Latest / Recruiting Evolution / FDE+ | Beyond the Placement: Building Client Loyalty That Lasts with Kim Henderson, Founder - Cobalt Compass Solutions

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FDE+ | Beyond the Placement: Building Client Loyalty That Lasts with Kim Henderson, Founder - Cobalt Compass Solutions · Recruiting Evolution

• Kim Henderson [00:00:00]: How many of you out there, because I'm guilty as charged and convicted and did jail time on it, of picking the wrong clients and hoping, operative word hoping, against all odds that it would work out and you would be able to service them? Kortney Harmon [00:00:15]: 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 our recent virtual conference where hundreds of you joined us for an incredible event focused on boosting revenue 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. 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. Kortney Harmon [00:01:10]: Our next speaker has spent nearly 3 decades in staffing industry at the executive level. I will include her in my friend list because I feel like I've gotten pretty close to Kim over the years. And she has included being an SVP of client services, global accounts at major global staffing firms. She's built and led strategic programs across the Americas. And stood up the Government Solutions business unit. Today, she leads Cobalt Compass Solutions, a training and consulting firm dedicated to elevating sales, recruiting, and leadership professionals through the full lifecycle. She also brings an MBA, a PMP, and Six Sigma Lean credentials to work, as well as bringing you concrete 10-step playbook for building client loyalty that actually holds in any economic climate. Kim, I'm so excited for this 10-step plan. Kortney Harmon [00:02:00]: I know you put out such great content. So with that being said, I know we were ahead of schedule. Now we're behind because of my computer. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to get off stage just to make sure I don't jinx anything else. Kim Henderson [00:02:15]: Kortney, we spoke too soon when we said we were ahead of schedule, but it's great to be here. Welcome everybody today. It's wonderful to be on the virtual stage with you. Today, let's talk a little bit about a 10-step plan for client retention and building loyal clients. And there's a couple of reasons why I think this is important. First, I think staffing companies by and large do a really good job of getting customers, but when it comes to actually getting the client share out of them, expanding the accounts and keeping the accounts, we often do a pretty poor job of that, right? And I think all of us out there would agree that the hardest thing today is getting and keeping clients and getting those placements. So we've done the hard work. Think about how hard it is to go get our customers. Kim Henderson [00:03:03]: The last thing we want to do is lose them, right? So we're going to go through some items today, and I will tell you this, everything that you're going to hear today is either free or virtually free to do. It really just takes some time and some forethought and some planning and ultimately some execution. So to frame it as we go through it today, think a little bit about your business, right? Where could you add some of these things in? What could you be doing more of? What could you be doing less of or be doing differently? And at the very end, kind of challenge yourself, right, to audit your business and go back and say, hmm, there's a point here. This is something we're not doing and we could easily do it or something we could start or stop doing. So again, audit your business because I think we all have blind spots, right? Especially as we get into our day-to-day in terms of our job and we just kind of get our blinders on sometimes. So with that, just real quick, who the heck am I and why am I even talking about this? I've been in staffing since the 1990s and was with a national firm working at a desk level all the way up to executive leadership. A group of us broke off from that company and formed our own IT contract staffing company. And we got that right around, I don't know, $98, $99 million. Kim Henderson [00:04:18]: And we sold to Hayes PLC over in the UK, really large international staffing firm. And I stayed on with them for quite some time and have a good amount of experience and background in global accounts, national accounts, selling statement of work, managing MSPs, and also to public selling to the government sector in the US. And then finally, I started my own training company to work with staffing companies throughout the industry. To help provide sales, namely sales training from the full lifecycle, from the time you pick up the phone to the time you make the placement and everything in between, from junior level folks to senior level folks. So I want to bundle up everything that I've learned and the mistakes I've made, and hopefully I can fast track some people to get into staffing and stay in it and be successful quickly. So now that we're done with that, okay. So think of it this way, when you increase your client retention rates by 5%, you can increase your profits by 25 to 95%. And think of it this way, you know, there's a whole cost of ownership, right? You know, when we go out there, when you want to get a new account, you have to hire people. Kim Henderson [00:05:25]: Labor's expensive, right? We hire account managers, we have to get 'em up to speed, we have to train 'em. They get on the phone, they learn, they iterate, and it takes a long time to get into a customer, right? It's a high cost of acquisition, right? Very high cost of acquisition. Kortney Harmon [00:05:41]: Yeah. Kim Henderson [00:05:41]: And in addition, when we do that, it takes us a while once we get that customer to figure out how to be successful in them, right? We don't just jump out of the chute, sign that MSA, and then here it is, we're like off to the races making 20 placements. We gotta figure out their process and figure out the type of people that they want, all that stuff. And that's expensive, guys. Acquisition and getting attention out on the marketplace from prospects is expensive, right? So oftentimes, while I know we have to fill the pipeline of new prospects, we've got gold right underneath our feet. We just don't tend to bend over and pick it up, right? We've done the hard part. Now it's like we squander opportunity here by not keeping and maximizing these customers, right? And another stat with that is, you know, that goes hand in hand, is getting a new client can be 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one, right? Yeah. Again, going back to, we gotta hire people for this. Labor's expensive. Kim Henderson [00:06:42]: We've gotta finally get them up to speed, finally get that customer in the door, learn how to work with them. So it's expensive. Attention and customer acquisition is expensive, right? A lot more expensive than expanding what you have. Okay. So who out here has ever been confused? You can type in the chat by the definition of loyalty versus retention. Anybody? You can like raise your hand or type in the chat. Okay. All right. Kim Henderson [00:07:09]: So there's 2 things here. Loyalty actually measures how satisfied clients are with your entire experience, right? And how likely they are to share it with others. This is what we're after, guys. We want them to be promoters of us, like evangelists of our services, to where they go out and promote us