The Outbound & Discovery Playbook: How Elite Recruiters Close More Deals (with Conor Kline)

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Running a recruiting firm is enough work. You shouldn't need five vendors to manage your online presence. With recruiters, websites, you get it all in one place. Websites, SEO, paid ads, automation and ongoing strategy, all built specifically for recruiters. We understand your industry, your clients and your challenges. Simplify your marketing and strengthen your results. Mention Elite Recruiter and get 10% off any new service at recruiterswebsites.com coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. What's the difference between an average recruiter and a recruiter?

Conor Kline [00:00:31]:
It really is that it was curiosity, like that's the thing, right? Because people that get satiated quickly, right? And there's like, oh, I learned how to do this new thing and it's going pretty well for me. They're going to ride that out until they hit that plateau and that's where they're going to live. In all sales, I would say discovery is the single most important part of the process. And there's, I mean, you think of like, what about closing the deal? It's like, yeah, but you don't get to even close to sniffing closing a deal unless you've done good discovery. So. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Met, 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 [00:01:15]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:01:35]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:01:57]:
Atlas customers have reported up to 41% EBITDA growth and an 85% increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. No admin, no silos, no lost info, nothing but faster shortlists, better hires, and more time to focus on what actually drives revenue. Atlas is your personal AI partner for modern recruiting. Don't miss the future of recruitment. Get started with Atlas today and unlock your exclusive listener offer@reruitwithatlas.com I am so excited about this episode of the Elite recruiter podcast. Because here's the thing, most recruiters have never learned sales. Okay, We've learned sales. We've sat next to somebody that was doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:31]:
We've just copied them. That's pretty much how most of us have done this world. But here's the thing. I'm excited to bring on somebody that we could learn from who has been trained in the classical sales. But here's the thing. He's been selling into the most skeptical buyers out there for his entire career. You know who the most skeptical buyers are?

Conor Kline [00:02:52]:
Us.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:53]:
We are the absolute worst when it comes to, like, buying stuff. We are the cheapest, we're the most skeptical, and we want everything. So I'm excited to walk through original Outbound, walk through the discovery, and walk through closing the deal and what we could learn and what we can add to our desk to get better and close more deals and make more money this year. So, Connor, I'm excited to have you, brother.

Conor Kline [00:03:16]:
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:18]:
All right, so real quick, 30 seconds, self introduction.

Conor Kline [00:03:22]:
Connor Klein, head of revenue here@pin.com been selling into the recruiting space, as you mentioned, for quite a while, so know the space very well. Disclaimer. I've never been a full seat or full desk recruiter myself, though I have recruited a whole bunch for teams of my own, but wanted to put that out there ahead of time as you do, head into this conversation for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:41]:
All right, so we are going to walk through a bunch of stuff when it comes to sales. But before we get there, how did you even end up in this crazy space of us recruiters?

Conor Kline [00:03:52]:
Kind of a crazy story, actually. So I started at a company right out of school called League Apps. It was a sport tech company. I had graduated from UMass, the sport management degree, so it felt like it kind of matched up pretty well. And the guy that got me that job there, his name was Jake Price. Jake was childhood best friends with this guy named Steve. And so Jake left League Apps and was like, hey, give me like six months. I'm going to come take you with me.

Conor Kline [00:04:17]:
And I was like, all right, whatever you say kind of thing. Five months later, he gave me a call and was like, hey, I've got a spot for you at my buddy's startup. Do you have any interest in jumping ship and working with me again? And I was like, you again? But I of course said yes. And that company was Inter Seller, which a lot of listeners here may know. It was a top of Funnel sourcing platform. Really great product, but it was great that got started by Steve Lue back in like 2016. We for the most part kind of bootstrapped it, but ended up selling that to greenhouse back in 2021 and made a lot of friends, learned a lot while we were there, but kind of then got the itch to go start something up new again and get the team back together. So now here we are as pin.

Conor Kline [00:04:58]:
8 of the 10 of us here at this company are actually from the original founding team with Interstellar though, way, way back when. So it kind of feels like the whole getting the band back together situation.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:08]:
Like how does that feel with the whole like original band, pretty much all the original band coming back?

Conor Kline [00:05:14]:
It feels really good. What's interesting is I feel like we've all grown so much. I mean I am still a big dummy, but like even like six, seven years ago when I first joined Interstellar, like I just didn't know what I didn't know. And going through one acquisition and a two, building up a go to market strategy with a company called Attention in about a year, couple months time in between Greenhouse and Pin, just learned so much, right? And being able to bring new skill sets and new processes. Of course the team was helpful, but not just for me, but everybody else. So, you know, although it is kind of the same personalities, for the most, most part it feels like a kind of supercharged version of what we used to have.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:51]:
With what you guys are doing now, was it some of the original dream that you guys had seven years ago?

Conor Kline [00:05:56]:
It's now.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:57]:
The tech is finally here, definitely.

Conor Kline [00:06:00]:
I think like a long time ago, our whole platform with Interstellar was basically a chrome extension that sat right on top of LinkedIn. And recruiters would find people that they liked on LinkedIn, they would click a button through pit or through interseller, we would find contact information and start like an outbound campaign. And that was really great and somewhat ahead of its time when it was originally built. The funny thing is though, like through all those years, people kept on asking us being like, hey, this is really nice, but can you help us find these people instead of having to go pay for LinkedIn. Right. And the answer of course to that realm was no. There were platforms that were already out at that time. Hire Tool, which is now higher, Easy and like Seekout and Top Funnel.

Conor Kline [00:06:40]:
But a decade ago they're all kind of trying their hand at beating LinkedIn but you know, having varying degrees of success. Right. But we kind of sat back from it and realized like Hey, I don't think this is the time. But now here we are, the kind of insurgents of AI has really made that dream more of a reality for us here today. I know.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:58]:
One of the things I think is super cool, and we'll talk more about it like probably later, is like, you guys keep on adding more, inventing more, adding more tools or adding more stuff to the product. And that's one of the things that I think we feel as recruiters, it's important with AI is like nothing can be stagnant anymore. Everything has to get better.

Conor Kline [00:07:15]:
Yeah, it's 100% true. I mean, if you're not iterating, you're not going to have a winning company, right? And that's kind of like a classic startup ethos anyway. But we take it very seriously over here, right? I mean, I had a LinkedIn post not too long ago that outlined all of the code pushes that Steve, our CEO just himself alone has pushed every day for the last 365 days. And it was 3,3658. So there's more than 10 entries that he had been pushing every single day to this product. So to put it plainly, a lot of iterations on this thing and it's cool to see people kind of like grow and learn with it as you continue to release more and more and sharpen the edge of our sourcing platform here.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:57]:
Awesome. I want to just dive right into this wonderful world of sales and like, you've got experience selling it to us, plus you have sales training. Take a step back. And I think, like, because a lot of recruiters haven't really learned a structure or sales process, most of us are kind of like winging it. Like we pick it up on a podcast, like, oh, let me add this up or let me get this or add this to my script. You've talked to thousands of recruiters. What do you think some recruiters are missing before we start talking about some of the, the ideas and solutions?

