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Recently, a frustrating customer service experience with a national rental car company at the Atlanta Airport, which will remain unnamed; and an incredibly smooth experience with the California beverage chain, Beverages & more! (www.bevmo.com) compelled me to take the time to post two reviews on Yelp.com.  Yelp.com is one of the fastest growing websites for people to read and post reviews about local businesses.

As I was typing these reviews and selecting the number of stars to rate these experiences, I realized how everyone at every level in a staffing agency should be striving to make their candidates and customers feel genuinely good about their relationship. This applies to all businesses, but even more so to the staffing industry because of the people-centric nature of the business on every side.

In the spirit of staying positive, I’ll avoid the temptation to vent. But for a good laugh, watch the following Seinfeld clip, which prophetically depicted my experience with this rental car company.

On the other hand, I had one of the smoothest experiences ordering a bottle of wine through Bevmo.com for a business associate of mine who had recently helped me out. After ordering online the exact bottle I was looking for, I realized that I had forgotten to send it as a gift. I frantically called the customer service number listed on the website. A live voice immediately answered and transferred me to someone who was able to log into their tracking system, change my order to be shipped as a gift, and hand-type the message I dictated to be sent with the bottle.

Mediocre service just doesn’t cut it anymore. The main thing regional staffing agencies have going for them is the ability to make a personal emotional impression on each candidate and client. The question is, “What type of emotional impression are you and your staff going to make?” Here are some action steps you can take to raise your candidate/customer service game:

• Have people at “every touch point” within your staffing company ask, “How can I make our candidate and customer feel especially good about our relationship today?”
• Setup a Google Alert (http://www.google.com/alerts) for your staffing company’s name to be emailed to you everyday, this will help you monitor what’s being said about you online.
•  Ask candidates and customers, who have positive experiences with you, to write reviews for your staffing agency on sites like Yelp.com.
• Create a candidate and client-centric culture within your company by celebrating positive reviews on a regular basis.

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

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

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.

In last week’s blog-video, “What One Staffing Executive Focused on to Grow His Staffing Company Through Every Recession,” Richard said that in order to grow through this recession, staffing companies need to be focusing on market share and capturing more of it.  This week, Richard gave us two more words to focus on - “market intelligence.”

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”

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

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.

Watch the previous two blog-videos of Richard and Dave’s conversation, “What an “A” Player in the Staffing Industry Looks Like”

Click-in next week for “What’s different about this recession?”

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

Have you ever hear the word “schema” dropped in a casual conversation?  Have you ever heard of the word “schema?”  At AST’s (a leader in staffing software, http://www.astusa.com) Users Group this April, Dave Reiss, co-founder of the Staffing Cooperative, talked to a group of staffing executives and professionals about how our schema – the way which we view and interpret reality – drastically affects our business decisions.

One person can look at the current state of the industry and see depressing pie charts and graphs of staffing industry statistics, while an “A” player in the industry or in any other profession sees these challenging times as an opportunity to differentiate themselves and break away from the pack.  Dave then introduced his partner Richard Piske as an “A” player who managed to grow Olsten Staffing through every economic period he faced from 1982 through the late 90s and then moved on to lead some regional staffing firms to the next level.

Watch Dave talk about what an “A” player in the staffing industry looks like.

How do you think the nationals view you and your staffing business?  Watch the next video, as Richard shares how smaller staffing agencies showed up on his radar when he was President of a national, and the advantages he now sees regional firms having during these challenging times.

Thanks for watching.  We’d love to hear your comments.  Tune over the next few weeks to more blog-videos of the rest of Richard and Dave’s conversation on market share and leading through a recession.

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 are you as a staffing company marketing yourself to your clients and prospects?  Have you considered casting yourself as the staffing solution to help businesses get a jump on preparing for the economic upturn?  It’s going to happen, it’s happened every time before, and there are already signs of recovery.  Check out these staffing industry statistics:

·         The rate of temporary job loss is decelerating from the beginning of the year through April according to SI Analysts’ Contingent Blog.

·         According to California’s Employment Development Department, California’s unemployment rates decreased from 11.2% to 11% while employment increased in April.  California is traditionally a bellwether state as far as economic recovery is concerned.

·         The ASA staffing index has stabilized, remaining flat since February and showed a slight increase in the beginning of May (http://www.americanstaffing.net/statistics/staffing_index.cfm).

Elaine Balady, co-owner of The Assurance Group and Director of Strategic Relationships for The Staffing Cooperative specializes in forming close partnerships with staffing buyers describes how we, as staffing professionals, can “assist [staffing buyers] in maintaining their competitiveness in a difficult economy. For example, we can assist in staffing level assessments and in providing tools for re-evaluating current staff.”

Here are some additional ways you should be marketing your staffing services and looking to partner with potential staffing buyers:

·         Staffing businesses to their strengths:  Many companies have cut staff in all areas including employees who directly support their core-competencies and strengths.  Businesses need to get the people with the right skills and experience in these positions again, but are still hesitant to add employees.  This is the perfect entrée for you as a staffing provider to come into a business and help them identify the gaps in talent that they need to fill for the recovery and then provide that talent on a contingency basis.

·         Tightening up HR processes and compliance issues: As things pick up, focus quickly shifts to simply keeping up with demand.  While we’re still on the threshold of recovery, now’s the time for businesses with the help of proactive staffing companies to develop maximum efficiencies in managing their human resources.

·         Investing in and developing staff: In order to prepare your clients and prospects to be at the top of their game for the recovery, you as a staffing company could repackage the same training and development programs you use for your own candidates and offer it to them.  If you have a very effective candidate development program for customer service, then offer a similar program to the customer service departments of your clients and prospects.

Now it’s your turn to let us know of some other ways you are helping your clients prepare for economic recovery.

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

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 build  Linkedin 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.

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

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.