:59]:
But I don't think any of them have ever been in recruiting.

Mike Mello [00:34:02]:
Yeah, that's exactly right. I went through the same thing. I went through the exact same thing. So all of the AI firms, the automation firms. Right. They don't understand staff, they don't understand recruiting, they don't understand the nuances. It's a different type of sales. Right.

Mike Mello [00:34:17]:
And I went to my network, too. So when I first had this idea, I spoke to 20 people that were CEOs of staffing firms that ramped up and sold staffing firms that are founders of staffing firms now. And I asked them, what are some of the problems that you guys are facing? Right. What are some of the issues that you're seeing with automation and AI? And a common answer that I got was that the agencies don't understand staffing. They don't understand the nuances of our industry. And again, that's a big reason why I'm going all in on this idea, because I feel that simple side is going to bridge that gap. And I feel simple side is going to help staffing and recruiting Agency owners solve that problem.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:59]:
So, and I know we talked about this offline and I want to like circle back to this, but you know, the idea of rev ops in recruiting, what is. And I think like we talk about RevOps in other places outside of recruiting constantly and it's a great thing to talk about, but I think it's like a, a thing that we should talk about more like in, in our bubble that we live in, in this perfect world of recruiting and staffing. What the hell is RevOps?

Mike Mello [00:35:26]:
It's a great question. Yeah. So I define RevOps as really three pillars for me, right? So first and foremost, the idea of RevOps is to increase the profitability of your firm, period. Automation. The point of automation is to increase the profitability of the firm. It's to make the firm more effective. A lot of the AI automation and the workflow folks, they miss that. And I've seen hundreds of workflows that don't address making a firm more profitable, right? So in my.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:57]:
How's their. Like I've seen like plenty of these recruiters use these firms and then they come back chatting with me and they're like, hey, I just spent like 10 grand and I got fucking nothing.

Mike Mello [00:36:06]:
Nothing, period. Yes. And the RevOps is you need to get a return on investment for it, right? So, and I'm sure you've seen it, right? I can tell you all the different videos I've watched of these automations that don't move the needle, that simply move data internally, right? Like how do you move the needle? How do you save the producers time, right? How do you give them time back? How do you increase the probability that you're going to get business? How do you increase the probability that you're going to get from the right people? So for me it's threefold, right? It's one, it's content creation and brand. I think you can have a great outreach strategy, I think you can have great relationships. But if people don't know you, if people don't know your brand, people don't know the problems that you solve, it's going to be hard to get your name out there. So for me, RevOps is content creation is one piece lead generation, right? Getting good leads, getting in front of people that have budget, that have problems that you solve and then also the automation piece, right? How do you create internal automations that give Ben two hours, an extra two hours every day to hit the phones, right? And you don't automate the phones, you don't automate the app. You don't automate the actual client contact. Right.

Mike Mello [00:37:17]:
You automate anything that can give you more time to do that. Right. So that's how I break down and define RevOps.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:25]:
So it's important for, I think, recruiting agencies to start doing that and looking at that. You know, here's the problem with a lot of agencies that I've seen. Like, you know, if you're not a big billion dollar company or you don't have a lot of structure, like it's everybody's a recruiter or everybody's a salesperson. And I know companies that are just absolutely crushing that, like, because it works. Like if it works, duplicate it.

Mike Mello [00:37:46]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:47]:
Why should somebody look at adding like a true rev op style person or agency into that workflow? We'll just say you already have like 20 killers or 20 recruiters or. Or 50 recruiters. Yeah, it works like it's working already.

Mike Mello [00:38:02]:
Yeah. Great question. Yep. Revops makes sense, right? So for us, right. What makes the most sense? The agencies that we can help the most are agencies that already have a good process in play, that they're already doing something that's working. Right. So essentially, if you have a great salesperson and you know that their outreach is great, you know that the branding is great, you know their customers love them, RevOps gives you an opportunity to expand their efforts. Right.

Mike Mello [00:38:29]:
That's what it does. But it's not in lieu of the fundamentals. Right. And that's, you know, one of the problems that we're gonna hopefully solve is implementing that strategy, helping firms with that. But if a firm is already doing well and they want to scale and they're considering working with a rev ops agency, ask very directly, like, what's my return on investment on this? Not, oh, you're going to get me five leads, Great. Oh, you're going to get me five meetings. Very specifically, what will my return on investment be? Those are the questions that you want to ask. And I believe a good rev ops agency will be able to answer that question very directly.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:08]:
Awesome. You've talked about process so many times and a strong foundation. In your opinion, what does that actually look like?

Mike Mello [00:39:17]:
The fundamentals of staffing is sending a candidate, it's getting a requirement and then updating the client or sending a resume within 24 hours, it's reaching out to a prospect and understanding that you are more than likely going to have seven reach outs before they ever get back to you. It's understanding that when you send a business development email, if in a day or so, you also ping them on LinkedIn and say, hey, Mike Mello here. I sent you an email, wanted to put a face to the name. I'm sure you're busy. No pressure, right? It's the old school fundamentals. It's bringing your recruiters in to high level calls so they can see the opportunity and get excited about it. It's talking to your network, getting referrals, getting references. It's creating referral programs to expedite business.

Mike Mello [00:40:02]:
It's understanding the problems that someone who hires contingent workers has and the differences and the nuances from someone who hires only full time people. Right. So GPT is not coming to save you if you don't know these type of things. Right. So the fundamentals, in my opinion, are more important than the automation. Might sound crazy for someone who just quit a job and starting a rev ops and automation agency, but the fundamentals and knowing the cadence and becoming obsessed with your customers and their problems and branding yourself in that light, that is the most important part. That is 10 times more important than learning clay or learning make. Now once you have that, once you have that foundation, then you can say, hey, this works, let's pour some gas on it.

Mike Mello [00:40:52]:
Right? Let's 2, let's 3, let's 4x this. And automation and good rev ops and good content creation will help you do that.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:58]:
Okay, so foundation's done. You decided to like learn this stuff to throw some gasoline on the right fire and not like the dumpster fire.

Mike Mello [00:41:06]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:06]:
In reality, how? Like give it to us straight. Like, how long does it take to learn? Like, we'll say clay to be effective.

Mike Mello [00:41:15]:
I'm still learning it. Yeah. Like, look, I'll be very transparent. I did three months of N8N clay make. My partner and I were using clay two days ago, looking at it and I'm like, oh, oh, look at this. Like, we can create a webhook here and we can put it into the CRM. So the I think these tools, you're always gonna be learning new stuff. What I would say is like, just learn the basics, right? Today I'm gonna look at clay and I'm gonna learn how to pull a hundred emails and a hundred phone numbers and I'm gonna learn how to automate that into my drafts.

Mike Mello [00:41:45]:
And then in a week you learn. I'm gonna learn how to create a webhook into GPT and then I'm gonna prompt it with the type of outreach that I wanted to say. And then it's gonna come back. It's not gonna be perfect. Right. You're gonna have for anybody who's in the sales seat that wants to learn this type of stuff. The way I started from 5:30 to maybe 7:38. Cause I like to put my daughter to sleep.

Mike Mello [00:42:08]:
So I didn't want to work too late. I would go on YouTube and I would, you know, trial and error Saturdays, right? I'm up early on a Saturday, three, four hours on a Saturday. Do that for a month, do that for two months, and you'll start to pick these tools up.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:22]:
Awesome. So we've covered a lot. I feel like we're gonna have to, like, chat again just because like this, like, I've been looking forward to chatting with you for a long time and I. There's places that I want to go definitely deep on even some more. But we'll save that for another conversation. We covered a lot. You're zero to a hundred. Like a sales foundation.

Mike Mello [00:42:43]:
What?

Benjamin Mena [00:42:43]:
Actually, excuse my language. Freaking works when it comes to AI and what's a bunch of crappy fluff that is being sold to us? You're, hey, check out this new clay workflow. And it's just like a bunch of drawings that actually does nothing except for new stuff around. But in all that stuff, is there anything else that you want to go deeper on before we jump over to.

Mike Mello [00:43:00]:
The next part, I really want to harp on this point that the best thing you could do for your career is learn sims first. Learn people first. Like, I know the AI is so sexy and I know the marketing that some of these companies do is just so phenomenal. But if you want to excel, if you plan to make staffing your career and stay in recruiting, spend more time trying to understand people first. Right? Get that foundation down. And then look into the AI, look into the automation. I'm somewhat biased, right? Because that's the way I did it. Just because the AI and the automation wasn't around when I first started.

Mike Mello [00:43:35]:
But I think you will have more success if you focus more on relationships and people and solving problems first. And then pour some clay on it. Pour some N8N right? Pour some AI on it, man.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:50]:
It's just like wild. What's like changing? Because I remember my Aerotech days. I hated paperwork so much. I hated paperwork. I convinced another recruiter to handle my paperwork for me and I sold it to, like, the executive. I'm like, I will give them part of my spread. I hate paperwork that much.

Mike Mello [00:44:07]:
Yeah. But you know what's funny, Ben? Like, I bet you probably some people rolled their eyes at you back then, right? Cause they're probably like, oh, why won't Ben do his paperwork? But that's actually the right way to think. You should be obsessed with what is going to move the needle. That's where your mindset should be. So if you can outsource paperwork or you can automate paperwork, that's where it belongs. Not how some of it's marketed now. Right. Like, you want to spend your time moving the needle, moving your business.

Mike Mello [00:44:35]:
Right. Not. Not doing paperwork. Oh.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:39]:
With how it's marketed. Because, my God, it just sounds so sexy. Like, this signal is going to, like, hit this and it's automatically going to do everything based on the signal of blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you think recruiters are getting lazy?

Mike Mello [00:44:51]:
Oh, man. I can't say a blanket statement that all recruiters are getting lazy. I had to make sure I don't say anything to actually. I guess it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter what I say. I think there's a lot of people in staffing and recruiting that won't be here in a couple years. I think there's a lot of people that are going through the motions. I think there's a lot of people that were riding the high of post Covid. I know people that didn't work very hard, that were at 12 to 15K and they were known for, like, for not putting a hundred percent in and they were public about it.

Mike Mello [00:45:18]:
So I think that person is out of our industry. I think that person is gone in a year. So I think there are people that maybe have been in recruiting for 10, 15 years, some of them hanging around, going through the motions. I think they're going to be gone. And I think that market share is going to go to the hungry, motivated, ambitious folks coming up.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:39]:
How do you stay hungry? How do you stay motivated? How do you stay ambitious? Like, what does that look like?

Mike Mello [00:45:43]:
Clear. Clear. Every day I start at zero. I'll give you a good story. I worked for a guy in the military, a guy from Louisiana, very different than me, different culture. I was having some trouble getting along with people, and I was having some trouble fitting in. And I felt I was working very hard and not getting real results. And he came to me one day and he said, your peace of mind comes at the end of every day when you look in the mirror and you wash your face and you brush your teeth.

Mike Mello [00:46:14]:
You know, if you put a hundred percent in and that will be your piece. That's your sanctuary. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It doesn't matter what Anyone else says, if you can look in the mirror and you know you did everything you could to be the best you are for that day, that's how you win. And I've lived my life by that mantra. So somebody who wants to stay clear, somebody who wants to move the needle, you have to be thinking about your goals. You have to write them down. They have to become a part of you.

