with Tom Erb, President of Tallann Resources.
Selling staffing today is a whole new ballgame. Decision-makers are tougher to reach, buyers are doing their homework long before you ever make contact, and differentiation has never been harder. The old playbook – cold calls, generic pitches, and canned follow-ups – just doesn’t cut it anymore.
In this episode of Staffing Made Simple, hosts Rob Geist and Casey Wagonfield dig into the realities of selling in 2025: what’s changed, what’s working, and how the best staffing pros are rethinking their approach to prospecting, positioning, and closing.
To help unpack it all, they’re joined by Tom Erb, President of Tallann Resources, national speaker, and author of Winning the Staffing Sales Game. With more than 25 years of industry experience, Tom brings proven strategies for standing out in a crowded market – sharing what top producers do to build trust faster, add real value in early conversations, and win clients who stick.
Rob Geist: Welcome back to another episode of Staffing Made Simple. I’m Rob Geist, co-host and Senior Vice President of Growth here at Simple.
We’re talking about one of the toughest challenges staffing professionals are facing today: how to sell in today’s market. Things have changed. Prospects are harder to reach, decision makers are more informed, and the old ways of selling aren’t cutting it anymore. So, what does it take to succeed?
As always, I’m joined by my co-host, Senior Sales Executive here at SimpleVMS, Casey Wagonfield.
Casey Wagonfield: Appreciate that, Rob. I’m excited for today’s guest, too, because he is someone whom I’ve known for more than a decade.
Has over 25 years’ staffing and recruiting experience. He’s the owner and president of Tallann Resources, which offers expert consulting, training, speaking, and talent acquisition services tailored to both staffing and corporate talent acquisition sectors.
He’s one of the most highly sought-after national speakers presenting for the American Staffing Association, NAPS, Tech Serve Alliance, and countless state and regional conferences. He’s also the author of Winning the Staffing Sales Game. He’s a monthly columnist for the ASA Staffing Success magazine, and he served in leadership roles for both the Ohio Staffing and Search Association and the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio.
He currently chairs the National Association of Personnel Services and is an active member of ASA’s Professional Managerial Sectional Council. That’s a heck of an intro there. Tom, appreciate you coming on today.
Casey Wagonfield: Selling staffing today isn’t the same game as it was five years ago. In today’s staffing market, getting a meeting isn’t easy. Prospects dodge calls, buyers do their own research, and the competition starts to sound all the same.
In this episode, we’re breaking down what’s working right now in staffing sales: how to prospect smarter, land the meeting, and create value propositions that actually stand out. If you want real strategies and expert insight, you’re going to want to stick around for this one.
Rob Geist: Welcome back to another episode of Staffing Made Simple. I’m Rob Geist, co-host and Senior Vice President of Growth here at Simple.
We’re talking about one of the toughest challenges staffing professionals are facing today: how to sell in today’s market. Things have changed. Prospects are harder to reach, decision makers are more informed, and the old ways of selling aren’t cutting it anymore. So, what does it take to succeed?
As always, I’m joined by my co-host, Senior Sales Executive here at Simple VMS, Casey Wagonfield.
Casey Wagonfield: Appreciate that, Rob. I’m excited for today’s guest, too, because he is someone whom I’ve known for more than a decade.
Has over 25 years’ staffing and recruiting experience. He’s the owner and president of Tallann Resources, which offers expert consulting, training, speaking, and talent acquisition services tailored to both staffing and corporate talent acquisition sectors.
He’s one of the most highly sought-after national speakers presenting for the American Staffing Association, NAPS, Tech Serve Alliance, and countless state and regional conferences. He’s also the author of Winning the Staffing Sales Game. He’s a monthly columnist for the ASA Staffing Success magazine, and he served in leadership roles for both the Ohio Staffing and Search Association and the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio.
He currently chairs the National Association of Personnel Services and is an active member of ASA’s Professional Managerial Sectional Council. That’s a heck of an intro there. Tom, appreciate you coming on today.
Tom Erb: Well, thanks. And most of it’s true. Thanks for having me, guys. I’m excited to have our conversation today.
Casey Wagonfield: Well, we wanted to bring you on, obviously, to talk about sales.
As someone I’ve respected over the past 15 years, I wanted to start with the current landscape of staffing sales, and as somebody who was in staffing sales and has seen the changes, and how to approach it. There are more sales tools than ever now, yet it still seems harder to come by wins.
