From Survival to Seven Figures: Pree Sarkar’s Blueprint for Building a Million-Dollar Recruitment Desk

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
The Elite Recruiter Podcast has multiple summits coming up that you need to make sure that you are registered for. We have the AI recruiting summit 2025 coming up and on top of that, finish the year strong. These two summits are going to help you move the needle, help you achieve your goals, help you achieve your dreams and make 2025 the year that you started out and you want it to be. Make sure you get registered and also stay tuned. Got something cooking for you guys. Working on another project that you guys.

Pree Sarkar [00:00:26]:
Are going to absolutely love.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:28]:
All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon.

Pree Sarkar [00:00:31]:
Coming.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:31]:
Coming up on this episode of the.

Pree Sarkar [00:00:33]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast, I just want to say that I think recruitment has been the greatest personal development opportunity that I've ever had and it's really critical that you elevate yourself and the value that you add because playing from a level 10, the give, get and the influence that you have is so much different from playing from a level 2, 3 or 4.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:04]:
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. I'm so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because we're going to talk about how to build that million dollar desk. We're going to talk about the things that the shifts, the shifts in identity, the shifts in the processes, the shifts in everything that you need to do for you to hit that million dollar desk. And here's the thing, like most recruiters, never touch it, never get close. It's more than 99% of recruiters do not hit that million dollar per year desk. So I'm so excited about the guest today who's going to share how he did it, the things that he had to do, the differences that he had to make to make it happen. So welcome to the podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:57]:
Pretty.

Pree Sarkar [00:01:58]:
Thank you so much, Ben. Big fan of the show, very excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:01]:
It's so awesome that we get the chance to chat. I know we got a chance to meet in person twice and the conversations just kind of are leading up to this podcast interview.

Pree Sarkar [00:02:14]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:16]:
Well, before we get started, quick 30 seconds about yourself for all the listeners based in Australia.

Pree Sarkar [00:02:22]:
Started out in tech sales, then into leadership redundancy, built a million dollar desk. It's more now, but have just been a big fan of process, identity and making the shifts, you know, going 10x time after time. That will help you build the life that you want and the desk that you want.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:42]:
So I'm excited about this and you know, well, it's the million dollar question. I know this isn't the original career that you started off in, so let's talk about that. How did you even end up in this? Lay it of misfit toys.

Pree Sarkar [00:02:56]:
Love that. Misfit toys. So true. The gfc. I was in my dream job as the head of country sales with a team of 23 sales reps and two sales managers in Australia. I thought, you know, everything I wanted at that point professionally I had. And then they cut the division and 200 jobs went. So I had two kids under five, a new mortgage and by choice were a single income family at the time.

Pree Sarkar [00:03:25]:
And there wasn't anywhere else to go to immediately. So I had to put food on the table and started consulting and found my way into recruitment.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:34]:
Wait, wait, so like you were in your dream job, you were happy, and then you got hit with a layoff. And how did like consulting turn into recruiting?

Pree Sarkar [00:03:46]:
Great question. I was at a breakfast once sitting with this person, he owned three businesses and he said, you seem really excited about sales and sales management. And I said, yeah, you know, so he said, why don't you come and help me? You know, my business is stuck in the 80s back then, so, you know, old school business. We need transformation, modernization. Will you come and spend some time with me? And so I did. And that started with consulting. But I noticed that the main problem in this five to $10 million business was the people. It was their salespeople.

Pree Sarkar [00:04:24]:
And that's something that I knew natively, meaning I'd been a sales rep for seven years. I'd been a sales manager and managing sales managers for seven years. So 14 years. I said, I know how to recruit people. I know how to recognize, engage and recruit these people. So that's how I started recruiting for them. And then that became a problem. Everyone else I started seeing the blue car that I was wanting to buy everywhere.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:51]:
Okay, so did you start like technically with that company or is this like literally the launch of your business?

Pree Sarkar [00:04:58]:
That was the launch of my business. I haven't been an employed recruiter ever. So I am the perfect corporate escapee. Not by choice, but by. I've been pushed into this and I've got to feed my family and I've got a mortgage to pay. I actually Ben, I remember today, you know, I wrote to the bank saying I did not have enough money for my mortgage and I needed. It was called a mortgage holiday. I asked for Six months.

Pree Sarkar [00:05:21]:
They gave me four months. And I had to figure out real quick where that money was going to come from come month five.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:29]:
So you realize this was a problem. You were consulting in there. Like, this is gonna sound stupid, but like, like you worked for some large companies, so you had this infrastructure on how to bring people in. Like, it wasn't something that you had to go figure out. Like, how did you start to learn this business? Or is it just on the fly? Just like, okay, I'll help you here, I'll help you here. Like, what did you do?

Pree Sarkar [00:05:49]:
Yeah, so I used to be a sales manager and also was the sales trainer because they didn't have budget for two heads. I was the sales manager and sales trainer. And basically I had learned from very early on that I could go take something that was hard and make it easy by building a step by step process in three to seven steps. And that was the genesis of my idea around consulting. So if I can do a diagnostic around their planning process, people and performance, these four areas, I can charge them a fee and put some food on the table for my kids, right? So I think $350 an hour back then I'd find these gigs for, you know, 10, 20 hours and fix problems for companies. And people loved it, but it wasn't sustainable. So they were nice little, you know, three to five, $7,000 hits. But I needed more regular work.

Pree Sarkar [00:06:50]:
And when I saw how much they were willing to pay for recruitment, I was like, I'm in the wrong business. I've got to become a recruiter.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:59]:
So did you, like, actually, like during these, like these deep dives in these companies, did you see some of the checks they were paying recruiters?

Pree Sarkar [00:07:06]:
Yes. So these were small businesses, right? These were, you know, five to $10 million companies, 20 to 30 people. And I basically do an assessment and I'd get paid a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks to figure out their revenue strategy. But they were paying $20,000 checks to recruiters. And I was like, heck, a, I'm in the wrong business, and B, I understand the person that they're trying to hire really, really well. And as a hiring manager with 23 reps, I was recruiting every month of the year. So basically it was like, I've got this, you know, I know how to do it. But actually there was so much I didn't.

Pree Sarkar [00:07:46]:
But that was the initial misguided, you know, confidence. But sometimes confidence will take you places where, you know, capability won't.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:55]:
Well, I mean, that confidence is definitely taking you down an exciting road. So as you started figuring this out, this like, hey, you know what, the recruiters are making way more money than me. This looks way more sustainable, way more doable. Like, when was your first true recruiting client and recruiting check, how'd you get that one? Was it just a flip of one of your customers?

Pree Sarkar [00:08:15]:
Yes, it was with my existing customer. They weren't happy with whom they were getting. And I basically said, let me do that for you. And that was the beginning. And then I had to figure out how to go and find these people. So I didn't know anything at the time other than putting up a job ad, you know, and then had to figure out everything else in terms of how to headhunt people. So I definitely maybe took a lot longer in the beginning, you know, my first few years. But as long as there was enough to pay my mortgage, send my kids to school, I had the luxury of figuring things out over a period of time.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:54]:
So you spent a few years just like kind of grinding, figuring out when did you start actually turning on the learning about the industry?

Pree Sarkar [00:09:02]:
I think it was my first recruitment assignment, I think was within three to four months, right? Where I from, you know, I doubled my business by going from one client to two clients, right. So I started looking for more recruiting clients. But in truth, I think for my first year I billed maybe 52,000, but my second year I billed 250,000. And that was combined with consulting and, and some training and recruiting, at which point I decided I was going to let go of the consulting and training because this is the key point around building a million dollar desk. You have to let go of 80% that doesn't lead to where you want to go. And you've got to choose the 20% that takes you towards what you want in the next three to five years. So I may not be a lot of things, but I would say I am fairly intentional about what do I want in the next three to five years. You know, you can call it a dreamer, a visionary or, you know, whatever, but basically I'm always filtering everything today saying, how is this serving the future that I'm trying to get to?

Benjamin Mena [00:10:13]:
Well, let's take a step back. Like that second year of the 252,000, which great growth from, you know, not knowing anything to doing that. When you're sitting down looking at everything and you're like, you know, 80, 20, like, I need to focus on the 20%. I need to get rid of 80% at that point in time, like, what was that 20% that was actually making the difference.

Pree Sarkar [00:10:33]:
It always has and always will be. Wait for it. Business development. You can get someone else already work. That's right. Bd. Bd. Bd, right.

Pree Sarkar [00:10:49]:
More bd. The cure to all problems in life as a recruiter. That's true.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:55]:
And it's one of those things, like I see a lot of people throughout time, like, you know, it's BD is just like, it's one of the harder parts of recruiting sometimes or most of the time. So like a lot of people fill up their day or their desk with all these other things. When did you actually just start, like offloading everything else so that way you could become that BD specialist?

Pree Sarkar [00:11:17]:
Yeah. So I'll go back to a question that I didn't completely answer. Is that when I started finding roles that were challenging to fill, Obviously every problem makes you ask new questions of yourself. Right. How do I find this person? Where does this person exist? How do I get to them? And so that's where the need for learning begins. And I used to follow Mark Whitby and his Big Biller podcast at the time and whatever I could get, you know, I couldn't afford at times a coaching session, but I could at least buy the, you know, hundred dollar Big Biller session with eight episodes. And today we've got, you know, the elite recruiter podcast. I wish I had that back then.

Pree Sarkar [00:12:01]:
But long story short, it was just unstructured learning, immersing, you know, taking, you know, two or three things out of every session that I listened to and just continuously trying to get better every week. Because something that I learned early in my sales career was this, is that if you look after the numbers, the numbers will look after you. That was actually one of the first things my sales manager told me.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:28]:
If you look after the numbers, break that down. What does that actually mean?

Pree Sarkar [00:12:32]:
So especially for us recruiters, yes, simplistically it sounds like volume, but basically every day, you know, whether I hope we're not a 9 to 9 recruiter, though some are. If you're a 9 to 5 recruiter, the numbers are the things that you're doing. So for example, if you look after the BD outreach, every day, you're going to have fewer feast and famine months. But if you spend all your time recruiting, you are going to have feast and famine. I've had full quarters where I've blanked out, right? Four big deals all fell through early stage. So I realized that at the end of the day, the only thing that I can control, I can't control candidates, I can't control clients beyond a point. I mean, but I can control how many people I reach out to, the conversations I have, what action am I responding to, what signals am I looking for? How do I win or lose a job at the job intake, not at the candidate offer stage. Most jobs are won and lost at the intake stage depending upon your ability to get both a, you know, exclusive trusted relationship with the hiring manager.

Pree Sarkar [00:13:48]:
Right. So look after the numbers. So that can mean just BD, but it can also mean the number of LinkedIn posts that you do. If you look at my profile, I'm very intentional about making LinkedIn posts that engage with my target audience, which is senior VPs of SAS companies. Right. So that's another number I look at. You know, we grade jobs abc. A is exclusive with hiring managers, whereas C is multiple recruiters only working with talent.

Pree Sarkar [00:14:21]:
Right. So if you look, if you get good with the numbers and are doing the right numbers first in the day, you're going to have a healthier desk.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:30]:
So I love that. Good breakdown. I couldn't let you get away without digging deeper on that. So you started growing, you started learning. What was the point that you actually is just like, hey, I need help, I need to grow.

Pree Sarkar [00:14:44]:
Yeah. I think that if we break it down into three distinct phases, that it's not a one time, but we kind of go through. Phase one is survival, phase two is sustainable and phase three is scalable. Right. So number one, stage one is survival. You know, should I go and apply for another job? And that quarter where I had, you know, four deals worth 120,000, 30,000 piece, when that fell through, I literally didn't have anything in the bank. And I was like, maybe I should go and look for a sales VP job. That's what I was.

Pree Sarkar [00:15:27]:
Right. That was in year two. I've had one moment in 15 years where I said, maybe I should go get a job because this is just extremely volatile. It's depress pressing, you know, it's so survival. I think when we got.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:41]:
Pause right there, pause right there. Let's pause on the survival thing. Like, because there's, you know, over the last few years, it's not been the easiest market for everybody. So, like, you saw the opportunity, you saw what recruiting could possibly do, but you just had everything blanking out for months on end. Like you're sitting there having this, like, internal dialogue and this internal debate, like, how did recruiting still win during that?

Pree Sarkar [00:16:08]:
That's great. So I'll say this again and again. When in doubt, zoom out, right? When you are overwhelmed, you're usually hugging a tree. That's the problem. Rather than looking at the forest, which is everything else. So what do I want? I want to build a lifestyle of freedom and flexibility that supports my family, that I can do what I want, when I want, where I want, with whom I want. That's the dream that we are working towards, right? But that's the big picture. And going back to getting another job didn't take me there.

Pree Sarkar [00:16:46]:
So I had to succeed. I have to survive not only for myself, but my kids, my future self in that. So to do that, I need say, okay, I don't get to escape this problem, you know, because I can't tell you this was not just year two. Recruiting is a roller coaster, but you need to build layers of redundancy, meaning you've got, I'm solving a problem now for a team of eight, not for a team of one. I've solved the one person problem, right? So, you know, when you're in the 1.5 to 2.5 million billings, it's a different issue from a, you know, 100 to a $300,000 billings. But basically the volatility also reduces. So I'll come back to that survival. I just, when in doubt, zoom out.

