The Full Desk Experience

Kim Henderson [00:00:00]:
There's so much industry information, marketing info, salary info, skillset info that would be relatable for their business that we can find and send to them. I do it all the time and guys, we send it over to say, hey, saw this article on recruiting, cleared candidates. Thought of you, right? Not asking for anything, not asking for a favor, not asking for a job. Just provide value and people will respond to that, right? They're going to start to look at you more as a thought leader and a value add in addition to, you know, a staffing supplier.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:37]:
Hey, guys. Kortney Harmon, host of fde. We're bringing you a special series of episodes called FDE Plus. Those are going to be highlights from a recent virtual conference where hundreds of you joined us for an incredible event focused on boosting revenue for 2025. Each of these sessions is packed with valuable insights, expert discussions, and actionable strategies to help you drive growth in your business. Whether you missed the live event or want to revisit each session, we've got you covered. We're going to drop each of these 10 live events to wrap up our year and kick off the new year. Right.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:19]:
So let's dive into today's session and uncover the key takeaways that will propel your success in the coming year. Stay tuned and let's dive in. Kim, I'm going to introduce you because I am super excited for your session. I've gotten to see bits and pieces of some of your talks. I know that this is going to be amazing. So Kim is the managing director of Cobalt Compass Solutions. Hence the beautiful blue. She does training and consulting services to elevate staffing professionals and drive operational growth.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:53]:
And with decades of experience and a background in C level executives at Global Workforce Solutions, Kim has a proven track record of really helping companies achieve success and growth through operational efficiencies. She's talking today about account penetration and gaining client share, which is important for us sometimes. We often think new logos is the only way to go. And I can't wait for this session. Kim is going to share her expertise.

Kim Henderson [00:02:18]:
Okay, great, Great. All right, Kortney, thank you for the introduction. I love your Christmas tree, by the way. You're definitely well ahead of the game considering It's. It's the 20th. But I think everybody's excited to get their tree up if they do a tree. So gaining client share. Kortney made a great point.

Kim Henderson [00:02:37]:
So I think everyone out there would agree, right, that over the past two years, getting clients has been tough. And then the clients that we have, getting them and expanding them and Penetrating them has also been, you know, a tall order for us, right, to try to make this as interactive as we possibly can. Let's dive right in. As Corey mentioned, been in the staffing industry many, many, many years and worked for a global international firm. Ultimately a group of us broke off from that national firm and started our own staffing company and we got it to about 100 million, painstakingly, I might add. And then we sold it to a global firm. I stuck around for quite a while after that and Alcandor did quite a bit of work in global accounts, strategic accounts. And also Ben and I are kindred spirits because we both sold and sold and or sell to the government space which is quite unique MSPs and quite a bit of sow work.

Kim Henderson [00:03:38]:
And today, as you mentioned, Kortney do a lot of training for sales and recruiting teams, helping them up their performance and improve gp. So with that, I'm going to throw in a softball here. Why do we do client meetings? Right. And this is kind of an easy wind up, but I kind of want you to reframe yourself, right? Think for a moment. What's your goal when you go into a client meeting?

Kim Henderson [00:04:03]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:04:04]:
Because ultimately, when we leave the presentation today, I want you to kind of think, what are some of the things that we can do based on this presentation that you can add into your desk, that you can do more of, that you could do less of, that you could do differently? They're going to amplify your sales and amplify your client relationships as you move into 2025. So look at it that way. We're not saying blow up everything you're doing today. What can you do different? What can you add in? What can you incorporate easily into the framework of your desk today? So in terms of doing client meetings, why do we do them? So I think most people would say, hey, look, I'm after a job order, right? And what I'd say is, well, we definitely want job orders. We also want to do a few more things besides get a job order, right? We want to evaluate that prospect, determine if we should even work with them. Okay, so what's the one thing we can't manufacture more of in life? It's time and oftentimes we, we try to put ourselves round pegs for home. We think that we can do a good job supporting a customer, but in our heart and our mind we know and we're not a good match for them and we kind of dilute ourselves, right? So pretty quickly we need to determine this and move on. Okay? Ultimately, and we heard Ben talk about it a little bit ago, AI tools should be helping us to create deeper, better, and more relationships.

