Hi Catherine,
I understand and appreciate the view from the other side of telephone. I am not sure how you expect these temp agencies to gain your audience. Cold Calling is one way for them to sell their attributes and tell you how they can become a strategic partner. Alternatively these agencies can email or mail you information and then you press delete or throw out the enormous amount of correspondence. I would be interested to hear what suggestions you have so new organizations could gain your audience. I am not in the temp world but in executive search we need to constantly cold call to gain access to decision makers and find out what their needs are. I can assure you that most recruiters staffing or direct hire would love an alternative to cold calling. Cold calling is no fun and I agree with you in this economy not overly effective. Networking and referrals are the best entree to getting new business. I would like to hear your thoughts.
thanks
Jon

Hi Catherine,

Great post, I couldn’t agree more. As a marketing firm that focuses exclusively on the Staffing and Recruiting industry, we work with hundreds of staffing firms and this sales approach is all too common.

Many staffing firms see their business as a numbers game…the more cold calls you make, the more orders you’ll get. That might have worked in the past, but it certainly doesn’t anymore.

Instead of cold calls, we teach our clients how to use education content to position themselves as workforce experts and trusted advisors–not simply a vendor looking for an order. Now this isn’t something that can be done overnight, but over an extended period of time it can be an extremely valuable tool and a very profitable approach to “selling”.

If anyone is interested we have a collection of articles and best practices to help staffing sales reps get beyond just cold-calling at:
http://www.haleymarketing.com/howto/

I hope you find this useful and thanks again for a very insightful post.

Brad

Hi Molly,
Stay tuned . . . I have some solutions that will be forthcoming. I am following a strategy on this topic, since it’s a real hot button for many. My first step is to highlight the issue and bring attention to it so there is thought given as to how it affects clients and why many of the cold calls don’t work. Without a deeper understanding, I don’t think a true change can come. For starters, one of the things you can “GIVE” is an effective introduction. No sale, just introduce yourself and the agency. Prospective clients will be pleasantly surprised with no sales pitch, just a friendly intro for starters. Developing a client will take time, but will be worth it in the long run. Many thanks for your interest and taking the time to write me!

Jon,
Please stay tuned. I will be writing much more on this, since it’s a passionate topic for both HR and staffing agencies. I want to highlight the issue with due respect so that it can be digested and a deeper understanding of how this is viewed by clients and why it’s not working. I will be offering my thoughts on how to better approach clients. Thank you for writing me and your readership!

Hi Catherine,

I really do appreciate the information that you shared on this cold call factor for agencies. However when I started my agency last year I vowed that I would become an agency that did not cold call and I am still holding firm to that business practice. However I have been laughed at by other staffing professionals that have simply told me that this is staffing agency suicide. I have used a different approach with some success but it all comes down to building relationships and educating on the fundamentals of staffing and this is something that does not happen overnight.

Catherine, I agree that if a vendor calls without a WIFY (what’s in it for you) approach, why should you listen. I coach clients to ask for a meeting in odrer to learn about the client , share how they have helped other clients with staffing solutions and then offer to let the client decide if there is a potential fit.
I realize that you & your colleagues can’t see everyone, so why not tell vendors; that you are no longer accepting vendors in category X and that you look at that every 6 months or when ever? If calls are rarely answered then a rep will keep trying to reach a busy person.

Catherine, very well written and I couldn’t agree more.

There have been many occasions over the last 12 months where I have conversations on this very point with my own in house colleagues and with those in other companies. This issue is not sacred to the temping agencies; all types of agencies do it.

It is tedious, boring and a waste of my time. It still surprised me that even this week I had someone cold call me and ask me what my company does.

Whilst we all know that the cold call is a waste of time, will we ever be rid of it? I think not, it will remain one of those nuisance issues that have to be dealt with. However Catherine I can’t wait for the next installment!

The funny thing is everyone on this page owes his/he job to a cold call at some point. Cold calls will never go away and if they do…so will alot more jobs and competition. With that comes higher prices and all the marketing smoke and mirrors being mentioned.

Call prospects and be honest, if you can’t return a call to say “no” then that says something about you. If clients want to continue to pay huge specialty shops prime rates because you can’t take a call then they should disable facebook to free up your time. HR cost the client more due to lack of knowledge and pure power struggle attitudes. That being said I do work with some that truly get it and step out of the way until the deal is inked.

Hi Catherine,

The information in your blog is very helpful.
HOW would you handle a situation were HR gets back to you but the department does not get back to HR with feedback?

Bob

Scott,
Thank you for visiting my blog. My company works through referrals. It’s not the type of business where they would ever cold call someone. They call strictly through highly reliable referrals. So, the nature of the business will come into play. I write about staffing because I am cold called every day and have been for years. I am sympathetic to their cause because agencies are just trying to make new contacts. I do think there are more effective ways to do this in today’s business world since so much has changed and clients are more sophisticated than they were in the past. Client work differently, so agencies need to match strategies with what clients will relate to. Hope that’s helpful!
Best regards,
Cathy

Tyler,
Here’s a blog article I did that you might find helpful:We’ve had a bit of a bumpy blog ride the last couple of weeks between the “Tough Love” and the “Ten Things Not To Do” over temporary staffing cold calling. This week I aim to balance things out and go with something infused with optimism and offer a constructive “What To Do”.

A little background, if you will . . . I routinely find any staffing agency I work with phones me just to touch base once in awhile if things are quiet. While these routine check in’s are important to maintaining client relationships despite business levels, they can fall short on impact and outcomes for both parties.

Taking this up a notch, there is a very effective way to put some vigor into these calls. This can even be the reason itself for ringing up. The technique I’m going to present can help you keep a better pulse on what’s happening with clients and reveal new opportunities that may be emerging. Without this, you run the risk of being left in the dark. Worse still, you may not even know that’s where you are. Where I’m leading you is to the agency’s Client Profile Form . . . the place where the agency collects and records basic client data for reference. It holds a wonderful, yet hidden marketing secret. This document’s true value is often overlooked.

Major Point #1: The Client Profile Form is critical. So much so, that if I were to start an agency tomorrow, it’s the first thing I would sit down and create. Your form must hit all the vital data points on what you need to know about a client’s company in order to deliver successfully. This form should be turbocharged and able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.

I’m going on the assumption that every agency has a standard Client Profile Form for client data. If you haven’t regarded this document as an ongoing, multifunctional, door opening, trophy winning client tool, it’s time to start. Any agency that doesn’t possess a well designed and well defined Client Profile Form should create one. If yours hasn’t had a new look in twenty years, it’s ready for a revamp.

Major Point #2: The Client Profile Form is your passport. It will help you enter the client zone over and over again. You must not only use it, you must know how to use it. Just like a passport, it enables you to traverse the stop points. If it’s sitting on a shelf or stored in a file somewhere, it’s not going to take you places. It must be presented.

Each piece of information contained in a Client Profile Form provides data you can track, maintain and use to deliver service. These details also give you a more effective reason to call a client! Like anything, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this, so it takes some understanding to be successful. In earlier blog posts, I stress that cold calling often fails because the caller is “wanting something” from a client or potential client. Instead, you want to be offering something when you call a client. This comes in the form of your service, which includes properly maintaining their company’s profile. Clients want to feel well taken care of.

Reaching out to your clients with a brief call to let them know you’re updating their Client Profile Form is a non-selling event and, if done with proficiency:

1. Provides a more powerful point of contact. (vs. “We’ve got great temps ready to go”. When I don’t need a temp, this call just fainted on the floor from malnourishment.)

2. Improves client service and care. (Keeping an eye on the details allows you to stay proactive not reactive to what’s current with clients. How can you claim “high touch, personalized service” without keeping up with them?)

3. Creates an opportunity to show NOT TELL how wonderful your agency is. (Actions speak louder than words, so this one’s going to yodel. This is taking care of a client, not talking about it. Your Client Profile Form should contain some key questions that zero in on their needs and how they do things. It should provide data to help you stay on track to deliver well qualified and suitable temps and valuable service. This should have your agency expertise all over it. Clients will naturally see how knowledgeable you are.)

4. Provides an update on important client details. (Make sure you’re keeping a formal update on how your client’s company may be changing or evolving. Have they increased/decreased headcount in departments? Have they opened/closed a branch office? Are they expanding their product line? Are there changes in job structures, i.e., job shares, flex time, part timers. How has the down economy affected their growth plans? Remember, this is not a selling event, just information collecting with an eye on service. Without “selling”, if you see new opportunities unfolding due to changes in a company, it’s effective to say “We may be able to help you with that. Let’s get through today’s updates and set up a brief call for next week to focus on . . . (the new item)”. It’s friendly, no pressure and filled to the brim with service. You also don’t want to take up too much of their time since you’ve called them unexpectedly. If you continue to build credibility with clients as being brief, you’ll greatly increase your call acceptance rate. P.S. It gives you a more powerful reason to call them back in a week also because you’ve been invited!)

5. Gives you a valuable data collection method. (This information builds your knowledge base about your clients and has a compounding affect on your knowledge of the industries they’re in and the ones you service. This improves your agency brand and strengthens your position in a specific market sector. In plain English: You’re going to become very smart about your clients, which then makes you smarter about their industry, which makes you more valuable, which attracts more clients . . . because you’re smarter. And the beat goes on.)

Now, some may say “This is all well and good, but who has time for all this? We need temp orders.” To this I would ask “How frustrating and unproductive is it to call clients the same way you’ve been doing and not get any additional work orders?” How tired are you of making sales pitches only to walk away empty handed and feeling anemic? At least with this method, you’re showcasing your service level, stockpiling your knowledge, increasing your expertise and keeping a much sharper eye on new opportunities that may be forming. Not to mention, it will fuel your professional image inside and out by providing a more meaningful discussion. This involves change. Take any time spent unproductively and begin putting in place a system that will yield better results. Try it one client at a time, one call at a time.

These “maintenance” calls should generally be brief and to the point, unless a client indicates they have some time to spend. You can break the Client Profile Form into sections to keep the calls more bite size. Develop a calling strategy that targets each section, or even just one question that would prompt a small but worthwhile discussion. Chip away at updating your entire form. Create incremental and more powerful reasons to make contact with clients. Remember, this is a passport! You can map out an entire year of client calling strategy that builds something of real value for both of you. This will work ongoing as things are always changing with clients, their companies and their staffing issues. You need to keep learning and expanding your expertise. They need an agency that’s strong and on top of things. That agency will be you!

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Catherine Pistole, is the Director of Human Resources at a private equity firm in New York City and author of “The Temp Factor”® book series. To receive important updates, tips and articles, please send your email address to thetempfactor@aol.com.
http://www.catherinepistole.com