Why do you think that is?
Tom Erb: Well, I think the sales tools work for us and work against us. There are more ways to reach out to prospects than ever before, which means there are more ways that they’re getting bombarded than ever before. And so, they’re being more selective.
One of the things that we’re seeing is that sales is going back to what it’s supposed to be, which is that it’s hard. To me, it’s the hardest job in the industry, by far, and it’s supposed to be hard. And from about mid-2010 until about late-2022, sales was a lot easier than it typically is.
There was a real demand for our services. We went through 12 plus years of constant growth, which is unheard of. And of course, in 2020, 2021, 2022, the phone was ringing, which is unheard of. So, I think we just got complacent, expecting that sales was going to be easier than it really is. And so that’s what we’re back to right now.
Rob Geist: I couldn’t agree more. I was just talking to my team about back when I was an individual contributor for Simple, how many meetings I would set up, and I was asking why they can’t set up as many meetings. The times have changed. People aren’t in the office. It’s not as easy to get hold of people. It’s crazy how different things are.
Tom, I’ve heard you talk about how decision makers are shifting to informational buying. They’re using the internet, social media, and ChatGPT instead of answering cold calls. Can you put some emphasis on how they’re buying today and how staffing pros should adapt their approach to that?
Tom Erb: We’ve been in the informational buying market for years at this point.
And if we think about how we all buy, you don’t just go to a Best Buy and buy the TV that you look at. You do research on it. You go online and see what the reviews are. You ask your friends on social media what TVs they buy.
So, it’s the same thing with any kind of major purchase, which is that our prospects are doing their research. There’s more data than ever before. They can totally vet us out. And because of that, this idea that we’re going to call a prospect and they’re going to give us orders, or they’re going to sign a contract, or they’re going to welcome us, especially when you got maybe a couple hundred other staffing companies reaching out, is just not realistic.
So, what we can do to counteract that, and even benefit from it, is curate that information on our own. Have the information that they’re going to go out and look for and give it to them. Make it easy for them.
And also understand that when somebody’s vetting us out, they’re going to be looking at our website, they’re going to be looking at our LinkedIn profile. We need to be consistent in our messaging. If we’re talking about: We’re different because of A, B, and C, we need to have A, B, and C on our website, social media, everywhere.
Rob Geist: Good points. Networking – it’s something I’ve always been super passionate about. I love getting out in front of people. I think it really speeds up the sales cycle, but there are so many reps today that are just happy sitting at home, comfy, behind their desks.
I’d love to hear your take on networking and why it’s so powerful, even in this digital world
Tom Erb: Well, I’m a huge fan of networking, as you guys know. We see each other at conferences all year round. You’ve got your short-term sales activities, and that’s where the cold calling comes in. That’s where our 10-week sales process comes in, and that’s to get out and to try and engage with people that we don’t know. We’re cold calling, and it’s low percentage sales, but it’s necessary until you really know everybody.
Networking is really your long-term strategy to make your life easier six months, 12 months, five years,10 years from now, and to be able to really build a presence. And so, huge fan of networking. I think there has been some complacency. If a sales rep’s been around for a long time, and we start to talk about networking, they’ll go, “Oh yeah, I used to do that. I need to get back out and do that again.”
So, they did get out of the habit during COVID, but you also have an awful lot of sales reps that started around the time of COVID and just never realized it was even an option. And I also think that, in general, salespeople and sales managers are extremely impatient and networking is a long game, but it has this residual value that goes way, way beyond.
We call it sales equity, and networking is a key way to build that sales equity. But it takes time and patience, and it takes doing it the right way in order to yield results.
And a lot of people struggle with that, which is why you want to do it, because so many of your competitors just aren’t patient enough or don’t approach networking the right way to actually have the results.
Casey Wagonfield: And Tom, I remember, this was probably 10 years ago, 12 years ago, when you first came to the agency I was with and did a consulting workshop, and you really emphasized networking, and you talked to us about, at your time at Spherion,when you were the top rep at the company, you built that on networking.
And not just going and showing up and passing a few business cards out, which I think some people think that’s what networking is. And I remember you talking about this saying, “Hey, don’t just go pass out a card. Go ask for a committee you can volunteer at within that organization, or go ask to work at the front table. So, when all the HR people come in, you’re the one checking them in. You can put a face to a name. But get something out of it.
After learning that, I joined a safety council, and I was just a member, showing up to the monthly meetings. I didn’t do much after that. And here we are, 10 years later, I’m on the executive board, making decisions and redoing their website, and networking with hundreds of companies that are members. But that wouldn’t have happened had I not volunteered, had I not put my name out there as somebody who wants to be more involved.
Tom Erb: Absolutely. And I think it’s more valuable now than it has ever been when I was back at a large staffing company doing a bunch of networking and going into the HR associations. We’d have 150 people at lunch, but you’d have 20 staffing people there. Nowadays, you go to an event, there are a hundred people there, and you’ll have two staffing people there.
And so there may be less people going there to network because others are out of the habit as well. But you also have a lot less competition now than you used to.
Casey Wagonfield: Yeah, Rob talks about this all the time.
The biggest way to up the sales process is getting in front of people. It’s a relationship-driven business, staffing especially, and I know you talked about it a little bit, but even people who got into staffing after COVID, who don’t know that networking is really a thing that they can do.
Where does somebody like that start when it comes to joining groups or organizations to network? What are some practical starting points?
Tom Erb: First thing is look at where your prospects are. Where do your prospects go to network? Who are your prospects?
Are you reaching out to HR and talent acquisition? Then go to HR Association events. Are you going after IT Directors? Well, look at IT events.
You’ve got to take a look at where it is that your prospects are going. Ask your clients where they go. So, that would be the way to start out. If you’re in industrial, then you’re looking at manufacturing associations, warehouse packaging associations, safety councils, all those different types of things. If you’re in healthcare, then you’re looking at those types of events, and start out on a local level, and then start to take a look and go, okay, would it make sense for us to maybe do something more statewide or regional?
And you talked, Casey, about volunteering. That’s your cheat code: get involved. If you just go to events and you just show up, it could take you years to really build a presence. If you go there and say, I want to volunteer, I want to get onto a committee, I want to get onto the board, then those are your power-ups, and you are accelerating that timeline and able to really get in front of people, meet more people, and have more exposure.
Rob Geist: It’s amazing how many people just sit at the table at a networking event, right? It’s just like anything else, you’re going to get out of it what you put into it. And Casey’s one of the best people at a networking event or a conference, just bringing people in, talking to them, and getting their guard down.
And you don’t have to talk about work all the time either. You can get to that. It’s all about the relationship.
So, let’s move to technology. It’s crazy how far technology’s come and how fast it continues to change. When you talk about sales changing, I’m sure tech’s a big reason why. Can you walk us through the evolution of sales technology and what salespeople today need to know, or what they need to look into?
Tom Erb: Sure. When I started in the industry in 1994, we had a phone, and we had our car. And that was really the technology that we had. You either were cold calling on the phone or you were getting in your car, and you were stopping in person. And that’s all we had.
Now we have all sorts of different technology. Obviously, you’ve got email, texting, and social media. But now you also have different sales enablement technology. We have the ability to use ZoomInfo and Apollo and Hoovers, and other different avenues to be able to get contact information.
We have workflow automations. We now have AI that can help with all of those different things. So, technology is coming fast and furious. At the end of the day, at least for now, you still got to make the calls.
And it’s interesting because in 31 years of being in this industry, I started out with phone calls. Today, the most predictive activity for success is still phone calls. It’s still picking up the phone and calling people. There’s no replacement for it. There’s no correlation between how many emails you send out and results. There’s no correlation between how many LinkedIn InMails you send and results.
There is a direct correlation between phone calls and results, still to this day. And most salespeople just don’t make enough phone calls. So even with all the technology that’s gone on in the last 31 years, at the end of the day, picking up the phone and having live conversations with people is still what we need to do.
Casey Wagonfield: I love how you break that down, too, where you show, in 2000, it took you six calls to get a hold of somebody. Where now it’s going to take 25. And people give up much quicker, right? You call five times and just stop.
To your point, with the evolution of tech, there’s just so much out there.
So, you have got to figure out where you want to be and what tech you need to get there. But, I think of video emails. I love using products like Vidyard, because it’s different. All of your competitors are sending text, emails – some of them are sending books, but how many of them are sending a personalized video?
I can say that every time I’ve ever received a video, I’ve opened it and watched at least some of it, versus you get those texty emails and it just goes right into the deleted file.
Tom Erb: Yeah. You have to think about: How do you separate yourself from your competitors? You’re not selling in a vacuum.
In some of these markets, you have hundreds of other staffing companies that are reaching out to the same people that you are. How do you separate yourself? Everybody is sending emails.