Kim Henderson [00:05:31]:
We should have more time for that relationship building. We also want to differentiate ourselves from the pack, right? There's 22,000 staffing companies out there, and I know that never changes every year, but let's face it, there's a lot of competition, and it enables you to differentiate yourself. Finding opportunity. I get it, guys. The job orders are how we keep our seat. It's how we keep our job. It's how we keep revenue flowing in the door. But think a little bit further than the job order as we go through this today, right? We want to gain that client share and penetrate the account.

Kim Henderson [00:06:04]:
Okay, so what do I mean by that? So when we have greater client share, we become actually less expendable to that customer and ultimately more relevant and more significant to them. So think of it this way, guys, let me throw this question out there to you. What happens in. If times get a little tough or when they rationalize a supply supplier list, whether it be a perm account, direct hire account, or contract account, what happens when they do that?

Kim Henderson [00:06:36]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:06:37]:
They cut vendors, they cut suppliers. And let's face it, guys, what's the first criteria they typically use when they go and cut suppliers? Anybody care to guess? One of the very first criteria is they use one of the first criteria they first use. How many people do you have on assignment? If it's a contract shop or if it's a direct hire shop? How many people have you placed with us over the past year? Right? And they have all that data. So if you're placing five people a year or you're placing two contractors a month, you could be exposed, right? So we want to go and get that client share because ultimately it makes us less expendable. They're not going to be able to get rid of us as easily when they go to call down a list, because, let's face it, we're pivotal. We're crucial to their business model, right? So ultimately our goals become relevant and become significant to them in terms of their entire business. Okay, all right. So you may be going, okay, gosh, why are we going to go through this? Slide came, you know, the do your homework slide before you even walk into a client meeting.

Kim Henderson [00:07:47]:
And I think oftentimes, guys, we either win it or lose it in the preparation. We've probably seen. Have you seen. You can. Yes or no this in the chat. A lot of account managers may meet with the client. They kind of Go in seat of the pants, you know, guns blazing and ultimately what happens, right? You may not crash and burn by not doing your homework, but I can almost guarantee you you're not going to be able to go and have as good of conversations as detail of conversations in your. Probably going to miss out on a lot of opportunities and a lot of questions if you're not organized and you're not structured when it comes to doing your homework.

Kim Henderson [00:08:25]:
Guys, first of all, know the history of the company, right? Have you done meetings with them in the past? Have your colleagues done meetings? Have they worked jobs, they made placements? Always good to know the history because let's face it, maybe there's a history there that wasn't so good or maybe something happened that's something you need to be prepared for. Research them, know what they do, understand their business. If there's anything I really want to highlight here, it's the ability to know what they do understand, like regulation or legislation that drives compliance in their particular business. Because guys, today think of it this way, our clients are looking for us to actually educate them, right? We're supposed to be not just giving placements. We have to educate them, lead them and guide them. And we don't do that or can do that. We don't understand their business. So what I'd say there to wrap that part up is become a specialist, right? In their industry.

Kim Henderson [00:09:23]:
We want to be a specialist, we want to be a student of their industry to where we know it backward and forward or where we can help them through some of their issues. So an example of that, you know, we talked. Ben was talking a moment ago about government far, right? Not government far, but, excuse me, selling to the government. And in doing that as well, it's a very detailed type of business. And when you start to work with integrators, they really expect you to know things that are going to help them, right? Whether it be government far or how to find clear resources, what paperwork has to be processed with the government, all those fun things. So net net, become a specialist in whatever industry it is that you're doing to where people, your customers are going to turn to you for information, right? So guys, what we're after here is we're trying to become instead of just a vendor or a staffing supplier, right? Because what's vendor tell you think about in your mind? Vendor is like, it's kind of like a guy that sells me a car down at the car dealership, right? Or vendor, somebody that is delivering mail or something like that. We're trying to move up the chain from a vendor or to gain advisor status, right? We want to become an advisor to them. Because, guys, if we stay in this generalist category where we're all things, all people, jack of all trades, master of none, what happens is we become commoditized, right? And what happens when you become commoditized, you become expendable and your rates start to suffer, right? So if you're a generalist, when you've been commoditized, I kind of call it, guys, the race to the bottom, right? In terms of your pricing and in terms of how they view you.

Kim Henderson [00:11:11]:
So again, guys, before you walk in, know the trends that are impacting their industries. We just talked about becoming an industry specialist. That's going to kind of set you apart and set the stage for building client share. Determine if a recruiter should attend with you. How often do you bring a recruiter with you on any type of client meeting? So what I'd say is recruiters can be good. They can ask different questions, they can position us differently and provide a unique type of viewpoint that maybe we as sales folks don't think of.

