Transcription
Tom, when we met in pre-production, you said the staffing industry isn't just in a slump, it's in the heart of a perfect storm. Unpack that for us.
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a great thought. Uh, and I'm thinking about all of the threats that are descending upon the staffing industry right now, all at the same time. And when we when we think about threats, those are external things that are descending upon the staffing industry. So, for example, everything that's happened with immigration—uh, if you're in construction, hospitality, uh, light industrial staffing—the the the the uh somewhere between 10 and 12 million immigrants that came into the country definitely is affecting the uh those staffing companies. But that's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
So, when we think about nearshoring and offshoring—offshoring we've been doing for a while, but a lot of companies, a lot of the clients of staffing companies are offshoring, nearshoring, building nearshore teams—uh, that's taking away from from uh staffing companies. Uh, we think about the whole uh rise of uh the independent contractor. When you look at uh the Upworks of the world, those companies are continuing to grow and grow and grow while the staffing industry is uh is continuing—the penetration rate is continuing to decline. And and and Brad, I just want to say that uh two and a half, three years ago, uh the staffing industry, if you look back 50 years, the GDP and staffing industry, what was going—those two, the GDP was the was the most accurate uh economic indicator that predicted what was going to happen or what was happening in in the staffing industry. About two and a half, three years ago, those two separated from one another. The GDP did just fine, and and and the the staffing industry continued to to uh to uh to decline, and so people like myself will look at that; they'll ask a question: why is that happening? And and and I so I started to look—what are the outside external things that are affecting the industry that uh—and those are some of them, by the way. What I didn't mention, and also external, but manufacturing automation, where one one robot takes out—replaces 15 jobs. Buying preferences of the buyers, uh, buying preferences of the candidates—you know, we we see that candidates now uh they'd rather talk to a bot, an AI agent, and will stay on the line with an AI agent uh longer than they would with a with a recruiter. Uh, of course, the the uh the VMS continues—you we read the statistics, VMS continues to go up and up and up. So the these are—Oh, did I mention wage inflation?
I'll tell you what, you didn't mention—you didn't even mention AI.
Well, you mean that for me?
Yeah. The buzzword in the room, right?
Yeah, I know. I know. Uh, my gosh, guys. Like all of this stuff is descending on the staffing industry, and it's just it's it's it's forcing a transformation; uh, it's dragging the staffing industry through transformation. These are these are all external—we we can see them as external threats or we can see them as opportunities. And and and here's, you know, you know, the reason why, you know, I was emailing David uh is because a lot a lot of my clients, a lot of your clients are out there saying, "Oh, we need to go buy sales training, or oh, we need to upgrade our sales department, or uh, oh my, you're not going to solve the you're not going to solve this problem by uh by buying sales training. Not going to happen. It's it's it's a waste waste of your money." Uh, but anyway, so that that's whe—when it's a perfect storm. That's what I mean—that you have all of these external factors that are that are making a radical change, shifting the ground from underneath our feet, you know, and and a lot of these guys are lost. A lot of these a lot of these business owners are lost. It's David. Thoughts on that?
Yeah. Well, I can't disagree with anything that Tom's saying, and I just, you know, to add to the mix, when we were at the executive forum this year, Barry A was trying to answer the same question Tom's talking about, like why did this decoupling happen? And one of the things they said, and this it it made intuitive sense, is that we've had a long period of low unemployment, which means finding good workers is hard. So now, as the employer side, they're saying, "Well, I'm sick and tired of dealing with unreliable labor." And what they're doing is instead of using staffing to fill in the peaks and valleys in their workforce needs, they're hiring permanent workers at a higher level. So they may have a lot more excess capacity when they're slow, but they want to keep the good people working for them. So they're more likely to be doing their own direct hiring than supplementing with temporary labor. Um, and then you did mention, you know, the elephant in the room, which is the AI stuff. So not as much yet in blue-collar jobs, but we're already seeing it in white-collar jobs that the AI can do the work. Today, uh, SIA shared a list of the biggest technology concerns of staffing companies, and number one on the list is: what AI tools do I need when the AI or an Aentic AI can be responsible for taking the job order, sourcing candidates, conducting initial screening, doing other types of uh testing, actually running an interview, scheduling. I mean, what are you left with? That's the recruiter's role. It's a really tough situation if you're in staffing or if you're the HR departments and your managers are saying drive efficiency, and you're going, "Hey, I can automate our recruiting function. I may not need outside vendors." It makes it a very tough place for our industry to prove its value.