I mean, if we think about the different communication methods, and let’s say that you’re reaching out to a Director of Talent Acquisition, they’re getting hundreds, maybe thousands of emails in a day. So, you’re not going to break through that noise, because they’re not only getting phone calls and emails from you and from other staffing salespeople, but every other kind of vendor is reaching out to them.
They have all sorts of internal communications. They have candidates, they have all sorts of people. Same thing with social media. They may be getting dozens or even hundreds of requests a day on social media.
So, we have to think about how do we break through that? How do we have different types of communication? And one of the things I’ve talked about many times before is the traditional snail mail letter and about having different types of communication with that. Sending handwritten notes. Nobody sends a handwritten note anymore. It’s extremely rare that we see that.
And people may say, “Oh, that’s archaic.” Or you may be a Gen Z that’s saying, “Oh, well, I don’t even check my own mail.” Well, it’s not about you; it’s about the person you’re reaching out to. And the overwhelming majority of professionals still check their mail because there might be something important there.
Same thing with video, is that they’re getting all of this stuff that is text-based and then, all of a sudden, there’s a screenshot of a video in the email, or they get a video introduction via LinkedIn, or an audio one. Something different than what they’re getting from everybody else. That’s how you catch people’s attention and separate yourself.
Casey Wagonfield: I love getting mail. You see your handwritten name on it. You just don’t get that anymore.
But when you say being unique and getting somebody’s attention, we had a buyer on our show from one of our clients who talked about what got his attention. An agency brought a sheet cake, and on the sheet cake was the agency’s business card.
He is like, “I fed the whole HR department. We met with the company.” It was unique enough that they got to the table.
And Tom, I’ve heard you talk a lot in the past about not being part of the commodity rat race and always talking about owning your market. I know this is kind of a broad question, but can you define for salespeople what that means, and how a seller can get there?
Tom Erb: Owning your market means being known as the go-to person for the staffing industry in your market. Whether that’s a geographic market, whether it’s a staffing vertical, you are the person that they think of.
And it can be done in the staffing industry just like anything else. When somebody is talking about, “Oh, you know what, we’re going into peak season, and we’re going to need somebody. And the last three staffing companies that we worked with haven’t really worked out. The person they’re talking to goes, “Have you talked to Casey?”
That’s what you want to happen over and over again. I use the term omnipresent. How are we being everywhere that they go? There’s a good chance that they’re going to run into something that we’re doing and we’re providing value.
We’re a thought leader. We’re curating good information that our prospects would find valuable. It’s the whole concept of being omnipresent, whether that is being at networking events, whether it’s being on the local news giving feedback on the local economy and the workforce, whether that is social media, posting things on there, and commenting and providing value. So, that’s really what owning your market is.
Rob Geist: And something we’ve had other guests on the show speak about, but I’ve also heard you speak on this topic at some of the events I’ve been to, is having a unique value proposition. Do you think that staffing agencies already have a UVP and they’re just not articulating it well, or is this something that they need to build and market?
Tom Erb: It’s interesting because everybody talks about value prop all the time, and yet so few people spend any time developing it. And I think most people, when you talk to them about value prop, they would agree that they need to have a strong value prop. What we find is that when we ask staffing companies what their differentiators are, what their value prop is, it sounds very much like everybody else, and it’s for a couple of things:
One is because the overwhelming majority of staffing companies really don’t have much different; they don’t focus on it. They’re just kind of a me-too staffing company. You know, we’ve got 28,000 plus staffing companies, 27 of them are kind of me-toos. A
And then you’ve got staffing companies in another category where they actually do have differentiators, but they either haven’t realized that those are their differentiators, or they discount that they’re that much different. They don’t really understand that.
So, very few staffing companies, when I talk to them about what makes them different, can articulate back to me something that I go, “Wow, you’re right. You guys nailed it. This is something that really is different.”
And, in some cases, they do have things that make them different. They’re just not focused on them, and in some cases, they really just are kind of going along with it.
So, if you can identify what really makes you different, that resonates with your prospects and your clients. You’ve got an opportunity to have a huge competitive advantage, and it makes sales a lot easier.
And we see it all the time where we have clients that have really, really strong, compelling value props that make selling their jobs easier. And then we have others that sound like other people, and we try and strengthen that and we try to develop it, but they struggle more because they’re value prop is not that much different, or doesn’t sound that different, than everybody else.
