"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.
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.
