Recognizing Opportunities to Love

So we have this goal – to live our core purpose of “identifying what people need so we can provide them with what they want” and to champion the cause of “everyone in America loving their job.” Great – so now what do we do?

This is not going to happen by itself and truth be told my direction alone is insufficient to get us there. Even if I gave you specific instructions it still would not be enough. This is a goal that we all need to take on as our own and actively engage with. Opportunities to find out what our employees and clients need are all around us. There are so many occasions to give our employees and clients what they want. The problem is that we pass by these occasions all the time – not because we are lazy or disinterested it is just that we do not recognize them as opportunities and overlook them.

After I gradated from college I had a job interview from hell – but I was given a great opportunity and I blew it. It was in my social work days and it was in a halfway house for non-violent criminals. I did not prepare for the interview. If I was really serious I would have spent time imagining what would be important to them. Alas, I was young…

When I arrived I was asked to fill out an application in the inmate TV room. 60 harden criminals in there flip-flops (no shoes keep them from escaping) and me in my interview suit. If I was not nervous enough it was a group interview and I was by far the most junior person in the interview. The hiring manager had us go around the room speaking about why we thought we were qualified. Everyone spoke of their previous prison experience and graduate work. I just graduated from college with a brief concealing internship. When it was my turn the moderator asked “What the hell are you doing here? This is a place for criminals – not preschoolers!” I was incensed. After all they saw my resume and called me in for an interview. I didn’t need to take time off work to be insulted. But rather than express my self, I gave some polite and meek answer about trying my best.

Later I realized I blew a golden opportunity. Had I taken the time to prepare and try to figure out what they would be looking for I would not have made the blunder. The moderator was giving me an opening to be bold and show him that I could stand up to him and any of the residents in the halfway house. It never occurred to as an opportunity – just a waste of time. My loss.

This is the purpose of this blog – to ground you and this commitment “to identify what our employees and clients need so we can give them what they want.” If we are all involved in this dialogue overtime we will internalize it. We will see opportunities to find out more about our clients where we previously did not. We will see paths to place people based on their preference and desire to be part of a company as apposed to just what is on their resume. This will bring a sense of ease and satisfaction to your job.

This grounding in Wall Street Services commitments will come after you have taken time to ponder what owning this commitment will look like, what it will take to live it.

So I invite you to reed this blog with a real hunger to learn. In doing so discuss the concepts behind the blog and make them part of you. You will be amazed at the opportunities to connect to our clients and employees that will emerge from this understanding.

Have fun.

Peter Laughter

Love is a two way street!

Last week I spoke of how much easier it is when we operate out of our core purpose (To find out what our employees and clients need so we can provide what they want) life is much easier. Our clients grow faster and we get more referrals. But what happens when our client does not love us?

Last week a manager one of our large clients wanted to give our staffer a raise. They did not have the budget to give him the raise he asked for and asked us to reduce our markup to accommodate. This would put us in a loss position. What is more this client has negotiated very low markups with the understanding that they have long term assignments where we can regain our profit.

When we declined the client was livid and threatened to have our staffer work through another service in violation of our contract. It hit me – This client either does not know what we do, does not value what we do or both. I was livid.

Then I realized that I was not being responsible for what was occurring. If our client does not think we are any better than the next service then we have fallen short in managing the client’s perception: the care we take in recruiting, selecting and managing our employees. If the work we do to ensure that we are making exceptional matches is transparent of course our clients would view us as superfluous.

Having close contact with our client is the only antidote.

It is our responsibility to educate our client about what we bring to the table. Our calls to clients are critical. Checking in on performance must lead to creating relationship. Our calls follow up on resumes need to result in a deeper understanding of what they are looking for and more precise results. It is our job to know what concerns our clients have and make those concerns our own by proactively looking for solutions to what keeps our clients awake at night.

What else can we do on our regular client calls to remind each and every firm we work with of the care we take in recruiting, selecting and managing our employees? Please give some thought to this in your quest to "create a hunger to learn and exceed", lets begin to share innovative ways we let our clients know what sets us a part...that is a quality of a great team. I look forward to reading your ideas. A special prize to the first two people who post comments.