Jim Coughlin: All right, let's get this started. Thank you guys. My name is Jim Coughlin. Creative director of clubVMSA. This session is called "what the buyers want". It's an opportunity for you as a staffing, supplier and owner, or anybody selling to the buyer community.

Jim Coughlin: Find out what they want and know how to sell to them. I'm sorry. I wasn't on just when we started. Cause I clicked join and I went to another session, so that was odd. Okay. So you already said from integrated resources, I'm looking forward to the session. That's great. I have three buyers on the call with me.

Jim Coughlin: I want to thank the World Staffing Summit, Candidate.ly and Jan for setting all this up. It's really important that we have as much interaction. So if you're listening and you're passively listening, and you're just seeing us for talking heads, write questions in the chat window, I'm going to be reading that and monitoring that and asking questions.

Jim Coughlin: I'd like to go around the room and have our guest panelists, just introduce themselves by their name, their title, their company, and maybe something you want to say of a pet peeve is a buyer. What, you know, your pet peeve is when some people try to sell to you. So let's start with Allen, why don't we start with you?

Allen Chilson: Hey, thanks, Jim. So, I'm Alan Chilson, I'm the Talent Acquisition Vendor Management Leader for Danaher Corporation. Danaher as a global company has over 25 operating companies working in the science and technology space. And let's say Jim asks for a pet peeve. I guess I'd say for one, know, the fact that you get a lot of introductions from staffing agencies that you know, read really clear.

Allen Chilson: For example, I get a lot of them that are technology-based firms. And, you know, before Danaher, I worked for BSF where 70% of my program was not so light industrial. And when I would kind of call them out on being a technology firm, they would say, oh no, we can do everything. You know, and we want to work with firms that can meet our specialized needs, right.

Allen Chilson: Not a generalist term. So, you know, so I think making sure you do the research on the companies you're looking to target and you know, reaching out to their buyers about the right topics. 

Jim Coughlin: Great intro Allan Chilson with Danaher, his pet peeve is don't say you can do everything. We want specialists.

Jim Coughlin: Let's jump over to my good buddy, Jim Holcomb up in the Pacific Northwest. 

Jim Holcomb: That's going good. Thank you, Jim. Jim Holcomb, I am the Senior Manager for Contingent Workforce at Hoppin. And I don't want to play pile on here. That's a very interesting question that you want to start out with. For us to give what bugs us, but I'd probably echo a little bit of what Allen said, do your homework.

Jim Holcomb: And you know, when I get an inquiry, that's obviously a form letter. Sometimes my name doesn't even get spelled right and that's annoying. 

Allen Chilson: That's. 

Jim Coughlin: All right. Jim Holcomb. What is Hoppin about? I'm not accustomed to it. 

Jim Holcomb: It is exactly what we're doing today. Hopping as an events platform that manages both hybrid and virtual events, as well as attendee management, as well as streaming and video creation.

Jim Coughlin: Great. You're probably pretty busy right now, so great. So your pet peeve spells my name, right?

Jim Coughlin: And then we have Mr. Anthony, AKA Tony Gagliardi, Elekta. Tony, introduce yourself. 

Anthony Gagliardi: How are you, Jim? Thanks for letting me be here. My name is Tony Gagliardi. I'm the Head of Indirect Sourcing for Elekta. Elekta is a world leader in cancer treatment equipment and solutions. Headquartered out of Stockholm, Sweden.

Anthony Gagliardi: I joked that I worked for a guy in the UK, who works for guns.com. My background is putting in contingent labor programs from 250 to 1500 people and glad to be part of it to help. As I like to say, avoid the gray hair that I have and share lessons with folks. My pet peeve is this endless stream of emails.

Anthony Gagliardi: Hey, I sent you an email. Did you read my email? I'm emailing you again. If I wanted to reach out to you, I probably would have. You don't have to remind me that you sent me an email. So I think this whole world that we live in, you know, you don't get calls on the phone anymore. You get everything in an email and we're just inundated and the expectation that if I wanted to contact you, I probably would have.

Anthony Gagliardi: So you don't have to remind me that you sent me emails. 

Jim Coughlin: Don't call us. We'll call you and stop with the emails. Okay. keep those cards and letters coming in. This does well. There's a great start. You guys have already thrown out some things that people do that annoy you. I would like to invite the audience and we have about 50 people growing here on the call.

Jim Coughlin: Put in the Q/A here in the chat window, I'm seeing some chats come in about what questions you have for these buyers. So they've just given you your pet peeves, right? Don't oversell. No, my business. Do your homework, you know, spell my name. Right. And don't send me endless emails. So I'm just going to throw it out to any of you and any of you can jump in any of the three of you.

