Rich Rosen’s $300K Month: The Step-by-Step Breakdown to Winning Big in Any Recruiting Market

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
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.

Rich Rosen [00:00:20]:
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Rich Rosen [00:00:55]:
Visit pin.com to book your demo today. I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because there's a lot of talk right now of how the market is not where it was or it's not the recovery that everybody thought it was going to be. But here's the thing. There are people just out there still freaking winning. They're still out there billing. They're still out there doing their best. And that's the reason why I have a returning guest coming back on this podcast. Really, just even this year break down, he had his record month, his largest billing month ever.

Rich Rosen [00:01:28]:
He has had this year. One of the biggest reasons why we're doing this is because you need to make some changes. You need to put in the work so that way you can make 2025 the year that you stop listening to the news, the year you stop focusing on what's going on out there. And it could be your best month ever. So, Rich Rosen, welcome back, brother.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:45]:
Hey, buddy. Hey. Great to see you again. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. And yeah, man, 2025 has been a crazy year for a lot of us, huh?

Rich Rosen [00:01:53]:
I mean, it is one of the things, and this is, like, why I ENJ podcast, even though I'm the one hosting it, is because you hop online and you see, like, market this or market that, and, you know, I'm overcoming some market challenges myself. But here's the thing, like, it's getting back on the horse, doing the work. And the people that I see that are doing the work combined with the tools are. Are winning.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:15]:
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, listen, everyone's looking for a reason not to do this or not to do that, or cold calls don't work anymore. This doesn't work anymore. It's all horseshit. To be blunt, you go on these long, these trainers want to train you on all the things that they just think are easy, like sending emails. Sure, they're easy. AI can write them now. You get a campaign system, you blast a thousand of them out, whoop dee doo.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:38]:
You get a whopping half percent response rate if you're lucky. Nowadays most of that stuff ends up in spam and you're like, where's, how come no one's calling me back? You know, I mean even these email marketing companies I talked to, they're like, oh, we'll send a hundred thousand emails a month out for you. A hundred thousand for Penn, a couple hundred bucks a month and we guarantee you 10 meetings. Like 100,000 emails. I'm like, it's, it's, why not do it? I mean, but that's not what I'd be hanging my hat on because those 10 leads, who knows if they're going to be good or bad anyway. But man, all the best recruiters I know, you know, they are still on the phones four plus hours a day at a minimum. I'm happy to challenge anyone in any method using AI, which I love, using automation, which I love. But you have got to.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:28]:
You just, if you're not on the phone, you're not going to win. It's just that simple. That's just been the craziest part. When I, when I talk to recruiters of the training group or anything else, this people just look for the easy way out. This is a tough business. There's no easy way to do it.

Rich Rosen [00:03:41]:
I got a question on that first, but real quick, like you have a training group, what's that?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:45]:
So Trish Tamkin and I run a training class on Thursday mornings. It's a great unique group. It's all Q and A people bring the problems that they've got for the week. And you know, it's quarter of 8, 45 in the morning, east coast time on Thursdays. You can, you go to Moore's Essential to, you know, grab the info on it. But it's great because you know, Trish, you know, a great trainer and a big, you know, is a big biller in her day. And you know, I've been doing this for 30 years now. I've built, I don't know, probably close to $20 million in revenue and you know, but we have very different opinions on how to get things done.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:20]:
So it's kind of like a choose your own adventure. And listen, there's a million ways to do this job for the most part, minus the calls. So you can choose my, you know, the hey, this is my, you know, blunt, you know, no, you know, kind of bullshit approach to things. Or you can choose Trish's, you know, very, you know, flowery, wordy, you know, super smart way to do it. I mean they're both good. There's no bad, it just gives you opinions. Because listen, my style is not for everyone and her style is not for everyone. But there's value in both of them.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:47]:
It's unique, right? Instead of just going to this one trainer hearing, hey, this is how this person theorizes how to do it, you know, I can tell you this is exactly how I do it and had a three hundred thousand dollar month, you know, everyone's complaining the market's not good, you know. Or you can listen to, you know, Trisha's version where she's helped a lot of crews crush their numbers as well, but gives you a very, you know, a different path on how to get there. Both good, just different.

Rich Rosen [00:05:14]:
This is actually something I've been chatting about with a few different recruiters. I feel like we're coming to the time with AI where the recruiters that are absolutely crushing it are almost like they're using all the tech but it's almost like the 1980s pre Internet days is what's helping people win now. How do you feel?

Benjamin Mena [00:05:33]:
Listen, I think the recruiters who don't know how to embrace AI and write even a simple prompt or they're scared to use it are absolutely missing the boat. You know, you have got to be able to, you know, like I said, the phone is king. You can even use ChatGPT. You can put like, you know, Ben Mana, name and company in there, you know, and as a location like DC or whatever, it will find your phone number for you. Now I mean I've been playing with that. I just had to try to a couple weeks ago and I was like, it's actually been more accurate than the services I'm paying for. So it just takes a minute. But it's really good.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:05]:
But I mean you've got to be able to use it to write better. Unless you're blessed as a great writer, you know. Yeah, me neither. Like Gail Otbert, great writer, you know. You know Gail, Gail's a killer. Like she writes the best personal post in the business on LinkedIn. I'm not that blessed either. So I live on AI.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:22]:
I have two versions of Claude and two windows of ChatGPT. Open at all times during the day. And I am putting everything there. I've got great prompts on how to build battle cards for how my client compares to the competition. I mean, hell, some of the times it's better than what the company even has. So there's ways for writing it, for a candidate presentation, for, you know, summary. I mean everything. It just is.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:44]:
If you're not using it, you are insane. It's that simple. It's like everything else in life, right? You got to keep up on the tech. Doesn't mean you got to be bleeding edge, but you got to keep up with it. You got to know how to prompt with it. I mean like I've got kids in college. Candidly I'm like, before they go back to school, they've got to take an AI certification class. Don't care if it's going to be outdated.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:03]:
Having on the resume will help them get a job that much better when they graduate in a year or two. You know, you just got to know and you know that leads to a whole nother conversation about starting your own business. But that's another, that's another conversation for tax write offs.

