Staffing Agencies - First Action Towards Your Staffing Contract

Nothing is more exciting than finding your first client for your medical staffing agency. You may be starting a recruiting staffing agency or a nursing or OT temp agency, it does not matter what you are starting, what matters is how to find your first client.

Well, this action is what drives any new business crazy. You can have what I call the paper business set up, but if you cannot find clients, your business will not survive.

So, what must a new staffing agency do to get your first contract? Well, let me as the question differently, what action, if done today will produce the higher likelihood of your company securing its first contract?

If I had to pick one action and one action only to do to find my first staffing contract I would approach a manager and offer them your company as a backup to their existing staffing agency. I would not push my staffing agency as the primary source.

Why not? Well, I believe a soft approach will turn into a viable contract as appose to approaching a facility with a hard offer of you versus them.

What I mean is, the current staffing agency that may be firmly implanted in a facility may be there because they know somebody or the charge a very good price. I have always found that something is always wrong, something may not be good and that is what you will need to find out.

The sooner you get into finding out what is wrong the sooner you will get a contract. That is why I always tell my readers to enter marketing to a facility as a soft approach. The soft marketing approach to hospitals may be the difference between getting a staffing contract and not finding any business.

There are many other methods you can use and I recommend many more type of marketing methods, but the question was just using one method, what method would I use.

You will have to be persistent when meeting managers or supervisors. These are the decision makers and those decisions makers are who you are trying to impress. Make them believe your services are the best, make them want to talk to you. Offer them a free shift to get to know you company. Send your best employee or send yourself to cover the shift if you are able to. Do whatever it takes to make sure you fulfill the needs of the client once you get your first medical staffing contract.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. Also known as the Zhuge Liang for recruitment. A recruitment coach & mentor that specialized on coaching recruitment business owners and staffing agency recruiters.

Author of 8 books. 25 years in recruitment business coaching & mentoring. Focus countries will be in Singapore, USA, UK, Australia and others.

He created the recruitment agency market tumour law, C-Marketing, V-Marketing and blog marketing for recruitment agencies and staffing agencies.

He also specialized in business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 1 to 1 private consulting or recruitment coaching, please check here.
He also writes articles related to how to start a recruiting business & how to get clients for a staffing agency

Five Things to Keep In Mind While Choosing a Staffing Agency

Finding skilled and professionally qualified workforce is no more a cakewalk in a competitive market where candidates are offered with lucrative pay packages and flexible work conditions by numerous employees. Staffing firms give easy solutions to fill vacancies from executive level to managerial level. Small and Medium Enterprises often look for temporary or temporary-to-permanent employees who can be hired at an economical rate. But before partnering with employment agencies, make sure that the agencies' code of conduct should be based on fair policies and values so that you can avoid pitfalls of getting into legal traps. Here are some implications which an employer should keep in mind when you work with a staffing agency:

Work with a staffing firm who know the value of trust that employers, associates and clients have in them. Always look for a firm which has a good market reputation and rated as average to excellent in assessment charts. Check for performance parameter and certifications that the agency possesses.

If your staffing agency believes in keeping written records of the services which they are offering you, then it is an affirmative indication. If they support a fair discussion on medical policies, taxes, laws and Fair Labour Standards Act before getting into the written contract formalities, then it is a dependable staffing agency.

As per the latest trends of the staffing industry, reputed agencies not only give workforce solutions but, also take care of training and development of the employees. Besides this, they have strict policies on turn up time, pay scale and acts of indiscipline. Persuade that your staffing agencies include the above when they offer you their services. These trends are applicable specifically in case of contingent or contract base workforce.

Reputed staffing firms have their own database and employee management structure. When an employee is deployed on a contract or temporary basis, recruitment agencies provide them their employee ID, Badges and other credentials which are not associated with clients' permanent employees credentials.

Fair Labour Standards Acts preside over payments for overtime work. If your workforce solution provider keeps a record of these payments and it is being conferred and discussed with you before it is being charged, then indeed your agency is a bonafide consulting.

Choosing the best agency from a horde of staffing agencies which acknowledge your workforce requirements efficiently and works on fair policies is a tedious task. But there are firms which feel themselves privileged of walking an extra mile to set high standards of working in the staffing industry.

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. Also known as the Zhuge Liang for recruitment. A recruitment coach & mentor that specialized on coaching recruitment business owners and staffing agency recruiters.

Author of 8 books. 25 years in recruitment business coaching & mentoring. Focus countries will be in Singapore, USA, UK, Australia and others.

He created the recruitment agency market tumour law, C-Marketing, V-Marketing and blog marketing for recruitment agencies and staffing agencies.

He also specialized in business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 1 to 1 private consulting or recruitment coaching, please check here.

He also writes articles related to how to start a recruiting business & how to get clients for a staffing agency

What is eCommerce

An article by Dougles Chan - The Recruitment Guru. A recruitment business coach that specialized in staffing agency business. