Firm Leaders Summit (November 16-18): https://firm-leaders-and-owners-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com

Atlas, the CRM that actually understands context: https://recruitwithatlas.com/

Well Oiled Machine, proven offshore recruiters you pay directly, no middleman: https://www.welloiledmachine.co/

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 gave you the first three steps of the offshore playbook: function, region, and compensation. This is where it gets real. Steps four and five, finding the person and supporting them, which Greg Fischer says is where most of the 7 out of 10 failures actually happen.

Greg says the quiet part out loud early: you do not need a firm like his to do this. Then he shows you how. The best offshore talent does not apply to job ads, the same thing you tell your own clients. Skip Upwork and onlinejobs.ph entirely. Headhunt on LinkedIn with Boolean searches, and learn the local titles first, because a great recruiter in Mexico might show up as headhunter or reclutador. Greg interviewed 32 candidates before making his own first hire, and he walks through the 3-step interview process he recommends, including why a true solo should bring in an outside advisor for round two, and the practical assessment that exposes a weak candidate before you pay them.

Then the step everybody treats as an afterthought. Support. The 30, 90, and 180-day milestones you map before you hire, including the quantitative floor Greg uses, like 12 submissions from a sourcer by day 90. Weekly meetings built around roadblocks. Why your international hires belong in the all-hands, the engagement survey, and the quarterly roadmap. Plus the question I could not stop thinking about afterward: what your offshore team figures out about you in their first week that you do not know about yourself. Greg's answer involves the biases they quietly spot, and the lifeline exercise he uses to build real connection with every hire. Steal that one even if you never hire internationally.

And the case study. A solo biller doing $650K, completely burnt out, no time to work on the business. His first offshore recruiter billed $120K in placements within 4 months, as Greg tells it. The second billed $60K in her first 60 days. He is now on hire number four, on pace to more than double his best year, and went from solo operator to running an actual firm.

What You'll Learn:

• Where to actually find top offshore recruiters and the job boards to avoid
• The 3-step interview process and the practical assessment that filters out the bottom half
• The one interview question that reveals how a candidate thinks about performance
• Resume red flags a US owner will not recognize
• The 30-90-180 day milestone map to build before you ever make an offer
• Why BD and client-facing work usually stays onshore, and the $800K exception
• The lifeline exercise that builds loyalty with any hire, offshore or not

Missed Part 1? Go back for the first three steps and the real 2026 salary numbers.

Connect with Greg Fischer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/offshoreisasuperpower/

Well Oiled Machine: https://www.welloiledmachine.co/

Firm Leaders Summit (November 16-18): https://firm-leaders-and-owners-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com

Atlas: https://recruitwithatlas.com/

Elite Recruiter Community: https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community

Newsletter: https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Firm Leaders Summit (November 16-18): https://firm-leaders-and-owners-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com

Atlas, the CRM that actually understands context: https://recruitwithatlas.com/

Well Oiled Machine, proven offshore recruiters you pay directly, no middleman: https://www.welloiledmachine.co/

Part 1 of 2. I lost thousands trying to offshore. Did every single thing wrong, swore it off, and avoided this topic for two years. Then I sat down with Greg Fischer, who built an 18-person international team inside his own firm while scaling it from $1 million to $4.2 million, and recorded the conversation I wish I had before I spent a dollar.

Greg says 7 out of 10 firms that try offshoring end up worse off than if they had never started. Not because the talent is not there. Because they skip the playbook. This is the first half of that playbook, and it covers the first three steps: function, region, and compensation.

We get into why "I want a cheap recruiter" is already the failure, and what to hire for instead. Greg breaks down the full menu, sourcers, researchers, 180s, 360s, and SDRs, and why a dedicated sourcer behind a solo biller doing $400K to $600K has produced a 30 to 50 percent revenue lift within a year, as Greg tells it. He also shares why a sourcer hire works about 8 out of 10 times while the admin assistant hire most owners start with works about 3 out of 10.

Then the part nobody says out loud: the big firms are already doing this. Greg estimates 80 to 90 percent of the major players have international practices, and about half of boutique firms in the $1M to $3M range have at least one international team member. You just do not see it on LinkedIn.

The compensation section alone is worth the download. Real 2026 numbers, not vendor markup numbers. What a sourcer in the Philippines actually earns. What a LATAM associate recruiter costs. What a true A player who closes $500K a year expects in base and commission. Plus the PTO mistake that insults candidates before they start, and the payment platforms Greg recommends and the two he would avoid.

What You'll Learn:

• Why 7 out of 10 firms fail at offshoring and the one word that separates the 3 that succeed
• The five-role menu and which role a first-timer should never start with
• The rainmaker math: what a dedicated sourcer does to a solo biller's revenue
• Greg's region cheat sheet: Philippines, LATAM, and South Africa, and which jobs go where
• The 50 percent overlap rule for time zones and why 4 hours is the floor
• Real 2026 salary bands for offshore sourcers and recruiters, base and commission
• How to structure commission, PTO, and payment setup without getting burned

Part 2 drops right after this one: headhunting the person, interviewing them, managing them, and the case study of a burnt out $650K solo biller whose offshore hires changed his firm.

Connect with Greg Fischer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/offshoreisasuperpower/

Well Oiled Machine: https://www.welloiledmachine.co/

Firm Leaders Summit (November 16-18): https://firm-leaders-and-owners-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com

Atlas: https://recruitwithatlas.com/

Elite Recruiter Community: https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community

Newsletter: https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe

🎟️ Tom Kosnik is speaking at the Firm Leaders Summit presented by Crelate, November 16 to 18. Every live session is free: https://firm-leaders-and-owners-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/

🚀 This episode is brought to you by Atlas, the CRMx that captures every conversation and tells you the next action to take: https://recruitwithatlas.com/

We recorded this conversation with Tom Kosnik in 2024, during one of the longest down stretches the recruiting and staffing industry has seen. We're bringing it back because Tom is joining us at the Firm Leaders Summit, and the questions he raised then are the same ones firm owners are working through right now.

Tom is the founder and president of the Visus Group, a growth strategy and organizational development firm that works only with staffing and recruiting companies. As he tells it, close to 100 C-suite executives sit in his peer roundtables, which means he hears every few months what's working and what isn't inside firms from startup size to billions in revenue. He also got into the industry by an unusual route. He was studying for the Catholic priesthood, realized it wasn't his calling, and ended up building roundtables for staffing executives because it was the only industry left on the table.

The heart of this episode is Tom's stage-by-stage breakdown of what it takes to grow a firm, and how the owner's job changes at every step. From $1M to $5M, the stakes are your next few hires and running out of cash. From $5M to $10M, you need a real sales plan, a recruiting manager who frees you to work on the business, and an owner who keeps selling. From $10M to $25M, it's an operating system, quarterly initiatives, weekly business KPIs, and getting off factoring. Past $25M, your job becomes building and running a management team.

He also makes the case that hiring more salespeople and making more dials no longer grows a firm. Recruiting in places a client can't reach is now table stakes. The firms that are winning bring their clients market data and talk with them about human capital strategy, and that conversation positions them as advisors instead of a source of bodies. He explains why offshore sourcing is about to be automated away, why technology spend that doesn't raise gross profit per person is wasted, and why marketing and personal brands now carry most of the sales load.

Tom also covers the personality traits that predict great recruiters, how to keep A-players from leaving to start their own firms, and the story of an operator with no staffing background who took a firm from $1M to $3.5M in EBITDA in three years, as Tom tells it.

What You'll Learn

• What changes at $1M, $5M, $10M, and $25M
• Why your sales plan matters more than your business plan below $10M
• Why "more dials" is the wrong answer to a slow market
• The traits that separate top billers from friendly extroverts
• How to keep your best producers from going out on their own
• Why every firm owner needs a peer group that tells them what they don't want to hear

Books mentioned: First, Break All the Rules and The Power to See Ourselves.

🔗 Connect with Tom Kosnik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tkosnik/

🌐 Visus Group: https://www.visusgroup.com/

💬 Join the Elite Recruiter Community: https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community

📩 Get the newsletter: https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe