The Playbook to $1M+ in Placements

First, for current subscribers, I’ve decided to rebrand my recruiting newsletter. I’ve paused all paid subs, and at least for the time being, this will be completely free. If you were a paid subscriber, I’ve paused all payments so you shouldn’t be charged moving forward.

Second, welcome to the new subscribers. My goal is simple: to help you become the best version of yourself as an agency recruiter.

Here’s the beauty of agency recruiting: you don’t need a fancy degree, good grades, a strong pedigree, or being a nepo child.

All you need is EQ, street smarts, and grit.

I started out in the business 10+ years ago, graduating with a useless liberal arts degree, average grades (too much beer!), and absolutely no network.

I was fortunate enough to have a couple of mentors early on who showed me the ropes. One of the pieces of advice they gave me was “the best way to pay it back is to pay it forward” and that’s exactly what I am to do here.

As you’re reading this issue - and continue to build your desks - keep this in mind. Success in recruiting isn’t a zero sum game. We ALL can win.

As the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”.

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Let me cut straight to the chase: If you want to be a $1M biller in agency recruiting, you need a process. A repeatable, scalable system that you can execute consistently.

It’s not about working harder or longer hours. It’s about working smarter. Focus on the things that actually move the needle—client trust, strong pipelines, and rock-solid follow-ups.

Here’s how I’ve learned to operate at that level.

1. Obsess Over Client Problems

Most recruiters waste time pitching candidates before they’ve even understood the problem. Big mistake.

Hiring managers don’t care about your pitch. They care about solutions. You need to become their problem solver, not just another recruiter sending over resumes.

My Playbook:

• During every intake call, ask deep, insightful questions:

  • Why is this role open?

  • What’s the biggest challenge this person needs to solve in their first 90 days?

  • What does success look like for you 6 months from now?

• Use their answers to tailor everything you do—your candidate pitches, your follow-ups, your feedback.

When you talk less and listen more, you position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. And partners get paid.

2. Every Objection is an Opportunity

Objections aren’t roadblocks; they’re doorways. A hiring manager saying, “We’ve got internal candidates” is an opportunity to show why your candidate is better.

When I hear objections, I use a simple framework:

1. Acknowledge: “I totally understand why you’re considering internal candidates.”

2. Empathize: “That’s great—they already know your culture and processes.”

3. Overcome: “But have you thought about the fresh perspective this person could bring? They’ve solved X problem at Y company, and I think they could make an even bigger impact here.”

It’s not about being pushy. It’s about showing your value—confidently and professionally.

3. Master the Follow-Up Game

If you’re not following up like a pro, you’re leaving money on the table. Period.

The difference between a good recruiter and a great recruiter?
Great recruiters never let conversations die.

Here’s how I do it:

• Every client interaction ends with a clear next step:

  • “Can we set up a time tomorrow to review this candidate?”

  • “I’ll send over my top three profiles today—can we connect Thursday to discuss?”

• If they ghost me, I don’t panic. I follow up with value, not desperation:

  • “Just wanted to share some market insights I’ve seen for [role/industry]. Thought this might be helpful as you evaluate your options.”

Every touchpoint builds trust and keeps the process moving forward.

4. Prioritize Quality Over Quantity

Here’s the brutal truth: Chasing too many clients is a fast track to burnout.

The $1M biller mindset is about focusing on fewer, higher-value clients. The ones who respect your expertise, pay your fees, and follow your process.

Here’s my filter:

• Do they view me as a partner, not a commodity?

• Are they willing to pay top dollar for top talent?

• Do they respect my time and input?

If the answer to any of these is “no,” I walk away. Protect your time, energy, and reputation.

5. Fail Forward, Always

Let’s talk mindset.

If you’re scared of rejection, you’re in the wrong business. Recruiting is a grind, and even the best recruiters face constant setbacks. Candidates drop out. Clients go silent. Deals fall apart at the finish line.

The secret to success?
Resilience.

Every “no” is one step closer to a “yes.” The key is to learn from every failure, adjust your approach, and keep moving forward.

The Playbook, Summarized:

1. Build trust by solving client problems, not pitching resumes.

2. Turn objections into opportunities with confidence and clarity.

3. Master the art of follow-up to keep deals moving.

4. Focus on quality clients who respect your expertise.

5. Embrace failure as part of the process—and use it to grow.

Examples of $1M Billers

I’ve been so fortunate to have worked/networked with quite a few $1M+ billers. Split desks (180 sales/recruiting, 270 degree like me, and straight full desk).

Names redacted to preserve anonymity

What you’ll also notice are a few common themes: white glove customer service; good at “choosing” business / knowing when to say no; candidate driven sales.

1: Jerry: My first mentor

This is one of the guys I write about most often. Honestly I’d imagine at least one of you know this guy via 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree connections.