Conor Kline [00:08:30]:
I think just structure, right? I mean, if we're sitting there even as like a one person band, right, like staring down the barrel of the wide world saying, all right, I just started my business, I want to go win some new business now and try to place some candidates. Like if you are not completely regimented in how you're doing that today, I don't think you're going to be very successful. Right? Like you look at the wide world and you're like, okay, cool, who do I go? Target. I know that I'm good at maybe Tech hiring. I know that I'm good in, like, the government space. Like, you are, like, whatever it might be, right. Like, it can be daunting for lack of a better term. So I think just having a structure built out of, like, one, targeting, and then two, beyond that targeting, really your process for how you're going to start engaging with those folks, and then everything else down the funnel will start to work itself out.

Conor Kline [00:09:13]:
And I know we're going to talk about that a little bit today, but that, again, that structure is really just so crucial out of the gate.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:19]:
So structure. How to, like, explain that a little more detail. It's one of those things, like, I just had a podcast interview with Jared go live, and he's structured and disciplined. But recruiting, like, most recruiters are just like, living in pure chaos. You know, you've led sales teams. You're now chief of revenue at Penn. What does a sales structure actually look like?

Conor Kline [00:09:39]:
Yeah, let's start with targeting, right? So let's say, hypothetically speaking, I'm a recruiter that is amazing at hiring salespeople, right? Like, that's what my niche is. Let's think of, like, Rich Rosen here for a second. Right? Or close friend and good buddy. So if that's what our world is, right, it's really easy to sit there and say, okay, I'm going to go and reach out to every single CRO in the world and try to sell them my services. But obviously that's not feasible or tenable. And from a technology perspective, it's not really possible anyway. So what I mean by structure is let's completely whittle that TAM or total addressable market down as much as we can. Right? So maybe we're really good at sales, but maybe it's like, specifically speaking, we're great at tech sales, and even inside of tech sales, we're great at, you know, placing candidates that have experience in the, like, catering or food SaaS marketplace.

Conor Kline [00:10:31]:
Right. How's that for specific? Right now, at that point, right, Maybe we want to say, all right, we're only going to target people that are in the, like, Chicagoland area now. Having that level of laser focus out of the gate, I promise you, from a targeting perspective, is going to make your life so much easier. Because what happens is you can start getting really creative on messaging and your process and your overall strategy for reaching out to those people inside of that group. And the better you can do when it comes to, like, isolating those folks again down funnel, it makes your job a whole heck of a lot Easier. So I think that's really the first element here is just again, structure around your targeting and knowing exactly who to ping right out of the gate.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:10]:
So with all the thousands of recruiters that you've spoken to over the years, like, what's the percentage that you feel have like a structured target that they're.

Conor Kline [00:11:17]:
Going after like 5 to 10%. And we've seen it and over and over again, right? Because people will sometimes utilize PIN for bd, although it's not what it's designed for. But we'll see them try to, you know, enter in a search to locate people within their ideal customer profile and they will straight up just type in founder at B2B SaaS Co. In New York City in click go, and then they just spray and pray. All of the people within that list try to sell them their services with really service level messaging that's not personalized. It doesn't have any kind of like oompha to it, as we like to say in Minnesota. But that's, that's really the problem, right? Because it's, it's too broad. There's no process there.

Conor Kline [00:11:59]:
So, you know, definitely a matter of, of getting nitty gritty and trying to find those details right away in that process.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:06]:
Okay, so we need to start almost like figuring out our icp, narrowing it down even more than what. I'll just be honest myself. Like government contracting, I try to focus on the DC Metro, but it's still, what, how many hundreds, like hundreds of billions of dollars of space is that?

Conor Kline [00:12:22]:
Yeah, so it's a matter of building like four or five of them or maybe depending on what kind of vertical you support, maybe like eight or 12 of them. But what I mean by them is more verticals for you to attack, keep them completely separate. The messaging for all of them is also going to be very different depending on what kind of person you're reaching out to, at what level you're reaching out to them at. Right. So there's so many different ways for you to splice this up, but the more you can start to segment your individual markets, the closer and closer you can get to personalizing these notes more and having them more relevant to that group that you're reaching out to. I think think about it like this, right? Like, how many emails does the average listener to this podcast get every single day from people trying to sell them stuff? I'm probably emailing a lot of these people, right? Like, like, hey, you should buy pin. But it's so easy to get lost in all the Noise. But if I see something in my inbox that is the first, like five to seven words of that subject line is like really targeted to me and it's mentioning a word that is a problem that I'm currently dealing with right now.

Conor Kline [00:13:19]:
Right. I'm probably going to click on that thing and at the very least get it like 7 to 10 seconds of glancing through that email to see if it's relevant to what I'm trying to do. Right. So it's breaking through that noise. But you're not going to be able to reach someone like me in that sense, Right. With really broad marketing language and, you know, a spray and pray tactic. Like, you're. No, you're not going to be able to break through any of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:42]:
So back on the targeting thing and you building out the. The anywhere from 5 to 10 or siloed lists to be successful. Like, how many people need to be in each of these silos? Yeah.

Conor Kline [00:13:55]:
And that's completely different for every vertical and every space, right? That's not going to be like a uniform answer. I'd say start small, right. My kind of rule of thumb here is I like to have like my general list and then I like to have my like named account list. It's kind of like a wish list. And like Amazon, it's like the things that you, like are saving for labor but you know, you really want really badly. So I would say, like, for a listener now that's like just getting into the space. Identify 20 different, like, targets in each one of these kind of verticals that you're looking to approach 20 individual people, right. Do a little bit of research on them, right.

Conor Kline [00:14:26]:
Get to kind of know the space and kind of know their company. For 15 of them, just utilize your general outbound approach, which we'll talk about in a second. But for five of them per vertical, that's going to be your named account list, right? And in the sales world, really what that means is like, all systems go on those five people, right? Like, roll out the red carpet, right? Give them a phone call, right? Like, the cold call is absolutely not dead. It works all the time. You would hear all the time at pin, and it works like a charm. Call these people, right? Send donuts to their house, right? Like, shoot them an Uber Eats gift card if it's like some weird holiday and you're like, hey, I just picked up the wine tab for you. Yada, yada, yada, whatever it might be. Go the extra mile because the people next to you probably aren't doing that, and especially for those five you're targeting, that way you can keep it pretty nuclear, right? You're not spending a whole arm and a leg on trying to like send everybody in the world donuts here, but you can, like hyper fixate on the ones, you know, you really want to work with.

Conor Kline [00:15:25]:
I think once you get a feel for the amount of effort that it takes to engage with those five versus like the greater group of 20 total people in that vert, then you can copy and paste that process around to all the other spaces that you want to be selling to. That is usually my rule of thumb. And also it gives you the ability to kind of a B test things as you go along too.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:46]:
Okay, So I love the creative avenue to try to get a hold of somebody like coffee, Uber eats, that kind of stuff. How do you make sure that you're spending that money on the right people Research?

Conor Kline [00:15:59]:
Because here's the thing, I mean, like, look for the most part, like, you know who you sell the best to, right? And if you're just starting as a recruiter today, that's going to be a really important thing for you to find out. But like, you should probably have an idea of like general speaking, the vertical you want to sell into and the kind of people that you work best with. But once you can find someone like that, just try to replicate them, right? Like go find out who their direct competitors. Not that you're going to want to of course, have that game playing. Like we're going to recruit for both of them at the same time. But, you know, people get the gist. But it's that kind of mentality, right? It's like, how can we copy and paste my best customer over and over and over again? And really that's something that we do here at PIN all the time, right? Like, we are consistently updating what our like, perfect customer looks like. And that intel is going directly to my marketing slash, like business development team so they can craft very specific messaging and processes in order to engage with them.

Conor Kline [00:16:49]:
So having that kind of like golden nugget human being idea in your mind, like, that's something that's going to be like, pretty vital for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:57]:
Okay, so now that you, you have your list, you have your target, then the outbound starts.

Conor Kline [00:17:02]:
And this is the fun part, right? It's just execution. Part of it's going to be effort, right? And part of it's going to be technology. And I think finding the intersection there is really important. I think folks that want to do all manual personalization they're probably going to get dusted by people that are leaning pretty heavily on good technology. People that are going on the other end of that spectrum. They're just going like, I'm going to automate everything with AI and not even, like, think about outbound ever again. They're also going to get crushed by people that are spending a little bit of time. Right, so it's that intersection, right? What we're seeing right now at pin is that 75% of all replies that come into all of our users happen after messages number four and five.

Conor Kline [00:17:45]:
Now, this is predominantly intel coming from the candidate outbound side. There's been this, like, rule of thumb for years of the marketing side of things where the, like, magic number is seven touch points. I think we've all probably heard of that before. What's funny though, is there's more studies coming out now that are saying it's really more like 12. So just think about that for a second. That's a lot of noise to get someone just to simply reply back to you. And so if we're thinking about that, what kind of channels do we rely on? What are you doing to engage with candidates today? Like, are you emailing? Are you LinkedIn messaging them? Are you calling them? What does that look like?

Benjamin Mena [00:18:18]:
Most of it's around calls and emails. Personally, a little bit of LinkedIn, you know, I always. If you guys want a really good laugh, I always said, like, the govcon space isn't really on LinkedIn. I've been proven wrong recently in a podcast interview that's coming out with who has literally 75,000 followers and most of them have a TSSCI and above. So.

Conor Kline [00:18:38]:
There you go. But that alone, right? Like calling and emailing, even, like, sans LinkedIn, like, how many other recruiters are in your space that are doing that exact same kind of workflow?

Benjamin Mena [00:18:48]:
I feel like everybody.

Conor Kline [00:18:50]:
Exactly.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:51]:
That's my problem.

Conor Kline [00:18:52]:
Exactly. Okay, so. And that's what I'm trying to get to is like, everybody else is using the exact same kind of trifecta, if you will, email calling, LinkedIn. And whether that's for sales outbound or candidate outbound, it's really the same kind of thing, same general strategies. Now people are instituting a little bit of texting. I don't like it from a sales point of view. Like, I'm not gonna be like, texting people cold, trying to sell them PIN ever. Like, you're not gonna see that come out of us.

Conor Kline [00:19:18]:
But, like, some people try it every once in a while. Totally dealer's choice on that front, but it's finding ways to go outside those bounds. So one just like instill process there. Make those as easy as possible for you. Find a platform that can automate email. Find a platform that can help automate your LinkedIn touchpoints. Like classic salesperson plug here. Like pin can of course do that, right? But like that's really the key.

Conor Kline [00:19:41]:
It's like how much of the human like effort element of your job can you not have to think about anymore. Just let something in the background run through that cycle. That's where the creativity comes into play, right? Like that can be like totally fine. For those 15 people on that list course, give them a call every once in a while. But for those five, have that running in the background, make that cold call more of a warm call and then subsequently do something else. Make them a video on LinkedIn Recruiter or something or like regular LinkedIn and then send them a message with the video being like in front of the camera like this. Just like, hey, figured I'd reach out to you here, like, want to spend a little bit extra time. Like, I really think what you're doing at your company is amazing.

Conor Kline [00:20:18]:
I've helped place candidates at companies that are a lot like yours without naming any names. And you know, if you're ever in the market for some help on the talent side, like, give me a call, right? Like that alone took me 12 seconds to relay to you. But that by itself could be the difference between some being like, hey, I kind of like that kid versus them getting peppered with 40 other messages that are just can all written on chat GPT.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:41]:
Anyway, so how do you like feel? Because I mean, here's the thing, like, I think I'm like too close to the AI world. I look at some at an email and I'm like, okay, that I was part of a clay table. How do you balance effective AI with the outbound with, you know, being like the personalization.

Conor Kline [00:21:01]:
I think a big part is one again, like diversifying your processes but then referring back to them, right? So people get into like the trouble sometimes of saying like, hey, I'm going to like shoot some an email and then I'm going to do like a LinkedIn message over here. But they don't like talk about the fact that you're the same person doing that. Like that's a huge missed opportunity, right? And it takes half of a sentence like, hey, I shot you an email yesterday. Or like shot you a LinkedIn message yesterday. Or if I'm leading Someone a voicemail. Like I'll reference the fact that I know that they open my email and reference the fact that that's also very creepy that I know that. But like have some fun and be a human being about it. But showing them that you've been on their trail for a while and this is not just some like to your point, clay table spray and pray situation, that gives you a lot more credibility in this outbound space.

Conor Kline [00:21:44]:
Now you tie that in with the granddaddy of them all, like whatever your like fun non scalable option is and that is where you get that conversation booked. And that's really all it is. Like it's just the whole point of any cold outbound is just getting a conversation to start. That's really all we're looking for.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:02]:
I've seen even higher than 12 touch points. I've even seen like 20 recently. But let's, let's make keep it around like 12 to 15. What does a successful 12 to 15 sequence outbound look like and over about how much time probably I would recommend.

Conor Kline [00:22:19]:
A three step email campaign right out of the gate that spans across five to six business days, across two weeks or across one weekend. That'll give you a very good indication of who's opening what because across three emails in a week, like you're going to have really good intel now. Like, all right, we've got about 55% of the people in my campaign now that have opened my emails at least three plus times. So there's like a little bit of intent. There's right now maybe you can do something cool with those people specifically. But once that ends, open up another vertical for yourself. Right. Like so in this case it might be LinkedIn.

Conor Kline [00:22:52]:
I might like send someone a connection request. Personally, I never put any copy in my connection requests ever. If I'm trying to hire someone, I don't put anything in it. If I'm trying to sell to them, I don't put anything in it. I just send them a connection request. It performs a lot better. We have a lot of stats over here that would tell people that. I mean obviously I don't want to give all the secrets away for all of our competitors or.

Conor Kline [00:23:12]:
But like that's really the thing. Like just send it alone, let them accept it. Right. And then follow up with them after that. Hey, thanks for accepting the connection request. Like we're in the same space. Figured I'd give you a shout. Like I do a lot of work with a lot of people like you, yada yada yada.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:24]:
Cool.

Conor Kline [00:23:25]:
If they reply back to you, amazing. You've got a hook. If not, you've still got, generally speaking, another like, seven to 10 messages that you're able to shoot out here, right? At that point. I love to give people a call before even responding back. Sometimes I'll just call them directly, then back to email, referencing all of the stuff that's happened in the meantime with LinkedIn and the calling. Because at that point, like, people just be like, hey, man, I'm not interested. Thanks, but no thanks. And that's really all we need, right? But because it would be better for people to say no, like, three steps in than having to wait 15, of course.

Conor Kline [00:23:55]:
But yeah, I would say again, just to kind of wrap it up, like email three of them, somewhat quick succession, LinkedIn touch points. @ that point, calling, potentially texting, refer right back to email a day or two after all that, and then really just pound the phones from then.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:11]:
On. So I think we're about ready to jump into what might be the most important part of this conversation. When somebody actually says, yeah, let's chat. The discovery. First of all, like, I know you've talked about this being important. I'd love to hear from you again because it was a conversation you had with me. Why is the discovery part one of the most important parts of this whole.

Conor Kline [00:24:33]:
Process? In all sales, I would say discovery is the single most important part of the process. And there's. I mean, you think of like, what about closing the deal? It's like, yeah, but you don't get to even close to sniffing closing a deal unless you've done good discovery. So essentially what discovery means is basically just understanding everything that there is to know about your potential client or your lead right? Now, that happens a little bit before you originally meet them, right? Like, you can do some preemptive research and kind of like, you know, figure out who works for their company, what kind of challenges they might have, right? Who they compete, compete against. And that's all good and dandy. But the most important part is when you meet with them for the first time, getting them to open up and tell you about the problems that they're facing and what they're looking to solve for. It's so easy to, like, get on the phone with someone and you're all jazzed up. You're like, I can't believe I got this person to respond back to me.

Conor Kline [00:25:26]:
Like, I'm gonna sell the wheels off this person. Right? And it's so easy just to kind of, like, talk, track your way out of a deal. Because all you're doing is just regurgitating something that you've said a million times before to people and you're like giving them somewhat of a canned presentation. A really good rule of thumb is having half the amount of talk time in that initial meeting with your prospect. So. Meaning if I was trying to sell you, I'd be doing a horrible job because I've been talking a lot today. But basically, if I was trying to sell you and that call ended, I want to see the times that I've been talking be 50% of the times that you were talking, because that's really all that first call should be designed for. And there's a lot of different ways to obtain that kind of information, but we'll kind of leave it there.

Conor Kline [00:26:10]:
I know you had a question in the middle of.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:12]:
That. I mean, you actually answered the question, so it was mostly wrapped around that. But okay, so you get to somebody on the call, like, and I think this is one of the places where a lot of recruiters like never got trained. And it's because, like, we always talk about top of funnel stuff. We always talk about the how to like, do the outbound, how to like fill up your funnel, the LinkedIn content, all the fun stuff. And then this is where I think can really separate yourself. So, Connor, you get me a phone. You're a recruiting company or you're a recruiting company.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:41]:
I'm a government contractor, or we'll make it more of a SaaS company. What are some of the good questions that I could potentially ask to start figuring out some of the pain points that I.

Conor Kline [00:26:50]:
Have? Yeah, I would say find a sales methodology that you like a lot and then either one, stick with it, or two, make a hybrid version of it. There's a bunch of them out there. So even if you just go to Google right now and you type in like sales methodology, you're going to get peppered with people trying to be like, use ours. We have the best one. Like, we'll get you like fully licensed. And it's like, you don't need to license anything. Just look it up on Google and then figure out what it is. I'll give you a few of them.

Conor Kline [00:27:18]:
One is like Sandler. A lot of people that's listening here, they might have heard of like the classic, like Sandler sales training. There's like huge conferences. A bunch of people send a bunch of their salespeople, like go learn how to sell, right? Like they have their own methodology, right? There's like spin Right. There's medic, there's med pick, and those are acronyms for longer fix. Personally, my team over here relies pretty heavily on medic. And I can explain this. I think it'll do a good job of kind of showing and telling exactly what that looks like for all of the other ones, because for the most part, they're all pretty much the same.

Conor Kline [00:27:51]:
But medic stands for metrics, economic buyer, decision, process, decision criteria, identifying the pain that you're looking to fill, and then beyond that, who's your champion? So if you go down the list, that's kind of. I mean, identified pain is funny. It's P, but that's the acronym. And so when I go into a call and whenever anyone else on my team goes into a call, their goal is within the first 10, 15, 20 minutes of getting to know someone, being able to kind of check those boxes to be like, hey, I know what these answers are now, right? Because if you don't have that kind of intel specifically around pain, what are we doing here? And I think people get so lost. It's like casting off on a ship with, like, no destination, with, like, an unknown amount of gas in your tank, right? Like, then you just find yourself in open waters down the line, and people are like, hey, excited to meet again today. Like, what's on the docket? Like, what are we talking about? And you're like, oh, well, I was hoping that you buy my thing. And they're like, oh, I can't do that. I don't have any buying power.

Conor Kline [00:28:53]:
Or, like, I can't buy anything until next quarter. And then you're sitting there like, well, I had you scheduled to buy it today, and that's an issue for my forecasting, right? And so that process originally around discovery is so, so vital, and it's something that you cannot live without over.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:10]:
Here. So you're saying that if I could just get somebody on the phone, I just can't magically like, hey, give me a wreck and I'll go work on it and see you.

Conor Kline [00:29:16]:
Later. Crazy when that doesn't work like.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:19]:
That. I mean, it.

Conor Kline [00:29:20]:
Does. Do you this kind of process at all? I mean, it might not be medic specifically, but, like, are you employing any sort of discovery.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:27]:
Process? I don't have. I think this is one of the main reasons why I wanted to talk about this is because the process that I was originally trained on was just like, I don't think there was a pure process behind it. It was just like, this is the next step. This is the next Step. And then you just figure it out. Okay. You figure out the pain is like X, Y, Z. About recruit.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:47]:
You know, why this seat is open, why this position hasn't been filled, what is the problem of xyz. And then that's where you dive into it. But it's just as recruiters, many of us have not been trained in sales. So it's like starting to think about like, okay, wait, there's different processes out there, there's different sales styles. Even though we're selling a two headed sales where we have to sell the company and then go sell the candidate and then bring them together. But yeah, that's, that's exactly what I was like, hey, let's like think about.

Conor Kline [00:30:16]:
This. It's huge, right? Like I think if there's a takeaway today for people, it's like go try Medic. Like just on one of your calls and you don't have to make it feel cam like, so tell me about the metrics that are ailing you now. Like of course you're not going to have it be that sense, but like it's going to be different for every conversation. I think a big part of it is being like slightly code change when you're speaking to different kinds of.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:38]:
People.

Conor Kline [00:30:39]:
People. But weave it in, right? And, and even have it listed on your screen or wherever you take notes, like write them down like one letter after another. So you know, like, all right, I got to get through all this at least within my first two calls. Because if you are downstream without all that intel, you are absolutely without a paddle. And that's where a lot of wasted time and bad deals start to bubble.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:59]:
Up. The recruiter sales and business development summit is coming back. It is kicking off January 26, 2026. It is going to be the best, biggest, most focused conference for recruiters to help them grow with business development and sales. Remember, with all the summits, the live sessions are free. If you want to go for the replays, you got two options. You can go VIP on the summit platform or you can join the community, have access to all the summits. But this is a summit that you do not want to miss.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:27]:
If you want 2026 to be the actual absolute best year possible, be there, be ready to learn and be ready to crush it. I'll see you there. What are some really good questions around some of the parts of Medic to really start like thinking about, like, hey, how should I ask this question to this company to open up this.

Conor Kline [00:31:48]:
Door? Yeah, I think one of my favorite questions to ask people is usually pretty direct and it's more about their decision criteria because it's a big one, right? It's like understanding. Like I'll ask them, like, what do you have to see or understand about PIN in order for this to be like the easiest decision you've ever made? Like, do you need to see me run a search that has, you know, 17 people that exactly fit your bill in a very weird remote location? If the answer to that is yes, and let's rip it, let's run it right now, I'll show this to you and you can throw your credit card in by the time the call. If that criteria is like, hey, we have to analyze four other players in your space, right? We need to do a full deep dive as well as, you know, you have to pass our SOC 2 type 2, you know, security compliance situations with flying colors then great. But all that is so imperative to know on day one, that is what this process is going to be. And so the decision process and criteria kind of live together. But that's a really good one, right? Like be direct, like, hey, like what has to happen here between us that's going to make this like super easy for you. That's a good one. Pain is the other thing that you really need to identify.

Conor Kline [00:32:51]:
Anybody can talk about the fact that like, yeah, my time to hire is too long or I hired recruiters and we went through an economic downturn so we had to weigh them off and now I don't have any help. My hiring managers are kind of lost on this and we need to, we need to hire some outside help. If you're a recruiting agency, right, like that's easy. It's like, oh, okay, cool, like I can help there. The mistake is saying I can help there and then launching into what you can help with. Dig deeper, ask why. Figure out what the root of that original problem is. Right? Like maybe the people that were working on their TA team before had never sourced before, right? They were just purely like inbound talent acquisition specialists that were used to parsing through resumes.

Conor Kline [00:33:35]:
They didn't have any experience going outbound. But that's something that you specialize in. But if you didn't ask that question, guess who doesn't have that ammunition then to be able to utilize during the down stream sales process, like you just have to help yourself. The good way to think about it is like you're just building your armory, right? Full of everything that you're going to need to inevitably have the more difficult conversations of how do we move this to the next.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:58]:
Stage. So after we've perfected a sales methodology, like medic, we get to the point of closing. Let's talk about that. Hey, can you sign my contract for me to start working on these recs? What are some things that you think recruiters, based on all the conversations that you have with recruiters, are missing out on this part of the.

Conor Kline [00:34:15]:
Process.

Conor Kline [00:34:17]:
So I don't have a ton of visibility into that element, But I can speak to everything that I've seen over the past, whatever, 10 years in the sales world, right? More on, like, the B2B SaaS side. And I think there's going to be a lot of parity because it's more thematic than anything. I really think that if you get to the point at the end of a sales process where you feel like you're kind of waiting with, like, bated breath of, like, please say yes, like, please sign the contract, like, please do this thing, something wasn't right along the way. My whole and, you know, look, that'll happen every once in a while. But my whole thesis on this is rather than being like a salesperson, like, you think of salespeople like this, like, just clashing. Like, I'm going to sell at you. I'm going to convince you to do something. I'm going to, like, manipulate you into, like, buying my product.

Conor Kline [00:35:04]:
It should never feel like that. It should be far more of like a side car maneuver, right? Like, pull up alongside of the person that you are working with. Because again, now we know through what we've discovered in Medic, right? What their actual pains are, what's ailing them, like, what keeps them up at night, be the solve for that, right? Like, come up alongside and be like, hey, all right, well, look, if this is an issue for you, here's what I specialize in. Do you think that this could be helpful based on what you're looking for? And they're like, yeah, really cool. Good idea. Now becomes their idea, right? And they have agency over thinking, like, hey, I'm going to, you know, work with this person in order to make. Make my life a whole lot better, right? Instead of you being like, well, you need to work with me because I've done this, this and this. Like, look at my accolades, right? Like, that feels like more grading, right? So if you get to the point where it's at the very end of that sales process and it feels like you're still trying to make them do something that they might be hesitant to do, I know it's Kind of a long answer to your question, but I really do think this again, all does kind of tie back to what we learn about these potential customers of ours or clients in the very beginning and how we can basically use that to make this whole change their idea in the first.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:13]:
Place. And I know the tech is out there to like keep track of things. I know. One of the things I've seen from you is it almost feels like you have an incredible memory and it's almost like an unfair advantage. Do you have that incredible memory or is there like some sort of tech tool behind the scenes that's helping you keep track of all these conversations and this and that and what's.

Conor Kline [00:36:34]:
Happening? Yeah, mainly technology. I'm not very smart, I would say. I mean, we record all of our calls over here, so whenever there's anything that's like said or mentioned, I can always refer back to a call recording. Right. And depending on how good the call recorder is, that can even like distill all the notes that you have accrued and then, you know, further analyze them and give you feedback and potential suggestions. And so, yeah, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm the smartest person in the world. This is absolutely not true. I've got a really good tech stuff stack behind me that allows me to move swiftly and efficiently over.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:07]:
Here. In talking about tech stack, I know one of the hottest areas that I see online, especially if you're on LinkedIn, it always gets a lot of traction is this like go to market space gtm. First of all, what is technically gdm? And my second question I'm going to ask of that, is it with 2026, like right around the corner, should recruiters think about hiring a GM at GTM.

Conor Kline [00:37:32]:
Specialists? Questions. I mean, I think like the phrase GTM has been kind of like morphed a little bit in the last few years, right? Like think about what it means is go to market, right? Like that's just what GTM means. So for a team that has been in a market for a very long time, like you're not really looking for someone to like help you go 0 to 1, but you are looking for someone to step in and like help you with sales, which is more of like a business development person, right? Or maybe you need help on the marketing side. So like the phrasing of the whole like GTM thing is funny to me, but that's just me being a dork, I guess. I would say, like it depends on how quick you're looking to scale. Like, some people that we speak to love being solo shops. Like, I mean, I'm going back to like, Rich, but, like, you think about Rich, like, that dude does not want to hire anybody because he's so just brutally efficient at what he does. And anything else to him would be like the idea of dead weight, which is hilarious.

Conor Kline [00:38:24]:
So, like, the last thing he needs is, you know, like, someone on his team like, trying to build up a process and a structure. I think if your goal is to, like, add more and more and more headcount to your company and your agency or your talent acquisition team, like, sure, maybe hire someone to help you build those structures out. I mean, really, what these people kind of used to be called and like, the lines blurring again is like revenue operations, right? But what's funny is, like, go to market is kind of a combination of marketing, business development, and revenue operations. So it's like, you know, it. Like, your question is a good question. It's like, do we need it? Like, I would say probably not out of the gate. Unless you're trying to like, really hire, like 20 recruiters tomorrow. And you need everything to be working super, super well.

Conor Kline [00:39:10]:
And you need their desk to be filled with brand new clients if.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:13]:
You want a good laugh. Rich has, like, hired a go to market.

Conor Kline [00:39:16]:
Guy. Yeah.

Conor Kline [00:39:20]:
He and I have talked about it for sure. But yeah, that's kind of the. The line is like, what does that person actually do? And like, yeah, it's like such a blanket phrasing these days. Like, look, it just boils down to, like, people know what they need help with, right? Like, if I asked you today, like, what's your biggest pain point right now? Like, from like a recruiting perspective, like, do you need more business or do you need better candidate.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:40]:
Flow? That's the number one question that for a lot of recruiters, always, at least for a lot of recruiters that I talk to, probably including myself, it's more on the business.

Conor Kline [00:39:47]:
Side. Okay, well, there you go. So then dissect that a little bit. It's like, cool. What on the business side needs more? Is it because you don't have time to reach out to people? Is because you don't know how to structure a good outbound.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:58]:
Process? We'll go with A, B and C. And then I'm spending a lot of time on a podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:04]:
There you.

Conor Kline [00:40:04]:
Go. You have other irons in the fire, right, that are of course helping everybody else out. But, like, that is though important to be able to kind of dictate, right? Like, I Mean, no one's going to go out there and just like hire someone on a whim. What I will say is people that are in this kind of like GTM specialist space these days can be contract. And a lot of them are right. Like people probably get pinged all the time. Like, hey, I could help you build out the world's best clay table. Like, all you got to do is pay me 100 bucks and I can do this, this and this.

Conor Kline [00:40:35]:
Where you're like, sure, try it out, right? Like, what's the harmony? If you find someone that's actually really good at it, then that could benefit your company. But like, I think it's just like understanding what you really need help with first and then deducing the problem from.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:45]:
There. Switching gears a little bit. You guys are like head deep in AI. You guys are one of the most forward thinking recruiting tech companies out there. What do you think is going to happen with AI in recruiting in 2026? Maybe going into 2027, a lot.

Conor Kline [00:41:02]:
Of platforms are going to get sunset. We saw the surge in kind of like the bubble in this recruiting space. It all happened very fast. Right? There is a recruiting platform for everything thing that all kind of sprouted up overnight, all on the basis of leveraging and using AI. And I think that there's a ton of feature parity across so many different verticals in this space using the same kind of technology and the same kind of process that the ones that are like the lower rung are not going to exist anymore. They're either going to get bought out or they're just going to dissolve. So I think we're going to see a lot less like competition from a numbers perspective, but like steeper competition for the mainstays that still remain after. I do think from more of like a technology perspective, it's hard to say.

Conor Kline [00:41:48]:
I think granularity is a huge moat for us over here at pin. Like just being able to find these details that frankly nobody else in the market can find. That's where we really do our best work. It's only getting better, right? Like we're updating our models and our process over here every single day. And every time I open PIN up and run a new search on a demo for someone, sometimes I get surprised at things that I haven't seen before that we're just like pushing in the background. Right. So I think you give this team specifically another 365 days of building this, this search engine. Watch out.

Conor Kline [00:42:24]:
LinkedIn for.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:25]:
Sure. What do you think a recruiter's desk is going to look like you maybe say intern and agency is going to look like in 12 to 24.

Conor Kline [00:42:33]:
Months because of AI more point solutions, which is something that a lot of people are going to disagree with me on. And a point solution is more like a tool or a platform that you use that does one thing really well and for years have been trying to do is consolidate. Consolidate. And it allows us to start using these platforms, usually atss, right. That have started to build very horizontally. Right. So now they're not only like a candidate database, but they're also a CRM. And now they can also do like contact data finding and they do a little bit of sourcing now.

Conor Kline [00:43:09]:
Now they do call recording and at that point maybe we sprinkle in a little bit of like whatever, payroll, like they all start to do everything. But the tough part about that is most of these companies are not hundreds of millions of dollars funded and have all the space and the engineering resources to make every aspect of that really good. So we're already seeing, seeing in the space today. It's been going on for over a year already though is people that have tried to buy these platforms or succeeded in purchasing them that are starting to look around and say, hey, I'm getting outworked by these other recruiters in my space because I'm using this one thing that's okay at everything. But these people are using four different things that can still speak to each other, but they're super good at exactly what they do. So again, I know a lot of people are probably going to listen to that and be like this kid's office rocker. But we're seeing it happen already. Point solutions that are like vertically built, that are incredibly good at what they do, I think is really where this market's going in the next year to maybe two.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:08]:
Years. I mean, I think people are thinking that because recruiters are.

Conor Kline [00:44:11]:
Cheap. Well, I mean that's the face for sure to some biggie, but. Right. But again, everyone's. The whole process for everyone historically has just been like, how can I use one thing and not have to use everything? I think we over indexed on that to the point where people are now kind of in the hole. And now it's like, all right, well let's go use the stuff that's the best in class at what it.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:32]:
Is. I think it's that. And also like, I think recruiters because of AI have probably been hit up by so many solution providers that probably hasn't come close to what it was sold as or what it was pitched.

Conor Kline [00:44:48]:
As. Yeah, it.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:50]:
Works. I mean, I think at this point, any time, I think I've seen over in the past just few years, two to 300 different tech tools.

Conor Kline [00:44:58]:
Minimum. Right. I mean, think about it from my perspective. I get on calls all the time. People are like, well, have you heard of this, this and this? You're competing against them. Like, no, I've never heard of these. Evil, right? Like, what are you talking about? And then, you know, so they're popping up all the time. But yeah, I really think the, the kind of point solutions are going to be the future, which, I mean, you know, PIN does more than just search.

Conor Kline [00:45:21]:
So I'm kind of throwing our own iron in the fire on that saying. Like the fact that we've built multiple workflows, maybe that's how the future of what PIN looks like at this point. We're keeping all doors open and we're moving with the, the motion of the industry, that's for.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:34]:
Sure. Are you allowed to share any secrets for 2026 with what's coming out from.

Conor Kline [00:45:38]:
Pin? I am, yeah. We got started only selling to North America right when we came out of stealth a little over a year ago, it was actually November of last year, which is kind of fun. Which feels like it's been 20 years in the last 365 days. Beyond that, though, we then expanded to Europe and then we expanded to South America. I think Q1, we're going to be really excited to expand globally. A lot of our friends outside of those three main areas that had historically, like, used interstellar way back when and had been chopping up a bit to start using pin or folks that are just kind of hearing about us through the grapevine. We're excited to be able to welcome them into the platform here as.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:16]:
Well. So you guys are going to be making some trips to Europe sometime.

Conor Kline [00:46:20]:
Soon. I mean, we already could be doing that. Whenever you want to invite me over for some boxed wine in brno, just say the word and I'm there. I'm asking. I'll be your kitchen before you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:30]:
It. We can meet up in the UK and London. I think there's a recruiting conference coming.

Conor Kline [00:46:34]:
Up. Oh, I did hear about that one. Yeah. Potentially, we're not, we're not counting anything out, that's for.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:40]:
Sure. Yeah, I just, I'm excited that you guys actually, like selected me to work with you guys too. So just pure transparency, work with pin and absolutely love it. And the reason is because I've seen two to 300 different tech tools being sold to recruiters over the last few years, and this is one of the few that actually moves the needle, has an ROI and does such an amazing job in the space that they are in with helping you find candidates. I think one of my favorite stories is I was actually, because I'm short on time with the podcast and handling all the other stuff and the summits and this, and still recruiting, like, probably 45 hours, 50 hours a week. On top of all that is I used one of their AI tools. Had AI build the sequence, had AI do the discovery on the person, the candidate reached back out. This is the most time a recruiter has ever spent looking at my background.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:31]:
And literally I was just like, who are you again? You're great. This is awesome. Thank you for replying. And you're interested in the position, but this is.

Conor Kline [00:47:39]:
Cool. Yeah. I mean, look, it's been really cool to see the progression here and we're, of course, very excited to have you on the team as well. Yeah. I mean, look, to your point, you've seen so many different platforms. I am curious. I remember I asked you, hey, do you have any idea of if you'd be interested even in, like, joining us from a advisory perspective? And it was. I don't even feel like you blinked at.

Conor Kline [00:48:01]:
All right. Like, what do you see beyond, like, just how, like, solid the platform is that, like, made you make that process so.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:09]:
Easy? It's one of the things that I'm excited about with AI and recruiting is the better the AI gets, the more we could spend on the human relationship part of recruiting, like recruiting. We are in the people business, but how much of our time and day is stuck in tools, processes, figuring this out, filling that out in a combination of my agency world, having my own business and working internal. It's amazing how little time many recruiters actually spend with people throughout the day. And my goal, my dream, is that we can spend 4 to 10x the time that we've been spending for years actually, on the human relationship, whether it's a client, whether it's a candidate. I think that's the most important thing with AI. And PIN is one of those tools that I see as helping make that happen. We hope.

Conor Kline [00:49:00]:
So. There's a long road ahead. Right. Like, there's a lot of platforms in this space that are building amazing stuff these days. Right. So the fire is perpetually lit over here. I do think a big benefit for our team is that we've just been in this space for so long and we have so many Great friends like yourself that, that help kind of further the brand and tell more and more people about what we're really doing here beyond just purveying a platform out. Yeah, we're excited for the future.

Conor Kline [00:49:26]:
26 is right around the corner. I don't know when you're going to be releasing this, but probably whatever, whatever soon. But yeah, it's already cold outside here in New York. But yeah, we could not be more excited for what 26 holds.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:36]:
Over. Awesome. So I know we covered a lot. We've covered like, everything. The sales process, discovery, outbound, medic and not the medic fixing you up. At first I was like, medic? I'm like, I know, I saw it in my pregame research, but I was like, not the medic that fixes.

Conor Kline [00:49:51]:
You. I probably could have given you some more, more intel on.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:54]:
That. That's what podcast homework is for, so don't worry about.

Conor Kline [00:49:58]:
That. Exactly.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:58]:
Right. Is there anything that I should have asked you question wise to go deeper on that would help a recruiter.

Conor Kline [00:50:05]:
Out? I don't think so. I mean, like, look, if you're listening to this and you're like, hey, Connor, you could have been clearer about something or I still have questions about, like, how to do this, this and this in my industry or my vertical. Like, just reach out. Like, I'm always happy to help on stuff like that. Like, I'm a perpetual sales nerd. Like, if there's a problem to be solved in that space, like, I revel in the ability to try to fix it. So ping me on LinkedIn, shoot me an email. It's just connorin.com.

Conor Kline [00:50:34]:
it's a pretty easy one to remember, like, help me help you on that side. Because there's a lot of ways to continually get better and better. And I think the one thing that I do love about the recruiting industry really is curiosity, right? Like, we get a lot of people that are curious about like, how do I do this now, how can I do that? And like, being able to ask those types of questions is huge. So I'm always down to help people that have that kind of.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:55]:
Mentality. All right, so jumping over to quickfire questions, they don't need to be quick answers. From what you've seen with all the people that you've spoken to, all the different recruiters, what's the difference between an average recruiter and an elite.