Casey Wagonfield: Yeah, I remember before I even met you, Tom, and first got into staffing sales, being in a lobby and somebody asking me, “What makes you different?” And it was the typical, “Well, we send quality people,” and “We have great customer service.”
And that’s not quantifiable. The person called me out says, “Well, that’s what everybody says.” And I remember thinking, man, I’d never want anybody to say that to me again. I need to figure out what really sets me apart from everybody else. Otherwise, I’m just going to sound like everybody.
Rob Geist: I was at a meeting with a buyer in Indianapolis last week, and she told me five times that every staffing agency is exactly the same. If I had a dollar for every time she said that to me in that meeting. So, I would think targeting her, if you could actually find something unique about yourself, then she’d probably meet with you. I mean, it’s crazy.
Casey Wagonfield: Could you give us some examples of some impressive value propositions that you’ve seen over the years, Tom?
Tom Erb: Yes, I can. Let me start off with: There are four things that every buyer of staffing needs. If I need five people tomorrow, I need five people tomorrow. If I need a software developer to start a project in two weeks, I need them in two weeks. So, I need the number of people I need when I need them.
I need them to have the hard and soft skills that I need. So, that software developer, not only do I need them to have certain types of software or program experience, but I also need them to have certain soft skills. I need them to get up and make it to work on time. I need them to be reliable. I need them to get along with their coworkers. So, that’s the second piece to it.
The third piece is, I need them as long as I need them. And so, if I’ve got that software developer and I need them for a six-month project, I need them for the length of the six-month project. If I’ve got warehouse workers that I want to attempt to hire because I’m using the staffing firm as a recruiting avenue, then I need them for that 90 days, 13 weeks, whatever number you use, I need them for that.
And then the fourth piece is that I need my staffing company to communicate well with me. We see over and over in every single satisfaction study of any kind with human beings of anything, communication is always at the top.
And, so, I need those four things. If I can figure out what differentiators I have that can prove to them that I can do these four things consistently, then that’s going to resonate with people.
I have to be able to prove that. And that’s the really important piece of it. It’s not the differentiator that is the most compelling piece. It’s the proof that’s reinforcing that.
So that being said, over and over again, specialization to me is the number one differentiator that you can have. And I’m not talking about, I specialize in IT. I specialize in healthcare. Those are huge areas. Thousands of companies do that. But can we drill down 2, 3, 4 levels into specialization? I wouldn’t be on this podcast if I didn’t specialize in staffing.
But even more than that, if I’m talking to a healthcare staffing company, I’m talking about specific examples of healthcare staffing companies that I have worked with and helped. I’m giving them testimonials and case studies from healthcare staffing owners, not just from staffing owners.
It’s the same thing with staffing companies. Light industrial isn’t a specialization. Warehouse isn’t a specialization. I specialize in 3PLs. I specialize in this type of position for 3PLs. We keep going down layers and layers. So, the more specialized we are, the more value or perceived value that we’re going to have with them.
So, specialization is one, obviously, you know, proof of delivery. Being in the market for an extended period of time, having a specialized team that has a level of expertise that others don’t have. One of the things that resonates with companies is if you have a long tenure in staffing, because the average person in the staffing industry only lasts about 12 to 24 months in a branch office.
So, if your branch is averaging seven years of experience, that’s something that you can also leverage because there’s continuity there. There’s experience there. Those are the areas that we take a look at.
And then we look at: What’s the proof, and proof is others saying that we are good. Instead of us saying our quality is better, our customer service is better… Well, don’t believe us. Believe our clients with these testimonials. Believe this case study that we’ve put together. Believe this award that we have won. That’s the proof that reinforces it.
Rob Geist: That just made me think of a sales call I was at. I was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a medical packaging company, and the guy, as we were leaving, I told him I’d provide him with my references, and he said, “Do you have any medical packaging companies in the Lehigh Valley that you could give us references of?” I was like, “Well, how many of them are there?” But it just goes to prove your point: Everybody feels like what they do is so unique. So, it’s just such an important part of the sales process. It shows your laser focus, too.
This is what I’m doing. I’m not trying to find you a kindergarten teacher and a plant manager. I specialize in early childhood staffing. I’m finding teachers for you. That’s all I’m focused on – not a package handler and a CEO at the same time.
