Top Tech Recruiter Reveals Why Staffing Is Broken in 2026 (1,300+ Placements)

All right, guys. We're talking the tech recruitment world today. We have an absolute beast in that space. He has placed over a thousand candidates in high level tech roles throughout his career. Recently left the tech recruitment agency universe to start his own company called Simpleside AI where he guides other agencies to get more clients and place more candidates. His name is Mike Melo. And Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Great introduction. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. So, why don't we just lay out your credentials to start? I mean, you were an absolute beast in the agency space. Why just kind of a quick run through your career? Yeah. Awesome. So, I started in staffing and recruiting. Sold staffing, sold sold recruiting, sold services. Started in 2015. Started at a small agency. I worked my way up and eventually placed over 1300 people. I worked with many enterprise accounts, broke into multiple mid-market accounts. Loved it. A lot of fun, a lot of highs, a lot of lows. And I just left a little bit less than a year ago to start my own agency that helps staffing and recruiting firms get more business through content, outbound automation, and essentially a distribution channel to get them in front of the right buyers. Yeah. And I first found you, you were um kind of very big in the short form world. Uh your TikTok was blowing up. Uh you know, obviously all my content is focused on the tech space. we were talking to recruiters and uh now did you do that with the intention of eventually kind of becoming a essentially I mean you have your it's like a coach essentially a coach at a very high level. So there's definitely a coaching aspect to it. So I always tell folks if you're going to use content and use outbound automation to get new business there's a right way to go about it and a lot of that is data driven. So there's definitely a coaching aspect to what I do because as you know right a lot of the recruiting and staffing agency owners haven't created content before. So, there's definitely a coaching element to it. To answer your question about the intention, honestly, I got my book of business to about 40k in weekly gross profit, just doing the old school methods, cold calling, sneaking into Verizon, sneaking into MX, looking over people's shoulder to see where happy hours were going to be and show up uninvited. And that completely stopped working for me and I just hit a wall. So what I started to do kind of as a hobby and somewhat of a fun project is I would make videos about my day, problems I was seeing, projects I was supporting and posting that on LinkedIn, posting it on TikTok. And I eventually got a lot of folks from the enterprise accounts I supported. They'd reach out to me and say, "Hey, you should talk to this person. You should have a conversation with this director. I didn't know that you supported data analytics type projects." And kind of saw, hey, I have something here that no one else is doing. It's working well. it beats, you know, sneaking into the client site. Uh, and I went all in on it. And then, long story short, someone asked me to do it for them. I did it. They got results. Someone else asked me, and I said, "Hey, I don't have the time." And they said, "How much would you charge?" And that's essentially where the idea of simple side came about. Okay. So, I mean, you said data analytics. Was that primarily what you were filling for these big companies? So, I did a lot a lot of different verticals. So for MX specifically a lot of Python development, data analytics. I also worked with Verizon and I did a lot of roles that were more design focused, more in-house creative type roles. So it was a good mix. I'd say probably my book was about 6040 with tech and with creative. Now you say you mentioned Python. What did you do to vet out the fake candidates? What was some of your strategies before after I uh pulled my hair out? So, I mean, look, the the bigger staffing firms are getting better at this. There's a lot of really good software. So, we used a really good tool and actually started to leverage that tool as a value proposition to executives to say, "Hey, we've invested in this tool. Super valuable. I think it will help your organization, save the director's time." So, obviously, everything from a technology standpoint. Also, some of the old school stuff works too. I was fortunate that a lot of my business was in the tri-state. So, I'd meet candidates on site. I'd have coffee with them. I would make sure the person that I saw on the screen was the same person that showed up the first day. And there are times when that doesn't happen. So, you know, I always tell folks whether you're hiring for technology or you're recruiting this recruiting in the space, there's a wonderful opportunity right now to use technology, but the old school stuff works too if you do them simultaneously. So, yeah, for me, meeting people using the softwares that were coming about at the time, and again, I'd use those softwares as an actual value prop to help get more business. Now what did that software do exactly? So it was u facial recognition. So it essentially would tell us if now this is you know 18 months ago. So the the the technology has caught up right and it's this constant pushpull of uh are the folks using the technology for bad intention are they ahead or are the folks using technology for good intentions are they ahead but yeah it was it was super helpful for me but again even in 18 months right as you know with AI it's come a long way since then right and there's