Pree Sarkar [00:17:31]:
I want to make this work. I need to make this work. So I have to make this work. Which means I've got to go and find new jobs. I've blanked out. I've got to use the credit card, and I didn't borrow money from anyone. So it was two credit cards and just month to month, week by week, day by day, looking at when that check comes in and when I can delay payments. I've paid a lot of interest payments, far too many to stay alive.

Pree Sarkar [00:18:00]:
But then that has allowed me to even have. If I didn't get that at the a hundred thousand level, I wouldn't have had the million level, right? So you've got to figure out how to survive. But take action. Take action. So survival is step one. And in that survival, you're, you know, managing the numbers. Right? It's easier to recruit on a live job. It's harder to sit and make, you know, 30, 40 cold calls every day.

Pree Sarkar [00:18:28]:
So I wouldn't get my coffee until I had made 10 cold calls. I wouldn't start recruiting until I'd made my 30 cold call. You know, it's just little games. I learned this from Scott Love, and I was so excited to see him in Vegas at the Pinnacle Conference And I said, scott, I held him with his hands, with both hands. I said, scott, I have had the benefit of so much free coaching from things I've learned listening to you. So thank you. But, yeah, that's how you just survive.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:54]:
And when did you start transitioning to the next phase?

Pree Sarkar [00:18:59]:
Yeah, I think that basically, you know, if you're willing to do more of what worked, less of what didn't work, you're going to have another month. Another month, Another month. So I think that rather than just throwing my hands up, I had to keep figuring things out. From trying to speak at small business events, going to the local business chamber, to doing mail outs with, you know, at the time it had, what do you call it, Hard boiled confectionery. And there was some cheesy message about making that next year sweeter. And people said that it arrived in the mail with ants. I followed up and I called this prospect, you know, I sent you a mail about making the next month or year sweeter. And he's like, yeah, I got that in the mail with ants in the envelope.

Pree Sarkar [00:19:46]:
But you know what, you got to try stuff. You got to try stuff and at the end, do less of what doesn't work until, you know, you go from one job to three jobs to maybe one client and three clients. And, you know, so it's the big picture of survival, sustainability and scalability. But then within that, okay, I've got a whole bunch of 15 different jobs. What do I want to specialize in? You know, so I went from specializing in, you know, so that's how you start finding your niche. I didn't leave a previous recruitment agency with a hundred relationships and start my own. So I've taken a much longer route to figuring this out. But it's changed who I am because literally you can throw me a problem and I will try and figure it out how to come back and solve it.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:37]:
So like, around that time period, going from like one survival to the next phase is when you started figuring out the niche.

Pree Sarkar [00:20:44]:
That's right. And I found that when I had conversations with sales managers, for starters, that they're like, ah, you understand exactly what I do, right? So identity. The first thing that I had to do was from, you have a job, you know, calling around, asking for job orders to understanding, hey, you know what, I'm an experienced sales VP who has run a $20 million business. So when I call these guys, I'm not going to behave like some, you know, rookie recruiter who's just trying to survive. I'm Going to speak to them at the same level. And you know, again, shout out to Scott, Love, you know, about really getting your identity. Who are you and what's the value that you bring and being able to get that in 30 seconds. And I'll tell you what, I say this.

Pree Sarkar [00:21:34]:
I said, you know, hi, Ben, we haven't spoken before. My name is Pre. I'm one of the rare few recruiters who used to be an account exec, then a sales manager, and now I recruit salespeople and they're like, ah, I see what you know. So you gotta get through quickly about who you are. And you know, I'm not the next guy, the next guy. I am the guy who used to do the job. I was the candidate. I was the hiring manager.

Pree Sarkar [00:21:58]:
Now I'm the recruiter. Now try and beat that. In terms of the 20 voicemails from.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:02]:
Other recruiters, I can see that during that time period before you figured out your niche was going to be like salespeople, did you get jobs focusing on other things?

Pree Sarkar [00:22:12]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:13]:
And as you started narrowing down on your niche, did you have to start saying no to those very hard?

Pree Sarkar [00:22:18]:
Yes, absolutely. Even if somebody was going to pay me a, you know, to say no to my client, who was going to pay me $3,000 to come and just give them some advice with no implementation, just. It's very hard to say no to good money where people, you know, want your advice. So, yes, But I knew that between that $2,000 consulting check and the $20,000 recruiting fee, I knew which one I would choose and which was getting me to my next stage. So essentially I went from, you know, year two was 250, year three was 320, year four was 450, year five was 560. And by then I had gotten another person with me. You know, I stopped pinching myself like, this is real. You know, this is actually working.

Pree Sarkar [00:23:06]:
I think somewhere between the 300 to, you know, and this is real. So it took years for it to catch up. Like, I am actually a business owner and along the way continuously refined. I think by nature I'm a continuous learner. So I found that, you know, salespeople and then within salespeople, I found that some industries were going down the drain because at that time I was general to the tech industry where, you know, there was continuous investment and innovation. And having lived and worked in the US as an account exec for an Oracle consulting partner, I kind of used that. So I then started saying one of the very few Recruiters who used been an A and a sales manager with an Oracle consultant. And you say Oracle consultant partner, they're like, oh, okay, I understand.

Pree Sarkar [00:23:49]:
You understand exactly the pain I'm going through. Right. So that was my shift from all sales, all industries to sales in tech. And so love that. Started then getting a lot more yeses, but that may be a hundred calls and now I'm getting five yeses instead of one or two. Right. But that compounds. So it was, you know, I think you then get out.

Pree Sarkar [00:24:18]:
And then the question became I've got my calendar book from 7am to 7pm on weekends. I still have jobs to recruit on and I can't wait for my wife to go out with the kids so that I can get some work done without getting into trouble, you know, And I'm constantly wired. I'm thinking about this when I go, you know, wake up in the middle of the night, I'm thinking about it and I'm like, okay, this is unhealthy. I have got to figure a way out to go to the next stage. We have been now sustainable, let's say, you know, after year two and a half, three. So that's when I made my next shift into.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:54]:
Yeah, I love that. So the next shift is sustainability. You know, the numbers started being real. You had to pinch yourself and be like, oh crap, I actually have a business. I am now going from just like the solo operator to I own something.

Pree Sarkar [00:25:12]:
That's right.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:13]:
Like what were some of the things that like you started doing that was like your first hire? Right? It was around this time.