Rich Rosen [00:07:17]:
But we're going to go deeper on the tools a little later on because I want to kind of focus on unpacking and like, you know, I typically, the question I ask is this is the first time you've heard Rich Rosenberg know I normally ask the question how you ended up in this wonderful order recruiting. The best thing I could do is go to the elite recruiter podcast website, hop in there, search, go look for Rich Rosen. Rich Rosen has been on the podcast before. He's walked through. You know how he got started? He walked through, what was it, a six or nine month window of not having placements and then just banging out at 900k year. Go back and listen to those episodes. We're going to focus on what's happening now, what Rich has done to absolutely just crush it. So that way you can have some actionable lessons and take away.

Rich Rosen [00:07:58]:
So that way you could do it too.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:59]:
Perfection.

Rich Rosen [00:08:00]:
You just had out of, what is it you said, how many years of recruiting?

Benjamin Mena [00:08:04]:
Just about 30 years.

Rich Rosen [00:08:06]:
You've placed over 1,000 people and you just had your best month ever.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:11]:
Yeah, I should hit 1200 placements shortly. I've had a lot of 200 plus months, 250 months. I got to tell you, one of my proudest things was both months when my kids committed to college. I had made enough money in those months to cover all four years of College for each of them, which I thought was pretty cool. I mean what business gives you that opportunity, right? I mean, insane. Isn't that nuts? I mean I honestly I thought, I don't know, it was a subconscious extra effort was putting in or what. But I mean, dude, to be able to make, you know, I mean Those months were 250/000 months. But to do it the month your kid commits to college where it's, you know, that's $200,000 for school right there is pretty awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:49]:
You got little kids. When you get there, you'll understand. Hopefully you're already saving because God knows you'll need it if college even around by then. But another conversation, we'll save that AI.

Rich Rosen [00:09:00]:
Conversation for another day.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:02]:
Exactly, exactly.

Rich Rosen [00:09:04]:
All right, so you're looking at this month, so a 300k month, absolute best. Let's talk about work ethic. Did your work ethic change going into that, that big month or was it just like.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:16]:
Yeah, I don't know it's necessarily changed because my work ethic is pretty, pretty high level, you know, it's pretty much an 11 out of 10 most days anyway. But I think the difference was knowing this was going to be or believing this was going to be a year of ups and downs. And Q1 in tech is generally pretty soft anyway for you know, account execs. So I was kind of building up for, you know, April. Usually it's April so things start to get busy for me. But I had a couple of carryover things from December. Things got pushed, things got delayed. I mean it was a company that got acquired at Offer.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:48]:
Even better now that company, that guy just hired someone for me today, the same day they announced that acquisition is now complete. Right. So that's causing more delay on that second hire. So any event, it was a lot of more concentrated bd. It was the first and foremost. You know, I really put an emphasis on, you know, banging out the BD calls, making sure the proper email strings are going out. There was always a drip campaign going, always, you know, automated, you know, emails are going out based on just seeing what you can give back to people is a lot of it. Seeing what, doing some NPC marketing, kind of a light market, you know, light touch on things and sometimes just say listen what's going on, just and talk in a bit, you know, or you saw this article, you know, that, you know, is good for everyone in whatever, you know, the security space or whatever space it may be or how are you seeing the tariffs going to affect your life over there, just some of the touch point, right? So that was huge.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:40]:
And then obviously thousands of phone calls, you know, like I said, every day. If you're on the phone four hours a day, you pretty much wasted your day, in my opinion. Some days are seven, eight hours of phone time. It's awesome. I mean, I think it's the best. This is like a marathon, this job. You can get that in phone endurance. It's just, it's a great thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:57]:
I don't know, I'm weird. I think it's, it's rewarding. When you get that much phone time, you're actually able to talk to that many people, not just a thousand dials is a beautiful thing. And then honestly, the big thing was just adding a lot more posting, more consistent posting. And the posts have been probably the best money I've ever spent in recruiting. Response has been ridiculous. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, I mean, these posts on average are getting, you know, 20, 30,000 views, you know, many of them getting 70, 150,000, 500,000 views, tons of reposts on them. I hired a guy to help me do all this stuff and, you know, we're making them, you know, polarizing.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:35]:
Not just a soft, here's a little softball article, but it's like, no client you're a moron for, not like, for doing this to your candidates. You bring them all the way to the process. You know, you just spend, you know, $20,000 in man hours and labor, and now you're going to cut the guy short by 500 bucks a month. Really? Does that make sense? You're going to spend your. It's going to cost more to re. And I get calls from clients now almost daily thanking me for some of these posts because they're like, finally someone has got the balls to say it. It's like we've been telling our bosses this, the CEO this, the CFO this, the finance guys, all this, and no one wants to listen, you know, so whether it's interviewing or whatever else, so it's been, it's been actually a lot of fun. It's good venting, you know, if nothing else.

Rich Rosen [00:12:14]:
When did you really start kicking up the LinkedIn posting?

Benjamin Mena [00:12:17]:
That was probably February. And it took off pretty quick. I mean, I've got a pretty good following, so it took off pretty quickly and, you know, immediately that led to a couple more opportunities that came in. Old clients saw a starter team and he called me, gave me a bunch of openings. A couple of old clients actually saw them and just they had moved on. We just lost touch, you know. So they had reached out another two openings today because he was like, oh my God, I saw your posting. Can't believe it's been a year and a half since we last spoke or whatever.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:44]:
So because he changed jobs a couple of times, just landed a CRO role, consistent posting is a must, I think now according to ChatGPT, I'm like one of the top 1% most viewed people or something like that. I have no idea if that's a true stat, but that's what chatgpt is telling me. So I'm going to go with it.