Tom Erb: I have a good friend who used to work in procurement for a large, well-known retail company, and he told me one time, “We like to think of ourselves as cutting edge, except when it comes to our vendors, we do not want to be the guinea pig. We want you to show us that you already know what you’re doing.”
He told me that 25 years ago. That has always stuck with me, and it’s always proven to be true. If we can show them – remembering those four things that I talked about – proof over and over again that because we have certain differentiators, we’re able to do those four things better than everybody else, that’s going to open more doors than just about anything else.
Casey Wagonfield: One more thing on value propositions, because it’s such a core foundation of sales, but would you say a good first step for agencies is to go through those four steps and figure out how they can resonate those steps within their messaging?
So, rather than I can get you people, is it, “Okay. Well, rather than just posting your jobs to Indeed and hoping people apply, we have some sales intelligence that scours our million people in our database and finds hard and soft skills that match your jobs.”
Would that be something that resonates?
Tom Erb: Absolutely. And if you can preface that by saying, “Let me tell you why our clients love working with us.”
So now we’re creating this credibility just by saying, “Hey, we have clients that love us.” And then I’m going to reinforce that by giving you testimonials, by giving you case studies, by giving you data that backs it up, by giving you references if you want to talk to my clients who love us – all of those things reinforce what I just said.
Rob Geist: Well, you, said it, Tom, at the top of the show – sales now is harder than it’s ever been. And I think one of the hardest things for people is getting to the table. So, I’m sure there are a ton of salespeople listening, thinking, how do I actually get the meeting? Could you break down what separates the ones who break through and get those meetings, and who gets ignored?
Tom Erb: So, I work with a lot of sales teams, and we listen to a lot of recorded calls. We look at the data as far as activities, connects, and appointments – all those things.
And there are a couple of things: The first thing is you have to have enough at-bats to get hits. And the overwhelming majority, I’m talking 99% of salespeople, do not do enough activity. And when I’m talking about activity, I am talking about true sales activity: phone calls, drop-ins, or networking events where you’re talking to actual decision makers.
But mostly when I’m talking about activities, I’m talking about phone calls. Everything else is what I call a sales support activity. If it can be done by somebody else, or it can be done by a computer program, which nowadays it can be, that’s not a sales activity, that’s a sales support activity. I’m not saying it’s not important, but it’s not a sales activity, so they don’t have enough sales activities.
Most need to have at least 200 a week just to give themselves enough a chance, because, as Casey mentioned earlier, we’re seeing about a 25-to-1 call-to-connect ratio.
So, if I’m calling 200 people, I’m talking to eight. If I’m calling 250 people, I’m talking to 10. And you go, “Okay, well that’s a really horrible ratio, and that’s not a lot of people I’m talking to.” But it’s not as if it’s a one-time event. And for most salespeople, it is this one-time event where I make 200 calls, and I talk to eight people, those eight people said, “Nope, we’re good.” And then I forget about them for 90 days.
And then 90 days later, I go cold call them again, right? “Oh, hey, I don’t know if you remember when we talked 90 days ago.” So, first thing is: you’ve got to have enough activities.
The second thing is you’ve got to be ready for the phone call. When there is a live person who answers the phone, most sales reps have no idea what they’re going to say. I have literally had sales reps, some of them very tenured sales reps, tell me, “I hope it goes into voicemail.”
I know that many others feel that way, and most of them, even if they’re not hoping that it goes into voicemail, they get lulled into this voicemail routine because 24 out of 25 of them are voicemail. So, when that one hits, what do I say?
So, you have to know what to say. And the ones who can take it from a live conversation to an appointment or to a next step are the ones who are able to engage. They’re able to bring down those defenses, because we know that when we make a call and they answer the phone, they’re not going, “Oh good. Another staffing sales rep.” They’re going, “I wish I hadn’t answered the phone. How quickly can I get off the phone?”
So, we’ve got to bring down those defenses, and we do that in a variety of different ways. But if we can effectively engage them, build some credibility, build some rapport, bring those defenses down a little bit, then we have a chance to have a further conversation. And then it’s, what do we do after that conversation to make sure that we are pulling them into our network, into our community?
We never want to cold-call them again. We’ve gone through all this trouble just to get them live once. What are we going to do about it if we consistently do that over time? Because if you think about it, eight to 10 live calls a week doesn’t sound like much, but that’s eight to 10 live decision makers.
If you’re calling the right people, over the course of 52 weeks, we’re talking to about 400-500 decision makers that we talk to live. What are we doing with that over and over? How are we maximizing that? And if we keep doing that year in, year out, pretty soon we don’t have to do a whole lot of cold calling anymore, because now we know everybody in the market.