Jim Coughlin: If in, you're obviously busy and you have a lot of business needs and you have more suppliers out there than you could possibly work with. So what is a way that a supplier has approached you that's worked. And if you could give me an example, what I don't want you to tell me as well, what they should do is what I'd like you to tell me is here's what someone did that worked for me that I'm working with now.

Jim Coughlin: Any one of you guys want to jump in on that. Okay, well, great. Thanks for joining this World Staffing Summit. Okay, go ahead, Tony. Go ahead, 

Anthony Gagliardi: Jim. I mean, in the past, I think one of the things that's worked is I have a process of constant people reaching out to me, and then I say, I'll follow up with me in three months.

Anthony Gagliardi: And they do, right? And then when you give an opportunity, execute on the opportunity. I think that a lot of folks are waiting for the perfect pitch when you give them, and when the buyer has a problem that they reach out to you, you don't get another chance to have a first impression, so to speak.

Anthony Gagliardi: Having folks that do what they say they're going to do is as other folks mentioned, but then when you pitch it to somebody and actually being able to hit it out of the park, I think it's following the organizations processes instead of trying to go around has been successful in my task because the folks who had followed the processes that seeing their business grow versus constantly trying to find another hook into the company or slide in through a side door. 

Jim Coughlin: Great, Alan, Jim, you want to add to that? Any specific variance of a supplier that came to you that landed properly? Unlike the annoying emails, the misspelled names, the, 

Jim Holcomb: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I have examples of folks that have reached out to me. That I did eventually add as a supplier and part of, I think what separated them or made them stand out was I could tell that they had done their homework.

Jim Holcomb: Right. They had researched the organization and it's not that hard, you know, everything's out there for everybody to see. And so if I look at my last company, which was very focused in space and aerospace, so. I know that they went and they actually looked online. They looked at the, you know, the job postings that were out there.

Jim Holcomb: They've done some research to try to find out what type of people that we've used. And then they given me specific examples. Yeah. We've worked with these clients. Competitors to yours. We filled these types of positions. That to me then says, okay, you've done your homework. You understand who I am, at least from an initial standpoint, let's talk.

Jim Holcomb: And what, like Tony said, this might not be, let's talk tomorrow. It might be, Hey, when I have a need, we'll talk and follow up with me in a month or follow up with me in two months, now? But this is a process. If you will, in my mind of establishing that relationship and that trust between us.

Jim Holcomb: And so if I feel that you've put a little bit of effort into trying to understand me and in my company more my company than me and what we're looking for, then I'm more apt to want to be able to listen to what you are saying. 

Jim Coughlin: Great. I want to get Allen in the conversation here. We got a lot of questions and comments coming in.

Jim Coughlin: Hi, Jennifer Cousins. Hi Darren bidder. Panel I want you to take your thumb like this. Go ahead and put it on the screen. Let me see it. Allen, Jim, put your thumb like this, make sure you move it back. Don't get it so far up there. And that you're like, okay, now I'm going to give you, come on. Right. This is like at the bar, you know?

Jim Coughlin: Hey, what sign are you? Okay. And I want you to give me your initial response. That's not working neutral I don't know. Up. Yeah. I respond positively to that. Are you ready? Ready? I'm an IT staffing firm. Yeah. I am in an IT staffing firm. I can get the right people at the right time at the right price at the right place.

Jim Coughlin: Okay, put back to neutral now. Reset, reset. Go back to neutral. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Is the war for talent, something that's critical to your company right now. Okay. I got a neutral. Okay. Is it? If your company found a way to access diverse candidates in a pool that nobody else has, would that be of interest to you to explore now?

Jim Coughlin: I got some thumbs up. Okay. So this is what I'm asking you. So in other words, what are some of the things that suppliers of conduit Tony's like nothing to get in Tony, tell him you're here. I'm going to get one that would get Tony going up. Are you ready? Tony puts your sound back up tony. Is watching time around the world important to you. 

Anthony Gagliardi: Absolutely. 

Jim Coughlin: He's got the whole company. I should be able to know you are cheating, you cheat and you know the story. See, I got to know my customer. Right. Okay. So we've got some questions coming in. Let me just go to Jennifer Cousins from Two doves Consulting. If a staffing firm had a solid differentiator.

Jim Coughlin: Would you consider a trial period to evaluate adding them? So Jennifer, why don't you tell me while these guys respond to that? What is the differentiator? What is the differentiator? Does it help them get talent? Does it help them get it faster? Does it help them reduce supplier base? Does it help speed the delivery?

Jim Coughlin: You know, what is it? So guys gentlemen, respond to Jennifer's question. 

Allen Chilson: I'll jump in on that one. I mean, know, so I've certainly had that pitch from direct hire placement firms in the past, right. Where, you know, they want to prove themselves, Hey, give me your toughest to fill job. Right. And sometimes you'll give them what they asked for and you give them the job that, you know, I know none of my recruiters can fill and you see them struggle.