to other people. How beautiful is that, right? To make the sales process not so arduous and difficult. We feel like we're beating our head through a wall. We want them to become so loyal and happy with their experience, they go out and tell other people about it, right? Do some of the sales lifting for us. Loyalty also measures satisfaction in relation to repeat sales. Kim Henderson [00:07:51]: And it also gives opportunity for things like cross-sell, upsell, volume, and exclusivity. We all love exclusivity. In other words, loyalty is about growth, right? And all these things are part of growth, right? Like volume and upsell. Now retention is basically kind of just manages, measures the transaction, right? It focuses on maintaining and/or preventing lost revenue. And here's an example of this. Who out there has gone to a dealership and bought a car before? I think we all have. And I don't know about you, it's never really a good experience. In fact, it's downright Awful. Kim Henderson [00:08:27]: And it's something I really dread actually doing. But here's the deal. I'm not loyal to a dealership. Let's say I want to go and buy a new Infiniti or something like that. It's not like I'm loyal to the dealership. I just go there because I know I've got to because I've got to go get this car. But if another dealership across town had a better deal and gave me a better end-to-end experience, I would certainly jump, right? So Difference between retention and loyalty. Retention, I'll probably go buy the car at that same dealer because it's closer to my house, but I would jump. Kim Henderson [00:08:59]: I'm not loyal. I'd go across town if someone could ensure me a better experience end to end. Okay, makes sense. We're after the loyalty, right? Build up those evangelists, those advocates, those promoters. Okay. All right, guys, here's a very important slide. How many of you out there, because I'm guilty as charged and convicted and did jail time on it, Of picking the wrong clients and hoping, operative word hoping, against all odds that it would work out and you would be able to service them, right? Well, let me tell you something. What I've learned, hope is for small children and the Pope, right? It's not really a strategy and rarely does it work out if you pick the wrong clients to begin with, right? So retention starts long before the first placement. Kim Henderson [00:09:47]: It starts with selecting clients that match your ideal customer profile. Please focus on clients that are going to align to your strengths, align to your delivery model, align to your geography, and try to stay away from those transactional relationships where they don't value you and value what you do and value the service that we're bringing to their organization, right? And also, conversely, if you leave a client and you politely fire a client, as I say, Track why they aren't a match for your model and revisit them annually because dynamics change. So for instance, as an example, at one point we worked with IBM and the markup was so low. We said, hey, we should have never signed up for this in the first place. We can't service it. We're drowning. And we quite honestly, we don't want to give away our contract inventory of candidates at this low markup. So we basically sat down and had a conversation and said, hey, we can't be a good partner. Kim Henderson [00:10:41]: Sorry, let's revisit it. But revisit because dynamics change, right? People leave, programs change, bill rates change, markups change. So if you do exit a customer proactively, you know, definitely don't write 'em off forever. Go back and revisit it and keep it warm and see if it now becomes an ideal customer. But guys, I think this is a key slide. I have done it. We've all done it. And there's an opportunity cost here. Kim Henderson [00:11:07]: We squander time, right, on the wrong customers trying to make it work when we could be aiming those resources, right? Candidates, recruiters, account managers at the right customers. So again, guys, it all starts here. Do an inventory. We're at the end of Q1, an inventory of your customers. Which ones are brutal total time wasters that don't match your model and don't value you? Get a plan together to exit them because you're really doing yourself and them a disservice, right? Does that make sense, everybody? Kortney Harmon [00:11:37]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:11:38]: Challenge yourself. Exit the bad clients. All right. So do any of you here— you can raise your hand— have a process to collect and use client feedback? Anybody? Kortney Harmon [00:11:51]: Anybody? Kim Henderson [00:11:51]: Okay. Because number 1, collecting client feedback. I mentioned earlier, we all kind of have our blind spots, right? And sometimes it's hard to know How our customers feel about us or what they like or dislike if we don't ask, right? They're not automatically going to tell us if we don't ask. So implement a process and a frequency to get feedback from them. And I get it, guys. It can be hard to hear that your baby is ugly, right? You know, we've all kind of been there and we cringe, but it helps us get better. But it's not all negative, right? There's also, you can find trends in client behavior and opportunities to enhance service. So there's many different ways to do this, right? You can do online surveys, you can do in person, you can do a combination of both. Kim Henderson [00:12:38]: At our company, we did a combination of both. And I'll tell you what, I'm amazed at what we learned. We found that, we'll get to this on the next slide, that issues typically occur in like patterns, right? And it's usually not that you're failing wholesale. It's just that there's certain areas where you continually have a weak spot. And it's great because now you know about it and now you can actually change it. So what I say is it's not all negative. You get to sit down and have a high— this is a high-level business conversation, right? You're reviewing metrics, you're talking about your results, you're talking about the outcomes that you've delivered for them. So it's kind of like you're listening to them, but in a way you get your day in court too, to tell them all the good stuff that you've done for them. Kim Henderson [00:13:19]: Okay? So it's not all like negative and gloom and doom. And I'm amazed at the opportunities that I've uncovered in other areas of their business. Just by sitting down, having a business conversation about how we're doing that doesn't talk about a job order, right? Job orders, we gotta have them, we get it, but that's real tactical. This is more of a high-level conversation. It starts to uncover more opportunity for us. So what I say is, as we're going through this QBR, talk about things again, your metrics, your results, what you're delivering. And then also review your onboarding process and your retention of your placements. This is where staffing companies Oftentimes fall down. Kim Henderson [00:13:59]: I know we were falling down big time when it came to onboarding, and we had some major bad processes there, right? Talk about your hiring plans. Okay, what's that look like for the rest of the year? They're going to know this type of information for the most part. Get an action plan together to correct your issues and then follow up to ensure it's working. There's nothing worse, guys, if they tell you that there are issues and problems, Let's say it's with delivery in your Dallas, Texas office that you say you're going to fix it and