Rich Rosen [00:13:03]:
Our AI overlords like, hey, good job, Rich.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:05]:
Exactly. Thanks for using us.

Rich Rosen [00:13:09]:
So you mentioned that your work ethic all the time is an 11 out of 10. I feel like this is your normal. But how does your normal compare to most people's or most recruiters typical work ethic?

Benjamin Mena [00:13:21]:
Listen, I talk to recruiters all the time. For the training or just helping, helping folks honestly find. Most recruiters just, I play sales guys just like most sales guys, they're. Which is all a recruiter really is. They're absolutely lazy. They look for excuses. They want to cut corners. They want to pretend that they're busy by working on things they know are never going to get filled.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:39]:
But it's an easy search or, you know, it's an easy phone call to make. I don't want any bd. That's hard. They're going to tell me no more often. They're going to tell me yes. These candidates don't tell me yes. They hate their job. Even though I know this guy's not a fit, you know, well, he's moved around a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:51]:
He'll talk to me. Maybe he knows someone. Most recruiters, they're busy, not productive. I hate busy, all right? I mean, I've got significant add, my head's always busy. So I need productive. I need people that actually want to do things, want to make a move, are willing to put the effort in and I have no tolerance for those that don't. It's like we said a minute ago, this job especially, this is a life changing job for people. I mean, dude, when I started this job, I mean I made $40,000 in 1996, I think it was 97, you know, in my first 10 days on the job.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:29]:
I mean, that is insane. You know, and then to make, you know, 200, $300,000 in a month is crazy. People would kill for that opportunity. And you see all these recruiters just squander it. They're like, oh, it's nice out today. You know, I made a placement last month. I'll make another one. A couple months, hopefully.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:49]:
And I just don't understand that logic. Like, why, you know, why would you not want to make more money? And you can still do everything you want to do, see your kids, travel, coach your kids games, you know, whatever it is, I guarantee you can make time for it all, because I've done it all.

Rich Rosen [00:15:07]:
Okay, pause right there. Like, you know, you're talking like four hours of phone time. You're talking about research time, you're talking about, like, some days, seven, eight hours of being on the phone. But I also, for the people that haven't heard your previous episodes, you actually spend a ton of time with your family. Talk about that.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:24]:
Yeah, I mean, we travel a lot. Probably take, you know, two and a half, three months, a year off vacations, you know, with the kids when they were little, coached all their sports, never missed a game. We just got back from, you know, two weeks in Europe, visit my daughter while she was abroad. You can get everything done you want to get done. Like, you want to go work out, you want to go play poker. I mean, I work out every morning. I just get up at 6, you know, I go 6 to 8 and work out with the buddies and come back, get rolling on the day. You know, you just got to balance your time.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:51]:
You got a doc's appointment. Great. It's at 7 in the morning. I'll find a day that can do it at seven, you know, a quarter of eight, the latest. You make it work. Everyone gets things done they want to get done. It's that simple. Like every day I block off, you know, 12 to 1 to either do a podcast like this or training or what have you.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:08]:
I hate excuses. My kids know how much I hate excuses because I don't ever buy any of them. If you want to get something done, you can get it done. And that's all there is to it. I don't understand complaints that you can control. And I think you hold yourself to a higher standard. Like when people talk about, I always have to make this distinction. I guess when I talk to, like, other recruiters, they're like, oh, how many submittals you have? To me, a submittal is a send out, which is an interview.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:31]:
99.9% of people I send out are interviewed. It's extremely rare. I'm going to send someone out that's not getting an interview. And I don't understand why people do send out people that aren't going to get interviewed. What did you do wrong? What didn't you hear about the job? What don't you know? So it all comes down to just working smart. And it all starts with, you know, discovery con your intake for a job, you know, and then, you know, how to find the right candidates and ask the right questions and, you know, so forth and so on. I don't know if I went on a tangent for that, but.

Rich Rosen [00:16:59]:
No, that's.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:59]:
That's good.

Rich Rosen [00:16:59]:
And I want to jump back over the phone time. Okay, so all these hours of phone time, do you have an actual, like, desk phone? Are you on your cell phone or speakerphone?

Benjamin Mena [00:17:08]:
I literally talk like this all day long. I got a. What is it? A blue yeti mic and it connects to your computer. It's connected to the computer right now. Yeah. Talk to Ringcentral. I haven't used the headset in years. You know what I found giving my class this morning? That this mic is extraordinarily sensitive.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:24]:
I went bit of pretzel and people like, what are you chewing? I was like, oh, my God, didn't.

Rich Rosen [00:17:30]:
Realize all those client calls. You've been eating a pretzel.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:34]:
Seriously? I'm like. I was like, oh, my God. I'm like, how sensitive is this thing? But, yeah, I talk on speaker all day long. I got a standing desk. I walk back and forth all day. But I think the difference is in my day, I'm not doing research during the day. Typically, maybe I got to find a new phone number or something like that, but I do that at night. Like, you know, when my kids are little, once they went to sleep and now that they're, you know, not in the house or when they were teenagers, didn't care.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:57]:
You know, I would just work from, you know, whatever, seven to 10, watch TV while you do it. It's not that. It's, you know, going through LinkedIn does not brain surgery.

Rich Rosen [00:18:05]:
So when you do research, explain what that actually is and what you actually mean, like your planning.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:11]:
Yeah, so I'll use, like now. I use PIN for a lot of the sourcing. So research. If it's candidates, I'll use pin or LinkedIn to go find, you know, the Candidge, put the criteria in and, you know, do your thing. Right. Here's the companies I want to pull from. And I don't even have an admin anymore. I got rid of my admin a few months ago.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:26]:
It's a total glutton for punishment. So literally, I just. It takes 10 seconds. I got a million different tools which you can get into, you know, finding phone numbers and contact info. So it's here's the res, here's the LinkedIn profile. Looks good, let's send them an email. So just pop the stuff in there, goes right into crelate for the database and hits the automated campaign and away you go follow up the phone call the next day. So I mean everything you're doing is emailing and planning all at the same time.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:51]:
Like I put them in the system, I know who I'm calling tomorrow. There's very little wasted time in my day.