Pree Sarkar [00:25:19]:
That was around when so I went from, you know, I'm solo, I'm sustainable, I can see this working. But having worked, having seen myself successfully operating with larger teams at a larger level, I was like, I know I can do more. So step one was to then reduce my risk through delegation. So when I say reducing your risk through delegation to increasing sustainability, what I mean by that is actually I found that if I was recruiting on one job and I placed one candidate, but I called 35 candidates, there were 34 people that immediately, unless I could MPC them out, I didn't get any benefit from that. Meaning I couldn't use that immediately to convert into revenue. So what I did was I got my first recruiter to basically do the candidate side for me. And that's what I'd started hearing from a very few back then, very few recruiters talking about, you know, the two headed recruiter. But that immediately opened up six hours a day where I was not recruiting.

Pree Sarkar [00:26:33]:
So it took time. You know, it's everything is hard to find. I feel like I've done everything wrong the first time around. But then you suck less as you go along if you're learning and are willing to try.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:44]:
That is so true. I think that's like one of the differences, though that I've seen between like some of these top billers and the recruiter that's still average. It's like the, hey, I'm going to suck, but I'm going to keep on sucking and I'm going to go through more sucking and then I'm learning as I'm sucking and then I'm taking that learning to the next step.

Pree Sarkar [00:27:02]:
Yeah, so that's where, you know, literally I can say every first, second, even third attempt at getting a function, let's say I break down today and I'll go backwards. I break recruitment down into four functions. One is client acquisition. Number two is client management or account management. Number three is candidate recruiting. That's the phone aspect. And number four is candidate resourcing. That's the building, the list.

Pree Sarkar [00:27:38]:
So identifying who are the most relevant people to call for the search for four aspects. Right. So in the beginning, I split that into two. I was client acquisition and client management. And I got someone to build the list and make the calls. And that took us from a 4:50 to 7:50 very quickly. I wish I had done that much earlier, but maybe I'm a slow learner. But within, I'd say a year and a half or two, that was the fastest jump that we made back then.

Pree Sarkar [00:28:16]:
So we were profitable. I was spending time with clients. I had someone spending time recruiting and resourcing. And that was the next shift. So that's when we now started having a profitable and sustainable desk where, you know, my goal is, do we have 3, 6, 912 months of operating income? Right. So those are yardsticks for if you have less than three months of operating income, you're in red. If you've got more than six months, you're, you know, in yellow. If you've got more than one year, you're in green.

Pree Sarkar [00:28:53]:
So today we're in green.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:56]:
So like, when you're sitting there talking about this, you're talking about having enough, like, operating income in the bank to sustain you guys for a year if need be. How many other recruiting firms out there are even talking about this? Like these, like these yardsticks of keeping your business safe for no matter what can possibly happen while still operating the business?

Pree Sarkar [00:29:15]:
Yeah, I don't hear too many people doing it. You know, let me just say this, that I don't have it all together, but when things go wrong, by nature, if I'm nothing else, I'm a problem solver, regardless of the situation. So it's more looking back saying that quarter where those four deals fell and I had nothing in the bank and I paid a ton in credit card fees. I don't want to do that again, right? I don't want to do that again. So to avoid that situation the next time, I want to make sure that I don't just have four. And I'm just doing everything. I'm doing the client side, somebody's doing the candidate side. That's the first shift.

Pree Sarkar [00:29:55]:
So that you can get candidates at scale number two. I need to figure out how do I at least have three months of cash flow so that I'm not waking up in this horror story that I've built for myself every other night. Because it feels like that. It's like I don't have enough cash. How am I going to pay for this? How am I going to pay for that? And a lot of people live in that space. So those yardsticks, you know, getting to three months cash flow, getting to. Because anyway, from the time you get a job, you know, mine is 100% contingent boom business. So, you know, from the moment I get a job, I'm at least 90 days away to cash.

Pree Sarkar [00:30:38]:
So I don't think that, you know, having 90 days of cash, you've made it. I think you're just still in survival mode. I think if you got six months plus, then you've earned the right to blank out for one quarter, right? And if you've got 12 months plus, well, you know what, that's how we made it through Covid, right? We did have some government help, but I was able to keep my team of four through Covid without, you know, so I'm just saying there's lots of struggles and survival seasons that I've gone through. Sometimes I feel like 8 out of 12 months a year, you're kind of getting to the brink of survival as well. So it's not like I've made it. And, you know, I'm just saying that. But you keep pushing from survival to sustainable and then from sustainability, scalability. Okay? So, you know, now I've got at least six months worth, Three to six months worth.

Pree Sarkar [00:31:35]:
Or even if I have three months worth. And you need to get. If you've got three months worth, get yourself someone to do the Candidate side number one. Right. And this is now me just giving advice. And I do that with my practice leaders who are building practices. Number one, get away from 360. Because 360 is a recipe, in my opinion.

Pree Sarkar [00:31:56]:
Unless you've got fixed, you know, five clients who are giving you a 300 to 500,000 and they're just, you're guaranteed that work. If you're not, 360 is a recipe for depression, burnout. And yeah, I'll get more brutal, but not a fan of the 360 model.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:15]:
So survivability, you went through that to sustaining and you like, you know, I love that you talked about the money in the bank and how important that was for your business, for your life, for your stress. So that way. And it got you through Covid. But going from sustainability to scalability, what were some of the things that you did there?

Pree Sarkar [00:32:36]:
Great. So once we established that we have a business that is sustainable, my simple rule, and I think that this is something that has been drummed into me since I was a kid who always wanted something nicer. My dad would say, he'd point out to a few people and he'd remind me, he said, it's very easy to go up, but it's very hard to come down. So always think twice. And I think that's shaped by his own experiences and struggles. But. But it really made me think. I don't want to jeopardize a half a million dollar billings to get to a million dollar billings.

Pree Sarkar [00:33:08]:
I don't want to jeopardize my existing team to bring someone in who could be awesome but will wreck the culture. So I had to figure out how to, I guess bottle the magic or bottle the recipe, you know, because I think at the time we had a team of three. I was all client. I had a dedicated candidate, recruiter, and then I had a dedicated resourcer all in one office. So we were physically in the office. We all spoke the same language, we all knew the clients. And it was by the time we were one to $1.2 million business, three people, and, you know, things were good. We could leave that as it is.

Pree Sarkar [00:33:50]:
And I feel like we could continue like that, regardless of market volatility. There's a bit of a fallback position. But then I wanted more. More, you know, more from the same thing, you know, the freedom, right? The freedom to do what I want, when I want, with whom I want. And that's more the, you know, when I grew up, that's the story. I want to paint for myself. So how do I do more of that? And I think that that's where revenue and profit enables all those other things. So what I did was I identified what are the things that were working.