you don't do it, right? Get an action plan together to address the issues and then follow up long-term. But guys, here's what I like to ask. Kortney Harmon [00:14:36]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:14:36]: There's a couple of questions here I like to ask on this and the next slide. Number 1, if we lost your business tomorrow, why would it happen? Hmm. Okay. Kind of gets them thinking. It's pretty darn clear they can't be evasive on that. And then this next slide, whoever asked this, because guys, I have learned so much from asking this question. Who's the top staffing firm that you work with? What sets them apart? Right? And where do we rank among your providers? And guys, here's the deal. If you're ranking number 9 out of number 10, you got a big problem because when they go and cull that list down and cut it back, you're probably not going to be a provider anymore. Kim Henderson [00:15:17]: Right? So who asks something like this? Do you feel like that would be easy for you to ask as you move through a client feedback type of scenario? If you don't remember anything else, remember these 3 questions, right? If we lost your business tomorrow, why would it happen? Who's your top staffing firm and why? And where do we rank among your providers? This was eye-opening for me because when I worked large national accounts, I often found out we were not in the top 10. Kortney Harmon [00:15:45]: Right. Kim Henderson [00:15:46]: We were not in some cases in the top 20, and we either had to make a decision to not work with that client anymore because we couldn't be successful, or we had to dig in and figure out how to do it and how to do it right. So again, guys, challenge yourself, add this into the mix when you start to have questions with your clients. Okay. All right. So number 2, what do we think number 2 is? Number 2 is kind of connected to number 1. Ask for regular feedback from all the buyers using your service. And why do you think this is? Think about it a minute. I made the mistake early on of kind of going to the buyer or the user that, you know, I hate to say it, that I thought liked us, liked me, liked our service. Kim Henderson [00:16:27]: And what you find out is depending on who the buyer is, whether it's say an MSP or a hiring manager or upper-level leadership, they're all going to have a different experience with you, right? So ask for feedback from all the buyers in the sale using your services, because you're going to get a different vantage point and different information from each one. Don't just go to your buddy, the one hiring manager that likes you, that you go and hang out and have beers with on a Thursday night for his opinion of you. Really go get a wide variety of opinions because they're all looking out from a different vantage point. And guys, I'll tell you, if you're working a big account and you're working with an MSP and you're working with procurement, You definitely need to get their feedback as well because they've got their different buying influences and different things are important to them, like process, compliance, and cost. Whereas your managers are looking at things more like delivery and speed. So feedback from all the buyers that are in that process. Okay? Does that make sense? Number 2, which ties into number 1, analyze your turnover metrics, right? Track why people are leaving and recognize your patterns and your categories to address. As an example, When we were scoring poorly, what we learned is we had a problem with our national recruiting center, and it was actually very specific in certain cities. Kim Henderson [00:17:44]: So it's going to give you a lens and a view into patterns and things and areas and categories to address. Kortney Harmon [00:17:51]: Right. Kim Henderson [00:17:51]: And I think what I learned is, guys, that when clients, clients leave when they feel unheard and the issues are continual. I mean, it's rare that one mistake I think is going to go and get you kicked out or get you kind of blacklisted. It's usually this habitual thing of issues where they feel unheard, they tell you about it, and then we don't fix it and we don't do anything, right? So again, don't make that mistake. If there's something wrong, address it and let them know how you're addressing it. And then this last bullet, make sure if you're going through this process and getting feedback and analyzing turnover metrics, that your team is aware of all the issues. Share those results with them because your team needs to be locked, loaded, and prepared to talk about this when they go out to the client site in the future. Hey, we talked about XYZ when we were gaining feedback, getting feedback from you, and here's what we're doing, actively working to improve. Make sure you share it with your team. Kim Henderson [00:18:50]: I see this happen so many times in organizations that are midsize. Management's up here operating on, I know what the issues are, I know how to fix them, here's what we're doing. And then other folks maybe aren't. Kortney Harmon [00:19:01]: Right? Kim Henderson [00:19:02]: They don't know that because they're working at the desk level. Okay. All right. Are you guys, are you a generalist or are you a specialist? How would you rate yourself? Everybody out there in the chat. Hmm. Okay. All right. So I'm not saying go out and get a PhD, guys. Kim Henderson [00:19:19]: You don't need it. There's tons of information out there. I think the days of the generalist are kind of dead because then it just makes you like the 25,000 other staffing firms that are out there. Become a student of their industry and their business through continuous learning, right, guys? Understand the industry. It's easy to go out there, whether it's ChatGPT, industry periodicals. There's so much published information that's totally free where you can go and start to understand their top challenges and regulations and compliance that drive their hiring so you can speak intelligently to it. There's no value in me calling up going, Hey, Kortney, it's Kim again. How you doing? Have any jobs for me? Kortney's going, oh my God, there she is again. Kim Henderson [00:20:02]: She's useless, right? But if I understand that Kortney's in the DOD federal integrator space, and I understand that she is struggling to go and get cleared, secret cleared people, top secret cleared people, that's an area where I can help her. I have a differentiator there. I'm a specialist there. My facility can hold clearances and find clearances. For backgrounds of people that are in IT and that answers her needs. So again, guys, understand the industry and then customize your conversations to their issues, to their skills, to their industry, and show your ability to deliver an outcome. Because what does any client want us to do, right? What do they want at the base level? Anyone care to type in the chat? What do they want from us? Kortney Harmon [00:20:47]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:20:48]: They want a person. They want a body to do the work for sure. But at the end of the day, they want us to solve their business They have a business problem, make it go away, right? So what we need to do is educate them, and clients are looking for that now more than ever. Educate them on their industry, the trends, the issues, and how you're going to work through them and how you're going to help them and how you're going to give them a competitive advantage, right? Because what happens, you become the low-risk alternative and you become the leader in your space versus the 25,000 other staffing firms. Okay. How's that sound? It's pretty easy to do, guys. All you have to do is read. The only thing I knew about government services when I started to sell them was I hate paying taxes. Kim Henderson [00:21:30]: That's all I knew. But I was able to go out there pretty quickly and educate myself as to what was going on in state and local and the fed space, DOD, through really through reading and getting fluent to have conversations. Okay. So who here collects case studies? Case studies. Success stories, examples about where you've done work. Okay. Challenge yourself on this one, guys, if you're not doing it right. Doesn't have to be grand and beautiful. Kim Henderson [00:21:58]: Just collect examples where you're showing your work with other clients that had similar issues. So for instance, let's say I helped General Dynamics staff up 15 Java developers in Washington, DC, and they all had a secret clearance. And here's how we did it. That's a strong story to go and take to Northrop Grumman or to go and take to HP Federal. So whatever industry you're in, start to collect your success stories. You have them, right? I guarantee you have them. Put them down on a piece of paper and put them in your CRM. Kortney will love that. Kim Henderson [00:22:30]: Make sure you're storing it freely. That way you can access it, your teammates can access it, management can access it. So when you go out to talk to a new customer or sell deeper and penetrate your existing customer, you can already talk about your wins, right? And you don't have to fumble around and look for a piece of paper underneath a coffee mug. Store it in the CRM. Quantify. Quantify. How many of you, when you do this, have ever quantified? Like, we placed 15 project managers. They came in 10% under budget and 3 weeks ahead of schedule. Kim Henderson [00:23:02]: Guys, quantify results you've delivered for other clients, right? More revenue, reduced costs, successful outcome, whatever it is, quantify the result. Because remember, you're trying to position yourself as that SME, subject matter expert, solution provider. And by showing them what's in it for them, right? It's not all about you. It's what's in it for them. The fact that you're this specialist makes you indispensable. You're an indispensable partner to them. Right? And that helps with retention and it helps with loyalty versus some generalist that's like, hey, let me fill all your jobs. Makes sense? Okay. Kim Henderson [00:23:40]: Who here— and here's one that I am passionate about and most people don't want to do it. Who here does this one? Who belongs to industry-specific professional associations and actually goes to the events? Yes, no, maybe. Put in the chat, let me know. Kortney Harmon [00:23:57]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:23:57]: If you're not doing this, pick one and commit to going to an event once a month, once every 6 weeks. This really helped me, guys, to— like when I was building Government Solutions out, to join National Defense Industrial Association. Paid $49 a year, went to the lunches once a month, put me in contact not only with new prospects but also people at accounts I was already working with. That I didn't know existed, right? So here I am calling, beating my head through a wall, making calls, and the people were right in front of me at this— these industry association meetings. Makes prospecting an existing account so much easier. So who here is doing this and is a believer? Can you type in the chat for me? Let me know, because I'm a believer. All right. Okay. Kim Henderson [00:24:50]: Well, mapping number 4, mapping a consistent client experience. So I think oftentimes when customers leave us, it's because of misaligned expectations. They think we're going to be doing X, we think they're going to be doing Y, and we tend to kind of go like this, right? And it starts off rocky. Set expectations before the first placement. We want to use process, put processes in place. And we want to remove the friction, right? Because if you are consistent in how you roll out an account from the front of the office to sales and recruiting to the back of the office, you know, what that's going to do is build trust. Consistency builds trust, right? You can't show up sporadically. So have a process for onboarding new clients and identify who owns what and who's going to do it. Kim Henderson [00:25:39]: So we didn't have that originally where we were. And we would onboard a large new national account. And guys, it was brutal. It was clunky. We started to just choke, right? And the first 90 days is really critical when you're bringing on a new customer that it goes smoothly. You have the processes mapped out. The last thing you want is the first 90 days to be rocky and be inconsistent because then they're going to look at you and go, wow, this is a terrible relationship already. It's off to a bad start. Kim Henderson [00:26:09]: So map out a process because When you're consistent from the word go all the way through and have a process for things from the front office to the back office, it really is going to be a game changer for you and it's going to be a differentiator. Okay. Make sure that you're planning your schedule for check-ins and milestones with the customer so they know what you're doing, right? Processes for activities create efficiency and the client knows actually what to expect. So, and the key is clients That buy-in tend to be more vested in the outcome of the process, right? We want their buy-in. So who here has a consistent client onboarding experience and who here thinks it could be done better at your company? Anybody care to say in the chat? Anybody care to say? Okay. Guilty as charged on this one. We, we really struggled with this one until we sat down and tried to work it. But guys, this is where the wheels start to fall off early. Kortney Harmon [00:27:04]: Yeah. Kortney Harmon [00:27:06]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:27:06]: Not good. Kortney Harmon [00:27:07]: All right. Kim Henderson [00:27:08]: This one sounds easy, guys, but it's kind of not. Think about bad service, right? Oh, the airlines. Terrible. I mean, if you ever have to call them, I mean, you can do most things over the web. If you have to call them, oh my God, forget it, right? The bank. You have to do things online, but I actually had to go into a bank branch about 9 months ago and it was miserable even after making an appointment. The IRS. Oh my God. Kim Henderson [00:27:35]: Have you ever had to call them? Have you ever had to call the DMV? Think about processes at these places, right? And about their service. It's clunky. It's slow. It's not customer-centric. They don't call you back. They put you on hold for an hour. Think about all those things, right? And then think about your business. Be very honest with yourself. Kim Henderson [00:27:57]: Are you easy to work with? As a company, are you easy? Clients stay with firms that remove the noise out of the system. Are you quick? Do you call people back? Do you email them back? Do you get back with candidates, get back with clients in a timely manner? Do you get back with them at all, or do you just leave them hanging and never answer? Seen that happen. Is it customized to how they like to communicate, right? Is it convenient for them? Have you innovated and automated? And guys, let's face it, you know, with AI today, So many of these mundane, we'll call