Allen Chilson: I think in the contingent workforce space, it's, you know, it's a little bit harder, right? Because there's a lot of compliance steps in our programs, right? For somebody to get on board. So, you know, I'm not trying to out without making you jump through all the hoops and prove you have the insurance and prove you have everything else.

Allen Chilson: Right. There's contracts being done before a trial period. I also, you and I've had the luxury of working with MSPs for the last few years. I like to leverage them because almost any agency I'm talking to, I can ask them, Hey, do you have any record across, you know, so Kelly OCG is my current provider.

Allen Chilson: Does Kelly OCG have any history with this agency? Is it somebody we should try? So there's those options too. Right? And actually, I think that's really important if you do work with an MSP. That the agencies you're looking to bring in are used to working with MSP is because a new firm to MSP is probably going to struggle.

Allen Chilson: There's a lot of rules to working in that operations managers realm from the MSP. So, you know, I think there's a lot of homework we can all do before we invest. Then I also never want somebody to go through the problem with signing my contract, going through those onboarding hoops and not being able to be successful.

Allen Chilson: So I don't want an agency to try if I don't feel like they can actually deliver. 

Jim Coughlin: So one of the things I heard, a couple things I've heard from there is you want verifiable results and you want it referenced on the peer review, somebody that.

Allen Chilson: Ideally Yes.

Jim Coughlin: Ideally peer review. So if I came to you with a presentation that said, Allen, the reason I'm calling you is the contractors that we placed with clients have completed their assignments at 95%.

Jim Coughlin: And they've accepted the offers that we present. Nine times out of 10 over other companies. I'd like to talk to you about how we're doing that and how we're developing a relationship with the contractors that other staffing firms aren't. And I was referred to you by Tony Gagliardi of Elekta.

Jim Coughlin: Would you talk to me? 

Allen Chilson: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, especially in this current environment, an agency that can show those kinds of closing rates on their candidates and not getting ghosted and not having people, no show for temp assignments is a great to hear and to be able to verify, you know, through a trusted person.

Jim Coughlin: Great Joshua Smith from advantage XPO asks, how will MSPs need to adjust their delivery structure with the changing buyer landscape and the trend that has occurred over the past year, showing categorization categorized as less than 10 million annual spend are among top growth segments. That's a big question, Joshua.

Jim Coughlin: I don't know if you want to boil that one down, but that sounds like boiling the ocean. I guess this question. How are MSPs needing to adjust their delivery structure? How many of you guys work with an MSP and what value do they add beyond vetting your supplier base and managing your suppliers? 

Anthony Gagliardi: So we were an internally managed program.

Anthony Gagliardi: So I'll back off of that one. Right? So that's where my experience has been. 

Jim Coughlin: Internally managed. Okay. Allen, Jim 

Allen Chilson: Jim is talking but he is on mute. 

Jim Coughlin: Jim, unmute your mic 

Jim Holcomb: has to happen. I tried that, come on, somebody's gotta do it first. Where internally managed and I came from the MSP world prior to taking on this role.

Jim Holcomb: So I don't know that I I mean, I probably could give an opinion, but Alan, you use an MSP now you might be the better person to answer this. 

Allen Chilson: Yeah, I guess so. So I mean, I, you know, I think they add a lot of value, Jim. I'm sure. You know, it's really hard because I think with any book of numbers, right?

Allen Chilson: If you want to take an analysis and look at your budget, you can make a case to say, I'm going to take this program internally and do it better. Or, you know, as the cycles go, eventually you'll outsource it for a reason. Right. And whether it's saving money distributing the cost to the cost centers that are actually.

Allen Chilson: You know, burning the resources versus having to pay for technology and people centrally in HR. You know, so I think the MSP gives you a lot of operational flexibility as far as the cost of your program, but I also think it's the expertise they bring. And I've said this with any vendor I've ever worked with. The account team certainly plays a big role in the success of your program.

Allen Chilson: But they are often able to bring in very experienced people with a background in your industry or similar industry. Used to working at your volume. You know, and quite honestly probably used to working with the quirks of your organization, right? So if you're transparent, when you're scoping out an RFP and, you know, open the books and let that vendor know what you're like, they'll put a team together that should be able to deliver for you.

Allen Chilson: Right. And that's probably easier for them to do with their bench of people than it is for me to go out to the market and hire people that are gonna fit in and stick. So I do value the MSPs a lot. 

Jim Coughlin: I want to talk about initial credibility. Cause Tony mentioned you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Jim Coughlin: He wants to see if people follow up a lot of people that approach you, you don't know. I don't know you. I don't trust you. They get bombarded by emails. You're not going to answer your phone. So my question is what role and what influence has it had on you to see suppliers? Marketing promotes themselves on social media with content specific solutions that they've done with other clients, case studies.

