“Ultreya!” Dan McCarthy, a close friend and no relation, introduced that word into my vocabulary. Here’s how. This past April, Dan set out on a walking pilgrimage from St. Jean Pied de Port, a small town at the foot of the Pyrenees in Southern France and the gateway to northwestern Spain. On the first day [...]
Archive for December 2004
When I started in this business, I thought that recruiting meant calling prospective candidates and reading them a job description. As you would imagine, this approach really only attracted the unemployed or active candidate. The real talent, the passive candidate, was never going to be dislodged by such an approach. I never [...]
One of the pleasures of editing a newsletter is the communication I have with our readers. Agree or disagree, I learn as much from these interactions as I hope you learn from The Fordyce Letter. Having been in this business since 1959, I’ve seen a lot of changes, made a lot of friends and had [...]
Given equal amounts of effort, the more skilled your staff, the higher your production. But what is the most cost-effective means of increasing skills and production? There are now a number of video and audio products available, some of which are excellent. [...]
Since the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 USC 206 et seq.) defines your consultants (”counselors,” “account executives,” “senior vice-presidents in charge of anything you say,” etc.) as employees, federal and state labor laws apply. This means you must fully adhere to the minimum wage and overtime pay laws in the identical manner as for clerical [...]
Dear TFL: In your Sept issue you talked about Fee Schedules.I work on a 25% contingency fee schedule with a 30-day replacement guarantee. I am losing some business because our fees are too high. I want to give them an alternative. Say, a flat fee at 23% or a 23% engagement fee. We are getting [...]
“Stockholm Syndrome describes the behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, becomes sympathetic to their captors. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts, and afterwards refused to testify against their captors. What causes [...]
Many Staffing Professionals believe that in order to do business, they must be included on their client’s “Approved List.” Although being on these lists may provide a certain level of business opportunity, generally, these opportunities are cloaked with restrictions and cumbersome processes. Remember, “Approved Lists” are “designed to control mediocrity not to foster excellence.” Conversely, [...]
Six months ago I talked with a frustrated owner who was telling me about his two top producers. “They are like poison in the office,” he told me. “The only reason I let them stay here is because they pay the overhead. But over the last eighteen months their sloppiness, arrogance, and condescending attitude [...]
A strong marketing program requires much more than simply picking up the phone and trying to secure a search assignment in one call. Clients are more sophisticated and less trusting of monotonous sales pitches than ever before. Here are three distinct elements for a well-rounded marketing program: 1. Reach: Reach has to do with how big [...]
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