For our special 20th episode, join Staffing Made Simple co-hosts Rob Geist and Casey Wagonfield as they take a step back and connect the dots across the first 19 episodes of Staffing Made Simple. From buyers and sales leaders to staffing executives and technology experts, their conversations revealed some surprising common themes about what staffing buyers really want, what sales experts keep getting right, and where AI and technology are taking the industry next.
The conversation gets practical, looking at where salespeople may be missing the mark, what it takes to better engage prospects and win more business, and how AI and technology are reshaping staffing sales. Along the way, Rob and Casey revisit a few standout moments and have some fun looking back at the first 19 episodes.
Casey Wagonfield
Well, here we are, episode 20. It’s exciting times. When we started Staffing Made Simple, we really didn’t know what to expect. But 19 episodes later, we’re proud of what the show’s become and excited about where it’s going. So, for this one, we’re looking back at the biggest things we’ve learned so far.
What did the sales experts keep telling us? What did the buyers say that they actually want? And what have we learned about AI, technology, and where staffing’s headed next? So, no guests today, just Rob and I. And we’re connecting the dots, revisiting a few great moments, having some fun with episode 20.
So, let’s get into it.
Rob Geist
Welcome back to Staffing Made Simple, brought to you by Simple VMS. As Casey said, today’s a special episode. It’s our 20th. Over the first 19 episodes, we had a chance to sit down with a bunch of great people from across the industry.
Really, the whole idea behind this for Casey and I was to have our friends that we see at conferences and on the road on a podcast, and little did we know it was gonna be a lot more work than we actually thought. I thought it was just gonna be me, Casey, and Mark Winter, chatting it up. But we’ve had on buyers, sales leaders, staffing executives, tech experts, and, hopefully, we’ve brought something to the listeners that they can take back to their own business. Also we do want to thank all the people who have listened and do listen. We’ve been shocked at how many people have actually downloaded episodes, thousands of people, which for a niche podcast about staffing is pretty daggone good.
I do want to mention our biggest listener, Jamie Reynolds. We got to give her a shout-out for sure. And also a big thank you to Suzanne Arroyo, our producer who helps with everything and keeps us in line. We’ve got Lauren Wilber on our marketing team that’s been a huge help, and, can’t forget Sarah Clifton, who’s kind of helped us get it all together.
There’s also another 20th, worth recognizing. We were just at Avionte Connect, and they were celebrating 20 years in business, so congratulations to them and the entire Avionte team on that milestone. And, thanks for joining us. As always, my co-host, Casey Wagonfield.
Casey Wagonfield
Thanks, Rob.
You’re right. We just thought we would just have some buddies on here from the conferences. Thought it was just our moms listening at night, keeping those numbers up. But here we are, looking into it. It’s thousands of listeners later. It’s pretty crazy. All this time we spent talking really smart people, and when you go back, the conversations we’ve had with all of our guests, you start to notice how completely different guests were telling us versions of the exact same thing, whether that was buyers saying what they need or the sales experts and consultants saying what the buyers want.
We were able to really line those up, and when we were able to go through those 19 episodes, and of course using AI to find the common themes and whatnot, which we’ll talk about today on some of the findings about AI. But AI was really able to nail down like, “Hey, here’s what all of the buyers said. This is what they all said they need or want. Here’s what all the staffing sales consultants, experts were all saying.”
So, we’re gonna kinda line those up and link them together today, connect the dots, have some fun, as well. So, I think that a lot of the listeners probably wanna know a little bit more about us. We don’t get to talk about anything about us really during our episodes, but maybe we could just start with some fun things that they might not know about us, just to give them a better understanding of who we are.
Rob Geist
Do you want me to start?
Casey Wagonfield
Yeah. What do you got?
Rob Geist
Well, I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I worked with our president and founder, Jason Oswald in staffing before we did this, and it’s been a wild ride. It’s really cool that I got to be a part of building something and see my fingerprints and DNA on it, throughout the years, and then now have this big team of people that are kind of doing what I did for so many years.
We’ve got 12 outside salespeople. We’ve got people in partnerships. I’ve got operations people working for me. So, that’s been super cool. What do I like to do outside of this? I love to travel. Over the last couple months I’ve been to Seattle, New York City. I’ve been swimming with manatees down in Florida. I love scuba diving. I started doing that. I love my family, life’s nothing without your family.
What about you, Case?
Casey Wagonfield
Yeah, just so everybody knows, Rob is going to retire a hippie in the Keys, and he’s going to scuba dive every day. So, the things people probably already know, yes, been in staffing for 16 years. I think I mention that every episode, but through running sales teams and with Simple now for two and a half years, but as a partner of Simple, so VR staffing, we need to, do need to talk about that.