Jim Coughlin: And also what impact does it have when you engage a supplier in a forum like this, or to a ClubVMSA event, whether it be live or virtual, how much influence does that have on you? That, ah, maybe I'll give this guy 30 more seconds where before I was going to blow them off. Okay, Tony. 

Anthony Gagliardi: Yeah, I'll take Jim.

Anthony Gagliardi: There's constant interactions out there. Right. And I think that it depends on what platform you're on. Right? I'm a big LinkedIn person. That's my platform. I don't do instead. I don't do a lot of the other stuff that's out there. So I tend to lean heavily on the social media that I sort of propagate.

Anthony Gagliardi: Right. And case studies are a great example. There's a fine balancing act in that because a lot of companies don't want their stuff out there. So when you see stuff out there, you're more inclined. I know I am more inclined to read it. Even the channels that I tend to gravitate to are less relying on some of the other social media platforms, because I don't think they're business related.

Anthony Gagliardi: There's a lot of people living on Instagram today trying to do business there. So it just depends on what channel you absorb and how, and what the veracity or the truthfulness in that channel is dependent on you. Because we're all people, we all have different opinions on that. So I lean on LinkedIn and that works for me in everything that you mentioned.

Jim Coughlin: Great. Anybody else want to comment on that? 

Jim Holcomb: I would agree on that. I, you know, and I'm like you and LinkedIn. Yeah. I mean, I think we all live on like, I'm on Twitter a lot too. So, you know, if somebody will send me a link to especially white papers, right. Or something that's been done from a case study to me that's indicative of an organization.

Jim Holcomb: That's trying to put thought into what they're doing and it's not just, I mean, obviously there's a marketing aspect to it as well. But, you know, that ability to have some thought leadership or some opinion, leadership to me is important. And I don't say that I wouldn't look at a new supplier because of it, but if someone came to me and actually had that in as part of the organizations, you know, branding and marketing and thought leadership and things like that, I would probably, it would probably help give them credibility as I talked to them and those I'm listening to them. 

Jim Coughlin: Are you going to be more, it's going to be a multiple choice question. You can put your hand up to answer. Yes. Or your hand down to no. Okay. Tony's going to see us multiple choice questions. Are you more inclined to be influenced by reading data or hearing data? Reading it, hearing it.

Jim Coughlin: Okay. So Jim's book because, know, 

Jim Holcomb: Reading, reading, reading, yes. Sorry. I misunderstood your directions. I'm a bad example in this area. 

Jim Coughlin: Okay, Darren bitter. I love Darren Bitter, Inspired Talent Solutions. He's my brother from a different mother. He says sales lifecycle. The sales life cycle is expanded exponentially longer in reality than what a salesperson often perceives.

Jim Coughlin: Right. I've got a good contact. I know they have a need. I'm going to book them as a client in an hour. Right. From your current or recent employer, what is the average time from intro to joining the program? Probably years versus minutes. So just from your experience, right. And thinking of the suppliers that you have an average isn't fair.

Jim Coughlin: Like probably immediate, like what's the fastest you brought a supplier. How many conversations, what time period, how many conversations that time and what's the longest, how persistent was somebody in following up with you? Do you have any stories about that? 

Anthony Gagliardi: I'll go within months. Right. In the six to months, six, 10, probably 18 months is the right window.

Anthony Gagliardi: There's chances where you have specialized in these, and somebody has that meaning. You can bring them on quicker, but if you're looking at an average sales cycle of my history, my background shows months to a year and a half, but that's just the way it tends to work. Especially when you start glowing, going global and dealing with different things on different continents.

Anthony Gagliardi: That's my. 

Jim Coughlin: Yeah. How about Alan?.

Allen Chilson: Well, yeah, I would probably say a similar time period. Right. Because I think it, you know, if you're reaching out to me and I don't have a current need, so I think Tony has a great point if I have an unmet need right now, if I'm looking for digitalization agencies and I don't have anybody in my program that can support those roles.

Allen Chilson: I'm going to try to get you on a contract as soon as I can. Right. And then I would say, it still may take a few weeks to go through all the compliance steps and paperwork with the MSP. And then for them to get you onboard and to use the VMS and then every MSP I've worked with always warns agencies.

Allen Chilson: It's probably gonna take them a few months before they get their first placement, because there just seems to be a learning curve. But I think if you're reaching out to me when I don't have a need, right. So if you're another IT staffing firm hoping that I drop one for my program we may be in touch for months.

Allen Chilson: You know, and I think that's a big part, right? What is your differentiated offering that I need and that's always gonna make a big difference maker on a fast track. And I think that comes back to earlier when we were talking about everybody's feedback on outreach You know, that's the other thing.

Allen Chilson: I think business development, people from the agencies, right. They're working on a quota, right. They want to get a number of new clients under contract each month, each quarter. But we're not in that same rush unless you're bringing us something we don't currently have. So I think there's an offsetting of the balance, right for that relationship. 

Jim Coughlin: Great. We've got some more questions coming in and I'll get to them in a second. I have another question. How, since you don't want to be annoyed by pushy salespeople calling, trying to get business, we get that. But then, you know, the pushy salesperson is getting the push from the owner, like calling that guy and getting on his account.

Jim Coughlin: Right? So the poor salespeople, we got to pity the poor salespeople. How much more likely on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 being very likely, one being not likely at all. Are you going to engage with a sales rep if they provide you on an ongoing basis with data, information, insights, bite size, morsels of things they're hearing from other companies, what they're seeing in the market versus the sales person.

Jim Coughlin: That's just trying to get an appointment, seeing how they can get on the account. So I'm contrasting two types of sales. One isn't an informational adviser. Giver. One is how do I get the business from you? How much more likely are you going to be engaged with the left-hand versus the right 

Jim Holcomb: 9 Or 10.

Jim Coughlin: Have you had that experience? Jim? Are there people that have become that type of trusted advisor in the market? 

Jim Holcomb: I have, I've had. I've had, you know, partners that I was at a company with, they just didn't fit the model of the organization. Right. And it was just because of how they operated what we look for in partners, the markup that we had, you know, price was pushed down and it really didn't fit them.

Jim Holcomb: And then when I moved on to the next organization, we had, they stayed in touch, you know, it was really just giving me information and like you're saying, Sending information in interesting things, white papers, you know, articles, what have you, I don't know when I moved on and we did fit in terms of the type of client that I thought, you know, they were looking for and they admitted they were looking for, I added them.

Jim Holcomb: So it took a couple of years. Right. And, but you're right. I mean, I know, and I understand that. I mean, being a salesperson in the staffing industry is not an easy job. Right. So. Some are respectful, but at the same time, we've got to get value out of it as well and confidence in your ability to meet our needs.

Jim Coughlin: Yeah, let's jump into the chat window and we can come back to this topic of being a trusted advisor versus being a pushy salesperson. A lot of the questions in the chat are around the managed service provider, the MSP, you know, Alan, you mentioned KellyOCG. One question that came out is, and Tony, you have a self-managed program.

Jim Coughlin: What value, what future value do you see the MSP is having and where are they losing ground? And what's the future going to look like? Maybe you guys can riff on how you perceive the MSP, cause I'm sure you have MSPs calling you too, right? Trying to do business. 

Anthony Gagliardi: I'm a believer everything's cyclical, right?

Anthony Gagliardi: You're always going to be looking. If you have an internally managed program, there's always going to be the appetite for looking at MSPs through some of the networking events I've been involved in more recently. There's people starting to come out. The other side of it is, Hey, we've been paying this MSP.

Anthony Gagliardi: What about doing it internally? So it always goes to the organizational culture, the appetite, what they really want out of the program. And what expertise they are willing to pay for. Right. Cause I think that it goes back to the constant theme throughout the conversation that has been about differentiator and value.

Anthony Gagliardi: Right? If you can prove that, the arguments get pretty mute very quickly, but if there's a lot of head scratching, what are we paying for? What's the value? What's the differentiator? I think it was just cyclical. The internally managed programs we'll look at MSP and some of the MSP organizations we'll start to look at, Hey, can we do it better internally than it's just a gamble, but that's my view of what I've seen over the years with it.

Jim Coughlin: All then Allen or Jim on that too.

Jim Holcomb: Well, all right. I'll jump in. You know, I think that the ability of an MSP to give value is dependent on their client. Does their client want value or is their client just looking for someone to do transactional processing? Right? So if you have a MSP and your client is really just looking for you to manage the transactions through the process, then it's hard to give value.

Jim Holcomb: And in my opinion, You know, the MSPs, a lot of them right now do kind of set up a crossroads, where are they going to continue to be, you know, just a transactional processing organization. Are they going to start adding value across the industry? Like they want to, and you talk to any of them, that's the position I think they want to be in.

Jim Holcomb: And I think that, you know, by looking at it from that approach, then you know, it behooves them to, to try to become more valuable to their clients and then therefore become a better partner to their suppliers. And I can probably wax on about this for a long time. So I'll shut it off.

Jim Coughlin: Do you know Marc Bronsweig from Addeco? No he's saying in the chat, Georgia or Alabama, come on tigers. Are you a Georgia or Alabama 

Anthony Gagliardi: Tigers? Jim? You're on the west coast. You don't know what that means. 

Jim Coughlin: I know diners and Rams. 

Anthony Gagliardi: You know, that's fun for that gentleman, does LSU still have a football program?

Anthony Gagliardi: But yeah, that's a Southeast conference thing. He's probably out of Louisiana. 

