From Rookie to $1M Recruiter by 25: Kent Depwe’s Playbook for 7-Figure Success

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:00:35]:
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Kent Depwe [00:00:39]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast, really all it takes is one. And by that I mean all it takes is one really good client to change your life. Going from 2020, I think I made like literally 50, 60k something like that to the very next year. 350k some give or take a bit.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:56]:
How did you stay focused and not settle?

Kent Depwe [00:01:00]:
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 [00:01:18]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:02:09]:
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'm so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. I have a 3x1 million producer here for the interview, but here's the thing. His second Full year in the business. He was a million dollar biller at the age of 25. You don't have to be in this game for a decade or two decades to be successful.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:46]:
There's a process, there's a system, an art that you have to master and you can literally like chase your dreams and live your dreams. So I am so excited to have Kent Dep with me today to share his story of how he went from like zero to a million dollar biller and most importantly, how he's consistently been a million dollar biller. So Kent, welcome to the podcast.

Kent Depwe [00:03:08]:
Thanks so much for having me, Benjamin. Happy to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:10]:
So real quick, a quick 30 second self introduction.

Kent Depwe [00:03:14]:
Sure. So yeah, as Benjamin mentioned, I'm a little bit on the younger end. Sometimes I don't feel so young. Depends on who my client is. But 28 years old, living here in Austin, Texas. I'm a full desk perm recruiter. Really recruit all over the U.S. mostly for, I guess especially as of recently, mostly for hyper growth startups.

Kent Depwe [00:03:33]:
Working directly with founders, placing everything from the C suite, you know, CTOs, CROs within product marketing and sales down to the VP director and then you know, even sometimes some, you know, mid to senior level roles. I like to say I don't just fill roles, I build entire companies. And yeah, as Benjamin said, I've had a good amount of success. So have some conventionaling here. My second full year in 2021 hit a million dollars in perm full desk revenue. Did it again in 2022 and then in the past 12 months. Not a calendar year, but past 12 months, hit another million and should be hopefully getting number four at the end of 2025.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:09]:
That is awesome man. So okay, before we start unpacking this, let's, let's take a few steps back. How the hell did you end up in the recruiting chair?

Kent Depwe [00:04:17]:
Yeah, great question. I'm not really sure either. Maybe it was a nice stroke of fate, I'm not quite sure. But basically I graduated from Texas Tech University in 2019 with a public relations degree. Really had no clue what the recruitment industry was. And it was one of those things where I graduated college in August. I was looking around for a job, didn't really know what I wanted, but a few recruitment companies messaged me to interview as they were interested in my profile. So I was like, yep, sure, need a job, so why not? Ended up interviewing with two of them.

Kent Depwe [00:04:46]:
It was the Collabora and my last firm, that was for about four years called 20 AI Collabra didn't give me an offer 20 did. So my choice was made. I didn't get any of their offers out of college, so I was like, all right, guess I'm going 20. AI being a recruiter hardly knew what it was. So that's kind of, I guess, how I fell into it, frankly, which I feel is quite common nowadays. I'm not sure if anyone grows up wishing to be a recruiter, but a lot of us end up here.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:09]:
I mean, it's one of those things I feel like you really can't. You can capture like HR in a class. You can't really capture recruiting because it's like very sales focused.

Kent Depwe [00:05:18]:
Yeah, it really is. I think I have my PhD in recruitment now, but there surely is no classes in college that has helped me one bit. I like to say my degree helped me, helps me a little bit in college. I did a lot of writing, which obviously recruitment, it helps to be a good writer. But yeah, really, college did not prepare me for it. It's a lot of those things where you learn a lot more on the job. I probably learned more in my first six months of recruitment about it than all four years of college combined.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:42]:
Before we unpack this, I remember my first, like recruiting job out of college. I remember like looking at my awesome little like offer letter or the whatever, and it said if you do well at like whatever 10k in spread was per week at the end of the year, I think it's like 11. 11,000 in spread per week got you to the sales conference, like the big like end of year bonus. But guess how much you made? Like I would have made then. Something like $65,000.

Kent Depwe [00:06:12]:
Yeah, I remember my base when I first started out of college, my base was 35k, which wasn't thrilled with, but I was like, hey, pays the rent. Yes, 35k. I think I made like 50k in my first full year. So.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:23]:
And then your second full year, like, what'd you take away?

Kent Depwe [00:06:27]:
Second full year with the commission, which at 20 was pretty decent. Second full year, it was like 350, something like that.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:33]:
And then like your second full year in recruiting?

Kent Depwe [00:06:38]:
Oh, yeah. Second full year recruiting is about 350k take home from just over a million dollars in billings. So yeah, it was a rapid lifestyle change. So you like going from 2020? I think I made like literally 50, 60k, some like that to the very next year. 350k some give or take a bit.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:55]:
How do you. And we're going to dive into this, but like, for that. How did you Stay focused and not settle with that much of a difference in lifestyle change.

Kent Depwe [00:07:06]:
Yeah, good question. And I guess you could say, I don't want to say I settled, but I guess I haven't done 2 million yet, so. Which I'm not sure how possible that is. I try my best, but yeah, I've been around the million. And I tell you what, it's one of those things where once you get a good taste of success, it's quite addicting. So once you kind of get to that level and kind of raise your standards for what you can do and what you should do, it's really hard to go backwards. So I'd say that's kind of been more. So it's pushing me.

Kent Depwe [00:07:30]:
It's like, okay, I know I can do a million dollars. This is what the new lifestyle I have. It requires basically from a financial standpoint and then going backwards to really hard to do. And then also just kind of the, I guess, competitive nature. I am definitely a competitive person. Played sports all growing up and the leaderboard is another thing that really motivates me. So getting number one one time, you can't sell for anything wise after that or it's really hard to.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:54]:
After we're done, remind me. I'll just connect you with one of my friends that does about 2 to 3 per year perm.

Kent Depwe [00:07:59]:
Yeah, yeah, you gotta get executive search for that, which I'm starting to dabble in more. But yeah, I've met a few people. There's another guy at Artisanal Talent, which is like exec search firm. He does like I think 3,4 million a year in perm, which is insane. So it's possible I'm trying my best.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:18]:
Well, okay, let's. For the listeners, let's take a few steps back. You just got started. You're fresh out of college. You were sitting in a position where most of us sat in. Why do you think your billings are different than 95 to 98% of the other recruiters two years into the field?

Kent Depwe [00:08:37]:
Yeah. So I would say the biggest thing where I've seen, yeah, I was at 20 for a while. And then here at Tima, which is, you know, 20, I think we had like 70, 80 employees. And then team, we have 250. So I've kind of seen and been around, I guess a lot of recruiters on both ends of the spectrum that has succeeded really well. And then also that have not got out of the industry, which I think the turnover in recruitment is something comical. It's like 60, 70% or something like that are out of the industry within two years. And the most common pitfall I see is almost the mental frameworks one holds themselves to.

Kent Depwe [00:09:09]:
Recruitment. It obviously is a sales job, but it's just such an emotional roller coaster at times that almost almost every single time where I see someone fail, it's because something bad happens to them, which, of course, bad things happen to us all. You know, a deal that you thought was going to go through, you know, the candidate backs out or the offer falls apart. Whatever happens, obviously it's a huge hit and you get really angry, sad. Whatever it is about it, it's all about how you respond. Where I see the people who fail, something bad happens to them, which is inevitable. And then they start kind of, I guess, feeling sorry for themselves in a way and just kind of get discouraged and it turns into a downward spiral where one bad thing happens, that offer falls apart. So then they get discouraged, and because they're discouraged, they work less and they're not as motivated, so then they have less opportunities and then they less deals.

Kent Depwe [00:09:56]:
And then next thing you know, they're blanking for months and months in a row and then they get out of it. And if you were to kind of switch that mindset where whenever something bad happens to you, it's hard to do. But I manually make sure whenever something bad happens, you actually flip it and work harder, where, okay, something bad happens, but now I'm going to work harder, push even further than what I would usually do. And then it typically comes around where, hey, one bad thing happens, next thing you know, a month later, a deal falls in your lap or a client comes back, whatever it is, and you can kind of switch that downward spiral to an upward spiral. Hey, something bad happens now you're working harder, you get more opportunities, you get more wins, you feel more confident, you get to work more, and you go upward instead of downwards, which I've seen time and time again. And all the people on my team and all the people I work with, whenever something bad happens to them, I would am in their ear constantly about that. I'm like, please do not let this discourage you. You go on a downward spiral really fast.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:49]:
Yeah, I mean, that's super important. It's just like the things that you think about and putting in the work afterwards. But let's take a few steps. Let's go back to your training. Like, you started this, were great at writing, you weren't great at sales, you weren't great at recruiting. Like, how did you start learning the craft and the Art of recruiting in your first recruiting role.

Kent Depwe [00:11:06]:
Yeah. So I feel like a lot of people are just concerned about, okay, what's the company like, what's the base salary, what's the commission, yada yada, where I think something that's super undervalued is looking at who you're going to be reporting into. And what I mean by that is if you're, you know, say one, two years in and the person you're reporting into is maybe a year or two older than you and doesn't have the best track record, I would really consider that as a huge variable considered to maybe another company is paying less on the base salary, less than commission. But say you're reporting to someone that's like a million dollar bill or you know, someone that's really, really strong, especially if you're early in your career. I would take that latter offer 10 out of 10 times because I almost attribute that to all my success, especially very early, where again, I didn't even realize this. I kind of just got lucky. And the person who I was reporting into back at 20 was a million dollar. I guess he wasn't quite a million dollar biller, but he's really close, very consistent.

Kent Depwe [00:11:55]:
Full desk, seven, eight. Okay. Really, really good. 20 was a pretty small firm. So I think our team started out like eight people in Covid. I think almost all of them left. So I basically had like a full year of just me and him, you know, working together. And because of that access and just being able to learn from someone like that just really expedites your entire career where if I wasn't reporting to someone that was that good, how would you learn? So that's something I got quite lucky on.

Kent Depwe [00:12:20]:
But something I try and pass off is, you know, the person you're born into makes a huge difference, especially in your career, just to upskill yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:28]:
Okay, I'm going to sound like an old fogey and maybe it might be because I am like almost 20 years in this game. Your first recruiting job, were you in the office or were you working remote?

Kent Depwe [00:12:38]:
I was in the office. Well, we were in the office and then Covid happened, so then we were remote. And then after Covid, probably in like Q1, Q2, 20, 21, then we did like a hybrid schedule, but for the first, I guess call it six months, we were in every day.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:52]:
Do you think you would've had the same success if you were 100 remote from the start?

Kent Depwe [00:12:56]:
No, no way. Especially from the start. I mean, now I'm remote and I could not even fathom going into an office. But again, that's at the point where, hey, I know what I'm doing. I've obviously, you know, I've learned and can do it on my own. But I cannot think of an almost worse situation where someone's new in recruitment, like either right out of college or save in less than one year being remote just because it's so much harder. It is possible, but it'd just be so much harder because a lot of what I learned was, you know, of course, lessons like sitting down, hey, this is how you do it. But a lot of the big things that I learned that took away is just, you know, being that office and then listening to my manager's calls.

Kent Depwe [00:13:31]:
How did he structure client calls, how did he structure candidate calls, how did he close deals, how did he sign new clients? And just being there in the office sitting right next to him and just being able to listen to that like true examples, that was game changing, honestly. So, yeah, it's funny, I absolutely would not go in an office right now, but looking back, I'm glad I did.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:50]:
So we're going to talk about, just for the listeners, we're going to talk about like your sales structure and like the business development and what you're doing. But before we go there, like you're, you're 25 billing a million dollar desk. Let me ask you this, like, did you deal with imposter syndrome? And if you did, like, how did you deal with it?

Kent Depwe [00:14:11]:
Yeah, I definitely. Yes and no. I'm an overall person that has a lot of confidence in myself, just kind of by nature. So I did slightly. But at the same time, when it lasted for a while, I feel like imposter syndrome is From like your 15 seconds of fame, you know, just a flash in the pan and then it goes away. That's when it really hits hard. But my first year, I guess I had it a little bit, but at the same time I was working quite hard for it. So I was able to justify like, hey, I'm meant to be here.

Kent Depwe [00:14:36]:
And then especially as you do it long, you know, you do your first million dollar year and then the next year you start really hot, then you do it again, Unposter syndrome goes away and you kind of just realize, hey, this is who I am now. Also, another really important piece of success is before I even got to, you know, my first million dollar year, something I just kind of repeated myself is I truly believe I'm the very best. Like just kind of having that mindset of I am very successful, even though I haven't done it yet. Makes it just a lot easier where success starts to come to you and have, like a manifesting way. I think I'm honestly a big, quite big believer in just kind of the mindset, the positive thoughts leads to a lot more positive outcomes compared to, you know, just being negative all the time. So. Yes and no, but it went away pretty quick for me at least.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:18]:
Were you writing that down or were you just saying it to yourself?

Kent Depwe [00:15:21]:
Yeah, actually, every year I've got this right by my desk. Every year I write down one of these. Basically just my goals for the year on New Year's every year. This one says, for this year, be top perm biller, bill $1 million, network 1 million. Make 800k plus and have my best physique in 2025. So I actually started doing that in 2020. Yeah, 2020. Where basically I understood the power of writing down your goals.

Kent Depwe [00:15:46]:
And just like, again, it's right there. I look at it every single day. It's just kind of like a nice reminder of why you do it, what your goals are, and it just kind of helps keep that positive mindset, positive juju flowing around.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:56]:
So your first year that you wrote down your goals and stuck it in front of your face, you started hitting them.

Kent Depwe [00:16:01]:
Yeah, exactly. It was actually quite shocking. I feel like a lot of the times, the manifestation, all that stuff, you see the videos and you're like, oh, it doesn't work. And then there's always people that say, oh, yeah, I started doing this and it worked for me. But you think it won't work for you. I. I just say, just try it. Because I was like, all right, screw it.

Kent Depwe [00:16:15]:
You know how much time and effort does write out your goals, actually do. And if it works, great. If it doesn't, whatever. And it worked pretty well. It's a scary thing how the universe works sometimes.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:26]:
Okay.

Kent Depwe [00:16:26]:
So you understand a lot of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:28]:
We definitely don't. Like, I'm working on doing some episodes on the subconscious and all that stuff in the future. And so stay tuned. But. Okay, so going back to your first recruiting job, like, heads down, you learned from one of the top people, you got lucky by landing with a great manager, but you also wasn't lucky that you took advantage of it.

Kent Depwe [00:16:49]:
Yeah, that's another big thing that I think is. Yeah, I guess people could call it lucky. And I feel you shouldn't look at my situation, say, like, oh, you just got lucky, and then just move on with it. A big Thing like to call luck is the luck is a combination of chance and opportunity. Where chance is okay, you roll a dice and you get a six like you don't know. But luck is where you get the chance. Like I just got lucky and you know, I got one offer out of college and luckily that my manager I was reporting to was very, very good. So I got to learn from them.

Kent Depwe [00:17:19]:
But there's a lot of people in my shoes where example our team started out with. When I first got hired at 20, our team was nine and then they all left. So there's another aspect where yes, I got lucky via chance that that happened. But at the same time you also have to realize the opportunity and actually take advantage of it, actually learn and actually try. Where at the same time, hey, yes, you can join, you can join a firm and be reporting into a million dollar biller, which is an amazing opportunity. But you actually have to actually learn and actually try and actually listen to actually take advantage of it. It's not just like, okay, great, you're pouring in a million dollar biller, now you're going to be one. No, there's a lot more to it than that.

Kent Depwe [00:17:56]:
So you have to actually take advantage of the opportunity to.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:59]:
Okay, so with that company, with that place that you're working at, why did you end up making a switch to a new opportunity?

Kent Depwe [00:18:08]:
Yeah, it was quite bold, which I like to do bold decisions every now and again. But basically what happened was I was there for two years again in 2021, build a million, made about 350, 2022, build a little bit more. I think it's about 1.1, 1.2 million and made about 500k. And then 2023 was coming around. And so 2021, 2022, super, super hot market. 2023 is in those years, especially within tech, which is heavily in what I operate in 2023, brutal market, at least for my clients. Like almost all of them were like, hey, not hiring anymore, no way. It was just really tough sledding out there.

Kent Depwe [00:18:43]:
And essentially what I thought was one, I made a ton of money in the past two years. So I had a ton of savings where if I didn't make any money for like two years straight, I could still afford my mortgage and rent and stuff like that. So I had a nice nest egg. Two, after doing a million dollars two times in a row, I felt really confident in my skills where I'm like, hey, I'm sure I could learn more, but at the same time I'm really confident in myself to be able to operate without, you know, a manager, essentially. And I kind of was at this point where I almost wanted to start my own firm, but at the same time, I didn't really want to be by myself and then also have to run, like, the back office and operations and everything. So I kind of stumbled across tima, which is kind of like that in between of, okay, you're running your own firm, you're commission only, but we do all the back office stuff and there's still like a community around you. And I was. It's kind of like a.

Kent Depwe [00:19:32]:
Honestly, the second I heard about it, I was like, sign me up immediately. Because the commission was one a lot stronger. And I never really cared about my base either. I was just purely, okay, what's the commission scheme? So the commission was about two times as good. And I could, you know, basically run my desk, make a lot more commission. And I had, you know, going commission only is a little bit scary. But I had a really good nest egg too. On top of that, a lot of my clients had left.

Kent Depwe [00:19:54]:
So I was like, okay, I'm going to start over anyway. Either stay at my current firm or if I leave, I'm starting over two, obviously, so might as well start over at a firm that pays me a lot more commission. So that was kind of my thought process. But, yeah, second I found out about it, I was like, sign me up immediately.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:07]:
Okay, so we're going to go deeper on some stuff. But real quick, for those that are listening, that have teams, what are some of the things that you think that could have been done to keep a top biller? Because I see this happen a lot. What could a team have done to keep somebody building a million dollars?

Kent Depwe [00:20:28]:
Great question. And yeah, they were not happy when I left, to say the least. And honestly, there's almost nothing they could have done. Frankly, I think the only thing I can think of now that maybe would have made me not even look around is offering an option where basically my last firm was base salary and then commission. Commission was kind of complicated, but more or less with your base plus your commission, whatever you build, you take home about 30%, 33%, or actually it kind of depended. But 30 to 40% essentially is what you would take home. Depends on how much you build, because it was tiered and whatnot. And I basically found another opportunity that paid me 80%, so it was really twice as much.

Kent Depwe [00:21:07]:
So I would think that if you're having someone that's looking to leave, especially a perm biller, where Contract, you kind of need a firm perm. You don't really need anyone. If someone's debating on leaving, I think the best thing would be almost to create a custom solution for them. When I tried to leave, 20 said, hey, there's a normal commission scheme. What would you think about going commission only and say we paid you like 60% or something like that. Even if it was less than 80%, I think I still would have stayed. But just having those flexibility for certain people, where some people need a base and lower commission, but also have options in your commission scheme to the people who don't want a base, they just care about commission to do like a draw or commission only and just get a lot more, say 50, 60% where that starts to make more sense to stay rather than risk and going by yourself. So if they would have done that, and honestly I probably could have talked them into.

Kent Depwe [00:21:58]:
I didn't really try too much, but if they would have done that, that would be something that would have at least tempted me, I think would work decently. Often if you're a leader and someone's trying to leave, just talk to them about commission, see what you can do and work something out.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:11]:
I've actually seen like one or two companies actually do that. They have either the base plan or a full commission plan. And a lot of people, once they start doing well, they're like, yeah, I don't want the base anymore.

Kent Depwe [00:22:20]:
Yeah. And some of them do. I love them. Do draws. And then like the lower you make your draw, the higher the commission is. I haven't seen too many on commission only, but again, some firms do do that and frankly, I bet those firms would lose a lot less of their top billers. Where my last firm, it was just one, One base salary, one commission. There's no changing it.