But the fun stuff, I would say a lot of things people don’t know about me is I’m actually an ordained officiant for marrying people, so I’ve just actually officiated my second wedding a couple weekends ago, so I thought that was pretty cool.
Rob Geist
Yeah, hit Casey up on LinkedIn if you need somebody to officiate your wedding.
Casey Wagonfield
Yeah, you need a budget, pastor and somebody. Hey, I can even do your DJing too, two-in-one package. I bring it all. I love Skyline Chili. Some people might throw up in their mouth a little bit. I spend way too much money on it.
One thing people don’t know about me is I’m a pretty good cornhole player. I used to travel around and play professional cornhole players. So, pretty good at cornhole.
Rob Geist
You’re good at something that you can drink beer while you’re doing.
Casey Wagonfield
Any sports that don’t require running and standing in one spot, I’m really good at, especially if it requires a beer in hand.
But, as you know, it’s probably throughout the past 19 episodes if you know us at all from talking to us, whether it be at conferences or just know us from the past, we’re a fun group here at Simple VMS, and we try to bring that same vibe and same energy onto this podcast when we’re talking with people.
So I just wanted to make sure people know that we’re just, we’re the same as everybody we’re talking to and listening to. We put our pants on the same way. Sometimes Rob puts his on backwards, but we do put our pants on the same way.
Rob Geist
And if you want to see the pictures of my pants on backwards, text me.
That was a complete accident. But I will tell that story real quick. I’m not what you would call a morning person. And, one day, I had a demo that I had to get into the office for in the morning, and I didn’t sleep that well the night before. So I jump up, I find a pair of jeans on the ground, and I just pull them up straight on, come in, crush it on my demo, that prospect is still a client to this day.
I get up to walk around the office and our accounting person is like, “Rob, do you have your pants on backwards?” and I was like, “Oh my God, I do.” So, I had these stretchy jeans and they had just pulled right up. My wallet was in my back pocket, which was really in my front pocket at the time, and I had to make a decision. Do I act like this never happened or do I just lean into it and laugh with everybody?
So, I took the latter and those pictures will live in infamy.
Casey Wagonfield
That is such a great story. And, and for all that don’t know Rob, the joke at Simple VMS is Rob knows a little bit about a lot, right? If you go on a car ride with Rob, you’re going on a car ride with an encyclopedia because you’re gonna drive by something and say, “Hey, look at that.”
He’ll tell you a story about it or something that he’s found out about it. and it’s very entertaining. But let’s get on with it. Enough about us. Let’s talk about what we’ve found over the last 19 episodes, how we’ve kind of combined that into this episode. We’re gonna talk about the biggest trends and themes that we saw over the last 19.
So, sales, it’s the biggest topic right now when it comes to staffing, is bringing in new clients. What the salespeople said, what the buyers are telling us. That’s something obviously every staffing person wants to know, right? What are the buyers wanting?
What do they need? And then AI and technology, because that is a theme that’s not going to go away anytime soon. So we’ll jump into all those. The first one, though, that I wanted to jump into, Rob, was just the sales theme because it is just a huge topic. Always has been in staffing, but I think even more now, companies just need new clients and need new strategies and sales and, I think that was where we had a lot of these great guests that we mentioned, the Mark Winter, the Tom Herbs of the world, Dan Mori.Rob Geist
Don’t forget the staffing shark.
Casey Wagonfield
The staffing shark. And they all have different styles, but fundamentals matched up surprisingly well, like a lot of the things they were telling us. What were some of the themes that you heard, some of them talking about, as far as when it comes to sales and messages to the staffing firms listening?
Rob Geist
Yeah. It’s a tale as old as time. Everybody sounds the same. There’s not a lot of differentiators that people focus in on. And, it’s just the same thing that was going on back when I was in staffing. I love it that people are focusing on the service and delivery aspect and really making sure that the candidates are taken care of.
You got to understand the buyer’s business. Which industry do we see right now that everybody’s focusing on? The data center business, right? It’s a business that everybody wants to go after. So, I’d say half the staffing firms I talk to right now, they basically have a strategy on how to go attack data center business.
So, you got to do your homework. It’s also a balance, how do you reach out to enough people and also do your homework on those companies and those people as a salesperson? You’ve got to bring the value, you’ve got to be able to discover what your value is for clients.
And, these are all things that, Dale Dupree, Kendra Cato, the Staffing Shark, Mark Winter, Tom Herb, Dan Mori, they all echo these same sentiments, as we’ve spoken to them. So us, Casey and I being salespeople, obviously there’s a big interest in doing sales related topics and one thing Casey’s great at: being memorable.
I love your cold call. You got to tell them what you do sometimes when you go out and cold call. So, Casey just had started with Simple. We were doing some driving around in Columbus. We walk into a facility and we’re trying to find out if they use temps so we can go pitch them Simple VMS, and Casey, go ahead and tell them what you do.
Casey Wagonfield
Well, depending on who the person is sitting at the desk, I get a good vibe as soon as I walk in the door. So, if it’s somebody that looks like they got a good personality, I walk in, “Somebody order Chippendales?” And it gets a laugh every single time.
It breaks the ice and it breaks the silence, right? All of these people are getting hit up with five different agencies a day, especially if that company uses a volume amount of staffing people. So, being able to come in and immediately break the ice, right?
And that’s funny because I clearly don’t work for Chippendales, nor would I be hired by Chippendales, right? If I came in with a six-pack and 6’2 and looked good, yeah, she might think I’m actually with Chippendales, but it’s about being memorable, right? Clearly, I work for the B team or the day crew team for Chippendales.
So, it really gets their guards down and then I can have those conversations with them. And I think that’s really what it’s about. Especially when you talk about just being different. People are walking in there all the time saying the same boring thing. So, if you can come in there and make, especially the gatekeeper laugh, they might be the deciding factor whether your marketing material goes into the trash or to the person that’s supposed to receive it.
Rob Geist
In all of these things that we talked about including Casey’s icebreakers, it helps you build credibility.
And my philosophy in sales over the last 15 years here at Simple has always been: play the long game, right? You treat every interaction like it could turn into a deal. And guess what? Your phone rings when you least expect it, two years down the road. So, I’m a big long game person, and that’s why I’ve always kept ethics as such a big part of what we do.
I want to treat people like I want to be treated, and then guess what? At the end of the day, they end up wanting to work with us.
Casey Wagonfield
Well, it’s a relationship business. No different than the staffing firms with their clients. It’s all relationship driven, right? And just so y’all know, the Chippendales reference, there’s probably gonna be a lot of young people who don’t even know what that is.
Just Google SNL Chris Farley Chippendale, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. But, I think the biggest theme from all of our sales consultants, experts, staffing executives that came on were, value propositions, your unique value propositions.
Everybody’s saying the same thing. “We have great service. We have great candidates and great relationships, and we’re quick to respond.” That’s just not quantifiable things you can tell a prospect, especially when five people are walking in the door today. They’re getting hit up on LinkedIn twice today.
They’re getting four emails, three cold calls. Most of those people all sound the same. So, finding that unique value proposition that’s actually making your company different. Not that you have great service, but what is different about your company that not every company can come in and say that’s really gonna catch somebody’s attention?
Rob Geist
You know, I’ve sat with clients who spend tens of millions of dollars in staffing spend on numerous occasions, and somebody at that conference table said, “Everybody does the same thing in staffing. They’re not doing anything different.” That to me was a light bulb moment when I was like, man, these people need to be able to figure out what their differentiators are and really sell that to people.
And it can’t be some nebulous, ambiguous thing. It’s got to be real things, just like you said, Casey, quantifiable.
And that’s one thing that we actually heard Dan Mori and Tom Erb both hit on pretty hard on their episodes, were how similar most staffing companies sound.
Dan really had a simple way of testing whether your value proposition’s actually different, right? Let’s take a listen to what Dan said here real quick.
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.” And it’s gonna sound just like what you just said. And frankly, if I go to their websites, it’s gonna 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, 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.”
It’s no wonder that the only distinguishable point that the prospect has to just choose which one is better is price.
Casey Wagonfield
So basically, if everybody says great service, great people, and great relationships, really what does make an agency different today?
Another thing I noticed a lot of people were talking about, Tom Erb, Mark Winter, Kendra Cato, the Staffing Shark was, do your homework and make your outreach relevant. If you’re sending a book that’s an email, it’s getting deleted. So, do a little bit of research, make it intriguing, make them curious, make them want to reach back out to you, and use different methods. Send a video instead of an email. Send a personalized written note instead of an email.
Do something that’s different and unique
Something else, Rob, that I think this actually lines up with what the buyer said. So, these were all things that our sales consultant said, but as we continue our podcast today and talk about the buyers, you’ll see them link up. But, it’s understanding the buyer’s business. This is something all of our buyers told us that was important to them.
Understanding their business and not just their staffing needs. But, that’s something that Mark Winter and Tom Erb and Casey Jacox all mentioned, was, you got to understand their business. And, loved when Mark Winter talked about, especially with sales and staffing, everybody talks about being consultative in staffing and being a consultant, not just checking boxes when you go into a meeting.
And Mark Winter said it best. You wanna be a sales consultant in the staffing industry, you have to find the problems your clients have that they didn’t know that they have, and then provide a solution for them.
That’s truly being a consultant. They know people are late and not showing up. Find those real problems that are affecting their business, know their business, and find the solutions for them they didn’t know existed.
Rob Geist
And it’s so funny, Casey, because every salesperson says they don’t wanna be a transactional seller, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about, is how do you not become a transactional seller?
But people, I think, get lazy and end up going back into what’s easy, and the whole Kendra Cato piece about building your personal brand, it takes work. All this stuff is hard. And, people think, salespeople, just because they have a good smile, and they can talk to people, and they are good at taking people out to lunch.
If they only knew how much prep work and behind the scenes and everything everybody had to do to actually be a successful salesperson, I think it would shock people.
Casey Wagonfield
Oh, 100%. I love that episode too with Kendra Cato, because I think that’s such a huge aspect of selling now is your online brand.
You can build that online brand and have credibility and respect before you ever reach out to somebody if you have that type of brand online and people respect you, And one thing I did wanna touch on before we move into what the buyers are talking about is I think there’s one common thing that hasn’t changed, and I’d love to hear your thought on this, Rob.
So 15 years ago, 17 years ago now, I guess, when you were in staffing, I think there’s some things that haven’t changed, and it leads into just outreach and prospecting, is the relationship aspect. There’s so many companies that are still just driven on sending an email and hoping somebody responds versus trying to get in front of somebody.
And I remember you saying this, and I tell people this all the time too, is the staffing firms that I talk to is the quickest way to speed up the sales process is pulling door handles, getting in front of people, especially in the industrial, staffing sector where I came from. The best way is to get in front of people. Again, they’re getting called a million times a day. If you can get in front of them and actually talk to them and be different, that is the quickest way. And I think it all comes back to just being relationship-driven. This whole industry is relationship-driven, and I think that’s one thing in sales that will never change, but I think people are getting farther away from.
Rob Geist
I couldn’t agree more, and we say it all the time that staffing is the most relationship-driven industry out there, and industrial staffing, even more so because it is so transactional and because of the, sheer volume that people need, staffing firms need feedback from their clients to continue to give them what they want.
And that’s the hard thing about staffing a lot of times is you’re only as good as the last candidate that you’ve sent or the last worker that you’ve sent over. So, if you have a good relationship and you’re not afraid to, admit that, “Yeah, hey, guess what? That wasn’t the best person.
Let’s correct that, and let’s do it.” You know, I always say, when you mess up, you fess up, and you don’t just ignore the fact that you, made a mistake. You call it out, and that all leads into setting expectations properly. It just always comes naturally to me.
It just seems like the way that you do business, and I’ve always done that because that’s the way I would want to be treated, so. But yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. The sales cycle speeds up so much if you get face to face with somebody and break down those walls. It’s more time-consuming to go pull doors, but if you think about how it speeds up the sales cycle, I think it’s actually a quicker path to revenue sometimes, so it’s worth the effort and time.
Casey Wagonfield
100%. And before we move on to buyers, one thing I will mention from our Dale Dupree episode is, and this is something that I’ve used in the past, people at Simple have used, and we still continue to use it and it gets some attention, is the trash can method.
So, you get 25 trash cans from Dollar Tree. You create your note that you’re gonna put in that little trash can. We’re gonna pre-crumble that and put it in the trash can and mail it to them or drop it off to them. So when they pull out the note, it’s, you know, “We’ve pre-crumpled this so you can go in the trash with the rest of the sales garbage that you receive.”
And then you have your call to actions and why you’re actually giving this to them. So, it’s your core message, but the idea is when you call them back, they’re gonna remember you’re the trash can person. They’ll remember that experience, and it’s gonna make them curious versus just receiving an email or a business card and a pen that was dropped off.
So, something different that’s gonna set you apart from the rest. Is it gonna close the business? No. Will it potentially get you to the table? Maybe.
All right, so let’s move on. We talked about the core themes of our sales experts and consultants, what they said on their episodes, and wanted to jump into what the buyers are saying because we’ve had some awesome buyers on our podcast.
Daniel Kalman, a game changer for staffing industry analysts. Meea Evans-Cohn, was also on our podcast from CEVA Logistics, as well as Eduardo Gonzalez, one of our beloved clients here at Simple VMS, who works for Arvato Bertelsmann as well. All three gave a lot of great insight on a lot of really just different types of topics on their episodes.