Rich Rosen [00:18:56]:
So when you say like a thousand calls, is that like a thousand calls a month, A thousand calls a week? A thousand calls?

Benjamin Mena [00:19:02]:
Like it's just as a number. Like my goal every day is have at least 50 calls planned for no other reason than that's what I started with an MRI million years ago. So. But it's a good number. And listen, there's some working. Yeah, exactly. I mean, listen, I mean that's it. The end of the day is some days I'll make more, some days I'll make less.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:19]:
If I get 10 send outs today and I was on the phone for six hours, I call that a win. You know, it's not, it's the quality, not the quantity, you know, and I think people that focus on these metrics, I think that's great. But the only metrics that matter are really send outs, placements and revenue. So that's really what I look at. All right, if I got send outs, I know I'm going to get deals done. But the only ones I care about is the invoice and the check coming in. That's the only metrics that matter in reality. But you don't get there without doing all the little stuff, without the phone time, without those phone calls.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:54]:
You know, I've said on here before too, it's like every day when you're done, mentally you're turned off. Make one more phone call every single day, guarantee you'll make more money. It's just more effort, the more effort you put in. We've all heard this, the harder you work, the luckier you are. You know, it's the age old saying and it will never change.

Rich Rosen [00:20:09]:
So jumping over to BD. So you know, we talked about that your LinkedIn inbound like is doing a good job, like reconnecting with people that have already known you, worked with you, other people are now seeing you, hundreds of thousands of impressions. But when it comes to the outbound business development. Are you mostly doing, like, cold calls, cold emails, or MPCs?

Benjamin Mena [00:20:30]:
Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Rich Rosen [00:20:32]:
And then what else?

Benjamin Mena [00:20:33]:
Yeah, honestly. But you know what? The marketing stuff, the LinkedIn stuff, that is BD. The more people you can have come to you, the better chance you have getting that retainer, you know, or engagement fee or whatever. So, I mean, the trick is trying to drive inbound traffic, and that's what the marketing is all about. So you need to, you know, in sending the emails. Fantastic. You got it. Still swear by doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:57]:
But I can tell you, I don't rely on email at all. Deliverability rates are horrible right now, and it's, you know, depending on your vertical. Some days you'll get a great response from candidates, other days it's anemic. Right. And then client bd, you know, is atrocious. I have yet to meet anyone who's told me that they've had a significant response on a BD campaign. And not that you shouldn't do it. Don't get me wrong, even in the best of markets, if you got a 4% return, you were crushing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:26]:
All right? This is not the best of markets. So if you're getting a 1% return, I mean, these email marketers, if you ever actually talk to an honest marketing company, they will flat out tell you they don't even expect to get 1%. They used to say 1 to 3. Now they're like, oh, we get like a half percent. I'm like, I had a call and I tell everyone to do this, too. If you ever do try these email marketing companies, tell them to do it on contingency. You know, if you close the deal, if they want a thousand bucks a month, tell me, you give them 2000, who cares? It's a win for you. 2000, give them 4000, who cares? It's a win.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:58]:
I had one company that was ready to do it, a couple companies were ready to do it, and then they ended up pulling out the last second, to be honest with you. But the fact is they need the business. And, you know, why not pay them double? Put some skin in the game for them. What do you care if you make a $30,000 fee, $40,000 fee, and you give this guy 2 grand or 4 grand because he finds you a candidate or client? You know, it seems like a win to me. Better than Giving Another recruiter 50 split, right?

Rich Rosen [00:22:22]:
Yeah, that's true. You know, 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, 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 are going to absolutely love.

Rich Rosen [00:22:52]:
All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon. How many like NPCs do you typically like work with at a time?

Benjamin Mena [00:22:59]:
I place, you know, reps, sales engineers, VPs, customer success, account manager. So you try to have one of each category and you know that you can recycle them. I mean, listen, at the end of the day with NPCs, I love doing NPC emails. I know some people kind of poo poo it personally if you can do it right, I think they're fantastic. But the reality is chances are you're not going to place that mpc. I just placed an MPC literally yesterday. It's probably the second NPC I've placed in the last year. You know, they're just ways to get in because the time the client gets your contract back and everything else, the candidates probably got another job.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:36]:
You know, it moves too slow. It's all about how you present the npc. And nowadays using AI, you should be able to take a candidate that's a rock star and you can hone that candidate to that hiring manager's, you know, Myers Briggs disk profile so it hits the right button. And even if they don't have an active job, look at their last AE they hired or you can always find their old postings for job descriptions. You can put it on there if you got the time, you know, or you got an assistant. They should be able to build your pre targeted MPC profile approach.

Rich Rosen [00:24:06]:
So your record month that you finally just like broke through that barrier. How many clients or how many placements of those were like brand new clients and how many of those were, we'll say longer term clients?

Benjamin Mena [00:24:17]:
That's a good question. There were three new clients and I think two were existing. So you know what the ironic thing? I should have actually done over 400 that month. I had one deal Porsche and two deals for huge fees die at offer because they had to pull the search for these leaders killed me.

Rich Rosen [00:24:41]:
So you, you had your record month and I know we've chatted about this off on when we got together like, here's a question for you. How did you keep up your work ethic momentum? Because I know a lot of recruiters, they like hit break through a barrier and then like almost like a limiting belief takes them back down or they take their foot off the gas. Like, how did you keep up the momentum?