I had the privilege of sitting next to him when I first started out. If you’re any good at agency recruiting, you know you learn more from informal training (i.e. shadowing someone, listening into other peoples calls, etc) than you do from any formal powerpoint presentation.

Justin was the epitome of “white glove” customer service. It obviously helped that he was in the biz for 20+ years at the time, but he’s also the person who taught me the concept of recruiting like an underwriter .

He was 180 fully dedicated to the sales side of things and serviced a large investment/consumer bank.

How he scaled his desk:

• He focused on clients that had “evergreen skillsets”.

  • For example, each of his clients pretty much hired the same thing. This way it made recruiting so much easier.

  • For example, I find him one java developer, he could send him to 5 different managers and I only have to run 1 search, as opposed to having 5 different with 5 different roles having to run 5 different searches.

    • He also helped me develop my playbook on pipelining candidates for evergreen searches which you can read here.

• He was a big proponent of “risk mitigation”.

  • He would rather send NO candidates over sending someone that’s not a fit or someone with red flags. We would of course “test the waters” so to speak, but they’d have to be minimum 80% fit for him.

  • There would have to be virtually zero red flags - even if it was the Lebron James of candidates. The candidates pain points/motives had to match almost perfectly for him to send candidates

  • Because of this, him and I had probably close to a perfect offer acceptance rate and crazy submittal → interview → hire ratios

• As you can tell from my tweets and newsletters, he had the biggest influence of how I run my desk today.

• He was consistently a $2-2.5M biller. He left our company a few years ago, but we still keep in touch and has about 120 consultants on billing. Damn!

2: Mary - my other mentor

This is also the other person I write about often. She was in the business for about 5 years at the time I started. She originally started as a 180 recruiter, then moved into 180 sales. So she was still “ear to the ground” and “got it” from the recruiting side of things. For any 180 recruiters, you know exactly what I mean by this.

Before I worked with Jerry, I was paired with Mary to build out and expand a large telecom client. Funny enough, Mary also indirectly taught me the lessons Jerry did but informally. She did everything “in real time”, where Jerry took a bit of extra time to pull me aside and really dive deep into the concepts.

So Mary and I were tasked with a pretty tough situation. We had a senior sales rep the company let go, she was pissed, and talked a lot of sh*t to the hiring managers on her way out.

Obviously these guys were reluctant to hire from us after that. So we got creative.

• Focus on MPC candidates

  • Tried and true method. At the end of the day, all of our value props are the same. What matters is the product we deliver, which is our candidates.

  • Since this telco client was a huge user of contractors - specifically java developers - we focused on targeting prior ex-client java developers

  • We then did two things:

    • Since they were ex-client, the references they provided were also leads (que the RHI model ). So regardless of the negative sentiment the previous sales rep left for us, they were impressed that 1. we were able to source ex-client java devs and 2. we had a solid vetting process that included reference checks. This led to getting some business back.

    • If those references weren’t hiring, it still gave us an extra data point to show our value prop to other prospects. While the other vendors were sending regular (but good) candidates, we were sending prior ex-client candidates WITH reference checks. Regardless of the bad taste the previous sales rep left, you can’t deny looking at our candidates that way

• Great consultant (placed contractors) experience = great market intel

  • Everyone always thinks of the client when providing white glove service. But often the candidate/consultant gets left behind after they start.

  • This is obviously a mistake, because keeping in touch with them has many benefits.

  • We regularly gave $5 starbucks gift cards to them. It doesn’t seem like much, but it shows appreciation because literally no other vendor gives anything to their consultants.

  • This then led them to speak very highly about us to the HMs, which indirectly led them to take more meetings with us and giving us more business.

  • They then were more willing to tell us all the “juice” going on at the client. Who’s hiring, the org charts, all that jazz.

• So after a year, we built the account to approx $750k which is great. But eventually, there are so many ex-client java devs you can call, so our strategy was drying up.

  • We then thought of a program to have our current consultants volunteer to help technically screen our new candidates (because they didnt have the ex-client experience).

  • We paid them $35 for each 15 min screen they conducted.

  • So instead of sending ex-client candidates + references, we pivoted to sending brand new candidates + technical screening evaluations from our consultants working at the client.

  • Managers loved it, kept hiring from us.

Eventually we built this to a consistent $1M+ account between just me and her. Since this was a national account, the other branches who serviced this account adopted our strategy. On top of that, between my success with Mary and Jerry, this put me on the map with the exec team to come up with plans to build out new national accounts moving forward.

Agency recruiting isn’t easy, but it’s simple—when you have a system. Follow this playbook, and you’ll be well on your way to hitting $1M in placements.

Now, go out there and close some deals.

P.S. If this resonated with you, reply and let me know what’s holding you back from leveling up. Let’s tackle it together.