Kent Depwe [00:22:37]:
So yeah, those firms have it right. Where I think that's probably the best way to do it is have. Be flexible and have options. When you're first starting out, obviously you need a base, but once you get, you know, really ramping and you're really confident in your billings, all you really care about is commission. So just have those options at least for them to pivot over to.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:54]:
Okay, I want to jump into this starting over again. Like how did you. And well, this will definitely walk into the business development part of the conversation, but you literally had to start over again. But still, at the end of the year, you still had a million dollar billing for the year.

Kent Depwe [00:23:08]:
Not. No. So 2023. Yeah, I know that that'd been crazy. Starting over to a million from scratch, that's nuts. 2023, it wasn't a million. So 2021, 2022, both those were over a million. 2023, I want to say it was around 5, 600K, something like that.

Kent Depwe [00:23:24]:
And then 2024 was about 800K and then this year should be a million. And then in the past 12 months it's been a million. So it took me one, one ramp up year, essentially.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:33]:
Okay, let's talk about this ramp up here. Let's talk about that. So like you literally had to start over from scratch again.

Kent Depwe [00:23:38]:
Yeah, like whooply.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:41]:
Exactly. So what were some of the things that you're literally looking at? This blank new desk that had a big fat zero on it. You looked at your goals like in the corner. How do I start making this happen?

Kent Depwe [00:23:53]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:54]:
What were some of the first things that you did within the first 30 days?

Kent Depwe [00:23:58]:
Yeah, good question. So I just went heavy on the BD side of things. I've always been quite confident in my abilities to win new clients. It's not one of those that I have trouble with. So again, going back to my confidence of starting up on my own, I was like, okay, I know I can win new business. Where if I didn't have that belief in myself, I sure as heck would not have started up on my own because that would be a big problem. If you start up on your own, you can't win any business. But I was always quite good at it.

Kent Depwe [00:24:23]:
So I just kind of like, okay, I know how to do this. I've learned, I've won a lot of clients in my day. Let's just get back to it. And essentially within it takes a little bit to ramp up because you know, you win new business and then so you get a new job. And then I was doing a lot of churning as well where I'm much bigger on quality over quantity of clients. Where probably in 2023, I bet you I signed 40 MSAs easily. But a lot of the times, okay, great, you sign an msa, but then you actually find out that the client's no good, they're paying bottom the market, they're a little bit too picky, they move really slow, they're not very serious about hiring. And I would do my best to really try and weed those out as quickly as possible because that's the worst thing you can do is just, you know, focus a lot of energy on a client that's never going to hire.

Kent Depwe [00:25:05]:
So my entire plan for 2023 was just win as much new business as, as possible churn through the bad ones that you know, again, just are, are not a tier clients. And if the volume's high enough, where you'd almost have to have bad luck, where if you win 40 new clients, you almost have to have really bad luck to not have at least three to five really good ones. And that's essentially what happened where after turning through a lot of bad ones, I got probably four, I want to say, in 2023 that were really, really solid, hiring a lot, paying well, very sellable, moving fast. They were committed to hiring all that good stuff and then basically just took that to my next big year in 2024. And then this year is going to be a big one too.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:42]:
Okay, so let's break down this business development. What were you actually doing to get these new clients? Like what, what's working? What's your structure? Like, how does it look like?

Kent Depwe [00:25:51]:
Yeah, so biggest thing, I'd say probably about 50% of my clients are referrals and then 50% are just punting, so called where on the referral aspect there. It's honestly the easiest way down sales. When someone else refers me to another client, there's almost no negotiation whatsoever. They're like, okay, great, someone said good things about you. I trust them, I'll use you. No brainer. So that's something that I think not enough people really take advantage of and the opportunity to get referrals. It sounds really simple, but all it really is is just do a great job, be super responsive.

Kent Depwe [00:26:21]:
While my clients were, you know, in central time, a lot of my clients are on the west coast and they're texting me at like 8, 9pm I'm responding immediately. So just being super responsive, having great customer service, just being there when they need them. And then of course on the other end, just provide a great service on the candidate side of things too. Don't overwhelm them, don't send them, you know, five shitty candidates. And they're like, okay, this person's bad. Really try and operate super fast. Where I'll get a job on Monday, I'd have a shortlist by Wednesday. But I would also make sure that the candidates I'm sending over were very impressive.

Kent Depwe [00:26:52]:
Like I would send over a short list of three candidates. They'd say, oh wow, you found these in two days. And these are all amazing. That kind of builds your credibility. And then whenever I'd fill the role, they would say, wow, Ken, you did a great job. I wouldn't even ask for a Referral. Next thing you know, a week, month, two months later, I get a text from them, you know, introduce me to one of their other friends, essentially. Basically saying, like, hey, I heard this guy's hiring.

Kent Depwe [00:27:14]:
Ken's great. Did a great job for me. Here he is. So one aspect, referrals. And again, all you have to do is just do a great job and they just come to you. And then the second aspect, as far as just hunting for new business, I don't do much cold calling. I did when it was started from scratch because you kind of had to, and you have some success on that. But the time leverage is so low where you can spend an entire morning, entire afternoon cold calling, and you might get one essentially, and that's just all your time spent not sourcing for candidates.

Kent Depwe [00:27:43]:
What I like to do is kind of take a, A wide net approach, but also a sniper approach. Still cold call when you know, you know, it's. It's the right person, they're hiring the other candidate for them. But also, the email marketing side is really, really good for a lot of. It's automated. You can do a lot more volume and just kind of having both of those going at the same time where you get some sniping and you get some stuff that way. But then other times you're doing an email marketing campaign and I just get an email back saying, hey, you hit my inbox at the exact right time. We just got a meeting that we were talking about hiring and your email popped up.

Kent Depwe [00:28:14]:
Let's talk. I'm like, oh, great. You know, so having both is, I think the best way to do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:19]:
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Kent Depwe [00:28:41]:
Yeah, and NPCs are my favorite, but you have to do them right.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:44]:
So what is a right npc?

Kent Depwe [00:28:46]:
Yeah, so the right npc. I see this go badly so, so often, but my NPC is maybe it's back to my college days of writing quite well. But I think a big thing with NPCs is to lead with empathy. Just picture yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. They probably get 10 emails a day from recruiters. Their NPC emails. Think about what you would want to see as a hiring manager for an npc. And what I found that answer is, is a lot of recruiters, you know, send NPCs and they talk about how great they are, like, hey, I recruit in the space.