But we were able to pull in the common themes of what they were saying. So, we thought we’d love to share that with our, staffing listeners who are thinking, “What do buyers want? What are they thinking? What gets them to respond? What keeps me in the door once I’m there and gets me more market share?”
So, with those guests in mind, we’ve got more buyer guests lined up actually scheduled to come onto the show. We’ve heard that from our listeners that they want to hear from more buyers, too. But, with that said, with some of the buyers that we’ve had on, Rob, what were some of the common themes that you got out of their conversations?
Rob Geist
Well, just like we were just talking about, Casey, Eduardo said, “I know when an email is in a sequence and just being sent to me. Personalize things. Try to figure out something about that company and get their attention.” Just all the things that you have to do to be creative as a salesperson.
All that outreach, it needs to be customized at some level, and here’s what I tell my team. It’s like, “Get the volume in on the front end, and then once we realize somebody’s qualified, then let’s go and tailor and customize that outreach to them.” Because you’ve got to also get that, volume in.
So, it’s quantity, and then you have to get to the quality after you, qualify folks.
Casey Wagonfield
That’s a great point, especially when it comes to outreach, too, and I think that’s a good lead-in. We had Eduardo Gonzalez on from Arvato Bertelsmann, a client of Simple VMS, and this is actually what Tom Erb said, what Mark Winter said, what Kendra Cato said, and others were telling sellers to research people and be relevant.
But we also asked Eduardo, who gets hammered by staffing companies, what actually gets his attention? Let’s hear that here.
I do get inundated with a lot of emails and phone calls on a daily basis, and I don’t read all the emails. A lot of them are scripted. They do have some type of template that just, it’s generic,. They send it out, they hope to receive some type of response. They’re not gonna get a response. If they make it personal, they will receive a response.
So an example, there’s this one email that was sent recently, actually. This is exactly verbatim. There’s a running joke internally here that we do our actual jobs for free, and that we’re only paid to do is follow up. So, that grabbed my attention. Something so simple, right? Or if they see something in a press release saying you’re opening up new facilities at this location, that location.
We’re here, we have two brick and mortars, this is how we can help support. Things like that, that does stand out as well, because we know that they’re doing their homework. So, if they can be different, if they can stand out, then they’re gonna grab my attention, and I’m gonna give them an opportunity to tell me about their company and what they have to offer
Casey Wagonfield
And one of the other things that I love that Eduardo said about getting attention and outreach, if you remember this, Rob, was we asked him about, what’s something different that an agency’s done that’s really gotten your attention? And an agency had brought in a full sheet size cake that had their business card on the top.
So, the whole cake was basically their business card. And he was like, “That was so unique.” He’s like, “I fed the whole HR team. I did give them a meeting.” I don’t recall that he ever worked with them, but it got them to the table. And we all know in staffing, that’s half the battle is just getting to the table.
So, I thought that was pretty unique, something different that somebody did to get his attention.
And I think some of the things that I heard reinforced what the sales expert said. So, we talked about what they said in theme, but it’s going to line up with what you hear our buyers talk about.
The sales experts were saying, “Do your homework,” right? “Understand the customer’s business. Be relevant when you reach out. Don’t immediately pitch, build that trust and credibility,” Because they can smell that commission breath, right? So build that trust and- credibility.
I think all of those things were being said by the buyers, but they were also being told to us by the staffing consultants and the sellers. One thing that Daniel Kalman and Meea Evans mentioned, was just be honest and don’t overpromise. I remember a time where a salesperson that I worked with, went out to pitch a company, told them, “Oh yeah, we’ve got 100 forklift drivers ready to go.”
And this was actually a Simple client at one point. We did not have 100 forklift drivers ready to go, but this contract was signed and they were expecting that. So, that was an immediate bad first start. So don’t overpromise. Be honest and be transparent when you’re talking with buyers.
Rob Geist
It’s setting expectations properly, right? We get excited as salespeople and we wanna tell everyone yes, but that doesn’t always end up doing the best for you at the end of the day. So, as long as you set expectations properly, you own it, you explain to people how the process is gonna work, that’s how, in my mind, you, build loyal clients.
And speaking of loyal clients, you go back to Eduardo at Arvato, he’s been a reference for us for so many clients. He’s been nice enough to come on the podcast. We were just getting listed in the SIA landscape of the VMS, and I had to send him a form over to give us a rating, and he gave us top scores.
It’s just if you treat people like you wanna be treated, and you set expectations properly, you own it when you make mistakes, that in my mind is how you build loyal clients.