Benjamin Mena [00:25:01]:
I get that question all the time. I don't really know, to be honest with you. I just don't know any other speed. I just feel like if you take your foot off the gas, then you're going to go through a drought. Right? And I don't like droughts. I don't like to lose. I have a very problematic fear of failure probably. All right? And you know, my wife decided to build this big house down south.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:22]:
So, you know, we got big expenses coming up for that and it's kind of a motivator. But at this point, I mean, financially I'm fine. Right. So it's just the motivation of winning. And like, I work with companies I like, I turn down a lot of jobs, you know, whether it's bad candidates or bad clients, bad comp plans. When you work with the companies you like and clients you like, the job becomes fun. Still stressful and hard. But man, it is so much more enjoyable working for, you know, like a guy like a bench than, you know, a guy like a putz.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:54]:
I have no patience for arrogance and obnoxiousness. Or candidates that think they are almighty or clients that think that they're too good to call you. Or it's like you have to call them every time. It just doesn't work. And it's little tests. It's one though. It's what's funny. I had a candidate yesterday.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:09]:
I'd known for a while he was a good sales rep. He went and got an AI certification from mit and he now thinks he is an absolute genius because he went to mit. And he's like, I'm like, dude, I'm in Boston. Everyone went to MIT here. I'm like, no one cares that you took a night course at mit. It's like, you're a sales rep. I'm like, it's a great add on. Maybe they give you an extra 50 bucks, I don't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:34]:
But he's like, no, I deserve this. And he sends his resume with the article that says MIT is now the hardest school to get into in the country, but not for night school. I'm sure it's a tough class. I'm sure it was a great class even. But I'm like, dude, the Arrogance is just not. Is a little misplaced. I'm like, I don't think this is going to work, my friend. And we noted in the records, one.

Rich Rosen [00:26:58]:
Of the funniest things about having a podcast is I've learned over time that no matter how hard I want to laugh out loud, I have to make it a silent laugh or it will completely cover anything that you're saying. So if you're watching this video and you're just seeing me just chuckling to myself, the reason is, is because if I start talking, it covers up what he's saying. I don't want to do that. Even though I'm laughing so hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:22]:
I love it. Yeah. I mean, this, this job brings out a lot of great stories. I keep telling for Pinnacle that everyone should put a collection of stories together and write a book of, like, your funniest recruiting moments. Because, I mean, there are some doozies. I mean, so.

Rich Rosen [00:27:36]:
Well, okay, we've talked a lot about bd and you're doing a lot of BD work. It sounds like you're on the phone. It feels like you're very focused on the BD side of the house. But you're a 360 recruiter. Like, how do you handle the candidate pipeline on top of everything else that you're doing?

Benjamin Mena [00:27:49]:
Yeah. I mean, so right now, I mean, the first few months of the year, I was doing a ton of BD. It was probably 60% BD, 40% candidates for the roles I had, you know, and obviously it's paid off in spades now. I've got so many deals today, knock on wood, you know, that it's like 90%, you know, candidate driven right now, to be honest with you. But you just gotta balance it. That's the thing. If you build a list of like your top hundred clients, even great, you can take five a day if you really want to personalize that outreach. And here's where I'm going to really do some deep dive.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:22]:
But candidly, you can get some great prompts on AI that are going to build your personalized outreach. There's a company called Bounty B O U N T I A I that Tell them I sent you. I get nothing for it, but I do like the guy, so I help out. But that will even give you. You put your company in and then it will give you their value prop and does ongoing research for you. So we'll tell you, hey, they just had a new vp. You should reach out. And this is why the value you bring and writes it for You.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:49]:
It's really good. It's a really cool solution. You don't have to spend hours. I don't spend hours doing anything. If you ever noticed. Like, I do podcasts because it's Q and A. I don't have to prepare anything. I don't have time to prepare anything.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:04]:
So that's my job, is to prepare. Yeah, exactly. There you go. I can ask questions, answer questions all day long or ask questions all day long, but I. I don't have time to prepare a slide deck or whatever people need. So you just balance your day, plan it all out.

Rich Rosen [00:29:18]:
So I want to talk about, like, probably one of the most important things for this. And like, you've kind of alluded to it multiple times, like, this is just you. You just go. You just attack. You're afraid of losing, being a consistent top biller and then having your record month and still just absolutely crushing it after that. How important is the mindset to these results?

Benjamin Mena [00:29:38]:
It's an interesting question. The mindset's super important because I think if you have the mindset of, hey, listen, I'm content, you know, hey, listen, I made 150 grand. Okay, great. I mean, if that's your life, that's awesome. I got people that would kill for that. But I think once you make a lot of money, like you have a million dollar, 2 million a year, you want to get back there. And, you know, I think we talked about this last time, but I'm a huge believer in. You're the average of the five people you're hanging around with the most, right? So you're the average of the five, intelligence and everything, you know, and if you think about it, I'm willing to bet my house it's true, you know, for your life and everyone else, you know, but listen, if you're hanging out with five people that are wealthy, well, you don't want to get left behind.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:22]:
You want to go do this thing too. It. You don't want to go to debt to do it. You want to be able to afford to do it. Right? I mean, if this is the people you like, not truly not just people you want to hang out with because they're rich, but people you like to hang out with, you want to be able to afford the things you like to do. Like, we like going on nice vacations. So, you know, to me, going to some more to my wife now, I suppose she made me this way, but going to some, you know, little putsie, you know, like shack in the woods, is not my idea of A great vacation. Going on the beach and, you know, in the Maldives.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:54]:
That's a vacation, Right. You know, rent a yacht or something. That would be a vacation to me. Like, the experiences are worth the money. And, you know, you think you're around with bigger thinking people, you're going to think bigger, you're going to do better, you're going to be more worldly, you're going to get more connected. And I think that's a huge thing. I think people get super satisfied or they get. I'm trying to think how to say this without sounding offensive, but it's like, go offensive.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:20]:
You know, it's not. Not, not. Wouldn't be the first. But it's like. But there's so many people that I talked to that they. They grew up like. I didn't grow up wealthy. I grew up very middle class.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:29]:
Right. But you just. I met people that were bigger. They had bigger visions than I did at the time. Right. But it's. You kept those friendships and it changed you. But I know so many recruiters, they.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:40]:
They grew up thinking, you know, we all did. If you made 100 grand in the 90s, you're having a good living. Well, 100 grand in 2025 is not a great living anymore. It's fine. But if you live on the east coast, you're like the low end of middle class, I think now. Right. According to the economics. I don't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:59]:
I don't know what the breakdown is, but it's not. You're certainly not doing great, which is rather sad, but that's the world we live in today. But I know a lot of these recruiters, they still have that mindset that I did. When I first started recruiting, my goal was to make a hundred grand, but when you're 23, that seems like a pretty big goal. So you got to think bigger. And if you like this job and you like what you're doing and you like your clients, why would you not want to win is really what it comes down to. So that is a super long mindset answer, I suppose.

Rich Rosen [00:32:32]:
But you said that you like important, like the. The people that you surround yourself with. Is that one of the reasons why you are in Pinnacle?

Benjamin Mena [00:32:41]:
100%. I was just talking to Alan Fisher about this yesterday because we just put some new guys in that I think it will transform their whole business. Most people get into Pinnacle, and most people's billings go way up. I mean, you're in the room, you get surrounded by these people, and you're like the mental strength of these people in this room. The success of most of these people in this room is crazy, and they all just want to get better. They want to learn. No one's arrogant or cocky about, oh, my God, I did a million bucks last year. That's great.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:06]:
What'd you do this year? You know, it's like, we all get lucky one month, right? But the mindset of always trying to get bigger and better, that's part of what makes Pinnacle great. And then you got that whole support mechanism that you know is further there to enhance your success. But pretty much everyone that goes to Pinnacle and puts effort into being in Pinnacle, meaning they give back. Everyone I know, their billings go up. Mine went way up. I know that for sure. That's part of it. Again, so you surround yourself with, you.

Rich Rosen [00:33:33]:
Know, I help the Pinnacle Society with their podcast, the Pinnacle Takes, so make sure to subscribe to that, too. I have to, like, try to yank billing numbers out of people they don't want to tell you.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:43]:
It's such a fascinating group to be around these A players, but everyone in this group, they're still scared of failure. They're still scared of not knowing how to do something or how do we do it better. No one feels like they're the best. You know, I mean, like, dude, I run my class on Thursdays, and I tell her, I'm like, listen, you guys are all probably better writers than I am. You're probably even better speakers than I am. I just work harder than y' all. That's really the big difference. And I've tried all the stupid things that you haven't tried yet, so I can tell you what worked and didn't work.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:15]:
That's the difference. Like, people that aren't afraid to put the, you know, put some skin into it and make it happen, right? Like, guys like Matt Walsh. I don't know if you mean Matt. Yeah. Matt's amazing. I think he's such a crazy and amazing person. Like, what? He is not afraid to try anything, and then you go out for dinner with him, and it's a whole nother experience. But how he runs his business and his mindset is awesome, you know, and it's just huge.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:35]:
And that's, you know, part of being Pinnacle. You get to be around people like that. You know that he thinks about things in a different way than most.

Rich Rosen [00:34:42]:
I think it was, like, the first meeting I joined you guys with, it was a dinner session. It was, like, after dinner at the bar. Matt was giving a full breakdown of, like, the comp Structures and like, all sorts of stuff that I just. You can't pull out of another recruiting firm.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:57]:
No, that's the thing about the Pinnacle guys. They all love to give back. I mean, you've had them, you know, on the podcast. Obviously they're happy to help. And that's what makes it, like such a very cool, unique group. Where you go, it's a great party. I mean, 20 of us went to dinner and to see the Eagles at the Sphere and with not a single argument about, oh, where we going? What are we doing? Everyone's just like, oh, whatever, who the hell cares? You know, it's just a fun, great group, you know?

Rich Rosen [00:35:22]:
Anyways, jumping over to tech tools, and here's the thing, I think that also makes you different before we start talking about the tech tools. Like, you try a lot of shit, but you also don't keep it from stopping the work that you do.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:34]:
I love checking them out because I'm always hoping there's going to be something really good or really much better out there. I mean, no offense to all the tool guys out there, but 99% of them are useless. You know, I mean, it's just a carbon copy of something I can get for free or for 20 bucks on AppSumo. I mean, like, I use Outflay, which is great. I don't really see how, whatever the latest campaign thing on AppSumo or whatever, just out there, whatever, whatever the new Interstellar is or whatever. This thing is tied so tightly into Crelate for my database, it's irreplaceable to me. It does everything you could ever want it to do. People keep reinventing the wheel and they're not adding anything new or fresh to it.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:11]:
So who cares? Outplay was great because I got them to add the integration to Crelate and now everything is just one big loop. I don't have to go to two different systems. Massive time saver, you know, pin.com, you met them at Pinnacle. Like I had them come because, listen, from a sourcing standpoint, I think they're fantastic. Especially if you got VAs you can and you're doing like I do tech. There's tons of small companies that no one knows about. Click the button, you can instantly see what that company does. Are these guys the right people or not? And it does a great job on the sourcing side.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:43]:
Once you can perfect your algorithms or the criteria you're putting in there, you know, just like track AI, traq, AI for call recordings. Does an amazing job, you know, Whether it's on your cell phone or your desk and does a great summaries and coaching and the difference too, I got, I mean honestly, like I don't get paid for these. A lot of these guys give me stuff for free, but I don't really get paid for any of it. I just, the difference is the tech that I like. I generally get to know the owners and I like the owners. I like the people that are involved. It's generally, I think, a very good solution or it's got places to go. I run my business.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:14]:
I don't work for people that I like. I certainly don't intend to give people money that I don't like or support those I don't like. But I just think like you work with good people and they've got good product, why not promote them? I look at tools all the time. ChatGPT or Claude can Gemini whatever can do just about anything. All these other 1300 other AI GPT type specialists can do. Save your time. For the most part. There's exceptions.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:37]:
But.