Jim Coughlin: Okay. I think he's trying to connect with you and he's trying to make this personal buddy contact watch out. He might take you to a sports bar next, and then who knows what was going to happen? Drill down question from Joshua Smith at advantage XPO, he says, what key aspects should companies consider when they are exploring an in-sourced MSP versus engaging in an outsourced MSP.

Jim Coughlin: So Allen, you have an MSP. Did you guys consider, do we take it in? Do we keep it out? What do we do? What are some of the pros and cons of each? 

Allen Chilson: Jim, I think, you know, so for the last five years I've been managing second-generation MSPs, right? So I've been with companies where, you know, they stayed in the model, but changed vendors.

Allen Chilson: At a certain point. So I do think you may grow or evolve at some point where you outgrow the vendor you originally started working with. To my knowledge neither one considered bringing it in-house at that time, but I can tell you. At a previous employer where we did have an MSP model in place, my colleague who managed the program at the time dreamed of being able to build the business case to bring it in house, because she was sure she could do a better job in house.

Allen Chilson: But never got that chance before she retired. So, you know, sometimes that's a really big hill to climb when you can't find somebody to sign off on the budget to bring it in house. But I don't know if Tony or Tony had brought a program in-house. And can talk more about that story. 

Anthony Gagliardi: We were the other way.

Anthony Gagliardi: We were an in-house program and there's always the discussion of going to an MSP while I was with the organization. And ultimately they decided this change MSP is my understanding. So it's a big challenge trying to make that shift. You know, it really comes down to your culture. I think the conversation around, what are you looking for comes down to really understanding how your organization wants to operate, what are they really seeking to do?

Anthony Gagliardi: And that really will determine the best path forward. 

Jim Coughlin: Great. Hey, there's a question here, which is a good one. It was asked a while ago. I'll bring it up. We got about 10 minutes left here. If you've got a question you want to ask this illustrious panel put in the Q/A, Rachel Bacall, from Pride Health asked.

Jim Coughlin: This is pretty good. What is your opinion on utilizing video messaging tools such as BombBomb or vidyard, never heard of these to interact with prospective clients? So what would your reaction be if you opened up an email and instead of dear Mr. Globally RD and all spelled wrong and everything, and you got a video of me saying Tony, I know we haven't met, but I happened to work with the top cancer health companies finding software developers for all of their genetic applications. And I thought we should probably schedule a time to meet, click here to set an appointment in my calendar. How would you respond to something like that versus an email? 

Anthony Gagliardi: I think it'd be click here to delete, right? I mean, it's just another mechanism to try to grab your attention.

Anthony Gagliardi: It's G wizzy and it might work for some folks, but going back to how we started this conversation, right? I mean, what's your differentiator? What are you providing? However, that mechanism comes to you, but other email, some slick video or LinkedIn, if you define what your differentiator is around solving a problem for somebody you'll get their attention or you'll get the around file.

Anthony Gagliardi: Right. That's my opinion. That's all that is. 

Allen Chilson: And Jim, I would look at that as getting a FaceTime call from somebody you don't know, are you going to answer a FaceTime call? Right. And we're all sitting here on corporate networks. You're probably not gonna open an attachment with a video file.

Allen Chilson: That is from somebody you don't know. Right. So I don't know if it's a welcome message. I think anybody working in a corporate environment is afraid to click on anything nowadays because you know, IT Security is going to come down on you. If you corrupt the network. So, I think I love the idea.

Allen Chilson: I mean, we're here doing this via video conference, right? We've all done a lot of these during COVID. But I don't know how to do that initial business development outreach. 

Jim Coughlin: And I can't show up with coffee and donuts anymore. Cause then you get off security will throw me out and nobody eats donuts anymore.

Jim Coughlin: Guys do. I'm not so sure. Melissa Mullen of Dahl Consulting says, would you rather hold the paper with the vendors or have the MSP hold the paper, the contracts, Tony. I think you've already answered you hold your own paper because you don't have an MSP

Anthony Gagliardi: you want to hold the paper to kind of hold the paper to hold the paper or the email or the football helmet, whichever one you want instead of.

Allen Chilson: So Alan, I think Jim, it comes down to partially accompanying a risk tolerance, right? Because I think having the MSP hold that paper may build that extra bit of firewall. If somebody is worried about it. But I think there's plenty of companies that look and say, Hey, we have all the, we have all the writing in the contract anyway, and we want to be involved.

Allen Chilson: And I think probably a lot of agencies maybe feel a little bit better when the corporate, you know, enterprise client is also on the paper versus just the MSP. So, I think it really comes down to where your legal and procurement departments are. And pride is not a choice. I'm going to be able to.

Jim Coughlin: How much more likely are you to take somebody's call that you don't know if I introduced you or somebody that you knew? Well, not like me. If I said to you, Tony, I think you should give a call to Jennifer here. I think you should take her call. 

Anthony Gagliardi: I'll lean into that one. Right? I may go that way from a trusted source.

