[Podcast] The Staffing Industry’s 2024 Outlook: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead | Lunch with Haley

1. Lauren Jones and Rob Mann (You Own the Experience podcast)
2. Kortney Harmon (Full Desk Experience podcast)
3. Richard Rosner (The Staffing Shark)
4. Nicole Serres (Author of “From Receptionist to Boss”)
5. Steve Gipson (Host of Distinctly Digital podcast)

Kortney Harmon [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to another episode of the full Desk Experience podcast. I'm your host, Kortney Harmon, and as some of you may know, I was recently invited to be a guest on the popular Haley marketing webinar series called Lunch with Haley. It was an honor to join five other leaders in the staffing and recruiting industry. I joined host Brad Biley, Lauren Jones, Rob Mann, the Shark, Steve Gibson, and Nicole Smart. Over the course of the 60 minutes discussion, we covered a lot of ground. We talked about key topics, positioning, recruiting and staffing firms for success in the competitive 2024 landscape. We talked about differentiation strategies, optimizing the candidate experience through better engagement and messaging, leveraging AI to augment the human driven workflows, and even shared some rapid fire advice to wrap up the event. It was such a great time and amazing insights all around.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:57]:
Now let's listen in. Hi, I'm Kortney Harmon, director of industry relations at Crelate. Over the past decade, I've trained thousands of frontline recruiters and I've worked with hundreds of business owners and executives to help their firms and agencies grow.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:13]:
This is the full desk experience, a.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:15]:
Crelate original podcast where we will be talking about growth blockers across your people, processes, and technologies. Welcome to another episode of the full Desk Experience.

Brad Bialy [00:01:35]:
Good afternoon and welcome to lunch with Haley. Hey, we're going to get started here in just a few minutes. While we do, while everyone's clicking in, I want you to go ahead and navigate to that chat window, to the questions window, whatever you have on your display. I know sometimes it shows up differently. Whether you're on Zoom, the app, whether you're on browser version, I want you to log in to Zoom, look at the chat window, and just let us know where you're dialing in from. All right? So for the next couple of minutes, we're just going to get comfortable here. We're going to get familiar with where some settings are on Zoom so that you can ask questions throughout today's presentation. Today's real conversation.

Brad Bialy [00:02:09]:
Go ahead, navigate to that chat window and let us all know where you're dialing in from. And I'm actually going to use that as a good time to pull up in the chat window as well. We have a stacked lineup today, friends, for our final lunch with Haley of 2023. We're going to get started right at the top of 02:00 here because we do not have time to waste in the waiting room. Ahead of the conversation today, I was telling everybody it's going to be hard to keep six content creators on pace and on track for an hour. But we're going to do our best. So to get us started, I'm going to go around and just kind of call out people. I'd love for you to let everyone know who you are in case they aren't familiar with you, and also talk a little bit about your show, talk about your content and what it is that you're putting together consistently.

Brad Bialy [00:02:51]:
Shark, we'll start with you.

Richard Rosner [00:02:53]:
All righty. So I have a couple of shows. There's flagship one, recruiters with no limits. I'm the staffing shark. I got one behind the book, which anybody that's an author in a staffing industry, I highlight them and also have one called review it, where we do technology software. But in 2024, I'm going to tell you, we got another media outlet. I'm not going to tell you much about it, but it's going to be pretty awesome in 2024.

Brad Bialy [00:03:14]:
Bliffhanger for us all. Kortney Harmon, how about you?

Kortney Harmon [00:03:16]:
My name is Kortney Harmon. I'm the director of industry relations here at Cur late. Obviously, like all of us here, love the world of staffing and recruiting. I have the show, the full desk experience. We talk about latest, greatest happenings in the workforce, whether it's tech process trends. We have a few different formats. If you're like me and you like workshops like this, we do them live each month. And we have other things like industry spotlights, where we really tune into interviews with people in the groundwork of the success that has laid to where they've gotten today.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:47]:
And we have a lot of new things coming. In 2024, I'm going to be like a shark and I'm going to leave a cliffhanger because there's a lot more to come.

Brad Bialy [00:03:54]:
Love to hear it. Steve, talk to us, buddy.

Steve Gibson [00:03:57]:
Yeah, so I am Steve Gibson. I'm from recruiters websites. I'm a veteran of 14 years within this industry, the recruiting and staffing industry, and I'm the director of sales and operations there. At recruiters websites, I host podcasts with one of my associates named Sam Pro called Distinctly Digital, and it is a podcast where we focus on all things marketing for the industry. And I also like to create a lot of nonsensical recruiting memes on LinkedIn, so I spend most of my time doing that. If I'm active on social, it's quite.

Brad Bialy [00:04:28]:
A know if you think about an algorithm showing you the content you want to see. Steve, I think I see your content more than anybody else on this call, which is really interesting. And maybe something we could talk about in a little bit. Lauren, tell us about yourself.

Lauren Jones [00:04:39]:
I am Lauren Jones. I'm the founder and CEO of Leap Consulting Solutions. I've been in the industry for 26 years. Probably the oldest person here, but that's okay.

Brad Bialy [00:04:53]:
Irrelevant.

Lauren Jones [00:04:54]:
But with age comes wisdom, right? So I am a co host on the you on the experience podcast with Rob Mann, where we cover all of our staffing and recruiting industry topics. I also have technology Tuesday where we talk about technology, obviously. And so I'm excited about today's conversation. Pretty awesome to be here. Thank you for having me.

Brad Bialy [00:05:17]:
You got it. Thanks for joining us, Rob. That's a good transition your way. Yeah.

Rob Mann [00:05:21]:
Hey, I'm Rob Man. I am the other co host of the Un Experienced podcast. I'm also the director of sales and marketing with the staff of technology called 3D IQ. Only eleven years in the industry. Lauren. So the tiny recruiter over here. But yeah, we talk, like Lauren said, intersection of technology and people. And when you get that formula right, good things happen in your business.

Rob Mann [00:05:40]:
Excellent.

Brad Bialy [00:05:41]:
And that leaves, Nicole, you in the top left of my screen. Tell us about yourself.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:05:44]:
Yeah, I'm Nicole smart saras. I've been in the staffing industry for 20 years. I wrote a best selling book called from receptions to boss that shares how I became a staffing owner by the age of 25. And I helped my company go from 7 million to 36 million with no sales team.

Rob Mann [00:06:02]:
Wow.

Brad Bialy [00:06:02]:
Fantastic. Fantastic. If you don't know me, I'm Brad Biley, Haley marketing's director of digital. I run the Insights podcast over here with our director of recruitment marketing, Matt Lozar. But more importantly, today I'm here to host this fantastic panel of content creators and really keep us all on track for the next hour. Friends, as you're listening, we have some questions that we kind of put together ahead of the show. We have some ideas of where we want this conversation to go, but ultimately, this is your conversation and this is your learning opportunity. If there are specific questions you want us to cover, there are specific questions for one individual.