there's more steps you have to take now for true validation yeah it's like you know you have to stay one step ahead of the criminals it's kind of like the FB you're You're kind of like being the FBI, you know, in our job. Yeah. I mean, anything can throw it off. I had one gentleman who was such a good candidate, spoke so well, great companies, and when I interviewed him, his microphone looked like a basketball. And I'm like, why is your microphone so big? And it was covering his lips. So, he was he was doing that so they facial recognition wouldn't c catch him, you know. And uh yeah, it's people get creative with that. Yeah. I mean, I still see it today. Even video, people are offcreen feeding them answers. Now with AI, you can change the whole you can have someone else take the interview, fake the voice, and fake the actual um image, too. So, it's it's a crazy world. So, I mean, we probably lived very similar lives, you know, servicing these big accounts, happy hours, lunches, coffees all day, every day. What's the current state of the recruitment agency? I'm kind of like I I have like one toe in a little bit still, but like what's going on in these big agencies anymore with AI and and everything? Yeah, it's a great point. So, I think there's two things that I noticed. And again, I've been running Simple Side for a little bit less than a year, but I work directly with staffing agency owners. Some of them doing $2 million, some of them doing as much as $80 million. There's two big trends I see. The one is the shift from a focus on enterprise accounts to mid-market. So when I was in staffing, you could make a lot of money supporting an enterprise account and you still can. But what has happened is there is such an emphasis on offshore initiatives and cost cutting and vendor management programs that the staffing agency that's doing between 5 and $35 million a year and had great profit margins in a strong Ibida, they're getting kicked in the chest. they're they're having a hard time servicing some of these larger accounts specifically because of cost cutting and initiatives to move projects offshore. So, what I'm actually seeing is some of my best customers focus specifically on mid-market accounts, companies between 50 and 500 people. There's tons of opportunities for those companies, newly funded companies, companies that are growing, companies that are building their own tech. It's a shorter sales cycle for a staffing agency. It's also beneficial for me because I get to show the ROI on my service quicker. But with that said, I'm seeing a lot more savvy agencies focus on mid-market accounts, going deeper into those accounts and having say 15 accounts where they have 10 to 30 people as opposed to putting all of their eggs into these enterprise accounts. Even when I was in staffing, we would have five or six people on an enterprise account, right? Big salaries, you know, good commissions. Um, so I'm seeing a big shift, a very noticeable shift. The second shift I'm seeing is an effort to reduce spend. So, an effort to make an agency more profitable, run leaner, the work that a a great staffing salesperson is 3 or 4x now if they use the AI tools and the automation tools properly. And the same goes for recruiters. So, I'm seeing staffing companies specifically in the mid-market spending more time in the mid-market, less time supporting enterprise accounts. And I'm also seeing mid-market staffing agencies adopt more tech forward AI technologies specifically to reduce spend. Yeah. And what are you seeing as far from my perspective like for 15 years the tools were terrible. Everyone would come in and pitch their staffing tool. It was and it was like okay this yeah maybe sure but everyone just use Zoom info and and the lead services and yeah I use that too and just do LinkedIn and and email and calls right. Suddenly the tools have gotten actually pretty good. Right. So, where do you recommend people look at maybe not even specific tools, but like the types of tools now? Yeah. So, I and I couldn't [clears throat] agree with you more. I used Zoom info for years. They're clunky. They're hard to use. The data is not always accurate. I think when a staffing agency is looking at a tool, there's there's really two ways to go. So, the one is simply saving time, right? Automations to get more out of your people, internal automations. There's actually some really good new AI tools. There's a lot of really good AI companies that help with that that are doing great. The second one I see is is really like topfunnel. So data enrichment, bringing in the right people. When I first started, and I'm sure you can relate to this, you'd get a list, you'd have a title, you'd have an email, and you'd have a number. And you had no data behind that. And I would go on everyone's LinkedIn and say, "Okay, here's something I can reference in an email. Here's something I can reference when I call." You can get all that data up front. I'm a big believer and people sometimes get confused because even though Simpleside is an AI first company, I'm not a believer that a staffing sales rep is replaceable. If anything, I think in the last 2 or 3 years, the staffing sales rep, whether they're selling services or they're selling TNM services or solutions or project based work, to me, they're the most valuable person in a recruiting agency. And again, like I sell a service that some people think, do we need less sales reps? And I always tell them no, like this is an engine behind a great sales rep. It's not something to replace them. So to answer your question, tools related to data enrichment, Clay is a great tool. You can do a lot with Claude now as well. Um, and then internal tools specifically to make the staffing agency more efficient. There's a lot of really good AI companies helping with that. Yeah. And so what is your main focus? Do you kind of get into some of these companies and just kind of like see what they're doing well and just help them go deeper there while automating some new stuff as well or like what are you doing? Yeah, it's um it's kind of twofold. So to your point about coaching, a lot of the clients I work with do need help with what ICP should I target, what city should I go after. Right now there are so many AI messages. If you're not clear on who you help and why they should meet with you, it's very hard to get meetings. So a big part of what I do is helping them with that and then essentially I set up a distribution system. So I am a big believer that you need to give your customer information about you before you reach out. So when we were in staffing, you met with someone, you got time with them, and then you showed them all the value, right? Hey, I'm Hey, I'm Chris. This is what I've done. These are the clients I'm supporting. This is why I can help you. Now there's too much outbound. So all of that that would come after the meeting, it now comes before. So what I do is I help a staffing agency specifically target specific accounts, a specific market, a specific niche and then I help them create that content. I distribute the content for them. I coach them on the content. I track all of the data on what is working. Um and then essentially um I create the outbound automation sequence for them via LinkedIn and at times through email as well. But I again I always say like this is this is topfunnel, right? So the clients that I had one client who's booked 15 agreements through our service, she's a beast. Like she is someone who when that lead comes in, she follows up. I have another client who's got a 40% response rate on LinkedIn. When the leads come in, he creates a video message for them. So what I do, what Simple Side does is we create a distribution system for them for content and outbound that helps get them in front of uh the right the right prospect. So you're you're giving them ideas on content. Is it mostly video that they're posting on LinkedIn? Is it direct? You said video message follow-ups. Is it also I see a lot of people they write the little like um essays on LinkedIn about something that happened or dealing with a certain type of candidate, right? I mean, is it all the above? It is. Yeah. So, a good way to look at it is, so I'm a big believer in video content. And it's funny cuz when you talk to the people that are content first people, marketing people, they jump on me for this because all of the data shows you that written content does better from an impression standpoint, from an engagement standpoint, from a marketing metric standpoint. I will tell you as someone in sales, every time I closed a deal or every time I had a customer reference my content, they would reference the video. So, video builds trust. So, I help them specifically with their video content. We also write LinkedIn captions for them as well just because we want something to help boost the page. So, but that's correct. So, we help them with the written content. We help them with the LinkedIn content and then the outbound automation sequences as well. Yeah. And then so anyone that obviously engages is the lowest hanging fruit and you're you're coaching them to just hammer those leads right away. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and that's so to that point, there's so much good AI there. There really is like and even I see everything with Claude right now. If you have the time to sit there and do business development for 2, three hours a day with Claude, great. You know that that's you should do that. Most of the clients I work with don't have that time. So essentially what we do is we create something for them that brings people in. And look, it's a different strategy. I have I have people who hear my service and roll their eyes at times because I tell them, "Hey, we're going to create a distribution channel for you and then we're going to drive business to your staffing firm essentially by video content and by targeted lists." Um, and they think I'm crazy, right? Like, and look, rightfully so, because there's people that have built staffing firms that are doing $50 million a year, and they've never posted one thing on LinkedIn. What I would say to them is the world is different now. And as a millennial, and specifically, I I have some clients that are Gen Z clients that are crushing it, doing millions of dollars a year. The way that you build trust now because it's harder to have that avenue with people because there's so much outbound and because staffing is saturated, is what I believe is through video content. It's building trust. It's showing people you understand your niche. It's showing people that you have authority in the space. And it's showing people that you are someone that can help them before you do any type of outreach. Yeah. Yeah. And I I've noticed it's like right when AI ca I mean maybe even before AI came in probably during the the co era where everyone was just not doing meetings. They were home more and suddenly I mean I used to I was just like I would my first level was just like lunch just I'd send a 100 lunch messages. Sometimes I would get like five to seven back. Maybe in a bad little period be two to three and then you build from there. Then suddenly it became maybe one out of a hundred, right? Same thing happened for me. Yeah. I I looked up one day and I said, I've been doing this strategy for six years. I got my book of business to $40,000 a week in profit by doing this. I'm top producer and it just it stopped working for me. And I went to my sales manager and I said, "Everything I'm doing, everything I've done that worked is no longer working." And right, what does a sales manager say? Do more. I mean, I I was invited to 100% RFP because of my content. 