From Limo Driver to CEO: How Ranjith Ravula Built Raks Group Into a 7-Figure Staffing Business

Danny
Hey, Ranjith, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. How are you doing today?

Ranjith Ravula
Hey Danny, thank you so much for inviting me. I am doing awesome. I hope you are doing great.

Danny
I am doing great. I am doing better now that you’re here because you have an incredible story. You’ve gone from limo driver to multimillion dollar CEO. Maybe we should start from the beginning and you can tell me about like how this even just grew to be what it is now.

Ranjith Ravula
Yeah, I had to go back nine years. So when I came to US, I was non-immigrant and I was a dependent for eight years. So I didn’t get a chance to work. Even though my background, I did my master’s in accounting. But I found that accounting is kind of difficult to find jobs. I thought I would start something new. I’ve seen people.

driving limos and driving executives. And it’s all pre-booked when you talk about the car service. So I like that way. And I thought, OK, I’ll start it as soon as I receive my work authorization. So I did for one year. there was Uber. So Uber changed everything. And I did build some very good customers, corporate customers. used to pay.

you know, use our service. But after one year with Uber, we lost most of our customers. So I didn’t see much growth there. Then I quickly realized this is not for me. Then I wanted to go back to again accounting. That was my original degree. I did so many interviews and I really, you know, I mean, I failed a lot. So.

Being an on-immigrant and not exactly the communication is the main thing. And mostly all accountings are more cultural-based. So I was not a fit to be in a company in a cultural base as an accountant. So that really made me to think again, something I have to do my own. can be an accountant and do, again, the nine-to-five job.

after maybe I don’t know, I spent, I mean, I’m working with the same kind of people. I went back and working in a staffing company as an accountant, where I learned about all the backend of staffing business. And that made me too, again, curious to, okay, why can’t I do my own? Because I already seen all my problems on my own.

Ranjith Ravula
So it would help somebody like me at the same time. I can build career out of this. my goal was always to make 60k per year and just to go for a night job and stay home and help my family. That was the goal. of course, it’s completely new recruiting and everything. It was challenge. And the one thing is I was not a social guy.

So you can see building somebody who is not a social person is very, very tough. So luckily, I have very good friends and three of my other friends. I asked them their advice, and they said, I will support you. Let’s start it. They want me to settle and grow. And they helped me back, and we started Drax Group back in 2016 December. But it’s not, you know.

It’s not the end, you know, I mean, we have seen so much trouble and yeah, it’s a long story. So I would say this is how I started. And here I am nine years. I am doing the best what I can do. And I didn’t even dream about doing this and being here managing these many people. I thought I would be somewhere else working for somebody in a desk and doing my job.

So.

Danny
Do you, I mean on that note, do you think you would have pivoted to something else where you are in charge even if you were working for somebody else? Did you always have that itch?

Ranjith Ravula
I don’t know. I never thought about it. I always thought of either if I do a job or business, I am very responsible. I take accountability. I do best out of whatever it is. But doing the different, different jobs, either it’s a limo or accounting or anything, those are the skills I build there. It helped me in my business to take to next level.

Danny
Amazing. You also mentioned that you’re a bit of a shy person. And I think you’re right that that’s not normally the entrepreneurial vision. How did you overcome that? How does that fit in?

Ranjith Ravula
Yeah, so before that, would say how I, you know, my childhood, if you go back and you don’t look at my schoolmates or college mates, I very, very little of, you know, friends are killed. have it. I only connected with the people I see very often. And I made, you know, friends, common friends, you know, to from them.

not like not from my educational background. So if I go back and see all my friends are younger than me one or two years. So that itself tells me like I am not a social guy. But how did I do that? After starting this business, when I was talking to my friends and everything, I thought my friends will bring me a clients and candidates so that I can just sit and take care of the business.

But I realized in a year, I found out it’s not going to work out. They did their best initially. But one of my partner and friend told me, without a network, you can’t do this business. So that made me realize I need to change myself. And after that COVID time, I realized, OK, I mean, you can go outside and do the networking. But what else I can do?

And the LinkedIn was also new to me. I started connecting LinkedIn like-minded people, mostly in recruiting and staffing. Every day I was reaching maximum reach of this weekly limits. And two times they blocked me. Because when I sending the messages, they thought it was an automation back in 2020. But I was able to go back and get my account back. But those connections…

Danny
Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
Out of those every week, the maximum, you you can say I think daily 30 or something, right? So those connections, half of them are accepted. And it was a slow business. So everybody was at home and they’re not really busy. So people scheduled a meeting with me. I was sharing our calendar link. And they were scheduling meetings. I was going on calls, talking to them about the business.

Danny
Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
and I’m here in the United States, OK? So I’m trying to build this one. And if there is anything we can collaborate, it can be a candidate or client and make it as a win-win for, right? So that was my pitch. So that made me to build a network where I now can just, with one message, if I need something, I would get at least five or six responses about that reference.

Before even this AI and everything, now people are building communities, but I built it back in 2021. So that’s how I got references from the candidates. I got references from the clients, and I built step by step.

Danny
What were some of those conversations like when you would initially have one of those cold meetings? How did that go?

Ranjith Ravula
Yeah, so I I mentioned this one before. It was a, we were at home, right, in the COVID time. I have same desk at my home. And even my kids, my wife, they were also working. Only one script, I was calling and saying that, hey, this is Ranjith. I do staffing and recruiting in IT.

And I wanted to partner with you guys. And if you want to work with me, with a candidate and a client, I would be sharing this kind of margin share. So we can work together that way. So I’m able to take everything back in operations, accounting, and everything. So you don’t need to have a shop for you. All you need to is just connect your connections and bring the business. And I can help you, too.

both can get benefit. So this is the same page. But COVID time, many people lost their jobs. They are curious what I was going to offer. Many people are listening to me, they said, somebody said, no, this is not going to work for me, because they have to work on a kind of a freelancing type. It’s not something they can do, you know, a salary based. Because I was not ready to pay everybody.

Danny
Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
salary at the COVID time. But many people were short interest. They worked for me some time after the market got better. got, again, they went to comfort zone. But some people who has an entrepreneurial mindset, they really wanted to work and they stick with me. And I’m still, I have opened like four or five businesses and people who work for that businesses. They feel like they are a partner with me and they’ll still make money. But last two years, it’s

kind of a little slow, but we did very well back in 2022, 2023.

Danny
Yet you have the Rax Group and then you also have Social M8. Why? I guess what is it that makes you keep growing these other companies?

Ranjith Ravula
And me. Yeah, so when I started networking through the LinkedIn and people know if I call you and explain, I’m Ranjith and Rax Group, then only you will remind me, remember my name, or remember my company. But back that day, can it is about you knowing many people, or it’s about

Knowing many people, knowing you many people, right? This is the difference. So when you are going outbound, you call them and you introduce them and you do it. But when you do inbound, people know you and they come to you for service. So I thought staffing, recruiting, really need a branding. It’s not about you just sitting and working at somewhere else, like not many people knowing it. So you have to go out and present yourself, you are the leader, you are the thought leader, do, you know, what kind of help, you know, clients you help. So you have to be expert, you have to show as an expert. So the people come to you for advice, and for, you know, maybe a job, job, you know, support, or maybe, you know, for a talent support. So back in 20, I think 20, like it’s been four years, four, five years, 2021, I realized I need a branding.

Then I sat, you know, and I did my research. I started posting everything, whatever happening, even my journey. And when did I start? Either it’s anniversary, either it’s a victory of some placement or anything, everything, I started posting it. I have now almost 30k of followers. I share, my journey is my life is open book. So now everybody knows me even.

If I go to meet a client or a candidate, I don’t need to introduce myself. an example, one of our family members, friend who came to visit me, and we were just introducing ourselves. Then before I introduced mine, then he said, I know Ranjit very well. I follow you on LinkedIn. You see that? That thing is already you made a first connection, the first dot, right? So the next conversation will be something else, working together or collaborating something else and maybe helping each other. So that really made a difference after four years of working. Then I thought, I enjoy doing it. So even I have now people taking care of recruiting. But I thought,

Something I really like it. I want to help the people like me who are already having, you know, these kind of issues. Not everybody can spend four or five hours a day. And, you know, I would want them to spend more on their business development where they are good at it and have this to somebody else like me who are already doing it. And, you know, people can see how I am doing it. And that’s why I created a social media. And yeah, it’s a LinkedIn branding, man.

For business and personal branding and now you need to go and first show yourself to your clients before you call them.

Danny
So what is it about LinkedIn that you like so much?

Ranjith Ravula 
It’s about lead generation, basically business. When I’m going to reach somebody, a client, and tell about me and what I do, or if I am sending a LinkedIn automation, maybe an invite or maybe a connection, and when I ask them to connect, they immediately go to my LinkedIn and see who this guy is, why he wants to connect us. And when they see the industry I’m in, the post I post, they feel more connected and they connect.

The moment they connect, they are following all my everyday posts. So when the second message, I can just start the conversation as a friendly and I can build a relationship. I don’t need to sell directly my business. already know talking in my post, they are already watching every day. So with the third or fourth message, or maybe you take a little longer, when you go and ask if they need any help, people would definitely say yes or no.

They will not ghost you. If they really need, if they have a problem, they’ll come to us before you even asking. So that’s it.

Danny
When you’re using LinkedIn or anywhere, because they’re building this relationship with you, what is it that takes somebody from just following you to reaching out? Is there something in there that’s, you know, making that? Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
Yes, definitely. See, I’m not just only wanted to show up. So I’m telling what I’m doing every day and how I’m helping clients, candidates, all other my entrepreneur journey and even personal things also. So when you talk on, again, the same as your ICP language, right? If I’m somebody, a client, you know, who is really struggling to find maybe an engineer or maybe a, know, cybersecurity engineer. When they know I’m, I’m already working on that. I’m trying to educate them. Either they see there are two, three types of, you know, customers. One, they want to learn from you and they want to do their own. Okay. They are the ones they’re going to be engaged with you. They’re going to, you know, talk to it, you know, with the questions.

And they’re going to build a relationship. But at the of the day, you are helping them without even asking a return for some kind of crowd. At the same time, there are people who see you as an expert and come to you and buy from you. So that’s why the real ICP is going to connect with me well. And they’re going to give me the inbound messages. An example, like recently,

I think three days back I posted about our candidate job search related. We were able to clear all our candidates and we placed them within a one month of laying off. So that’s the story will really connect somebody who’s really looking for a job and he wants the same kind of support. He wants somebody who can place them within a one month. That story itself connects them and they reach us immediately.

The same day, I reached more than 15 leads asking about the help to place them. So that’s it. That’s your customers, the candidates and clients. So you’re directly connected.

Danny
With your businesses, you seem to be a natural as an entrepreneur. What would be the milestones that have taken you from one place to the next as you grew your businesses? Could you tell us any of those?

Ranjith Ravula
Yes, one first thing is a mindset. OK, even though now I build this business, even though I’m not involved in recruiting much, even though I’m a rainmaker, I always think every day about the business. So when you’re an entrepreneur, the mindset is important. And now I started Sochi AMA.

And now this is more than anything I’m thinking about it every morning, every evening. So you have to give us time to think about it. When you’re an entrepreneur, when you’re starting early, you will see all the roadblocks. So how to avoid it and first to control your mindset and plan it properly, getting up early and you so you take care of your personal and thinking about business and planning that day is more important than anything.

That’s how I started, you know, every within like two, two, three years, we seen everything, all the roadblocks, challenges with the candidate challenges with the clients. What helped me is more, more motivating myself. Right. Either you, you, you, know, watch some videos or you watch it or listen to some podcast. I mainly focused on, know, when I’m listening some podcasts, okay. Somebody said, okay.

You know read this book this is this book is going to give you this this kind of insights. So then without your second thought I used to buy everything. I bought that 5M club I bought everybody wherever I watched this stories especially I used to watch listen entrepreneurs the startup podcast where they had a trouble and they are doing you know successful business. Those transition that the challenges what they faced faced and where did they go and you know, motivated themselves and found a solutions where I focus those things and reading a book in the morning and doing my personal taking care of and learning is is the what I did. So either it’s a it’s a email campaign sees that it’s a LinkedIn go I went there and seen some leaders and you know, influencers and followed them and everything.

Ranjith Ravula
And this is what I did overall to keep myself motivated and go to push myself to next level. this is the other point. the other one, so the other one you asked about the next point, what is it again?

Danny
Were those big pivot moments were to take your business from one spot to the next.

Ranjith Ravula
Right. Yes. OK. The next one is what I like myself. know somebody’s you know, many people say that is a weakness. Delegating the work. Right. So when I do myself, of course, I’ll do 100 percent right. But as I grow, I was doing everything payroll, accounting, business development, know, sales and everything. So I started hiring one by one. First, I took out of.

My plate is HR operations. Then I took about the according and everything, even though I monitor it. Delegating is the main thing which made me to grow this level because if I do everything my own, if I don’t trust anybody, if I think like if nobody is going to do it like me, I won’t have gone this way. So maybe I would have made maybe making it around 50k, 100k, you know, keeping myself a very low.

And that would have happened. But that made me to pivot to go to next level. That’s what exactly I’m doing in the associate med too. I am hiring people and giving them a chance and giving them a freedom to think and implement, innovate, and everything. So that’s what helped me to grow this level.

Danny
Where were those scary moments in growing? Like where would you take that leap to be go to to be from I’m doing this on my own. I’m doing it 100 % correctly. I’m gonna invite. I’m gonna hire another employee. Was there barriers with money? Like what were all the scary moments with bringing someone on or growing that you were like, I’m gonna overcome that.

Ranjith Ravula
Yeah, so see, I don’t want to say I’m 100 % on every role. I was good at accounting. That was I was doing myself. And I trained somebody else exactly. we have already systems placed, what they need to follow, step-by-step and everything. I only give them what my candidates, how I want to treat my candidate.

And how I wanted to treat a client or maybe on a vendor. So I made this already, you know, the policies. So example, if somebody reaches me or apply a job, you know, job assistance, I want my team to answer them within 24 to 48 hours. Either it’s yes or no, either it’s an email or call, call address and finish it. That’s my, you know I would say maybe a strategy or you can say you know checklist I wanted to have it that so that I feel everybody I want to feel everybody valued and I want them to remember my company and you know refer somebody. So, these things help me to follow my values. So, even I am hiring somebody I gave them okay this is what I want to do.

And when you are treating somebody, then remaining back and work, it’s same. But these are the specific requirements. I gave them a clear directions and instructions. And everybody follows all my company. what they like is we treat everybody well. We don’t ignore. you can go and check all my reviews. People like working with us.

Danny
Is there actually some videos that are standout ones that you would want people to go see?

Ranjith Ravula
Yeah, of course, directly you can see on my LinkedIn page there’s a feature video. One of our employees, she worked with a short time, but she was very happy, know, with our team. And she gave a video testimonial working with the Rax Group and everything. And believe me, yesterday we have one of our, we candidly placed at the client place. So he sent me personal message directly to me and talking about my team member. And he said he did really well, and he was very fortunate working with the Racks Group. And now he is joining in August 1st. he didn’t even, he just started paperwork. He gave me a feedback, and I asked him, go and do it in a Google review, just not in just an email. So I want everybody to see.

Danny
That’s amazing. What are some of just the mistakes or things where you’re, you figured out there’s something really here that is taking me to the next level when it comes to LinkedIn reach out or cold leads or talking with clients that you thought, here’s a breakthrough. Why is not everybody else doing this? Or what are those things?

Ranjith Ravula
I don’t want to compare with anybody, but what I what made now if I compared like last two years of this year, I hired a VP in recruiting in my team now. So what we changed complete process system. So we are really getting the qualified candidates before everybody used to reach me. I couldn’t say no. So we spend a lot of time and non-qualified candidates and trying to help them to, you know, place. So we wasted money, time and everything. So that made us to look from outside, you know, people think like they’re not really making a progress, they’re not able to place the candidates. So now we realized that we wanted to have a proper process to qualify first and see who is the right fit and advise them to proper trainings are advising in LinkedIn or resume optimization, everything. And we have two screens before and after, before training after. If we see that our mark, then only we are trying to go taking them to next level and present into the clients. And we are able to see the quality submissions and the placements. So this is what I changed for the last one or two years. the companies, what they do is, all they run is behind the scenes. What they are trying not doing is they are not telling what they are doing with the candidates or clients outside of their office. So it can be any social media. It can be LinkedIn or anything. The real value you get is when you go and show out. So that’s where people now with this AI, you know,

Everybody has an access for everything. So there should be a different, genuine relationships and everything. So go out, announce your victories, announce your challenges, announce what you are doing and how many place assessments you are doing it so the people can see and come to you and you know, and you can go to your business. That’s what I see the many, many businesses are not doing it. I would say to start immediately.

Danny
Now that you’re working on AI and you’re always working on growing your businesses. What is the next step? What do you think is the future for the Racks Group, social MAs? Just what is it that people need that next that you’re already thinking about?

Ranjith Ravula
Yes, I mean, personally, with the AI, changed my life. Now with the AI, I can just write an email very quick. And I can write a rephrase or whatever it is about my LinkedIn posts. And now even my team is also using it, analyzing contracts, summarizing contracts. So this is saving a lot of time. But people are not really using it properly in their businesses, might, are, think they are, some people are afraid of doing it. Some people are even spending a time at the wrong place. In, with the Racks group, personally, it’s helping me because I record voice notes and I create, you know, again, a post for every day. And also I use for meetings, recordings, summarizing, oh man, this is saving a lot of time of mine.

Danny
Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
So I would say at least one or two hours with AI is saving my time. Other than that, if you talk about the company, now we are into recruiting. So the problems we are regularly facing, screening a candidate, analyzing it, who’s genuine or who’s not, who’s answering with a chat GPT, who’s really faking it, or we’re really talking to the right candidate.

Danny
Yeah.

Ranjith Ravula
This is going to be a challenge now. So we realized in advance we wanted to build something which can not only help us, which can help other recruiting companies. So it’s not there yet, but the product is now half built. It’s called roar.ai. What really solves the problem is, like example, if you already shortlisted five resumes.

So what we had a problem is we are sending five resumes to the client and a client is interviewing and they are saying that they are not able to make it. So we wanted to save the client time. So what we are doing is all those five resumes, we wanted to take help with the AI and screen them and finalize it top two and send the client without.

Even interviewing that client will have a confidence to hiring them. That kind of we wanted to give with our tool. That’s what we are working on the back end, know, about building this tool. This will solve all our clients’ time. So there is no feedback saying that this guy doesn’t have this experience or he is not able to answer these questions or he’s not a fit. So these questions you will not get from the client. So, if either 2 or 3 you are sending it, they should choose who is the best of the best and select.

Danny
Wow. That does sound amazing. I have to ask, how is it going on building that?

Ranjith Ravula
It’s going well. We have built now. It’s not live yet, but we wanted to test first ourselves and improve the tool. This could help to directly interview the candidate. And also, the other problem it solves is you don’t need to be a technical guy to ask any IT-related questions. So the AI will give you, and AI will analyze the answers and give you a ranking at the same time, like we are talking to each other.

And you can, it can also, you know, tell your face, you know, know, facial, it will read it. It will tell you whether you are, you know, faking it or you’re, you genuinely talking about it. And either somebody else taking, you know, answer everything it will give you. That way we can avoid most of the fake things.

Danny
Wow, now I’m worried that you’re gonna take this and rank me.

Ranjith Ravula
It’s not there yet. it’s not a, you know, we are in the second phase now. It would be maybe fourth or fifth stage, but that’s a plan.

Danny
Amazing. That sounds incredible. Rajeev, thank you so much for sharing so much of your time with us. Where should people go to learn more about you and everything you’re doing?

Ranjith Ravula (33:26.51)
Of course, LinkedIn. Or you can just Google me, Ranjit Raula. I’m everywhere. If you just search me, you’ll see complete two pages of Google about me, about my companies. So just connect me in LinkedIn. Send me messages if you guys need any help. And follow me. I’m happy to help if there is anything I can help.

Danny
Thank you so much for sharing your time with us, your insights and your journey. It’s incredible. Thank you.

Ranjith Ravula 
Thanks, Danny. Thanks for having me. And this is my fifth podcast. I’m happy to talk to you and hope my story will help some of your audience to go to next level.

Danny
Thank you.