Kim Henderson [00:11:41]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:11:42]:
So if you're working on 180 Desk and have a recruitment team, consider bringing your recruiters in when it makes sense, right? Make sure you understand all the locations and departments where you can provide service to them. Right. Oftentimes it's hard for clients to fill roles in every city where they need to hire. And this could be a great differentiator if you're able to place people, say in Dallas, Texas, and your competition is struggling to provide there. So know all the locations before you go in. So another thing, when it comes to prep guys, know your experience servicing similar companies and jobs. So let's say you're going in and it's a Java shop, right? Or it's a shop where they need a lot of it security, cybersecurity people, be able to go in and show your results, placing those types of people and be able to quantify that. Right? We gave a CyberSecurity team of 15 people to company X.

Kim Henderson [00:12:40]:
Here's what they did. Here's the result that they got, right? It's strong. It's basically akin to a testimonial. So understand what it is that you've done. Similarly for other clients that you can go and quantify and explain to this one, okay? Make sure you send that agenda out prior to the meeting. Pretty key to keep things on deck if applicable, how candidate resumes with you.

Kim Henderson [00:13:04]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:13:05]:
Some people don't bring them with them. And if it's a great opportunity for candidate marketing, we don't want to squander it. And maximizing our time to make sure we can get in front from many people while we're there on site or even multiple people if it happens to be a video meeting. Okay. We get into this trap of comparing ourselves to ourselves and think we're doing a great job because we've got 20 people on assignment in a contract shop or we've placed 10 people for the year, we think we're doing great. Then we ask the question in terms of, well, what's the whole piece of the pie?

Kim Henderson [00:13:38]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:13:38]:
And then we learn our competition's got 100 billable contractors and they're placing 48 direct hires a year. So know the entire piece of the pie. So what's the total agency spend for perm and contract for the department and what's the total agency spend? Permanent contract for the organization, Right. What do they spend on staffing in totality? Understand the totality number, right? That way you'll know where you fall. What are the total number of contractors in the company and how many contractors are actually on the team? Pretty key to know, right? If you think you're doing great with 15 contractors and there's a hundred of them out there, probably not doing so great. So understand totality, right? Total number of perm hires that happen from agencies, okay? It's pretty key if you're doing direct hire and what their departmental budget is. My thoughts this make sure you're asking. That way you're going to be able to go and compare yourselves to your competition and what's expected of you versus comparing yourself to yourself.

Kim Henderson [00:14:45]:
Guys, understand the structure of the department and team, right? What do they do? I can't tell you how many times I've worked for the account managers and they'll come back with a job and recruiter us. Well, what does that department do? What are they responsible for? And the account manager can't answer that question. So pretty pivotal key, understanding what the team does, what the department does, how it fits into the company. Right? Because it's going to help you be able to explain that to your candidates better and get them excited about the job, right? What are the skill sets or the certifications or licenses that they typically need?

Kim Henderson [00:15:22]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:15:23]:
Do they need PMP certified people? Do they need your own healthcare side? Is it RNS, CPAs? What are the certifications that are actually needed? Do they have peak periods? Guys, this is a great opportunity, right? So Oftentimes, like look in the healthcare space, they'll have peak periods in wintertime, say in Florida when you have an exodus of snowbirds that come into the state and get sick and go to hospitals. But that's a great way to jump in and gain clients here, if you understand peak periods, especially if you're in finance and accounting.

Kim Henderson [00:15:54]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:15:54]:
You can gear up for tax season. What are their top business initiatives?

Kim Henderson [00:15:59]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:15:59]:
Guys, again, want us to think a little bit about not just constantly give me a job order, give me a job or give me a job order, understand what are their top business initiatives. Because think about it, if we understand their business initiatives, then we're actually going to be able to hopefully craft a solution to their pain point and it may really uncover something that we didn't know about.

Kim Henderson [00:16:21]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:16:21]:
That we can go and address and it could be a great business opportunity for us to help them. One of the most critical business challenges and changes that the company is facing. Guys, while we at staffing have struggled over the past year with a lot of changes in our industry, it's happening to our customers too. So it's great to understand what are their business challenges and issues, what's the company facing right now? Right, because it's going to uncover their pain point, get them talking at a higher, more strategic level and then ultimately give us an hopefully give us an opportunity to craft something that's really meaningful.