Brad Bialy [00:06:36]:
You want the entire panel to cover a question? I am perfectly fine throwing out the script that we have put together here and going rogue with it. So if you have anything that you want to know, let us know and we'll take it from there. Friends, as I was doing a little bit of research ahead of the conversation, I ran a quick number from staffing industry analysts and the staffing industry itself is a 200 billion dollar industry. Now, some of you on today's call might know that some of you might not. And the reason I'm telling you that is I'm noticing a bit of a challenge here. Right. In the last year or so, I'm hearing more and more frequently that businesses are down. Had a call last week with a client who's down 51% year over year.

Brad Bialy [00:07:15]:
Another call just this morning, a client is down over 50%. Wouldn't tell me the exact number, but over 50%. And I am here today to say there is too much opportunity in this industry to sit and let the industry pass you by. With $200 billion of an industry, there is far too much opportunity to accept defeat. We cannot deploy the same tactics we deployed in 2023. We certainly can't deploy the same tactics we did in 2019 pre Covid, and expect better results in 2024. So, friends, we have six of the brightest minds in staffing on today's call, along with me, your host, to talk about what you can do differently in 2024. These are things that we learned along the way, and these are things that we see coming down the pipeline into 2024.

Brad Bialy [00:08:04]:
So as we get started here, Kortney, I'm going to start with you first question right off the bat. When we think about sales and we think about driving new business in 2024, does our industry have a sales problem or do we have a differentiation problem?

Kortney Harmon [00:08:20]:
It's a really great question. I think everything going on the economy right now, I would say our industry has faced both. On the sales side, obviously, less hiring obviously means more competitive people to place right. We've gone from a numbers game over the last few years, and it's fading. Before, it was just enough roles, as long as you had a body to fill it, they didn't care who or how. You always had more openings than people. But now I think it's a whole new ballgame. With fewer spots to fill, clients can get pickier about who they work with.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:51]:
They want partners who really kind of get what they need. And it's about quality, finding specialized talent. You really need to be stand out in the market. So I think it's a differentiator. So while sales are tougher with lower demand, there's the need to stand out. No more sending 10,000 text message a day. You have to showcase your brands, your content. I hate to say it, with an election year coming up, you're going to hear candidates, you're going to hear the people that are on the ballot.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:17]:
You're going to hear their name more than you need to. And that's almost how we have to position ourselves. Before the call started, it was talking about Hallmark movies, and it was like, but is it really the content they're creating or it's just out there so frequently? And I think that's a position we need to think about as we go into 2024.

Brad Bialy [00:09:32]:
Anybody else? Do we have a sales problem or do we have a different problem?

Lauren Jones [00:09:36]:
I think we have a sales problem. I think we have a big sales problem. I think that we enjoyed the fruits of a really good economy for a long time, and so we got to be really good order takers. And I think we lost the art of a good sales practice. That takes discipline, it takes consistency, it takes rigor to create a sales organization and create a sales minded agency. And I think we got just a little bit lazy. So while, yes, differentiation is part of the sales process, I think we rested on our loyals a little too long being good order takers with a really great economy. And when push came to shove, we forgot a little bit.

Lauren Jones [00:10:15]:
Because I will tell you this, in 2023, what I was training most on was AI. I know we're going to talk about that with our best selling AI course, right? But sales and sales enablement. And so I think that therein lies where some of the weaknesses were.

Richard Rosner [00:10:31]:
Real quick, I got to tell you, this year was probably one of my best years. And you know why? I went after the staffing firms that can't service. The number one thing that companies said, you cannot service. And for the shark, I'm like, dude, I can service you. One of my tips, I'll give you my cell phone number on the weekend.

Brad Bialy [00:10:47]:
Text me.

Steve Gibson [00:10:48]:
Boom.

Richard Rosner [00:10:48]:
Got a contract like that. So I took 80% of the market from another staffing firm, actually five of them in the area, because they did not know how to service. So I think at the end of day, we don't sell. It's all about communication and collaboration. You do that, the rest is gravy and relationships.

Brad Bialy [00:11:03]:
Relationships, yeah, that's part of it.

Rob Mann [00:11:06]:
I don't need to belabor this, but I think it's together. Right? I think it's a sales problem, but the sales problem also is differentiate. Like, differentiating and differentiating is also part of your relationship. And being present, like the shark, is everywhere. You can't avoid that, man. That's a good thing. No, it's great. I'm happy.

Rob Mann [00:11:24]:
I know you're successful because of it, and it's good and it's helpful and it adds value. But then you also go and you give people your cell phone, and that's relationship building. So you're in front of them and you have that relationship.

Steve Gibson [00:11:34]:
Yeah, part of what I see here.

Brad Bialy [00:11:36]:
So you mentioned at the start of the call that you grew star staffing significantly. I think the number, if I have it correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is 7 million to 36 million while you were really in charge over at Star. How did that happen? I mean, that doesn't happen by chance. That happens through very strategic decisions and very strategic steps. Right. Talk to us about how you grew that so significantly.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:12:00]:
Yeah, well, when we were smaller, we didn't really have a budget, so everything was very do it yourself, which was fun to get so creative. So I attended between one to three networking events most days just to build the brand and start to have those relationships out in the community. And that eventually led to a lot more referrals. And then I did some old fashioned cold calling. So I did cold call 25 companies a day and some days even more, depending on the business part. So still old fashioned, traditional. And then we focused on being, becoming really credible and winning as many awards as we could and then promoting them. And then I sat on boards, became entrenched in the HR community.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:12:40]:
So you're seeing a lot of relationships, a lot of getting out in the community. And then as we started to take off and we got a bigger budget, we were able to start investing in keywords and SEO. And then we started promoting case studies and the great results that we've helped clients with. And that led to a lot larger business. We improved our blogging strategy with writing four to five times a month. I started writing for our local papers, and then I also started my own newsletter that has over 500 subscribers. And then what we did is we leveled up and we really became this huge resource for our clients. So we started an annual conference two years before COVID and then turned it virtual.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:13:21]:
And we're expecting about 600 hr leaders next year. And then we also host monthly webinars, which we're getting about an average of 150 hr leaders per month. And 60% is new leads. So it's become like our number one lead gen tool, and then 40% is current clients, so we're able to stay in touch with them monthly through the webinar. And those might seem like small numbers, but we're actually beating our local HR association. So a lot of pride in becoming this huge resource to our clients and being seen as a partner and the go to for HR. And then I just can't say it enough, is you can bring all the orders in, but if you're not filling them and you're not providing great service, that all goes away and you don't have that brand. And so we worked really hard, literally twenty four seven, to outperform for our clients.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:14:13]:
And so when they left to go to another company, they took us with them. So we were just constantly gaining new clients, and it just became reciprocal. Like these referrals just coming in, a lot more things. But those are kind of the key things.

