www.getmorehrclients.com
Key Takeaways From The Podcast
‘A Better HR Business’
The Podcast About Growing Human Resources Businesses
www.getmorehrclients.com
‘A Better HR Business’
The Podcast About Growing Human Resources Businesses
Luis Novo of Skore (Learning Platform)
Amit Mishra of iMocha (HR Tech - Skills Assessment)
Kate Graham of UNLEASH (Digital HR Publications & Events)
Will Peng of Northstar (Employee Financial Wellness)
Evan Sohn of Recruiter.com (Recruitment Tech)
Sean Fahey of VidCruiter (Video Recruitment & Online Hiring HR Tech)
Melanie Wertzberger of Shaka (Employee engagement and retention HR Tech platform)
Michael Yinger of The Sieve (Candidate Evaluation Platform HR Tech)
Hanno Renner of Personio (HR Software Company)
Claire Schmidt of AllVoices (Employee Reporting Platform)
Doug Strycharczyk of AQR (Psychometric Test Publisher
Noel Dykes of Frankly (HR Tech Platform)
Kristian Kalle of VideoCV (Recruitement Tech)
Sammy Courtright of Ten Spot (Workforce Engagement Platform)
Anthony Nitsos of Saas Gurus (B2B SaaS Finance and Admin Ecosystems)
Dmitri Adler of Data Society (Data Science Training Company)
Tim Sackett of HRU Tech (Staffing and Recruiting)
Brian McComak of Hummingbird Humanity (Diversity&Inclusion Consulting)
Should we be a specialist firm or a generalist HR firm?
Julie Turney of HR at Heart Consulting (HR for HR Coaching)
This One Thing Will Improve All Aspects Of Your Marketing
Henry Goldbeck of Goldbeck Recruiting (Contingency Recruitment and Executive Search)
Jane Ferré of Jane Ferré Executive Coaching (Career Coaching For Senior HR Professionals)
Aaron Ross - Best-selling business author and speaker
The Podcast About Growing Human Resources Businesses
As a podcaster and as a marketing advisor to HR-related companies around the world, I'm constantly talking to leaders of HR-related consultancies and HR Tech companies about how they help employers and what they're doing to grow the business.
These are some of the topics I discuss on the 'A Better HR Business' show when speaking with HR business leaders:
In this summary ebook, I've collected some of the interview highlights.
I'll continue to add more to this ebook so do check back in from time to time for the latest version.
If you would like some help growing your HR-related business, get in touch now.
You'll find me at www.GetMoreHRClients.com.
Now, let's get it and examine how to build a better HR business!
** In October 2021, Skore was acquired by UOL EdTech and Luis Novo is currently their Product Director.
About Luis
Luis Novo's background is in software development, but he considers himself as a "serial entrepreneur". Selling one of his companies to a Silicon Valley based startup was an opportunity to spend four years there, learning how amazing products are created.
His interest in education and the assessment he did on how the knowledge circulates throughout the companies lead to the creation of Skore.
About Skore
Skore is a new-generation learning platform, a mix of a LMS (management & control) and a LXP (discovery & extensibility).
Luis on how Skore won new customers (Episode 37)
As a co-founder of an innovation consulting company, Luis already had the tools and resources to conduct market research. Together with his business partner, they spent six months interviewing people from across industries and letting them use the prototype they built. Later, their first three customers came from the companies they interviewed. The first customer was a retailer from Brazil which started using the Skore prototype platform in one store and then expanded to another 100 stores spread across the country. In the first three years, all their customers came from word of mouth.
In the fourth year, they decided to accelerate the growth through their own marketing efforts and sales team, because Luis considers a company can't scale word of mouth. It takes you up until a point, which is an awesome point, but from there onwards, you need to build your sales machine.
According to Luis, within the first three years, the company’s approach to customers was wrong. Instead of finding the customers that were data driven (in his opinion, this is the trait of a good customer versus the trait of a customer that wouldn't engage) Luis and his team would take the time to approach every company and try to sell their solution.
Later, inspired by the Hubspot model, which educated their customers and made them see the value their solution will bring, Luis and his
team started a series of physical workshops, where they offered special Skore data & insights but only to potential customers (ie. not to just any company). This method was a complete success for them, as the conversion rate jumped to 30+%.
Luis opted for physical workshops (with 3-4 persons from the same company, no more than 5 companies, existing customers and prospects), because he wanted to experiment with the different phrases and concepts that create people’s reaction, because those are, in his opinion, the pain points.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Amit
Amit, CEO and Co-Founder iMocha, started his career with IBM as a software developer and worked with India's IT services giants. His entrepreneurial adventure began with an IT services venture known as “Radix Business Solution”. Later, he found himself on a mission to create “a job-fit world”, a product which quantifies skills.
About iMocha
iMocha is a leading provider of online assessment software for pre-employment skill testing. iMocha enables tech hiring managers, learning and development professionals with the ready-to-use, latest and most comprehensive online skills assessment solution.
Amit on the marketing engine developed by iMocha (Episode 39)
According to Amit, in the case of skill assessment software, pre-employment skill assessment, testing software, or digital transformation software, there are a lot of people across the globe who search for it, which makes it a discoverable product.
This discoverability can be set up either as a generic discoverability, where people across the globe are searching for “skill assessment software”, “pre-employment testing software” or as a specific one, with a set of keywords, like “business analyst aptitude test”, or “business analyst pre employment test”. For the 2000 skills they have identified, there are at least five keywords by which the skills are searchable, leading to 10,000 keywords which are discoverable. For almost all of those keywords, iMocha ranks if not in the top three, at least on the first page in Google searches.
iMocha is using SEO and inbound marketing. Leads are generated through white papers, guides, case studies, research papers, etc. Amit says this process takes time, it begins with awareness, information and then the decision phase. They mainly advertise on LinkedIn, but also Capterra and Google.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Kate
Kate has worked in HR tech for 18 years and now she’s heading up Content Labs and Insight for UNLEASH. Kate works with organizations using HR, talent, and learning technologies to feed into the research and content agenda, shaping insight and analysis outputs for a global audience.
Kate is also working with vendors to unpack best practices and share success stories, showcasing the latest industry innovations and how solutions are helping organizations today.
About UNLEASH
UNLEASH is a global digital media and events business delivering the latest news, analysis and market trends for HR, technology, learning and recruitment leaders.
Kate’s advice on growing an HR business (Episode 138)
Kate Graham believes that each business should find its own differentiators and identify the key pain-points that it helps employers tackle. Identify which part of the employee life cycle (recruitment, selection, compensation & tax, onboarding, CV screening, skills assessment, etc.) the business can help with and how is that different to anybody else.
In order to grow a business, it is critical to be open with your customers, get their feedback, understand the pain points that you're trying to hit and solve, and then communicate as well as possible.
Ben's Key Takeaways:
About Will
Will Peng is the CEO and Co-founder of Northstar, an employee financial wellness company. Will started his career as a product designer and worked for several startups. Later, as a partner in a venture capital firm, he got acquainted with the emerging technologies and his experiences as an immigrant and student defined his future interests.
About Northstar
Northstar helps employees better utilize their total compensation by empowering them to make financial and life decisions with greater confidence. It helps employees make the most of their compensation, equity, and benefits and supports HR during onboarding, open enrollment, IPOs, and more.
Will on Northstar’s marketing (Episode 137)
When it comes to winning new clients, Will said there are many different ways Northstar finds companies to work with: some through their personal networks, others through referrals, HR consultants, benefits brokers etc. Will considers them incredibly helpful when advocating for Northstar, because they see the value of providing this service to their customers.
Also, several of their customers came in because of the content that Northstar have written. From Will’s point of view, the content Northstar provides is often standalone pieces that are valuable to the reader. Much of the content is actually written by their advisors, so the readers get a greater level of detail than they wouldn’t expect from someone who's not a financial advisor and who might just write a generic piece.
Ben's Key Takeaways:
About Evan
Evan Sohn, CEO of Recruiter.com, is a senior executive with 25+ years of experience in eCommerce, Fortune 500 and start-up environments, with a history of rapidly growing businesses and capturing market share. Evan has extensive management experience in payments, enterprise software, wireless and mobile software, security software, managed services and penetrating new markets for new technology solutions.
About Recruiter.com
Recruiter.com Inc. was founded in 2015 to empower businesses to find the best candidates faster while also lowering their hiring costs.
Evan on Recruiter.com’s marketing (Episode 120)
Evan Sohn, CEO of Recruiter.com, considers that the goal of marketing, aside from making sure that people know who you are and have an awareness of your brand, is to make it really easy for the customer to buy your product. The easier it is for the customer to buy your product, the more successful you are. At Recruiter.com, the demand is generated through marketing, organic articles, salespeople, advertising, and through referrals (50% of their enterprise clients).
From a marketing perspective, a business should check the lead-to-opportunity conversion rate, then opportunity-to-proposal conversion rate, and afterwards, the proposal-to-deal close rate. Based on that, it should calculate the leads that need to be generated in order to move the numbers. In Evan’s opinion, a lead is really not just the name of a person, but the right person with budget, at the right time. One shouldn’t be afraid to say: “this is not the right time for that lead.”
Ben's Key Takeaways:
About Sean
Sean Fahey is an award-winning business leader, serial entrepreneur, and CEO of VidCruiter, with many years of first-hand recruitment experience. He holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Florida Atlantic University.
About VidCruiter
VidCruiter helps businesses build a customized recruitment process that delivers the highest-quality employees in the most efficient and cost-effective way. Vidcruiter offers: video interviews (live and pre-recorded options), interview scheduling, skills testing, automated reference checks, audio interviews, and video proctoring.
Sean on getting new clients for VidCruiter (Episode 118)
Sean Fahey, CEO and founder of VidCruiter, recalls that their very first customers came “knocking on doors” and this got them initial feedback. Later, they focused on building a website where the concepts were very thoroughly explained and now most of their leads come from inbound and referrals from resellers and partners. Their website has great content and guides for those who are trying to make a decision and focuses on educating the public. Their ideas for content come from the clients and the challenges they are facing. At VidCruiter, they try to target every person, not only senior leadership. They have a holistic approach, trying to help everybody, writing content for applicants, for HR benefit and also for senior management. VidCruiter also has a very powerful reseller program. The partnership team is always looking for potential partners interested in their products and these partners are considered part of the organization.
Ben's Key Takeaways:
About Melanie
Melanie, founder of Shaka, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Kansas State University where she studied Finance and Hospitality Management. During her undergraduate studies, she developed an interest in entrepreneurship and startups. She has conducted thorough research on Generation Z and company culture and loves to talk about preparing the workplace to attract the next generation of talent.
About Shaka
Shaka develops features to help companies achieve outstanding workplace culture. Shaka provides a platform that helps companies boost employee engagement, foster employee connections, and build company culture.
Melanie on getting new clients for Shaka (Episode 107)
Melanie Wertzberger remembers that their search for new customers started with a tool called Apollo.io, generating leads that can be filtered by position, location, size etc. They also used email outreach sequencing tools to approach future customers. After a short review of what the pain points and challenges might be, they contact prospects with a solution and proposal for them.
Shaka is also active on Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups of HR leaders, in LinkedIn sales Navigator, and they attend different podcasts or events, online webinars, where they think the HR people will be.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Michael
Michael Yinger, COO & Co-Founder of The Sieve, has been in the talent acquisition space for about 20 years, primarily in the outsourcing space. He is a seasoned senior executive with experience creating, building, and managing organizations and providing strategic advice via Board of Directors membership both in the US and internationally.
About The Sieve
The Sieve is an advanced AI powered candidate evaluation platform that minimizes the time to find the top candidates by ranking them based on the requirements provided. The Sieve significantly improves speed and quality of candidate evaluations, by using algorithmic intelligence models to assess candidate resumes.
Michael on getting new customers for The Sieve (Episode 116)
Michael Yinger reveals they actively seek out companies through multiple channels and then keep in contact. In his opinion, the tough part when you're growing is getting the traction and reaching out to the right prospects. The Sieve also runs pilots with people who are interested, it appears at events to get the word out, and runs social media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to remain continuously in front of people. As Michael says, "It takes six to nine times seeing an ad before someone pays attention to it."
To accommodate the new privacy rules, The Sieve has a team of sales development reps who uses LinkedIn Navigator and its search algorithms to build a list of prospects made from those who accepted their phone and email to receive more information and messages. Michael Yinger believes in being right up front and that means contacting the leads and presenting them a solution for their challenges or pain points.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
Marketing has gotten more complicated and challenging ever since the pandemic first began…
IWe've helped hundreds of HR businesses around the world to build and expand their HR marketing operations to bring in high-value clients.
Whether it’s acquiring new leads and customers through LinkedIn, email campaigns, pay-per-click campaigns, virtual summits, inbound marketing, social media, strategic partnerships, or something else, we can put the right plan in place together.
Have a particular business growth challenge?
We live & breathe HR marketing.
About Hanno
Hanno, CEO & Co-Founder of Personio, holds a Master of Arts/Science from Center for Digital Technology and Management Munich, a Bachelor of Arts/Science from Columbia University NYC and a Master of Arts/Science from Technical University Munich. He was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2020.
About Personio
Personio is a startup based in Munich that offers a holistic HR and applicant management software designed for companies with 10 to 2000 employees.
Hanno’s advice on acquiring new customers (Episode 30)
According to Hanno, their strategy to acquire new customers started with referrals from their early customers. They also advertised on Google AdWords, where Personio appears for people who are actively searching for HR software. Hanno believes this worked really well for Personio because more companies now appreciate the value of digitized HR and this generates greater search traffic.
They also actively educate parts of the market that haven't been involved in this search process, both by doing events and conferences, but also by partnering with HR consultancies that talk to their clients about the need to digitize and help them understand the benefits of this change. Those HR consultants are helping the smaller and mid-sized companies go through the processes, optimizing their HR or even setting it up from scratch for the newer companies.
Hanno’s growth advice for other HR Tech companies
As Hanno puts it, the focus should be on hiring the right kind of people and helping them develop, because people are the most important asset in any kind of business.
People always refer to startups as moving very quickly because they don't have restrictive structures and that allows them to make fast decisions.
However, Hanno considers that if you don't want to diminish the agility of a startup, you should focus early on the different processes within the company, if you aspire to grow as fast as Personio did in the past couple of years. Otherwise, it would just explode, says Hanno. There are so many internal problems to deal with and this might dilute the focus on what makes a business grow and thrive.
Hence, Personio focused very early on building a scalable organisation structure, additionally putting in place an onboarding process that can now support 20-25 hires every month, and on having a very good and selective recruiting process.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Claire
Claire, CEO of AllVoices, is a graduate of Stanford University, with a B.A. Degree in Economics. Claire was a curator for the Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Claire was Senior Director of Giving for Thrive Market and later Vice President of technology and innovation at 20th Century Fox.
About AllVoices
In 2017, Claire started AllVoices, a company allowing any person, at any company, to safely report harassment, bias, or discrimination directly to their company's leadership
Claire on acquiring new customers (Episode 98)
In the beginning, word of mouth worked for AllVoices, with customers happily telling others about it. Later, the company started doing webinars to spread the word about what AllVoices is doing but also to highlight how other companies were creating psychologically safe work environments, in terms of diversity, equity inclusion, and culture. At the same time, the AllVoices team invested time and energy into generating content, because this helped their customers gain awareness of trends and best practices, but also to get familiar with what other HR leaders were doing in this space and how they were helping employees feel heard.
The webinars were a great success and involved a strong network of experts, including AllVoices’ advisory board, people with an HR background, and customers etc. The topics for the webinars were based on questions from the customers, trends in the HR world, but also underserved topics.
Ben's Key Takeaways:
About Doug
Doug, CEO of AQR and AQR International, has more than 30 years expertise in a variety of Line, HR & Consultancy roles with a number of blue-chip businesses. Doug’s areas of expertise also include Organisational Development, Senior Management/Leadership Development and Top Team Assessment.
About AQR
AQR is one of the most innovative test publishers in the world, working in more than 80 countries.
Doug on acquiring AQR's first customers (Episode 97)
According to Doug, being involved in a governmental program in the first four years of business, helping start-ups, using their ideas and concepts was very helpful in the beginning. Later, bigger companies from the automotive industry and suppliers for that industry came on board. A major breakthrough was when a UK company asked AQR to assess 700 senior managers in preparation for a big change that was coming through, by incorporating the mental toughness concept and the mental toughness questionnaire into that programme.
In the early days of the internet, conferences used to be more significant events because they allowed you to meet other people and introduce your ideas to them. In many ways, social media has replaced a lot of that now.
AQR is focusing its marketing efforts in three directions: first, the company operates in over 80 countries, mainly through local partnerships. Once they find a like-minded partner, they conduct webinars and podcasts. Doug is usually running around 3 webinars per week.
Second, Doug considers that people value content and the more interesting and valuable content you produce, the better.
According to Doug, “ we’re on a mission to educate the world, as well as get people to come to us, because we've got something that we know it works.”
Third, AQR is using social media, mainly through LinkedIn or Facebook, depending on the country, in order to create awareness and interest.
Doug’s advice on growing a successful HR related business
Doug sees a growing interest in genuine evidence-based practice and his concern is that less than 50 out of 500 psychometric measures (personality measures available in the UK) are considered reliable and valid. However, people will go out and buy them, because there is a need for people to understand what works and what doesn't work and why it works.
The webinars and the web content inform and educate people by bringing the key issues to their attention.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
Are things tougher than you expected back when you left your corporate job?
Do you sigh when you see all the empty slots on your client calendar?
Do you feel frustrated that, even though you provide excellent consulting services, you’re still not getting the number of clients you need?
When you’re ready to have a chat about getting started, let me know via the call booking form on our website.
We can have a quick conversation to clarify your situation, goals, and ambitions.
About Noel
Noel is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Frankli. He has extensive experience leading and scaling technical teams in Europe, Australia and New Zealand with a career spanning roles in software engineering, IT Consulting, and leadership.
About Frankli
Based in Sligo, Ireland but serving an international market, Frankli is an HR Tech company on a mission to help businesses have the most empowered, engaged & productive people possible.
Noel on acquiring new customers (Episode 92)
For Frankli, outbound marketing was very successful: investing in thought leadership and trying to educate the market on the shift from only setting KPIs to now asking formore feedback.
According to Noel, Frankli invested in creating content, in their CRM, and on LinkedIn outreach, since most of their target customers (HR directors or operations leaders) are there. Within the last few years, they've added the strategy of inbound marketing focused on engaging potential customers through relevant platforms such as Capterra.
They've continued to benefit from reviews, testimonials and case studies developed with their early customers.
Frankli’s strategy during the pandemic when the online space became “crowded” and “noisy” was to turn off all paid advertising, go completely manual and personalize their approach to possible clients. Another marketing channel developed by Frankli is partnerships with HR consultants, especially in international markets.
Ben’s Key Takeaways
About Kristian
Estonian entrepreneur Kristian Kalle, CEO & Founder of VideoCV, started the company with an idea to simplify recruitment by allowing candidates to reveal themselves to recruiters from the get-go.
About VideoCV
VideoCV.io helps businesses improve their recruiting efficiency and effectiveness by delivering an innovative and modern SaaS platform.
Kristian on winning new customers (Episode 93)
Kristian considers that honesty and a win-win approach are very helpful when trying to get new customers. At the same time, since this was a new product, asking for feedback, following up, working with clients, presenting used cases, and educating the clients became more valuable than the product itself.
In terms of marketing, VideoCV started with one person out of a small team of 4-5 people, fully dedicated to finding new channels, new information, writing, making videos and presenting the product in a way that is easily understandable for everyone. What worked for VideoCV was classic inbound marketing, educating the audience, helping potential clients realize what their problems were and how they could be solved.
According to Kristian, for a startup or a small business, use cases, good referrals, and positive testimonials are the most valuable assests.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Sammy
Before the pandemic, Sammy, Co-Founder of Ten Spot, started Fit Spot, a service to deliver scalable wellness amenities to companies nationwide. Now the Ten Spot platform helps companies engage staff through fun team building events and challenges featuring rewards and recognition. Sammy holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Miami.
About Ten Spot
Ten Spot is a workforce engagement platform that lets employers effortlessly connect, engage, and manage their remote and on-site employees all in one platform.
Sammy on getting Ten Spot's first customers (Episode 145)
Ten Spot has a sales team responsible for the majority of their sales and also a referral programme for their customers as word of mouth proved to be very helpful. Sammy shared that many inbound leads were generated through digital ads, SEO, and webinars.
According to Sammy, what brought teams together and established Ten Spot as a thought leader in the future of work space were press coverage, webinars, case studies, white papers and speeches. In Ten Spot’s case, thought leadership content proved fruitful for customer growth and engagement growth.
Ten Spot mails its database asking people to select the next webinar topics from a short list. People feel more invested in the topics covered and it also improves communication with the sales prospects. The webinars are short (30 min), with a co-host or a guest and are organized as a casual chat about the topic that has been selected. This generates much more engagement from the participants than the classical webinars and it's a great opportunity for companies to connect directly with prospective customers.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Anthony
Anthony, founder and lead guru at SaaS Gurus, brings a unique mix of medical school training, Six Sigma Black Belt process expertise, and the financial skills of a CFO with two unicorn exits and numerous other start-ups to his credit to provide the world’s most sought-after resource for B2B SaaS company financial strategy and operations.
About SaaS Gurus
SaaS Gurus helps SaaS CEOs and founders by giving them advanced Finance and Stakeholder Ecosystems to get “the numbers” easily, and enable rapid growth, while saving cash.
Anthony Nitsos on the challenges of scaling up (Episode 147)
A company trying to scale up should re-evaluate its market strategy and try to find out if that is suitable for generating leads. Anthony thinks a company should add people and resources to the top of this system in order to create more sales at the bottom. Basically, a company should be able to get enough customers to show traction, to maintain investors’ excitement, and to keep customers on the back-end.
Anthony on how marketing fits the finance stakeholder ecosystem
Since each customer's journey starts with awareness, marketing fits into the ecosystem. A company should focus on how to track this process, from awareness until the sales point, by gathering as much information as possible, without being obtrusive. At the point where a lead turns into a sale, all the information acquired throughout this journey will already be available for the CFO. For a company that wants to scale up, the strategic plan should include a part on how to meld this together to support growth.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Dmitri
As an investment analyst and mergers and acquisitions banker in New York, Dmitri learned to appreciate the many different ways that statistical modeling (ie. data science) can improve business outcomes. Dmitri is Co-Founder & Chief Solution Architect at Data Society.
About Data Society
Data Society provides customized, industry-tailored data science training and AI solutions, partnering with organizations to educate, equip, and empower their workforce with the skills to achieve their goals and expand their impact.
Dmitri on the marketing methods used by Data Society (Episode 143)
In each industry there are marketing use cases with some specific questions to be answered: who's most likely to buy and what categories exist, what groups exist, what group is this most likely to be in, how much of something will happen, when will it happen, where will it happen and to whom? Data Society applied those marketing use cases to help healthcare organizations and financial services organizations.
According to Dmitri, the first few customers came out of some of the activities the co-founders previously had in healthcare and financial services. Being based in Washington, DC, “helped” them find another industry - the government and defense space.
As they started working with clients, they developed more and more expertise in working within a certain type of industry, certain idiosyncrasies that they had and therefore the company started to built up a credibility within those types of entities. Later, presenting the references helped them approach new clients. As Dmitri puts it: “you want to make sure you have a very precise target such that your level of effort of getting that next customer, that next client, is as low as possible. And you can only do that if customers almost already know they're going to work with you by the time you begin the conversation.”
What worked for Data Society was to create a network and to generate awareness through articles and webinars. In time, they optimized this by going to events with bigger exposure, to bigger conferences. In order to have articles with increased visibility, Data Society worked with PR companies, to get to widely read publications, with bigger audiences.
Dmitri also mentioned trying cold calling and cold outreach, but he considered them insufficient, as a potential client should have already heard about the company and its success as a tech firm, by the time of the call.
About Data Society’s partnerships
Data Society is working closely with Nvidia, RStudio or Anaconda to teach people how to apply advanced AI techniques using their hardware and their technology. According to Dmitri, this is a great opportunity to get content delivered and to offer effectively free resources to their audiences.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
Do you feel frustrated that, even though you provide excellent products and services, your HR business is still not getting the number of customers or clients you want?
“Ben took our marketing and lead generation up to a whole new level. He delivered a powerful combination of strategy, execution, and iteration to help us reach new top-level clients."
Paul Smyth, Managing Director - Top Tier Recruitment
About Tim
Tim is a 20 year HR/Recruiting Talent Pro with a Master’s in HR and SPHR certification, presently residing in Lansing, MI. Currently, he is the President at HRU Technical Resources – a $40M IT and Engineering contract staffing firm and RPO. Prior to joining HRU, he was the Director of Employment at Sparrow Health System, Regional HR and Staffing Director with Applebee’s Intl., Retail Health Recruiting Manager and Regional HR Mgr. with ShopKo Stores and Pamida respectively.
About HRU Tech
HRU Technical Resources was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Lansing, Michigan. HRU specializes in engineering, IT, technical and other support services and it is able to recruit and successfully place candidates in job openings in a variety of other fields and positions, such as human resources, administration, management, purchasing, sales, customer service, accounting, organic chemistry and more.
Tim's advice on growing a successful business (Episode 155)
As Tim puts it, content marketing becomes really useful when a company is trying to scale up, after building a brand throughout the years. The "shiny object syndrome" should be avoided, meaning new channels and features (talks, content for leadership, etc.) should be added in a thoughtful way. One should produce content that is valuable for the readers, without minding the numbers, because the quality and the sustained effort will pay results.
At the same time, content that proved valuable over the years can be re-posted and it will get more traffic, as it will reach new readers as well as those who saw it previously but didn't pay attention.
Tim's advice on sales and marketing
For a new product, don't wait to sell it until it becomes the best. A company should be able to sell what it has developed at some point and later make it better incrementally. Whatever your core product was that you developed, if you can't find a buyer now, it's pretty rare that you're going to add in features that are going to make people want to buy.
Stop what you're doing in development, put all of your effort into selling it because what we know in our industry is there's a lot of really average or below average technology that is doing billions of dollars in revenue every year because there was a need and they were able to sell it even though it wasn't the best.
According to Tim, great salespeople are going to create more of an avenue for success than the product itself.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
About Brian
Brian McComak is a consultant, speaker, author, and facilitator with over 25 years of experience in DEI, HR, culture, change management, internal communications, and employee experience.
Before starting Hummingbird Humanity, he was the Global Head of Inclusion for Tapestry – the home of Coach, Kate Spade & Stuart Weitzman – where he designed and launched the company’s DEI strategy. Brian has also worked in leadership roles at leading global companies including The Walt Disney Company, L’Oreal, and Christie’s Auction House.
About Hummingbird Humanity
Hummingbird Humanity works to build bridges of trust in spaces that historically haven’t worked for everyone. The company actively champion environments where all humans thrive and believes this is how organizations can truly succeed. It is committed to expanding awareness of individual lived experiences and sharing stories so that every voice is heard.
