How to Build a $65M Recruiting Business You Can Sell | Mike Kelly

Mike Kelly spent the first five to six years of his first recruiting business doing everything himself. Cold calls, interviews, client meetings, even payroll. Today, Conexus Advisors has reached $65M in revenue and generates over $750,000 in gross profit per desk, including researchers. Mike has grown and exited three professional services businesses. In this conversation, he explains how he divides the work between researchers, screeners, recruiters, and account executives so people can spend more time doing what they're best at. He also shares how he develops managers who can coach their teams and grow the business without him. About 85% of Conexus's business is project consulting and interim advisory. Mike explains how that model supports growth, why he turns down work outside his niche, and what he measures beyond calls and interviews. IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 01:16 From Ernst & Young auditor to recruiter at Robert Half 07:40 Why the annual pay review pushed Mike toward a commission-based career 09:24 Building a business instead of owning a job 12:15 Protecting recruiter time and generating $750K GP per desk 14:20 The fear that keeps owners doing everything 16:33 Building the team: nine months without a paycheck 19:24 How researchers, screeners, recruiters, and account executives work together 31:11 Why account executives personally prepare candidates for interviews 35:50 Turning down work outside your niche 38:25 Conversion targets and the daily call report 48:54 What makes a recruiting firm sellable 54:49 Developing managers who take over coaching 57:14 Giving team leaders a financial stake through overrides and equity ABOUT MIKE KELLY: Mike Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Conexus Advisors, an advisory, interim and executive search firm focused on the Office of the CFO. A former CPA, he began his career at Ernst & Young and has founded, scaled and sold three professional services firms. Connect with Conexus: https://conexusadvisors.com/ PODCAST PARTNERS: This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruite... It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox FREE RESOURCES: Book your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://www.recruitmentcoach.com/stra... Take the Recruitment Business Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard Listen to more episodes of The Resilient Recruiter: https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/ Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter so you never miss an episode. What's one task you could hand off to spend more time with clients and candidates? Let us know in the comments. #RecruitmentPodcast #RecruitmentAgency #RecruitmentLeadership #ExecutiveSearch #TheResilientRecruiter