Kent Depwe [00:29:18]:
Like use me essentially. And that's not really as exciting and enticing, especially when you get so many of them. What I found works really well is basically pitching a one a really, really good candidate. Like they can't just be an average B tier candidate. Like find the best one. Especially on paper that's just super impressive. Like for example, on the AI and ML engineering side, I have a guy that's like a PhD from MIT Math Olympiad, like founded in an AI company. Like he's super, super impressive.

Kent Depwe [00:29:45]:
So someone like that on paper is what gets attention. And then also don't just blast out to everyone. Blast it out to the. I guess it's still high volume, but you don't want it to feel high volume. So I'm saying to companies that are actively hiring them, I do research, okay, this company's hiring AI engineer and this location and this candle is good for it. Great, send it to them. And then there's probably 20 other companies that are in the same way. So if you send a really good candidate to a hiring manager that has an open job and there's a candidate right there in front of them, a lot of times that's a lot more intriguing to actually solicit a conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:21]:
Okay, so I'm going to take a step back into the conversation that we had in the pregame chat and pulling that into our conversation, you're more of a generalist. Like you haven't really niched down. Like why are you more of a generalist? Instead of like going deep down the we'll say the artificial intelligence niche.

Kent Depwe [00:30:40]:
Yeah, and I, I guess it's hard to define that. So I guess you could say I'm niche to where a lot of my clients are, you know, hybrid startups a lot of times in the AI software, that kind of space. So similar type companies. However, I think the silly part is niching yourself into just one skill set like say just software engineers or just executive search or just sales, just marketing, where really I feel recruitment is a very foundational skill where it's super easily transferable. The intake calls are almost the exact same. It's just, okay, what problem is this person solving? What are they doing? What do they need to have years experience, comps, all that good stuff you're asking the same questions in an intake call. Whether it's for an AI engineer or for a marketing person or for a salesperson, it's all the same. Now it's okay, great, Go find candidates that match those criteria.

Kent Depwe [00:31:28]:
And I feel I really don't think I would have been able to bill a million dollars if I was very niche. Because a lot of the companies I work with, it'd be a founder and they say, okay, great, I need a cto. Okay, now I need a VP of engineering. Now I need a software engineer to build the product. Okay, great. Now the product's built. Now we need a salesperson to sell it. Ken, can you do that? Yeah, I sure can.

Kent Depwe [00:31:48]:
And then I'd place the CRO, the VP of sales account executives. And so it just makes it a lot more. Where you can build entire companies and do a lot more deals. Of course, where if I was niche in. And they said, hey, Ken, can you do a sal person for us? I said, no, I'm niche. Sorry, I can't do that. That's, you know, three, four deals you just tossed away for really no reason when you can surely do it. Of course, the first time you do it in a different vertical, it's going to take a little bit of a learning curve.

Kent Depwe [00:32:12]:
But then once you do a few of them, hey, great, now you know how to do it right? So it's just kind of being able to learn and it. It's really not too hard. Kind of moved around a lot, and it's pretty easy switch, frankly.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:21]:
Okay, so like, moving around a lot, like, how do you like, go market map? Like, how do you like, figure out, hey, this is a new niche. I have this awesome npc. Like, how do you map all these people out or these companies out so fast?

Kent Depwe [00:32:31]:
Yeah, so a lot of research, and the research is tedious, but at the same time decently easy. You can go on LinkedIn, you know, filter for jobs, open jobs with this job title and dislocation. They all pop up and then you look at the company and then you kind of look at the people and then just kind of figure out, okay, which would most likely be the hiring manager for said role. I guess decent amount of research is behind it. But at the same time, I kind of go on momentum as well, where if I just filled a marketing job, for example, I would go take the candidates that I didn't place that were still really strong and mark out the marketing people and then get a marketing job. And then maybe they have a software engineering job too, or maybe they have a product job. So it's kind of like taking the momentum of your last search and then using that to NPC out and win more business and just kind of so on and so forth.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:14]:
Okay. And like with all this stuff, like this is going to sound bad, but you haven't been in the game that long, but you've been doing great. But the crazy thing is like when you started in this game versus now when this podcast is being recorded, tech.

Kent Depwe [00:33:27]:
Has changed, really has.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:29]:
Like for us old fogies, you know, like still kicking around some stuff. But like how have you taken advantage of the changing tech on helping you get your job done? And what does your tech stack look like?

Kent Depwe [00:33:44]:
Yeah. So tech stack right now is LinkedIn recruiter, of course, hate them, but I can't live without them. They raised their prices again too. Oh gosh. They have such monopoly and they know it and they could charge me an ungodly amount. I'd still pay it because you need it. I hope one day something else comes out that's just as good, but haven't found it yet. So, linked to recruiter, of course, for the BD side of things, I used to use Zoom info.

Kent Depwe [00:34:05]:
I use Apollo now. Really, really good for creating email sequences and finding contacts and all that good stuff. And then probably recently, 6ish, maybe a year, I've gotten heavy into the AI tools which now that I use them, it's almost hard to imagine how I did this job without it. Where I use, you know, chatgpt, of course, Perplexity, especially on the research side of things where I feel like recruitment is, it's one of those things where it is not easy, but it is very simple. For sales, for example, sales recruitment 101 is okay, you have a company looking for a salesperson and they sell say an AI tool to the healthcare vertical. Okay, great. Really all you need to do, like they can say all these different hard skills and whatever. All you need to do is find another person that's currently working for an AI company that sells AI products into a healthcare vertical.

Kent Depwe [00:34:55]:
So find someone that is selling the same product to the same end client and doing it successfully. You know, president's clubs, you know, good track records, promotions, and that's really all it is. And that person will be a deal almost every single time and find three of them and one of them will be a deal. Software engineering, a little bit different products, very similar to find someone that's making the same product for the end client. So recruitment in that way is very simple, not easy but very simple. I find chatgpt, Perplexity, all that stuff really helps me do a lot of research. Where before it was just Google. Like I get a client and then have to Google, okay, who else is selling this product into this end client? Now type in a chatgpt and perplexity, the job, what they're selling, all that good stuff.

Kent Depwe [00:35:34]:
Give me a list of 15 competitors. Great. Now I have my poaching list. And now I just go find people doing that same job, doing it successfully after its competitors, and place them on over.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:45]:
So you've really seen the difference with AI.

Kent Depwe [00:35:48]:
Yeah, it makes the research side so much more efficient. Oh my goodness. Where it used to take me an hour digging through Google and just kind of like using my brain a lot more frankly to find out, you know, the potion there and what to look for and all that good stuff. Where now type in ChatGPT, double check with LifeCity, and it's done in five minutes, you know, so it's just made me way, way, way more efficient. As far as the candidate side especially, I use it as well for NPCs, where if I have a candidate, I'll put my resume into ChatGPT and say, hey, review this resume. What types of jobs and what types of companies would he be a great fit for? Gives me 15 of them. Perfect. Now I market this candidate out to those 15 companies and it's honestly quite impressive how smart that AI is, because a lot of times I'm looking at like, damn, this person is a great fit.

