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5 Fundamentals for a Smarter Staffing Sales & Marketing Strategy
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Do you really know your ideal client profile — and is it aligned with your unique value proposition? If you hesitated or can’t answer confidently, chances are you’re wasting time chasing the wrong business. It’s time to stop burning energy on deals that don’t move the needle and start attracting the clients your agency wants.
In this episode of Staffing Made Simple, we sit down with Dan Mori, Managing Partner at Staffing Mastery and a staffing sales strategist who’s built a business helping agencies sharpen their focus, refine their approach, and win. Dan breaks down the 5 fundamental requirements every staffing agency needs to build a sales and marketing strategy that actually delivers.
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Transcript
Addressing Agency Challenges and Ideal Clients
00:00:00
Speaker
If you're constantly chasing down clients that never close, if your sales team isn't sure how to explain what makes your agency different, if you're burning time and energy on business that doesn't move the needle, you're not broken.
00:00:12
Speaker
Your system is. And that's what today's episode is all about, because when you can't have clarity around who your ideal clients are, what makes your agency uniquely valuable and how to connect those dots, everything feels harder and it puts your agency at risk.
00:00:27
Speaker
Marketing gets messy, sales feel forced, and growth becomes inconsistent at best. But the good news is
Introduction to Staffing Made Simple Podcast
00:00:35
Speaker
there's a better way. And our guest today has helped a lot of staffing firms build it.
00:00:39
Speaker
Welcome to Staffing Made Simple, a podcast series powered by Simple VMS. Welcome back to Staffing Made Simple, brought to you by Simple VMS, the preferred VMS partner of staffing agencies.
00:00:52
Speaker
This is a podcast for staffing and recruiting professionals who want clear, practical insights that help them grow. Each episode, we sit down with industry leaders, experts, and professionals to talk through strategies, challenges, and ideas that make a real difference in how staffing firms sell, serve, and scale.
Meet the Hosts and Guest: Casey, Rob, and Dan Morey
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm Casey, 16 years in staffing and accounting with a sales and operations background. And as always, I'm joined by my co-host, my buddy, and our senior vice president at Simple BMS, Rob Geist.
00:01:20
Speaker
Hey, Casey. Excited. One of my favorite people in the industry and one of my favorite topics, sales. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's get to the episode. It's going to be a good one because when this guy talks, people listen.
00:01:32
Speaker
We're joined by Dan Morey. Dan's a seasoned staffing industry leader, nearly two decades of experience in organizational leadership, recruiting and business development. He's the founder of Staffing Mastery, a strategic advisory firm that helps staffing firms and owners and leaders implement systems for predictable growth.
00:01:50
Speaker
He also runs Staffing Dashboard, a data analytics foresight and forecasting tool. In addition to all that, he's also the president of Employment Solutions based out of New York with multiple locations throughout the country.
Staffing Sales Summit and Five Essential Requirements
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Speaker
And Dan also is the founder of the Staffing Sales Summit, an annual event focused exclusively on sales training and workshops for staffing pros. And I can personally say that that event has become a must attend for sales leaders and producers and staffing.
00:02:17
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Dan's helping us break down his five foundational requirements that every staffing firm needs to define today. From identifying your ideal client to clearly communicating your value and building a system around that clarity.
Defining and Updating the Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
00:02:29
Speaker
Dan, welcome to the pod. Oh man, Casey, Rob, so good to be here. i always enjoy talking Staffing Shop with you guys because you just, you're in the industry, you get it, man. So I'm grateful to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:02:41
Speaker
We're glad to have you, Dan. And before we jump into the topic, want to talk about something that Casey already mentioned, the Staffing Sales Summit. If you haven't heard of it, we attended our second year this year. And I tell you what, this event has grown so much from year one to year two, and it's becoming in a go-to event for sales professionals and staffing.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think what makes it stand out is it's intimate, super focused. And it's purely built around sales. So there's no fluff, just real strategies from top producers and trainers and leaders. You want to tell the listeners what they can expect in 2025? when we've actually putting together next year's agenda, which is going to be in February, 2026,
00:03:21
Speaker
in Orlando, we're going to build on what we already experienced the past couple of years. The main takeaways that we got from this is they want to have deep drill down tactical topics around sales, but more specifically around really the modern staffing sales system. So what are the things that our agencies still hanging on to, but don't really work? And how do we break free and replace those tactics and techniques with things that work for the modern day buyer and really the environment that staffing is in today? So we have a minimum requirement that everything has to be actionable and it has to be relevant.
00:03:55
Speaker
So they're going to be talking about those things like social selling. How do you actually run a social selling campaign that drives inbound leads and creates enough brand equity in the marketplace? So when you actually do make a cold call that you still need to do, when you do send a prospecting email, people know who you are and they're going to be more receptive to listening to you.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then some of what we're going to talk about today about defining the ICP and UVP and that kind of stuff, we're actually going workshop that at next year's summit so people are better aligned with their sales, their marketing, and they know how to better manage a sales meeting to not just convince, but demonstrate to the prospect why you're the agency of choice and why they should choose to work with you opposed all your competitors. So We have a lot of workshops that we're actually building on and we're going to be announcing our ticket opening here coming up in July, just ah a month away.
Creating Specific ICPs for Multiple Verticals
00:04:44
Speaker
Awesome. All right, Dan, let's kick it off with your five key requirements with the first one, the ICP, ideal client profile. Can you quickly define what that is for those who don't know?
00:04:55
Speaker
Absolutely. So ICP or ideal client profile is an absolute must. This is a foundational thing that every agency should do. And if you're not familiar with this concept, simply put what it is, is it's just knowing exactly what type of industry and company that you are best equipped at servicing.
00:05:15
Speaker
And then what specific challenges are they facing as it relates to human capital, contingent workforce, employment or staffing in those particular areas that we're in? What are the challenges that they're specifically facing?
00:05:27
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How do those challenges show up in symptoms? What are common ways that your client or ideal client tends to try to solve these? And most importantly, what is the ideal outcome?
00:05:38
Speaker
What are they really looking to achieve when it comes to addressing these challenges? And you should have this clearly defined, not just for the ideal client, but also the different potential buyers or influencers of the buyer decision or maybe users of your service within that organization. So that helps you understand really who it is you're working for and what services you're providing to solve the problems they have and really how they want to see them
Guidelines for Defining ICP and Market Strategies
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solved.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's like looking for win-win businesses. is how I have spoken about that in the past. So what's the biggest mistake you see when agencies try to define their ICP? So there's three.
00:06:15
Speaker
The first one is they don't. If you were to take a poll of every single staffing and recruiting firm out there in North America, what their ICP was, they wouldn't have it clearly defined. And that's the first mistake. If you're not defining it, you're gonna get left behind with this latest shift in the industry. You need this.
00:06:31
Speaker
The second mistake that happens, if people have defined it, the last time they defined it is when they opened business. And they typically defined it as in, I'm gonna be a staffing agency that provides healthcare workers, or I'm going to service the IT industry, or I'm gonna service companies that do warehousing.
00:06:48
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And they think that's what their ICP is, And they might even go so far to say, I'm going to service warehouses that struggle with turnover. And okay, that's a problem. And that is an industry, but that leads me to my third problem, or I guess mistake that people make with the ICP is they don't define it detailed enough.
00:07:06
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They don't really go deep enough to say, this is the specific type of company that I want to work with. Here are the very specific and real world challenges that this type of company faces,
00:07:17
Speaker
Here's the symptoms of these things, of how they're showing up in the organization that's causing the decision makers to want to take action. Here's how these challenges impact the specific decision makers on a business level, but maybe even on a personal level.
00:07:31
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And then ultimately, what are the ways that these decision makers have tried to solve this problem or ideally would like to solve this problem to add value to
Understanding and Creating a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
00:07:39
Speaker
their organization? And what are they trying to achieve through those solutions?
00:07:42
Speaker
And I know it sounds like a lot. It's really not. It's a really straightforward process. But that's the third one is just companies are not going deep enough into defining what their ICP is. And the challenge from that is if you don't know what you're looking for, it's hard to find it because you're going to find a lot of things that might fit it And you're going to waste a lot of time and resources really sorting for that ICP and sort of hoping you know what it is when you see it.
00:08:07
Speaker
And that is just a practice that no longer works. And it's really bad business. Yeah, you mentioned they have it set in place when they start business and maybe that fades out. Is that something then agencies should be continually evaluating? Is there ICP? It's not just you said it once and it's good, right? It's something you have to monitor.
00:08:23
Speaker
100%. You do need to monitor for it. I recommend looking at it annually. It should be part of your strategic planning process when you're getting into Q4 and you're taking a look at how you're doing against this year's plan and you're starting to lay the groundwork for next year's plan.
00:08:38
Speaker
You should analyze your ICP. And the main reason why is because markets shift and staffing agencies evolve. And sometimes those two things go together and sometimes they drift apart.
00:08:50
Speaker
And if your market is shifting, if the companies that you're servicing may be having different staffing challenges or maybe they're being super disrupted by ai and your solution is no longer relevant to them, or maybe it's not a solution that they're willing to entertain or invest in solving their problem, but you keep trying to do it, then you get that square peg round hole situation, right?
00:09:10
Speaker
Other times, your market might stay on course. Maybe they're not hit with that structural shift that we've all been hit with over the post-pandemic years, but maybe you evolved. Maybe you decided to do some things differently in business and the way that you provide your value, which we'll talk about in a little bit here, but the way that you provide it is different and it's no longer the best solution for your ICP and maybe you need a different ICP. So I recommend
Testing and Validating UVP Effectiveness
00:09:33
Speaker
you got to look at this once a year.
00:09:35
Speaker
You've really got to say, hey, who are we? What are we trying to do? How do we best solve this? And then you keep those things aligned year to year and you're going to continue to grow. So what about those agencies who are moving into multiple verticals like LI, Admin Clerical?
00:09:48
Speaker
Is it okay to have more than one ICP? Absolutely. And it's not okay. It's a mandatory thing. If you are going to service more than one industry vertical, then you need an ICP profile, like created, documented with your people that you can train to for every single one.
00:10:05
Speaker
So just to give a real life example, if I'm an agency and I'm in three verticals, let's say I do some general clerical call center type stuff. I do some light industrial distribution, maybe 3PL type stuff. And maybe I got a professional division that does technical IT.
00:10:19
Speaker
I'm going to want to have an ICP for each one of those. And actually, I'm going to have like multiple tiers of it because the ICP that runs 3PL warehouse That is going to actually be maybe a decision maker in operations, but maybe the CFO is going to have a say in it. And maybe the staffing shortages that show up in their organization present differently to the CFO versus the operations manager or even HR.