Anthony Gagliardi: I know Jim, you might be a trusted source. You might not depend on what day of the week it is, right? It's a question. But a referral from a trusted source is probably better than just a blind referral, right. Or just everything we've talked about up until now. That's the way I see it. 

Jim Coughlin: So now, how would you respond if your existing suppliers came to you?

Jim Coughlin: Like a salesperson or your existing supplier, they don't have to sell to you. They already have their business. And they said, Allen, I'm looking at developing some business in a similar type of company to yours. Would you be? And I see you're connected with Tony over at Elekta. Would you be willing to introduce me?

Jim Coughlin: How willing would you be to do that? If I was your existing supplier? 

Allen Chilson: I mean, I've certainly done that for my MSP and RPOs. Right. So I've done reference checks for them. I have actually done a couple of references for suppliers in the program too. So I, I think partially that's, you know, that's the relationship you have, right.

Allen Chilson: And those are suppliers that I, you know, they delivered for us. Well, they were suppliers I saw at events. You know, they were suppliers I keep in touch with, you know, and obviously normally it's the MSP account manager, really interacting with my supplier. But there's some, you know, and we do our supplier summit once a year.

Allen Chilson: So I met them there when we brought them together and then saw them at other events. So I think when, you know, somebody delivers and you know, you know that you can answer the question, honestly. I'm open to doing that. Right. And obviously I'm not looking to be rewarded for it. I'm willing to give somebody a foot in the door.

Allen Chilson: And that's when I feel both parties can benefit, right. So I'm not just passing a salesperson on to somebody else in my network, but I truly see the match. 

Jim Coughlin: Great. Hey, we're coming up to the end here. I'm good. I'm going to ask one more question. That's in the Q/A, maybe two. And then I've got my own question.

Jim Coughlin: The question I'm going to ask you guys at the end to think about it. You know, this whole topic is what the buyers want. I want you to just bullet the three to five things that you want. I just want to bullet it out. Think of it. Okay. And you know what you want from a supplier, what you want from a vendor, what you want from an existing service provider, which you want me to prospect.

Jim Coughlin: Here's a question from where did it go? Shilpa of IMCs group. She just asked a good one for a contract with a client who is the final decision maker? Is it the program manager, the procurement director, or the MSP head? And I know your answer's going to be, it depends. Right. But who's the final decision maker?

Jim Coughlin: If I want to get to the final decision maker, because a lot of times these things are decided by a, you know, a strategic panel, Allen, Tony, Jim, who's the final decision maker in your company. 

Jim Holcomb: Well, for us, now, we're three years old, right. Even though we've got over a thousand employees, There's a reason I was hired to manage this function.

Jim Holcomb: And so for us you know, I wouldn't be the one that would recommend and actually decide if I want to onboard somebody. Now they'd still have to go through the process. Think Allen mentioned this, or Tony mentioned this earlier, where, you know, they have to agree to contract terms. They have to pass a security review, things like that.

Jim Holcomb: But if I said I wanted to add somebody, I, they would get added. Yeah. 

Jim Coughlin: You'd hand the contract to them. You'd say to your procurement, give these guys a contract. 

Jim Holcomb: Yes. Since I'm part of procurement then. Yes. Great. 

Jim Coughlin: Okay. How about you? Tony Allen, Tony and Allen. 

Anthony Gagliardi: Allen, go on this one. 

Allen Chilson: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I found my relationships with my MSP operations managers.

Allen Chilson: If I said to them, Hey, I met this agency at a conference. I think they'd be great. They'll get on the phone with them. They'll get them under contract. But the way I've always approached that because I really feel like they need to run that show. I will forward referrals to them and say, Hey, here's somebody to put on the list.

Allen Chilson: And when we were in a growth mode of adding suppliers to our program, we were doing twice a month, we'd get on a call and speak to somebody who was on that list and then decide, can they fit some of our unmet needs or not? So I really felt that it was important to empower that operations manager, that I was never forcing somebody on her.

Allen Chilson: And I also wanted them to run vendor neutral. So I didn't want them to think that I wanted them to push more. To the agency I refer to. Right. So as far as them running a supplier scorecard and trying to reward those who perform the best, I want to leave that up to them. So I don't really want to skew their opinions.

Jim Coughlin: Yeah, 

Anthony Gagliardi: Sure. And I'll just say that it depends on where the program is, as it is from its maturity. So depending on what part of its life cycle it is as a program and. That will depend on which action to take some, probably less mature programs. Look for the right head decision, head in a more mature program.

Anthony Gagliardi: You'll follow the process and there'll be a panel, but it just depends on organization. There is no blanket answer on that one it's organization by organization, depending on that. 