Kent Depwe [00:36:34]:
Perfect. Market them out. And then there you go.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:37]:
That's awesome. Well, you know, I want to take it another step back. Like, let's look at this. Like, you started at Teo when you were looking at starting at tea. Why didn't you actually go out on your own?

Kent Depwe [00:36:49]:
Yeah, I was close. Honestly, that was kind of my plan whenever I was thinking about leaving 20, my first plan was to just start on my own because I felt again, had the savings for it, have the skills for it. Figure out then, hey, keeping 100% with you would be amazing. What stopped me from it was I just kind of found Timo again randomly. I actually found them on a Facebook group. I'm in a Facebook group called Herc Headhunters Executive Recruiters, ESP's group. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in that too. And then I actually posted in there.

Kent Depwe [00:37:15]:
Cause I remember back when I was at 20, in like 2022 or something like that, I got a message from someone saying like, hey, we do commission only and we pay 80% on everything you bill, and it's Henderson mode and all that good stuff. And back in 2022, I just kind of ignored it because I wasn't looking. And then 2023, I was open to leaving, and I posted in that group. I was like, hey, I couldn't find the DM either. I was looking everywhere. I couldn't find it. And I posted in that group. I'm like, hey, this firm, I think they messaged me.

Kent Depwe [00:37:43]:
They said, 80% commissioner only. Like, has anyone ever heard of a firm like that? And then Mark Hardy, one of the partners at team, commented and said, yeah, it sounds like team up, you know, let's chat. And then here I am. But essentially the reason for it is Cowboy, I mentioned two earlier is, one, I'm a competitive person. So if I was by myself, there's no leaderboard. There's no one to high five when you do a deal. There's no, like, competitive community energy. I mean, I'd be fine, but it's just kind of not ideal, frankly, really honestly value that.

Kent Depwe [00:38:11]:
And then two, if you're by yourself, I feel like a lot of your time is spent just doing the operation side of the business. The website, the marketing, the paperwork, all that good stuff where Chima handles all that for me so I can focus on what I like and what I'm good at. It's just running a full desk. And then also, I guess the. The community aspect in terms of recruiters, where if you're by yourself and you needed help, like, say you got too many jobs and you need help on the candidate side, you'd have to, like, go to a third party or you'd have to hire your own, which is just kind of complicates things. It just makes it. For me, I didn't really want to do that. Team makes it super easy when whenever I have too many jobs, there's 250 people, I can just ping a few, and I know, and boom, this is quite simple.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:50]:
Okay, so you've mentioned a few times about leaderboard, your competitiveness, this and that. So, like, you're by yourself. Like, technically, you're sitting in your house in Austin, like, working remote. You've said a few times, like, offline, about how important it is to surround yourself with the best. So you're remote. How do you actually surround yourself with people that inspire you to do better and people that are better than you?

Kent Depwe [00:39:10]:
Yeah, is. Is remote. So I'm not technically surrounded, but that team has some really, really great people here. You know, every year there's several people making over a million dollars in commission and even if I'm not around them, you know, quite literally, you know, next to them, just kind of being in that environment, especially again looking at the leaderboard and seeing like, oh wow, this person's catching up to me, I got to work harder. That's enough for me at least. So at least being in the same company as people who are really great is good for me. Now again, when you first start you should be in the office with them. But once you kind of get going, at least where I am now, where I'm fully confident my skill set now, just being in the same company and just competing with them on the leaderboard, that's enough for me.

Kent Depwe [00:39:49]:
I'd say.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:50]:
Okay, so you're looking at a million dollar year this year. I think you said you're at 6 over 600 already.

Kent Depwe [00:39:55]:
That's commission I think. Whatever. I think I'm at like 800k I want to say.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:00]:
Okay, cool, awesome. So you're on track for a top builder like yourself, what does your day typically look like?

Kent Depwe [00:40:09]:
Yeah, there's going to be a hot take as well. I think it's so silly when I talk to a lot of people and they're like, oh, here's how I structure my day. And then you look at the structure and it's like so rigid where it's like, okay, from 8 to 10 I'm answering emails and from 10 to 12 I'm doing cold calls BD and then from 12 to 1 I'm at lunch and then now I'm doing candidate calls from this time. This time that is never even close to work for me. I remember back at 20 they kind of tried to do that. I didn't do it. Luckily my manager was cool with it too. Where I don't think the structured days in some professions you need it recruitment.

Kent Depwe [00:40:42]:
Every time I try and structure a day by 10am the structure is completely destroyed because every day I wake up and just everything happens at once, you know, okay, great, I'm answering emails right now and then a candidate call comes in, the client calls and gives me a job and then you know, someone books on a meeting for an entity call. Like nothing can be planned. You can try your best to plan, you can have a somewhat structure but really my only structure is wake up and then do whatever needs to be doing. You know, of course prioritize the urgent important stuff first, whether it's emails and then candidates and then whatever. The only structure that I kind of stick with is from essentially 9 to 5, I'm on emails, doing calls, and then my 5 to 9, 5 to 10, 5 to 11. That's when everything calms down. And that's where I actually have time to source research, you know, send emails and stuff like that. So really the only structure time is after hours from like 5 to 9, 5 to 10.

Kent Depwe [00:41:33]:
That's why I sent my LinkedIn messages. But from 9 to 5, like there's no structure. It's impossible. If I try to structure, say my structure was 10 to 12, I'm doing emails. Well, what if someone calls you and it's urgent? What if someone books an intake call? Like, I feel like it's almost a waste of energy to try and schedule when just a million things are happening and things change all the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:52]:
Okay, so like you just talked about sitting there sending messages on LinkedIn at like 10 o' clock at night. You know, for you, when you make decisions in life, there's a cost for everything that you do. What has been some of the costs on being a top performer?

Kent Depwe [00:42:06]:
Yep, there is a cost. And I think it's Alex Hermosi, if you know him, he phrases this pretty well, where everyone wants to be successful, everyone wants to make a lot of money. But it's almost like you're shopping at a store. You imagine, you see, okay, you're at a store, here's a million dollar biller, here's making this much amount of money, here's being financially free and you want to buy it. It costs something. And extremely accurate because it really does. You know, if I was working 40 hours a week, I would not even be remotely close to the success I have now. It costs a lot, it costs a lot of time, it costs a lot of energy, and it's definitely one of those things where it's almost a law of exponential returns, where if you work 40 hours a week compared to 50 hours a week, you think that, okay, it's only 10 more hours a week, maybe I'll make.