Pree Sarkar [00:34:27]:
And for me it always comes down to bd, but not BD in just making calls. So I started getting more strategic. Now, it may or may not work for, but here are a couple of things that I did. Number one, in 2000, early 2000, I wrote a book called Switch, which then hit number one bestseller on Amazon for job hunting and careers, which gave me a ton of credibility and gave me something to send to senior execs who were in between roles. And guess what? When they landed, they remembered me. I get a call back, I'll get an email back, right? Multiply that into 200 people. So the book really helped. Number two.

Pree Sarkar [00:35:09]:
And so this was early forms of content marketing before we had, right. I launched during COVID I launched a course in which I had 70 CTOs, CIOs, sales, VPs, and you know, it was a thousand bucks. But basically they got 12 weeks of coaching, weekly sessions, you know, six hours of video. So it was another content product, you know, solving the problem that, you know, we had far more people looking for jobs. That then led into the podcast, which I have, the high performance sales leader podcast. This is all bd, right? It's high value BD because it gives value. It's not just a take because we all hate just, you know, hey Ben, it's Pre. How are you? I've asked the rapport questions and then the inevitable, are you hiring? Are you looking? That that can get soul destroying after a while, right? So the point is, how do I level up the conversation and have actually something to give? Because I do believe that givers get.

Pree Sarkar [00:36:15]:
But actually, you know, you lead with the give. I remember this. A CEO of a mid sized healthcare company took me for a walk through their facility and he said, pre, I get calls from recruiters all the time but nobody asks me, how are you doing, Gary? How are you? He said, they're all asking me whether I'm hiring, but heck, I've got a career too. I'm like, yes, you do, Gary. Right? So long story short is you got to look at the person. So the point with BD is BD is not just calls and emails, it's not just the next email outbound campaign, it's actually having. If I've got more time to do bd, how do I actually look at my ideal client profile, my Personas in There understand the pain that they have and figure out that I become a value added person 365 days a year to them. That for me is the highest value exchange, mutual value exchange.

Pree Sarkar [00:37:21]:
Right? So if you're dealing with a performance issue in your team, you can talk to Pre because Pre is talking to 250 sales VPs who have the same problem. If your company has suddenly announced a job freeze or is announcing cuts and you're starting to feel nervous, you can talk to Pre because he's walking with 20 other people going through the same issue. If you are looking for how to create a justification for a role that is hard to fill, you talk to Pre how to do that. Heck, I've had I tell VPs you don't have to be hiring through me, but if you want to do a confidential background check in my niche, I have notes on 70% of people. I'll tell you what I know about them. I'll call in a favor so I save you from a bad hi, I'm here for you, Ben.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:12]:
The Elite Recruiter podcast has multiple summits coming up that you need to make sure that you are registered for. We have the AI recruiting summit 2025 come coming up and on top of that, finish the year strong. These two summits are going to help you move the needle, help you achieve your goals, help you achieve your dreams and make 2025 the year that you started out and you want it to be. Make sure you get registered and also stay tuned. Got something cooking for you guys. Working on another project that you guys.

Pree Sarkar [00:38:38]:
Are going to absolutely love.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:40]:
All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon. One of the things that I think you just hit on is like so often we think of business development as like the emails, the calls, the marketing sequence, but you're sitting there saying like, I gotta find a better way to say this. More ways to skin a cat. I love my. I just, I had to get up for a second because I had to let my cat out the door because I didn't realize that they were in the podcast room. I normally kick them out but all of a sudden like halfway through I heard a meow.

Pree Sarkar [00:39:09]:
But think they aren't hearing the skin a cat comment, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:39:11]:
So they've heard her a few times and maybe that's why they attacked me last night. But like for, for just people listening, like you've done all these different things but like high value BD percentage wise, what's the, the impact on your guys.

Pree Sarkar [00:39:28]:
Business from those I Think percentage wise. When I look at if we sign two new clients a quarter sometimes, and this is in a difficult market I'm not talking about. And that's through my BD. I would say 80% has come through high value BD or actually 90% rather than. And 10% comes from the. Are you hiring? I've sent them a message. They're like, yeah, pre, you know, we're hiring. No.

Pree Sarkar [00:39:58]:
90% of my clients have either. Number one, they have for everyone else, they've been a client in the past. Right. Number two, they know someone that I know. But basically because I've taken an advisory coaching hat on a long time back, they know that a conversation with me will be 80% about value added to them and 20% about value add to me. And then lastly, I'll say past clients, common relationships, a lot of people that you get to know through the podcast. So I'm a big fan of podcasts because I realize that I have basically, I am standing on the sidelines of this amazing game that's playing out. So I have visibility and access to everyone in the field.

Pree Sarkar [00:40:48]:
So my job in my podcast is actually my podcast is not about recruiting. My podcast is about being a high performance sales leader because I know so many of them and I'm in those conversations and recruiting conversations. So I want to capture that wisdom, that story, that struggle. So through the podcast, through my LinkedIn posts and connections. And lastly, and I think every recruiter should do this, is that A long time back, I realized that I had far more to offer than just a resume. Right? Than just a resume.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:23]:
Yeah, let's talk about that in a second. I want to jump back to this podcast. I'm a huge fan of telling people like, hey, podcast is a killer BD thing. Like, it is a tool to get into doors. It's a tool to like, open relationships. Way better than a, hey, can I help you with a job? But here's the thing that I think a lot of people like, struggle with on the just a thought process. And real quick, podcasting is a long game. Yes, but how did you flip those podcast conversations into clients?

Pree Sarkar [00:41:49]:
I'll give you the example, then I'll make my point. I was talking to a client, I was talking to about someone who I had a client. There was a prospect who I had called and messaged for at least 12 months, three to four occasions, and it was always, we've just filled a role. We're not hiring for six months to, hey, would you like to be on my podcast? He said, yes, I'd like to be on your podcast, right? I said, I've got the collection. And you know, these are high performance sales leaders from some of the best tech companies, right? So AI companies, cloud companies, you know, your top cloud 100. So I said, would you like to be on it? He said, yes, I'd like to be on it. We're having a conversation about him. What are his frustrations? Because one of the things I tell them is that this podcast is going to be, number one, a great career resource for you.

Pree Sarkar [00:42:43]:
It's going to build your credibility within your organization. Number two, it's going to build credibility outside of the organization with clients, partners, and future employers. And number three, it's going to build credibility with people who want to come and work for you. And he said, at this time, one of the things we're really struggling with is attracting talent. And I said, tell me more, right? And I said, and this was verbatim, I said, on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with current talent efforts? Right? Your current recruiters? And he said, three. And I just instinctively in my problem solving mode said, would you settle for a seven? He said, that would be amazing. And that was done. We've billed $150,000 with that client.