00:10:45
Speaker
So you're going to have a few of these profiles built out specifically for that industry type that you want to go after. But yeah, and not only is it okay to have different ICPs for the verticals you serve, You need to have them for all of them. And you really need to have a detailed ICP for every person that's involved with the staffing decision or uses the staffing service. And that's what it takes to really be a best in class agency today.
00:11:08
Speaker
You talk about pain points when you're clearly defining what your ICP is. What's the best way to uncover the real pain points clients are feeling so they can align with them better? So simply put questions, you just have to ask. And the best way to get this information is go back and look at your best clients today. If you're in staffing and you've been in staffing for a little while and you've got revenue coming in, you're successful to some degree.
00:11:33
Speaker
So if you want to be more successful, go look at your best clients. And when I say best clients, I'm going to keep it super simple. The ones that you're the most successful at filling their orders and they create the best margins.
00:11:45
Speaker
That's kind of one category. And then two, the ones you actually enjoy working with, like who do you have a positive working relationship with? Just find all the clients that check those two boxes and then go to them and just say, hey, I want to just talk about what was life like before us.
00:11:58
Speaker
What were some of the business challenges that you were facing as it related employment, you know staffing, those kinds of things? And what were some things that you tried? What worked? What didn't work? What's the end outcome that you were hoping to achieve? How is working with us achieve that?
00:12:11
Speaker
Just go talk to your actual clients and then learn that. And that's going to be the foundation of your ICP because I guarantee you every market is competitive. Your clients have
Exploring Niche UVPs and Industry Examples
00:12:22
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competitors.
00:12:23
Speaker
You will have to go find other similar clients that face those similar issues that want those similar outcomes. And you'll know that because you've got a good relationship and you can ask those questions. So that's honestly what we do in a pretty regular basis. And that helps us keep a bead on if the market is shifting or if our ICP is shifting or if our value is not hitting the way that it used to.
00:12:41
Speaker
so it's just a good way to align account management with refining your ICP over time. And the final question about ACP, for someone who hasn't yet defined it, what's a good starting point and where could they begin?
00:12:54
Speaker
So i love this question. i would say it's a pretty simple process. There's a step-by-step instruction of to do this. I'm going to run through it really quickly, but if anybody wants the actual template for this, just shoot me a message on LinkedIn and say, hey, I heard you talking to Casey and Rob, and I'd happy to send it to you.
00:13:11
Speaker
But super quickly on the ICP, the first thing you got to look at your target industry and roles. You have to take a look at what you're most successful at filling. Look at those industries. Look at specifically the roles that you're best equipped to service within those industries.
00:13:23
Speaker
And that's going to give you the basic framework, the structure of it. And then from in there, you're going to start to define those target roles even further. Look at the markets they're in. Where do you get these people from? they compare? competitive pay rates, all that kind of stuff.
00:13:35
Speaker
You're going to start to look at the role performance against your own past successes, right? And say, how do I do with each of these roles? And that's going to tell you where you were best equipped to service this. And then
Connecting UVP and ICP in Agency Operations
00:13:45
Speaker
once you know where you're best equipped to fill these roles, you can do a market map and identify these prospects.
00:13:50
Speaker
Then you'll be able to identify those decision makers. And then you'll start to layer in all of the individual pain points that we talked about to these decision makers. And then you can actually start to build that into a prospecting campaign as well as a sales meeting management campaign.
00:14:03
Speaker
There's a lot that goes into it, but it really is a straightforward process. So anyone that wants to see the step-by-step detailed breakdown, just shoot me a message on LinkedIn and I'll send you the document for free to you. Love it how willing you are to share just with the community at large.
00:14:17
Speaker
So let's jump over to unique value proposition or UVP. Now that we've defined who we want to work with and we know who we want to work with us, can you quickly define UVP for listeners that may not truly understand what it is?
00:14:31
Speaker
Absolutely. This one, it's not external like the ICP. The UVP is internal. This is really what you do and more specifically how you do it that provides value to solve those problems for your ICP.
00:14:44
Speaker
So that's really is simply put, I know we're going dissect this a little bit more, but UVP is what you do and how you do it that makes you unique, that provides value to your client. And we can dig into it further than that, but I want to keep it very simple at this point.
00:14:59
Speaker
and I've noticed, Dan, that there's a lot of agencies that often claim the same things, right? We have fast speed, we have great service, we're reliable, or we have quality candidates, some of the same things that you hear, and which for those things they think are value propositions, but aren't quantifiable. And it's hard to really turn those into a UVP. So how do they create a UVP that truly stands out?
00:15:21
Speaker
So ultimately the way to do it is you want to get specific. So you are right, Casey. And one of my most fun exercises that I do with salespeople is I first ask them, Hey, tell me all about your agency and why i should work with you.
00:15:34
Speaker
And it's going to sound just like what you just said. And frankly, if I go to their websites, it's going to repeat just that very generic, full of platitudes, superlatives, that kind of stuff. And I say, okay, let's pretend for a second that you got back to the office today and you got fired.
00:15:47
Speaker
And then you got hired by a competitor. And then tomorrow I run into you at a networking event. Tell me why I should work with you. And it's gonna sound exactly the same. And once they realize that, they're like, holy cow, we're all sounding the same out there.
00:16:00
Speaker
It's no wonder that the only distinguishable point that the prospect has to just choose
Ensuring Consistency and Pursuing Good Business
00:16:05
Speaker
which one is better is price. And that's why agencies are typically left competing on prices because they don't do enough to create the apple and orange scenario, which is what you want when you're trying to differentiate yourself. So what I tend to do is I encourage people to be specific.
00:16:19
Speaker
Now, it's a lot easier to be specific if you have a clearly defined ICP. That's why that's such an important one. If you know exactly the type of industry that you serve and you know what problems they face and you know how they want them solved and what their desired outcomes are,
00:16:33
Speaker
you know exactly how to build your company, the value that you're going to provide to solve those. And then you can speak very specifically about it. So the more specific you get with the ICP, the more detailed and specific that you can get with communicating your unique value proposition.
00:16:48
Speaker
And it's always great to use data if you have it, because data don't lie. And then if you can also weave in some testimonials or case studies to support that, adding in some social proof, that's a really big step to communicating your UVP.
00:17:01
Speaker
Can you give an example of a weak, unique value prop ah versus a strong client-focused one in the staffing industry? So I'll rehash this in a second, but Casey obviously just showed what most staffing agencies say, and that's a perfect example of a weak value prop.
00:17:14
Speaker
But what that sounds like is, hey, I'm an independent agency and we're unique. You're not just a number to us. We have access to the best recruiters. We have access to all of the candidates out there. We use all of the job boards available to you.
00:17:27
Speaker
And we're going to give you extra special customer service. We focus on relationships. We prioritize quality. We're going to give you speed and it's going to be competitively priced. I say it facetiously, but that's an example of a weak UVP, but it doesn't sound that far off from what most salespeople are saying in a roundabout way.
00:17:43
Speaker
So what a good UVP would sound like is something to to this effect. It would be like, if you want to unlock superior talent faster, where 80% of staffing agencies rely on job boards, which really that accounts for 77% of candidate placements, according to staffing industry analysts.
00:18:03
Speaker
Our approach transforms the hiring process. By integrating cutting edge talent mapping, automated referral programs, and a strategic website retargeting, as well as expert recruiters, we're gonna build a dynamic exclusive talent network for you.
00:18:18
Speaker
This unique combination delivers hires up to 48% faster, and it actually boosts retention by 300% compared to traditional sourcing methods.
00:18:29
Speaker
So really where our competitive edge comes in is we perfectly blend expert recruiters with technology. And our technology is innovative.
Leveraging UVP for Growth and Referrals
00:18:36
Speaker
We utilize AI, and this creates a seamless blend of automation with personalized outreach to access passive candidates that competitors simply cannot reach.
00:18:47
Speaker
We also combine that with expert vetting from some of the best recruiters, most skilled recruiters in the market. And then we layer on these recruiters to create a high-level best-in-class quality assurance that ensures each candidate is not just a fit on paper, but prime for long-term success with your organization.
00:19:04
Speaker
And then our process is actually designed to work in concert, providing you with a continuously engaged and organized talent network, reducing time to fill and mitigating the risks of high turnover.
00:19:15
Speaker
So if you're looking to elevate your workforce, you should choose a staffing partner that redefines recruitment by delivering higher quality candidate quicker than any conventional method currently does.
00:19:26
Speaker
Experience the difference of innovation, precision, and personalized service that drives operational financial success by working with me. Does that hit different? where do i say Where do sound?
00:19:38
Speaker
You're right. You've got to sound different. I do have a question. You know, when they have a UVP, how do they test whether it's resonating or falling flat or is that just, well, you're getting meetings or you're not?
00:19:49
Speaker
I love that question because you you do need to make sure that it's landing. Once you actually have a really well done UVP and one kind of asterisk that I'll mention is I was just saying that about a generic company. If we can actually get
Contact and Wrap-Up
00:20:00
Speaker
specific to an agency, then you can actually even make it more dialed in and even tighter. but Once you have a clear UVP, you can actually start using it in your marketing. You can start to actually use the elements of it into your marketing channels, and you can measure the level of engagement that you get from your emails, from how well your cold calls are hitting if you're putting it in your prospecting language.
00:20:19
Speaker
Once you actually get into your sales meetings and you start weaving the UVP into the process, which there's a method to do this, you're going to get different questions from your prospect.
00:20:31
Speaker
And the best way to measure the efficacy of a strong UVP is two areas. Does your meetings to proposals to contracts, does those conversion rates improve? Because if they do, that tells you that your UVP is landing and that they're choosing you, they're seeing value in it.
00:20:47
Speaker
And are they willing to pay you more? If you get out of the compete on price phase and you realize that we're actually talking about how do I buy a solution from you versus how do I buy a price from you?
00:20:59
Speaker
You know that it's working. And over time, if your average markups or bill rates are increasing, you know that that UVP is landing. If you see that those things don't have an impact, then you probably got to refine your UVP a little bit more.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. And I've always been a believer in your best salespeople or your clients, right? Get your clients to say something good about you, write a testimonial, be a reference for you. And I think you already kind of touched on this, but would you consider a testimonial a value proposition or is that just something that bolsters your actual value proposition?
00:21:29
Speaker
So a testimonial is not the value proposition, but it supports it and it proves it, right? And I've said this for years, there's no such thing as B2B sales. It's all human to human. At the end of the day, whether somebody is buying something for themselves or they're buying it on behalf of their company, they're still using a very human psychological buying process.
00:21:47
Speaker
So we like social proof. Nobody wants to be sold. People like to buy, but no one wants to be sold. So if you can convince them to this and they're like wow that sounds really good. I feel good about this. What's going to happen is because of all the bad salespeople out there, people are going to feel like okay, I need some proof. I don't want to be sold on this. I don't want to have this bad experience again that I've had in the past.
00:22:07
Speaker
So if you start to get those testimonials in there that validate your UVP, if you're like, hey, we do 48% faster hires and we improve retention by 300%,
00:22:19
Speaker
And then you have some testimonials to say, hey, once we started working with ABC agency, our time to hire dropped significantly and people were lasting longer. They're like, wow, that's exactly what he said over here. And I've got all these client testimonials and reviews that back it up.
00:22:33
Speaker
It's an amazing sales tool called Social Proof that supports the UBP. And those things should be aligned. You don't want to be giving out testimonials that don't directly align and support with your UBP or don't reflect that of your ICP.
00:22:46
Speaker
So Rob and I and the Simple team, really, we talked to a lot of agencies and they all say they want to be a partner to their clients, right? and And all companies want that. We want a partner, not a transaction, not a vendor. We want partners, but not all agencies can follow through with that.
00:23:00
Speaker
Can you add that as of a unique value proposition and quantify it being a partner? So you can. I will say that, yes, of course, every staffing agency wants that, because what that means when we say that is we want to be valued and respected because we believe in what we're doing and we want our counterpoint on the other side of the client to view it the same way.
00:23:21
Speaker
But it also creates stability. When we're partners, we feel like we have greater stability. We feel like there's less threat, competitors, things like that. So that's why we want partners. Ideally, most clients are suspect.
00:23:32
Speaker
They're like, I don't really know if I want a partner just yet. So you can't just state right out of the gate with your UVP that you create these amazing partnerships, right? So it has to be a goal that you're going to work towards.
00:23:44
Speaker
So what I would recommend is say, hey, we're going to come on and we're going to be an amazing provider of staffing services. And we're going to become such a valuable resource to you that we aspire to forge a strong partnership with you to help provide insights and value to your contingent workforce management or to your staffing management or recruiting management needs at your company. So I hate to say it but I think partner is a little bit of a platitude. I think it skews more that way and trying to weave that in saying, hey, we're excellent partners.
00:24:10
Speaker
I don't know that that's what clients really want out of the gate. I think there's a trust recession that we're in and they don't necessarily want to be partners yet. They want you to solve the problem for them. And if you solve the problem for them consistently, then they'll explore the partnership piece. And that's just my own kind of hot take on that topic.
00:24:27
Speaker
Looking back, you've been in the industry for a good amount of time now, but any examples of UVP that you've seen over the years that really stood out? Companies that really focus on a niche. If you're only in the locum space, like you'll know exactly what the challenges are and you can build your company specifically around that.
00:24:45
Speaker
So you'll be able to speak to unique solutions to actually better get locums into a healthcare facility, right? Or there's some companies that only do 3PL, third-party logistics staffing. So if you talk about people that actually do 3PL staffing, one of the biggest challenges they have is there's a revolving door of talent because in order to really service the biggest 3PL providers, you have to be very competitively priced. The margins are thin all the way through the process because 3PL is in fact a middleman.
00:25:12
Speaker
So you gotta be quick and you gotta have a good price. That's really where the value prop comes in on this business. So if you can have a tool like a VMS that can actually plug in and gives the client a good interface portal where they can actually go in and they can see their people on assignment, they can actually see the reporting and they can actually put their jobs in and connect directly to the database, it's gonna scrub time off the process. So it actually goes faster.
00:25:37
Speaker
And the reason I'm sitting here laughing is because the example that Potem I had was actually a user of Aviante and SimpleVMS. And that's one of their UVPs is they're like, hey, we actually rolled out the integration with this because it allows us to get orders in the system easier and quicker by our client.
00:25:52
Speaker
the whole automation process on the back end of the software becomes faster. They can review candidates and start candidates faster, and that gets them in. And while it doesn't always solve the attrition issue, it basically solves the gap the attrition issue creates, and they like that. So like that's a really good example of doing something that's unique to the staffing agency that provides value to the client, is using a tool and technology that really speaks to what they need out of the partnership.
00:26:19
Speaker
So we've talked about ICP and UVP. Let's talk about connecting that, connecting those dots. and I think that's where folks can get stuck. How do they bridge that gap? So this is a big one, and this is why it's step three of the five, is that once you've clearly defined these two things, you have to point out internally first and train your team on this, how the specific values that you provide and the what you do and the how you do it, how it specifically addresses the pain points,
00:26:45
Speaker
of your ICP and how it will deliver the desired outcome. So you got to connect this. So if it's like, hey, I'm just going to go back to that last example. If you have your ideal client profile and you've identified that time to fill orders is a big deal for them, meaning that they're a high fast production facility and they need to get people in really quickly. And this could be a warehouse.
00:27:04
Speaker
This could be a healthcare facility. This could be an IT help desk shop. It could be a call center. If you're dealing with a lot of fast-paced environment where you need people almost on demand, right, but you don't want to deal with your typical day labor type situation, getting access to that talent pool in an on-demand fashion is going to be really important. So if that was my ICP, if time to fill was one of their biggest pain points and a slow time to fill was causing gaps,
00:27:28
Speaker
in people on the floor doing the production. And those gaps in production was actually showing up as poor customer service, putting their customer base at risk of leaving or shopping them around to some other provider and also having a negative impact on the finances. And that's how it was showing up.
00:27:42
Speaker
And it was actually decreasing the morale. So now i've hit how the CFO sees it how the ops manager sees it, how the HR person sees it. If I see that and my unique value is a connected tool And quick pause for a second for the audience.
00:27:56
Speaker
I'm not here promoting Simple. They're an amazing company. This is a real life example that I'm explaining. So back to the story is that if you say, hey, the reason that we're going to introduce this tool to where you can log into this interface, you can post your job anytime. Whether we're open or not, it does not matter. You go here and you post this job and it will trigger automations through the entire workflow.
00:28:15
Speaker
It will basically get you all of the people you need teed up. So our recruiters, as soon as they can get to it, they can do their QC and then actually release those candidates back to your portal for your final approval. That shows them that you're addressing the time to fill.
00:28:28
Speaker
And if you can do that a lot quicker and solve that problem for them, that's solving a real problem, which is going to increase production. So money goes up. Ops manager solves CFO is solved and it's going to increase morale because they're not going have as much overtime or spreading people too thin or people not getting their work done on time because they're relying on someone that might not be there. So your HR person is going to be satisfied. So that's an example of how you would connect the UVP of what you do and how you do it to a pain point that they might have.
00:28:54
Speaker
And then you can do that final connection of the desired outcome of all those things that I just kind of threw out there really quickly. So that's an example of one area that you would connect all of these things. so So for a staffing agency who's taking these concepts and trying to enact them, do you recommend that they have a formal playbook or guide that links a company's UVP to ICP pain point?
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. This should be a training document and you should train all of your producers on this, all of your managers on this. Because ultimately, when you start to see this and everyone in your organization knows who your ideal client is and who it isn't, they're going to know exactly what type of businesses they should pursue and say yes to and what type of business that they should not pursue or say no to.
00:29:36
Speaker
right So this needs to be a formal training document. They can see it. And how that plays out is if a salesperson gets misguided and they bring in a client that's not an ICP, the recruiter knows. And they say, hey, that's not really our ideal fit. We're not going to work on that business.
00:29:50
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, we're good. So it creeps that piece that everyone is aware of it because that alignment within the organization. So that should be a training document. They should also know how every piece of the UVP of the agency connects to that ICP.
00:30:02
Speaker
Because what's going to happen is you'll start to show every producer in your organization how they contribute to the mission. How does the work that the sourcer does contribute to the organizational success?
00:30:14
Speaker
How does the work that the recruiter does or the account manager or the salesperson or the back office team and payer, like how does all of their work create that value that we provide of the client that keeps them happy and solves their problems? So it's a great internal tool for that.
00:30:28
Speaker
The next piece that I would highly recommend if you're going to create this playbook is you should also highlight what are the symptoms look like and what are typical questions that prospects might ask you to try to uncover something different, like those masked questions that we get in sales interviews.
00:30:44
Speaker
What are they going to be saying that salespeople need to be on the lookout for? So they know how to respond to it. So if a prospect says, let's just say their symptom is, yeah, we have a hard time getting people into the facility, right? i can mean like That says something without saying anything. It like doesn't really mean anything.
00:30:59
Speaker
Most untrained salespeople would be like, okay, well, yeah, we can help you with that. We've got lots of people, we can get them here without really understanding what it means. Here, we would take something like that like, okay, that sounds like it might be a symptom.
00:31:10
Speaker
We got to take a step back and figure out, let's clarify this. What do you mean you're a hard time getting people into the facility? We're actually an FDA regulated facility. We've got a lot of screening and clearance, and it just seems like most agencies we work with just can't get enough candidates through that vetting process to deliver us good people.
00:31:27
Speaker
This sounds like it might be a time to fill problem. Like, okay, that's interesting. What's the problem here? Is it you not getting candidates fast enough or you're just not getting enough candidates at all? So where's the challenge? No, it's just, we're not getting them fast enough. It just takes us three weeks where we really only have about three days.
00:31:41
Speaker
Now I recognize this is the symptom of time to fill. And if this is in your playbook and they know that, yes, this is a time to fill thing, what they can do is they they can start to dig into that. And there should be a set of training questions that teach them how to uncover that or flesh that out.
00:31:53
Speaker
These are the questions I need to ask. Once I get to a certain point of understanding, then I can actually explain our UVP in a way that connects. And that's why you should actually create that formal playbook of how to connect your UVP to your ICP so you can deploy it in marketing, so you can better manage sales meetings, and ultimately better qualify your customers before you bring them in.
00:32:14
Speaker
And then when you have a great qualified customer, the salesperson can actually explain the situation better to management and the production team to make sure they're better equipped to service that customer. I love that.
00:32:25
Speaker
And I like how you mentioned how when you're connecting your ICP with your UVP, how it's the foundation of your marketing and your prospecting and your sales process. So what's the best way an agency can tie that value prop into the actual sales messaging and outreach that they're doing?
00:32:39
Speaker
And should it be consistent across all things like emails, sales calls, and even recruiting messaging? So I'll go backwards on this one. Yes, it should be consistent.
00:32:49
Speaker
You should have a core UVP that connects to a specific ICP that you're going to be running a campaign against. So if we think about what the modern staffing sales system is, it involves an element of upstream marketing, social selling, the traditional prospecting that we're all used to, and then it goes into the sales meeting, the proposal process, and eventually account management.
00:33:11
Speaker
So you should be consistent in your marketing. You should have separate campaigns that target your clearly defined ICPs. If you want to know why marketing hasn't worked very well for staffing in the past, it's because they generally run one marketing campaign. That's a brand awareness campaign, which doesn't do much to get stuff into the prospecting funnel.
00:33:30
Speaker
So we gotta stop doing that. And then you're gonna say, hey, I'm gonna have my UVP be the center of this and I'm gonna use my ICP data to target the campaign. So if you're targeting healthcare facilities, maybe you're only doing clinics, maybe that's your thing.
00:33:43
Speaker
Then you'll actually target that and you'll put your messaging to the clinics and you'll speak specifically about the problems they're facing how those problems show up in their organization, and then how your company uniquely solves that problem.
00:33:57
Speaker
And then you'll also have in some testimonials, right? So that'll be kind of your awareness for that ICP. Then when you do your social selling, you're going to create content around that. I'll just give it another real example. Are you a chief administrator of a healthcare organization that feels like you're under pressure to provide better services, but you have limited financial resources because your reimbursements are going down, the insurance payments are going down,
00:34:19
Speaker
Maybe it's a result of your press gainy scores not being where they need to be. And you think it's an efficiency issue because of your providers, they need to be more efficient. And maybe you're considering adding new tools and technology to get more efficiency gains out of your healthcare providers.
00:34:33
Speaker
Before you do that, think again, this could actually be an underlying staffing issue. You might be understaffed with your medical assistants, with some of your nurses that do a lot of the support work for those providers.
00:34:46
Speaker
And you don't see that data because it rolls up to the provider production. So before you do that, consider assessing your workforce levels in those m MA and LPN areas to see, are they adequate?
00:34:57
Speaker
Can they, your actual providers, your PAs, doctors doing enough of that work to actually hit their productivity goals? Something like that would be messaging that you would put out there.
00:35:08
Speaker
When you work with us, we give you this access to this talent that's not available anywhere, you know, and you can access this on demand. We can fill positions really quickly. Whatever your data is, you can insert that. That's going to speak to that person, right? So that's how you do it through a marketing channel. That's how you do the social selling piece.
00:35:22
Speaker
When you're doing your cold calls, you should have a script not to read, but to follow along with. You should know what are the pain points that's going to get that person's attention. Hey, are you struggling with a workforce that's not getting your product out of the warehouse on time?
00:35:36
Speaker
Is that costing you money and customers? That's a big one. That's going to get a hook. If that is, let me tell you how we solve this problem. So going do that in your cold calls, your email messaging. There's going to be a sequence. You should have eight to 12 emails tied up in a campaign over whatever your prospecting campaign cycle is. And they should all be connected to each other, but they should hit specific pain points.
00:35:56
Speaker
Right or subject line, three to five words, it's going to kind of tease a pain point that's going to get their attention, get them to take the next step of opening the email. And then you got hook them and then provide some example of why you can solve that problem for them differently than what they're used to and deliver that outcome that they're going to be looking for.
00:36:11
Speaker
So you should absolutely weave all of these things in and it should be consistent. So we're going to actually pivot here and talk about defining what good business actually means.
00:36:22
Speaker
but Why is it so important to an agency to get this clear? So this is, if you've done all those three things really well, this part becomes super easy. Good business is good business. And if it's not good, it's bad business.
00:36:34
Speaker
And bad business is a recipe for poor morale, stalled growth, losing money. So if you're an agency that feels like you're struggling to grow or hit your goals, or you feel like your recruiters are not producing where they should be, or maybe they're burnout or your salespeople aren't hitting targets,
00:36:47
Speaker
There's a better than 80% chance that you have some bad business in your client makeup and you need to look at this. So good business is the clients that you're best likely to succeed at servicing that actually has good margins for you. That's that win-win business that you talked about earlier, Rob.
00:37:02
Speaker
When I take people through this, this is a super simple exercise. I just say, what are the top three industries that you're best equipped to service? success leaves clues. Go look at where you've been the most successful. What orders have you filled the fastest, the best fill percentages, the best time to fill, the best conversion rates, the best margins for you.
00:37:20
Speaker
That's where you want to live. Those are your industries. Then go look at those three roles under each one of those. Now you've got the top three roles in the top three industries that you're best servicing. That's nine roles that you're probably the best at filling, that you're the best in your market at.
00:37:33
Speaker
Right there, Make sure that you define what a good pay rate is and what it's not, what a good bill rate or markup is and what it's not, what a good client payment term is and what it's not, what good contracts are, what they're not. Define all of those things for those nine roles and then just make a commitment to your organization that you're going to say no to everything else.
00:37:50
Speaker
And if you live right there, I guarantee you'll become known as the best at those roles and your business will grow. There's enough business in those nine positions to grow any agency in the country. What are some signs of that an agency might be chasing the wrong clients or keeping clients they probably shouldn't?
00:38:04
Speaker
The big one is actually clients calling and saying, hey, we're considering other business or we need you to lower your rates. If you're getting that sort of thing, that means they no longer see the value in what you provide. And if they no longer see the value, it probably means that you're not operating in the right area.
00:38:18
Speaker
Or maybe you need to tighten up your own operation. But that's a big one. Job order fill percentages, you know if you see low fill percentages or declining fill percentages, there's a chance that maybe either you're not aligned with the ICP or maybe the talent for that particular role is drying up and that happens.