Kent Depwe [00:42:50]:
What is that, you know, 10, 20% more? Not the case. It's exponential where if you were difference between 40 hours a week versus 60 hours a week could be a 300k biller versus a million dollar biller. Like those extra hours just really add up extensively because it's what no one else is doing. Like very few people are doing 12 hour days. And so it just makes all the difference in the world as far as, you know, actually achieving that. And if someone else has found a way to Build a million dollars, make a lot of money in recruitment, doing 40 hours a week or less on perm. Let me know. Haven't.

Kent Depwe [00:43:22]:
So this is kind of my formula and it is a cost. A lot of energy, a lot of time, but for me personally, it's all worth it. I've got expensive hobbies, I've kind of accustomed my life to this high earning and I don't mind it. So it's one of those things where pay. I work a lot. At least you get paid really well for doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:39]:
Okay, so before jumping to the quick fire questions, like for those listening, I don't want this to come off as a brag session. I want this to come off as what is possible even at a young age.

Kent Depwe [00:43:52]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:53]:
What does the money actually look like?

Kent Depwe [00:43:56]:
Between 300 and 600 the past few years. This year I actually got a shot to do a million dollars commission. This year. Got a shot. It'll be a photo finish, but I've got a shot for it. So my normal is 300 to 500. Last year. Yeah, last year was like 500 ish, 650 so far this year and I think I could do a million.

Kent Depwe [00:44:17]:
It's gonna be a push, but I think.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:18]:
And that's a million dollars in commission, not a million dollars in billing, correct?

Kent Depwe [00:44:21]:
Yeah. So It'd be like 1, 3, 1.4, something like that in billing and then 80%. So a million commission, I've got a shot for it. It'll be close to a lot more 12 hour days, but I think I can do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:33]:
So we're going to kind of weave the quick fire questions into this. So you have a brand new recruiter that reaches out to you after listening to this podcast, they're like, they see the numbers, they see their commission, like structure and they ask you like, hey, what advice would you give to me to be a top biller like you? I'm just getting started in this game.

Kent Depwe [00:44:51]:
Yeah. How do you like, like literally run out of college?

Benjamin Mena [00:44:54]:
Like we'll just say like out of college or this is like their second career. Like they're brand new to recruiting, know nothing about recruiting except for their two week training.

Kent Depwe [00:45:03]:
Yeah. I would say if they've already joined the firm, because again, kind of the biggest differentiator for me was reporting into someone that was really, really good and then actively learning and listening to them and basically upskilling myself. So I would say if they don't have that right now, like say the manager is, you know, a 2,300k biller. Back in their day or whatever it is, that would be an issue, I guess. It's not impossible. It'd be really, really hard to learn how to be a top performer without learning from a top performer you could figure out by yourself. But shoot, that would take a really long time. So I would say, and maybe even if their manager isn't top performer, I guarantee you almost every recruitment firm has someone that's doing a million dollars or close.

Kent Depwe [00:45:41]:
Even if your manager is not that person, literally gravitate towards that person and try and learn all you can from them. So I'd say the biggest thing is to. And surround yourself with great people and be like a sponge. Ask questions, listen to their calls, do everything you can to just absorb as much information and skill as you can from a top performer. That's like by far the quickest, quickest way to success is just learning from people. It's. It's a complete skill game.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:06]:
Is there a book that's had a huge impact on your career?

Kent Depwe [00:46:10]:
Yeah, I'd say some of my favorites are one's called Gap Selling by Keenan Allen. That's actually a more rare one. There's a few others by Brian Tracy, Robert, Giovanni. A lot of those, like sales and persuasion books are super helpful because I feel like some people don't think recruitment is a sales job, but we're literally convincing people to quit their jobs. Like that's like the biggest thing, you know, massive, massive risk. Hey, quit your job currently and join this other job, join this other company. It's a massive. If you don't treat like a sales role, you're going to lose out on a lot.

Kent Depwe [00:46:42]:
So really stop pretending like it's not a sales role and read a lot of books on just human psychology, sales, persuasion, all those different things, and you'll get a lot of tips from that. Where a lot of those books have helped me a ton in, you know, winning a business, closing deals, things like that. And I'd say Gap Selling by Keenan Alley is my favorite on it.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:01]:
Okay. Favorite rec tech tool, ChatGPT.

Kent Depwe [00:47:05]:
Besides linked to recruiter, because I need LinkedIn recruiter, but that's kind of obvious. So besides linked to recruiter, ChatGPT. Okay. By far the one I need.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:12]:
You've been in the game a short time and you've seen the game change a lot. What do you think is the future with AI and recruiting?

Kent Depwe [00:47:18]:
Yeah, good question. I think it's quite exciting. I actually saw a podcast, probably who it was once. It's like it wasn't Sam Altman. It was one of those guys, maybe it was the founder of Scale or something, where, you know, AI is going to change our lives and the entire workforce massively. It has a bit, but it really hasn't as much as it will, I think within the next five years. Where I think a lot of people are quite scared about just the recruitment industry as a whole. Where I think it's going to change and be good for.

Kent Depwe [00:47:47]:
And I feel like this goes across almost every industry where the top, you know, 1 to 2% of people are going to do extremely well, but then the kind of bottom middle are gonna get frankly replaced. But where I see the recruitment industry going is it's gonna go almost into like a sports agent in a way where a sports agent for, you know, like LeBron James or something, they have a really good candidate, say LeBron James, and then they market them out to all these companies that want the top talent and then LeBron James gets paid a ton of money and then the sports agent gets a lot of money for that. I think with AI replacing so many people's jobs and only the top, highest skilled people being left, recruitment's going to almost transform into more of a sports agent. Like where it's like, hey, I've got this one really good candidate. They're going to get paid millions of dollars and you get a huge fee for it. So that's kind of where I see it going. I saw a podcast talking about, I'm like, that sounds about right. Honestly, if a lot of the workforce goes away and that's all that's left is these super high value people.

Kent Depwe [00:48:41]:
This can be a sportsation kind of crosshair. You could say, okay, you know, you've.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:45]:
Only been in the game for five years total.

Kent Depwe [00:48:48]:
Six.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:49]:
Okay, six years total. But like you've had so many conversations and so many things that bill as much as you have over these six years, like what is one of the biggest challenges or failures that you had to work through?

Kent Depwe [00:49:01]:
Yeah, I'd say time period that was the toughest was 2020, obviously. And that was also a fun fact. First full year recruitment because I started 2019 in August and then, yeah, it was normal for a bit. Then March 2020, Covid and my goodness, that was. I'm not sure if we'll have another market like that for the next hundred years. But in a weird way it helped me. It was a huge challenge because, you know, you're in recruitment then too, you know how brutal it was. And I feel like with that being my first year, it Kind of really ingrained a lot of good foundations into my skill set where it was just so hard.

