Don’t Quit! Part 2 of 3
This is the time to implement a strategy to call on senior executives within your target accounts and prospects. The involvement of company executives along with the local branch representatives is necessary to raise a client’s awareness of your potential value as the supplier of mission critical talent to their organization. We are in a service business. If you are not adding value, especially in a down economy, why does the client need you or your company?
A Human Capital Consultant based in California who works with Staffing firms to help them re-position themselves with key clients gave me this insight. He thinks that more staffing companies must sit with their clients and intimately understand their hiring strategy. That way the staffing company can be involved in helping to shape that strategy. A consultative approach will build some exclusivity and deepen or establish a partnering relationship with the client. “Corporations have begun comprehensive reviews of their conventional staffing strategies,” he said. You are the staffing expert. Help your client; that is how to add value. “…Life is queer with it’s twists and turns, As everyone of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out: Don’t give up when the pace seems slow..You may succeed with another blow.“
Take a Meta-View of your business opportunities. A Meta-View is Coach Speak for imagining that you are hovering in a helicopter over yourself and the current situation. From there you can see all the issues and perhaps see new opportunities. Change in a client’s business climate is the driver of opportunity for the Staffing Industry. Yet, we are the most surprised when the change impacts us! Go figure. Now we are dealing with fewer job orders and lots of qualified candidates. How will you get an increase in good job orders? “We have got to employ new tactics,” said the Sales Director of an IT Staffing and Consulting firm in New Hampshire. He went on to state that clients are finding candidates in new ways. They are using the job boards and hiring in house recruiters to help them to staff up. Some clients are out there networking with potential candidates. His company places high priced consultants who are also highly skilled and in demand. Partnering with similar firms is paying off with more placements. “It’s like Supply Chain Management for Human Capital,” according to the Sales Director. He also pointed out that many clients are outsourcing their IT needs. We can’t change that fact, BUT we can place consultants by partnering with IT Solutions companies who deliver Outsourcing.
Providing solutions to clients’ problems is how you will drive your business opportunities. Simply filling job orders or just getting consultants a job is not a compelling reason for someone to do business with you or your firm. Partner with clients, Add Value to them and their organization,and get those contractors / temps great jobs at good companies and you have a winning formula. Stayed tuned for the conclusion of “Don’t Quit” next week.
