with Tom Kosnik, President of Visus Group.
Is your compensation plan helping – or hurting – your bottom line? Rising costs, shrinking margins, and stagnant producer performance are all signs that your compensation model may be working against you. When you’re overpaying for the wrong results – or failing to reward the right ones – you’re quietly bleeding profit while competitors surge ahead. If your pay structure isn’t attracting new talent, keeping your best people, and driving profit, it may be time for a serious reset.
As President of Visus Group, Tom Kosnik has spent decades helping staffing agencies uncover profit leaks and build comp plans that actually drive results. In this episode of Staffing Made Simple, Tom shares proven strategies for designing structures that fuel growth, motivate producers, and protect your margins.
Casey Wagonfield: When was the last time you put your compensation plan under a microscope? And I’m not talking about dusting it off in a meeting once a year, but really taking a hard look and asking the tough questions. Does it still win over top talent? Does it keep them hungry, and does it drive profit to your bottom line?
Because here’s the truth: Costs are rising, margins are shrinking, and your best people have more choices than ever. In this episode, we’re digging into the comp plan trends that are helping agencies thrive, and the ones quietly cutting them off at the knees. If you’re not sure where yours stands, you need to hear this.
Welcome back to Staffing Made Simple, where we talk about what’s really happening in staffing, what’s working, what’s changing, and the actionable takeaways you can put to work in your day-to-day business.
I’m Casey Wagon Field, one of your co-hosts, with 16 years in the staffing industry wearing many hats over that time, and now Senior Sales Executive here at SimpleVMS.
Today, we’re tackling a hot topic, which is compensation plans. Every staffing agency has one, but not all of them have one that’s working. Get it wrong. And you’re either overpaying, paying for the wrong results, or watching your best people walk out the door.
And here’s the kicker. Expenses are climbing. Margins are flat. And in many agencies, gross profit producers are stuck in neutral. So what’s going on? Is it the market? Is it the way we pay people, or is it a bit of both?
Whatever the reason, if your compensation plan isn’t keeping your best people and attracting new ones, you’re already losing. So, with me as always, my friend, co-host, colleague, fellow, double bogey golfer, and Senior Vice President at SimpleVMS, Rob Geist.
Rob Geist: One of these days, it’ll just be bogey golfer, Casey. We’ll see.
But there’s good news, because we’ve got a perfect guest for today’s conversation. Tom Kosnik is here. He’s the President of the Visus Group. He spent decades in the trenches with staffing companies. He helps boost profitability, transform culture, and yes, he’s a leader at building compensation plans. He gives staffing agencies a competitive edge. He’s worked with agencies of every size, coached hundreds of leaders, and created the “Organizational Development Business Model,” which is a framework that gets strategy, people, and numbers working together instead of against each other.
And it’s not just theory. Tom and his team roll up their sleeves on comp reviews, financials, org structures, all the stuff that actually moves the needle, but too many owners ignore until something is broken.
If anyone can help staffing agencies design a truly competitive comp plan, it’s Tom. Tom, welcome to the show.
Tom Kosnik: Rob Casey, thank you for having me on the show to talk about one of my favorite subjects, and that is compensation, which, by the way, we have been doing a ton of compensation work. So, this is a timely podcast, and a big industry need right now.
Casey Wagonfield: And it’s always been important, right? But I feel like now, more than ever, companies are having to buckle down. And maybe we can start with the current landscape. And I know you’ve talked to us about those things that you’re seeing lately, which are that expenses are going up for agencies, margins are flat, and a lot of the top producers are not producing as much. And net income is sliding for some. How much of that ties back to the way that they’re structuring their comp plans?
Tom Kosnik: Well, we run into staffing companies that haven’t changed their account plan in 20 years.
And so that is certainly not a best practice. Your business mix changes every year, the business environment, the competitive pressure, the workforce that you’re bringing in, the technology, it’s just changing so much.
Look, a staffing company is a sales organization, so the best practice is that you’ve got to be looking at your comp plans at least every year, just to make sure that they are in line with the financial model.
You talked about how margins are staying the same. The big challenge that most staffing companies have is that their internal expenses are going up; healthcare expenses are going up; wages are going up.
Look at all the investments in technology and marketing going up and up and up. But the gross profit production per salesperson and recruiter has basically stayed the same. And, in some cases, they adopt a new technology, and the gross profit production drops. Can you imagine that?
So, what we’ve seen is that within these companies, the net income is lower because the operating expenses are going up. So, we get staffing companies calling us up, saying, “We have tried to make our company as efficient as possible. We turned over every stone. We’ve looked at every work process. The only thing that’s left is compensation.” And, look, your people are the biggest expense, so yeah, it’s all tied together.
Rob Geist: You mentioned wage inflation; it’s been a hot topic of late. Are most staffing firms giving out the traditional annual merit increases? Or is this starting to change? And, if so, how do they balance staying competitive without destroying their margins?
Tom Kosnik: So historically, the majority of staffing firms out there would give non-producing employees merit increases every year, certainly based on performance reviews and that sort of thing. But when it comes to sales reps and recruiters, they would tweak the compensation plan so you wouldn’t see these merit increases typically for salespeople and recruiters.
We have two CFO round tables, many of those are north of a hundred million in revenue. So we talk about this all the time. But whether it’s formally structured or informally structured, we would see these salary bands.
So, for example, a novice sales rep might be coming into the organization at $50,000 a year. A junior sales rep, after two or three years and x amount of productivity, might get jumped up to a $55 or $60K based salary. A couple of years later, they become a senior sales executive, based on performance and all that, and they get a $70,000 base salary, and then it tops out at 70 K.
And so larger companies typically have formal salary bands, but the smaller ones, it’s an informal thing. One of my clients says, when salespeople and recruiters come into his office to ask for raises, he says, “You want to make more money? Go sell more staffing.”
But, in regard to your questions, how do you stay balanced without wrecking the margin? You really have to figure out how to get sales reps and recruiters producing more gross profit than historically what they have been able to produce.
So, this is where you have to really look at utilizing offshore resources, utilizing the technology, looking at the workflows. I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into staffing companies, and the owner is like, “Our recruiters are only producing X amount of gross profit.” And then you sit in the bullpen with them for half a day, and you realize that they’re spending 70% of their time sourcing on job boards and all that stuff, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, you should have offshore resources doing that.”
So, how do you keep the balance? It’s not just a financial arrangement or a budgeting arrangement. It’s the business model as a whole, looking at the technologies, looking at these other things to keep salespeople and recruiters focused on high-performance behavior, high-performance activities.
Casey Wagonfield: That’s crazy when you say you’ve talked to agencies that haven’t changed it in 20 years. Do you think that, because margins are tight and revenue is flat with some organizations, agencies are hesitant to throw more money at compensation plans because things are already tight?
Tom Kosnik: Oh, absolutely. The bottom line is that making a compensation change in your organization, if you’re not smart about it, if you don’t do the organizational change thing, it can be very disruptive. And nobody wants to lose people. It’s so hard to find good salespeople and recruiters right now, and to keep them.
So, business owners are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to compensation and engaging people and trying to drop a certain percentage of the net income every year. So, yeah, there are a lot of things that are driving it right now.
Rob Geist: You made me think of The Wolf of Wall Street. Leonardo DiCaprio is up on stage: “Is your wife having another baby? Pick up the phone! You need a bigger house. Pick up the phone!”
Tom Kosnik: I’ve got a client, he says, “I only hire PhDs. People who are poor, hungry, and desperate.”
Rob Geist: There’s a belief out there that the younger generation that’s coming out into the workforce is not as attracted to that traditional, salary plus commission model. Is this true in your findings? And, if so, what kind of comp plans do they like?
Tom Kosnik: Great question. And we do a lot of corporate assessments for staffing companies, where we’ll go and take a look at the various functions. And those corporate assessments will always include one-on-ones with managers and focus groups with salespeople and recruiters.
And I am always surprised at the young folks who are coming into the workforce in the staffing companies. I find young people who are ambitious, who are innovative, who want to make money, who want to contribute to society, who want to make a difference in the world, who are smart and intelligent.
So, we have to be so careful about this global thinking that all young people want higher salaries and a lower variable. There are some, yes, that are like that. What’s driving that could be, “I’ve got a car payment. I’ve got a rent payment. I’ve got a student loan payment.” But I find that this issue is more about the staffing firms; they don’t have a hiring process in place where they can find the type of young people that fit that profile.
There are young people out there who are attracted to our industry, who want to make money. That’s just a decision that companies have to make. Do they want to have multiple comp plans in their company?
I used to be an advocate for one size fits all. But I find that if you have a few different comp plans that you can offer employees, that’s a better way. So, for example, you have a novice plan that pays maybe a salary and then an activity bonus.
And then you have maybe the standard comp plan, which could be an okay salary, but a high variable. And then you could have just a solid B performer plan, which is maybe they get a little bit higher base, but the variable is a little bit lower.
And what we found from the organizational development side of things is that it’s a dialogue. Let the employee choose. So, we have to get a lot smarter about how we’re hiring folks, and we have to get a lot smarter about the people that we’re bringing into our organization, and the different ways that we can compensate them.
Casey Wagonfield: Yeah, you’re right. There’s a ton of great young talent out there, and when you find them, you have to pay them what they’re worth and get them to stick around.
I like the idea that you mentioned about offering different types of packages because you hear a lot about the younger generation too, where it’s not all about money. There are probably other perks you can offer outside of just money to draw them into your country.
Tom Kosnik: Somebody who was a client of mine was extremely successful in this area. His average tenure of salespeople and recruiters was off the charts, and he basically had three levels. He would only hire people who fit a very strict profile, first off. Secondly, when they came in, he was looking for people who wanted to become professional salespeople, professional recruiters. And he would say, “Okay, so you want to become a professional salesperson. Let me show you what we can offer you.”
“Here are the first two years of your employment, and here are the things that you’re going to do. Here are the things that you’re going to learn. Here are the things that we’re going to do, and here’s the compensation structure.”
“Now, after two years, you graduate to a junior level. And here’s the compensation.” Of course, the compensation is a little bit greater. He says, “In the next two years, you’re a senior. Now after six years, seven years, if you want to stay with us as a senior executive and make $250, $300,000 a year, great. We’d love to keep you here. But if you want to move on to another organization, I understand.”
So, what was he doing? We’re going to teach you all the skills to be a professional sales executive, and we’re going to get you to an opportunity where you can make $300 grand a year. Show them the vision.
Casey Wagonfield: I do want to touch on thresholds. They’ve been popular in the past. Are you seeing that thresholds are still effective in sales compensation? And, for someone who isn’t familiar, maybe you can explain how they work.
Tom Kosnik: Basically, you have to hit a certain amount of gross profit production before you become eligible for a year of commission. If you’re in contract staffing or temp staffing, it could be 5K, $7,500, or something like that.
Historically, on the temporary and contract side, we would never see thresholds. However, over the last three to four years, this trend has increased quite a bit. We’re seeing a lot of companies put thresholds in.
So, full-time, direct hire recruiters – always been thresholds. But on the contract or temp staffing side, everybody was paying on first dollar in. But now, because of all those things we’ve talked about – wage inflation, healthcare, marketing, technology, expenses going up and up and up – a lot of companies can’t pay on the first dollar in anymore. So, we’ve got to put a threshold in place where the producer’s got to produce a certain amount of gross profit before they can become eligible for commission.
Or what they say is that, “Hey, your monthly target is 50 grand a month in gross profit production.” And I’m defining gross profit as revenue minus cost of sales, which would be your contractors or temps, the burden, anything associated with background checks, drug checks, getting those individuals placed. And then what’s left is your gross profit.
And, so, the company will say, “Hey Tom, you’ve got to be 70% of that 50 grand before you become eligible. So, if you drop below 70%, no commission. You’ve got to work to get back above 70%.
So, these comp components, there are pros and cons with all of them.
Casey Wagonfield: Speaking of thresholds and keeping them realistic. I’ve seen salespeople hit their threshold in June. And say it’s a gross margin dollar threshold. Here’s your goal for gross margin dollars for the year. And you land a big account, and you’ve hit your gross margin dollar threshold, and maybe that’s for a one-time bonus.
And what I used to do is, now you get another threshold, right? You’ve surpassed that first threshold for the year. We’re going to go ahead and pay your bonus, because it’s worth that, right? You’ve killed it. Now go do more, and we’re going to dangle this other carrot. Now we’re adding a threshold.
Tom Kosnik: You re-budget. Yeah, absolutely. You reset the targets. Totally.
Rob Geist: Tom, you kind of touched on the one-size-fits-all comp plan, and I liked how you talked about the different types of players within an organization and how you have to be creative with those.
But what kind of approach do you have with different verticals and different roles within that business?
Tom Kosnik: Compensation has really become very complicated in the staffing industry. We used to be able to figure this stuff out on the back of an envelope.
But when you’re talking about different verticals, you have to take into account your customer base turnover rates. You have to look at your budget. Hopefully, you’re budgeting and you’re looking at your P&L because you want a certain percentage of the gross profit being allocated back to salespeople and recruiters. And, when it’s too high, then obviously that’s going to have a significant negative effect on you hitting a net income goal.
You have to look at the raw dollar spread of the contractors that you’re putting on billing, the average length of assignment that the contractors are on, and the headcount. You have to look at, do you have one sales rep and two recruiters, or one sales rep and three recruiters? So, you really have to take a look at all of that stuff to the best of your ability,
You’ve got to consider all those variables. And then you have to model out these plans to financially justify it, so the plan pays for itself. In other words, either the plan is not paying enough when somebody’s ramping up, or the plan is paying too much at the top end.
I used to advocate years ago for one size fits all, but you can’t do that anymore.
Rob Geist: Everything’s just more dynamic than it ever used to be. It was so much simpler back in my day. And, I know, Tom, you and I have talked about this next topic. How do you handle ramp periods for recruiters and salespeople, and what’s the best way to keep them motivated while they build their pipeline up?
Tom Kosnik: You know, development research shows that employees will decide in the first 90 days if they’ll stay with your organization or not. So, the staffing company is a sales organization. If you’re hiring salespeople, you’ve got to get money in their pockets at the end of the first month.
So, create a novice comp plan where you’re paying them a base salary and a monthly activity bonus. Period. Simple. It does two things. One, if they’re hitting their activity metrics, it gets money in their pocket at the end of month one, end of month two, end of month three. So, something better than nothing. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but they’re getting commission dollars.
Secondly, when you start an employee out with a plan like that, you are instilling the kinds of activity that they need to do on a day-to-day basis in order to succeed long term within your organization.
And then they move to a plan that’s maybe a standard plan that pays a percentage of the gross profit and could include a quarterly key objective bonus and things like that.
Rob Geist: I always say action brings action. You get people excited about things, and it gets them to produce faster. That’s just a philosophy I’ve always kind of worked on with my team.
So, spot bonuses, short-term, are they gaining traction, and how do they fit alongside more traditional comp elements to motivate day-to-day performance?
Tom Kosnik: So, a spot bonus is a temporary bonus. It’s only going to last for a certain amount of time. For example, you have a key employee that leaves, oh my gosh, we’ve got to get some hands on these three key accounts.
Casey, you take that account; Rob, you take that account; Tom, you take that account. And so, what we’re going to pay you is two grand each for getting your hands around that account, making sure that nothing goes wrong, until we hire somebody who can come in and take those accounts over.
So, spot bonuses, they’re temporary for when somebody’s got to do a special project. I don’t know why more companies don’t do this. But think about an ATS implementation, a SimpleVMS implementation. Why not do a spot bonus for somebody who’s going to implement the tool and make sure that this is going to happen in the organization?
I think larger companies know about spot bonuses and use them. But smaller companies, I don’t see them using spot bonuses much.
Casey Wagonfield: We touched on this too, but other than just revenue and gross profit, how are firms rewarding the specific behaviors they want from their teams, like client retention, candidate quality, and cross-selling to clients?
Tom Kosnik: So, you’ve got lag indicators and lead indicators. So, lag indicators would be anything results-based. So gross profit is a lag indicator,
So, you want to have a component of your comp plan that’s rewarding on lead indicator performance driving behavior. That could be networking events. It could be a number of face-to-face meetings. It could be a number of submittals for recruiters, or a number of interviews at the client site, whatever those lead indicators are.
And then you could set up a quarterly key objective bonus. And, frankly, these things are so effective. I don’t know how many companies we’ve helped put these in place. The employees like them. The managers like them because they can change the objective on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
But let’s say Rob’s got two key accounts, and we know there are five other staffing companies in that key account, and we’re like, geez, man, Rob, why are you not increasing headcount penetration in those two accounts?
So, we put in a quarterly key objective bonus to say we want a 10% increase in headcount in these two accounts. And then you say, “Hey, it’s a $2,500 bonus. If you hit the 10%, you get $500. If you’re in the 90%, which is maybe, let’s say 9% growth, then you get $3,750. If you’re in the 80%, which is 8% growth, you get $1,250.” So, you have to explain clearly what it is and articulate it. But those types of quarterly key objective bonuses are very effective in driving behavior.
Very few staffing companies would reward based on client satisfaction and client retention. Does it get more important than that? They’re technically lag indicators. Just think it through. Why would you not try it?
Casey Wagonfield: Gross margin dollars are just top of mind for every agency, right? So, incentivizing in other ways other than just a gross margin dollar goal will lead to more gross margin dollars if you put those types of rewards in place.
Tom Kosnik: Back to the question that Rob asked me about these comp plans and how to put them together. There are targets, right? You want 25% of an individual sales rep’s gross profit production going back to that individual.
Well, okay, I’m going to pay an $80,000 base salary. And I’m going to allocate another 20 grand. My expectation is that this individual is going to do $750,000 gross profit.
So, I’m at a hundred thousand dollars. So now I’ve got maybe another $100,000 in variable that I can play with. And so, then I’m going to take 50% of that and I’m going to allocate it towards the gross profit production piece component of the program. Then, I’m going to take 25% and I’m going to allocate that to a quarterly key objective bonus. Then, I’m going to take 25% of that to a year-end, or President’s Club, or something like that. Guys, this is as good as it gets, man. This is how you make compelling, engaging compensation programs that are just spot on. And employees love this stuff.
Rob Geist: Love it, man. So, what role do non-monetary incentives play in these types of situations, like recognition programs, career development, and flexible work options? I have to imagine it’s becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle.
Tom Kosnik: Absolutely. Look at the Gallup polls – years and years of study with employees and all that stuff.
We really have to start thinking completely differently in the staffing industry about compensation. This is such a funny story. Years ago, I had a client who would offer weekly or monthly, or maybe every two weeks, two free movie tickets for having the most leads.
So, if you’re not thinking about this stuff from a new perspective, you’re missing out. And not only are you missing out, but look, if you have a well thought out compensation plan that has multiple compensation components where an individual can make money, that’s one of the things that attracts A players. When they see stuff like that, they’re like, “I like this. Let’s talk more.”
Rob Geist: Your passion for all of this is really coming through. You just said total compensation instead of just salary and commission, and we’ve talked about this before. Can you explain to the listeners what total comp includes and why staffing firms need to adopt this?
Tom Kosnik: Total comp language is very common in corporate America, but we hardly ever see it talked about in the staffing industry. Total comp would be about everything, right? So, think about gross profit commission, the quarterly bonus, the President’s Club, 401 (k), and educational opportunities.
The health benefits. I just saw this, but I think the average in the United States is a 50/50 split, where companies will pay 50% of the health benefits, and the employee pays 50% of the health benefits.
I have clients who are paying a hundred percent of the health benefits. Why in God’s name would you not include that in your compensation plan and part of your total comp structure, and tell somebody?
I’ve got other clients who have a tuition reimbursement program where they’ll help pay for student loans. Why would you not include that in your comp plan? There’s a section of the comp plan that talks about all this stuff – the benefits and the educational opportunities, and the 401k match.
Again, I mean, you’re trying to attract A players? A players are not attracted to mediocre comp plans. I’ll tell you that right now.
Casey Wagonfield: It’s not just salary and commission. I mean, it’s a package you have to offer people.
Tom Kosnik: That’s right.
Casey Wagonfield: We’ve kind of touched on it, but I wanted to ask you, when we talk about a mix of fixed versus variable pay, is there an ideal balance between that fixed salary and the variable commission in staffing, and how should those firms be mixing the elements?
Tom Kosnik: When we model these comp plans out, my target is 50% of the total comp for solid B players. I always like to try to model at a solid B level, and then we test it at the A level. The Cs – you’ve got to manage them out at some point.
But, at a solid B level, you want the total comp of 50% coming from salary, 50% coming from commissions. So again, maybe my target for a sales rep is half a million dollars, $600,000, somewhere in that category. So, then my target comp for them is going to be $125 to $150. You know that 20 to 25% of their gross profits.
So, then if I’m paying a $60K base, I’m going to allocate another $60K towards that variable piece of it. Now, when you get into the A Players, they’re making two times their base, three times their base, all that stuff. When you get into the light industrial firms and the day labor firms, then you’ve got a base salary, and depending upon where you’re at in the country, right? Because of all these wage rates for these different things.
And, by the way, you should know your geographical area based on total comp at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles. We do that research as well for companies so that they know that they’re in line. But when you get into light industrial, where you get lower pay rates, lower bill rates, lower draw dollar spreads, then you’ve got a base salary and 20 – 25% for the recruiter is 20 – 25% of their base salaries allocated towards variable. And then, for the salespeople, we’re shooting for that 50/50 for the solid B.
Casey Wagonfield: I’ve always thought too that setting expectations isn’t a one-size-fits-all either.
So, somebody who’s selling in Lebanon, Kentucky is going to have a different gross margin dollar goal than somebody selling in Indianapolis or in a metropolitan city where there are thousands of contacts, versus a town where there are eight stoplights, right? I’ve seen where it’s just a, “Hey, this is your goal for the year.” Well, there’s not enough business in that town to even attain that goal.
Tom Kosnik: Yeah. That’s where the budgeting comes into place and all that, and.
You have to look at the market, and you can figure out a geographic area, and you can figure out how many people there are, and how many people are working, and then, well, what’s 1.5% of that?
And look at the number of staffing firms that are in that. So that’s just some back-of-the-envelope marketing stuff that you can do. But ideally, you’ve got a budget in terms of what the key accounts are going to produce.
Then you look at the business model and number of employees, and our typical recruiter does X. Our typical sales guy does Y, and you kind of build a budget from there and then set those targets.
Casey Wagonfield: Well, that’s a perfect segue into budgets, because when it comes to budgets, I think some agencies do think they’re essential, while other agencies are not so sure, especially since one big account can throw everything off early in the year.
What’s your take on budgets, and how do you connect them with the compensation so you can adjust them throughout the year?
Tom Kosnik: If you’re not budgeting, you’re making a big mistake, because how do you set your targets for salespeople and recruiters or gross profit targets for the office?
You’ve got to look at the key accounts; you’ve got to look at the prospects; you’ve got to look at the historical production numbers, and you put a budget together. Okay. We lose a huge account. Then you just recast the budget. We’re not talking about rocket science, just accounting and finance here.
You get a huge account, well, okay, Casey, to your point earlier, don’t change that sales rep’s target. When he hits his target in June, what’s that rep going to do? He or she’s going to take their foot off the gas pedal.
Look, in the end, it’s a business. What net income do you need to be making? So, you’ve got a net income of whatever percentage, and then how much for the salespeople and recruiters, how much for the back office, how much for G&A? And there are guidelines; there are rules and all that stuff.
So, if you don’t have a budget, you’re flying the plane blind.
Casey Wagonfield: So, how can a staffing firm’s comp plan be a competitive differentiator in the market? And do you have any example of a firm that is, without saying any names, using them innovatively to attract and keep better talent?
Tom Kosnik: Again, most of the staffing companies have commission structures that are based on a base salary and a percentage of gross profit production.
So, when you put a compensation plan together that’s got multiple components, that document, in and of itself, becomes a sales item. It attracts A performers.
And so I’ve got a handful of clients where we’ve rebuilt their comp plans to include all these different components. You don’t want to make it so complicated that people need a calculator to figure out their comp structure, but if your compensation plan is on one page, you’re missing out big time.
A well-thought-out compensation plan is going to be eight or 10 pages in length. You are going to have examples of how they make money. It’s going to be clear.
Everything’s going to be articulated and defined. You’re going to have all the total comp stuff and how they get paid, and when they get paid, and what happens if there’s a discrepancy in comp, all that stuff. That’s a professional compensation document. And that document, in and of itself, is a component that attracts A players.
Casey Wagonfield: I think being transparent is key too because there’s been plenty of times where I’ve offered a salesperson a position in the past, and they’ve accepted somewhere else, and then two weeks later they call me like that was not what I expected.
Rob Geist: Tom, before we wrap, I know compensation planning and structures are just one part of what you do with staffing agencies.
For the listeners out there who might not be familiar with you, could you tell them a little bit about the Visus Group, the President’s Roundtable, and what kind of support you and your team provide agencies?
Tom Kosnik: We’ve got two aspects of the business. One is a peer roundtable program.
We have nine peer roundtables in the industry, five President Roundtables, two CFO roundtables, A CMO Roundtable, and a CSO/Sales Director/Sales Manager/Vice President Sales Roundtable. And they get together two or three times in person. They also get together on Zoom in between the in-person meetings.
So, we’ve got close to a hundred C-suite execs in those nine different programs. And then on the consulting side, we’re leaders on the comp side of the equation, so we do a lot of that work. But we also do assessments, strategic planning, business planning, and valuation work.
So, I’ve got a cadre of a dozen industry subject matter experts who provide these different services in all these different functional areas for staffing companies. And, usually, a hundred percent of our clients are all in growth mode.
So, we really are a true middle-market consulting firm to the staffing industry.
Rob Geist: So, could people get ahold of you?
Tom Kosnik: The VisusGroup.com website. It’s got all our information on how to contact us.
Casey Wagonfield: And somebody who’s known Tom now for 13 years and has been to those round tables, I can’t tell you how valuable they are. You leave with actionable takeaways that you can take back to your company. You’re meeting with peers and getting ideas, sharing, and making friends for life. I still talk to some of the people who were at that round table 10 years ago.
With that said, we appreciate you joining us today. I think there’s a ton of great insights from someone who’s just seen it all when it comes to this topic. And I think that if there’s one takeaway from the conversation, it’s that comp plans really can’t be a set-it-and-forget-it decision.
The market changes, the workforce changes, and your business changes. So, your comp plan needs to change with it. If you’ve been running the same plan for years, it’s worth asking whether it’s still helping you grow, or slowly costing you more than it’s making you.
Rob Geist: And, as always, to our listeners, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your support. If you liked what you heard today, please like and subscribe to our podcast series. And please share it with your friends and colleagues out there.
And if you’d like to learn more about SimpleVMS and how we help agencies stand out with tech, win more business, and create additional revenue streams, reach out to us on LinkedIn or at SimpleVMS.com. We look forward to having you join us on our next episode of Staffing Made Simple.
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