Conor Kline [00:51:08]:
Recruiter? It really is that it was curiosity, like, that's the thing, right? Because people that get satiated quickly, right, and they're just like, Oh, I learned how to do this new thing and it's going pretty well for me. They're going to ride that out until they hit that plateau and that's where they're going to live. People that are always trying to learn more and iterate and break things and do things that are not scalable, those are the teams that win. The classic, like, YC ethos is like, do things that don't scale. We talked about it already today, like, you're not going to send donuts to everybody, but, like, having that mentality of trying something new and doing things that you know you cannot continue to do as your business grows, but you're doing it now because you have the time and you have the grit to do it. Those are the teams that win. Pair that with a little bit of question asking, creativity, and that's a recipe for an absolutely deadly.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:53]:
Recruiter. Are you a book reader at all? I am. What has been one of the books that has had the most impact on your.

Conor Kline [00:52:01]:
Life? I think Lord of the Rings. I mean, look, surround yourself with the right people and you can do anything. Like, that's it. I could be Frodo in that sense and an absolute hobbit and not have a whole lot of skills, but if I'm surrounded by Aragorn and Legolas and all my buddies that can shoot people there for a million miles away, then, like, yeah, I'm probably going to succeed. You know, surround yourself with the right.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:21]:
People. What's one thing that you wish you learned about sales early on that you know.

Conor Kline [00:52:27]:
Now? It's a really good question. I think early on in my career I tried to fit into a lot of these, like, sales methodologies because no matter, like, what sales team you join on to, like, the sales manager leader is going to have a, you know, a process built out preemptively for you that you don't have to abide by in order to, like, make sure all the reporting and all that makes sense. I think, like, I tried really hard to assimilate to other people's processes even when I knew that it wasn't exactly what made me great at selling. And so I think one thing that I would tell myself is recognize what makes you great at what you do and use that as the base. Build everything else around that, right? Rather than trying to be something or someone that you aren't just kind of like check boxes with the people that you're working with. Because at the end of the day, the numbers will end up speaking for.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:18]:
Themselves. You've talked to thousands of recruiters. And I know most of the questions are about, like, sourcing and that kind of stuff, but you've also probably have spent, based on the medic mythology. Figure out the pain points for tons of those recruiters with all those conversations and all the questions they ask you and you ask them. Is there ever, like a question that you wish a recruiter would ask you, but they never.

Conor Kline [00:53:47]:
Do? Can I buy it now? No. I mean, I think, like, that's a really good.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:53]:
Question. I would say, like, given what.

Conor Kline [00:53:55]:
You now know about my company, what would you do here? Because it's.

Conor Kline [00:54:02]:
And I don't expect anyone actually asking that question because again, if people look at my, my background, my resume, they'll see that I've never been a dye in the wool recruiter before. So, like, what experience do I have as like some dumb kid that's going to like, help them be the catalyst, change their business? But, like, for what it's worth, I do Talk to like 12 to 20 recruiters every single day about their specific problems and issues that they are dealing with. And I see the way that they fix them and we help them fix them and we have friends and other platforms that do other things that help them work and change and grow their business. Right. And so one of my favorite things to do is chat with people who are just starting their own adventure by themselves or maybe like with a couple partners. But like that time where there's that excitement and they have nothing built out yet, there's no process. Like, I revel in those opportunities, like work with teams like that. Now, of course, for companies that have been built out and they're already successful and they're doing their thing, but maybe looking for an edge, like asking that question me like, hey, what you know now about us? Like, what would you do if you were me? I like, I just love that level of.

Conor Kline [00:55:10]:
I kind of love that experience, for.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:11]:
Sure. I love that. Well, Connor, this is one of the problems of chatting with you. You know, since we've seen each other face to face. I looked up and it was like already 45 minutes in the conversation. So just for. I'll give you two last questions and then I'll let you go. If people, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about.

Conor Kline [00:55:30]:
Doing that if they want to.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:32]:
What? Follow you? Oh, I mean, you could just.

Conor Kline [00:55:36]:
Connect with me on LinkedIn. That's a pretty easy one. You can always shoot me an email as well. Again, it's just connorin.com. we're easy to Find. Right. We have, like, one of the easiest websites of all time. So even if you don't remember who I am, like, you could just go to our about page and be like, oh, there's the guy that does revenue over there.

Conor Kline [00:55:52]:
But yeah, like, shoot me a note on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect on this kind of.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:55]:
Stuff. And before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the.

Conor Kline [00:56:00]:
Listeners? I think just gratitude. I mean, I don't know when you're releasing this, but we are coming up on Thanksgiving here in the US in about two days and just reflecting on the time that we've spent in this vertical as a team here and the amazing folks we've gotten to meet and build relationships with the partnerships with, like, it really is special. And this vertical is like no other vertical. I mean, you were making jokes about how it's like, you know, everyone's really cheap and incredibly skeptical. There are, of course, challenges to selling into this world that is recruiting. But the, the benefits far outweigh the challenges. And, you know, the whole team at PEN is of course, just a way to continue to serve this industry. So I guess I'll leave you with gratitude on that.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:41]:
Front. Awesome. Well, Connor, I just want to say thank you so much. I know we, we chatted about this episode, I feel like months ago, and it was like, it's one of those things that was just like, okay, this is another missing piece in the. The skill deck of a recruiter because many of us haven't gone through most. Like, you know, we've gone. Maybe some of us have gotten some coaching, maybe some of us have had a great mentor, but we've spent so much time learning the top of the funnel for recruiting, the sourcing side of recruiting, this and that. We constantly forget the most important parts of the sales structure that many recruiters just don't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:19]:
And for real quick, before, like, what was the what did medic mean.

Conor Kline [00:57:22]:
Again? Metrics. Economic buyer decision process, decision criteria, identify pain and champion and then the.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:33]:
Discovery call and how all those things together makes it so you get the closed deal. So that way you can start working on that search. So that way you can start looking for that life that needs to be changed so that way you can start make that impact on that company. So as we're going into the holiday season, think about how you can make an impact. Think about what you can add to your sales structure and make it so you can crush 2026. And real quick, Connor, you are actually joining me at the Sales and BD Summit in January. Is that.

Conor Kline [00:58:01]:
Correct? Around the.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:02]:
Corner. So see Connor there? Hit Connor up and can't wait for you to crush it. Running a recruiting firm is enough work. You shouldn't need five vendors to manage your online presence. With recruiters websites, you get it all in one place. Websites, SEO, paid ads, automation and ongoing strategy. All built specifically for recruiters. We understand your industry, your clients and your challenges.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:24]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:59:23]:
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Conor Kline [00:59:40]:
Listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.