100% RFP. I've unfortunately lost it. I wish I had a better way to end that story. But creating content and showing your expertise, it's scalable. And this is this is good for your audience, too. So, it's not just about recruiting. If you're an expert in Python, if you're an expert in even if you're not an expert, even if you're learning about the new AI tools, share that story. It will benefit you so much. It's not a quick hit at all. I have customers that I've worked with that when I signed the deal with them, they said, "I've been following you for a year. Never engage with one piece of my content. I've been following and listening to you for a year." The way we sell is different. The software folks are ahead of this. They are and have been investing in marketing, in stories, in B2B content. And you'll see it. You can look at all of the new startups that are hiring celebrities specifically to get attention and to drive trust. Hiring experts in those fields fields to represent their brand. I believe it's the same thing for staffing. It's a little different because staffing is more commoditized, specifically if you're selling TNM staffing. But if you are an expert in your field, I believe you should talk about it. And I think it will only help you. Yeah. And what about anyone starting out in the agency world now? I mean, yeah, back in the old days, you had nothing else to do, so you were just doing outbound all day. So now you would kind of recommend a blend, I guess. Yeah, definitely. Um, so just like step by step, if I'm a new sales rep in staffing and I want to do well, the first thing I'm thinking is who do I want to know me? That's step one. The first problem you solve is obscurity. So when I got on a new account, when I got on American Express, I didn't say I'm going to place 10 people in 90 days. As I said, everyone who is a director and above at this company in the IT department will know who I am. They'll know my name. They'll know my face. Now, once they know who I am, now I have a higher probability of actually booking a meeting with them. So, anyone who's just starting out now, tell your story, share some mistakes, share what you're learning, pull a really good list. If you're going after new accounts, make sure you're reaching out to people that have recently received funding, have open jobs, or have specific problems. You can get all that data from Clay. You can get all that data from Claude. From there, create a story. If you don't have expertise, leverage the expertise of your company. Also, just share some mistakes that you're making. People relate to people who are imperfect. I see this with my content. I see this with all of my clients content. Start to share that story. Try to build an audience. Try to build a name. And then from there, try to book your meetings. And then leverage those meetings for more meetings. If you met with a, you know, and and this is sales fundamentals that people don't do. When you get a meeting, at the end of the meeting, you say, "Who else should I be talking to here? Can you would you give me a name?" You say, "Hey, thank you so much for meeting me. I'm really excited to work with you. Um, I'm super confident I can add a lot of value. As you know, I'm new to the account. Who else should I be talking to?" Right? If you're new to a market, ing software companies scale up in Nashville. Who else do you think I should talk to? And then you pause and then they'll think if they should tell you, right? But it's the AI, it's data enrichment, and it's also, in my opinion, what's more important than ever, good sales fundamentals. Yeah. And are you seeing a lot of people that kind of kind of have our similar story where you were a top guy at an agency and it can just if you don't want to go into management, it can just be there is a bit of a just time constraint, glass ceiling. For me, it would be like, all right, you get an account redot that's taking up all your time. Now your bis dev time is like this unless someone you really like goes somewhere else and then that account I mean I've dealt with mergers acquisitions I've dealt with vendor changes suddenly now like I mean I an account three years ago I had 60 people there I have zero people there right now how it goes. Yeah. I mean I mean I remember uh praying at night when a new CM CMO would come in to the organization and say, you know, I'm I'm making a good chunk of money every month. Does that disappear with with the new executives? Yeah. I mean, look, there's there's a lot of risk in staffing and recruiting. It's a high risk, high reward. I mean, in my opinion, there's not many industries where you can make, you know, 20 to $60,000 a month and without risk, right? you you inherit some risk. I would say for anyone who's in staffing, the more you can try to build your brand, you you mitigate that risk, right? So, I got as mentioned invitations to huge RFPs. I had a much easier time breaking into new accounts because, as you know, if someone went somewhere, sometimes you can be forgotten, but if you're present and you're visible and people know you, it increases your leverage and also increases the probability that person will take you with them when they go to a new company. Yeah. So, who's your ideal is your ideal client? Obviously, they're