How To Become A Million Dollar Biller

Discover how to become a million dollar biller with insights from Brent Orsuga. This episode reveals ten crucial behaviors top recruiters share, from cultivating belief and owning a niche to strategic business development and obsessing over average fees. Learn the mindset and habits needed to achieve consistent success in recruiting.

How To Become A Million Dollar Biller

Half the year is gone. This critical juncture is why Benjamin Mena, host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, has pulled this impactful discussion from the Elite Recruiter Community archives and brought it to the main feed. It serves as a vital reset, a definitive line in the sand, and an urgent challenge: decide right now what the remaining half of the year will look like for your recruiting career.

In this episode, we dive deep with Brent Orsuga, a veteran recruiter with 23 years of experience. For the last 16 years, Brent has specialized in the complex world of logistics and supply chain recruitment, and for 11 of those years, he has successfully led his own firm, Pinnacle Growth Advisors. Brent candidly shares that it took him four years to achieve his first million-dollar desk, a milestone he has now surpassed for seven consecutive years, making it his consistent floor rather than a ceiling.

Brent is clear: there's no secret sauce, no magic pill to becoming a million dollar biller. Instead, he reveals a defined set of behaviors consistently demonstrated by the industry's highest performers. This conversation lays out ten of those crucial behaviors, offering a roadmap for anyone aspiring to elevate their billing and impact.

The Foundation of Success: Belief and Identity

Brent’s methodology begins with belief. He argues that without the quiet conviction that a million-dollar target is attainable, no amount of effort will lead you there. This foundational belief paves the way for adopting the right identity. Every serious high-achiever in this field has claimed a niche and meticulously built a personal brand around it. Brent emphasizes the profound difference between a recruiter who merely sends out fifteen resumes and a true headhunter who strategically submits three perfectly matched candidates. As Brent states, "Money follows attention," and recruiters who become known for excellence in one area naturally become magnets for top companies and candidates seeking that specific expertise.

The Engine Room: Strategic Execution for High Billing

The core of achieving million dollar billing lies in strategic execution. This includes:

• Strategic Business Development: Focus your efforts on partnering with the right clients – those with multiple opportunities and a clear understanding of the value you bring. Shift from being a transactional vendor to a strategic partner.
• Chasing Big Opportunities: Actively pursue the high-value placements that yield fees of $40,000 to $50,000. These larger deals often streamline processes and significantly propel you towards the million-dollar mark, building confidence and enhancing your market identity.
• Obsessing Over Average Fee: Understand and aggressively maximize your average fee size. Brent explains that a higher average fee means fewer placements are needed to reach your target. He advocates for working in quarterly goals, aiming for $250,000 each quarter to make the annual million feel more manageable.
• Urgency and Referral Systems: Operate with a sense of urgency, as highlighted by Brent's practice of counting the remaining Mondays in the year. Implement a robust referral and reference system, as relying solely on cold outbound prospecting is inherently inefficient. Leverage your network by asking placed candidates for referrals and LinkedIn recommendations.
• Eliminating Negativity and Increasing Outbound: Top performers are masters at removing distractions, negativity, and time-wasting activities. They maintain a positive outlook and consistently increase their outbound efforts, ensuring a healthy pipeline to mitigate the challenges that arise in recruiting.
• Holding Firm on Fees: Advocate for and maintain strong fee percentages. Resist the temptation to lower prices, drawing parallels to premium brands like Rolex or Hermes. Clients seek elite talent and are willing to pay for it. Creative fee structures can also be explored to maximize value.

The Real Talk: The Lifestyle Behind the Million Dollar Biller

Consistently achieving top-tier billing numbers isn't accidental; it's a byproduct of an elite, intentional lifestyle. Brent is blunt: the individuals he knows who achieve this level of success are not sloppy, they don't sleep in, and their success isn't built on superficial social media engagement. This requires prioritizing health, fitness, diet, and sleep, alongside continuous investment in skill development. Brent frames the journey through three distinct phases: the underdog with a chip on their shoulder, the villain who silences the noise and works with dark focus, and the favorite, which he notes is the most challenging phase to maintain success in.

If you've found yourself wondering where the year has gone, consider this episode a crucial wake-up call. It's time to draw the line and run for your goals.

A note on the figures in this episode: Brent's billing numbers are his own account of his track record and are shared as he told them.

This episode is brought to you by Atlas. The resume never tells the full story. Candidates share what really matters in conversations, on calls, in interviews, and over email, their motivations, salary expectations, and plans to relocate, and most of that detail ends up buried in notes and forgotten. Atlas changes that. It is the AI first recruitment platform built to eliminate admin, capturing every conversation automatically and turning it into something you can use. With MagicSearch you can ask who mentioned wanting a four day week or who is open to relocating next year, and it pulls answers from across your entire database instantly. Atlas customers have reported over 40 percent EBITDA growth and over 80 percent increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. Get started and unlock your exclusive listener offer at recruitwithatlas.com.

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