00:38:34
Speaker
These things need to be reviewed on a regular basis. So if you start to see your fill performance metrics drop, if your margins are dropping or getting compressed, that is a really good indication that you're working with some bad business.
00:38:46
Speaker
Okay. And then the last topic, great service. None of what we talked about works today if you can't deliver, but is it even enough to just give great service? It is.
00:38:57
Speaker
And when I say great service, I don't necessarily mean great customer service. That's part of it, right? You have to have great relational skills, great relationship building skills, be attentive to the needs. You should have world-class customer service skills.
00:39:08
Speaker
But when I say great service, I mean consistently delivering on that value proposition to the ICP so they understand and they get the value.
00:39:19
Speaker
When I say deliver great service, just do that consistently. And if you do that over and over and over again, your customers will become your best salespeople. They will refer you to other people because all of your customers, they're in associations.
00:39:34
Speaker
you know They've got friends that work at other similar organizations and they will say, hey, this is who I work with. So yeah, you need to provide good service. This is the number one thing. If your agency provides great service, meaning delivering on that UVP consistently, as well as great relational service and customer service, that's the best tip I can give any agency to grow sales. If you're great in this area, sales is easy. You know, testimonials can come into factor there, right?
00:39:57
Speaker
If you claim you have great service, but have the testimonials to prove it, see what their peers are saying about you. And I would probably agree with this, but I think all salespeople are shy about asking for that client feedback.
00:40:09
Speaker
When things are going well, ask for a testimonial, ask for them to be a reference and start flaunting those wins. Absolutely. Your clients will do it. If they're happy with your service, they're happy to tell people about it.
00:40:20
Speaker
And that's probably another indicator of good business versus not, is if you ask them, hey, would you do a testimony for us? and they're like, no. Interesting. What is going on that would cause you not to want to tell the world about it?
00:40:31
Speaker
That's a good indicator that you might need to look at. But yeah, you hit it on the head, Casey. Testimonials are just, you're going to validate that you provide great service. That's social proof and everybody prefers social proof. That's why we have sites like Yelp and Google reviews and Facebook reviews.
00:40:44
Speaker
So absolutely, if you can provide great service and get your customers to back you up on it, i don't want to say growth is going to be inevitable. Man, it's going to be a lot easier to grow. Right. And last question on delivering great service.
00:40:56
Speaker
How can agencies turn great feedback into something that actually brings in new clients? So the big part is anytime you get great feedback, and this is a super simple technique that costs nothing to implement. You just got to train your people on it. This is on the level of the would you like fries with that transformative statement that McDonald's used to scale their revenue incredibly.
00:41:14
Speaker
Every time a customer gives you good feedback, whether it's solicited or unsolicited, in that moment, you need to do two things. First, we'll say three things. First, thank them for it.
00:41:25
Speaker
Reinforce that positive behavior. Let them know that you like receiving feedback. So that's one. The second one, ask for a referral. In that moment, the emotional currency is going to be the highest it's ever going to be.
00:41:35
Speaker
Say, hey, I really appreciate you saying that. We really pride ourselves on providing great service to our clients and really offering value. Do you know anybody else in your network that might work in these types of industries, insert ICP language, that you might introduce me to?
00:41:49
Speaker
Ask for the referral. That's the second thing to do. And the third thing, hey, regardless of if you have anyone to refer me to or not, would you be willing to write a testimonial validating this that we might be able to use in our sales and marketing? Because we really pride ourselves on getting most of our business based on word of mouth or the recommendations or the testimony of the current clients that we're successful with. We think that's a better way to grow, a more authentic way to grow. Would you be okay doing that?
00:42:11
Speaker
So if you do those three things, anytime you get solicited or unsolicited good feedback, you're going to get referrals, you're going to get testimonials, and all those things turn into a flywheel of growth that will help you grow beyond your current capacity of sales.
00:42:23
Speaker
Dan, you always bring great insight and strategy to the staffing world. but Where can people get ahold of you to learn more about this directly? LinkedIn. That's where I live. That's my social media of choice. So just find me on LinkedIn, shoot me a direct message, connect, follow.
00:42:37
Speaker
And again, if there's anything I mentioned on this podcast today that you're like, hey, I'd like to learn more about that. I probably have a worksheet, a template, a playbook or something that if you just shoot me a message, I'll just shoot it over to you.
00:42:47
Speaker
What about the staffing sales summit? Where can people find out more about that? So go to staffingmastery.com. You'll see it in the header menu. You'll see Staffing Sales Summit. There's a page right there that you can click. Right now, we're currently waitlisting people for tickets.
00:43:02
Speaker
Go ahead and join the RSVP list. You'll see more information about it. And we're going to open up registration in one month. Dan, that was awesome. And we covered everything from defining your dream clients to proving you're actually as good as you say you are.
00:43:14
Speaker
And if you're out there, listener, and you're trying to grow your book of business or get more out of your sales team, this episode is truly a playbook. Just hit repeat and start making moves. And if this episode helped pass it along to your crew, we'll be back next episode with more ideas to help you win in staffing.
00:43:29
Speaker
If you want to learn more about how you can partner with Simple VMS to add to your unique value propositions, message us on LinkedIn or go to simplevms.com. And we'll see you next time on Staffing Made Simple, where we keep it real, keep it practical, and always keep it simple.
00:43:44
Speaker
This has been an episode of Staffing Made Simple, powered by Simple VMS. the vendor-friendly VMS.