Pree Sarkar [00:43:40]:
But my primary intention is not that. My primary intention is just to get to know the person, to get to understand who are they, where did they want to go, what's preventing them from getting there in their careers. And yes, through that, they realize this guy's not selling me. In fact, they get to know me and the access that I have today, I had the identity before I had the access. Really important, right? I do have 300 VP relationships with some of the best tech companies, but even when I had three, I still was behaving like one.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:19]:
You've had to go from identity shift from, you know, not being a recruiter to being a recruiter, and then from being a average recruiter to being a coach, a consultant. Was it just like the desire to change? What was that magic shift or that magic time period where you went like the identity collect?

Pree Sarkar [00:44:36]:
I realized that 8 out of 10 people don't like recruiters because recruiters are your best friend when you're hiring and they don't want to know you when you're not. I think that we have earned as an industry a bad reputation because of transactional, desperate recruiters, which is why the Pinnacle society, it just stands like this shining light amidst the noise of, you know, transactional recruiting who are trying to cut fees and do everything possible to get the deal. Right. So I think people know when they see someone who is long term versus short term, who is exchange of value versus one way value. Right? Just say that people figure you out pretty quickly. And that was the, the main shift. But beyond the shift, it just felt a lot better because I know I have so much more to offer than just a resume. Right.

Pree Sarkar [00:45:37]:
So I've got insight, I've got connections, I've got advice, I've got best practices. And I can help you with your career, help you achieve all the goals that you want. And this was something I learned as a sales leader in a Fortune hundred was this. If I help my manager get his goals, I'm far more likely to get my goals. If I help my team achieve their goals, I'm more likely to help achieve my goals. That's the easier way. The hard way is just to achieve my goals at the cost of everyone else. It's not just being a good human, but it's also being a smart human because you end up with the win but with many other winners around you.

Pree Sarkar [00:46:17]:
Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:17]:
So yeah, I love that shift. So like we've talked about like, you know, going from survival to scale survival to scalable and like that shift right there. But you've also talked about like the three pillars of having a million dollar desk. Like let's get back to that a little bit because I've been having fun doing a deep dive on you.

Pree Sarkar [00:46:40]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one quick thing I'm going to say on scalability is read the book. 10x is easier than 2x. Right. If you tune out from everything that I've said, go get the book by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan and listen to it again and again, again and figure out what your 10x future is. So for me, I went from, let's say the 150 200k billings to the 1.5 to $2.5 million billings. That was a 10x shift. And when you look at your next 10x shift, your previous 10x shifts, you know, I went from one client to 10 clients, so I know how to get to 100 clients.

Pree Sarkar [00:47:23]:
Right. We've now worked with maybe 300 clients. I wish it was all concurrently, but I'm just saying the point is there are 10x shifts. And because 2x thinking is lazy, 2x thinking is I'll make a few more BD calls. Whereas there is no way I. So for example, I'm figuring out how to go from a $2.5 billion desk to a $25 million business, right. Without borrowing money, without compromising sustainability. So I will not burn my cash reserves to do that.

Pree Sarkar [00:47:57]:
So, well, that's when the next stage comes. The only way I can do this is. And this is what I'm going to say. This is whether you're stuck at 200k, 300k, 500, 801, you've got to be able to know what is the 20% that is vital, that is critical for you to do, and what's the 80% that you can delegate and elevate others. That's EOS language. But basically, how do you get other people to do the 80% that you shouldn't do? So that I can be the coach, the advisor, the mentor, and build my relationships at scale, not only one on one, but one to many, through podcasts, through really good LinkedIn content, and then basically bring that together. So, number one, more BD, less recruiting, less research. That's my formula, right? More BD, more strategic BD, which is the one on one, more calls.

Pree Sarkar [00:48:57]:
But the thing is, when I make calls to people, they pick up the phone. When I leave voicemails, it's not a hundred percent, but it's three times more than when they didn't know who I was. Right. I don't have to surprise people. I can send a text and say, hey, Ben, you know, do you have five minutes to have a conversation today or tomorrow, this afternoon or tomorrow? And 7 out of 10 times I'll get a text back and say, hey, Preet, I can take a call at 4pm and I'm going to get someone who's expecting a call and we'll have a meaningful conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:27]:
And that's many times because of the seeds that you've been planting for the.

Pree Sarkar [00:49:30]:
Yes, yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:31]:
For the previous years.

Pree Sarkar [00:49:33]:
That's correct. But even if nothing else, number one, do more strategic bd, which is top of funnel, which is you've got your Dripify, you've got. You're adding 100 connections a week at scale. Number two, make sure that you're putting high quality LinkedIn posts, two to three a week that serve study people who do it well. That's the best hack. Study people who do it well. And there's no shortage of information today. There's maybe just a shortage of attention to learn how do I do this well? And then combine that with calls.

Pree Sarkar [00:50:09]:
Call the people you know, call the people who know that know. You call the people who will recognize the companies, you call the competitors, you know, basically relationship or Relevance. If you can spend 70% of your time or on the relational axis, I know someone who knows someone, you know, I work with this person there. And on the relevance axis, I worked for a competitor. I solved a public sector critical hire. You're always going to have credibility or relational equity. That will give you the probability of a higher response. So, number one, focus on bd.

Pree Sarkar [00:50:44]:
Number two, hire someone overseas at a fraction of the cost. So back then I had to wait for six months to hire someone locally. Today I have three incredible remote team members. I basically got people who are very experienced, so I don't even have time to train them. I did it wrong by actually going and hiring people that I had to train. And it was brutal. It was death by a thousand cuts. It was like, oh, only I can do this.

Pree Sarkar [00:51:10]:
I should have done it myself. You know, I suck at hiring, like. But I then read the 10x is easier than 2x author. He's written a book called who Not How. That is again, gold for recruiters. Take these two or three books and just read them and do yourself a favor. And so I then only hired remote team members who've done this for five plus years. And I don't even interview them.

Pree Sarkar [00:51:34]:
I test them first. The test is the interview. Give them a job and say, I'm looking for an account executive with, you know, DevOps or whatever. You know, go and get me 10 profiles, right? And did you pick them because, you know, what was your thinking that went into them? Now go and get me 50 profiles. How many questions do you ask? How fast do you respond? You know, I can tell. And so my point is, delegate the things that are not essential. Delegate the 80% of stuff that you don't need to do. Number two, the rest, automate, automated, right? From Clay to Driftify and Lemlist.

Pree Sarkar [00:52:14]:
You know, there's so much that you can do in terms of automating processes, right? So that if you delegate and automate the 80%, right, you can then accelerate what is left you can have in the same week, you know, really good LinkedIn posts, podcasts, and then you see 17 companies that, you know, people are at, you know, 17 companies hiring where you know someone who knows, likes and trusts you. Even a LinkedIn DM, you're going to get a 30% response, not a hundred percent. Hey, Priya, let me connect you with this person. Oh, no, we're only internal at the moment, right? You go to competitors and you start looking familiar. Even automating a sequence. Hey, we know a whole bunch of People in common. Right. So then if you make 10 or 20 high quality BD calls a day because you've got a warm footprint, that is where you're going to get high quality assignments.

Pree Sarkar [00:53:13]:
High quality. And I wish, you know, I would say that that happens every day. No, I'm living in the real world too. Right. But the difference with having strong relational equity in your niche with a couple of hundred people at minimum and then thousands where you have, you know, oh, he looks familiar. I've liked his post, I've messaged him, I've gotten something in the email from him is that then a good year can look like 2.5 million and a bad year can look like 1.5. It's not 2.5 or 0 because you've gone from survival to sustainability to scalability. And even if you aren't as scalable as you were back in 2022, where everyone felt like King Kong, you still have a business.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:07]:
And with you and the money that you have in the bank, it also gives you that internal confidence that a client can smell it when you need it.

Pree Sarkar [00:54:17]:
Absolutely. Even my own team, when we've now had a situation where the client had the last stage. This happened yesterday, you know, it was 120 base and they said, no, it's 100. The hiring manager's giving you the wrong information. And the hiring manager actually turned on me and he said, well, that's your words. That's not my words. I didn't say that. You know what, at the end of the day, I was like, that's fine, you know, let's move on and just keep moving on.

Pree Sarkar [00:54:43]:
Because you can take the hits. You can't take the hits when you are emotionally exhausted, financially at risk and completely drained. And you're like, I need for this to work out. That's a very difficult situation. And so what I would say again is that it is very hard to be a 360 degree recruiter unless you're in staffing. But basically, if your client base and your job order intake is variable, it's very hard to deliver. 360. You've got to delegate and automate proactively.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:19]:
We've covered a lot. Like, this has been an awesome conversation. I just don't laugh at this. I just looked up the time and I feel like time just magically disappeared from us. So in saying that, we're going to jump over to the quick fire questions, but before we do that, is there anything else that you want to cover or rehash or go a Little deeper on.

Pree Sarkar [00:55:36]:
I'll just recap. Number one, decide what you want from your life three to five years from now and then figure out what's the best way to build a practice that is sustainable and then scalable. I will take a profitable million dollar practice any day over a $5 million business where I can't sleep. Number two, learn how to delegate. And if you failed, learn again. Learn again. Learn again. One of the benefits of getting in the Pinnacle society is access to people who've got 80 different pathways and learning.

Pree Sarkar [00:56:15]:
I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room. I want to be around the smartest people in the room so that I can learn something and I can come back and try. So after every Pinnacle conference, this is like a great Pinnacle blog, but every conference I'm coming back with three to five things I'm going to try. And when you've got a little money in the bank, you're not afraid to fail. We tried, it didn't work. And so we work in 90 day cycles. Sorry, I should have said that. Work in 90 day cycles, pick one or two projects, have a crack, give it a go.

Pree Sarkar [00:56:42]:
If it doesn't work, you're learning. I was listening to Diary of a CEO and Stephen Bartlett said something which I absolutely loved and he said, failure is feedback. Feedback is knowledge. Knowledge is power. Just keep getting stronger through the feedback loops.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:01]:
I love that.

Pree Sarkar [00:57:02]:
Yeah. And then basically learn how to delegate and learn how to automate between identify the 20% you should spend time in, delegate and automate the rest. That's all I had to say.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:15]:
So yeah, awesome. Well, because, you know, you are out there constantly. Like I see you online, I see you on LinkedIn, which is awesome. Like you do a way better job writing stuff than I do. I just have word vomit sometimes. But, but in saying that, you know, with you being so visible, like if you had a brand new recruiter that was coming to you and said like, hey, I see that what you've done, you did a complete career shift. I think I could do this too. I'm just jumping into the recruiting chair.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:44]:
Never have been one before. What's the number one piece of advice that you give me to succeed?

Pree Sarkar [00:57:51]:
Number one, slice your day into two, into BD and recruiting. Do not start recruiting until, you know, one o' clock in the afternoon, number one. Number two, get as many high quality jobs as you can and get some runs on the board. As soon as you get a few more jobs, go and hire a virtual resource who will at least Take list building off, you pay 50% more and get an experienced person rather than someone you're gonna train. And then, you know, quarter to quarter, look at how quickly can I delegate and how quickly can I automate? And then as you do that, you basically need to start building your LinkedIn connections and your LinkedIn content. Two quality posts a day. Just follow 10 people who do it well and imitate their posts. If they've got a picture of themselves with a bit of a survival story, go to my profile, I'm a learner, I try it and then I see which posts resonate and which don't, right? So you then become familiar the people you're connecting with.

Pree Sarkar [00:58:56]:
LinkedIn will show it to them. When you DM them, they're more likely to respond to you. And that's how you just create a flywheel of delegation and automation, quarter in, quarter out, and warmth and familiarity of relevance and relationship.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:14]:
And I always love when it's somebody that I've never dealt with before because of content on LinkedIn, they're like, hey, how's it going, Benjamin, I know you. And I'm like, oh, like, in a good way. But it's just like, oh, cool, that's awesome. I did, you know, showing up all the time. But same, same question, though. Like, you're sitting down with an old dog that's been around for two decades. They're asking you for advice. What's a piece of advice would you give them?

Pree Sarkar [00:59:36]:
I love that pivot, by the way. I know a lot of recruiters who have been doing it for a long time and their relationships have retired or they were getting by in the past where, you know, talent acquisition wasn't so active in their account base and now they are. And I would say, take stock of the value that you bring to people, right? So that is, number one, assess the value. And there is so much value that you can add to people, right? And so for me, it's, I'm going to be a force for good, however that shows up, right? Secondly, draw that relationship relevance quadrant two by two relationships. Do I know them? So for every one person you know, say at Company A, There are another 10 people who know that person. So I may not know Chris Walker, but Chris knows Ben. So when I call Chris and just say, I've worked with Ben, I know Ben, I'm going to get a better response. And so if you, as an old dog, you should know a hundred people, otherwise I don't know how you survived in this business.

Pree Sarkar [01:00:46]:
That gives you relational familiarity. With a thousand people, because everybody knows 10 people, right? So the point is, don't tell me that, you know, out of a thousand new people, you can't find another five or 10 clients. So basically, relational equity is the best thing that an old dog has. Number two is relevance. Have you solved? You know, for example, in my case, it's certain types of companies. So when I go to other companies who recognize the company name, the logo, you know, if I recruit for, let's say for example, in Amazon web services, everybody recognizes. So you've got the big logo, right? That gives me high credibility with 50 other companies. So basically I'm always trying to do BD, whether it's tactical BD because I'm not spending all my life on books, courses and podcasts, otherwise I wouldn't have a business.

Pree Sarkar [01:01:39]:
It's a lot of tactical bd, but I'm doing it using either someone that they know in common or a company that they recognize. Any old dog can maximize that if they stop hugging the tree, which is the depression around what's happened to the existing clients and start figuring out, okay, who are the next 300 people that I can speak to.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:58]:
I love that. And you've been part of the pinnacle society for a while. What does the pinnacle society mean to you?

Pree Sarkar [01:02:05]:
To me it just means a genuine community where, you know, you get to give and get and just be authentic, be yourself, but also great human beings who have done great things. Right. Basically you'll see every kind of story and we have fellow people who are going through survival, sustainability and scalability all in different seasons. So it's not like I've permanently been. None of these three stages is permanent. Let me just say that, right? You know, we had 2021. 2022 was an amazing year for most recruiters, right? At the cost of being. I took a whopping profit that we had and I invested it.

Pree Sarkar [01:02:54]:
That wasn't my first time investing, but that has 3x since. So instead of a one year Runway, it's given me a three year Runway. So, you know, get good financial advice, but basically take the big months and invest. I still got the trip to Europe with my wife. I've still had time to live. I only work 9 to 5. I don't work on weekends. But because I've been able to invest in sustainability before scalability, when scalability is not working for me, I can fall back to sustainability.

Pree Sarkar [01:03:25]:
I'll still be happy to finish the next 20 years as a, you know, one to $1.5 million business. But that's not my goal. I will keep pushing forward despite the market geopolitical tension, but I can wait another six months. If I have to wait, I don't have to get the next and the next. So that's my point.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:45]:
I love that you've talked about books a lot. Is your favorite book right now that 10x is better than 2x?

Pree Sarkar [01:03:51]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:53]:
Favorite tech tool? You've mentioned a few. Do you have a favorite?

Pree Sarkar [01:03:57]:
No, I just say that, you know, I cannot underscore the importance of LinkedIn and LinkedIn not just for sending connection requests and making posts. We are key people of influence. We are key people of influence in our niches. You can only build familiarity at scale through LinkedIn. That's the one to many. And even my podcast traffic comes through LinkedIn because that's where they get to know that this guy's got a podcast for this podcast.

Benjamin Mena [01:04:28]:
That's where it comes from. LinkedIn too.

Pree Sarkar [01:04:31]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:04:31]:
So, you know, you've had a lot of lessons that you've had to learn. You know, recruiting's hard. Like you're getting punched in the face all day long. Like it's all sorts of stuff happens in the recruiting world. What is one of the hardest lessons that you had to walk through outside of the ones that you've already chatted about?

Pree Sarkar [01:04:49]:
Okay, this sounds really pessimistic. I feel like every client, every candidate, and every person will let you down at some point of time. So I realized that I am enough by myself. Meaning that even if I lost everything and I go back to being a solo, I'm still good enough. And that allows me to engage with clients, candidates, and my team members from a place of overflow and adequacy. And I think that inventory of who I am, what value I can add to the world, is what will sustain you through all the madness that seems evolving either at a geopolitical level or in your account patch or with your A grade researcher recruiter who didn't show up and has suddenly gone awol. You know, it's like, what the hell?

Benjamin Mena [01:05:47]:
So, yeah, well, you know, because you're part of Pinnacle and because you're so visible online and with what you've been doing billing wise, you know, with the great years, the. The lean years still, like, freaking incredible. I'm sure you get a lot of questions like, hey, what's the BD secret sauce? Or how'd you start a podcast? Or like, what's the secret message that you're sending to people that's actually getting the return? Or what's the. What's the script of the phone call that you know? Or what are you actually saying on a text message? Like, you're probably getting all those questions. Is there a question that you wish a recruiter would actually ask you but normally never does?

Pree Sarkar [01:06:23]:
I think we've answered it in this session. You know, I think that basically, how do you survive in this industry? Because a lot of people don't, you know, because if you figure out how to survive, then you learn how to build a sustainable business. And if you can build a sustainable business, you can choose to scale if you want to or not.

Benjamin Mena [01:06:41]:
All of that. Pre. Pre, for anybody that's listening and they want to follow you so they can, like, maybe see your LinkedIn post or something of that nature. What's the best way that they could follow you?

Pree Sarkar [01:06:50]:
Just on LinkedIn. Pre. Soccer.

Benjamin Mena [01:06:53]:
And I'll have that in the show notes. And before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Pree Sarkar [01:07:02]:
I just want to say that I think recruitment has been the greatest personal development opportunity that I've ever had. And it's really critical that you elevate yourself and the value that you add. Because playing from a level 10, the give, get, and the influence that you have is so much different from playing from a level 2, 3, or 4. And if nothing else, you know that identity shift. Work on that this weekend. Work on that and send me a message on how to work on that identity. Because you need to just take stock of who you are and what you can do for others before you take something from them.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:46]:
Yeah, I love that. Well, Pre, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. Like, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. I'm glad that we finally got the chance to make it happen. And one of the cool things about sitting down with you for the two times we've met is, like, how real you are in person.

Pree Sarkar [01:08:01]:
Thank you. Thank you, Ben. You know what? I'm so glad that we've done it. I love the fact that you've built this podcast. It is the best. And it's back at you. You're real. And I feel like we could just talk for hours.

Pree Sarkar [01:08:15]:
So thank you for what you do.

Benjamin Mena [01:08:17]:
Well, thank you. And for the listeners out there.

Pree Sarkar [01:08:20]:
You know what?

Benjamin Mena [01:08:21]:
Take the advice from Pri. I mean, he just walked through literally the game plan of going from zero to a million and $2 million desk. He walked through the game plan of, like, what you actually need to do to grow your business. But he also said one thing at the very end reach out to him. One of the most important things that I've seen with like a lot of these top billers and big businesses is the identity shift and how they've had to change and how the mindset operates and how they can put in the same amount of work as us. But what are the things that they've done different to make those changes and make those changes exponential over time? And that's one of the things that I absolutely just love about recruiting is at the end of the day like you could be one placement away from changing your life. You're one placement away from changing somebody else's life and that's the beauty of this business. So I want you guys to keep crushing it.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:08]:
Make 2025 your year. I'll see you guys soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed hit subscribe and leave a rating.