Rich Rosen [00:37:37]:
Well, jumping over to Claude and ChatGPT, like what are you using those for?

Benjamin Mena [00:37:41]:
Everything. Just from simple prompts to get candidate presentations done in 10 seconds to building client breakdowns like, why is this company special? Like what's their. Give me the battle cards against, you know, who are their biggest competitors and give me the differences. You know, write emails based that support, you know, that support these theories so you can get really good written emails. You know, I use it to write emails and presentations like, you know, candid presentations. I'll do it like write like, you know, me or Trish or Danny Cahill or whatever. It's interesting how they all come out different, you know, but based on your style, like mine's a very funny, no bullshit style. Trish is very wordy with a lot of emojis.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:20]:
Danny's is kind of comical, a little bit comical in some respects, but it's fun. If you're on ChatGPT a lot specifically, you can ask it, what don't you know about yourself? And it's really interesting because it's right. So, you know, based on your past conversation, tell me what I don't know about myself.

Rich Rosen [00:38:36]:
Are you using like custom built GPTs? Are you just using prompts that you write yourself? Are you using deep research?

Benjamin Mena [00:38:42]:
So mostly, you know, either some custom built GPTs or just quick prompts that I write myself. And I know like the real AI aficionados will completely disagree with me, but you know, my results have been pretty good. Listen the more detailed your prompt, the better, of course. Right? There's no arguing that. But. And if you save them, which you should, once you write a good one or a long one, great. But man, you can put a one sentence prompt in there. Like if you say, write a, you know, write a candidate presentation in the style like Rich Rosen, using my notes and the person's resume and tie it to this job order or this job description, it comes out amazing or even, like I said, just trying to find a phone number for someone you know, again, is it perfect? No, but none of these things are.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:23]:
But it's free, essentially. And if you put the guy's LinkedIn and say, Give me this guy's phone number or put in his name and location, it's right more often than it's wrong. I've done that about 10 times and it's been pretty damn good.

Rich Rosen [00:39:34]:
What's kind of funny is remember when Chad GPT first came out like prompt engineer was going to be a big job and then crickets now. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:40]:
And that, that's the crazy thing. It's like no one knows what the hell the future is going to hold, right? Like what jobs are actually going to be there. And it's scary as hell to think about. Gotta tell you, I am glad I am closer to the end than the beginning because man, it is gonna be interesting in the next 10, 15 years. There was some state they were trying to pass laws, I don't know what they just did. They have to start teaching AI like in K through 12, because if you don't know how to use even the basic prompting or scared of it, you're just dead in the water.

Rich Rosen [00:40:08]:
We've covered a lot before jumping over the quickfire questions, is there anything else that like you wanna share that we didn't talk about for your record month?

Benjamin Mena [00:40:16]:
No, I mean, I think, listen, that record month came from just hard work, man. I mean, this is the thing. You've had enough people on here. You know, the guys that have been, the girls that have been super successful, they grind it, right? At some point, they grind it. You know, the whole, hey, I got lucky here and there thing that people say, and I say this too, you only get lucky because you worked your ass off. All the recruiters that are listening. Yeah, this is a challenging year for folks. But man, the more effort you put in, you plant the seeds for tomorrow.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:41]:
You gotta play the long game. Be the guy that returns all the phone calls and emails, respond and sign. Even if it's an automated email, it's better than nothing, you know, if it's an executive, get back to him. Unless the guy changes jobs every year. But the, you know, but for the most part, listen, get back to these people. Like, they're gonna be your buddy at some point. Mark off a half an hour a week where you're just, you know, gonna talk to two or three candidates that are out of work, that are gonna land someplace that you can provide some advice for. I mean, just some resume coaching or something.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:10]:
Oh, that is the other thing I got to tell. I am on this warpath about these idiot resume writers who, who continue to tell people not to put their location on their resume. I think that is one of the colossally stupidest things I have seen in my 30 years of doing this. Why does anyone want to talk to a candidate in Florida if we need the guy in Washington state? Is it that hard just to put. I'm in, you know, Seattle or Miami or Florida, whatever. So everyone just tell your candidates, put a location on very simple. And if they don't, they're probably not worthwhile.

Rich Rosen [00:41:44]:
If you want a good laugh, like Talking about, like, LinkedIn impressions, like, the easiest way to gain 100,000 followers is just going to rampage on that kind of stuff on LinkedIn. Totally be a career coach. Million followers. Like, I'll give you this ATS resume. Stop the bullshit.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:00]:
Exactly. This, this guy, I did that. He was like, oh, this lady optimized the resume for me for ats. I'm like, for what ats? I'm like, you don't even have a phone number on it. I'm like, I'm like, for a VP.

Rich Rosen [00:42:12]:
Of Sales, like, we actually kind of did a give back session to help, like, people that got impacted by DOGE in the federal space. And like, don't laugh at this. Like, I'm very anti this ATS resume bullshit, but someone who popped in like, this Etsy flowery pictures. And I'm like, you are the one person that needs this ATS stupid resume. Just keep it simple.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:34]:
Well, I mean, that's the thing I tell all these candidates, listen, just go to ChatGPT, dump your current resume in here, and then tell it to ask you questions about how do you make this a better, more concise resume, you know, depending on your industry. Right. Creating a resume today should not be the biggest struggle.

Rich Rosen [00:42:50]:
I actually thought ChatGPT was going to take out a lot of career coaches out of business. There's more of them now, of course.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:57]:
Because now they know what they're doing.

