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How are people getting to your staffing company’s website?  For that matter, who is visiting your staffing company’s website?  Right now, you may not know the answer to these questions, but today you can start driving quality traffic to your staffing agency’s website through your disciplined use of Linkedin.  I do highly recommend that you use Google Analytics, http://www.google.com/analytics/, a free tool that measures your web traffic and breaks that information down into many useful forms.

The following two videos will show you how we’ve increased the quantity and quality of your web traffic through Linkedin. 

The first video is geared towards staffing managers and professionals who are starting out with Linkedin and shows you how you can:

·         Publish your company’s website on your profile .

·         Drop into comments your signature with hyperlinks to your website as you participate in discussions.

This second video is for more experienced social networkers and discusses how to use Linkedin to drive traffic to your blog, newsletter, or some other regular content that you are producing.

Let us know how you’ve successfully used Linkedin or or get our feedback by submitting your questions or anecdotes to Linkedin Success Stories.

Click-in for next week’s Linkedin Success Story on “Creating  Valuable Discourse in Your Area of Expertise on Linkedin?”

Everett Reiss
Business Relationships Development
The Staffing Cooperative
Check me out on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/evreiss
Check us out on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/StaffingCo_op

How much time are you actively on Linkedin?  Are you wondering if Linkedin is worth your time?  Or is your staff, co-workers, or manager skeptical of the business value behind social networking?  This is the first blog-video of a three part series on “Linkedin Success Stories in the Staffing Industry” that will demonstrate to you and your fellow staffing professionals proven ways you can use Linkedin to:

• Gather valuable professional information that can sharpen your staffing game.
• Drive traffic to your staffing company’s website.
• Strike up provocative discourse in your area of expertise.

Let us know how you’ve successfully used Linkedin or pick our brains on the topic by submitting your questions or anecdotes to Linkedin Success Stories.

Additionally, check out the May 15th blog post we compiled off of a Linkedin discussion that we started on cold calling and leaving voicemails, http://www.staffingcooperative.com/news/?p=35.

Click-in for next week’s Linkedin Success Story on “How to Drive Quality Traffic to Your Staffing Company’s Website Through Linkedin?”

Everett Reiss
Business Relationships Development
The Staffing Cooperative
Check me out on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/evreiss
Check us out on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/StaffingCo_op

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.

Ask Dave and Richard about the types of questions you should be asking about your competition by clicking on the following link: What should I be asking about my competition?

Click in next week for “Using Linkedin to Develop an Online Presence for Your Staffing Business.”

Everett Reiss
Business Relationship Development
The Staffing Cooperative
Check me out on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/evreiss
Check us out on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/StaffingCo_op

We encourage you to keep your staff and temporary employees informed about the Swine Flu.  Below are the main contents of an email that a staffing company who happens to be a member of the Staffing Cooperative sent out to their employees.  Feel free to use the contents of this entry in your email:

“The US government has announced a Public Health Emergency for the Swine Flu (it is a warning to be prepared, not an epidemic).  The government has started to prepare by administering vaccines to the military and will be making available vaccines to hospitals and other first responders.

The five states that have shown an outbreak are:  New York, Ohio, California, Kansas and Texas.  It’s not clear how many people truly have this particular strain, or why all countries but Mexico are seeing mild disease, nor is it clear if the new virus spreads easily, one milestone that distinguishes a bad flu from a global crisis.

How do people get infected?  About one case of swine flu in humans is reported to the CDC every one to two years, but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases were reported to the agency. According to WebMD.com, 11 of those people had direct or indirect contact with infected pigs. Human-to-human infections do occur similar to the way the human seasonal flu virus is transmitted — through coughing, sneezing and coming in contact with a person or object with the virus.  People cannot become infected by eating pork or pork products. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit kills the virus as well as other bacteria, notes the CDC.

What are the Symptoms? Symptoms are similar to those of the regular human influenza virus: fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some who have been infected with the swine flu also reported having a runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

How is it treated?  Tamiflu, http://www.tamiflu.com, the generic name for oseltamivir, appears to be effective against the new strain when taken early, says the CDC. There is currently no human vaccine for swine flu, but the flu vaccine may provide some protection against the H3N2 strain, though not the H1N1 strain.  Tamiflu only be acquired through a prescription.