Mike Mello [00:46:42]:
And look, there's Fridays where I Skip out at 4, 4:30, and I go to the beach on a summer Friday. So I'm not somebody who works till 10, 11 o', clock, but there are seasons of my life where I have worked till 9, 10 o' clock for 2, 3 months straight. And if you want something special and valuable, you have to be willing to do something that most people won't do.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:05]:
Awesome. Jumping over to the quick fire questions and they don't need to be quick answers. Sure, Mike, somebody's here in this podcast, just got started in this wonderful world of recruiting. They see people like me saying that the world's going to burn down and AI is going to take their jobs. And then they see someone like you that's like, hey, know, like, if you're good, you're going to be even better. Yeah, I hit you up and like, Mike, give me some advice, brother. How do I succeed in a career here?

Mike Mello [00:47:34]:
All right, so somebody new. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today. So think about every single day and think about getting a little bit better every day. Maybe that's more messages, maybe that's more content, maybe that's better messaging, maybe that's better content. Niche down. So if you want to be successful, you need to niche down. You cannot just do tech anymore. That is gone.

Mike Mello [00:48:01]:
You will compete with the largest offshore vendors in the world and you will not win. Niche down. Become obsessed with your ideal customer profile. Go on Chat GPT and look up the 50 most common problems that your ICP has. Figure out how you can solve those problems in a unique way. Post about it on LinkedIn and craft all your messaging that way. Once you get results, figure out where you can put automation into that sequence. Do not automate the actual meetings, do not automate the conversations, but figure out what messaging works and where you can use automation.

Mike Mello [00:48:37]:
Double down on that. Set a very specific goal of what you want for yourself. Do you want to exit, right? Do you want to ramp up your staffing firm for 5 years and exit? Do you want to get to 50k and spread? Do you want to move up the Corporate ladder, figure out what you want. I don't know if you listen to Noval at all, but he said something that moved me. He said the highest form of intelligence is getting what you want out of life. And the hardest part of that is knowing what you want. So that's my advice to anybody who's just coming in.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:05]:
We'll just save the same question for, I mean, if you want a good laugh. Like the pizza delivery conversation we had a while back, it just reminded me that, like, I was delivering pizza at a time where I had to study the map on the wall and I had to memorize where to go from there. Yeah, well, let's just say like, you know, you get an old dog, somebody that's like two decades into this game now, it hits you up like, hey, man, what advice do you get from me?

Mike Mello [00:49:29]:
Tell your story. If you've been in staffing and recruiting for 10 years, 15 years, you have a story. Tell it. Tell it in a way that will attract people that are like minded to you. Tell it in a way that will attract people who have the same values as you. I know so many folks who've been in staffing and recruiting for 20, 25, 30 years. They have an amazing story and no one knows it. And their story would bring in better business.

Mike Mello [00:49:57]:
Their story would make their life easier. Their story would help them hit their goals faster if they told it in the right manner. So for somebody who's been in the industry, had success. Tell your story.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:11]:
Love that. I mean, that's how you sucked me in, dude. Bash here.

Mike Mello [00:50:14]:
Gotcha.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:15]:
I was like, he's gotta get it, man. He's gotta get it.

Mike Mello [00:50:20]:
Almost, man, almost.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:22]:
So we've been talking a lot about AI, we've been talking a lot about tools. Do you have a favorite one?

Mike Mello [00:50:27]:
I love Make. Yeah, look, I'm not technical, right? I brought on a technical partner to help me with the actual automation piece. Make is a user friendly, no code platform. And if you're somebody who's a salesperson and you are interested about automation, you're interested about no code. I'm telling you, start with Make. And the fun part about it is if you are creative, which I like to consider myself creative, your mind will go all over the place. You will start to think like, okay, wait, I can automate this part of data entry for the CRM. I can automate a cadence for my LinkedIn posts.

Mike Mello [00:51:05]:
I can automate updating my team, right? And I compile that information here and you can start to have some fun with it I encourage everybody who learns make or learns N8N. Do it with the idea to move the needle. Right. Do it with the idea to get back time so you can focus on sales. But I think make is a phenomenal tool. It's very user friendly.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:25]:
Awesome. Now you're a reader, right?

Mike Mello [00:51:28]:
I am a reader.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:30]:
I mean you stay sharp. What I've seen is a lot of the top billers are readers. Maybe there's some common theme there. Guys favorite book that's had an impact on you.

Mike Mello [00:51:39]:
I'll give you two. I'll give you one that has helped me from a sales perspective. The Challenger Sale. So for Anyone who is 2, 3, 4 years in staffing and you want to level up, the Challenger Sale is a phenomenal book. And the theme of that book is essentially there's five different types of salespeople. One's an order taker, one is a lone wolf. And it makes the argument that your highest level of salesperson is a challenger and the challenger will challenge their clients assumptions. So if you want to make a real difference and you want to be more of a consultant, you need to have the courage and the expertise to challenge your clients ideas.

Mike Mello [00:52:19]:
For anybody who's moving in that direction, read the Challenger Sale.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:24]:
And you mentioned one by the.

Mike Mello [00:52:26]:
There's. Yeah. So that is business sales perspective. I guess it's still self help. I almost don't view it as self help but the seven Habits of Highly Effective People. That's a great book. That's by Stephen Covey, that book. The number one rule is essentially be proactive.

Mike Mello [00:52:41]:
One of the rules is begin with the end in mind. When I was growing up, I had a hard time focusing. I would jump out of my chair. I couldn't sit still. I still sometimes have a hard time sitting still. The seven Habits of Highly Effective People. That book will help you aim your direction and it will give you clarity on the things you should be doing and what you should be thinking about. That is a phenomenal book.

Mike Mello [00:53:04]:
I'll give you one more book. James Allen As a Man Thinketh is a great book and it's a very short read. It's very quick. How you think, how you approach life, how you approach your business, how you approach your family. It all starts with how your mind works and what you're thinking about. If you can learn to really influence where your thoughts go, your life will be better. Simply put, your life will be better. James Allen As a Man Thinketh.

Mike Mello [00:53:30]:
Very short book. One of my favorite reads.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:33]:
So you've done over $100 million in staffing revenue. Some shit's had to have hit the fan.

Mike Mello [00:53:38]:
Oh, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:39]:
What is one of the biggest failures that you had to work through?

Mike Mello [00:53:42]:
Oh, man, that's a good question. I lost 100% RFP once. So I bid on a RFP 100% RFP and I got beat out for that. That was something that. That stung. That was. I wouldn't say it was at the highlight. It was at a point where I had 130 plus people on billing.

Mike Mello [00:54:04]:
If I had gotten that, I would have gotten over 200 people on billing. That one hurt. Look, I've failed many times. You know, I got physically removed from a client office years back. I got physically kicked out of a client office and I went into a Starbucks and I cried my eyes out. And I'm not, you know, I'm. I don't say I'm like a typical masculine guy, but I pride myself on being strong and being formidable. And I have no shame to say it.

Mike Mello [00:54:31]:
It's a beautiful New York City day in August many years back, and I sat in that Starbucks. I cried my eyes at all because I felt like such a loser. And I remember that feeling well. But look, the next day, you feel a little bit better. Day after that, you feel a little bit better after a week, you feel a lot better after a month. It's history. And I was able to grow my book tenfold after that experience. So for anybody in our industry who feels a rejection or, you know, you're getting kicked in the chest every day, I promise you, I give you my word, there's something brighter out there for you if you keep your head down, if you put 100% in every single day.

Mike Mello [00:55:09]:
This industry has changed my life. You know, I come from very little. You know, I grew up on food stamps. I grew up in section 8 housing. My father was in and out of prison. This industry has given me a good life and my family and my daughter a good life. So for anybody who's in it, Keep going.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:28]:
Mentioned something I think was important and personal. Like, what drives you then? Like, you know, at the end of the day, like, what drives you?

Mike Mello [00:55:36]:
Being the best I can be, reaching my full potential. I encourage everyone. I don't know if you have a mission statement, Ben, but I think everyone should have a clear mission statement. And I have a very clear one. And every day I want to be the best that I can be for myself. It's not for a boss. It's not for recognition. It's for myself.

Mike Mello [00:55:56]:
It's for the betterment of my family. And again, I do not come for much, so I know that about myself. I have no illusions about who I am and what I come from. And that has kept me humble, and that has made sure that I feel no entitlement. I am not entitled to anything. I am only entitled to what I earn. So, yeah, every day, just trying to be the best version of myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:24]:
Well, I mean, you've grown up in this industry. Like, you've learned a lot. Top producer. Have you got the chance to go back in time? Nine months into your first recruiting job, you're still looking at one placement. I'd probably be crying every night or with some wine. You're not quitting. But if you got a chance to go back in time and have a conversation with yourself, would you tell yourself anything?

Mike Mello [00:56:49]:
These are great questions, man. You are a pro. These are such good questions. I would tell myself that, keep doing what you're doing. Keep moving forward. I was very hard on myself the first couple years. I'm sure your audience. There's tons of great performers, top performers.

Mike Mello [00:57:05]:
Many of us are driven by insecurity. So many of us are driven by this little voice in our head that tells us that we are not enough. Sometimes that is great because it gives you fuel. Other times, that can take a toll on you. And my first couple years, especially that first year when I wasn't making placements, it took a toll on me. And my second year, I think my second year, I was at 5k in spread. I would go back and tell myself, like, you're gonna do it. Like, don't be so hard on yourself.

Mike Mello [00:57:31]:
Believe in yourself. Believe in the process. Believe in what you're doing. That would be the advice I would have given myself back.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:39]:
With you being a top performer. And I'm sure they could see, like, the spread on the wall or if they shot it out on a weekly, like, whatever, weekly. Like, you get recruiters that reach out to you and be like, hey, you know, probably like me back in the day. Like, hey, can you spare a few minutes to chat?

Mike Mello [00:57:55]:
Every day I get messages. Every day. I get very, like, touching messages, honestly. Like, I read some to my wife the other day. Someone had sent me a message a few days ago. They said, hey, like, I saw your LinkedIn post. It really touched me. I printed it out and I posted it on my desk.

Mike Mello [00:58:11]:
And I was, like, very taken aback by that. And that gave me a lot of perspective that I want to put a good message out there for people in our industry. I want people to know what it's really like. And I want people to know like it's not, it's not all rebuffs. It's very hard. It's difficult. It is. And no amount of automation or AI is going to make it easy.

Mike Mello [00:58:32]:
But I truly believe if you put a hundred percent into it and if you have tunnel vision in this industry and you learn to love what you do, you can be so successful. I know people in our industry that, you know, I've never made over a million dollars, but I know people in our industry who have made over a million dollars in our year, in a year. So my advice to anybody coming up is stay the course, stay hungry, keep getting after it.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:53]:
I can definitely see why they sent you some awesome messages because you do a great job with the content and like actually saying what you're doing. Like, I'm sure a lot of those like questions that you get are like, what are you doing sales wise? How are you at the top of the charts? Like what are you doing with AI? Blah blah, blah, blah. Yeah, Is there a question that you wish they would actually ask you, but they never do?

Mike Mello [00:59:11]:
I don't get many questions around mindset. I get a lot of questions around exactly what you said. Right. What are you doing from a business development standpoint? What should I post about how can I get my brand out there? But I don't get many questions on. You asked me a question before. How do you stay focused? Right. I think that that is where people should start. You want to discipline yourself first, you want to try to discipline your mind first and then everything else will be easier.

Mike Mello [00:59:40]:
And again, anybody who's starting out, anybody who's going to start their own firm, the people who I know who are the most successful have a strong mindset. They are mentally tough. So to me, in my opinion, that's the first place you should start.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:56]:
About that. Well, Mike, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go by doing that?

Mike Mello [01:00:01]:
LinkedIn. Mike Mello. Search me up. I try my best to respond to everybody in staffing and recruiting. I really do. I'm not perfect, but I do my best to respond to every message. I post almost every day on TikTok. Right at the handler.

Mike Mello [01:00:15]:
Underscore. Underscore. I'm on Instagram. I'm not as active, but LinkedIn feel free to DM me in TikTok as well.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:23]:
Man, I haven't logged into TikTok in like five months.

Mike Mello [01:00:28]:
Yeah, I took a break from Instagram just cuz I was, I was Spending too much time scrolling on Instagram. And I said, I got, I, I.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:35]:
Open up the TikTok app and I'm just like, I looked down, I'm like, what the hell that just happened? Like, I have 20 minutes.

Mike Mello [01:00:41]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:41]:
And so, like, I love my editor so much. So, Anthony, you are amazing. Like, if you're listening to this. But he uses a program that posts in all the different places so I don't have to lose myself in TikTok.

Mike Mello [01:00:52]:
Yeah. No. The algorithm is unbelievable for your audience. If anybody searches staffing on TikTok, you will see my face come up a hundred times. And that's the one reason I really like TikTok is because the SEO is excellent. But yeah, man, you gotta be careful with social media. You can get dragged down, you know, So I respect that you're not spending.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:11]:
Too much time on it, you know, just, I know myself well. This has been an awesome conversation and like, there's so many things I want to touch on, but I started looking at the time and this could easily turn into a two hour conversation. If you can give the listeners one more thing before I let you go, what would it be?

Mike Mello [01:01:28]:
Anybody who is in staffing, in recruiting, you're a salesperson, Anybody who's starting their own agency, keep going forward. I'm very confident about where our industry is going. I just quit my staffing and recruiting career of 10 years to support the staffing and recruiting industry. Right? So I just, I'm building a revenue operations agency just to support the staffing and recruiting industry. So I believe in it. I believe in where the industry is going to go. If you're in the industry, give a hundred percent every day, post on LinkedIn, tell your story, start to learn some AI, start to learn some automation. Don't let it suck you in the sales.

Mike Mello [01:02:10]:
And the mindset is more important than that. And again, I say this as somebody who's starting a rev ops agency, the sales side of it and your mindset is way more important. If you guys like my message, if you have questions for me, please DM me on LinkedIn. I will do my best to get back to everyone. And Ben, just great job. I appreciate you having me on and you asked phenomenal questions and you are an absolute pro and it's been a pleasure to get a chance to speak with you.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:38]:
Well, it's awesome to finally get you on because you kept on brushing me off last year, Mike.

Mike Mello [01:02:43]:
I was like, I'm trying to hit that goal, man. I was trying to hit that goal.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:45]:
I love that you're just like, eh, this will take me away from the focus. I need to be focused. And like, I get that. I respect that. And you know, it ended up being perfect timing, but game's changing guys. I think Mike nailed it. When it comes to what you need to focus on. A little sprinkle, a little AI in the evenings, in the morning.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:03]:
But you need to focus on becoming the best you could possibly be on what you support. So guys, I want you to go keep crushing it. Make 2025 the year that you set yourself up to make your dreams come true. Go get it, guys. Every minute a recruiter spends on paperwork is lost time making placements. That's where Ascend steps in. A modern employer of record and back office solution built to boost the bottom line. Ascend automates onboarding, payroll compliance and invoicing in one streamlined platform.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:32]:
It integrates effortlessly with all your tools and scales as you grow, saving you hours and cutting your operational costs significantly. Want less paperwork and more placements? Head over to Ascend. Com and see how Ascend can make the difference for you.

Mike Mello [01:03:47]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.