Casey Wagonfield
And I think one of the common things we heard too from Eduardo, Meea, and Daniel, all three of them, were to bring ideas and bring useful information.
They want partners, like Rob said, not transactions. They want true partners that are going to be the consultant, find the problems that they have, and find a solution for them, but bring different ideas. One thing that Eduardo mentioned was he had a company that offered, “Hey, we’re gonna start busing people,” right?
That was something that they had never done before. They were having a hard time bringing people into this specific facility, so this agency went out, found a solution for them, and was able to bring it in. Those were the companies and the types of things that he mentioned that builds market share for those clients, the ones that are doing things differently, bringing ideas, and then of course, the ones that are actually performing.
That’s the biggest metric, is you still got to perform.
Rob Geist
Yeah. I was out doing a business review with a client in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I was asking how the staffing partners were doing, and they said they’re doing fine. But the one thing they said to me that they wished they had from some of the staffing firms, who supported them was relationships with people other than just the recruiter that they were working with.
They wanted somebody in leadership who could come up with some creative ideas and get strategic with them instead of just filling their orders like a transaction. So I went, talked to all the staffing firms that were supporting them and asked them. I said, “Hey, do you have a contact in leadership that’s got a relationship with them?
If not, you need to have them on your regular calls because that’s what they’re looking for, and that’s what’s gonna get you more market share within this client.” And they’re a $20, $30 million user. There was plenty of business to be had.
Casey Wagonfield
Doesn’t it just go back to everything we’ve been talking about, about relationships?
It’s like out of sight, out of mind. I used to work with a company, it was a global company, hundreds of millions in temp labor spend, and had quite a bit of market share with them. And once our person, who was the customer service rep for that client left, a lot of the communication stopped, and then a lot of the orders stopped coming in.
And then when we finally got back in front of them, it was, this person was gone and nobody was communicating, so the jobs went elsewhere. Or, we were, awarding the people that showed that communication and wanted to work with us. So yeah, I think that’s huge. And one thing I thought was interesting, Rob, was how important, and it shouldn’t be interesting, I mean, this should be common sense, is how important the employees are being treated by their staffing firms, and what staffing firms are doing to make sure that their employees have a good workplace
Meea Evans-Cone was really big on that, making sure that they’re working with agencies that treat their employees well. If you remember the story about Eduardo.
Rob Geist
Yeah, he’s a Spanish speaker, so he would go to staffing firms and apply as a Spanish-speaking person and see how they were treated at that staffing firm, because a lot of the people that went into his facilities were Spanish speakers.
I thought that was an awesome thing for him to do, kind of a secret shop of the firms that he was working with. I’ve seen a huge shift, in the last 15 years, people called them temps back in the day. They’re not even using that word anymore because they want these people to feel like associates at these facilities, because at the end of the day, a lot of them might transition onto the payroll of the client.
So, you got to treat them well and like important parts of the program.
Casey Wagonfield
Yeah. And I don’t know why I was surprised that that was so important to Daniel and Eduardo and Meea, and sometimes I think when you’re in staffing you don’t really look that deep into it, but that is a huge part of it.
They all touched on it, and Meea really connected it back to business performance. Let’s take a listen here
I love to hear what a supplier does to retain and recruit their employees, and I love to hear how that impacts not only the worker, but the business, because that’s critical. You have no business without that employee, and that goes back to everything we’ve been talking about, about retention and all the things, right?
You have to treat people well. At the end of the day, how they’re being treated is paramount because a job is a job, but the differentiator is the environment
Casey Wagonfield
And you know, another important thing I think too is when we talk about being a partner in partnerships, it’s not something you get right away, and that was something that Meea Evans-Cone talked about was, partnerships are earned. You just don’t walk in and become a partner. You have to earn it.
And that just comes to a lot of different things. It comes from the communication that comes from you filling the jobs on time and filling those metrics or thresholds that you need to meet bringing different ideas to the table, bringing different market intelligence, bringing different things to the table that’s gonna make their life easier and help their contingent workforce program.
Rob Geist
Our good friend Bob Baer, he always says, “You got to make deposits before you make withdrawals from relationships.” And I think that is exactly the spirit of what you’re talking about right there.
Casey Wagonfield
100%. Shout out to Bob. Yeah. Well, as salespeople, we all wanna make withdrawals.
“Hey, can I meet with you? Can I get this? Can I do that?”
But very little people actually send deposits. Send them that article that’s gonna help them. Send them a wage analysis on the jobs that they always hire for to see if they’re in the market with everybody else that’s in there. That’s something that’s gonna set you apart, because I guarantee a lot of their clients probably don’t know if their wages are in line with what the market trends are.
If you have access to that data, send it without them asking. That’s just another way to send a deposit and be that consultant and be that salesperson that can bring value to the clients. I’m glad you brought Bob up before we jump into AI technology. I think that, was one of my favorite episodes, obviously, because we’ve got to plug ourselves, and working with Bob at a regional staffing firm for many, many years and being a partner of SimpleVMS’ and leveraging SimpleVMS tool to gain market share within my own clients, to use it to prospect and get my foot in the door, which I have real-life stories that I could share with people on how I leveraged it to get my foot in the door with new clients, as well as, gain market share with additional or current clients.
And then take advantage of the revenue share program. And that was huge for us, is from a sales perspective, especially as we talked about value propositions where it’s hard to sound different and offer different things. It’s a great thing to have in your back pocket. So, when you walk into a company and they say, “Well, we’re using 13 agencies, we’re not adding any more.”
Most salespeople are gonna tuck their tail and run because they don’t know what to say to that, right? But what they can say is, “Wow, how do you manage 13 different agencies? Do you have a hard time reconciling all your job recs and figuring out who’s, sending who or who works for who? What about timekeeping? Is that all over the place? Or do you have issues with invoicing, things like that, or reporting? What does that look like? Do you need reports that you don’t have access to or the reports you wish you had?”
So we were able to use it as another talking point. and I think that’s just something I wanted to touch on because most companies and staffing agencies, your clients, they’re not waking up this morning saying, “I need a VMS,” because they don’t know what it is.
They’re saying, “I need better processes around my job recs and timekeeping and invoicing and reporting.” And you can be the one that actually brings that to them. You’re the thought leader staying in front of the conversation, and solving problems, and putting you on a different level than your competitors.
Rob Geist
Yeah, we talk about it all the time, how staffing for so long was such a non-technical industry, how all these staffing firms and the staffing firms who are, excelling and exceeding, expectations in, what we had those tough times that we, just passed, are the ones who are embracing technology .
They’re looking for partners to differentiate themselves, and they’re willing to look at something that in the past was something they wouldn’t look at, which is like a VMS partner. We had David Folwell on with staffing referrals. It’s like there’s all these things out there that people need to do in order to make these incremental differences in their business.
And, having a VMS partner for when your client needs it is one of those things. As a salesperson, I want to have a bunch of tools in my Swiss Army knife. I never want my client to ask me for a referral to something and not have anything to say to them. So, that’s the whole VMS argument right there in a nutshell.
Casey Wagonfield
And somebody that’s been there, I used to tell the sales team all the time, “Don’t, get VMSed.” I don’t want them bringing in some VMS at 3%, getting no support, I want to control the conversation, be ahead of it, and that’s where SimpleVMS comes into play.
I think that leads in perfectly to our last topic here. I think we’d be crazy not to mention AI. It’s Rob’s favorite topic. And we’re not gonna hear any less of it, guys. A year ago, AI was nothing like it is today, and then a year from now when we do another AI episode, it’s going to be 100 times different.
And stick around for the next couple episodes. You’re gonna see another AI episode coming out with one of the leading AI experts in the staffing industry, Lauren Jones. So, that’s gonna be coming out here in a few months as well. So, look for that to come out. And I think a lot of our guests, Rob, that we had on to talk about AI and talk technology weren’t really saying automate everything.
It was more, use the technology to remove the repetitive work, so people can spend more time on the work that actually requires people, and the recruiting, and all the things behind the scenes where they should be spending their time.
Rob Geist
Yeah. Like our good buddy Will Skowyra said “You got to meet people where they’re at,” right?
So, you need to meet the candidates where they’re at. So, if there are younger, more tech-savvy people who want to interview at 2:00 AM with an AI agent, you’ve got to do that. If your clients want some AI and tech into it, you’ve got to meet them where they’re at, and I think it’s very important to have it.
And Casey, you’ve shown me some of the value in AI from the sales side. It amazes me the things that you do with AI, besides making up funny pictures of me with the Golden Girls wearing my pearl necklace. You help the whole team come up with the ability to find qualified prospects in geographic locations with the right prompt, I mean, that’s like the shortcut we’ve been looking for, for the last 15 years.
Casey Wagonfield
Yeah. And you think about that too. For years, people were paying tens of thousands of dollars for lists of an HR manager in Cincinnati. You don’t need any of that anymore. If you’ve got a license to ChatGPT, to Claude, to Gemini, to any of these things, you can run all that. And yeah, it did take a lot of time to compile those lists, and probably a lot of tokens, but nobody’s told me that yet.