Rich Rosen [00:42:58]:
I mean, anyways, jumping over the quick fire questions. Picture this brand new recruiter. Somebody just started off in the recruiting industry, jumped into one of your coaching sessions on your call on a Thursday morning is just like, hey, I'm new to this world. What's the number one piece of advice that you would give me to have a successful career?

Benjamin Mena [00:43:14]:
Just get on the phone. Just start dialing, talking as many people as you can. Those first 10, 15, 20 days, don't focus on the money, just focus on getting better, learning what questions you need to ask and, you know, how do you become that expert in your industry?

Rich Rosen [00:43:28]:
Same question, but for the old dogs. Let's just say it's almost the same answer.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:32]:
The old guys don't want to get on the phone either. Like everyone says, just do email, do marketing. Listen, you ask 10 recruiters, I'm going to bet nine of them say, oh yeah, I don't make cold calls. My favorite is the recruiter that doesn't pick up a phone call because they don't know the number. I'm like, well, what if it was a candidate? What if it was a client calling you? A company calling with a job order like, you're not that important. Who cares if there's telemarketer hang up. Who cares? Practice your pitch. Maybe they got a great pitch.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:55]:
I love listening to telemarketers. Honestly, you never know.

Rich Rosen [00:43:59]:
So, yes, I got like seven Medicare calls this morning that I picked up.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:02]:
Oh, that's midlife. Don't take them all off.

Rich Rosen [00:44:07]:
Like, I hate it because they're all like seven or three numbers. They're like going to Virginia and I'm like, and they actually, you're gonna laugh at this now. Like, it literally says stuff like north of Grumman and Lockheed Martin now on my ICAR id. So I'm like, you know, of course I pick it up. And I'm like, great, Medicare.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:21]:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Rich Rosen [00:44:24]:
What's one of the biggest failures that you've had to work through?

Benjamin Mena [00:44:27]:
Biggest failure. Biggest failure. I mean, probably just learning that clients don't always care about often even clients you think that they think that you really get involved with. Like you think you're part of the team, you're not. And I have a problem with getting really close to clients and trying to do what's really right in their best interest. And no matter what I do, they don't buy it. They like it. Until they don't like until then they're just like, you know what, now we're going to go hire an internal.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:54]:
Now doesn't matter. You just built our team and gave us these free this and free that and advice from this. No candidates at the offer stage. Now we're. Forget it. We're going to restart. You know, I expect loyalty and you just don't get it. And, you know, I've definitely gotten surprised by it, and I shouldn't be.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:10]:
I consider that a big failure.

Rich Rosen [00:45:11]:
Okay, so I'll make this the last question then. Okay. You get hit up by a lot of recruiters because you give so much. I have seen you probably give more than most recruiters out there, which is probably why it was smart. If I start a coaching session where you could just like, kind of like, here, let me answer your questions there. For the amount of hours that you've spent giving. But you probably get questions like, what's BD strategy? What tool? What this? Is there a question that you wish they would actually ask you but never do?

Benjamin Mena [00:45:38]:
Hmm, that's a good question. Is there a question I wish they would ask that they never do? I'm not sure I ever give it that much thought. I think is really the answer. I just think it does surprise me how often people don't ask what the pitch is. How do you do a BD pitch? They ask what your strategy is, but they never ask, well, what's your actual pitch? Which is actually always surprising because I know if I was asking these questions I've asked that, like, if I have a split partner, I'm like, oh, listen, you're getting response. Let me, let me see your email. What are you doing? That's different, right? Why not? That doesn't mean they're going to give it to you, but can't hurt to.

Rich Rosen [00:46:12]:
Ask what's your normal pitch?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:15]:
That's going to cost you now.

Rich Rosen [00:46:17]:
You have to come a Thursday morning to get it right.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:19]:
Exactly. 8:45.

Rich Rosen [00:46:24]:
Hit up rich for the link. On that note, Rich, if somebody wants to follow you and they don't already, how do they go about doing that?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:29]:
I am maxed out on LinkedIn connections, so the best way to do is actually just follow me on LinkedIn or follow me on Facebook. I post a lot of stuff on there, too. Those are the best two, really the best two avenues.

Rich Rosen [00:46:40]:
Before you let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with everybody?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:43]:
No, man. I mean, I just think, keep your head up and listen. The year is going to be what you make it. And sometimes the years are building. Years, right? You got to stop. You got to have the memory of a goldfish. One bad beat one bad month, let it go. Focus on tomorrow.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:56]:
Can't really change the past anyway. All you can do is focus on what's coming. I'm a huge believer if you do right by others, you're going to do okay. But just put the effort in. Don't coast. I mean, there's so much money to be made. You can literally change your life and your family's life in, you know, months, if not a month. In this business, there's very few other opportunities that give you that in this world.

Rich Rosen [00:47:18]:
Love it. Well, Rich, once again, thank you for coming back on. It was awesome spending time with you in Vegas, so thank you for that opportunity too.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:24]:
That was great. I'm glad you could make it so. But yeah, anytime, buddy. It's always good to talk and see you, my friend.

Rich Rosen [00:47:28]:
All right, go out there and crush it, guys. Lot to take in, lot to think about, and most importantly, a lot to act. All right, crush it, guys. Recruiters Imagine having a recruiting sidekick that works 24 hours a day. Meet Pin, your AI powered assistant that never sleeps. Pin combs through over 850 million candidate profiles to find perfect fits for your clients, even those hard to find unicorns. It then engages them across email, LinkedIn, and SMS with smart outreach that gets nearly half of candidates to respond. And PIN doesn't stop there.

Rich Rosen [00:47:58]:
It automatically screens, resumes with pinpoint precision and handles the back and forth of interview scheduling for you. It's like having an extra team member who never clocks out so you can fill roles faster and focus on closing deals. Visit pin.com to book your demo today.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:14]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit, subscribe and leave a rating.