making some money, but they're not doing any of this content strategy. I feel like it seems like when I talk to experts in the field, like I've talked to James Blackwell, I've talked to Rich Rosen, like Rich is a phone jockey. He doesn't care about a lot of other stuff. James was sending video messages. He didn't touch the phone unless, right? So I feel like if you just go deep in one skill set you could make a ton of money but your service is I mean it does take some time but it would be like passive on top as far as leads coming in. Right. Correct. Yeah. So so to that point our service it's a multi- channelannel approach. So and again it's exactly what I did in staffing. If you want to meet with every CTO in St. Louis Missouri right the first step is getting your face out there. So we help them with that content and it has to be specific. So, I see recruiters posting interview tips or I met with someone weeks ago and I advised him not to do this and he posts job statistics and his whole feed is recruiters and it's staffing people and I said if you're creating content to drive more business for your firm you're hurting yourself. So, it is creating a content strategy, distributing that content to the right folks, pulling a list of a,000 to 1500 contacts that have money that have jobs automating the initial outreach and bringing in those leads. I will tell you that to that point about video messages and getting on the phone. The clients that I see who do the best are they're they're quick to follow up with leads. Some of them say, "Mike, I have a 40% response rate when I send a video message after the simple side lead comes in." Okay, great. Keep doing that. Some say, "Hey, I'm a phone guy. I saw they engage with my content. Every month when you pull the leads list, I'm going to call every one of them." Great. Uh you have to find what works for you, but if you don't do multiple things to test it, you'll never know. I also think you should be doing things that are different. Staffing is saturated, especially if you're in tech. It technology staffing is absolutely saturated. That's why it helps if you niche down. But if you bang out the phones for 6 months and it works, great, keep doing it. If you have like I have an a copy that's doing very well, email copy that's doing very well. And I just reached out to the person I work with. I said, "We're going to 2x it because it's working, right?" So, as simple as it sounds, if something is working, you do more of it. And if you give yourself enough runway to realize it is not working, you adjust. Yeah. Where are you seeing agencies maybe not adapting and going wrong these days? Just not doing the content basically. Well, I wouldn't even say not doing the content because if you have a good enough network, the some of these folks have 40 years of relationships. And if you you have those, then great. Like you're you you'll probably be good with or without content. If you do content, you'll get more. But if you're content with what you have, you're probably good. If you have the relationships, where content really makes sense is for the people that want to take it to the next level. You're doing 3 4 5 million, you're doing 15 million, and you want a way to get 2 to four new accounts every 6 months, specifically accounts that are growing. As far as what I see a lot of agencies doing wrong, I think that there's more agencies doing nothing. So, at least if you try something, you know, okay, this worked, it didn't work. But I see a lot of agency owners that know they need to adopt, they know they need better data. They know they need to adopt some type of AI. They know that they want to break into a new market and it would be beneficial if everyone in that market who bought their services knew who they were. And a lot of times they don't do it just because they're nervous and they're afraid to take that actual risk. Afraid to put themselves out there or Well, that's definitely one. Yeah, that will. So, whenever you put yourself out there, now I'll I'll I have many stories on this. When I first started creating video content, I was made fun of. Point blank period. Made fun of in my office by people way more successful than I was. I'll say this, and I I don't mean to be harsh here. Many of the people who made fun of me have stayed flat or gone backwards because I was doing something different. I was putting myself out there. I made myself vulnerable. I reaped a good benefit from it. They thought it was silly and they didn't see the intent behind it. And when you are successful, like I have not been successful very long. So I've I was in staffing for 10 years. I would say six or seven years of them were successful. My business is successful now. I have lived most of my life being unsuccessful and having nothing and trying different things. And I still live I still have that mentality where even every all the money I make from simple side it goes directly back into the business. All right, I'm going to hire this person. I'm going to try this. I'm going to invest in this. So a lot of people are afraid to put themselves out there because of criticism. What I will say to you when I started creating video content, the people who understood it gave me praise. The people who supported me supported me. When I started Simpleside, the people who I knew who were the most successful people who sold staffing agencies for $300 million called me and said, "Congratulations, you're going to do a great job." So, for anybody who's thinking about video content or putting themselves out there, people who are going to hate on you, they're going to hate on you regardless. So, think