Some times you've got to lose a battle to win a war!

So lately I've been coming up against my competitors (a lot) who are literally working for nothing, and working hard!

Taking an overview of the situation I know we give an excellent service to our clients and they understand that we are in business to earn money. We are not willing to compromise this service by "dropping our pants" on rates and taking all the profit out of any business we win. We will however be competitive and work to find a good compromise with our clients, as we understand they need to make a profit too (we can't do business if we have no clients!).

Obviously it's going be a bit of a slower burn than I wanted as we wait for our non-profit making competitors to run them self ragged servicing accounts with no profit in. The good news is that it seems a friend of mine in the trade has had exactly the same issues in her market place throughout 2009, but her constant marketing and relationship building has begun to pay dividends in 2010 as her competitors have lost the accounts which they inevitably gave a poor service to as there was no profit in them. Now my friend has clients who are keen to have an excellent service and understand that they have to pay a reasonable amount to achieve the service levels they need.

I think the moral is don't alienate people you can't do business with now, as they could be clients soon!

A hard day in the office

Well today has been a mental struggle! I think more to do with the fact that I am very tired, fitness training and the clocks going forward seem to have suddenly taken their toll and drained me.
So, we have done a massive brochure drop to potential clients letting them know of our new office in Chippenham and today I have been calling to follow up the drops. It's been hard going, as with any telephone based sales calling it's going to be a numbers game. I've had lots of companies who just will not have a need for our services or maybe will, but probably not for a long time due to the effect the fragile economy is having on their business. However there are some big businesses out there and this is a marathon NOT A SPRINT! Even a call which ends with a "NO" raises awareness of our new office, and you never know that "NO" could be a "YES" in three months?

On the plus side I have found a new contact in a large company, I have had a candidate on second interview today and I have found something else that I would like to spend my money on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ-yNISb54k

This is Dom looking forward to his bed!

Oh please be sure to look me up on twitter @domrosato and please take a look at our website http://www.cmdrecruitment.com

Fee Squeeze!

Sorry I haven't been updating this as much as I should've, will try harder!

Up until now I have been building new relationships and making a good few placements. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is doing business at decent rates. I don't know if it is just us, but it seems all of our competion are doing business at rates which don't even cover the admin costs the extra business will bring in.
I went to a meeting today to discuss supplying temps to a client and before we had even begun discussing their needs we were confronted with "this is the charge rate we already pay, we will not pay anymore than that!". Now it just so happens that 3 other agencies will supply them at that charge rate and although we tried discussing the service they are providing we always got the answer "I'm happy with the service and we will not take on another agency who charge us higher!".

Heres the thing, the proposed charge rate leaves only 35p per hour after we've paid the wage, tax and NI of the temporary worker. Thats approx £2.10p a day and £10.50p a week! Now consider that a stamp is what about 34p thats 1 hours profit gone on sending out the workers payslip! Never mind the fact that the payroll lady will have more work to do and if it adds another hour on to her timesheet thats most of all profit gone!

We have decided that we will not be actively chasing this company for their business anymore, if they call us and ask us for temps and we have some people ready and willing to go in without much fuss then we will supply them.

It is just a puzzle to us why anybody would agree to take on extra work for next to nothing? We would ranther work with clients who understand that we are a business and want to build a mutually benificial relationship.

If you are a client who would like a recruitment comapny to work WITH you then please drop us a line: www.cmdrecruitment.com

Bouncing Back!

What a terrible year 2009 has been for me and my family. I had to give up running my own recruitment business and I found work as a used car sales person for 11 months. Unfortunately for me the employment which I took on was not right for my family and I, this had a terrible effect on our lives and put an awful lot of strain on us all.

However this terrible year has made me more determined to get back to my career in recruitment.

I am pleased to say that after a good few interviews I have accepted employment as recruitment consultant with a recruitment agency in the south west of England. I start on the 4^th of January and I am really looking forward to helping people find their perfect job again! I have set myself some hard goals for this year and have big plans for my life and career. It's gonna be tough and there are gonna be lots of trials and tribulations on the way, so keep an eye on this blog and see how I get along!