Brad Bialy [00:14:28]:
Yeah, a lot more things. But I think my biggest takeaway there is, it's a huge network of what you did to grow. Right. It's not just, oh, we did one email campaign, or we launched a blogging program, or we posted on LinkedIn a few times a week. It was a strategic effort to say, listen, I'm going to do this, this one to three networking events a day. On top of cold calling 25 people, on top of doing everything else. The biggest point that I had there was there's so much that goes into growth that you can't overlook anything.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:14:58]:
Absolutely. And just a multitude of things. Right. It was in the community, like cold calling traditional. Then you also bring in social media and virtual. And then we did a lot of out of, obviously, as our budget grew. Right. As we were growing, we were able to invest more into our marketing dollars.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:15:14]:
And then we started doing more out of the home. So we did like bus ads and billboards and got really creative and fun. And then people started saying, who's doing your billboards? They're so good. And I'm like, oh, that's internal. So it's just been really fun to watch it kind of grow through the years. And then being able to see it wasn't one defining thing.

Lauren Jones [00:15:34]:
Right.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:15:34]:
It was a multitude of things done consistently over time that really led to this explosive growth.

Steve Gibson [00:15:40]:
How much time, Nicole?

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:15:41]:
I joined in 2009. We were still in like a recession, and we're 2000, so 14 years. Yeah, we just got a sales team, so this is the year we got the sales team. So expect explosive growth.

Steve Gibson [00:15:56]:
I wanted to ask that because, make that very clear, because I know I talk to so many firms, and one of the things about our industry is that it's so backwards in getting started on trying new things. Firms are very hesitant to do that and jump into new tools or new processes or just kind of put their toe in the water, and then they want to see results immediately, which is not realistic in the way that it approached, but it's that long term process that you've taken over the last 14 years of doing those small things, building upon the things that you know how to do really well within the industry from recruiting and actually providing those services and then building upon that. And I think that's such an important thing to stress, is that here a.

Rob Mann [00:16:32]:
Little, there a little.

Steve Gibson [00:16:33]:
And building and progressing over time is what allows a firm to be successful like yourself. I think that's huge. So that's just awesome to hear.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:16:40]:
Thank you. We try a lot of things. That's my philosophy, right? Throw things, do it really well, give it time, and the rewards have been outstanding. So I'm grateful for the autonomy and the creativity with the team.

Rob Mann [00:16:55]:
There's a quick question. Nicole from the Q A, are you seeing burnout on webinars?

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:17:00]:
Not yet. Actually, we're seeing traction, really, with the HR leaders. So every month we're getting more and more. And actually, I was just at this HR conference and people were coming up to me talking about how great our webinars are, and we're their number one source for HR content. And I said, oh, my goodness, that's one of the best compliments you can get. So I think next year it will continue to gain traction and then I think we'll obviously have to continue to level up and keep the engagement going.

Brad Bialy [00:17:31]:
Yeah. Actually, I saw a great article the other day that said people aren't burnt out of Zoom, they're bored out of Zoom. People don't want to go into webinars. They don't want to go any more Zoom meetings because they're so boring that no one wants to spend another 45 minutes just looking at a screen. It's bore out, not burnout. I'm going to keep it moving here. We're going to ask the next question here. This one's for Steve.

Brad Bialy [00:17:49]:
What are some of the best recruiters doing differently to differentiate themselves? What do you think?

Steve Gibson [00:17:53]:
For me, if you do look at the top level recruiters, those guys that are know, and I work a lot, just kind of preface, I work a lot with in direct hire, a lot of direct hire firms. So staffing, recruiting, they obviously intertwine, but there are some distinct differences there in the way that they can be viewed. But some of the biggest billers that I see are the ones that are consistently implementing these new tactics. Like Nicole was talking about being active on social, being active in ball know, creating content, sending newsletters, doing a little bit of all the right things beyond even just they understand how the recruit, of course they understand the industry. They know how to service their clients, how to find the right candidates, all the things that a recruiter needs to do, because nothing really replaces that. Like Nicole said, you could be the best marketing person in the world and if you don't have the skill set to do that, you're going to fall short. But they put all those things together and I think the concept of, I heard this the other day, we haven't arrived, but we're always arriving. So having a mindset of that, we're always arriving to be better than we were yesterday and knowing that we can progress in that way and add a little bit to our repertoire, be a little bit better here, a little bit better there, and just consistently build upon that.

Steve Gibson [00:18:57]:
Those are what the best recruiters are doing each and every day.

Brad Bialy [00:19:00]:
Anybody else want to add to that?

Lauren Jones [00:19:01]:
I can't go a conversation without talking about AI because the best recruiters today are embracing new technology. We have to be able to have an open mind when it comes to change. And so we have to make sure that our recruiters, that we've created a safe space to help continually train. Training is not a one hit wonder. You have to continue to invest in training and upskilling your recruiters. And particularly with Gen Z, who want a very clear career path. We have to make sure that we nurture that need. And that need is for continuing education, whether it's vertical education, whether it's new position education, or whether it's technology and beyond.

Lauren Jones [00:19:43]:
But obviously, the recruiters that I'm seeing this year that have this open mind about AI, I mean, 84% of recruiters said that they're really excited about AI. And yet when you do the research and you look at what they're actually searching on, AI will replace my job. AI is replacing recruiting. AI is doing this, AI is doing that. So there's fear and excitement at the same time. And the way that you avoid that feeling is educating. And so good recruiters are embracing education and training and technology.

Richard Rosner [00:20:13]:
I love that, Lauren. And I want to elaborate real quick. I think we should also have the micro influencer recruiter in the community doing the grassroots, too. So I think a combo of both. Just like said, get out there. I have beer coasters at the bars and restaurants with a shark on it, QR coded, do that kind of stuff, but also add the AI. Like Lawrence said, you got a win win combo in 2024.

Brad Bialy [00:20:33]:
Yeah. And shark, I'm going to stick with you. Right? So we're going to talk about personal branding and really using social to differentiate the industry and differentiate the individual. Right? So if we think about using coasters. We're going grassroots with it. We're going to that micro influencer level. You and I were talking on a podcast episode a week ago. I said, I don't want a million people to listen to my show.

Brad Bialy [00:20:52]:
I'd rather have a thousand people who absolutely love everything that we're saying, who are raving fans. That's what I want.

Richard Rosner [00:20:58]:
Right?

Brad Bialy [00:20:59]:
And shark, I think you agreed with me, but what are you seeing in terms of differentiating yourself that's working really well that individuals listening can learn from?

Richard Rosner [00:21:06]:
I think as a recruiter, and I call myself a job agent, I joke like that, like the Jerry Maguire, show me the money, show me the job. All I kind of say is, you know what? The end of day, you got to make yourself different. Okay? You have to be a character in 2024. It is what it is. You mean, like Nicole said, put little slogans out there. If I'm dressed up like the Grinch now, I'm going to put stuff out there with my tag of my name, staffing shark to brand yourself because nobody even calls me Richard Rosser. Basically, they call me the shark. And I think the three big things that you do with branding, it's passion, purpose, and people remember that.

Richard Rosner [00:21:36]:
It's about the people. It's not about us. It's about when you can serve the people. I always joke about it, but branding, how I got into it and really wanted to make myself the next level here is like Kenny Chesney. I was thinking, I'm on a stage. How do I make everybody else engage with me and want my music? Well, how does everybody want me to be their recruiter? If you think that mindset and put the content out there. I think the biggest thing is, though, for branding, put content out there and don't worry about splicing it up. We all probably agree on this, that so many times we just go over and over, put it out there.