And that’s really what the goal is. The goal is not to have to cold call for the rest of your life. The goal is to saturate the market to the point where everybody knows who you are and you know everybody. And yeah, you’ll still have to do some cold calling because 30% of them turnover every year, but the majority of it then comes from this network that you’ve built up over the course of time.
Casey Wagonfield: I remember when you were working with our sales team when I was in staffing, and there was a document to help people understand how many activities do I need to do to hit my goal?
So, here’s my gross margin goal for the year. This is the average number of contingent workers at a client. And this is the average bill rate and markup. And this is how many activities it takes to get an appointment. And how many appointments it takes to close a deal.
But it really gave people a good idea of, all right, well, this is what I need to focus on. This is how many I need to do if I want to hit that goal. Is that something that you still do if people want to reach out to you?
Tom Erb: Absolutely. So, that’s the weekly sales planner with the sales goal worksheet?
So, we’ve put that into a web app, and I’ve been working with developers for a while on that. It’s going to go out to our consulting and training clients first to test it. We’re getting pretty close to being able to roll out in beta.
And it’s probably going to go out here in the next month or two. It’s got some really cool functionality, and then we’ll expand it out to everybody. And you’ll be able to compare yourself to, not only your own performance over a period of time, but also to others that are in your company.
So, your peers, and then also the industry as a whole. And it’ll be aggregated. It’ll all be anonymous, so we’re not sharing anybody’s data with others, but we’ll show: your average ratio of calls to appointments is this. Your peers in your company is this. And your peers across the entire industry is this.
And then you can also adjust it for different types of positions. So, a hundred percent hunter can then compare apples to apples with a full desk recruiter or something like that.
Casey Wagonfield: I used to have every sales rep go through all of your modules before they went through our training.
But on the same topic of getting to the table. It seems to be the hardest thing, as we talk to salespeople, is just getting that meeting right and getting seen.
I’ve always been a big believer of being unique, and especially I feel like in sales, where you have a smaller geographical area that you’re going after, if only 10 of those companies use more than a hundred temps, every single touch matters then, right?
What are you doing to make yourself different? So, something we’ve had recent success with here is little hand baskets that we’re giving out. It has a little hand like you’d see at Halloween sticking out of a trunk. And it states: I’ll give my right arm to show you SimpleVMS with a handwritten note.
We’ve had five demos out of six of them that have been dropped. And it’s the same thing we hear from everybody. Wow. That’s unique. I’ve never had anything sent to me like that.
We just did a blitz in Michigan, where we have these little mini trash cans, and it’s a crumbled letter that goes inside of them, which we pre-crumbled so they can throw it away with the rest of the sales stuff. But they loved it and it’s different. Other people aren’t coming in and doing that.
Whether it gets you the meeting or not, who knows, but they will remember you, or at least it warms up that call when you do make it.
What are some creative or unexpected ways to finally break through and get in front of people?
Tom Erb: Yeah. we’re doing a lot of drip campaigns where it’s a themed campaign. And those are successful for all the reasons that you said. It goes beyond just kind of dropping off a candy jar or something like that. It’s actually doing something that in a lot of cases might be kind of corny, funny, cheesy, whatever you want to call it. But it catches people’s attention.
So, we’ve had a lot of success with those types of things. Contests have always worked. Throughout the year, you have different things you can do: fantasy football leagues, and there’s different levels there. You don’t have to have a fantasy football league, where you’re doing a draft and all of that stuff. There are more simplified ones.
But you can have things that are fun for your clients and your prospects, and keep things going. And that’s a great way of being non-salesy, keeping in front of them.
The other thing to do is educational things like having webinars or having executive breakfasts. And if you don’t have somebody internal in your organization who can speak there, you can partner with others who are out there. There are always consultants in the industry. There are all sorts of different people who you could get to speak for free or for little cost. They’d be happy to get in front of the same people that you are. So, it’s just all about how we add value, or how we engage them differently. It’s not always about just being salesy.
You don’t want to just constantly be going, “Hey, we can help you!” And a lot of times it’s just about staying in front of them.
Rob Geist: You talk about building sales equity by adding value through every activity, having a structured, multi-touch process. Can you break down what that process looks like and why consistency matters so much?