The best precaution is to Stay Healthy, Health officials recommend people continue to take the same precautions to protect themselves against a potential influenza pandemic as they would from colds and seasonal flu.  Make respiratory etiquette a habit.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
• Throw the tissue away after one use – do not keep on your desk or in a pocket
• Cough or sneeze into your elbow or upper sleeve it you don’t have a tissue
• Try not to touch your eyes, nose or mouth, germs often spread this way
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze.  If you are not near soap and water, use an alcohol based hand sanitizer.
• Keep your distance from individuals that are ill
• If you are ill stay home from work “

You’ve probably seen a few hundred if not thousands of cars over the past few days and hardly took note of them unless one cut you off, flipped you off, or was driven head-first into the ground.  That’s what’s so attention-grabbing about the Cadillac Ranch (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220) in Amarillo, TX, which has become a national attraction for its rows of junkyard Caddies planted into the ground front-first with their rear two-thirds protruding into the air.

Let’s do the same with some “everyday” staffing industry numbers - flip ‘em around, upside down and on their side and see what eye-catching results we come up with.

• Exhibit A: In the beginning of March, Staffing Industry Analysts reported that the temporary staffing market was down 22.7% over the last twelve months – ouch, depressing.  But wait, let’s flip it and look at the 77.3% of the remaining staffing market that’s still whispering “take me, please capture me!”

• Exhibit B: Recently, I spoke with a staffing company based in Cleveland who estimated they had 1% of the Ohio staffing market. Let’s say your staffing business is in a similar situation with a 1% share of its staffing market – wow, that’s just a drop in the bucket. You know what to do; that’s right, let’s flip it and think how you’re going to take a significant bite out of the 99% you don’t have of the remaining 77.3% of the staffing market.

• Exhibit C: Take 5%, for example; that’s the percent of the US workforce that temporary labor accounts for ( http://www.articlesworld.com/how-temp-agencies-has-evolved/ ). Push the 5% aside and focus on the remaining 95% of US jobs as fertile land waiting on innovators of staffing solutions to come along and start sowing seeds. Much of this land has been lying dormant for temporary staffing agencies to return to and surpass their peak share of the workforce, which reached 10.8% early 1980s ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680920862100627.html).

Think about some other numbers, figures, or staffing metrics you’ve been looking at and try flipping them upside down – stand on your head if you have to!  Please comment about some new discoveries you’re making as you look at your staffing business and potential market differently.  Also, contact The Staffing Cooperative to take advantage of the tools, approaches, and resources we offer to help you see real opportunity, set goals and benchmarks, and gain market share and step into new markets.

On June 5, 2005, Seth Godin proclaimed “Small is the new big” on his blog (Small is the New Big), which eventually became the lead essay and title of another one of his successful book releases.  While Seth does a bang up job wordsmithing the market’s trend towards small and the advantages of being small, small still has plenty to learn from big, especially when it comes to the staffing industry.

Staffing Industry Analysts reported that the big guys – staffing firms over $100 million - have on average 17% of their revenue going towards operating expenses.  The smaller guys - staffing companies of $10 million or less - are channeling 30% of their revenue into operating expenses.

Typically the smaller guys have much better margins, and can boast of the flexibility and personalized service that Godin writes about, but that’s no reason to surrender profit to higher operating expenses. The small guys do not focus on expenses until they hit a wall, but the big guys are always focused on expenses. Therefore, the big guys end up generating a lot more business out of every dollar they spend.  It is important to note that some of this differential is due to sheer size and larger companies leveraging expenses over a broader business base, but this doesn’t come close to accounting for smaller guys paying 13% more for every $1 of revenue.

While smaller firms have a lot going for them, such as being small according to Godin, they need to start thinking big when it comes to adopting a disciplined approach to leveraging and controlling operating expenses. Here are some simple steps you can take towards getting a better handle on your operating expense:

·         Plan proactively a defensive strategy to head off requests from clients to reduce rates.

·         Measure the individual profitability of all accounts versus the financial and time resources committed to support them.

·         Measure and set specific activity and sales production goals for all personnel responsible for sales and or client retention.

·         Focus on retaining and expanding present client base – it is far less costly to retain and develop present accounts then to acquire new business and replace lost business.

·         Ask the staff to come up with ideas of ways to reduce operating expense; they’ll gain ownership in the initiative and will come up with ideas management never would have considered.