Kim Henderson [00:17:00]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:17:00]:
So look at this way. I would be reticent to start diagnosing things for them and start giving them treating their issues when we don't even know what their problem is yet.

Kim Henderson [00:17:11]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:17:12]:
That's akin to malpractice. We certainly don't want to diagnose and prescribe. We understand what their condition is and what their problems are.

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Kim Henderson [00:18:27]:
We want to understand what are the upcoming work or the projects that they've got coming on in Q1 and Q2, because think about guys, now we're past the election for the end of 2024. Things people may have been reticent to start projects, they may have been taking that wait and see mentality. So I guarantee you, I can almost guarantee you things may start ramping up in Q1 and Q2 as they kick things off. But also consider this with some of the work or some of the projects that they placed on hold this year. I work with a lot of customers that place projects on hold kind of in anticipation that wait and see mode. So are they going to start to go forward with those next year or what's that going to look like from a hiring standpoint, right? Are they going to have a merger or an acquisition? Is there going to be a divestiture? Are they going to do restructuring? Are they going to do downsizing? And you may be like, well, God, why do I want to know about downsizing? Well, guys, downsizing can be a great opportunity to place contractors on assignment, right? They still have to keep business up and running. They still have things like it, hr, finance, accounting, and ultimately oftentimes if they restructure and downsize, it's a great way to put contractors in so we have some continuity there, verifying their locations and understanding the different departments. Because let's face it, while they can go and place people in Orlando, Florida and maybe they don't need our help there, maybe they need help in Boise, Idaho.

Kim Henderson [00:19:58]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:19:58]:
It could be a great entry point for you. It could be a great way for you to differentiate yourself to say, I was able to help this company place people in Boise, Idaho and my competition couldn't do that.

Kim Henderson [00:20:10]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:20:10]:
What's the process to hire? So we may just be asking about direct hire, right? I know a lot of companies, a lot of AMs will sometimes put their blinders on and just ask about direct hire. Well, it's a great way to get into the contract business. Just ask, do you hire contractors?

Kim Henderson [00:20:26]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:20:27]:
What's your process? What does that look like? Okay. And then again, we'll always probe before the pain. What would you improve about the process? Maybe they're working through an MSP and maybe that's miserable, right? Because as much as we don't like msp, sometimes our clients are the same. So what could be improved about the process? Because maybe that's a great entry point for us to come in and differentiate ourselves. Who's involved in the hiring process? How often have you guys. We've all made this mistake. We are moving down the pathway of a placement and then some unknown person inserts themselves in the interview process. And we're like, oh, we didn't learn all the buyers.

Kim Henderson [00:21:07]:
We didn't learn all the decision makers.

Kim Henderson [00:21:09]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:21:10]:
When was the last time they used a staffing firm? Okay, if they don't use staffing firms or recruiting firms, how are they finding their candidates? And actually is that working? Right. Candidate marketing, great way to add value. Great way to penetrate an account. How many folks do candidate marketing? Be honest in the chat, religiously and consistently, because I know a lot of people can kind of get away from it. It's pretty key. It's really going to help you add value.

Kim Henderson [00:21:41]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:21:42]:
And what are the most difficult jobs in difficult locations? Right. We touched on this. This is a great way to go in and gain client share if you can fill that difficult job or if you can that jobs in a location where they're struggling. So finding the decision makers. I alluded to this a second ago. Right? We always want to ask them, hey, so you've got open jobs. What's the impact and the cost to you when a job remains open? Okay, do they have those open jobs right now? And then it's our job really to explain the difficulties of the job boards. That's pretty easy to sell against, right? You're paying money, you're interviewing dog groomers and truck drivers.

Kim Henderson [00:22:23]:
You know, for open CPA role, you're spending tons of time and you're doing all these iterations and you're not getting anywhere. Right. And then of course, understanding who these decision makers are, these four buyers, the economic buyer. We'll get to that in a minute. The technical, the user buyer, and the coach. Right. And then helping us get a coach in place, navigate that organization. So you may be going, wait a minute, how does this fit into client shares? So we understand how to penetrate organization better.

Kim Henderson [00:22:54]:
Starts by knowing the buying influence. So the economic buyer, that's the person writing the check, right. That could be the cfo, the cio, the cto. Pretty important that we engage them in our processes. Okay, the technical buyer, that could be internal recruiting, it could be hr, it actually could be procurement, msp. So those are the folks, we call them the gatekeeper. And we've got to kind of make nice with. We have to go and Develop relationships with them as well and still navigate through their system.

Kim Henderson [00:23:26]:
User buyer. Anyone have a thought on who the user buyer is? So, guys, the user buyer is the manager, right? That's the person, the guy or gal feeling the pain, right? All right, Anthony's got it. Yeah. Feeling the pain. They're the ones that are going, gosh, I can't get people here. I'm struggling. I'm in this deadlines, I'm working overtime. I'm not home before 9 o'clock any given night, my people are working overtime.

Kim Henderson [00:23:49]:
Person feeling the pain, right? And then the coach. The coach, the person that is the individual, our advocate. They help us navigate the organization, they give us leads, they're vested in seeing us succeed, and they help us spread our solution and spread ourselves and our thoughts throughout the organization.

Kim Henderson [00:24:12]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:24:12]:
And so guys, I cover the buying influences because I want you to think about from the standpoint of, gosh, if I'm just chasing a job order and I'm just working with that user buyer or I'm just working with that msp, that technical buyer, I'm probably missing the boat, right? Because what happens if you're just working with the MSP or you're just working with internal recruiting? You could have a whole nother group of hiring happening with the economic buyer. Maybe the CIO or the CFO is doing project work. Maybe they're bringing in people via an sow. Maybe they're hiring people bringing a whole project team off of a work order, right? But you see, guys, we will never penetrate an account if we don't know and ask these questions. If we just get stuck in that rut and only work with a hiring manager and only work, say with like the MSP or professional procurement or internal recruiting, right? We want to have know all these individuals within the organization because there could be a lot of side work going on outside of internal recruiting and that technical buyer, okay? So that's why that's important. We talked about contractors replacing firm hires. We all know that we do that. But what situations lead to contractors, right? You're going to be much more significant and much more relevant to your customer if you're doing direct hire placements, but you're also doing contract placement.

Kim Henderson [00:25:33]:
What situations lead to contractors? And what departments typically have contract work right? Out of any given department, let's say it's in it, at least 10% of the population, say, of an IT department is going to be contractors, right? So let's say it's an IT department of 100 people just to pick A round number, you're typically going to have at least 10 contractors there. So look at it that way. 10% of any given department, by and large, give or take is going to be at least 10% contract. Make sure we're asking about it, right? Did they bring in people? We mentioned this a minute ago via SOW or work orders. And oftentimes your economic buyer, that high level vp, that high level C level is doing work like that concurrent right alongside the MSP and internal recruiting. Seen it, witnessed it time and time again. So again, things we want to ask about be able to solidify and dig in deep and gain client share. I always ask guys, do you ask this what additional service offerings would benefit their team and company, right? What's going to benefit them? What can we be doing differently? What can we be doing besides adding a body to them or giving them a candidate? What can we do that's going to add value to them? Our ability not only to give a candidate successfully, but also add value is going to help solidify us and again become significant and penetrate that account.

Kim Henderson [00:27:01]:
Here are some ways to add value. It's not these are not the only ways, but there's some ways that have worked for me. Provide something outside of regular staffing, right? Staffing or recruiting. There's so much out there. You know Ben even hit on this earlier, right? With AI there's so much industry information, marketing info, salary info, skillset info that would be relatable at for their business that we can find and send to them. I do it all the time and guys, we send it over to say hey, saw this article on recruiting cleared candidates. Thought of you, right? Not asking for anything, not asking for a favor, not asking for a job. Just provide value and people will respond to that, right? They're going to start to look at you more as a thought leader and a value add in addition to a staff supplier.

Kim Henderson [00:27:53]:
So guys, in terms of where to find some of this stuff, sign up with a daily newsletter for shrm.org they've got a lot of great information on shrm.org and articles galore and I'll pick and choose those. They have one recently. Why is it so hard to find CPAs? I'm like oh this is great for all finance and accounting customers, right? And CFOs out there if you're in the IT space, Gartner, Wired, Computer Weekly are great sources for IT related articles. So again guys, it's free, it's easy. Go out there, sign up for a newsletter comes into your inbox Quickly scan it. If you see something that's relevant to your particular customer, go ahead, send that out to them. They're going to appreciate it. Provide a newsletter.

Kim Henderson [00:28:38]:
I hope most companies are doing that these days. It's a great way to differentiate yourself and a great way again to show thought leadership and add value. Are you having company sponsored events, Right. And invited them or visited them on site lately? And that may sound like. Well, of course, Kim, but so many companies right now, recruiting staffing companies have gotten into that still in that, I'll call that Covid mode.

Kim Henderson [00:29:02]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:29:02]:
Where they're doing things video or they're doing things phone or they're doing things email. When's the last time you showed your face out of the client and shook their hand, looked him in the eye? Because I can guarantee you're going to get so much more information. Don't be scarce, right. Out of sight is out of mind. Be on site another way. Final bullet to add value is so like what we're doing today, we're doing a LinkedIn Go Live. Basically you as a recruiting staffing company could do a LinkedIn go live or a webinar for your client companies on something like how to onboard better, how to interview candidates better, how to retain employees leadership, talking about AI and how they can incorporate that into their business. So what I say, guys, is that last bullet is a great way for you as a staffing recruiting company to do a LinkedIn Go Live, invite your prospects, invite your clients and talk about a topic that you know they're struggling with.

Kim Henderson [00:30:01]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:30:01]:
We know a lot of them struggle with onboarding and interviewing. If you asked them to be part of your of an article or a podcast or a blog lately I was working with a company on Monday, they have a pretty darn good podcast. And I said, are you inviting your prospects on your podcast or some of your clients? And they looked at me and said, no, we're not doing that. We didn't think to do that. Great way to go. And flatter your prospects, flatter your clients and build that stickiness with them. Putting them on a podcast, making them the center of an article or a blog, right? And then conversely to that, most recruiting companies have a blog. They have resources, they have articles that they publish on their website.

Kim Henderson [00:30:42]:
If you're not using those as an account manager or a recruiter and sending those out to candidates and sending those out to clients, you're missing the boat. You're missing a really valuable tool there that you can provide. Send those articles out.

Kim Henderson [00:30:56]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:30:57]:
We talked about video. Ben was talking about video. Personally, I just use loom because it's quick, it's easy, and it's a great way to differentiate yourself.

Kim Henderson [00:31:06]:
Right?

Kim Henderson [00:31:06]:
Using loom, send a video if you can't be there in person. Sometimes it's a little bit more personal, of course, than a phone call. We mentioned candidate marketing. There's no value guys in me picking up the phone, calling a customer saying, or a prospect going, hey, it's Kim again. Hey, it's, it's Denise again. Hey, it's Bob again. Have something of value to provide when you reach out, right? It's going to help you penetrate that account more. Candidate marketing is strong.

Kim Henderson [00:31:35]:
It's showing them what's in it for them. Right? Making peer introductions. How many of you guys. Denise is using Vidyard video. Good one. How many of you guys have made peer introductions?

Kim Henderson [00:31:47]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:31:47]:
Let's say you have. You're working with a cto. He's doing an Oracle implementation. He or she is struggling with that implementation. Have you made introductions to other CTOs within the industry that have gone through the same thing? If you haven't, consider that that's again, strong, great way to add value. That's going to set you apart from all those other vendors, right? And again, professional associations for 2025, consider joining a professional association that is relevant to the type of people you place and get involved. It's going to put you in front of people, your clients and prospects so much quicker and it's going to help you develop thought leadership and help you penetrate accounts much more quickly. This is an opportunity, right? We want to know what the pain is after the sale.

Kim Henderson [00:32:38]:
How many times do staffing, recruiting companies place somebody permit, contract and they forget them, they just go away, right? This is a great opportunity to differentiate yourself again. What are the challenges that your clients are having? Onboarding and retention? Okay. What are the issues that they're having with supportive contractors on assignment? So let's say there's contractors out there. They leave, they don't finish the assignment. That leaves the hiring manager in a bind, right? They've got to start all over again. Your competition's probably not doing this. It's a great way for you to come in and be like, hey, this is what we do. We have a process in place for this.

Kim Henderson [00:33:14]:
It's going to differentiate you and help you get more business, right? What could you do asking them? The staffing firm could provide or recruit. A firm could provide or do better than their current providers. I always ask this, right? And I want to know who their top recruitment partner is and why. Add that into your repertoire, guys. Again, if you get nothing out of this presentation, get the opportunity in totality and then ask these questions, who's the top provider? Why? What else can we be doing better than other staffing firms, right? Get feedback on your performance, set up a process for feedback and set up a frequency for feedback. Otherwise you're shooting in the dark and you could be missing a huge opportunity because you haven't asked, right? This is a great opportunity to ask about opportunities and ask about things that you could be doing that maybe you haven't been. So what we're trying to do, guys, gain client share by knowing the entire opportunity in totality and providing them our full set of services, right? Maybe you just do it, but maybe you do it. Finance and accounting, healthcare, light industrial, whatever it is, cross sell and then offer up contract, contract to hire, direct hire, perm placement, sow, hiring people off work orders.

Kim Henderson [00:34:30]:
So again, think about the total experience, right? The total of everything you could be doing. Mapping of consistent process, right? How oftentimes do we have a great process in sales and recruiting and then our back office, the wheels fall off and that can kind of create a really negative experience. Experience in terms of our clients. Map out a client experience. Map out a process from sales all the way through recruiting to delivery to back office billing collections, right? We want that to be smooth too. We don't want to forget about that if that's rocky, that's not going to bode well for us. If we do that better than our competition enables us to go in and penetrate that account better. Couple things here.

Kim Henderson [00:35:09]:
We always want to ask who else, right? Asking for introductions of peers and if they can't physically introduce us, can they write an email and then ultimately let us write the email for them again, always asking who else can we meet? And getting those introductions, getting those referrals. And with that, how many people are still doing org charts? Admit it. Some people are not. Admit it. Okay, guys, try to incorporate this in for 2025. Ask for an org chart. Obtain a hard copy or electronic, take a photo, build out these org charts. Right? LinkedIn is great, but it's not an org chart.

Kim Henderson [00:35:47]:
It's not going to help us identify every single department and the hierarchy. So start to build those org charts out because what it's going to do is expose to you where you're missing out and what departments you're not in. Or maybe you're in application development, but you totally forgot about network and infrastructure. Right. At an IT client. So again, the org chart is key. Start to challenge yourself to put those together again. Write them, take pictures, whatever it is, just get going on them.

Kim Henderson [00:36:14]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:36:15]:
It's an iterative thing. Next slide, Kortney. All right. And then finally, guys, we always want to close the meeting the right way. Right? Demonstrate our ability to solve their issues. We always want to use success stories with companies to draw a parallel. Set the expectation we're going to candidate market. Right.

Kim Henderson [00:36:32]:
And then always set the next future interaction on the calendar. Okay. And summarize action items that you have together.

Kim Henderson [00:36:41]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:36:41]:
I've been guilty of this. Sometimes you can leave a client meeting and go, wait a minute, what just happened here? What am I supposed to do next? Or what was our follow up plan? Look at these final two bullets, guys. Challenge yourself. Set that next meeting while you're in the current meeting so you're not chasing them down three months from now.

Kim Henderson [00:36:59]:
Right.

Kim Henderson [00:37:00]:
Challenge yourself to do that. And summarize the action items together with them. What are you going to do when you walk out of this meeting and what are they going to do? What are you responsible for? So that way you show up, you deliver, and you don't leave them hanging with some action to do. Item didn't get done. If we do things the same way that we've always done them, as we go into 20, 25 and make one or two placements in an account, whether it be contractor perm, we're really, really giving up a lot of opportunities. Opportunity for gaining client share. So again, pick out two, three, four things from this presentation that you can implement and start to ask and do on your desk today. And I guarantee you will pay dividends for you and next year.

Kim Henderson [00:37:40]:
Kortney, thank you for handling the technical difficulties of sharing.

Kortney Harmon [00:37:44]:
I got you. It was good. There was a lot of questions about the questions that you were asking, so we're going to send that out in the deck. So thank you, Kim. What great information. Sometimes we just get on the phone and we forget what we have to ask or we don't ask the right questions. So what you provided was really a great framework for people to ensure that they're doing the best they can. So thank you so much.

Kortney Harmon [00:38:06]:
We greatly appreciate you. You were amazing and thank you for your time. We hope you found today's session insightful and inspiring. Remember to stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we'll be sharing of this amazing content of our virtual conference. If you missed any part of it, don't forget to subscribe to our show so you don't miss anything upcoming. And if you like this valuable content. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your network and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Kortney Harmon [00:38:38]:
Together, we're building a community of growth and learning. Until next time.