Richard Rosner [00:22:07]:
One of my big peeps, Gary Vee, give him a shout out. You know what I learn from him every day and his team does? They teach me this stuff. Put creative content out there. Love it, brother.

Brad Bialy [00:22:16]:
Love it, man.

Richard Rosner [00:22:17]:
And you know what? Half the stuff I put out there, I never put. Now hiring, I never put get hired. It's all about building that brand. And then they come to me and say, hey, shark, I need a job. So just make yourself different.

Steve Gibson [00:22:28]:
I try to be the Cindy Lauper of recruiting. Not quite Kenny Chesman, but that's the.

Rob Mann [00:22:34]:
You do want the business to come time after time I get you, right?

Richard Rosner [00:22:37]:
Wow, boy.

Rob Mann [00:22:41]:
I'm on it right there, friends.

Brad Bialy [00:22:44]:
And that's admission right there. Anybody else have anything they want to share about personal branding and thinking through what recruiters might be able to do to differentiate themselves from everybody else? Rob, go ahead.

Rob Mann [00:22:55]:
Yeah, it's kind of simple and it's not my. This is not my idea. This is what the idea should be. Talk about your successes. Stop talking about what jobs you have open. Rich, could. Rich, shark, whatever I want to call you today could talk about, hey, I just placed five people because of this and give the reason. Or I found these candidates because I was here, or the people I just placed were experiencing x.

Rob Mann [00:23:15]:
I found y to help them. Customer was experienced x. I filled them with these five people or ten people, and then this is what happened. Give the story. What was the problem? How did you solve it? What was the outcome? And post that and tell a story. And as you're writing the story, get a hook. Right. Because that first line has to be impactful.

Rob Mann [00:23:34]:
Shark shake, or whatever you call it. I like that. Don't be afraid to talk about your wins, people. Everyone's here to make money and help people. Right? We have the best job in the world as recruiters. So tell your victories and tell sometimes your losses, too. It helps you feel more human. Little bit of vulnerability never hurt.

Steve Gibson [00:23:55]:
Yeah, I got to hear Hannah Pryor talk about that. I met Lauren at the Missouri Kansas staff Association, and Hannah was there, too, speaking. One of her big points she highlights in her talk, and also in her book, is to celebrate publicly, which I think is really hard for people to do because there is that level of, well, people are going to judge me for it. They're going to think I'm bragging. But like you said, rob, we're all in it together. And it's important to be able to have that collective community of wins because we all have losses that we have to internalize and get beat up on, and we don't get to share that or we're down. But being able to have a community that can lift you up in the idea of that win and kind of win together, I think it's a really. People want to see people be successful.

Richard Rosner [00:24:35]:
If you do it right on the head, Steve. Because that's not cockiness, that's confidence. Seriously, that's confidence. And we all need.

Rob Mann [00:24:40]:
You can share it a certain way. I think there's this idea, right? Like public speakers. I think this is like a really quick summary. When you talk in front of people, they're not there to heckle you, they're there to learn something. And they want you to be the most incredible public speaker that they ever see. They're not coming to your session at a conference, or they hired you like they hire henna. They want you to be incredible. That's the people that you want to attract anyway.

Rob Mann [00:25:03]:
So why would you not make content for people who want you to be successful and incredible?

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:25:07]:
One other thing I just want to add is I think the best recruiters are building a community. And one thing that we've done is we created regional Facebook groups for all the counties that we're in. So they're like, Sonoma county job opportunities and career advice. Sienneslas county job opportunities and career advice. And now we have control of this group for people that are just looking for jobs. It's just such an easy and free way to get candidates unsolicited and then nurture them. But you also get to kind of control the group of what's being shared. So we don't allow other staffing firms in, but we do allow employers.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:25:42]:
And now we're getting job leads as well. And it's just such a great opportunity to get a larger candidate base that we normally wouldn't have gotten in a traditional way. And then we're constantly nurturing those groups. So we have active job fairs, like virtual job fairs, and putting out career advice as well, not just jobs to keep people engaged. And so we have thousands in those groups.

Brad Bialy [00:26:04]:
I love it.

Richard Rosner [00:26:05]:
I got to elaborate real quick. Anybody gets hired with me is my Facebook friend. I had him, the Facebook. So there's my job database, right? There are 1500 people in the last four years. So there it is. LinkedIn or Facebook. Add them to there when they need a job. Next time they're going to be right there for you.

Richard Rosner [00:26:19]:
I mean, seriously, that's a win win.

Brad Bialy [00:26:21]:
Anybody else? One more thing and then we're moving to a different question. Lauren, you've mentioned AI a few times. We were going to save AI to the last part of the conversation. I'm making an executive decision, y'all. We're moving it right to the top here because I feel like AI could take the next half hour. And if it doesn't, we do have other areas that we want to cover. But I want to talk about AI in the general sense of. I don't even want to ask it.

Brad Bialy [00:26:43]:
Is AI going to replace the modern recruiter?

Lauren Jones [00:26:46]:
No, AI is not going to replace a recruiter, but someone that knows how to use it will. I mean, I've been quoted as saying that I don't know how many times. And so this is why removing the fear from it and being open as an organization, right? So you agencies, so I'm talking to agencies as well, leaders, recruiters, agencies need to be open to embracing this now, but you need to learn to do it responsibly because right now it is all open source. Right? And so this is why good education, this is why we built the course, right? This is why we do them every week, is because we're teaching people how to leverage. With great power comes great responsibility. And so we need to teach end users, recruiters, managers, and we teach it for sales and recruiting and leaders. And so how do you leverage this? Amazing. I believe this is the great equalizer.

Lauren Jones [00:27:35]:
You've got enterprise sized organizations. We're all learning this tool at the same time right now. So I think it's this opportunity to level the playing field for small agencies, to embrace this amazing technology to help give time back in your day, because time is currency in our industry. And so if you could get 90 minutes back in a brand new recruiter's day, wouldn't you help them understand how to leverage AI to generate a submittal? If you're in professional services, if you're in light industrial or high volume, wouldn't it be great if in 20 minutes they could learn three new positions and learn all of the associated interview questions to ask and write really great non biased job descriptions? Wouldn't you want to give that time back to your recruiters? I mean, it's such an amazing equalizer that anyone not enabling and empowering their people with it is acting on fear. And we know false emotion appearing real. That is fear. So let's not run our agencies with fear.

Brad Bialy [00:28:41]:
I couldn't agree more. AI to me is the intern, the assistant that I've always wanted, right? And I pay for GPT four. So for $20 a month, I have an assistant at my disposal whenever I need them, right? And they're not going to get you all the way there, but it's going to get you pretty darn close and it's going to get you pretty far down the line, right?

Lauren Jones [00:29:01]:
Never having to look at a blank screen again. That's the way that I look at this, right? You never have to start an email from zero, you never have to create a blog from zero if you don't know where to start. And you can use perplexity, you can use Bard, you can use Claude, you can use chat, JPT, you use whatever it is that you want, but it's understanding which one of those bots, essentially, which one of those ais is going to give you the best outcome. And so you've got to experiment. But again, you need to be taught how to leverage these tools responsibly, 100%.

Richard Rosner [00:29:38]:
And I think real quick, the candidates right now are jumping in on it. They love AI, to be honest with. They're on the app and all that stuff. I think the recruiters, like Lauren said, 100%, are still in the waters. We're like, oh, my goodness, should we do this or not? But here, I got to tell you, recruiters, artificial intelligence, guess what that equals actual interaction. So you're the actual interaction part. Once you get the AI part done, then you can go into the human connection and get them hired. It's a win win.

Rob Mann [00:30:06]:
I think that as we go 36 months from today, there's going to be the ability to look at your data set, whatever ats you're using, whatever operating system you're using, and it's going to be able to tell your brand new recruiter or your best recruiter what the next best action is. Some of it's happening now, but it's going to be able to learn right from your system. Right? So Salesforce already has this. If you're on Salesforce, right, Einstein AI can go in and look at your data sets and predict or tell you what the next best action is as a recruiter. When I started, I started as a locums recruiter. So physician staff contemporary, one of the most important things that we had to figure out was, and this is a very unique problem to locums. Sometimes it takes six months to nine months to get a doctor privilege at a hospital. As a new recruiter, I didn't want to wait that long, so I had to know which job was going to actually put someone to work with temp privileges or in a reasonable cycle.

Rob Mann [00:30:58]:
And as a new recruiter, I messed that up, right? So that, for me, is such a great story of directive AI and helping people work closest to the dollar. And once this AI is looking at your data sets and saying and recommending things and popping up little chrome extensions like, hey, these are the jobs you need to be working on today, and here's why. And all this data, and we're going to be such better recruiters and salespeople because of it.

Lauren Jones [00:31:25]:
Let me warn everybody right now how fast this is moving. So at the beginning of all of this chat, GPT could take in about 200 words. Claude read the great Gatsby twice, which is over 75,000 words. They change one sentence from book to book. It found it in 22 seconds. So we started with being able to intake 200 words. Now we're at 75. I mean, this is in the time span of this year.

Lauren Jones [00:31:51]:
So if you're not in, you're behind.

Brad Bialy [00:31:53]:
So if anybody is watching today and they're thinking, okay, I hear you, I need to invest more in AI. Not dollars, but mental willpower, thought into AI, where do I get started? What are some of you seeing as working well? Either for yourselves or in the industry that's working well as it comes to AI right now, Rob, I think your example is really good long term, but I'm talking.

Rob Mann [00:32:16]:
Yeah, I have a quick action, I have quick answer, so I won't be very long about this. I think just being aware of it is going to be huge. So I follow three newsletters that tell me all the new tech that's coming out, and I will go dive deeper if I think it's interesting. Right. So I think we're at the awareness stage at the very minimum, like, you need to be in the awareness stage and the trial stage. So three newsletters tell me all the news that are happening, where the investments happening, what tools are coming out, what they do, why I should be paying attention to them. So I'm always tracking highly aware and trying to learn as much as I can about what these things are doing. At the very minimum, Rob, if you're.

Brad Bialy [00:32:53]:
Good with it, we'd love for you to put the newsletters in the chat.

Rob Mann [00:32:56]:
So if anybody's watching, I'll go grab them. I'm going to have to grab them, but I got you.

Brad Bialy [00:33:01]:
How's it working for your workflow? Kortney, go ahead.

Kortney Harmon [00:33:03]:
Lauren's right. This is moving at lightning speed. I'll tell you, I felt like I cheated on Claude the other day because I use bard, because I got a different result with Bard over a 24 hours period. But I use it. You're right, as an assistant, as a copywriter, to check to make sure I'm not moving too fast. I move so fast in a day, it's like, okay, someone needs to check my own stuff. It's the person that you need sitting in the side. But I would tell you, don't be married to one.

Kortney Harmon [00:33:27]:
Continue to try other ones as they're constantly changing and evolving, because it is only going to go rocket speed in months and years to come.

Lauren Jones [00:33:36]:
You're going to find one works better than the other one works better for you. I love Bard. But if I'm doing marketing or copy, I love Jasper, but if I'm doing something a little more creative, I like Claude. And so you're going to find what works for you in what situation. And so that's why you've got to at least like Rob said, awareness is one thing, but start experimenting and if I'm not selling, I'm dying. Email me about our AI course.

Rob Mann [00:34:06]:
It's good.

Brad Bialy [00:34:07]:
I take it you're building that toolbox, right? And we're not here today to say you need to use GPT. It's far from that. It's expose yourself to multiple opportunities, find what works best for you and go from there and run. And I couldn't agree more. Anybody else on the call here want to share what they're using AI for in their workflow or what they're seeing their clients or others in the industry using it for?

Richard Rosner [00:34:29]:
We're jumping on Metaview, we love it for the notes and everything like that. As soon as you're on a phone call, all your nodes are right there. I mean, voice AI is another one. It's going to be big in 2024. I mean you can scrub your database of 8000 candidates in a week. There's no human that could even touch that have 200 live people. So I mean we're moving so fast. I will say one thing, there's so many AI stuff out there that you got to go to somebody like Lauren, maybe Robert or myself or anybody like that and ask and educate because there's a lot of, I got to say it out there.

Richard Rosner [00:34:57]:
A lot of scam stuff in AI too, man. There's an AI project for everything. So everybody's jumping on that AI word because they can make quick, there's literally.

Brad Bialy [00:35:05]:
A website, there's an AI for that where you can Google search what you want to do and it spits out an AI for that.

Steve Gibson [00:35:11]:
It was a smart dollar comment, I would say. If we say automation, I'm going to have bingo for our card today. I'm pretty excited.

Lauren Jones [00:35:19]:
Yeah, let's have AI blockchain.

Brad Bialy [00:35:23]:
Right?

Steve Gibson [00:35:23]:
But it's real though for me, some things that we see our clients doing, the creating within an automation sequence is nice. So with their CRM they have bullhorn or any type of ats, we have it going and actually they can click a button and it automatically sends that description that they just put in there to that AI platform, sends it back, then to the ats, has it completely rewritten, then sends it to their website and allows it to be then a whole new job description than what it was when they received it without them having to do any type of manual work and your labor at all to that. And so there's ways that you can implement it into your processes and even be automated into things that you do every single day. But for me to get using it was using it on low risk tasks. So, for example, if I'm creating a social media post, just try one of these AI platforms and then put it out there and see what happens. See if it can capture your voice a little bit. It's not going to hurt you, really, if it comes out a little bit different or maybe something you're a little uncomfortable with, but at least get you familiar with it and playing with it versus just ignoring it because you don't understand it.

Brad Bialy [00:36:22]:
That's where I'm at with it right now. It's thinking through my day and what I don't want to do anymore and figuring out ways that I could offload that to something like AI. I'll tell you for myself personally, all the content that I put out on LinkedIn, that's all AI driven. So we have a couple of shows over here, we have insights, we have a couple of new shows that we're launching. Whether it's something like this that's all chopped up via AI now, yes, there are human eyes that edit it at the end and make sure that it's up to our standards, but the initial cut is AI. Another thing that I love to do that you might be listening on the call thinking, how could I tie this into sales? I used this just the other day. If you are calling a prospect or you're calling somebody, reached out to you for the first time and you don't know who they are, drop in their about us into chat, GPT, drop in their contact page, their services page and say, give me seven questions that you might ask this prospect on an exploratory call, and then go to work and refine those questions. But at least, like Lauren said, you're not starting with a blank sheet of paper.

Brad Bialy [00:37:15]:
It's analyzing who that client is, it's analyzing who that prospect is, and it's saying, hey, these are some questions that you might want to learn about to get started. And then, like I said, go to work, clean that up, and go from there.

Lauren Jones [00:37:27]:
We have now a library of over 200 prompts for sales and recruiting. I mean, the possibilities are endless to give time back in your day. And I think it just is going to elevate the level of service that we're able to give. I mean, think about the time as a salesperson. And Nicole, you know, this. The research that we would put into leads, the research we would put into customers and prospects and understanding them and what they do. And you can find all of this in one prompt. It's such a revenue generating tool.

Lauren Jones [00:37:57]:
Just join us so we can talk.

Brad Bialy [00:38:00]:
AI for probably a whole nother session, and maybe we'll do that in Q one for sake of this talk. It's my job to get us moving, so I'm going to do that. And I want to talk about recruiting in 2024, if you all don't mind, because we're coming up here. We got about 20 minutes left. Again, if you like what's going on here? You want to see more of it? Use that chat window. There's going to be an exit survey at the end of this webinar. If you want to see more lunch with Haley's like this style, let our team know. The only way to get more of what you want is to let the marketing team here at Haley marketing know that you like what you're seeing.

Brad Bialy [00:38:29]:
And, hey, we'll do what we can for you. So I want to talk about successful recruiting in 2024. And, Robin, Lauren, I'm going to start with you in thinking through how we might be able to improve the candidate experience. And please don't talk over each other. So one of you, I guess, rock, paper, scissors, whatever you want to do, but how might we improve the candidate experience in 2024?

Rob Mann [00:38:49]:
I'll let LJ go first because I'm way smarter to know that she's going to have a way better answer than I am.

Brad Bialy [00:38:55]:
Smart man.

Lauren Jones [00:38:56]:
Not true.

Richard Rosner [00:38:57]:
Okay.

Lauren Jones [00:38:58]:
Time is currency in our industry, right? And so we need to redefine what the metric is with candidates. It is no longer view to apply. It is engage to check the first time. We need to have a metric from the first time they engage with your brand to the first time they get a check. And our job is to minimize the arc and the time and the span of time between those two points. And so we need to leverage technology, we need to leverage automation, and we need to make it easy, and we need to meet the candidate where they are. And this is where I'll use the buzzword omnichannel. Right.

Lauren Jones [00:39:34]:
We have three primary generations in the workforce right now. Millennials make up 75% in 2025, but Gen Z is right behind them. And don't forget us Gen Xers, right? But those are all different types of communication. So that means you need to meet the candidate where they are and you need to be easy to work with. We have consumerism. We've become really good post Covid at consuming. Right. We got on our little phone and we got tons of crumble cookies and anything from Amazon that we wanted.

Lauren Jones [00:40:01]:
So the consumerism experience is coming into the job seeking experience, which means, again, we need to make it easy, frictionless, and we need to meet them where they are, period. And full stop.

Brad Bialy [00:40:11]:
Yeah. Friends, if you don't think Amazon has screwed up the way we think, you can literally look for an item swipe to buy it and it will be on your doorstep tomorrow afternoon. And that while it's in consumer goods and not staffing, your candidates are expecting the same rapid behavior from your organization. Even though it's a different world, they've trained us to think like this. So, Lauren, I couldn't agree more. The Amazon effect is very real in this industry. Rob, go ahead.

Rob Mann [00:40:40]:
You know what I want to hear from Kortney.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:42]:
I don't disagree with Lauren at all. It's about engagement. Yes. It's about getting them through the process quicker, meeting them where they are. I hate to say it's as basic as, hey, are you being completely engulfed in their industry? Are you going to what industry you're in, your user groups, are you speaking at their conferences? Are you every place they need to be. So 100%, I think you need to be where they are. But I think it's about engagement, people also, that Amazon effect has gotten people, well, I don't have to do this by, I can get it by a push of a button. I can get a job by the push of a button.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:14]:
I can go recruit someone by a push of a button. But it's not truly all that. That's where we're losing the human element. As much as I love AI, it's a double edged sword to say back to what Rich said, it's to engagement. But we're getting lazy in the terms of our engagement. So you have to stand out as being the source, being the value, being the go to resource for your talent that you're talking to and clients. So not only meet them where they are, but have true engagement and care about them as a human because that's why you got in this industry in the first place.

Lauren Jones [00:41:44]:
It is enablement, not replacement.

Richard Rosner [00:41:46]:
It's so key. And so, guys, are you ready for this? So we say engagement, but do we really engage? I look back on this and I say engagement. We just say that word. The first thing you got to do for these people is entertain them. Entertain them to engage to you. Simple as that. Why do you watch Netflix? Why do you want to hang with the shark or Rob or Lauren or that? They need to be engaged first, but they need to be entertained. Tease them a little bit with the job description.

Richard Rosner [00:42:08]:
Don't give them everything. They'll keep coming back for more and more. They love that. Next year, something I'm going to be doing is pop up job bars, driving around and set up a tent and having people come to that. That's what people want these days. They want to be. We have short memory, term, whatever you want to call it, get them engaged, get them excited.

Rob Mann [00:42:26]:
There's two things that I think we said. One, Brad, you said it when you said Steve pops up the most because he posts memes. He's the meme lord of our group. Yeah, and Rich said it, too. It's Edutainment, right? Educate and entertain.

Brad Bialy [00:42:38]:
Nicole, go ahead.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:42:39]:
I was just going to say, also, keep them informed. Right? I think it's like the domino app for getting pizza. And it tells you exactly where your pizza is. It's going in the oven now. It's being packaged right now. It's out for delivery. I think that's what staffing firms need to do. We need to step it up and we need to inform our candidates of where they are in the process and what the ETA is.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:42:58]:
And there's no reason in 2023 and 2024 we shouldn't be able to do that with the technology that we have.

Brad Bialy [00:43:04]:
Edutainment was a great phrase, Rob. I want to come back to that.

Rob Mann [00:43:07]:
It's not mine.

Brad Bialy [00:43:08]:
Yeah, but you brought it here, so it's yours. For the sake of this hour that we have together in this short period of time that we all have together in thinking about content and the messaging that you put out, whether it's social, whatever it might be, candidates can get their information from truly anybody. So why should they come to get it from you? What entertainment value are you bringing them at the end of the day, even some of us on today's call, we're all kind of saying the same stuff, right? We all have podcasts, we all have shows. We're all putting out content one way or another. We're talking about, let's say personal branding, for example. But why would somebody listen to the shark talk about personal branding as opposed to me talk about personal branding? It's that edutainment, right? So what are you doing to edutain? That was tough. Tomatoes.

Rob Mann [00:43:50]:
Tomatoes.

Brad Bialy [00:43:51]:
Yeah. Anybody else on Canada experience?

Steve Gibson [00:43:54]:
I would say just emphasize some of the things that people have said already, but the things that we learned through Covid, let's not forget that. I think that's the thing that our industry has is short term memories, because during that time, they forgot how to market. They didn't take the opportunity to market and actively build connections from a sales perspective because they were so focused on candidates. And now as we're transitioning out of really that market where we have a lot of job orders and we're going to be more sales minded and we're focused in that world, we're going to forget candidates again, too. So I think just emphasizing the fact, don't forget what we've learned over the last two and a half, three years of how to engage and build upon that while we transition to more of a sales driven market to grow our business. Don't neglect those things. Bring them with you. I think that's important to think about.

Brad Bialy [00:44:37]:
Perfect segue for what will probably be our last question here, unless there's anything in the chat that anyone wants us to cover. And we talked sales, we talked AI, we're talking recruiting. Now, outside of the large players, the large job boards, what can we do right now to gather more application submittals? What can we do to drive more applications? Shark, you're already raising your hand, man. Go for it.

Richard Rosner [00:44:58]:
It's all social platforms. I see what's out there. So many recruiters are on LinkedIn. If you're just on LinkedIn and that's it, you're losing out my friends. You got to get on them all. I swear to God. Seriously, yelp, if you're doing restaurants, I.

Brad Bialy [00:45:09]:
Mean, they're all great.

Richard Rosner [00:45:10]:
And you know what? And there's so much automation now that you can push stuff out at given times. I got stuff for Christmas ready to drop next week, and I don't have to touch a button. So make some content and have fun with it. I think the biggest thing that we can all agree on here, if we make it fun for our sell, we're going to make the candidate have fun and they're going to stay with you.

Brad Bialy [00:45:27]:
Somebody else, applications.

Rob Mann [00:45:29]:
What else can we do?

Brad Bialy [00:45:29]:
Lauren, go ahead.

Lauren Jones [00:45:30]:
Well, we know just the data tells us that those agencies that create a referral culture are the ones that come out on top. And so I think creating a culture of referrals, if there was one question I could give you that would change the face of your organization, both in sales and recruiting, it would be, who else do you know, if you ingrain that in recruiters and salespeoples and leaders, and that's what they end every conversation with, I guarantee you, you will see an increase in sales just with that one change.

Richard Rosner [00:46:03]:
Yes. And don't pay them any money either. Just go straight up and say, hey, can you fund me? Anybody? They will, for free.

Rob Mann [00:46:08]:
I agree. I just think you have to have. It's part of the culture of creating an incredible experience. Those two things go hand in hand. And having built the trust and earning the right to ask for that, you.

Kortney Harmon [00:46:18]:
Have to earn that right. Absolutely. But it comes down to what's best for your organization. 82% of employees talk about referrals being above all other sourcing options, best ROI. Not to mention 45% of employees sourced from referrals stay longer. So they're usually there, on average, two more years than someone else from another job board. So think about the quality you're getting from the people you just by simply asking, once you've had the conversation, established the communication, who else do you know? Lauren, 100% agree with you.

Brad Bialy [00:46:47]:
Yeah.

Rob Mann [00:46:47]:
If we could measure very clearly the cost of acquisition of a candidate, and I don't think we can very well, a lot of times you'd probably be sick to your stomach on what it actually costs to make a placement.

Richard Rosner [00:46:58]:
Right.

Lauren Jones [00:46:58]:
We can. We have a formula for it and it is stomach sickening. So we have to do the math here. But I will say, I'm going to add this, because this is what star does really well. And testimonials, right? So you got to earn the right. You got to earn the right for the referral. They've done such a great job of being able to take that moment in time where somebody's had this amazing experience and get that out there because you're validating why you should get that next referral or why somebody should recommend you. So this is that consumerism again, rearing its ugly head in here.

Lauren Jones [00:47:29]:
Because we're a referral or we reference ratings, right? We go to yelp, we go to Google, we go to. Indeed, we go to Glassdoor. This is what we are. We're a ratings culture. And so those testimonials are a huge part of bridging that gap as well.

Richard Rosner [00:47:45]:
I'm going to jump in real quick here. I think the testimonials should have a picture or a video with you with a candidate getting hired. It's a win win every time I think stuff like that. Just a testimonial with words and your picture. It's not cutting anymore people, that's kind of boring. You got to have them engaged with.

Brad Bialy [00:47:58]:
It, Nicole, go for it.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:47:59]:
I was just going to say referrals testimonials are a huge differentiator for us. Referrals for candidates is our second largest. The first is indeed with the job board, and then it's actually the third largest for our clients as well. So we get a ton of referrals from clients giving us new business. And we've gone in such a good habit that we're actually asking for referrals even if we haven't placed somebody yet. We're just asking them, hey, in the interim, until we get you this job, you can make money just by referring your friends, and it works. But again, you have to have the credibility, the trust and the relationship too, right? I always say you have to earn it, but it's a great way for them to earn money while we get them through the process and get them placed.

Steve Gibson [00:48:41]:
So something comes to mind on this. So there's a guy that does a really great employer branding podcast, James Ellis. And it's almost like taking that employer branding mindset that they have, engaging their employees, building up a. So the internal communication, external communication. And thinking about that with the candidates that you've engaged with through all the years, using your database to be able to have a plethora of individuals that you have been connected with your business, have been familiar with your brand, that you have engaged with at some point that maybe you didn't get a chance to make a placement with, but you can keep them engaged in your brand as a staffing firm, as an organization, then they're going to be willing to be a part of that community and do the things that we're all talking about, you have the right to ask because you've built that trust. You're informing them all the time. You're not just asking, but you've given way more than you've received from them. And I think that's really important to think about it from the employer branding perspective.

Steve Gibson [00:49:27]:
In some ways, you're not necessarily bringing them on to your organization, but just the way that you represent your own company, your own firm, from that perspective, I think is kind of a cool mindset to think about.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:49:39]:
You got to change it up. It can't just be like $100 for 100 hours, right? You got to keep it fun and lively. And we do raffles and based on volume. So during our peak season, we'll say, hey, if you send us three or more people that get a job, you go into a raffle for a flat screen tv or Airpods or whatever, and those seem to be the best. And we just keep, again, our thing is let's keep doing it better, let's keep up leveling, let's make it more fun.

Lauren Jones [00:50:06]:
And what do they want?

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:50:07]:
So we also survey everybody, like, hey, we're working on this, what do you want to see? And we'll get it done for you.

Brad Bialy [00:50:13]:
So we had a question. Come to the chat, and if it's good with everyone, I'm going to do kind of like a rapid fire and segue right into our rapid fire close out of here. So Katie asked if you could use one channel or avenue for advertising, for client prospecting, lead generation, where would you go? So rapid fire. That's the question. Nicole, we'll start with you.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:50:34]:
LinkedIn, that's my number one.

Rob Mann [00:50:36]:
I would say LinkedIn, but dependent on the.

Brad Bialy [00:50:40]:
I mean, I don't know if this.

Steve Gibson [00:50:41]:
Is limited to social media or just platform in general. I would use search engines and YouTube being part of that.

Kortney Harmon [00:50:47]:
Kortney, LinkedIn. But I agree with Steve on YouTube as of recently, where we're going. But still, LinkedIn is my go to shark.

Richard Rosner [00:50:54]:
Facebook, if you like their profile, you'll be the top client at the end. Top fan, that's what. Look at that. Got the client in and more.

Lauren Jones [00:51:02]:
My gosh, there's like a hundred tools. So, I mean, I like LinkedIn, but if you really want to use technology, you got ample market, you got source breaker, you've got all of these tools at your disposal. You've got pager that's coming in with new client aggregation. So there's so many technology tools and sales enablement tools and sales enrichment tools. So if you have questions about them, let me know.

Rob Mann [00:51:23]:
When you ask Lauren a question, you have to say, no data.

Lauren Jones [00:51:26]:
No data.

Brad Bialy [00:51:27]:
Sorry, no data. Only from this point forward.

Rob Mann [00:51:29]:
Yeah, you have to be very specific.

Brad Bialy [00:51:31]:
I love it.

Richard Rosner [00:51:31]:
Rob, you're allowed to say that, aren't you?

Rob Mann [00:51:34]:
She's got the data to back up whatever she says.

Brad Bialy [00:51:36]:
For me, if I had to pick one source, I'm going back to our current and past client data.

Lauren Jones [00:51:41]:
Current clients.

Brad Bialy [00:51:42]:
That's exactly where my current clients and having better conversations with our current clients. And I'm going back to the people who worked with us a year ago that don't anymore. And I'm figuring out, hey, what's going on in your business? And I'm having a good conversation. That would be my pick. Okay, another rapid fire. If you have any questions in the chat we're going to do a rapid fire style until we get out of here in about five minutes. I want to know one book that fundamentally changed your life, and I'm going to go in the reverse order of what I had last time. So, Lauren, I'm going to start with you.

Lauren Jones [00:52:10]:
How women rise.

Brad Bialy [00:52:11]:
Steve.

Steve Gibson [00:52:12]:
Anything by R. L. Stein.

Brad Bialy [00:52:14]:
Goosebumps guy.

Rob Mann [00:52:15]:
Goosebump guy.

Kortney Harmon [00:52:16]:
Yeah, I'm a big process and function person. Atomic habits is definitely my fave.

Richard Rosner [00:52:23]:
Shark, do twelve extra degree. That little extra degree will get you everywhere.

Brad Bialy [00:52:27]:
Rob Shark.

Rob Mann [00:52:28]:
Anything has to do with fire. Shark is going to be on. His energy is electric. So anyway, I'm going to totally nerd out. I'm a big fan of Ken Fullett, and I'm going to go with pillars of the earth because I'm a former history teacher who loves making connections.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:52:44]:
Nicole, never eat alone.

Brad Bialy [00:52:46]:
That's a great book. That's a good one. And I'm going to say think and grow rich. Read it every year. Try to use that as a way to realign some things over here. Next, rapid fire question. If you have one piece of advice for somebody just starting in the staffing or recruiting industry, what are you going to tell them? Shark. We'll start with you.

Richard Rosner [00:53:03]:
Ask and learn. Ask the peeps like us. We'll give you every.

Brad Bialy [00:53:07]:
Kortney.

Kortney Harmon [00:53:08]:
Network, network, network, network. There is no time that it would ever steer you wrong. Get to know as many people in the room, get as many relationships as you can, and network.

Brad Bialy [00:53:19]:
Steve.

Steve Gibson [00:53:19]:
Find a firm that helps you build your brand that's not opposed to that or scared of that. And then also join as many networks as possible. Attend live events, because those are very, extremely important for people.

Brad Bialy [00:53:31]:
Nicole.

Nicole Smartt Serres [00:53:32]:
It's all about our industry is all about, uh. I just feel like everyone that, you know, knows somebody you need to know, and that's your goal, to get to know those people.

Rob Mann [00:53:42]:
Rob, a former high school teacher. So I always tell my kids, never be mean to the nerds, be nice to everybody, because you never know who they're going to be to follow on. Nicole.

Brad Bialy [00:53:51]:
Good one. It's a good one. Lauren.

Lauren Jones [00:53:53]:
I feel like the universal word in our industry should be engage. Whether it's engaging in relationships, engaging in networking events, you've got to engage. You get out what you put in.

Brad Bialy [00:54:03]:
Well, hey, everyone, I said I would do my best to keep us to 03:00. We are at 258. I want to thank you all for joining us for the last lunch with Haley of 2023. If you enjoyed yourself today, if you took at least one tip away from this webinar, then we will have done our job. You can get the [email protected] I'd give it a couple of days, let our team go to work here, chop it up and do what they need to do on the tech side of things. I don't know the exact turnaround. I apologize. Give it a day or two.

Brad Bialy [00:54:31]:
You'll go to lunchwithhaly.com, you'll click on webinars on demand and you can watch this back. But again, if you have just one takeaway that you can leave with from today to help you grow your business in 2024, then we will have done our jobs. And if you got two, well, heck, that's even better. If you like this format, when you leave this webinar today, you're going to get an exit survey. We'd love to know if you want to see more of these in 2024. And of course, you have six or seven fantastic podcast hosts and authors and content creators. If you haven't, write down people's names. If you don't know them, write down their show.

Brad Bialy [00:55:03]:
If you don't know what show they host, get a hold of us on LinkedIn. Shoot us an email, shoot us a question. I'll speak for all of us when I say we would love to chat with you and answer any questions that you might have. I think I'm going to regret doing this, but does anybody have anything they want to say before I get us out of here?

Rob Mann [00:55:19]:
Steve's little man came in the room.

Steve Gibson [00:55:21]:
He keeps saying, it's over, it's over. I said, I know. Get away.

Lauren Jones [00:55:26]:
Oh, my God. Why? I love work from home like it makes humans humans. So I just heart it. I love it so much.

Brad Bialy [00:55:33]:
Great. Well, from all of us at Haley Marketing, we appreciate you joining us for another episode of Lunch with Haley. We'll see you in January for our next episode. Otherwise, take care, have a happy holidays and be good to each other.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:44]:
Take care.

Lauren Jones [00:55:45]:
Thank you, guys. Thank you. Bye, guys.

Brad Bialy [00:55:47]:
See you.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:48]:
Well, that wraps up this episode. A special thanks to Haley Marketing and Brad by Lee for the invite. And thanks again to the panelists for an insightful discussion on positioning, recruiting and staffing in 2024 for success. I hope you found this episode valuable. And as we start into 2024 and continue, remember that differentiation will be the key to the competitive landscape ahead. Take your time. Refine what makes your firm unique and weave that into your messaging all this year. Thanks for listening.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:21]:
Talk soon.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:24]:
I'm Kortney Harmon with Crelate thanks for.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:27]:
Joining the full desk experience. Please feel free to submit any questions for next session to [email protected] or ask.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:37]:
Us live next session if you enjoyed our go. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:42]:
Wherever you listen, and sign up to attend future events that happen once a month.