about yourself and think about the benefit that you'll get from it. Yeah. What would you tell yourself with your current brain, the 2015 mic? Like, what didn't he know? I mean, about the volume it took. What would you tell them? Yeah. So, as far as the volume, I was always a workhorse. So, I what I lacked in uh structure or process, I made up with volume. So, for me, it wasn't a volume issue. I'd probably say uh to manage your temperament a little bit better. So, you know, when I was 25 years old, a lot of highs and lows, uh super emotional. that benefited me when it came to relationships because my clients saw how invested I was and it was an easy decision for them to work with me. It often hurt me internally. I had a lot of clashes with people internally. I didn't always get along with everyone internally. So, if I was going to tell myself something in 2015, probably be to try to find that balance a little bit sooner between performing at the highest level, managing my temperament, and regulating my mood simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it could be it's such a roller coaster. It's hard, man. Yeah. It's like and only someone who only someone who has worked in staffing, recruiting, solution services, only they know. And when you carry a book, it is a different level of pressure. And I'm not justifying being abrasive or or working uh and pissing people off at times, but whenever you demand a lot of yourself, there's going to be friction with the people around you. my best advice for anyone. So, I worked very well with a recruiter in my office who played in the final four. So, she competed in the final four. And it's not a coincidence that her and I did a lot of business together. Did million millions of dollars in business like millions of dollars for ourselves, not the company, like to us W2. And I would say if you are a high performer and you demand excellence of yourself, that doesn't mean perfection. It means you're striving for excellence. Try to surround yourself with people who want that for themselves as well because they will have more empathy for you when you are your most vulnerable, right? Like, and I've told this story before, but I got physically kicked out of a client a prospect's office and like went to a Starbucks and I cried and I was just a mess. And when you are that emotionally invested in your work, it will benefit you if the people around you also are emotionally invested in their work as well. Yeah. What was it like in those early days? Was it still I mean when I first I started in 2007 it was like yeah 08 it was well we went through 08 but it it was all like the yelling and scream you know for some reason we attributed yelling and screaming to like this will help us do business because it means we care. I'm just like well now everyone's just there's things out of our control and now everyone's just stressed like nothing's getting done when there's yelling and screaming. Definitely. But it was like you're weak if you don't like this stuff. I'm like this is stupid. It's a boiler room. Yeah. I mean, that's like that's the old agency culture is it's a boiler room. I would say we were never like that. We had hard conversations. We were direct with each other. We were also a a group of kids in their mid20s making a lot of money supporting these huge accounts. The pressure was high. I don't think there's any benefit to yelling or name calling or cursing. But I do think that when you're working towards something that is a big goal that you will be emotionally vulnerable at times. So yeah, for us, no yelling, no cursing, really intense conversations. But look, it's not I always tell I always tell people a good testament to what type of relationship you have with someone is how much friction you can endure. So if you are very close with somebody, it's okay to bump heads a little bit. It's okay to have a little bit of friction. Again, if they empathize with you and they understand that you have a are working towards a goal, they will give you grace and hopefully you give that back to them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, why don't we do a little little live exercise? I can kind of tell you what I'm up to now. I'd love to get your uh your opinion as someone who talks to everyone about this type of stuff. So, obviously I'm, you know, I'm trying to build a business out of YouTube like separate through AdSense, affiliates, sponsorships. Slowly that revenue is climbing, but my outreach in the staffing business is all to executives to be guests on the podcast and through I set up a pre-in first kind of maybe slow roll or soft sell the staffing. Can you help me? Like I'm going to provide this great platform. Can you help me? What do you guys have going on? It's not a prerequisite, but it would be great. So that's kind of what I'm thinking as I'm kind of playing them off each other, right? I mean, technically I'm I'm too spread out, but since my guest outreach and my business development are now the same muscle and essentially I'm starting to get paid for business development, right? Like just the active, right? So like that's that's my idea. What do you think I could be doing better though? I would love to hear. Where do you get your list from? I'm using a tool called Ample Market which they they automate the outreach. You know, again, I used to try to set myself apart by just asking everyone to launch and then in 2020 that kind of became tough. So, I wanted something that would stand out instead of like I could fill your open jobs blah, you know, I'm the best blah blah blah. So, yeah, that initial it's it's setting a million people like do you want to