it, rote follow-up type tasks can be automated. So what I'd say is, it sounds really trite, but I guarantee you, audit your business, look at where you're not easy to work with, because I think all staffing companies are guilty here, right? And as an example, years ago, we had our contract business and permanent placement business split. Kortney Harmon [00:28:55]: Right? Kim Henderson [00:28:55]: So here it is, I'm working with them on the contract side and the company's saying, oh no, no, Mr. Client, you have to work with Kim on the contract side and you have to work with Bob on the permanent placement direct hire side. Client's going, that's ridiculous. I don't care about your process. I want to work with one person, one account manager. I don't want to have to remember 2 account managers, right? So again, that's an example of where staffing companies can kind of get caught up in themselves. Because it's easy for them, but not realizing that it's not easy for the client, right? So challenge yourself, audit your business practices. Where are you clunky? Where are you slow? Where is it not customer-centric? Because we can all probably work on that, right? Okay. Kim Henderson [00:29:38]: Number 5, so we're halfway there. Number 6, find their issues and eliminate it, right? Kind of, you know, again, finding the pain. So guys, hey, Don't assume you know their problem and jump to a solution, right? So if you've been in the business a long time, you kind of want to— I'm guilty of this— you kind of want to jump to conclusions. You feel like you know the answer already and you kind of give them the answer. Hold back on that, right? Let them tell you in their own words the problems that they're having with their business, their project, their team, and lead them down the path of self-discovery that maybe what they're doing isn't right, or maybe what they're doing could be better. And you do that really through Let them tell you through the series of you asking questions, let them discover in their own mind that they've got issues that you can hopefully solve for them. What I want us to become is, guys, think of yourself as this. Think of you, anyone out here invest their money. Kim Henderson [00:30:56]: I'm sure y'all have invested your money in your retirement accounts. Yes. No. Okay. So what you want to do is become the Vanguard counselor. So Vanguard, right? Investment house. So they'll help you throughout your entire lifetime, start to invest your money when you get your first job. Help you invest your 401, help you manage your money when you retire. Kim Henderson [00:31:16]: So you're not 85 years old and you go broke and you're eating cat food. You know, they manage you. It's their counselor to take you from 22 all the way through, you know, 102 and make your money last, right? They're not like some penny transactional stockbroker or whatever that's just there for the quick dopamine hit and to take your money. So think of yourself, guys, as the counselor. You want to become the counselor, the consigliere for these folks, right? To use a term from The Godfather. You want to be the counselor. A lot of people call it the advisor. I like to call it the counselor. Kim Henderson [00:31:48]: But again, think of yourself as like that long-term business partner that's there to help them with their issues. Okay, so what's some of the— just type in the chat for a minute. What's some of the things that you would ask to kind of show that you're invested in their business and uncover some of their issues? Type in the chat real quick. What's one of the things you would ask besides, hey, got a job order? And I'll jump to the next slide. Anybody want to type in there? Anybody? All right. CJ says he has a great consistent process from that last slide. Sylvia has a great process. You guys are ahead of the game. Kim Henderson [00:32:21]: Ahead of the game, Sylvia and CJ. Good job. Good job. Okay. Some of the things that I would ask to expose your issues. What's your biggest issue in hiring talent? What are the critical challenges that they're facing? Maybe their critical challenges are They've got a new product launch and they're behind schedule, or a new software release and they're behind schedule. What are the top 3 business initiatives this year within the company? That could be we're opening a new market. It could be we are closing down a market. Kim Henderson [00:32:54]: Could be we're going to go public, right? Any of those things. What challenges do you have delivering current projects or during peak periods? Guys, peak periods, have you guys Always ask about peak periods out there. Yes or no, type in the chat, right? Peak periods are huge, not only in accounting, which obviously right now is tax time, but in the healthcare profession, right? When you have, like in Florida, snowbirds come down, they overwhelm hospitals. So peak periods are huge in a lot of different industries. What geographies are difficult to find people? Guys, I can't tell you how much business I was able to actually get in my existing customers by asking about geographies where they struggle to fill jobs. So for instance, let's say they do a bang-up job at filling roles in Orlando, Florida, but let's say in Boise, Idaho, they do a terrible job of filling jobs and getting candidates in the door. Maybe you are good at filling jobs in Boise, Idaho. Maybe you can stand up a team and help them. Kim Henderson [00:33:53]: So what I'd say is geography can be a great way not only to get into a company, But to entrench yourself and build loyalty if you're helping them in a specific area where they're struggling. Anybody out there besides— I see Mim Johnson— gotten into a company or been able to entrench farther by talking— not talking about delivering to a geography where every other vendor was failing? Anybody? Yes? No? Type in the chat. Geography can be huge. All right. Okay. Upcoming projects. Q1 to Q3, they should know that, right? And insist that they pay the number of hires that they're going to need for that. Here's a big one, guys. Kim Henderson [00:34:31]: Do you ask this? Did you place work on hold in 2025? A lot of customers placed things on hold in 2025, taking the wait-and-see approach in the economy. Ask them, are you going to address that now? How will you address it? Resurrection of projects, right? That got put on hold. What challenges are they having with onboarding, retention, and post-sales support? Big one. Do the staffing suppliers place people out here and then they just let them flap in the wind and they don't follow up and then they bounce off assignment? A lot of staffing companies are bad at these 3 things right here. Could be your way to further differentiate yourself and get entrenched and gain loyalty. Okay. Strategic changes. Ask companies about their strategic changes that they're going to have this year. Kim Henderson [00:35:18]: Could it be an IPO? Could it be moves in or out of the market? Could it be a divestiture? It could be anything. Strategic changes drive hiring. What I say, guys, is a guy explained it to me this way years ago. It's Daphne. We want to look for 2 things, growth or trouble. Growth makes perfect sense, right? That's obvious. Trouble is things like, gosh, we're moving out of a market, or gosh, we're gonna have a restructure, we're gonna have a layoff. Oh gosh, we can't get this new product out the door. Kim Henderson [00:35:51]: Things like that trouble are great opportunities to come in and do contract placement and further entrench yourself in the account. Kortney Harmon [00:35:57]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:35:58]: So we talked about their pain and we talked about, you know, if we ask the right questions, we can uncover what they're really passionate about and what they're struggling with. And that's going to help further entrench us in their business, right? So again, guys, try to remember some of those questions and weave those into your conversations that you're having. Digging deep down, helping them solve their problems, being a proactive problem solver is going to be key. All right, here's one of my favorite pieces. Number 7, gaining client share and relevance. Guys, if you forget most everything in this presentation, please remember this slide. Kortney Harmon [00:36:32]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:36:32]: We compare ourselves to ourselves. And we place 15 people on assignment if it's contract, or maybe 10 direct hires for the year. We pat ourselves on the back and we think, wow, we're doing a great job. And then we go out there and we ask, what's the agency spend permanent contract for the department? What's the agency spend permanent contract for the whole organization? And then we find out we're woefully underrepresented, doing a bad job. They're spending $50 million a year on contract services and we're getting $2 million a year. Whoa, that's bad. Okay. Total number of contractors in the company, of course, in areas that you service. Kim Henderson [00:37:13]: And what I found here was, you know, we had 20 people on assignment. Next thing you know, I'm finding out there's 100 contractors in the organization. Ask total number of contractors in the department and in the organization. On the perm side, if you're doing direct hire, total number of perm direct hires from agencies. So if any of you guys religiously ask this slide, this will tell you the entire size of the pie and let you know what you need to aim at, right? So you don't, you're not going to get caught in that trap of placing 15 people, think you're doing a good job, and the customer's going, wow, they only have 15 people on assignment. They're not doing a good job at all. Do you guys ask this in some format? Yes, no, type in the chat. I want to hear on this one. Kim Henderson [00:37:58]: I'm not gonna let you off the hook. Yes, no, maybe. I see Don saying on the last slide that West Virginia was an area that he serviced. That's great. Okay. All right, guys. Yeah, get the entire size of the pie, right? We want to know this. All right. Kim Henderson [00:38:15]: So once you know that you've got they have 100 contractors on assignment. What percentage do you have of the total placements? 5%, 10%, 70%? That's really how to aim your efforts, right? Because you've got to get more entrenched. So also understand too, this is going to help you gain client share. Understand the structure and responsibilities of the team. What do they do? How large are they? What does this team typically need, like from a standpoint of certifications and experience? What skills are hard for them to find? And then also, what's the impact and cost on them and the team when a job remains open? Do you ask that, the impact? Are they working late? Are they working overtime? The whole team working overtime, they're about ready to quit. What's the impact, right? Because whenever jobs go unfilled by us or another supplier, there's an impact, financial and otherwise. Okay. Do they ever go outside? The HR MSP talent acquisition process to locate talent, contractor perm that is, and what drives it. Kim Henderson [00:39:21]: I think what I found is oftentimes they do go, they do go outside this process if they're not getting what they need. We just have to uncover it. And that kind of fits hand in hand with selling statement of work business and fractional talent. I did a lot of statement of work in my existing accounts where we were working through an MSP. Because they oftentimes weren't happy with the MSP and we could go over here, have conversations, get the manager to kind of expose their issues and challenges, and then put together a carve-out SOW, statement of work agreement, and start to go and staff projects in volume. It's just having the conversation. And fractional talent's big these days, guys. I wouldn't say I would have asked this probably 10 years ago, but it's big today. Kim Henderson [00:40:02]: So again, we're trying to determine, are they getting what they need? Within that whole HR MSP talent acquisition process, because if they're not getting what they need, it's a great opportunity for us to get client share, come in with a solution and penetrate that account. Okay. All right, guys, who here uses org charts still? Ask for them, use them, that type of thing, or are you just relying on LinkedIn and ZoomInfo? Who's using an org chart? Type in the chat real quick. Kortney Harmon [00:40:28]: Anybody? Kim Henderson [00:40:28]: Anybody? Anybody? Tell me if you're using an org chart, if you're asking for one, if you're getting one. Kortney Harmon [00:40:35]: Hmm. Kortney Harmon [00:40:36]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:40:36]: Nobody's saying, everybody's too shy on that one. Hey guys, here's the deal. LinkedIn is great. ZoomInfo's great. All the tools are great, but there's, to me, it's so easy to get an org chart and understand exactly, for instance, how an IT organization is aligned, who reports to who. And then when I want to go and penetrate that account, I just go through a box one by one, check it off, and contact the person that aligns it and organizes it beautifully for me. So what I'd say is challenge yourself. If you're not getting org charts, start to ask for them. Kim Henderson [00:41:09]: It's going to crystallize and make your prospecting within that customer so much quicker and so much easier. It's like, again, work smart. Don't beat your head through a wall. Get that org chart. Just lines up everybody perfectly and you can just tear through it and make your calls, things like that. LinkedIn. When I looked at LinkedIn, You know, it gives me a company, right? Using Sales Navigator, all that, that's great. It gives me people's names, but it doesn't organize it easily where I can just tear through it and understand, okay, here's the PMO organization, here's application development, here's networking infrastructure, here's all the people and who reports to who. Kim Henderson [00:41:46]: So again, guys, ask about it because the net-net, the reason we're talking about client share to begin with, guys, is depth protects you. Your account. It's easy to get rid of you if you only have a few people on assignment. Top staffing firms don't take job orders, they uncover business impact. Remember that, right? Highlight what they're getting from you. Highlight the results that you're getting, getting for their business. Okay? Because when you have greater client share and you have greater depth in that account, you're gonna be less expendable. Think about it, guys. Kim Henderson [00:42:22]: If you've got 50 people on billing and you're making 20 direct hires a year, you are more relevant, you're more significant to their business. It's too painful to get rid of you, right? You're so entrenched in that account, you're doing so much work there, you're not expendable. You're so relevant, so significant. So maybe you guys, depth protects accounts. That's why client share is important. Who here thinks you're important when you place 5 people? You're not. Right? So key, key, key here on number 7. Kortney Harmon [00:42:52]: Number 8. Kortney Harmon [00:42:53]: All right. Kim Henderson [00:42:54]: All right. Delivering value add. Who here actively thinks they deliver value add other than giving a candidate? Yes? Kortney Harmon [00:43:02]: No? Kim Henderson [00:43:03]: Anybody? Okay. So people often say to me, hey, Kim, well, what, what can I do to add value beyond the candidate? I don't know what I can do. Number 1, ask them, hey, how can we add value to you beyond filling jobs? Give them something outside of the industry, like industry information, marketing, salary, skillset data, educating them on workforce trends, sending them your newsletter if you have it. Believe it or not, people read newsletters. They actually like them if they're filled with good content. Visit on site in a tempo, a cadence. The best way to do business still is face-to-face. I'm convinced of that. Kim Henderson [00:43:40]: LinkedIn, offer LinkedIn Lives or workshops or webinars to help them. This is Great salary info. Yes, same thing. Industry marketing, salary, skillset data. All this information, guys, I mentioned this at the beginning of the presentation, it's free. It's out there. It costs us nothing. All you have to do is go and look for it and we can bundle it up and send it to your clients in a cadence, right? In a tempo, once a week, twice a month, whatever that is. Kim Henderson [00:44:07]: Who here has done LinkedIn Lives or webinars to educate your clients? Anybody? Easy to do. Go out, set up a StreamYard account, invite your customers to it. Hey, I'm gonna do a webinar on how you can interview better, how you can use AI in your business, or how you can onboard and retain people better. It draws clients in, it creates that stickiness, and it keeps you top of mind, right? Because your competitors are not doing this. But wait, there's more. Send them an article. Right? Feature them in an article that you're writing. Maybe if you have a podcast, put them on your podcast, put them on your webinar, put them in your blog, right? Candidate market. Kim Henderson [00:44:46]: Who here candidate markets on a daily— not daily, but a consistent basis? Tons of value here. No value in me calling up going, hey, Kortney, it's Kim again. But if I call up Kortney with a candidate that I know is hard to find, that she typically wants to hire, there's value in that. The third one, making peer introductions. Guys, if you're working with CFOs or CIOs or VPs or directors in IT and finance and accounting, or even in healthcare, they may get stuck on a problem. And if you're talking to them and they're struggling with something, connect them to a peer, someone else that you're working with in a similar industry so they can have a conversation, right? A CIO to a CIO or IT VP to another IT VP. I did this in local government, connected a couple, like one county that did an Oracle implementation with another county doing an Oracle implementation, and they got great value out of it, right? Attending the professional association event with them. Uh-oh, it's back. Kim Henderson [00:45:43]: I mentioned that before, right? You don't have to go alone. You don't have to go with someone in your office. Invite them to go with you. Great way to stay top of mind. And then you may be going, Kim, okay, great. Where do I find all this information if I'm going to try to bundle up certain things and add value. Well, shrm.org, you can sign up for that. Great information. Kim Henderson [00:46:04]: Staffing Hub. Anyone ever read Staffing Hub? They have a wonderful daily newsletter, tons of info. And then actually, guys, I go out to Forbes and they have different section councils, like for IT and finance and accounting and healthcare and leadership. Sign up for one of their section councils and they'll go ahead and start sending you their newsletter. And basically industry publications. So there's tons of— just go out there and ChatGPT. And if you don't even know, like, let's say you're in manufacturing, what are the best resources, the best publications in the manufacturing space? They'll list them out for you and you can go take a look, get on their newsletter list for free and be able to start to provide some of these articles, some of this information to help educate your clients. Right? Okay. Kim Henderson [00:46:49]: So there's more. Just again, some easy things you can do. Give them best practices for onboarding and retention, right? Give them competitive analysis. How do their peers attract and retain talent? Think about it, guys. Our customers, you know, Mem and CJ and Sylvia and Don, would you agree, are not really all that good at hiring? They're not good at it. They don't do it that often. They look to us to be the experts. So tell them what their competition's doing to go and get talent. Kim Henderson [00:47:17]: Okay? Give them custom reporting. Give data for time to hire, retention metrics. Help them with a lot of different things, guys, right? Who here's done this? Stand up teams for rapid response or surge staffing. You guys do that? I love Sylvia. They suck at it. That's great. You're right. They suck at hiring. Kim Henderson [00:47:38]: That's where we can come in and give them that competitive edge for information. So again, just some other things. Review their job descriptions with them. Guys, this is a great one because it's going to help you selfishly. It'll help you. Many job descriptions were written by HR about 10 years ago, and they bear no relevance whatsoever to what they're actually looking for. Offer to go and take those descriptions and help them rewrite them. That's going to benefit you when you go to try to place people, right? Give them separation support if they have a layoff or they have a restructure. Kim Henderson [00:48:11]: Interview their laid-off people, help them, point them in a direction. So again, things that just show that this is a partnership and this is a long-term type of thing. Give with no ask, right? This is things that we're giving to them as an added bonus in addition to giving them a candidate. Give with no ask, right? Anticipate their problems. Be proactive problem solver, right? And it all kind of fits in with value-add. Okay. This is an easy one, but again, I feel like we don't always do a good job. Proactive communication. Kim Henderson [00:48:42]: Who out here feels like they have relied too heavily on social media and email and sometimes not the face-to-face piece, right? Probably guilty as charged. We've all been doing that. So make a schedule, guys. Put it in your plan to check in with them, to cross-sell, to remarket contractors, to give your results, build relationships at all levels of the account. We kind of touched on that. One contact, 2 contacts is going to equal a lost account. Why, Sylvia? Why is that? I think you know this because you're all over this in the chat. I can see you make one contact, they leave. Kim Henderson [00:49:21]: Well, then now you have, you know, nobody else in the organization. You're starting all over again, right? It's like a brand new prospect. Build relationships at all levels. And guys, this bullet is so important. Silence kills relationships. When they don't hear from you, it's not like they assume everything is great. They probably typically assume things are going badly, or you don't care, you've given up, or you're not doing that search anymore for them. You're not looking for those Java developers anymore. Kim Henderson [00:49:50]: Check in, let them know how searches are going. Silence kills, right? Think about your personal relationship. Let's say you're married and your spouse just stops talking to you, right? Right. You're kind of going, whoa, that's a problem. Silence kills. Always manage expectations and let them know where you are with things, right? Creates trust. And when things go wrong, I think one thing I've learned is we're all going to make mistakes, right? We're all human. All staffing companies are going to fall down from time to time. Kim Henderson [00:50:20]: And when things go wrong, clients value honesty and transparency way more than they value perfection. I mean, if you mess up, own it, own it and fix it and admit it, right? They're going to value that so much more than perfection. Here's a story for you real quick. In the late 1990s, like 1999, you had like the whole Y2K thing. And long story short, I went on vacation for 4 days and got back and we had a contractor starting out at a large corporation and something dropped, our process dropped and the background didn't get done. And we found out that this woman had been— she just got out of federal prison. And she had been, if anyone remembers this, has been around from the 1990s. She was in, uh, there was a cult, the David Koresh cult, and they were firing at the FBI. Kim Henderson [00:51:09]: There was a big thing about it in the '90s. And she was in the cult and it was, you know, firing at the FBI and they lit this whole building on fire. Anyway, she had done all this time, federal time, and had just gotten out. Kortney Harmon [00:51:20]: Wow. Kim Henderson [00:51:21]: And it was a big mistake that we made. So I had to get on the phone and own it and call the customer and say, hey, we got a person just got out of federal prison coming out there. What do you want us to do? It was a terrible mistake and we fell down on our process. The point is mistakes will happen. Own it, be honest, and they're going to have a lot more respect for you, right? Okay. All right. And that feeds into number 10, easy sounding stuff. Dependability and reliability are going to build confidence, right? Do what you say you're going to do. Kim Henderson [00:51:51]: If you don't have any intention of doing it, don't sign up for it to begin with, right? So when you go out to a client visit and they say, hey, can you bring me back a— send me a salary survey, or can you give me some information about registered nurses, travel nurses in El Paso, Texas? If you say you're going to do it, do it, right? Correct your mistakes and do it very right the second time. Replace plus one is what I like to Let's say there's a big issue with your contractor. Maybe you give them a couple billable hours for free. So do it very right the second time and replace plus one. So have you ever been out to dinner, Min, or Sylvia, and they drop the food on the floor or they mess everything up? Sorry is nice, but we want them to replace, right? We want them to go and give us something for free if we can. All right. Focus on lifetime client value, not one-off deals. This is a lifetime thing. Kim Henderson [00:52:43]: Staffing, long-term commitment, long-term mentality, right? We may not get the payout today, but we may get that payout down in the future if we're loyal to the clients, right? And do the right thing, what's right by them, even if there's no dollar amount in front of it today. Kortney Harmon [00:53:01]: Okay? Kim Henderson [00:53:02]: All right, here are the takeaways, guys. Takeaways. Know what the clients expect. Clients leave us because of inconsistent communication, missed expectations. At least that's what I think I've learned over time. Retention isn't about being perfect, right? None of us are perfect. We never will be. It's about being consistent. Kim Henderson [00:53:20]: It's about communication, right? Not being silent. It's about being credible and about being proactive. Proactive, right? Every interaction you're going to have with a client is either going to strengthen the client relationship or it's going to weaken it. Think of it that way, guys. Every interaction's either going to be strengthening or weakening it, right? So we want to be on the right side of that equation. Okay? And ultimately, they're going to become loyal when they like us, we're reliable, we're easy to do business with, when they see value in our service and that we deliver a result and that their expectations are aligned with ours. And they know that we really, guys, have a sincere interest in their business and their success. Because if we're not sincere and genuine about wanting their business to succeed, They can see it. Kim Henderson [00:54:06]: They can see it. They know it, right? So with that, what I would say is, okay, audit your business, right? Look at everything through a fresh lens. And what 3 actions can you take in your business starting tomorrow to improve client loyalty? What are the 3 things you can do? Is it gaining more client share? Is it mapping out a consistent process? Is it changing something clunky that's not easy to do business with? Is it Soliciting feedback. What are 3 things you can do? Don't try to boil the ocean and do all 10. Pick 3 things. Pick 2 to 3 things that you can start tomorrow that's going to start to gain that loyalty and get that deeper conversation going with your clients that builds loyalty. Okay, Kortney, what are your thoughts? We are— oh, wait, we're all— I'm finally— Kortney Harmon [00:54:51]: the final slide. Kim Henderson [00:54:51]: Here's how you find me, guys. Sorry about that. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Feel free to email me again. I do training for the staffing industry. If you have any questions on this or just want to have a further conversation or introduction, I would love to meet you. So thank you for your time and attention. You guys have been wonderful. Kim Henderson [00:55:08]: I appreciate you inviting me in to spend the day with you. Kortney Harmon [00:55:11]: Does anyone else have any questions for Kim? Wonderful presentation, Kim. I love it so much. So much good nuggets out of this whole process. Kim Henderson [00:55:19]: And Kortney, all this is free, guys. It doesn't cost much of anything to do these plans. It's pretty easy. Just think through it and start to execute on it and it will make a difference in your business. You work too hard to get customers to lose them. Kortney Harmon [00:55:33]: Yeah. So I honestly have had, I saw stuff in the chat, like I've forgotten to do that for quite some time. Like, so what good information. Kim Henderson [00:55:41]: Thank you, Kim. Kortney Harmon [00:55:42]: I appreciate you. Does anyone else, I'm going to leave it one more time. Does anybody else have any questions for Kim? Kim, I'm sure their note-takers are full and their pens have been busy. So I appreciate you. This will also be available via the recording. So check out that email as it comes through and also will be dropped as a podcast. Kim will send you all those goodies whenever we get to that point. Kortney Harmon [00:56:06]: Okay. Kim Henderson [00:56:06]: Thank you everybody. Appreciate it. Go out there and build some loyal clients. Thank you. Kortney Harmon [00:56:14]: Today's session insightful and inspiring. Remember to stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we'll be sharing all 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. Together, we're. Building a community of growth and learning. Kortney Harmon [00:56:43]: Until next time.