Brian on building cohesive teams (Episode 148)
Practice the Pause is a framework a company can use to create a respectful dialogue. This means not to let the emotion guide a reaction in a certain situation, by not saying something that can't be taken back. "How do I walk that back? How do I apologise? How do I make it right? Practice the Pause is a way to just take a moment, to take a beat before reacting." Practice the Pause is led by five questions: Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said right now? Does it need to be said by me? Can I say it with care, love and respect? And can I say it in a way the other person can hear me? Practise the Pause it is a tool that helps avoiding creating moments that aren't intended or moments that provoke harm or pain or discomfort. Many leaders saw "Practice the Pause" as a suitable framework to lead and manage, because it helps them manage and lead better, and it helps them focus on being curious and on listening, on allowing space for the people that they're managing or leading. It helps teams to be better teams and leaders to be better leaders, as Brian puts it.
Brian's advice on growing a business
I want to be able to say authentically, if I'm working with the client, that I'm doing the things that I'm suggesting you to do or challenging you to do. Brian considers that organisations have a responsibility to create environments that are respectful and inclusive to everyone. Business leaders have to make responsible decisions, both towards the stakeholder and the ROI. In a company with an environment where humans thrive, those humans will create success for the business and drive organisational growth, drive profitability, drive change that will be meaningful for the customers.
Brian on getting new clients
For Hummingbird, growth has been driven by Brian's network. In the same time, Brian considers that his commitment to help others make connections has served Hummingbird well, because some of those people came asking for help, or they've suggested to people in their network to reach out to Brian's team. Later, their clients have referred people in their network to Hummingbird. Nowadays, their online presence, along with their reputation and credibility in the marketplace are driving additional business development leads.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
There are so many consultancies and tech firms out there competing for business in the HR sector. Could specializing be a way for you to get around this problem?
Specialization can be done by industry, roles, use cases, and more:
By industry:
Ep. 138 – Kate Graham - UNLEASH specializes in producing research, content, and events specifically for the HR Tech industry.
Ep. 87 – Alison Clegg - Highridge HR specializes in HR consulting services specifically for the Insurance & Financial Services industries.
Ep. 65 – Rachel P Barker - Project Manager & Administrator with HR specialism in the Performing Arts
Ep. 7 – Ward Christman - HR Tech Advisor specializes in full-stack go-to-market strategy and execution designed to support HR/Work Tech senior leadership teams in exceeding their growth goals.
Ep. 160 – Chandré Grobler - Chandré focuses on providing HR consulting for faith-based organisations and not-for-profits.
By role:
Ep. 132 – Fiona Ahern – Intermix Workforce specializes in connecting small businesses with HR professionals.
Ep. 130 – Julie Turney – HR at Heart Consulting focuses on providing safe spaces for HR professionals to lean in, grow and thrive.
Ep. 44 – Emma El-Karout - One Circle specializes in helping companies hire of virtual freelance HR Consultants from across the world.
Ep. 60 – Jamie Martin – B2B Sales Training specializes in B2B Sales Training & Sales Strategy to Grow SME Business Sales.
Continued . . .
There are so many consultancies and tech firms out there competing for business in the HR sector. Could specializing be a way for you to get around this problem?
Specialization can be done by industry, roles, use cases, and more:
By use case:
Ep. 137 – Will Peng - Northstar focuses specially on employee financial wellness.
Ep. 136 – Allessandria Polizzi - Verdant Consulting focuses specifically on employee resilience & burnout prevention.
Ep. 134 – Karishma Motiram - The Thought Box focuses specifically on mothers returning to the workforce after maternity leave.
Ep. 127 – Barbara Rubel - Barbara focuses specifically on helping with grief and burnout.
Ep. 98 – Claire Schmidt - AllVoices focuses specifically on employee concerns reporting.
Ep. 46 – Catherine Mattice - Civility Partners, Inc. focuses on helping organizations meet their goals by developing and delivering systemic solutions to negative workplace behaviors.
Ep. 50 – Helen Armstrong - Silver Cloud HR focuses on helping mid/large sized organisations to select, implement and manage their HR and Payroll systems.
Ep. 33 – Shauna Moran - Operate Remote-com helps remote and hybrid teams increase engagement and productivity while diminishing burnout through training, coaching and process creation
Ep. 28 – Cynthia Dearin - Cynthia focuses on helping manufacturing and tech companies to scale internationally.
About Julie
Julie Turney is a heart centric and people-focused HR Professional with over 15 years of experience in the field. She is the brainchild of HR@Heart Consulting Inc. a coaching firm she created after her second bout of HR burnout to help HR professionals build their resilience agility while providing a safe place to recharge.
Julie is also the Lead Organizer of DisruptHR Caribbean for Barbados, Jamaica & Trinidad, Host of the HR Sound Off Podcast Show and author of the book “Confessions of an HR Pro: Stories of Defeat and Triumph.”
About HR@HEART Consulting
HR@HEART Consulting works with organizations, executives, teams and individuals who are ready to build their resilience agility and prioritize their self-care so that they can continue to bring their best self to work.
Julie's advice on managing burnout (Episode 130)
Julie is very protective of her downtime and is often doing mindfulness exercises, going for walks, and she combines this with moments when she is doing nothing. Julie considers herself lucky for being able to work from home, four days a week. Friday is usually for embracing those moments of downtime and for spending quality time with the family. Julie uses remote work places such as cafes or simply places with good ambiance to write her blog posts or social media content.
Julie's advice on managing clients
Julie uses Microsoft OneNote and Huler (www.huler.io) to manage her clients along with a workbook that is designed specifically for them. She records all of her sessions and gave full access to her clients, so they can adjust, change, and work in that workbook in real time. Everything they could possibly need is in those workbooks, whether it's learning and development tools, reports, templates etc.
Julie's advice for those thinking of launching their own HR related business
"If you see a need and you have a way of filling that need, go for it.
"Be willing to embrace failure, be willing to embrace that as a part of your journey and don't be so hard on yourself, but just go for it if that's what you want to do. Believe in yourself, know that there's going to be support along the way. And if you ever need that support, I'm sure you can count on me or Ben to support you or the HR community at large, because there are so many amazing people in the HR space that are doing this and that can support you."
Julie's advice for those looking to build a career in the HR
"My advice is just find your niche, find your sweet spot. Whether that's L&D, whether that's culture or analytics, find your sweet spot. Determine what works best for you. If you like recruitment, then be the best recruiter that you could possibly be. If you want to be a great compliance person, then let me help you do that and be the best compliance person you could be. Understand the legislation for your country, understand that the policies you are creating are just guides and always try to find a way to create the best policy, the most human policy that you could possibly create."
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
Over the last few years, I’ve sent more than 3 million emails for my clients' campaigns and for my own business.
I keep track of all email statistics – open rates, clicks, conversion rates, etc.
Always gotta be testin’!
When was the last time you ran a test or an experiment in your marketing?
However . . .
If you are only sending one type of message then how do you know if it’s the best message to send?
You can run tests and experiments in almost any aspect of your sales and marketing.
You don’t have to keep testing forever.
Just long enough to get the learning and make a decision.
Some tests work. Some don’t.
Unless you test, you’ll never know.
Unless you test different options and approaches, you may unwittingly be stuck using a method that is losing you money.
Give it some thought and test just one thing – you may be surprised by the results.
When it comes to growing a business in the HR sector, one size does not fit all.
Not every marketing method is right for your business.
There are so many different ways to promote your HR business.
You have so many options to choose from . . .
You can’t do it all. You shouldn’t do it all.
www.goldbeck.com
About Henry
Henry has been a professional recruiter in Vancouver for over 27 years, recruiting sales&marketing professionals and high level executives in the manufacturing, industrial, commercial, b2b, and heavy industry sectors. He founded the company almost 25 years ago and has since grown Goldbeck Recruiting into one of the most respected and trusted recruiting firms across Canada and internationally.
About Goldbeck Recruiting
Goldbeck Recruiting is a headhunting and recruitment agency based in Vancouver, BC. with the following specialties: Executive Search, Sales & Marketing Recruitment, Engineering & Construction Recruitment, Manufacturing & Operations Recruitment, Finance & Accounting Recruitment, Healthcare & Biotech Recruitment, IT & Telecom Recruitment, Mining, Oil, & Gas Recruitment. Goldbeck Recruiting is also a member of National Personnel Associates, a global network of leading recruitment firms.
Henry's opinion on what makes a Good vs Great recruitment business (Episode 91)
According to Henry, the interesting thing about going into the recruiting business or into an HR business is that there's zero barrier to entry. Other than having a phone or a computer, anybody can go into it. The variations and the types of businesses are wide and the recruiting firms operate very differently. From a business point of view, from a customer point of view, you have to provide value and you have to make customers and potential customers aware of the value and the service you provide that they need and are going to pay for.
Henry's advice on winning against the competition
What worked for Goldbeck Recruitment was digital marketing advertising from very early on - they get a lot of business from that. According to Henry, for a small business like Goldbeck Recruiting, their marketing spend is greater than most. They also became effective at isolating SEO search terms where they can compete successfully.
At the moment, they get a lot of inquiries and company inquiries through their digital reputation and through their digital footprint.
On SEO and keyword search
"You're never going to entirely separate candidates finding you versus potential clients finding you. How are potential clients going to find you? What search terms are they using to look for recruiting services? How can you compete? Can you compete on those search terms?"
Henry said there are 700 different keyword phrases that will show Goldbeck Recruiting on the first page of a Google search. There's competition for those keywords and Goldberg Recruiting is constantly working on getting better in terms of ranking, checking constantly the terms that people are using to find recruiting services.
SEO as investment
For Henry, SEO is an investment. His budget represents 10%-15% of gross revenue, but that brings in 60% of the business. The company has also rebuilt its website with a simple structure and logical content related to the business. There has to be a customer journey on the website so that they stay on it and this journey ends up where there's a call to action.
At the same time, it should be considered as an ongoing investment. "Your website should never, is never going to be finished. Ever. So when you're planning your budget around it, it's less important what you spend to build your website than what you're going to spend on an ongoing basis to constantly grow, improve, adjust, add content to continuously build. That's what brings success. Spending too much on a fancier website and then not having a budget to continue that work is a mistake compared to maybe building a smaller, simpler website and then expanding it and growing it and continuously improving it again. What keywords can we be effective in? How can we do this better? How can we adjust that? Right now, most of our budget goes to content creation.
Goldbeck Recruiting continuously makes structural changes to their website. They recently reorganized their areas of expertise, with fewer categories. More optimized content was added for each category to rank better on Google.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
If your marketing ever feels a little overwhelming or if you’d like some help implementing the process, I can guide you through the maze of confusing options.
I'll help you choose the right marketing methods for you and your business.
I've helped hundreds of HR business owners around the world to build a better business.
I can act as your de facto Marketing Director to guide you as you design, launch, & run your 90-Day Marketing Plan.
You will know what you need to do and when you need to do it.
I will also give you clear instructions and advice on how to do it.
I’ll also answer any questions you have along the way.
Whatever your marketing plan entails, I’ll guide you and tell you exactly what you need to do.
I’ll also answer any questions you have along the way.
Get in touch today at www.GetMoreHRClients.com/Services
All the best,
Ben
www.janeferre.com
About Jane
Jane is growing a career coaching business for senior HR professionals who’ve outgrown their current role and want to secure their dream role in their dream company with a dream package in less than six months.
Before setting up her own coaching practice she had a 20+ year career in senior HR roles such as HR Business Partner, Head of Leadership Development and Head of Talent at British Airways before joining LEON Restaurants as their very first Head of Training.
About Jane Ferré Executive Coaching
Jane Ferré is helping HR Directors conclude the consultation process and exit senior people from their business with dignity so that they can transition into their next role by offering them my VIP 1:1 career outplacement programme. She understands exactly how much effort you need to put into each job application and how frustrating it can be when you get ghosted after an interview. She has also been on the other side of the recruitment table, so knows exactly what recruiting managers are looking for.
Jane on getting the first clients (Episode 89)
Jane remembers following the advice of a consultant she met while working at British Airways and being a member of the judging panel for young entrepreneurs: "If you are a coach, it's all about relationships, because people need to know, like, and trust you, and they can't do that from a website. They can't do that from a post on LinkedIn. You need to be out there doing videos." So she started a series of 40 videos with the most common interview questions and suggested responses to them: "Tell me about yourself", "Tell me about a time when you have experienced conflict in the workplace", "Tell me about a time when you have experienced a knock back on the project". She posted the videos on LinkedIn, twice a day, for four weeks and this is how she got her first clients. She recorded the videos using a mobile phone, with no preparation, and this proved to her that the message was the most
important and she should focus on delivering the real message to the target audience.
"If you're thinking of setting up a business, just do it. The improvements will come. You are an expert. Just get your message out there. It doesn't matter how. And you'll get those people telling you to put subtitles, to get better lighting, to get a tripod, but just start."
Jane's plans for getting new clients
What proved successful was the free five day challenges Jane initiated on LinkedIn, taking people on a journey for five days and then at the end having the opportunity to work with her. She is also preparing VIP coaching packages, working one-on-one, because she considers this as her "zone of genius for people".
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
www.FromImpossible.com
About Aaron
Aaron is a keynote speaker and also the best-selling author of Predictable Revenue (called “the sales bible of Silicon Valley”) which was based on an outbound prospecting system which has created more than $1 billion in sales for Salesforce.com and other companies. He’s Co-CEO of PredictableRevenue.com.
Aaron's advice when starting a business (Episode 32)
"If you do want to start your own company, whether it's consulting or software company, be prepared for it to take longer than you think it will. If you are a software company or technology company, it could take two years." According to Aaron, the best thing you can do if you're currently in a job is to work on building your audience with people who know you and are part of your network. You can also build an audience by publishing content. "And the more that you can build your audience, the more of a running start you're giving yourself towards whatever you do on your own, whether it's consulting or whether it's a tech company or something different. It's hard doing your own company, and you want to give yourself every advantage."
Aaron's advice on finding your niche
"If you pick your [radio] station and you broadcast clearly, it'll make it easier for the right customers to hear you. And if you have a sales team, it's the same principle. Sales people can get overwhelmed if you have too many products, too many types of customers. How can you make it simple for the people on your team to focus on the right customers who have the right problems with the right message? It's really about focusing this kind of antidote or this countercurrent against the overwhelmed."
"Nailing a niche means being very disciplined about the types of customers who need you the most, understanding them and being able to read their minds. Knowing them so you know what their problems are and how they think. And then that enables you to communicate to them in a way that is meaningful to them, whether that's through blogs, video, cold emails or any other kind of medium."
"Salesforce.com always had a vision for business on the web, but their initial niche was salesforce automation and that's still the basis of their
success today. Amazon.com had a vision for global ecommerce and worlddomination. Their initial niche was books. For Zappos it was shoes. So for a lot of the most successful companies, if you look back, they actually did pick one specific or focused niche to get started and then they would build on other layers. What happens is the old fable around a dog with a bone in its mouth who sees its reflection in the river. It wants both bones so it drops the first oneand loses both. So, what's your bone? Don't drop that."
Aaron on the balance between inbound and outbound marketing
"Ultimately you need both content marketing and outbound prospecting for most businesses, for any product business, for sure. There's not a simple answer around what's the right ratio of inbounds or leads or effort versus outbound. It really depends on the business and how effective each one is on longer term. SaaS companies and product companies usually end up with around 40% inbound for their business. New business comes from content marketing, inbound marketing, 40% comes from outbound prospecting and 20% comes from channels like referral partners and channel partners. That can vary completely from business to business. I would say the lesson is to focus on one outbound prospecting. That alone can take six to twelve months to really do it and do it right. The same thing with content, inbound marketing can take six to twelve months to really do it right. So just pick one when you're really trying to grow, pick one to nail first before you scatter your energy trying to do too much at one time."
Aaron speaking on the future of outbound prospecting
"I think outbound prospecting is actually growing faster than ever and the reason is because people see how directly it can drive revenue. I'd say for a lot of venture funded companies, some of the fastest growing companies in the world, one of the first things they do to drive growth is create an outbound prospecting programme. Now some things are on decline, for example email response rates. The world is always changing but there's other things that are getting better, like LinkedIn response rates and that's always evolving. So the bottom line for most companies, especially product companies, is outbound prospecting. This is something you have to do. You don't have to do it today but you do have to do it at some point if you want another channel. It's going to drive growth in a predictable way. It can be successful and can add a lot of revenue and predictability to your revenue model whether you're in Europe or in the States. Even with GDPR, people are still doing prospecting all the time in Europe.
Ben’s Key Takeaways:
I've helped hundreds of HR business owners around the world to build a better business.
I can help you grow your business faster and easier too.
Let's talk.
Get in touch today at www.GetMoreHRClients.com/Services
All the best,
Ben