Is this the end of staffing then?
No, no, no, no. And and in fact, David just—David is is is telling where the puck is going. And so if I if I have a staffing company, I'm going to become an expert in uh in in in what he's talking about and the whole human capital acquisition strategy, and then I'm going to go to my clients to say, "Let us help you set this strategy up." You you have—if you're a staffing company, you have to assume that your clients know less than you do about how to put AI together and how to use AI. That's the disposition that you have to take. You have to become these these human capital acquisition uh uh uh consultants uh professionals, experts, and and and look—the the human resource department—this is not going to change. Their jobs are not going to—their jobs are going to change because of AI certainly, but uh they're still going to have to have to deal with benefits and healthcare and uh you know all these other employee satisfaction surveys and all that stuff. Recruiting is still going to be somewhere on a list of of 20 things that the HR director has got to do. I mean, work is going to change. We're still going to have work. We're still going to have jobs. There's still going to be uh hiring going on. So that that—so I what what David is talking about is this is this is where it's going for staffing, and if and and and if you're not an expert in this and can't consult with your clients with this—which by the way, which is why the transactional sales stuff is is rapidly is becoming so ineffect in ineffective.
Um, Tom, I want I want to build on that because that's—you use the exact words I was about to use—is if your business is transactional staffing, get a job order, fill a job order, your days are are honestly going to be numbered. But if you can step up and say, well, I I really am an expert at workforce planning, that higher-order thinking, the AI is not very good at connecting those dots yet. It can do the transactional stuff day in and day out better than we can; it has more knowledge, but that higher-level thinking, it's not there yet. I was listening to a podcast this morning from the Marketing AI Institute. And that's exactly what they're telling people is: focus on the strategic thinking. So, what is the workforce plan that the employer needs? What are all the different ways they need to staff the jobs? What's going to be temps? What's going to be nearshore? What's going to be offshore? What's going to be full-time hires? How do they plan for seasonality? As Tom said, HR is getting cut. So, they've got still got all the things they need to do and less resources to do it. So, a staffing company that moves up to a higher value proposition is going to have tons of opportunity. The other thing they said in that podcast is: humans have real empathy. Machines can simulate it. AI can can fool you to think it's empathetic, but it's not. So, the staffing company that can really understand the challenges of HR, the challenges of the hiring manager, the challenges of the employee, that role of the recruiter is not going away.
Yeah.
Yeah, I had Declan Edwards on the show a little while ago, and I think his episode will drop before this one. He's a happiness researcher, and he said we're shifting from work of the head and work of the mind to work of the heart. And I think in a world where AI can outperform in terms of the the tactical—what do you know—in work from the head, we have to move sort of this work from the heart mentality where it is putting great people to work in a great opportunity and being sort of that career agent, being that person behind the scenes that can work the relationship better than the machines can.
Guys, I want to ask you this. You see the rains coming before the storm comes, right? Um, whether you're looking out over the water, you can see the storm clouds coming in; you know when it's going to get lousy before it actually hits landfall. Why haven't more people been talking about this? Why is this perfect storm now upon us? Why hadn't we seen it coming? Or if we have—again, why hasn't this been more of a conversation?
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, look, the the industry historically has always been resistant to change. Jim, when you—let's go back 25 years ago when uh you—when the whole ATS model came out and uh gosh, I can get rid of my servers and I can get rid of uh my databases and I can get rid of backup tapes and I can—all I need is a is a desktop and uh and I can work anywhere in the world. Uh, oh my gosh. I mean, how how long did it take for the industry to finally—oh, they they were so fear-based and oh my gosh, somebody's going to steal—you mean, somebody's got access to my my database? So, I I—and that's just one example. I mean, we could have 50 examples. The industry—I you know, I I find the industry very resistant to change. Uh, you know, somewhat fear-based. And uh, look, I I still talk to a lot—I still hear a lot of executives uh say uh oh staffing's going to come back. Oh, staffing is going to come back. Uh, we just need to wait it out a little bit longer and staffing. Uh, you know that that uh that head-in-the-sand, whatever you want to call it. Uh, you know, there's a lot of folks in the industry that that are that are not thinking strategically, thinking only tactically, thinking this is a storm that's—we just have to wait this storm out. Uh, boy, uh, I I I think and and why we haven't been talking about this longer, why this hasn't been being talked, Brad, that's a great question. You know, why why uh are are the national associations not talk—not not uh publishing about this stuff, talking about this stuff? I mean, David, you talk about one variable. Well, companies are hanging on to people longer. Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? These are the the Brad, the perfect storm is the fact that you got seven, eight, nine external variables that are negatively affecting the staffing industry. You can't you can't solve this problem at the same level that we've been we've been we've been we've been trying to solve it in in the past. It's not a waiting game anymore. This is not—a wait-the-storm-out. This is—there's significant changes going on in our in our industry. So I I love the the perfect timing of this conversation—'cause Brad, you said dark clouds over the water. I'm looking out a window; I'm looking at water, and there's literally a thunderstorm rolling in where I am right now. So if I suddenly disappear, it's 'cause there's thunder and lightning that may knock out my power. But you know, why are the conversations not having—happening? I think it depends on the room that you're in. I think if you're in the strategy room at some of the very large global players, they've absolutely been having these conversations. Um, that's why you see, and I forgot who it was, it might have been a Deco, somebody who's power partnering with Salesforce to build a gentic recruiting into their platforms. They're ahead of the game. I think for the small to midsize staffing company, they're looking and going, you know, we just went through five years of digital transformation, then we had COVID, uh, then we had these candidate shortages and we couldn't find reliable workers, then all of a sudden demand fell off a cliff from our clients. There's just so many things to be dealing with that AI is just one more thing in the mix. And it's hard to figure out what's truth and what's fiction 'cause there's so many people claiming AI and agents and things that aren't really delivering. But at the same time, you have to find the time to back up and say, Tom, I love that you said, you know, we're talking about where the puck is going. And the puck is definitely going to somewhere it has not been before. And our industry is going to look different in two to three years than it looks today.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's it's the the even the sectors of the industry—the RPO, the the PEO, the the employer of record—like all those sectors of the industry are are are poised for some significant growth—you know why? Because a lot of these these states are are passing laws, and and look—they just don't want to deal with all that human resource record-keeping and uh the headaches and problems, and you know what problem can we solve for our for our for our clients? Uh, and it's not just uh you know a 13-week assignment or a two-week assignment. It's it's much more. But by the way, the the project work—I've got a client that's uh that's north of a billion dollars in revenue. They do both staff augmentation and and EO. And the president of that of that organization told me uh not too long ago that the uh the EO business, the people that are doing—the companies that are doing project-type work, they're growing; the the people that they're supporting that are that are uh the staff augmentation W2 hourly staff—aog—they're shrinking—it's it's—look at the buying—the buying—we haven't even talked—the buying preferences of the buyers—the preferences of the buyers—that that is changing—can—on the candidate side and on the buy side—hey, it's Brad taking a short break to tell you about my friends over at Tricom—what if your back office fueled your growth instead of holding it back? Tricom makes it happen—from payroll and billing to accounting and asset-based lending. Tricom clears the roadblocks, empowers your path forward. Your team gets paid, your cash flow stays steady, and your business scales like never before. Tricom doesn't just support you; they set you up to soar. To learn more about my friends over at Tricom, visit tricom.com. That's tricom.com. All right, let's get back to the show.
Yeah. So last week I was in Boston for uh year two of my entrepreneurial masters program, and one of the speakers was talking about these changes and he said to find opportunity—there's two things you really need to look at. Number one is: for whatever you sell—the product, the service—that's not actually what your client is buying. So he said you need to look at: what is the job to be done? I'm providing the tool that gets the job done, but I really need to understand the job to be done. So it's the goods getting shipped, it's the project being finished, it may be the ownership of the headache of managing a workforce that's multi-state or multinational. That's the job to be done. And the other thing that they mentioned was a very famous Jeff Bezos quote, which is: don't look at what's going to change in the next 3 to 5 years. Look at what's not going to change and focus on things that are going to be truisms, and how do you add value to those truisms. So he used the example for Amazon. He said, "At no time in the future can I envision a situation in which people want to pay more for goods and services." So, I can focus on constantly—how do I deliver it for less, and I'm always going to win. What does that look like for staffing and recruiting? So, what what's the job to be done? The job to be done depends on the type of organization you sell to. If I'm in healthcare staffing, there's a patient care job to be done. And models for patient care are changing. You're seeing more telehealth. Okay. How does that impact where I recruit talent and how I supply talent? Uh, you're seeing shortages because of more nurses leaving the profession. How does that impact the recruiting function? How does that impact training? How does that impact finding alternative ways to deliver medicine? I—if I'm a healthcare staffing company, I need to really immerse myself in the changes in healthcare delivery to figure out where the talent needs are so I can help my clients plan and prepare. And then I also know that they—if I'm in healthcare—they kind of hate me because they view me as the scapegoat for why their costs went up. So now I have to be a partner in helping them drive cost out of their organization by making labor as the percentage of healthcare revenue decline. Sometimes that's not by cutting cost. Sometimes that's actually by hiring more people. So you increase the throughput of the organization. But you have to really be close to your healthcare client to know that. And in every industry, the more you know about how the industry functions, the more you can find opportunity.
Yeah. Mark Winter, a friend of the program, he said, "No one needs a half-inch drill bit. They need a half-inch hole." Uh, and that's a quote that I've used on this show dozens of times, right? It's thinking about the end result. What are you actually trying to accomplish from that hole, right? What do you need it to be done? What do you need it to do? And I think in a lot of ways we're stuck in that transactional mindset, right? We're putting someone to work in a great opportunity. We're looking at the transaction of that. We're not looking down the line into what that actually looks like for our clients.
Tom, when we think about—Please go ahead.
Yeah. No, I was thinking, you know, with with the with the growth of the nearshore, I mean, think about that as an opportunity in the staffing industry where a staffing company can become uh experts in helping their clients either set up offshore centers, manage offshore—shore centers, or where they have a sizable offshore center that is doing certain kind of uh certain kind of work for the for the client. Uh, so again, I mean, this is this is uh David's, you know, uh thought about that—we're going to deliver a service to you and help you drop your your payroll cost uh by having it in in in another country.
Guys, we've kind of danced around it a little bit. If you're the owner of a small to mid-size staffing firm right now, I want to put yourself—put you in that mindset. Where are you getting started? So if we're in the middle of this perfect storm and we can accept that yes, we are in the middle or the heart of this perfect storm, there's a lot to be done, right? There are a lot of internal and external forces at play. Where are you getting started though to break that down into something that's actually manageable—into an action item?
Yeah. I I just think you have to become hyperfocused uh super hyperfocused on on uh a particular buyer, a particular service, and and think not uh think not real locally but then how can you take that hyperfocus uh across a couple of different industries—you know—throughout the United States. I mean, more and more and more I I'm I'm picking up clients that uh hey we do this one thing or we—these handful of skill sets—and and we do it across the United States. So I I really think that uh that folks that small to midsize—number one, I mean—well, gosh, I mean—
Number one, you, you first off, you got to have a technology stack that's going to help your people be efficient and effective, and and all that. So, so what used to be like, wow, this is would be great to have, they're sort of table stakes now. Uh, so first thing, get your get your house in order in terms of technology and ATS and websites and all that and automated marketing, and and and all that stuff. And then and then the the the hyperfocus on particular a particular uh particular solution that you can take take nationally. Uh, I I I if I were running a whatever a 10 or f you know gosh I had like my gosh I mean five million I mean is that a business? Three million in revenue. I mean uh joining your bias Tom, I know. I know. I know. Yeah. What what do they call that? I forget. Anyway, uh but I mean I mean anyway it's it's I Yeah. Small business. David.
So Brad, if I can jump in.
Yeah.
The uh you know if I if I was the owner of a small to mid-size staffing company, probably the first thing I'd want to do is whatever client would let me sit down with them and talk to them about what are their strategic plans, how do they envision growth in their own market, where do they see the challenges, uh then looking at okay what are their talent strategies, how do they see that changing, is it going to be hiring, is it going to be nearshore, offshore, is it going to be AI agents, what kind of mix? I want to understand what they see as their biggest gaps. So, where do they anticipate they're going to have the most trouble? Maybe it's just recruiting, maybe it's screening the talent, maybe, as Tom mentioned, it's the you know, we need somebody who's really the employer of record because we don't want that responsibility anymore. But I would I would try to get as close as I could to target customers. And I'm just going to echo what Tom said and then figure out where I can focus and I can beat the pants off of everybody else. I would use AI thoroughly to help me with that research, to look at what the opportunities are to better serve clients, to brainstorm different ways to provide service delivery. And I would almost sit in front of a whiteboard and say, if I threw out everything I knew about how staffing companies traditionally operate and I help wanted to help my clients solve problems in new ways, what could I do? And I think that's where things like statement of work come in play. That's where on-site come in play. Maybe that's where more staffing, outsourcing, we're going to manage this function for companies because we know nobody wants to do it. But it's going to be broader than just temp help. So I would get close to clients as my key to making change happen.
Yeah.
In part of that, David, you you could develop partnerships, correct? I mean, you could. So if I don't want to start an EO, I could partner with an EO. Or if I didn't want to if I didn't want to become a nearshore expert, I could I could find companies to partner with and then have some kind of a split margin or or some kind of agreement. I mean, I just talked to a friend who runs basically a nearshore company out of Mexico. He was at this program with me last week and he's looking to reach out to US-based companies that want to partner with him because they have clients who need, in his case, very high-level marketing talent. So if you're selling to a corporation and you know they they need those Fortune 500 caliber resources, he finds them in Mexico.
Yeah. Right.
So it it's so even Brad even a small company can develop a very powerful a very powerful partner network that they can take to their clients and then and then once you get a couple of those projects, you case study it, off you go.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it changes the shift of what I'm hearing a lot lately, which is a lot of staffing firms are are trying to take any order they can get, right? We're desperate for orders. So, we're trying to do the opposite of niche down, which is just sort of grasp at straws and and take any order we can. And I agree with you guys, the more focused we can be, the more specialized we can be, the better. It just takes a lot of courage to say, "Listen, this is where we're headed. This is the other side of that storm, and here's how we're going to get through it." And I'm thinking about that small to midsize staffing leader who has to get in front of their team and say, "Listen, here's the direction we're headed in. Who's with me?" And uh I'm I'm interested to hear your thoughts of what that conversation might look like.
Well, first off, you you have to build a case for change. I mean, uh a lot of people like me, but uh that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to follow me anywhere. Yeah. I mean, you What is it, John? uh John Carter's uh gosh what was that what was that book Dave, leading change uh by John Carter is a great fantastic read uh but he he talks about uh building a building a case for change, communicating the vision times 10, building a vision, communicating vision by by 10 uh th those are the those are the kinds of convers you have to if you're a leader of an organization you have to show people the f f well first off like you have to intuit it and believe that this is the future a a number one. Uh and then secondly, you've got to you have to be able to uh show people the that you know, okay, we've got that hill over there and and here's the steps that we're going to take to get that hill. Uh so th those are you know and then there's maybe some basic basic uh you know planning and and action planning and things like that and benchmarks and measurements and to to to show you know how how the company is is moving forward in in that direction. Um but yeah it's uh it's more of a I I I I see it more more of a leadership uh characteristic trait than than anything. Brad, David, anything to add there?
Yeah, so I, you know, I've read a couple of uh blogs that were talking about the number one skill in the era we live in right now is adaptability. So, I guess I would take a hard look at my team. I would look in the mirror at myself first and say, am I willing to adapt? Am I able to keep up with this breakneck pace of change? Because we're we are you know it it's almost a cliche to say we're living in unprecedented times, but if you go back in time and you look at changes like when we went from an agricultural society to an industrial society, well that was about over 70 years, then we went from an industrial societ society to a computerized society, that was over 50 years, then we went to the internet, that was 30 years, then we went to mobile and that was less than 20 years, AI's been around for 30 years, but for most of us we never really heard much about AI I till 2 years ago, you know, when when Chad GPT burst onto the scene and it's changed everyone's world since. So, we don't have as much time, which is why adaptability is so important. So, if I have a team that's capable of adapting, then I love what Tom said. I need to create a vision. That's the hill where that we're going to go take. This is what's at the top of the hill. This is how we get there. And you have to create that compelling vision and have people who are 100% bought in to taking that hill with you. And if they're not, if they're running up the other hill because they think that's the way, then you need to let them free to run up that other hill because they're going to hold you back from your vision on somebody else's payroll.
Yes. Tom, anything you want to add there?
No, just that it's it's it's challenging. It it's uh I would you know David I don't know if you if you hear this when you're talking to your clients but the whole tech fatigue, the uh I I like I talked to so many ex you just hear it in their voices that uh like like I've had I've had people say to me I just have not had any fun in this industry. Well, they just said I haven't had any fun in the last three years like that like we are not having fun anymore. I mean it it's really become becoming and I think part of that we're not having fun anymore is that the challenges just keep coming and coming and coming and then the other the other thing that I I keep hearing is the the whole tech fatigue uh where just like you know please don't tell me don't tell me about like just one more tool Tom just one more tool a AI agent you know like uh gosh I don't want to go to a conference and hear some sales guy tell me that if I don't adopt this technology ology, I'm going to be out of business in 3 years. I mean, please don't tell me. Don't, you know, so I I I I just feel like all of that stuff is is really weighing on. And look, the people that own staffing businesses, they they tend to be sales folks. They tend to be people people. Uh yeah, so this this is kind of the sit down, think this through. Uh you know, little little bit of a little bit of a challenge for them.
Hey, it's Brad taking a short break to tell you about an offer exclusive to listeners of Take the Stage. 30 minutes of strategic marketing consultation with me completely free. Hey, whether you're looking to drive more sales or more job applications, I want to help. Visit bit.ly/stage offer. Pick a time that works best for you. That's it. Again, whether you want to drive more applications or more job orders, I want to help. That's bit.ly/stage ly/stage offer. All right, let's get back to the show. David, where does marketing come into play on this? So, I I rarely have you on this show to talk from a marketing standpoint. So, I want to bring your insights to our listeners here. When you think about how
Yes.
Let's let's again accept the fact for sake of this conversation, we are in the heart of a perfect storm. What does marketing look like in this type of environment for the small to midsize staffing firm?
Yeah. So for a lot of companies, they've looked at marketing as how do I get my name out there? How do I create awareness? How do I stay top of mind? And that's a good value of marketing. When you're selling in the transactional, more commoditized part of the industry, it's about, hey, I have to get myself recognized. I have to build some trust and credibility. I have to give people an initial reason to talk to me. Now, that doesn't go away if you're selling. I fill job orders. If you start trying to move up the value chain and you say, "Well, I'm really going to come in and help you think through your workforce strategy. I'm going to come and help you think through how to manage your staffing function differently." Now, you're moving over to more educational marketing. So, now I have to teach people the value proposition. I wouldn't even call myself a staffing company. The value proposition of a workforce solutions firm is X. Let me teach you about what a workforce solution firm does. Let me teach you about why that function is needed in your business. And your poor HR team doesn't have the time or financial support to do it on their own. So, I'm I'm going to be your your free expert at giving away information. Much like Brad, you you do it with sharing information on a podcast. You do it with a webinar. You do it with speaking. You need to get out as an evangelist in front of your target audience, showing them here's what the future can look like for your organization from a staffing, recruiting, and workforce management perspective. That's at the top of the funnel. Then once you get people interested in you, you have to really arm your salespeople with training and with resources so they can explain these concepts and make it very easy to understand this is the quarter-inch hole that we're the drill to help you drill. But I think a lot of them right now want to say, "We're the staffing company and here's why we're wonderful and here's our reviews and here's our net promoter score." And that's all well and good when everyone's hiring, but when they're not hiring, we need to change that message.
Yeah.