Kent Depwe [00:49:35]:
No one was hiring, so it was extremely hard to win a new business. And the people that were hiring, they weren't hiring very many. And everyone was on the market, so they're super, super picky. And that being my first year was just a pure grind. And it almost forced me just to really build those great foundational skills of recruitment to then in 2021, 2022, when the market heated back up, I kept those same skills and kept the same kind of work ethic, but in much higher market. I think in 2020 I built like 200k. I basically was doing the same amount of work and then I build a million the next year just doing the same things but in a much better market.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:05]:
I love that. See you doubled down on your work. I started a podcast.

Kent Depwe [00:50:10]:
Yeah, I probably worked about. Actually I probably worked a little bit more in 2021, but yeah, 2020, God, that was working hard as hell for literally 200K. And I made like 60K.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:21]:
I love that though. Okay, so you know, with you being on the leaderboard at your current organization, like you're out there on social media, you probably get asked, you know, with the success you've had so early, you probably get asked a lot of questions like, you know, what kind of business development? How does your MPC read? Like what's in your email? What does your sequence look like? How do you structure your day? What is the secret to being a million dollar biller and what kind of business developer? Okay, looking past all those questions, what do you wish a recruiter would actually ask you and what would be that answer?

Kent Depwe [00:50:51]:
Very good question, I would say, because again, all those are very valid questions. So they are good questions to ask. And frankly, I asked those same questions a lot of times back in my earlier career. So still keep asking those questions because they are valuable but something that I don't get much but I wish they would and it's more so less people ask me and I'm just basically me just telling them because they need to know is just what mental framework I hold myself to to be successful. And I kind of talked about this earlier where the biggest thing that I see, almost everyone who fails in recruitment follows the same pattern of the, the downward spiral. As we were talking about, something bad happens, it's going to happen to everyone all the time. This morning, by the way, I had a deal drop out and then I have another one going later. So like it tried even to me, bad things happen all the time.

Kent Depwe [00:51:35]:
And it's how you respond to those bad things. And the mental framework of, okay, a bad thing happened, you have to double down, you have to work harder. You cannot let it affect you. No matter what, whether you're having the worst day ever or the best day ever. Your KPIs, metrics, and all that good stuff should stay the exact same. You have your level and you know it works. You're doing it no matter how you feel. Because every single time the people who fail in this industry, a bad thing happens, they get sorry for themselves.

Kent Depwe [00:52:00]:
They start, yeah, working less and then more bad things happen and they're doing less work, so they believe in less. And then just goes in this downward spiral where if you just stop it, ride that first one, work harder, you start going to an upward spiral. You're working harder, more good things happen to you, you're winning more business, you're doing more deals because you're working harder, you get more confident, and then you start working even more, and then you can't see the returns, and then you go on this upward spiral. So no one ever asked me about that. I tell everyone whenever I get a hold of them, because it's so, so important, I think, really undervalued. It's just the mental framework, essentially, is almost everything in the space.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:36]:
Love that. Well, man, we've covered so much. I think we're, you know, probably going to have you on in about another year to really just double down on some of these conversations. But before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Kent Depwe [00:52:49]:
Really gone through a lot about giving all my gold so far. So if someone's listening to this, please actually implement it and you'll. You'll do amazing. But, yeah, I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that we haven't really covered. We've unpacked a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:59]:
Okay. And so if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Kent Depwe [00:53:04]:
Yeah, honestly, I should be more active on social media and whatnot. But I guess on LinkedIn, I'm decent, the most active. But there's not too much on there, but on LinkedIn. Kent underscore, Depew. And I'm at Tima. Follow me on Instagram. But again, I honestly should. Should take a page out of your book and be a lot more active on socials and whatnot.

Kent Depwe [00:53:20]:
Oh. I mean, it's not the most entertaining or active, you could say.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:25]:
It's also, we are Kind of a little more focused on billing. Yeah.

Kent Depwe [00:53:30]:
Tell you what, you know, don't go.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:32]:
Down a rabbit hole if you don't have to.

Kent Depwe [00:53:34]:
Yeah, I, I agree. Maybe later when I go like part time or something. Yeah, right now I barely have time to take a piss most days, much less anything else.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:42]:
Don't waste your time on social media, but at least in case somebody wanted to follow you on like LinkedIn, they can definitely like follow you there and just watch what's happening.

Kent Depwe [00:53:48]:
Follow me on LinkedIn and hey, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm one of those where it's big believer in karma, you know, put good out in the world and it comes back to you. So anytime anyone either at TEMA or just people I've known in the past ask me tips what they should do in certain situations, you know, follow up on this call, LinkedIn's by far the easiest way to reach me. I'm on that thing 24 7. So DM me there. Happy to talk through any of the technique like this.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:09]:
Cool.

Kent Depwe [00:54:10]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:10]:
So Kit, I just want to say thank you. I know we chatted online. I'm glad this actually came true and we made this happen because it is such an important thing that I think a lot of people don't realize when they get in this game with a very brand new what is actually capable and what's actually possible. Because so often we just look at the, look at the person over there and they're like they've been in the game for 25 years, of course they're successful.

Kent Depwe [00:54:30]:
Yep. I thought something else, by the way, something else to take into consideration with the recruitment career in general. And I don't think many other industries offer this is really all it takes is one. And by that I mean all it takes is one really good client to change your life. And that's just something that I kind of always held onto where, I mean, what other industry? I guess there, there probably is some, but recruitment is definitely one of them where it takes one good client to change your entire life. I met one guy was probably years ago where he was in recruitment for like 20 years and he had one client that entire time. And it was like, I think it was Wrangler jeans or something like that. And he made 2,300k a year for 20 years straight off one client.

Kent Depwe [00:55:10]:
Okay, that's a very, you know, rare example. For example, in 2021, the client that changed my life, you could say is Gopuff. If you've heard of them, that like mobile app. I messaged the head of ta, which I'm close with. I'm like, you guys bought my house, by the way. Like, all it takes is one. And again, it does take a little bit of luck, but if you have enough volume, you're going to get lucky. It's just like, it's quite loading math.

Kent Depwe [00:55:30]:
If you reach out to this many people over this time frame, like, you're going to get a great client that hires a lot, that pays you a lot of money. And I think that's something that kind of motivated me as well, is like, okay, I don't have that one yet, but keep going. And all it takes is one client and can quite literally change your entire life. I think that's something that maybe not everyone realizes, like how close they are to having massive success in this industry is really just one. And just keep going, you'll get that one eventually. It has to happen.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:57]:
Okay, that's it. We're leaving it on that thought. One client, one client in 2025 can completely change your life. Go get it, guys.

Kent Depwe [00:56:07]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:08]:
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Kent Depwe [00:57:52]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed hit, subscribe and leave a rating.