Tom Erb: We want to have a holistic approach to sales. And we have our 10-week sales process that a lot of people are familiar with. I talk about it in my book, Winning the Staffing Sales Game. I’ve spoken about it on webinars and other podcasts: 10 weeks, multi-touch, we’re up to 15 touches.
But, in some cases, we have clients that go way beyond that because after the 15 touches, depending on if there was engagement or not, and what type of engagement there was, it’ll go into another workflow. We hit people with an actual letter. We hit people with a combination of emails and phone calls.
We have LinkedIn follows and shares, and connects, and those types of things. And then also, some of my clients have incorporated texting into it. We’ve added videos to it, like video intros in emails. In some cases, have added a second letter, or at least a second mailing.
And it might just be a little handwritten note because that is an area where we just don’t have much competition. So, that’s the piece for doing the prospecting. And then you also take a look at it, and you go, “Okay, networking, social media, and other types of presence. How am I going to stay in front of people’s minds?”
And then the last thing is looking at those big whale accounts and having separate, more strategic approaches with those types of companies, because you land one of those and it makes your whole year. I mean, in some cases, you land one of those, and it can change the whole shape of the staffing firm.
So, we want to have this multi-pronged approach that’s a more holistic sales strategy. And that’s the most effective way to go about it.
Rob Geist: Absolutely. And before we wrap, we have to mention AI. It’s everywhere. From your perspective, what’s real, what hype, and how should staffing sales professionals be using AI to generate leads or accelerate deals? What else should they be doing?
Tom Erb: I think right now, where we are, there’s a combination of technological capabilities and the willingness of our prospects to accept certain types of technology. So, right now, you could go out and buy an AI software that will literally make cold calls for you.
But, in my experience, and also seeing studies out there, prospects are not open to that much right now. Not to mention, there are limitations with the voice AI. It still sounds like voice AI. So, to me, it’s not a viable product yet.
And I don’t know if it ever will be. I don’t know if it will be accepted. It’s kind of like, are we going to replace real, live actors in movies with AI? Probably not, but maybe we will, right? There are certain things where people still want humans to interact, so we’ll see how that goes. But for right now, that’s not viable. What is viable are workflow automations that integrate AI.
AI is helping you develop proposals, helping you do market research. If you use ChatGPT deep research, for example, we have gone and said, “Okay, in this market, do deep research on the top 100 employers and give me detailed information.”
And yeah, you can go get that from the book of lists in a lot of these markets. But that’s only one source. We just did it the other day, and AI looked into over 40 sources to put together the information. So, it’s a much more comprehensive report.
Doing things like going into an AI tool like ChatGPT or Gemini, or something like that, and saying, here’s the 40 people I’m going to call with the companies. Give me a brief overview of what this company does, what this person does, and any open positions that are on their website that would be relevant to the staffing vertical I’m in. And then while you’re dialing, you’re looking at these bullet points instead of going and doing hours of research every day.
So, there are lots of things we can do with AI. Role playing is another thing that we can do right now. We actually created an AI agent that does role-playing for the staffing industry, and it’s actually going to be part of our web app.
Casey Wagonfield: Yeah. We did a little blitz up in Michigan: run these companies through ChatGPT and say, “Hey, search the internet, find job postings or anything that would show that these companies use temporary associates.”
So, it would say, “Hey, X, Y, Z agency said they’re hiring for this company.” So, logically, they probably use a contingent workforce. And then when you have your list. You can run it through there and say, “Hey, here’s all the places I’m going to. Optimize a route for me and send me a Google Maps link.” And then it’ll just plug it into my phone.
It’s just amazing the things that it’ll do. I get an alert every day from ChatGPT on companies that likely use staffing, and it’s just going out and searching every day. And then I’ll get four or five different ones every single day.
Tom, this has been an awesome conversation. I always look forward to your insights, and I learn something from you every time we talk. Before we wrap up here, for anyone who wants to learn more about you or Tallann Resources, and what you do for agencies, what’s the best way to contact you?
Tom Erb: They can go to TallannResources.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn.
Casey Wagonfield: Make sure you check out Tom’s resources that he provides to agencies, and the different modules and things that he has. And check out his book, Winning the Staffing Sales Game, as well.
Rob Geist: And, for everyone else listening, if you liked what you heard today, please make sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode. You can connect with us on LinkedIn or visit us at simplevms.com for more insights, tools, and resources to help your staffing agency grow.
Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you on the next episode of Staffing Made Simple.
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