The Inner Work That Made Her A Million Dollar Biller

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
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Kimberly Laipple [00:00:40]:
At 18, single mom, I remember someone in my life telling me when I said that I was pregnant, well, I guess you're never gonna get a degree. There's no better way to motivate me than to tell me I can't do something. I've survived 100% of my worst days. I'm still sitting here. So, I had to put my ego on the back burner and know that I had to trust that if I do the right things, the right things will follow.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:08]:
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. Atlas is a CRMx, a CRM that actually understands context. It captures everything you say, hear, read, and write. Every interview, client call, LinkedIn message, email, and WhatsApp automatically. Not because you spent the time entering it. It's because Atlas is always listening. Then it goes one step further and tells you the next action to take.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:45]:
So when you need to fill a role, People Search ranks the best candidates and tells you why. No digging required. The same memory turns BD into a shortlist of who to chase and why. So So you win more clients. Need to see your pipeline? Speak to your dashboards and Atlas builds a view automatically tracking whatever matters to you. Whether you place permanent or contract, Atlas covers both with a new contract suite. That means you never have to chase a timesheet again and live margin visibility on every single placement. And with its new MCP and API, Atlas plugs into your, your LLMs, Claude, ChatGPT, and the rest of your stack.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:18]:
The low-value work that keeps you from billing, Atlas does it for you. Atlas customers right now are saying that they're seeing a 50% higher candidate response rates. A 35% increase in new clients won, 15 hours saved every week, monthly billings jumping 85%, and agencies hitting 150% of their annual revenue target by building their business with Atlas. If you want more information, check out Recruit with Atlas. I am so excited about this guest for the podcast because I have gotten to know her. She's one of the most incredible people. And here's the thing, I did not know The struggles that she went through as she started building the search business, as she started getting into this search side of recruiting. We're talking single mom losing her house.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:03]:
We're talking like food banks for food. The struggle was real, and this is the business that she dove her head into, and it completely turned her life around. And when we talk about turning her life around, like. Her best year was recently a $1.4 million year while running a team of recruiters. God, I feel like sometimes my desk sucks and I'm just running a podcast. But here's the thing, and here's why she's on the podcast, to inspire you so that way you can do whatever you're possible of doing and how you could turn your life around by going all in. So Kimberly, welcome to the podcast.

Kimberly Laipple [00:03:44]:
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here today.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:47]:
This is a long time coming.

Kimberly Laipple [00:03:50]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:51]:
I remember the first time I actually got to meet you, I was like, she's— I, I'm scared. Like, she's me.

Kimberly Laipple [00:03:56]:
You said you were game face the whole, like, yeah, it's a little bit of that, a little bit of that.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:01]:
And like, she was like working an event, so like, I understand game face on, like, hey, whatever, whoever you are, don't worry about it. All right, so you are one of the most— you're in the Pinnacle Society, which is one of the 80 most elite recruiters in the world. You've personally built $1.4 million. You run a team. And when I look at your LinkedIn account, it doesn't say that. It doesn't highlight how awesome you are. It literally says, like, one of the first things you read is, being a single mom and completely broke was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Kimberly Laipple [00:04:38]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:39]:
Why does that come first?

Kimberly Laipple [00:04:41]:
You know, I think for a long time I didn't realize anything that I had done in my career was impressive. I was still trying to play catch up and I identified so deeply with that person that I was 18 years ago that, that, that stern face that you saw or the imposter syndrome and that protection mechanism was still very much in place until the most recent few years. And then once I got comfortable a little bit, still a work in progress. I wanted to make sure other people knew that where you are now is not your defining moment, that, that you do have the ability to change that story. And you can be many different people in your lifetime.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:27]:
Before we jump into that, quick 30 seconds. Tell everybody who you are today.

Kimberly Laipple [00:05:32]:
Yeah, so my name is Kim Lapel. I'm the president of Scientific Search. I've been here 18 years. I run a team of just shy of 20 people. And I can't imagine doing anything other than this. Um, I started out in staffing for 12 years, moved into direct hire, and, um, never looked back. I think I'm absolutely blessed to have found something that I love so dearly.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:56]:
So let's take a few steps back.

Kimberly Laipple [00:05:59]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:01]:
I want you to take me all the way back to that dark time where you were a single mom with no degree No network, no safety net. And it felt like the world was— or I mean, it didn't feel like it, the world was actually falling apart for you.

Kimberly Laipple [00:06:15]:
Absolutely. Yeah. So at 18, single mom, I remember someone in my life telling me when I said that I was pregnant, well, I guess you're never going to get a degree. And, you know, this is back in 1990. It was really still very much that women had a choice, you had children or you had a career. And I had always dreamed of, you know, being kind of that girl in the city in a suit and a briefcase and walking to my job and, you know, all of these things. And the next thing I know, life was going to be very different. And I was just out of high school.

Kimberly Laipple [00:06:53]:
And I said, well, that's not— I don't think that's true. I think I can do both. And I said, I'm going to prove that, you know, and there's no better way to motivate me than to tell me I can't do something. Um, so thank God that person said that to me in that moment, and I decided to go to college, but I couldn't go to college and just go to college. I had a baby at home, so I waited tables for a real long time. It was the only way I could determine my income while I went to college for my undergrad. And then I finished my undergrad, and back then we didn't know much of anything, what people were hiring for, because it was in the newspaper and you paid by the word. So I faxed my resume to a company, had no idea what I was interviewing for.

Kimberly Laipple [00:07:39]:
They said, can you talk to people and fill in a schedule? And I said, sure, I can do that. And they told me they'd pay me commission. I only interviewed for roles that had commission listed. And I was permanently determined that I would never allow someone else to determine my income, that I wanted to be paid for my hard work. And it worked in waiting tables, and I knew it would work in other things. So I could bet on me. That was the one thing I could bet on, that I didn't have a quit in me. So I found staffing, did that for quite some time, and it was brutal, Ben.

Kimberly Laipple [00:08:14]:
It was awful. On call all the time, people calling out at, you know, 10 o'clock at night for an 11 o'clock nursing shift, carrying a pager, stopping at payphones because we didn't have cell phones back then, carrying a binder with me everywhere I went. And at most I was making $60,000 a year. And it wasn't enough to live on. And about, well, I guess about 18 years ago, I was going through a divorce. I had 2 girls at that time and I was in foreclosure on my home and I needed to make more money. I found this job. I took it in February.

Kimberly Laipple [00:08:52]:
It was 2 months after they served me the foreclosure notification on Christmas Eve the year before. And was all in and didn't know what else to do but keep trying. And that's how I ended up here.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:04]:
During that point, were you in that foreclosure while you're going through over this? And you told me that you were like, you were getting food at the food bank.

Kimberly Laipple [00:09:12]:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We wouldn't have ate if it wasn't for food banks. I've never been more humbled in my life than to stand in line for a bag of fruits and vegetables to feed my kids. They were in high school at the time, so thank goodness school helped and, and things like that. But yeah, I mean, I don't think they ever knew how bad it was. I didn't want them to, so I hope they didn't. So yeah, it, it was, it was rough.

Kimberly Laipple [00:09:38]:
I mean, I was not making commission, so I was on a base salary, which was basically minimum wage back then. Um, and just plugging away 60 hours a week, hoping that it was going to break. People showed me what they were making. And I knew if I tried hard enough, I was smart enough, I could figure it out. And I worked all day here and all night learning so that I could get better at it.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:04]:
Now, when you said work all day, like, what did your day look like? And then, yeah, I think most importantly, you said you also spent the evenings learning. Like, what did that look like in those early days as— excuse my language— everything was going to fucking hell?

Kimberly Laipple [00:10:15]:
Oh, it was awful. It was awful. If I didn't think about it, I could compartmentalize it to the best of my ability. So if I just kept working, then I wasn't aware of what was happening. Um, and, and so I knew that I wasn't fast at looking at resumes because when you do staffing, there's another person that hires the people and you just schedule nurses. And nurses didn't do resumes back then anyway. They barely do them now. So I didn't know how to screen fast enough to get on the phone fast enough to make enough calls to get coverage on jobs to make placements.

Kimberly Laipple [00:10:50]:
So, at night, I would sit and practice going through candidates on CareerBuilder and Monster. And back in the day, we had Hot Jobs and Yahoo, you know. So, I would go through and send myself all the candidates so that in the morning, I could just make phone calls and get them over and didn't lose time sourcing. So, we didn't have LinkedIn Recruiter then. You know, we were using directories and all kinds of other things to get people. So, it took a lot longer to get to people than it does now. You know, different, obviously, challenges. But yeah, I would spend all evening looking and scouring resumes to send myself enough so that I could make, you know, 50 to 100 calls when I got in the next day to get enough people over to my clients to make sure that I could make my first placement.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:40]:
And I know the answer to this, but this is like kind of a little bit of a joke. Okay, listeners.

Kimberly Laipple [00:11:43]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:43]:
Did you know Rich Rosen back in the day?

Kimberly Laipple [00:11:47]:
He might've convinced me to leave the industry had I known him. No, did not know Rich Rosen back in the day. I didn't know anybody but Danny Cahill 'cause they sent us to rookie retreat. So that was it.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:58]:
I gotta ask you, like most recruiters, when their day is done, you know recruiters, you watch recruiters, you manage recruiters, you train recruiters. When the day's done, the day is done. Like, why did your day not end and why did you— So much.

Kimberly Laipple [00:12:13]:
I always love the fact that if I work more, I make more. And once I knew that to be true, right, once it wasn't survival mode anymore, then it was, okay, well, now I want the car, now I want the trip, now I want less, you know, now I want to not think about money for the first time in my life, you know, all those things. And I knew if I kept working, I kept earning. So it never felt like it was, it was an effort from that end. Once the money came, I never minded. Like, I'm gonna work after we get off tonight. And I've created some boundaries later in my career, not many, but, um, I've created some boundaries as far as that goes. But the fact that I, if I work, I earn, why stop until it's time to stop? Stop.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:05]:
Yeah. So I love Danny Cahill. Is there anything that you remember from that rookie week that still is with you today?

Kimberly Laipple [00:13:15]:
Yeah. You know, I think my favorite thing he ever taught me was about closing candidates. I grew up being taught you don't talk about money. And so that was the hardest thing I think for me coming into direct hire was asking people their salary. Like, who am I to ask you what you make? Right? And him walking me through like a 2-call close or a summary close or all the different kinds of closes gave me comfortability in being able to talk about salary with people and learning how to navigate those discussions instead of feeling like I was being intrusive or rude to someone to ask a PhD scientist what they earn. Who am I to ask them that? And I had such imposter syndrome at that time in my life. That if it wasn't for him kind of going through those with me, I don't know that I would have gotten my head around that.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:10]:
And I want to go back to the struggle. Yeah, because I know a lot of recruiters out there that, man, we were living through the golden era a few years ago and then things changed.

Kimberly Laipple [00:14:23]:
They sure did.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:24]:
When during this time, as like you were dealing with a foreclosure, you were learning the search business. What were you most afraid of during that time? Was it like, was it fear for yourself or was it fear for your kids?

Kimberly Laipple [00:14:38]:
I would say when, when I was going through that particular point in time, I was in my 30s. I think my fear was that people were right, that I had ruined my life or that I had done something that was something that I couldn't fix. I was worried, or maybe even what I thought people thought about me was right, that I wasn't enough, that I couldn't figure it out, that I, I was never going to be successful. And, you know, that I think was the hardest part, like that I, I couldn't give. I knew they saw me work hard, so I knew my girls knew what hard work looked like. I knew they knew what don't quit looked like. But did they realize that there was something beautiful on the other side of that? And I hadn't been able to give them that yet. So I would say those were probably the biggest concerns at that point.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:35]:
Looking back, do you think hitting that low was actually necessary for you to have the success that you have? Or do you believe that people can have that same drive without going through something as deep and as dark as you were, what you were going through?

Kimberly Laipple [00:15:53]:
I definitely think you can be successful without it being as intense as I had. I do think struggle is important, whether it be something internal. You know, I look at the people that are successful in my company and do all of them have some type of major struggle in their life? No, but maybe that struggle's internal. It doesn't necessarily need to be an external struggle. Maybe they're struggling internally with whatever it is that they're dealing with, whether it's feeling that they're as good as their siblings or whatever that is. But I do think you need to have that desire to overcome. Um, it could be somebody that was in athletics, a high, high athletic achiever in college, and they had to deal in a team environment and they had to learn to work through problems. and they had to learn to compete.

Kimberly Laipple [00:16:52]:
It could be somebody that waited tables and had a, a rough time. I do think adversity builds certain things in us that somebody without it may not be able to be as successful, but I don't know that it needs to be rock bottom.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:11]:
For you personally also, like you said, you were sending out resumes to different places where like you knew that you wanted a commission.

Kimberly Laipple [00:17:21]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:21]:
Like, what was one of the first signals that you're like, you're like, I could actually be good at this?

Kimberly Laipple [00:17:28]:
Yeah, gosh, I remember I was struggling, trying, not getting anywhere. Mind you, if you look at when I joined this firm, it was during the housing crisis. It was one of the only other recessions in— yeah, it was, it was a Bleak time. And that is kind of what saved me with my home was the program that the government put out during that time to help people save their homes. So it was during the housing crisis. The phones were ringing off the hook with candidates. The clients didn't need us. Some of us had one job order to work for weeks on end.

Kimberly Laipple [00:18:03]:
You know, it, it was rough. And I kept at it, kept my head down. Like I said, try not to just think of that one day. And I made 2 placements in 1 day, and it was my first 2 here. And at that point, I got my first commission check, you know, 30, 45 days after, and it was more money than I had seen in a check in I don't know how long. And somebody said, oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Somebody that used to work here. And I was like, are you kidding? And they showed me a commission check.

Kimberly Laipple [00:18:38]:
And I almost had a heart attack. I mean, it was enough to buy a car back then, and I just couldn't even believe that was possible until I saw it. And when I saw it and knew that I just made 2 placements, I knew I could do it. I knew that if that was possible on that check, that I could be somebody to make that happen.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:57]:
When you're seeing recruiters now, and I think there's maybe there's just so much information out there and so many stories out there.

Kimberly Laipple [00:19:05]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:07]:
Do you still see that same kind of like eyes opening up? Like, I can actually make this much money in this career?

Kimberly Laipple [00:19:15]:
It's different now for sure. I think that overall there was, there's a generational shift on how quickly that needs to happen for some people. You know, we're in an age of instant gratification. And it's much harder to get people through that first year to 18 months for them to see the ongoing benefit and revenue, that, that ramp-up time. But I do think, I mean, I have some now that are, that are fairly new and young and they do see it. I think you just kind of got to go through more to get there, which is tough. It's tough to vet that out. And to assess it.

Kimberly Laipple [00:20:01]:
Recruiters are great at what they do. They're not great at hiring other recruiters typically. Um, you know, and, uh, it's interesting to try to find that. But yeah, I do think, I do think it's harder now because it does take some wherewithal and some time to get there.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:17]:
Now you've been with the firm, what is it, 17 years now?

Kimberly Laipple [00:20:20]:
Yeah, just about 18. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:22]:
So almost 18 years probably by the time this comes out. I've seen a lot of recruiters like the, They get the bug and like, I'm gonna go start my own thing.

Kimberly Laipple [00:20:29]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:30]:
You stayed.

Kimberly Laipple [00:20:32]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:33]:
What made you stay?

Kimberly Laipple [00:20:35]:
You know, I wonder sometimes if part of what happened to me didn't make me stay. My, my course, right? So I finally was earning money and I was in a position where I wasn't struggling. I wasn't wealthy for many years. I was playing catch up. But to take that and shift it to another unknown when I was able to care for my kids and start putting money away seemed awful of me. It seemed like all the work I did, I got to where I wanted to be. Why would I throw that away when the owners here allowed me to create a career for myself? There was no career progression here. I mean, we were 8 people when I joined.

Kimberly Laipple [00:21:24]:
So it wasn't like there was, OK, well, move into this role and then move into this role. I proved myself and then asked for the promotion. I proved myself and then said, let me run this. I proved myself and said, I've proven this works. Let me roll it out to the team. I had no bureaucracy in the way, high visibility, and I've always been rewarded here for my efforts. Yet I don't have to pay the light bill. So for me, it was the best of both worlds.

Kimberly Laipple [00:21:57]:
I got to do the entrepreneurial thing without having to pay the bills for the building. And for me, at that time in my life, it just made the most sense. I felt very supported. I've never felt the need to do that.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:12]:
I think sometimes we— this podcast probably doesn't help. It sounds sexy to go off on your own.

Kimberly Laipple [00:22:19]:
Sure. It's hard and it's expensive. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:26]:
But I think we— and I'm gonna ask this question cuz I don't think I ask this enough. Like, sure. Cuz going off on your, your own is hard, but like you've had so many benefits for working at an organization. Can you kind of like highlight that?

Kimberly Laipple [00:22:40]:
Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes people say like, I've had people work here in the past, nobody currently, but they'll be like, Well, the house keeps X percent. And I'm like, do you really think that the owners take that cash and stuff it in their pockets? Or do you think they pay for the LinkedIn recruiter stack? Do you think they pay for our cloud phones? Do you think they pay for Zoom info? Do you think they pay for our trip every year? Do you think they pay for all of the fun things that we have, the snacks in the cab, you name it, all of the benefits of being able for years My earning was not tied to profit and loss, and there was an intentional aspect of that so that it didn't prohibit me from wanting to try new things. The owners found such value in me trying new technology or new tools that they didn't want me to look at that as a hit to my income. So it was phenomenal for me to be able to do that and figure out what worked best for the company. So they took the risk in those avenues with, we all know LinkedIn, we have to sign contracts. There's a lot of cost involved in a lot of the things that we do behind the scenes now that wasn't there, right? We had phone books before. And for them to take the risk, I get to, to try things and have the reward in that is huge.

Kimberly Laipple [00:24:04]:
I see it as, as a win-win for me. I know a lot of people. want to be their own boss and, you know, want to make 10 placements a year and make a lot of money doing it. But those 10 placements are hard at times. I like the dynamic of an organization not too big. I don't want to be bogged down, but it works for me.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:25]:
And I, I know when we sat down in the pregame, we were talking about you now being president. Like, you've— you're now in charge of the entire organization. And yes, I actually thought about making this entire podcast about How, how to progress in your agency career up to leadership. But you said something important. You proved yourself and then you asked for it. If you're looking at growing within an organization, what do you mean by proving yourself? And what do you mean by asking for it? Like, tell me, like, show me what somebody else can do.

Kimberly Laipple [00:24:58]:
You know, I think it's really important that people remember That leaders are looking all around for succession planning. And the way that they look for that is who has effort without reward. And by doing that, what do I mean by that? So for example, if I thought there was a good idea, maybe it was the way we structure emails, maybe it was a cadence for email marketing, whatever those things are, I would try them out on my own. And then get quantifiable results to then show the owners and say, "Hey, I tried this here. It got me three job orders. What if we rolled this out as a company? Or here's a tool that I found. I've been beta testing it at night, or beta testing it on one job, and here's the outcome. What if we gave this a try?" I never went to the leadership with a problem unless I had multiple solutions behind.

Kimberly Laipple [00:26:05]:
That problem. And I think that's huge. I was never looking for someone to fix things for me. I was trying to show them how we could do it better. And, you know, whether it's streamlining candidate communication— when I got here, we didn't have a template for prep. Why are we redoing prep emails every single time we prep a candidate, which could be hundreds in a month? Why don't we have a template and then we just modify it for that job? Things that can be process-oriented are big for me. And we just had a lot of salespeople here where I think part of that was my second degree too. I wanted to test out things I was learning at the end of my MBA when I joined here.

Kimberly Laipple [00:26:51]:
And some of it was just I'm very process and methodical in nature. So I wanted a process. And then when people see you succeeding, other people are curious what you're doing, then they're willing to try it. If I came to you tomorrow and told you to change something that you do on your desk, you're not going to listen to me unless you see me making money, right? Like, that's just the way it goes. We all think we know what's best because it's working at our desk, but we don't know what others are doing. And that was really how I wanted to position myself to be able to be promoted. I had a choice as I went up. I remember sitting with the owner and saying, I can change things here and stay and bill more than $500, or I have to go somewhere else to do that.

Kimberly Laipple [00:27:40]:
And I don't want to, I wanna stay here. And he's like, you know, what do you need from me? And I said, well, I've been testing out a process. Here's what I think we need to do. Here's the way I wanna set us up. What do you think? And let me run with it. And it's been off to the races.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:57]:
During this conversation, he was like, I want to keep you. I'll do anything to keep you, right? Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:28:02]:
I mean, yeah, yeah. He wouldn't be as obvious about it, but, um, you don't want to give me too much control. Um, but yeah, I mean, this was, I don't know, 10 years ago, 11 years ago.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:13]:
Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:28:14]:
I mean, and I had a goal of billing $1 million and I was stuck at like between $500,000 and $600,000 for several years with the structure that we had. And, you know, I kept playing around with different ideas, talking to different people. What can we do? What can we do? And, and that's— yeah. And he was very open to me trying things that worked because I was showing that I could produce results.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:36]:
Real quick, I want to talk about getting to that million-dollar mark. Yeah, because you're crushing it. But you said something like a few seconds ago, maybe about 45 seconds ago, you got your MBA.

Kimberly Laipple [00:28:46]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:47]:
Okay, so you're working at a search firm.

Kimberly Laipple [00:28:50]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:50]:
Like, you're trying to bill as much as possible, probably working crazy hours. You are a single mom.

Kimberly Laipple [00:28:57]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:58]:
And you completed your MBA. Like—

Kimberly Laipple [00:29:01]:
Yes. Took me 6 years, but I did it one class at a time. So that goes back to the person that told me that I wouldn't get a degree. I promised myself I would have a higher degree than they did.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:13]:
Oh, that's a good fuck you.

Kimberly Laipple [00:29:15]:
Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, it was. It's a very influential person in my life, um, and they didn't mean it it that way. I think it was a gut response to finding out I was 18 and pregnant. But it's driven me through my career. So yeah, that person started a master's and didn't finish it. So I finished it.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:33]:
What changed for you personally and professionally after you got that?

Kimberly Laipple [00:29:42]:
That experience, I highly recommend that experience to anybody. I Can't express enough how fundamental a master's in business was for me. And it had nothing to do with the education. It was learning from other peers. You know, your bachelor's, you know, the professor's teaching everybody. In your master's, it truly is a collaboration. And it taught me so much in teamwork. It taught me so much in listening to other people and the way they achieve certain things.

Kimberly Laipple [00:30:15]:
And it really did help me take what I learned in my bachelor's program and put it into action in my master's program. You know, you do a lot of papers and tests and things like that in your bachelor's, and you're really just trying to get through. I feel like at a master's level, you're investing in yourself in a different way. And I knew that the one thing that no one could ever take from me was my education. That would go with me no matter where I went and what I did. So if I had a decent education and I had a good GPA, because back then I thought my GPA mattered. Clearly no one cares what my, you know, but I was so concerned with my GPA back then. Um, but again, I was attributing worth to those things back then because of that statement to me at such a young age.

Kimberly Laipple [00:31:03]:
You know, I thought, okay, well, if I just graduate with honors through 2 degrees, then Obviously I'll make a bunch of money and I'll be successful. Like, because you don't know any better back then.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:14]:
That piece of paper doesn't magically come with a paycheck, does it?

Kimberly Laipple [00:31:17]:
No, it sure doesn't.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:18]:
So in the pregame, you said something that I, I kind of froze.

Kimberly Laipple [00:31:23]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:25]:
And it's, it's a goal for a lot of people. You said becoming a million-dollar biller was really about fixing what was broken inside of you. Yeah. What was broken? And how did you figure out what was the problem?

Kimberly Laipple [00:31:38]:
Yeah, so I think, you know, a lot of us go through life with different experiences that shape and create who we are, and some of that's positive, and unfortunately a lot of it's negative. And for a long time, I was trying to be the— an adult, and I didn't feel like an adult. I felt like a mess and I was just trying to hold on and, and do things that made me feel like I was becoming successful. And during all of that, your focus is only on you. And when you're trying to prove something day in and day out, one, it's exhausting, right? You, you're just tired all the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:21]:
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Laipple [00:32:22]:
Two, you're making decisions from a place of perseverance and preservation. You're not making decisions for what's best long term. So what does that mean? It means I got fired from a lot of companies because of my mouth. It means I blew up deals because I thought I knew better. I was only focused on the placement. It means I was overwhelmed and unable to really think about what was happening because I was so worried about the paycheck because I needed. to take care of my family. And when things keep happening over and over in your life, at some point you have to look at what the constant is.

Kimberly Laipple [00:33:04]:
And that was me. Things were happening over and over, whether it was personal relationships, whether it was not getting to where I needed to be, whether it was a candidate that I offended, a client I offended. What was I doing? And I was so afraid that someone would see me And what I thought I was, was incapable. I was inadequate. I wasn't who I was pretending to be. So if I was hard, then they would never see that. They would, I would never be vulnerable to who I really am. At some point, I made a decision to heavily dive into what does that look like and who do I wanna be and who am I when all the guards are down? And by doing that, I'm able to look at a deal and say, does this make sense? Is this the right thing for the candidate? Is it the right thing for the client? Is it about the deal now, or is it about having a relationship with these people for the next 15 to 20 years? How do I feel about what I did today when I lay down at night? Would I want somebody to treat my career that way? How does that impact this person's family? And you can't do that if you're in survival mode.

Kimberly Laipple [00:34:27]:
You can't. It's physically impossible to do both of those things. You can't be empathetic to other people's situations that then directly impact yours until you find some peace within yourself. And one of the things is, I don't know anything. None of us do. We have experiences and we learn from those. And yes, I'm better at certain things than I am at other things, but that doesn't make me an expert. So I need to keep learning and I need to be open to whatever happens.

Kimberly Laipple [00:34:58]:
But as long as I know that I'm doing the right things and I'm treating people the right way, that all the rest will fall into place. It always has. Everything's always worked out up until now. I've survived 100% of my worst days. I'm still sitting here.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:09]:
Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:35:12]:
So I had to put my ego on the back burner and know that I had to trust that if I do the right things, the right things will follow.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:24]:
Before you realized this, like, where were your buildings at?

Kimberly Laipple [00:35:27]:
Between that, like, 5, 550, and probably another 100 that I blew up a year. So I probably could have got to 7 if I hadn't had my mouth running so often.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:38]:
Like, what, what finally happened that you're like, oh shit?

Kimberly Laipple [00:35:43]:
Yeah, it was mainly the personal relationships in my life, to be completely transparent, with significant others. And I was so unsure of myself that if those weren't going well, it bled into my work environment. And I'm still a work in progress. I go to therapy. It's the best $200 a week I spend, and it's every Monday so that I'm the best I can be for my team. And I am a huge proponent in cognitive behavioral therapy. I think that it's very important that we rewire what we learned as young children and framed in negative ways and learn about ourselves. But when I started doing that, it was almost instantaneous, Ben.

Kimberly Laipple [00:36:29]:
It was really amazing to watch. That when I started to have that pause in between my thought and my action, and what am I looking to achieve there? My billings immediately within a year of really going into therapy went from that $550,000 to my first million-dollar year.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:52]:
Like the next year?

Kimberly Laipple [00:36:53]:
Yeah, the very next year.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:55]:
So for somebody listening to this, like you were, you started putting in the work, You were also still doing the recruiting work too?

Kimberly Laipple [00:37:02]:
Yes, I was still on a desk at full-time then. The way that we're set up is at that time I was working my own searches, but I also had junior recruiters that would work some of my searches. So I would get both ends of certain deals and I would get half of other deals.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:19]:
Okay. And so I wanna like switch gears, like looking at somebody that's listening to this podcast, And yeah, I think you said something super important, like you pretty much were getting out of your own way.

Kimberly Laipple [00:37:29]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:30]:
And you also talked about the ego.

Kimberly Laipple [00:37:33]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:33]:
We're a business with lots of egos. Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:37:36]:
Just a couple.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:37]:
What does ego look like in a recruiter who's stuck and how does somebody recognize it in themselves?

Kimberly Laipple [00:37:44]:
Yeah, I would say one of the key things is when you think that you're the one deciding what candidate is best. For the job, or that your client is making a mistake by not hiring your candidate. Our job is not to be judge and jury. Our job is to provide good candidates to a client so they can make a decision. And I can promise you, if you speak to 100 people and send 8 over, or you speak to 12 and send 2 over, The 2 are not gonna get you the placement. The 8 will. And why is that? People want choices. So if you send 1 or 2 and tell them that they're the best candidates on the market, they're gonna get that other 3 to 5 candidates from somebody else.

Kimberly Laipple [00:38:33]:
And you're gonna know that when they don't get back to you. They tell you how great the candidate was, but they need to see more. And you're like, well, there's nobody better. I know that's the right candidate. No, you don't. You don't work there. Right? It is not our job to make that decision. Our job is to hear what they want and then give them a spectrum of options so that they can do what's right for the company.

Kimberly Laipple [00:38:56]:
That's our job. And I think too many people look at it as my job is to give them the candidate that they hire instead of our job is to go out to market, find a ton of people, and pick the top people for them to pick.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:11]:
from.

Kimberly Laipple [00:39:11]:
We're making their job easier to navigate the pool and then have a shortlist, right? But if you stop at that 1 or 2 and say, well, they don't know what they want, they're never going to find what they need, instead of working with them to navigate that situation— okay, I know you want A, B, and C. I can get you A and B, but C is going to be a hard sell. How about we prioritize these 2?

Benjamin Mena [00:39:37]:
Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:39:38]:
And see what else we can find. Would that work for you? They want someone to help them and guide them to get the right person for the job. They don't want us to tell them they're wrong. And if you're finding yourself telling them that they're wrong or thinking that you know better, you're in your own way.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:56]:
I want to switch gears a little bit because you were just talking about, like, you know, talking about egos and recruiter and everything. But on top of that, you also train a team, like, so Yeah. You're a good biller and you've been producing good billers, which is a lot of work. Picture this. You told me this, like, when we were doing our pregame, like, when you get a new recruiter, what do you tell them?

Kimberly Laipple [00:40:19]:
So I tell them that, um, they have to go watch The Karate Kid if they haven't seen it, and that they have to wax the car and paint the fence for 6 months. And if they can't commit to that, I can't work with them, that they have to make me Mr. Miyagi for 6 months. And if they can do that, I can teach them recruiting and that they can take that anywhere they go in life. They'll have the foundational muscle memory around what makes a good recruiter a recruiter, in my opinion. And if they take that and they implement it, and I point to certain people in the company, And say, this person blindly trusted me and here's where they were in 18 months. This person, it took them 3 years to listen and here's where they are now. And it doesn't mean they won't bill.

Kimberly Laipple [00:41:12]:
They're just not going to be a top producer because they can't scale their desk unless they get the basics down first.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:22]:
And I wanted to ask this question too. Yeah. What's the percentage of people coming in that have ever seen The Karate Kid?

Kimberly Laipple [00:41:28]:
It used to be 100% years ago. I would say it's maybe 30, but it did peak up a little bit when the new show came out. But they still don't know that example. They don't have that. So I have a YouTube clip that I send them of that section of the movie that they have to watch. Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:49]:
So I want to dial into this, though. Like, you pretty much tell them to, like, shut off their brains.

Kimberly Laipple [00:41:54]:
Correct.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:55]:
This is exactly the game plan Yep. I need you to not think and do this. And my God, correct.

Kimberly Laipple [00:42:03]:
So hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:04]:
When you were talking to me about this, it took me back to my college days as a college athlete. My coach would yell at me constantly, stop thinking. I do the thinking for you.

Kimberly Laipple [00:42:12]:
Yes, literally. I would love to say that every day. And it is hard. And I try to reassure them that there's going to be points in time for them to add their own personality to it. It's just not right now. You just got to give me 6 months. And if you do that, by month 3, they're starting to change some of the things they say on the phone to their own personality and things like that. But yes, I am.

Kimberly Laipple [00:42:36]:
I'm asking them to trust that it's my job to think and it's their job to learn. And if they can do that for 6 months, I can promise you a good life. But if you can't, this isn't for you. Not at this firm, at least.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:51]:
I've seen that place after place, the recruiters that literally just absorb it all.

Kimberly Laipple [00:42:58]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:58]:
Like if, if you're in an agency, like listen to whoever, don't try to rewrite the book. Correct. You're gonna frustrate them longer.

Kimberly Laipple [00:43:05]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:07]:
And one of the things that you, you also mentioned is, uh, you actually have a super duplicatable, repeatable process. that you do with every single thing? Because Mr. Miyagi—

Kimberly Laipple [00:43:20]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:21]:
Put the system together.

Kimberly Laipple [00:43:23]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:24]:
So what are the actual steps that you have in this repeatable process from when the job order comes in to the first outreach?

Kimberly Laipple [00:43:31]:
So I noticed that recruiters, we're shiny balls, right? We follow whatever the new thing is. So you get a new job order and you could be literally in the middle of a prep And you're ready to hang up on your prep to start sourcing or calling people for that other job, and you've done nothing to set yourself up. Okay, that's fine if you have 2 jobs, 3 jobs, but then the calls start coming back in, and then you have to remember what job you called them for, what that job was about, all of the things, right? So then you're fumbling through that conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:07]:
Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [00:44:08]:
We get what, maybe 5 seconds to hook them when we first get them live. And if you're fumbling that hook, you just wasted all that time. So what do we do? We prepare for the search on the front end so that no matter what's happening, you have everything you need in one location. So what does that mean? That means they're creating their email, they're creating their voicemail, they're creating their pitch, they're sending that to me. And that comes to me first while they do their worksheet. What questions are you going to ask? What does the company do? Who are the key players? Who are the competitors? There's a bunch of different questions. Do we have benefits on file? Will they relocate? What is the salary? What are the salary laws in that area? All the things they need to know are in one location. So then they have a folder on their desktop, they have their worksheet that then gets approved.

Kimberly Laipple [00:45:02]:
Then we go over the pitch, the voicemail, selling points for the company. You know, one of the things we talked about was recruiters love to sell a job. They're probably already doing the job that you're asking them to do. We're asking them to go to a new company. Why not sell the company, right? Why not sell why it's going to make their life better versus, oh, well, you're a quality manager now, want to go somewhere else and be a quality manager? That doesn't really attract the right people. So we go through all of those things. Why is this company the right company? Why do we work with that company? How long have we worked with them? So they go through this process. They have to send 5 candidates to me to review.

Kimberly Laipple [00:45:40]:
We go through, we grade those candidates, we talk about why they're right or wrong so they don't go down the lane of all the bad candidates. And then 2, 3 days later, I realized they called 75 people that weren't right for the job. Time is money. We need to get clients. the candidates they need quickly, especially today, right, in this market. And so why would I not wanna make sure that they were ready? But the good news is, if they get calls back from 5 people in a row on 5 different jobs, they never miss a beat. They have folders with all of those jobs. They know what a good candidate looks like, what it doesn't, whether our client offers relocation.

Kimberly Laipple [00:46:22]:
What the selling points are. They can go through those. We have automations that run. I don't even want the recruiters to worry about that. We have people that do that for you. All you have to do is send them your email once it's approved. And I have recruiters that have been here 5 years and still send me their emails to review when it's a new client or a new job. They don't have to anymore, but during the first year they do.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:45]:
What did the transformation of implementing this system look like before and after? As you just laughed at me.

Kimberly Laipple [00:46:51]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:53]:
If you're listening to this, like you should have just saw her like lean back and laugh.

Kimberly Laipple [00:46:57]:
The hardest thing in my career, I think. Like I said, if I told you to do something at your desk tomorrow, you would tell me I was crazy. So talk about a pilot program of one was me doing this for probably about 8 or 9 months and showing the results. I was billing over $100,000 every month. I was consistently making placements every week when the, the stats came out. I was making another placement. You know, Michelle from Pinnacle, she said to me, how did you figure out how to turn recruiting into a Ford production line? And I said, wow, I, I didn't realize I had done that. And she's like, yeah, you're doing it over and over again.

Kimberly Laipple [00:47:41]:
Nobody in sales knows how to do, how to repeat their results. And I said, well, I have a checklist of things that I do every time I get a search. And she's like, what do you do? And I said, I can send it to you. And she goes, well, what's it called? And I said, what to do when I get a job order. And I mean, that was the depth of it, right? It was just a Word doc with all these different steps on it. So I sent it to her and she started using it. And then she mentioned it to somebody else here. And then I had a couple people doing it and we're like, This is working.

Kimberly Laipple [00:48:13]:
And then more people, how are you billing so much? How are you on the board every month with over $100,000? And we do this thing here where we get extra PTO and some expenses and things like that for hitting certain numbers in a month. So they're like, well, you just got an extra week's vacation. You just got— and so people were curious, and that's when I started getting people on board with doing it. Now, doing it and sustaining it are 2 very different things. And that's where the laughter comes in because people do it and then it slides and then they'll do it and it slides. And the owner here said to me one time, because I would get frustrated, and he said, 90% of leadership is repeating yourself. And I was like, wow. And I go, just over and over? Like, is there an end to that? And he's like, nope, some people will need certain things over and over again.

Kimberly Laipple [00:49:09]:
You decide if that downside to that person is worth the upside, right? Are they a solid recruiter and just need reminders on one or two things? Or are you telling them the same things over and over again every single day? And then you learn who has that wherewithal inside that we talked about earlier to persevere and adapt and try new things. And how can they implement that in their desk? And do they have the success from it?

Benjamin Mena [00:49:36]:
Kind of curious what this checklist looks like.

Kimberly Laipple [00:49:38]:
I can share it with you.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:41]:
So on top of all the many things that you are known for, and I think this is like what you originally wanted to chat about on the podcast, and we're already like so much time in, so I do apologize, listeners.

Kimberly Laipple [00:49:52]:
No, no, whatever you wanna talk about.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:55]:
Problem is I could talk for hours. We don't have—

Kimberly Laipple [00:49:57]:
We all can, right? Yeah, right.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:00]:
Or I can ask questions for hours.

Kimberly Laipple [00:50:02]:
There you go.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:03]:
But like, one of the things that you've gotten really, really good at is account penetration. Yeah, going deep into relationships. This is something I think that most recruiters never figure out for the entire lifetime of their careers up until this point. Like, what does it look like in practice? How do you get better? Like, maybe even walk me through like a Fictionary, specific client relationship where we can figure out how to do this?

Kimberly Laipple [00:50:28]:
Sure. You know, I think that kind of goes back to that repeatable process. I don't love cold calls. I don't know that anybody loves cold calls. Some people do, I guess. I don't particularly feel confident in that moment. I've gotten much better at it over the years, but I knew that it was easier to keep a client than it was to go get more. And one of the things that I love is having kind of my entrepreneurial itch scratched over and over again through different companies, because we work with small growing organizations.

Kimberly Laipple [00:51:04]:
I don't work with giant companies typically, and I could figure out ways to help them, or I could be an order taker. And I think a lot of recruiters, you know, you constantly hear about people qualifying jobs and Counseling the clients, and a lot of us don't like to have those difficult conversations. I enjoy helping people come to a resolution that works for them, even if it isn't what they thought they needed in the beginning. So what does that look like? Somebody calls me and says that, you know, they have a job order and they need to hire immediately and They have no time and they don't know what they need, but they need it now. A lot of people will be like, well, get back to me when you have your job description. I don't mind writing a job description for a client. I don't mind saying to them, talk into your phone and send me a text message with everything you're thinking and let me create something from that. I don't mind sitting with them and walking through scenarios or people that they've worked with throughout their career that have made an impact and what that meant to them.

Kimberly Laipple [00:52:16]:
And by doing that, not only am I getting to understand the job, but I'm understanding the person. If you show up for a client, even if you don't fill the job, there's a real good chance they'll give you more jobs. And the reality is they want someone to pay attention. They wanna know that we're working. So we work contingent. For the most part. So if you give me a job order tomorrow and I don't talk to you for the next week and a half because I don't have the right candidate, do you really think I'm working hard behind the scenes? And we could be. We could be making hundreds of phone calls, panicked that we don't have that candidate.

Kimberly Laipple [00:52:54]:
But if I call you and give you data and tell you where we are in the search and how hard we're working and go through some of the candidates that we've spoken to that weren't right, Aren't you more likely to trust me later with jobs that you have? Because I've been honest with you. Here's the barriers. I spoke to 8 candidates. They were all over compensation range. Here's some of their profiles and why they weren't interested, whatever that might be. By building that relationship with someone, they trust that I'm going to help them. I'm not just looking for the placement. And I'm not.

Kimberly Laipple [00:53:32]:
I truly am looking to help the company. And again, I needed to get out of my own way, you know, kind of full circle to the ego. But I want to see these companies succeed. I want to see these people have a good experience. Our name is very important to me, and my integrity is very important to me. So if we can help a company truly succeed, then we're going to help them. Now, Obviously, there's parameters to that too, but I coach companies on their Glassdoor reviews and help them improve those. I help them realign their compensation.

Kimberly Laipple [00:54:06]:
I give them industry information on packages, all of those things that I don't get paid to do because I'm contingent, right? But would I rather work with them and know the company and build out that relationship? Absolutely. I'd rather learn it once than learn about 10 different companies and hope for the best.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:27]:
So you've gotten a chance to talk to a lot of recruiters over the years. Like, it almost sounds like you're leaning more towards like what some of the retained people do.

Kimberly Laipple [00:54:37]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:39]:
But you're just doing it on a contingency desk. Like, how often— and I'm kind of just curious— but how often have you not filled a search, but because of how you were Interacting with them, they gave you more business?

Kimberly Laipple [00:54:52]:
Oh, all the time. Oh, I didn't, I didn't say that lightly. Yes. Statistically, I would say off the top of my head, 8 outta 10 times, if I didn't fill the search, I got more business. I've had people that I don't get them the job and they go somewhere. They were one of my candidates. They land somewhere, not my client. I didn't get 'em a job and they call me, not the recruiter that placed them to work with them there.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:17]:
So, you know, statistically, I don't know, like how, what the percentage of how many positions that you, like, you fill based on your job orders.

Kimberly Laipple [00:55:24]:
We fill about 65 to 70% overall, I would say, over the last couple years, depending on the year, sometimes closer to like 80, 85%.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:33]:
So that 30 to 20% that you don't, 8 outta 10 of those don't give you more jobs.

Kimberly Laipple [00:55:41]:
Oh, give me more jobs. Absolutely. Sometimes while they're telling me that they gave an offer to somebody else, I get another job order right in that moment. Because we provide a service, not a candidate.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:53]:
So many questions I wanna go deeper on. It's just time. Time is the enemy. Time kills all deals. Anyway.

Kimberly Laipple [00:55:59]:
Time does kill all deals.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:02]:
So the whole industry is really pushing towards retained search. Make the case for staying contingent.

Kimberly Laipple [00:56:07]:
If I start working with someone. And they are not honest and ethical and don't treat their employees right, I would give their money back before I'd keep working with them. I don't want to be beholden to a client that way. That's for me and my employer. I am loyal to my employer. So there are companies that I have worked with that I choose to stop working with them. Now, do most of my clients after a year or 2 work with me exclusively or maybe with one other firm? Yes. That's my goal, right? Do I have certain clients that pay me engagement fees? Yes, I'll do engagement fees and I will return the money if that's what I feel I need to do.

Kimberly Laipple [00:56:51]:
But I typically don't have to. I can usually sense during the first call if it's gonna be okay, but I don't want my team to spend time chasing something that doesn't make sense. I don't want my team to treat the client as their employer. I wanna make sure that we're prioritizing according to what's most urgent. I wanna make sure we're prioritizing based on the ability to fill, but I also wanna make sure we're working with companies that we're really proud to work with because of the way they treat their team. And I know that I can add value to that company. I know that they're good people trying to do whatever it is that that company is trying to do. And it's not about, well, I paid you, so you owe me philosophy.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:48]:
Did you try it?

Kimberly Laipple [00:57:49]:
I've done it. And I do do some retained searches. I mean, if it's C-suite, it's retained. Most of my VP searches are retained. So, I do do it, and I do think there's value at a certain level, but we work as though we're retained all the time other than sharing names. I still share data. I just don't think it's necessary. I think I earn that from them.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:15]:
We're going to go into some rapid fire. Actually, we'll call this— we'll just jump into the quick fire. They don't need to be quick answers, and they'll encompass the Some of the questions that I really wanna like ask you, but we're running short on time.

Kimberly Laipple [00:58:27]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:28]:
So there's a version of you that could have just stayed a solo builder.

Kimberly Laipple [00:58:34]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:34]:
Made great money, extraordinary money. Mm-hmm. Focus just on you.

Kimberly Laipple [00:58:38]:
Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:39]:
At what point did you wanna build something bigger?

Kimberly Laipple [00:58:44]:
Always. I don't think there was a time where I ever saw myself as an island of one. I knew I always wanted to influence others, whether that was through clients or internally. I wasn't sure. I would say I knew when I got to that 5, 550 mark that I needed to have other people involved in the process for me to hit some of my goals. You know, I, I was bringing in too many jobs and I was gonna disappoint clients at that point. And I wanted to have more support for the companies that I worked with so that I could keep getting new, because, you know, it's gotta be the 80/20 rule too. I gotta be doing new BD all the time.

Kimberly Laipple [00:59:27]:
You know, with that was kind of where that came from.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:30]:
New BD, what does that look like for you in 2026?

Kimberly Laipple [00:59:35]:
Yeah, it's brutal right now. I am very targeted with companies that are at an inflection point where I can add value. So that could mean they just got funding. That could mean they're getting close to a drug launch. That could mean they're crossing over from maybe 15 to 25 people this year, and they need a little bit of help with org structure. There's a need more than just a position. So less companies, but stronger outreach to the ones I choose.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:09]:
Your team's been with you for a long time. I, I, I've 6, 7, 8 years is like the average tenure.

Kimberly Laipple [01:00:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Some longer.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:17]:
So this industry has a brutal turnover rate.

Kimberly Laipple [01:00:20]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:21]:
How did you create an environment for high achievers to stay?

Kimberly Laipple [01:00:25]:
You know, I think when you don't put everybody in the same bucket, you can keep people longer. Meaning that we have some people here that just recruit. They never wanna do BD. I'm not gonna make them do it. We have people that want to run their own desk. Okay, then you get to run your own desk. We have people that want to do split desks. You know, they they like to do BD, but they want people to work those jobs, and they want to do other things.

Kimberly Laipple [01:00:52]:
I don't shove a round peg in a square hole. If there's things that you want, I want to make sure you get them here so that you don't have to go somewhere else. Right? We also reward billing in a good way. I think you know, I think. If you have enough resources, you support people and they earn a good living, it's very hard to leave and start that all over again if you're well taken care of. We have a great tech stack. I know that's a big thing for a lot of people, but yeah, I think it's that we don't force people into a career path that they don't want.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:27]:
So I know when this goes live, the announcement will already be made. But you started this firm 17 years ago as just a recruiter. You are now, you said, as of this recording, was it tomorrow they're making the announcement?

Kimberly Laipple [01:01:43]:
Tomorrow. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:44]:
What's one thing that you would change tomorrow in your new role?

Kimberly Laipple [01:01:49]:
It's a good one. I have been working on it and I think I would spend even more time on having more fun together. I think we spend a lot of time with each other. And sometimes that time can be siloed. And I think the recruiters are individuals, but that team approach is, I think, part of the magic here, that we have a synergy with one another that needs to constantly, you know, like a plant, you have to water it all the time. And sometimes I've realized we haven't done something together as a group in 4 or 5 months. Like this Thursday, we're doing candle making. I have a lady coming in, I'm ordering pizzas, we're making candles, right? And I, they don't know yet, but I got a label made that it's a dumpster fire and it says, this is fine, everything's fine.

Kimberly Laipple [01:02:43]:
Because that's like something we say here, you know, fun little things like that that we do together that make it all Okay.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:55]:
If there's a recruiter listening to this and they're sitting in that recruiting chair that you were 17 years ago, and they have a dream about becoming an executive leader within their agency or within an agency, what's a piece of advice that you would tell them?

Kimberly Laipple [01:03:12]:
Listen to— go take some time and sit near somebody that bills a lot. Ask them to send you call recordings. When you talk to a candidate, shut up and listen to them. They're going to tell you a lot more in those moments where you're quiet than they do when you're asking them all the questions. If it— if— listen to the podcasts. Put effort into your career. Don't just go to work. If everybody goes in at 8:30, and I know this is old school, but if everybody's starting at 8:30, Start at 8 and get through your email and be ready to go at 8:30.

Kimberly Laipple [01:03:49]:
That 30 minutes is gonna buy you advantage. Do things others aren't doing to get where you wanna go, because if you do what everybody else is doing, you're gonna be everybody else. But if somebody is billing $1.5 million, ask them to send you 3 vetting calls a day and 3 client calls. Ask to sit in on an intake and how they ask questions. Put outward effort into what you want to achieve in life, and it does come back to you. It's not untrue. What you put out into the world will come back to you.

Benjamin Mena [01:04:24]:
You're part of Pinnacle. You've been with Pinnacle for a while. I know you're actively involved with them. Great group. What does that group mean to you?

Kimberly Laipple [01:04:32]:
I never thought it was going to mean what it does. So when I was a prospect in Pinnacle, I was still very much in my own way. I was learning, but I was still struggling. And I remember saying to my therapist, I'm terrified to be in the room with people of that caliber. And he said, instead of being terrified, maybe realize that's the room that you always belonged in. And I said that. In my introduction. And I knew when I got there, that was where I was supposed to be.

Kimberly Laipple [01:05:14]:
It was almost like I arrived where I always needed to be because it showed me that we're all people. I thought I was going to go into a room and feel less than. And I found a bunch of people that all struggle in their own ways feeling that way. And I thought I was alone in that.

Benjamin Mena [01:05:33]:
Yeah.

Kimberly Laipple [01:05:35]:
So by having power in a bunch of people wanting to learn from each other without their ego in the way, I dove in headfirst. I couldn't help enough. I, well, you know, I chair multiple committees. I'm the vice president. I absolutely love to give my time back to it because I found people that I am just in awe of every day because they're vulnerable and successful. And I didn't know those 2 could coexist.

Benjamin Mena [01:06:05]:
It's rare to see in recruiting or maybe in any sales environment. What is a book that's had a huge impact in your career?

Kimberly Laipple [01:06:12]:
I don't know what I'm allowed to say on here. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F. Yeah, I would say would be one. And that and The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, which is pretty new. But The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F is about actually giving enough about the things that matter and stop worrying about things that don't. I was so worried what other people thought about me that I couldn't focus on what mattered to me. And, you know, until you stop worrying about other people, you can't really figure out what matters to you and what's important to you and then care about that. Forget the noise, care about what matters to you.

Kimberly Laipple [01:06:53]:
We get one shot at this life. And that was really impactful to me to listen to that book. And I tend to listen to all my books, but listening to that book and knowing that it was okay for me to stop worrying about other people and focus on what mattered to me.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:14]:
And I know you love tech. You hang out with Rich Rosen. Yeah. What is your favorite rec tech tool at the moment?

Kimberly Laipple [01:07:21]:
I mean, I think it's kind of cheesy, but I mean, I'm just obsessed with anything I can do on AI. I like that AI allows me to create and it's not an out-of-the-box tool, right? It's not like I'm trying to make it do what I want it to do. I get to drive that process, whether it's me telling AI things, you know, creating GPTs for work to streamline our work process and adding that to my what to do when you get a job order. to giving it results from something that I've done outside of work and having it help me create new avenues of success in other areas of my life. I know that AI will not replace recruitment. It will replace recruiters that don't use it for sure, because it just speeds the process. But how amazing is it to have a tool At your disposal that allows you to use your brain in a way to create things that you never knew were possible, right? It's like being a little kid and having an imagination all over again that's unfiltered and saying to it, you know, well, how many teeth does the purple dragon have? Or whatever it is that you're thinking about, and it talking back to you and having a real impact on the way that you move in your job. You know, we use it for so many things and I'm constantly playing.

Kimberly Laipple [01:08:50]:
We use ChatGPT. We have a workspace on that. I really love NotebookLM. Anybody that's not using NotebookLM and taking something you do and have it create a short podcast for your employees and teaching them. And I like to tell it to debate things. And that's really fun to listen to it debate things. You can set the tone. And when you get it to kind of argue with each other, especially like a deal or a job order, like you funnel it all the information about a deal you think's gonna blow up and have them argue the points.

Kimberly Laipple [01:09:24]:
It comes up with things you didn't even think of. So we do that a lot.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:30]:
I feel like I need to play with Notebook. Oh, I'm a little bit—

Kimberly Laipple [01:09:32]:
Oh, I am obsessed with it.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:34]:
I've been taking things from ChatGPT and dropping it in Claude, and I'm like, ChatGPT said this, Claude said this, ChatGPT said this.

Kimberly Laipple [01:09:39]:
How crazy.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:40]:
Claude has just been like this week, he's like, uh, Chat's fabricating more stuff.

Kimberly Laipple [01:09:44]:
Stop. See, that's fun. And you could take both of those and load the 2 opinions into NotebookLM and have them argue the opinions. I wonder what you'd get from that.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:55]:
I gotta do that. So one of the times I like, I took it back to, from Claude to Chat, Claude to Chat, and then it like Claude again was just like, Chat just stole my line, then created an argument outta thin air. Stay like believing that it created. I was like, right. Interesting.

Kimberly Laipple [01:10:11]:
Get them to fight with each other. I love it.

Benjamin Mena [01:10:14]:
Last question and then I'll let you go. So you've been a Pinnacle Society member for a while. You're part of the board, you're part of the leadership team there. You've been on multiple other recruiting podcasts. You have a team of recruiters because of all this. I know recruiters reach out to you constantly asking for your— how you're hitting these $100K months, how you did this, how you hit the 1.5 $1.5 million a year, how you've been so successful climbing the leadership ladder, all these questions that you get constantly. Do you ever just wish you're like, my God, I wish they would just ask this one question, but they never do? What would that question be?

Kimberly Laipple [01:10:51]:
That's a good one. There's so many things I wish that recruiters would ask— how to be present, how to be more involved in their role, meaning they're always looking to build, they're always looking to achieve. How do I get into pinnacle? How do I do this? And all those things are so important. But again, it's all about them. So I think where my success in the last 5 to 7 years has really come from is making it not about me. How do I serve my team? How do I serve my clients? How do I— there's a saying, and, and for those that, that are in the recovery community, I learned from someone years ago that you can't keep what you don't give away. And I think that really is the key, right? I think if we all lived a life where we're giving back, The good stuff comes. So instead of looking at where you can be in 5 years or what, you know, when you're gonna bill a million, what can I do today to help impact someone's life in a positive way? Whether that's suggesting they don't take your job, that's a hard one, right? To watch money walk out the door.

Kimberly Laipple [01:12:20]:
Whether it's you tell your client, listen, Their behavior behind the scenes tells me they may not be a cultural fit because it's, that's not about me. That's about doing what's right for somebody else. I think that goes a long way.

Benjamin Mena [01:12:35]:
This has been an awesome conversation and this really, like, I've had to be cognizant of time the entire time because I felt like this could easily have been like a Joe Rogan 2, 3-hour talk. That when we do not have that a lot of time. So maybe we'll have to do an encore down the road.

Kimberly Laipple [01:12:53]:
Absolutely. Happy to.

Benjamin Mena [01:12:55]:
But anybody that wants to follow you or connect with you, how do they go about doing that?

Kimberly Laipple [01:12:59]:
So you can find me on LinkedIn, Kim Lapel. You're welcome. I'm open connector. So feel free to message me. I'm happy to speak to anybody. I also lead the membership chair for Pinnacle. So feel free to check out the Pinnacle Society, check out the apply section. There's some basic qualifications there.

Kimberly Laipple [01:13:16]:
Feel free to send in, you know, an apply. I'll set up a team. with you. I typically speak to at least one person a week that applies. You know, you're welcome to reach out and I'm happy to connect at any time.

Benjamin Mena [01:13:29]:
Is there anything else that you would love to leave with the listeners before I let you go?

Kimberly Laipple [01:13:32]:
Love what you do, right? Loving what you do is a choice. I don't think a lot of people can say they love their job, but I love my job. I love what I do. And that's a choice. And I think it's important to, to be passionate about what you do. We're changing lives. We're helping people with their careers. We're helping them put their kids through college.

Kimberly Laipple [01:13:58]:
Um, we're making sure they get to buy a home or, or take that trip or whatever those things are. And it's so important that we don't lose sight of that in this industry because we do it all day. So it doesn't seem big, but it is big. So love what you do and make sure that you don't lose sight of that.

Benjamin Mena [01:14:17]:
I've seen this thread across a lot of high billers that they've learned to love what they do. When did that click for you?

Kimberly Laipple [01:14:24]:
Unfortunately, I think some of that is when we're not so worried about having to pay the bills. We get to enjoy it in a different way. But I truly think for me, when I got to be in my 50s, And you start looking down the other side of the hill and you realize that there's an end to our life, that if I don't enjoy it, why am I doing it? Right? So if I can't find the love in it, if I can't figure out why I love it or why I'm doing it, why do it? Right? So I think there's some people that just never like to work. You know, they're not going to like anything they do, and that's fine. But this job is hard. This job is real hard. And the highs are high, but the lows are low, man. We can go through times where it is brutal to have this job.

Kimberly Laipple [01:15:17]:
And if you don't love it, why do that? Why not love what you do? Why not wake up happy and be thankful?

Benjamin Mena [01:15:25]:
Amen to that. I just, I want to say thank you for spending the time today. Because this can be a rough industry.

Kimberly Laipple [01:15:33]:
It is.

Benjamin Mena [01:15:34]:
And like you walking through the dark times where you were a single mom going to the food bank to get food, losing your house, or about ready to lose your house under foreclosure, but you worked your way out.

Kimberly Laipple [01:15:50]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:15:51]:
You worked probably harder than you've ever had to work before. And I've seen this thread happen time and time again. It is so hard to see it when you're in the moment. So if you're a recruiter listening to this right now and you're going through this fucking shit, replay this, work your way out. It's 2026. I believe this is your year.

Kimberly Laipple [01:16:10]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [01:16:11]:
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Benjamin Mena [01:16:35]:
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Benjamin Mena [01:17:32]:
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