But that’s something now that they can all use. And that’s something I share with staffing firms too, right? You guys are going after the same type of clients that Simple VMS is going after. We’re just going after volume clients. So, anybody that’s interested, if you’re in staffing sales, you’re looking for a list of qualified staffing users, hit me up.
I got 9,000, of them that are verified with Intel. So we’re gonna see who’s really listening to this episode if I get hit up for that list.
I’ll be glad to send you that list, and just keep us in mind when those companies need a VMS.
But yeah, that’s just one of the little things I think you can do, and I think sometimes people think, “Well, I, yeah, I use AI,” and really they’re just using it to write their emails. And their emails are dead giveaways that AI has written it. That’s one thing that I can’t stand by the way, is the big long hyphens in the messages and all the emojis.
It’s a dead giveaway. If you’re gonna use AI to write things, put your own touch on it at least. Yes, you can use AI to give you themes and different ideas of things to talk about.
But, use your own judgment and your own words.
Rob Geist
Use it as a framework, not as the message.
Casey Wagonfield
Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t put things together for this podcast without AI. But it’s just to help us get the conversation started versus tell us what to say. And I think, too, one thing that gets lost around AI that we heard from Mickey Pelletier, Jodi Branstetter, and Kirsten Buck at SIA is that human judgment still matters. You still have to have that human touch, and again, goes back to the relationship aspect of the staffing industry, not just relationships with your clients, but relationships with candidates too when you’re using AI to recruit and to source and screen for people.
You still have to have that human touch because that’s what’s gonna get quality candidates to stick around, not the AI.
I think Mickey had a good line about AI too, around, no algorithm or anything is going to fix broken trust. Let’s take a listen.
You could have the fanciest AI suite of tools, no algorithm or anything’s going to fix broken trust. So, I think someone has to really walk the floors, build credibility, and be able to, again, have that relationship which ultimately builds to that trust
Casey Wagonfield
So just to theme up what we heard from the sales experts, it’s to understand your customers, be relevant and differentiated. It’s a huge one, your values propositions. Be credible and build relationships. When we sum up what the buyers told us is: know their business. They all said that.
Communicate and be honest. Bring ideas and prove that you can perform. Treat your workers well. Then when we look at AI, when we sum up what all of them were telling us about AI is: automate the repetitive work and keep people focused on relationships, judgment, and problem-solving. If you’re new to Staffing Made Simple, just a quick recap of what you can expect.
We’ve had a lot of people on, Eduardo Gonzalez from Arvato talking about what buyers really want. Staffing Shark talking about personal branding and social selling. Dan Mori talking about building your staffing sales strategy for your company. Daniel Kalman, who was a buyer, on managing a global contingent workforce.
Will Skowyra, who talked about platform staffing within the industry. Jodi Branstetter, who mentioned human design thinking and AI. David Folwell’s been a guest a couple of times to talk about his state of the staffing report with great data. Tom Kosnik from Viceus Group came on and broke down what compensation plans should look like for your internal staff.
Bob Baer, a partner of Simple VMS, came on and talked about what agency partnerships and VMS can look like. Tom Erb talked about what winning the staffing sales game looks like. Casey Jacox was a great guest talking about winning the relationship, not the deal. Kersten Buck was on talking about SIA staffing and buyer trends.
Lia Elliott and Joanna Monroe from Staffing GC giving us a breakdown on staffing law. Our boy, Mark Winter, on consultative staffing sales. Meea Evans-Cone on changing the contingent workforce, great insight from a buyer there. Mickey Pelletier on AI and RFPs and what buyers want. Dale Dupree on creating wonder and staffing sales.
And finally, Kendra Cato, which was an awesome episode on personal branding that drives sales.
Rob Geist
And hopefully this episode will encourage and excite some people to go back to listen to some of those other episodes that might give them some ideas.
Hey, we’re really, really, bullish on what’s going on in the industry right now. The people that we’re talking to are excited. They’re getting more deals. They’re seeing staffing come back to where it was. Got some really exciting things in the hopper for episodes to come, and we really can’t wait to continue this on and see where it takes us.
Casey Wagonfield
And to all of our guests from the first 19 episodes, thank you so much for listening and for supporting us. We never knew this is what this podcast would turn out to be, so we appreciate all of you, and thank you. To anybody who’s shared an episode or commented or given us five stars, we love you too.
Keep them coming. That’s really what makes this so great is we can keep continuing from the support that we’ve had from all of our listeners. We’ve had a lot of fun with the first 20. We’re looking forward to the next 20 and a lot more great conversations. So, thanks for joining us again for this special episode of Staffing Made Simple, and we’ll see you next time.
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