"It has been a pleasure to work with the staffing cooperative. Their dedication and commitment to our success shows through in all the interaction they have with us. I've worked with many consultants in the past and this is the first group who really took the time to understand our business and what makes us different. They really provide that high level 30,000 foot view of our company and challenge us to step out of our comfort zone to accomplish our goals."
What do you know about your competition in your staffing market?Richard Piske, co-founder of The Staffing Cooperative talks with his partner Dave Reiss about how when he was running a national staffing firm, his sales organization knew as much about their competition as their competitors knew about themselves.
Richard says, “We knew how they thought…, what their strategies were…, how they behaved…, where they were weak…, where they were strong.There wasn’t anything we didn’t know.”Listen to this blog-video to hear some specific examples of the type of intelligence your staffing sales organization should be gathering on your competition.
This conversation was held before staffing executives and staffing professionals at AST’s 2009 Users Group in Jersey City. AST (http://www.astusa.com) has been providing staffing software solutions to the staffing industry since 1985.
In last week’s blog-video, “For the Staffing Industry – What’s Different About This Economy?,” Richard said that while this recession is “more comprehensive,” regional staffing agencies can gain advantage in their staffing markets by gathering solid market intelligence and leveraging the “tenure that they have in the marketplace.” This week, Richard laid out the aggressive “need to know” attitude that a successful staffing sales organization has to maintain to gain in their market.
Social media sites, such as Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter, have been all over the news about the number of participants they attract, and how companies are recruiting and marketing through them. Within your staffing agency, you should encourage your salespeople and other staffing professionals to sharpen their sales and recruitment skills through a disciplined use of social media.
A great place to start is getting your salespeople and staffing professionals to buildLinkedin profiles and join relevant Linkedn groups. Here are some Linkedin professional groups that are worthwhile for your salespeople and staffing professionals to join:
·SalesBlogcast.com
·The American Staffing Association
·Temporary Staffing Professionals
·Client Loyalty in Staffing & Recruiting
·Openreq.com
Recently, when gearing up for a cold call campaign, I posed a question about leaving voicemails when cold calling.The response was overwhelming as 50+ sales professionals added 61 thoughtful and valuable comments to the discussion - some wrote borderline essays in response. We’ll highlight the discussion and responses in our next blog entry.
Participating in compelling discussions can energize and help you and your staff think creatively and discover new ways to provide staffing solutions.Once you have a Linkedin profile and are part of some groups, set attainable weekly goals and develop a daily/weekly routine for participating on Linkedin.For instance, you may commit to set aside 15 minutes during lunch to either start or contribute to discussions in your groups.A great way to discover groups to join, is to browse the profiles of other people in your network or in staffing.
