1. SIA Executive Forum Recap: 9 Main Takeaways (And Bonus Tweets)
1. Speaker: Eric Gilpin, President, Vertical Sales at
CareerBuilder; Session: Differentiation in 2015: Are You Ready? Understanding Your
Clients, Candidates and The Landscape
Over 40% of job searches on CareerBuilder in 2014 were from a mobile device, up from
5% in 2010. The expectation from candidates is that your site should render on a mobile
device; the main question now is can they apply via mobile. Try searching for a job from
your smartphone or tablet – what’s the job search experience? (Assume that a job
seeker is a fraction as patient as you are during this exercise!)
2. Speaker: Barry Asin, President, Staffing Industry Analysts; Session: Why Everything
You Thought You Knew About Staffing is Wrong
Hiring more salespeople is not the only way to compete effectively. Consider your
approach to marketing and operations as the candidate market tightens. Based on SIA
research, staffing firms spend .46% of revenue (median) on marketing. Are you taking a
strategic approach to marketing that aligns with your sales strategy? If so, your
marketing spend is probably double or triple this. For context, Robert Half spends 3% of
revenue on marketing. In terms of operations, are you considering new models like
offshoring some of your recruiting and sourcing or hiring more junior level staff?
3. Speaker: Gary Hamel, Business Strategy Expert; Session: Innovation from Everyone,
Every Day
According to Gallop research shared, only 13% of employees are engaged by their work.
Are you creating a culture that engages your team and encourages innovation?
Organizational principles like aspiration, inspiration and experimentation encourage the
people within your company to think differently about how to offer value. One
suggestion: before your next meeting, ask your team to send their ideas to you
beforehand, guaranteeing that they prepare for the meeting and you have several
different topics to discuss as a group.
4. Speaker: Mark Eldridge, CEO & Founder of ALKU; Session: Success Story Showcase:
ALKU
Clearly defining your business model and obsessive planning are only the initial steps to
building a successful business according to Mark; you then need to communicate the
vision and expectations constantly. For example, Mark and the team at ALKU live by the
mantra, “have fun working hard” and it’s connected to everything they do – from what

2. they expect from their team at all levels to the messages they distribute to the
market. For instance, check out this recruitment video. If you randomly asked 5 people
in your organization the company goals for the quarter, could they answer? Would
those answers be the same?
5. Panel: New Marketing Strategies for a New Era in Staffing
Developing your marketing strategy or defining your brand often starts with talking to
your candidates, clients or internal employees to help identify why they choose to work
with you and what makes you different. Although many topics were covered, a great
discussion emerged on how this rich feedback not only helps with marketing, but
business operations and client success as well. Do you have a pulse on what your
audiences think of you? Check out Best of Staffing and Inavero for an entry way into
satisfaction surveys.
6. Speaker: Jacob Morgan, Author, The Future of Work; Co-Founder, FOW
Community; Session: The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders,
and Create a Competitive Organization
One theme that stuck out throughout the conference was going beyond the contract
worker to thinking about other non-employees like ICs and freelancers. Exhibit A – Uber
was mentioned in at least 4 different sessions. Jacob’s talk explored the freelancer
ecosystem, including digital freelancers (example:hourlynerd.com), real-world
freelancers (example: Instacart – I can personally vouch for how amazing it is to get a
Costco order delivered in 2 hours), freelancer management systems (example: Work
Market) and sites to support the freelancer community (example: peers.org). Bottom
line – if you’re not thinking about this segment of the workforce, you might be
overlooking qualified candidates.
7. Speaker: Chris Hartman, President, Allegis Global Solutions; Session: In
Conversation with Chris Hartman, Allegis Global Solutions
Many of the tips that Chris shared were rooted in the importance of executing daily and
investing in your people. Granted, Allegis’ ability to invest might be different than many
growing firms, but the core messages and opportunities that Chris shared are universally
relevant: everyone can work on optimizing their current processes and then build and
invest from there. He also encouraged the industry leaders in the room to take better
care of their contractors. I’d take this a step further to encourage you to start
monitoring your candidate experience too.

3. 8. Speaker: Jack Daly, Professional Sales Coach; Session: Building a World Class Sales
Organization
“Yo, yo, yo, I’m out here.” One of my favorite sound bites from Jack’s session in
reference to proactively touching your prospects during the sales process. He prescribes
a systematic approach to outreach with a focus on sharing information that the
prospect will find valuable (articles about their industry, data or salary info, an
introduction to a peer, etc.) and NOT focusing on you or your company in every touch.
When courting new salespeople, he recommends that you have a list of 15 dream sales
reps that you are engaging at least two times a month so that when “LIFE HAPPENS,”
they think of you. When is the last time you went to lunch with a passive sales candidate
for your organization?
9. Speaker: Ryan Estis, Business Performance Expert; Session: Next Level Leadership
Fitting for the end of the conference, Ryan focused on taking action. He reminded the
audience that Monday is the most important day as it relates to this conference. What
are you going to do with all of these new ideas? He recommends to create a TAN plan:
Take Action Now. Identify 3 ideas that you can act on in the next 30 days and
communicate those goals out loud so that your peers can help to hold you accountable.
I encourage you to share other takeaways you had from Staffing Industry Analysts’
Executive Forum or one item from your TAN plan here. One of my action items is to
create a list of resources that I know my clients and prospects will find valuable so I can
easily share with them during my outreach. As a start, here’s a linkto some of the
resources that were mentioned by different speakers during the conference.