Jim Coughlin: Final question. And I gave you guys a little preparation to do it. What do you want? Let's just go around. What do you want the Mo if you could define, I want Allen, why don't you 

Allen Chilson: start 

Allen Chilson: Okay. So I think for one, I would love to have the suppliers in my program or for adding new ones that they figure out ways to build relationships with unique candidates, you know, that are a great fit to our openings. And I'll elaborate on that one just a little bit. I think everybody relies on, you know, the same few technologies right there.

Allen Chilson: They're on indeed. They're on some other job broadcasting apps. They're probably using a crowdsourcing app. Right. And I'm thinking of my light industrial roles and that sort of thing. How do you find the people that aren't going to apply to a job through those apps? Right. So, how do you find those unique people?

Allen Chilson: Cause otherwise I have one candidate getting outreach from five different agencies. Right. Which doesn't help me. You know, so building those unique relationships with candidates, Jim, you know, you and I have talked about, you know, you know, my feelings about the voice of the customer. And, you know, so listen to the voice of the customer, make those efforts to hear it.

Allen Chilson: And that's me as a program owner internally, it's that MSP operations manager, you know, it's, whatever you can get from the manager, who's actually hiring a person, vendor neutral programs. I know agencies don't get to talk to managers a lot, but then flip that. And there's also the candidates, right. You know, there's the candidate pool and there's also a talent in place.

Allen Chilson: I have seen so many situations where agencies forget about their people after they place them through an MSP. Right. So they will come out and say, I've never heard from that agency. My paycheck comes, that's it. I don't speak to anybody. And I'm probably the last thing I would say is also provide us with your voice.

Allen Chilson: So take advantage of those opportunities to give feedback whether it's the MSP owner or whether it's an internal program like Jim and Tony have. But also share with us what you're seeing out there. Right? So I've always valued the feedback I'm getting from my supplier communities. 

Jim Coughlin: Great. Jim?.

Jim Holcomb: What am I looking for? I'm looking for my suppliers and my partners to be reliable, to give me confidence in them. And so that I feel secure in their ability. To support my organization. And so what do I mean by that? I want to know if I come to you as a supplier and I ask you to do something that you'll do, obviously, if it's legal, ethical, and moral and you'll be able to do it by the time I need it and finish it completely.

Jim Holcomb: Now that being said, I might come to you and say, I have a need for something. And for whatever reason it can't be done or you can't. Then I would want you to be able to come back to me and honestly say, look, here's my challenge. Or here is a challenge and work with me to figure out how to solve that challenge.

Jim Holcomb: Right? So there's a partnership and communication there. I want to know that you'll take care of your folks internally and externally. Right. So I want confidence that, you know, you treat your contractors. Well, you treat your teams. Well, you treat the folks that are doing the job, right. Recruiters. They come in and you treat them well.

Jim Holcomb: Right. That everybody that I don't have to worry about constant turnover within our organization, both internal and external. And I also want to know that the policies and the processes and the workflow and things that you put together also protect. How you pay your people, how you comply with laws, how you comply with regulatory regulations and you know, how you do benefits, et cetera.

Jim Holcomb: So, yes it's that ability to fit our organization in terms of what we look for and how we look for it and where we look for it. But then once that part is done, I want confidence in you to be able to complete the entire life cycle and do it well, 

Jim Coughlin: Tony What do you want?.

Anthony Gagliardi: A little bit of what they said, we're looking for solutions. I don't care whether it's labor or any other suppliers. The days of fluff are behind us. Everybody's just looking, know who we are, know what we need and provide those solutions and listen to us, right. That's really what it comes down to and whether it's labor or real estate or other areas that I deal with.

Anthony Gagliardi: That's ultimately every organization wants value now and wants solutions. Little less time for the fluffy stuff. 

Jim Coughlin: Awesome. You know, one of the ways you staffing suppliers on this call can find out more about what buyers want is by being involved in ClubVMSA. So this is my pitch for ClubVMSA.

Jim Coughlin: You can go to Clubvmsa.com. We have virtual and in-person events where you can talk to buyers directly, you can engage, connect, and it's all about the community. We have a lot of different opportunities to become a member. You can look at that at clubvmsa.com. I'll stop sharing that. I want to thank Anthony Tony Gagliardi, Alan Chilson, and Jim Holcomb for taking a good 45 minutes of your day.

Jim Coughlin: Open the kimono, so to speak and tell us what's important. I want to thank Candidate.ly And Jan at World Staffing Summit. And I want to thank all of you who tuned in and asked questions and participated. I'm Jim Coughlin, Creative Director of clubVMSA. You can find me at Jim Coughlin on LinkedIn and you can text me and email me and do whatever.

Jim Coughlin: I'll take your emails. I'll take your calls. I'll talk to anybody. Thank you. Have a good session. We'll see you guys soon. So you 

Allen Chilson: Thank you guys 

Jim Coughlin: Thank you so much. Thanks Jim. Bye. This is where we go bye.