"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.
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.
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.