The the Brad, you know, my clients that are that are actually growing. Uh, and there's there's valid and reliable statistics from multiple organizations that that show organizations where the marketing function and the sales function are aligned with one another uh and are working together with one another. Not just in terms of of marketing in a traditional sense of the word marketing but in terms of the whole buyer persona, the buyer journey, the buyer messaging, uh the the cadence of the messaging, the usage of of tools, uh automated marketing and these other thing that the more that the sales and and the marketing are aligned and communicating with one another, actually having similar goals uh w with with one another that some of these organizations can double double double the productivity of their sales reps that uh and it is I mean it's a it's a it's a it is a whole new day in terms of of but clients of mine that are really succeeding and doing well they have much stronger alignment with with marketing first off they understand that that uh that marketing in the old days is is is is has been has been redefined and that uh that the new marketing is is uh involved in 100% of the sale. I I mean marketing is involved side by side in in the whole sales methodology and the sales process. So it it's become it's become really uh uh a very very important thing and and and look you've got sales people I mean you still have staffing companies out there that are having these sales people make 100 phone calls a day into a blind database. Kind of crazy when you think about it. uh uh but if you're not if you're not doing that ground work um you know and David mentioned something earlier I think that's super super super important and that is uh sitting down with your customers and and ask and having like real conversations about their challenges about their strategy about their you know their goals and uh and understanding understanding what that is. That's all that's that's all part of think consultative selling versus tactical selling and and and uh you know I from a leadership perspective gosh I mean just there there's there's some words that you should just eliminate from the lexicon there just some some words that you should just just just the the the more you can like leave those words out of the environment of your culture uh the better off you're going to be. I mean, don't buy into the commodity thing. It's like if you're going to transition into like a firm that that David's talking about, you have to adopt a new language. You have to you have to, you know, lang as as Martin Haidiger said, language is the house of being. You have to adopt a new language. Um, anyway, how do you how do you propose we get that consulting conversation with a potential buyer, even if it's a current client or a prospective client?
So, I know right now it's very difficult to get a prospect to sit down for a conversation. A lot of calls that I'm a part of, people are getting shut down from the first call or the first inmail if it's a prospect all the way through the process. And even current customers just aren't hiring right now. So, in a busy world where people have a thousand things to do this afternoon, I agree we need to have those deeper conversations. But for the person listening right now saying, "Yes, I want to be doing that." How do you propose they actually get somebody to sit down for a 30-minute cup of coffee to talk about their business needs and their challenges?
Yeah, I mean it's David, you you can correct me if I if I'm if I'm not if I'm wrong on this, but I mean gosh, you you've got to give them a reason to meet with you. There's got to be a case study. There's got to be some information. There's got to be something that that is comp a compelling message for uh a decision maker to sit down and want want to meet. uh and and and you you have to be able to present yourself not as a uh you know just think about yourself in in the minds of of the buyers of all these things we hear about a staffing company, a body shop, uh you know, whatever. I mean, it's like you have to you have to think, okay, this this individual is going to see XYZ staffing. They're going to think I'm I'm a body. So, my messaging has got to be uh and I've got I've got to give them a reason to meet with me. Uh, I've gota I've got to show them. I've got a uh by by the way, another fantastic read. I don't know if you guys have read this, but The Human Element. Have either of you guys read that yet?
I have not.
Oh my gosh, man. Put it on your list. Uh, cuz Brad, what what the human element talks about are the frictions. So, why what what are the friction points of why somebody won't won't meet with me? And then removing those friction points. Uh, and that's that's that's the that's the that's the method there.
Yeah.
And so, first thing I would say is if I want someone to sit down with me, if it's an existing client, it's not as big a deal. I'm going to call my trusted contacts at that organization and ask to start sitting down with them and figure out then who else in that company can I talk to. If it's in HR, I may need to go to department heads. Uh, I may need to go to the bosses of department heads. Uh, just I want to see will they'll allow me to have that conversation. But if I'm going into a prospect, I have to differentiate my outreach because if you know the first time the buyer hears it's David from a staffing company, they go, I know what David from a staffing company does. I don't need one. Yeah. But if I can do something that disrupts their routine, that's how I get their attention. But the next thing I need to do, and I love the analogy of, you know, thinking that you're driving down a divided highway and let's say I'm going northbound, but there's an accident over in the southbound lanes. Yet my lane's back up because everybody stops to look. So, you need to think about what's going to cause my prospect to rubberneck. What can't they avoid looking at? And that's not going to be staffing. It's going to be some problem that's in their world. So, and you know, just like we're struggling with Tom, I love the technology fatigue. Um, because our clients are struggling with the same thing. They're trying to figure out how do I do AI and what what's automation going to mean if I'm in manufacturing or distribution? How the hell do I keep up with Amazon? And you know, I've got to find a way to stay in business competing against them. And oh yeah, we got tariffs, yes, tariffs, no, tariffs, yes, tariff, no. What's going to happen to my business? So, our clients need help resolving these problems. But the nice part about what we do in staffing is if we can get our people upskilled to ask better questions, everything is going to come back to a people problem. We just need to get them interested in their business problem that leads to the people discussion. Guys, before I go to the rapid fire round, I want to give you both the opportunity. Anything that we haven't talked about as it relates to this perfect storm that we're in the heart of that you wish you said or you wish you got out of your mind before again I get you to our rapid fire round. Tom, I'll start with you. Gosh, I mean it's just uh there's so much to uh there's so much to talk about. I I I would say that uh I would say that uh a couple things. One, um gosh, uh you know, we have a very we have a very high turnover rate with with salespeople and recruiters in the in in the industry. And uh so any kind of management enhance management enhancement that you can do because people leave managers, they don't leave companies. uh but but just having good tenure, having a low turnover rate within your organization, that that in
And of itself, uh, speaks volumes to prospects and clients and all that stuff. So, you know, one thing we talked about is, is there are there are uh some ABCs regardless of the perfect storm and all the stuff that's going on. Uh, just anything that anything you can do to upskill your uh upskill your uh your managers is going to be a really really good thing.
And then uh, I would, I, you know, start investigating consultative selling. There's a number of programs that are out there. Uh, yeah, I and and and and take take a step; you know, find a rep that can get uh trained in consultative selling and then and then or two, and and let them let them loose; let them and see what happens. Uh, so those are two things that I would, that I would—more practical things.
Yeah, for me, it's uh it's get your head on straight. So take a deep breath. If you look at the great recession, and the staffing industry dropped 30%. Yet, out of that same period came the whole idea of the gig economy. So look at the value that was created out of companies that took the worst time in our industry. And it didn't happen from within our industry; it happened from tech companies. But there can be staffing companies saying, "Hey, I've got new ways to solve these problems." There's going to be fewer players in the industry this year and next year and maybe even the year after that. But for those that are adaptable, they can look and say, "I see an abundance of opportunity here because I'm going to choose to look, act, and think differently." And that opportunity, that abundance mentality, uh, will enable you to focus on the top of the hill that you're trying to get to instead of being, you know, buried in the doom scrolling that we all live in on social media.
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All right, let's get back to the show. Tom, David, before I let you out of here, I got to run you through our rapid-fire round of just one question because that was really good feedback and really good advice. You guys have both been on Take the Stage before, so there is going to be a bit of a disclaimer with both the questions here. Tom, one book that has fundamentally changed your life. Last time I asked you that question, you told me it was the Bible, so you cannot answer the same way.
Uh, I I would say uh there was a book um there was a book by Rolo May. Uh gosh, what was it? Uh uh I can't. But anyway, it was uh uh there was a book by Roate, but there's an article called uh the power to see oneself. The power to see oneself. Uh Paul Dwire, I think was the author, but that that's a fantastic read, David.
And I think when you were on the show, you may have said Think and Grow Rich. If you didn't, I'm going to pretend you did. So, one book that fundamentally changed your life that is not Think and Grow Rich.
Yeah. Actually, I'm going to use recency effect. So, I saw a guy last week by the name of Pascal Finette, and he wrote a book called Disrupt Disruption, which I can only take credit for having read half of, but after seeing him walk through the concepts of the book live and in person, either go to YouTube and find Pascal Finette or buy Disrupt Disruption and learn how to spot the trends well in advance because he shows you a framework for doing it.
Tom Cosnik, David Cerns, appreciate you both for coming on the show and sharing your insights with us, my friends.
Thanks so much, Brad. This is awesome.
Thanks, Tom.
Thanks.
Thanks, David.
Thanks, Brad.
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