be a guest? Here are the other people like you I've talked to. here's what it looks like. Uh, you know, you would think it would be more successful in getting responses. Even that is is like I'm getting more responses than what it would be, but it's not it's not 10%. Or anything like that. Yeah. I So my Yeah. So I would So I think it's a great strategy. So I love it. I I love reaching out to someone and not asking anything. If I were you, I'd focus less on the strategy and I'd or excuse me, I'd focus less on the reply rate and I'd focus more on the ICP. So, if I were you, I would pull I'd pull 1,500 CTO's at companies between 50 and 500 people. I'd filter them all for funding in the last 24 months, and then I filter them all for the jobs that you want to fill within the last 24 months. I would then take all your YouTubes. I'm sure you do this one already, but I would take all your YouTubes and I'd cut them up and I'd post them on LinkedIn three times a day and I'd post them on TikTok. I then create a specific automation on LinkedIn for those 1500 contacts and I' as your as their equal not, "Hey, I'm Chris. I want something." I'd say, "Uh, hey Chris here. Uh, came across your page. Saw the work Insert Company is doing. Super interesting. I I work closely with technology executives. Would love to connect." you're going to get probably between a 20 and 35% response rate depending um if you can personalize that more from there. Now all of those folks are in your audience. They see your content. They see you interviewed this CTO, this CIO, your authority goes up, your brand goes up, your value goes up. After a month of those folks seeing the content, I would automate outreach, right? So I would say, um not sure if you've seen any of my content. I recently interviewed a CTO in a similar similar uh company to yours. if ever interested, would be happy to tell you about the platform. No ask, right? If interested, happy to tell you about the platform. Uh then I'd automate another sequence about two or three weeks later saying, um, you know, again, hey, not sure if you've had a chance to see the content, but I think you'd be a great guest. If you're open to it, would love to tell you about the work I'm doing for 15 minutes. The reason I think that's more effective is because let's say you book, and it doesn't have to be hundred either. Like even my clients, my clients don't get 10 meetings a month, right? they the the goal is two to four agreements within 6 months. So for you, if you're bringing in these people that you know have funding, you know, have open jobs. Now when you interview them and you create a little bit of rapport, you can say, "Hey, by the way, I actually did a little research on you guys. I saw you hire two network engineers 3 months ago. Not sure if you know, but you know, I work in the space. I'd love to be a resource for you." That's it. Right? And now I would say your probability of getting that business is much higher because they've seen your brand. They've seen your authority. You're strategically pulling in people who have money through through funding and have open jobs. Yeah. Wow. That's good stuff, guys. What can I say? Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I mean, like like I I get so worked up about this. It's not complex. So, I see every day Claude this tool that blah blah blah. There will there's going to be a new tool in a month, right? 6 months ago it was clay. Now it's clawed. It will be something else in a month. What matters is the actual strategy. That's what matters. Anyone can whip up an email. anyone can configure these tools, but what matters is is a real strategy and for someone like you who you have a brand. I mean, just like probability wise, a C I'm a CIO. I'm a CTO. I look at your page, I see every week you're interviewing a new CTO, talking about valuable stuff, talking about educational, not pitching, not selling, and then you ask me, oh, you know, hey, love to love to see if this podcast could be a fit for you. Super light, not not a hard push. And then that person happens to have funding, they happen to have jobs. I think that's an easier way to do business with people than like the the hard direct push. Yeah. No, 100%. Yeah. I mean, that direct push was I was just like, man, this is not working at all anymore. It's time to figure something else out. Oh, it doesn't work. So, was it it just the hiring of, you know, the the super low interest rates in 2020 causing just so many people to create their own firms? What why is it so saturated now? So, I I think that's definitely a part of it. I can tell you from experience. I've had friends who were on the other side of the invoice and when they see that bill come through and they see, man, we're paying this recruiting firm $35,000. This recruiting firm, they're paying the candidate 50 and they're billing us 100. People said, "This is a really good business. I'm going to go into it." A very good portion of those folks are no longer in the business. If you if you went into it, and I have some clients that worked in their niche before starting recruiting firms. I have um I have three actually and they're doing well cuz they're experts in their niche, right? Like they know their niche inside out and they're sharp enough to learn recruiting and learn the ins and outs of it. But yeah, I think a lot of people sprinted to become solo recruiters. I think some staffing firms overinvested in internal staff. And I think um and I think look, it's coming back now, but yeah, I think a lot of people ran to staffing and recruiting and realized as you know, hey, this is not for everyone. This is this is really really