"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."
How can you strike up compelling conversations with your clients, prospects, candidates, and fellow staffing professionals? Watch this blog-video to see some examples of how we’ve done this in targeted staffing industry Linkedin discussion groups.
Identify 1 to 3 blogs and podcasts to follow on a regular basis
Join Linkedin groups that your prospects and clients and potential candidates are in and also that fellow staffing industry professionals are in.
Start posting your thoughts, ideas, and questions in these groups on a regular basis.
You’ll be surprised with the dialog, relationships, and money-generating and saving ideas that will emerge.
I’d love to hear about some of the interesting conversations you’ve had on Linkedin, so if you have one you’d like to share, either comment on this blog or click on Linkedin Success Stories in the Staffing Industry.
Thanks for watching the last video of our series on Linkedin Success Stories in the Staffing Industry. Until next time, go out there, be empowered, and try something new.
Our third blog-video of a three part series on Linkedin Success Stories in the Staffing Industry is going to be on “CreatingValuable Discourse in Your Area of Expertise on Linkedin?”In the interim, a side “social media success story” has developed that’s worth sharing as a demonstration of the power of engaging people through social media.
For the past 6 months, I’ve been listening to the Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing podcast, http://podcast.tengoldenrules.com, which is produced by Jay Berkowitz, CEO of the internet marketing company Ten Golden Rules.He’s developed a sizable following because during each podcast Jay and his team offer up extremely applicable information and principles to help all sorts of companies develop and advance their Internet marketing strategies and practices.
Recently, I posted a question on Jay’s blog asking about the next steps The Staffing Cooperative could take in our social and internet marketing process.Jay personally responded on our website and asked me to call up his show to discuss our correspondence.On his most recent podcast, http://podcast.tengoldenrules.com/internet-marketing-podcast-Free-Press-Releases-SEO-Alt-Tags-Susan-Bratton.html, Jay featured our conversation and gave The Staffing Cooperative a much appreciated plug.
There are a tremendous amount of positives for both The Staffing Cooperative and Ten Golden Rules in such an exchange:
·I received some really valuable feedback on our social and internet marketing strategy that we’ve already begun to apply.
·Jay gets to use me to generate compelling content for his podcast.
·We also received links to our website from the Ten Golden Rules website, which will help our positioning on the search engines.Through this blog post, we’re returning the favor to Ten Golden Rules.
·Such acknowledgement by Jay, a respected thought leader in marketing, helps position The Staffing Cooperative as a thought leader with our target audience and industry.
·Ten Golden Rules may get some new listeners and marketing engagements, if any of you find this blog post compelling enough to check out http://www.tengoldenrules.com.
Let us know what podcasts and blogs you are following that’s made a difference in your Internet and social marketing strategy by either commenting on this blog post or clicking on Social Media Success Stories.
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 “CreatingValuable Discourse in Your Area of Expertise on Linkedin?”
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?”
In this next blog-video, Richard Piske, co-founder of The Staffing Cooperative discusses with his partner Dave Reiss, how this recession is different than previous ones; and the type of market intelligence regional staffing agencies need to be gathering to separate themselves from the rest of the pack in the staffing industry.
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.
Ask Dave and Richard how you can start gathering market intelligence by clicking on the following link where you can submit your questions: How can I gather market intelligence?
Click in next week for “What a Strong Sales Organization Knows”
In this next blog-video, Richard Piske, co-founder of The Staffing Cooperative discusses with his partner Dave Reiss, the focus and attitude he maintained to grow Olsten Staffing throughout every economic period of the 80s and 90s.
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.
As talked about in this blog-video, you can sum up Richard’s focus with two words, “market share”.Have you defined your market?What is your share of your staffing market and how are you planning on increasing your piece of the pie?Ask Dave and Richard how you can be measuring and increasing your market share at Market Share ?, or post your questions and comments directly on this blog-video post below.We’ll be sure to respond.
Many small staffing companies are proficient at staffing clerical, light industrial, IT, or any other line of business, but quickly plateau and never have a shot at being number one in their market. The key is to take your knack for staffing people, and carve out a niche in the market where you can exercise your staffing ability with a crack at being number one.
Having claimed their space in the market as number one, five private staffing companies were featured in a recent article in SI Review on “Contingent Niches.” The companies followed the hedgehog principle espoused by Jim Collins in Good to Great – find a place in the marketplace where you can be the best in the world (a niche), make sure it is economically feasible, and be passionate about it.
One of these staffing agencies specializes in placing “moms who left conventional corporate work to spend more time with their children” in “finance and accounting, human resources, sales, marketing, information technology, and some legal work and strategic consulting.” The CEO/founder is a mom who desired to be with her kids while doing flexible professional work, and wanted to help other moms do the same. Another example from the article, is a temporary staffing agency that only focuses on “connecting companies with retired engineers and scientists.” The company works with 30 Fortune 500 clients who are getting great results ordering well-seasoned experts to focus on projects for a definite time period.
Our last blog post discussed how temporary staffing accounts for only 5% of the US workforce. That means that you and other small staffing companies can chip away at the remaining 95% by offering staffing services and solutions to niches in the market that meet specific needs better than anyone else. Check out Bridget Mintz Testa’s article “Contingent Niches: How clients and staffing companies can benefit from unconventional candidates”in SI Review, March 2009. We’d love to hear your comments on how you’re creatively carving out a niche in your staffing market.
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.