hard. Yeah. And it's funny, like when things are going well, it's it's because of you. And then when it pulls back, it's like, well, the economy sucks. It's like, well, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's Which is it? You know, like was it just because the economy was good? Were you doing well? Yeah. There I mean, there's so many variables, you know, like for anyone in your audience that is thinking about starting a recruiting firm or wants to level up, I can tell you from what I see, the more you niche down, the better. Especially if you don't have the network already. And people I work with say, "Why would I niche down? I'm supporting these other verticals." And then I say, "Well, how much new business have you gotten from those new verticals? And how much time do you spend supporting them? And how much of investment have you have have you had to make to be able to keep that?" When you're niche, you get referrals. Like I'm very niche. So staffing agency owners introduce me. Sales people I work with introduce me. And my clients that are super niche in a market, in a in a skill set, right, in a vertical, they do very well because the work they're doing compounds. And uh just food for thought for anybody in your audience who might be thinking about it. Yeah. And what what's the tiniest niche you see people making a lot of money in? Is it skill set and then industry on top? Like like just cloud healthcare people like you deal with someone that is so niched down. I have served people in construction that they do one trade in construction in one state and they're they're crushing it. They're crushing it like anything construction right now. So people get very excited about AI and they and look I know a lot of people I've had clients I have clients that are focused on AI in different cities. There's a lot of people running to it, right? So, it's still super lucrative and it's still a good time to get in, but a lot of the industries that are crushing it are verticals that support the growth of AI. So, someone who places construction folks and they're going to build out the data centers, somebody who places the people who do maintenance on the data centers, these are new emerging pockets of the economy. And I'll tell you from experience, those people are doing amazing. They're absolutely crushing it. And I've had people that I've interviewed say that as well. It's like, you know, everyone ran to the cloud. Now with AI, the data center jobs like DBAs are coming back, you know, are going to be red-hot because that's what we're going to need. You know, you need to have that good data or the AI is worthless, right? Yeah. So, 100%. Yeah. I would try to think outside the box. You know, like I think there's going to be a lot of risk with AI. Uh especially at the enterprise level. More mid-market companies are adopting AI because they have less security protocols. The enterprises are slower to do it because they don't want to inherit that risk. And the executive who makes that decision puts himself on an island if it goes wrong. That is a great place to be. I know companies that are selling AI training, crushing it. AI training. Think about how scalable that is. There's no there there's one person that comes in does a oneweek AI training, two week AI training. Hyper scalable. I met with somebody a few months ago who supports law firms and he recruited for law firms. Now he advises law firms on AI practices and he's crushing it. Right? So the value of what you do is in your expertise. It's not just in placing someone. So again, for anyone in your audience, think about that, right? As you're positioning yourself, the the value is the domain expertise you have and you just have to tie it to something that's growing. Yeah, that's awesome. Why don't you give one last pitch for Simple Side? Anyone that should check you out, love all your links below as Yeah. Awesome. Um, so yeah, Simple Side does not make sense for everyone. And people look at me like their head is going to explode when I'm on a sales call and I tell them very directly, this is not a good fit for you. Simple side is a good fit for somebody or a company that is already having success, knows their niche, they're experts in it, and they want to scale what they're doing. It's for someone who sees the value in video content and believes that video content builds trust, and they need a couple tweaks on getting their message out there. It's for the staffing agency owner that does not have time to create content, post content, track all the analytics, and they get value out of that. It's for a staffing salesperson or staffing agency owner that sees the value in very good data and says, "Oh, great. We're going to build a list of 1500 people that have money, have funding, and wants that taken care of and wants that automated." It's not for someone looking for a quick fix. I'll be the first to tell you what most of our clients will bring in agreements month three, month four. Some of some of my most successful clients have brought in their agreements month six. So, it's not a sprint. Whenever you're dealing with your brand, it's something super important that you have to be very intentional about it. We're not a mass email automation agency. So, for anyone in staffing who cares about their brand, who wants more business, and who wants to know what's working right now, Simple Side is a good fit. Awesome. Well, we'll have all of Mike's links, his LinkedIn, and any links to Simple Side in the show notes below. And uh Mike, we finally made this happen. This was awesome, man. Appreciate it, man. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome.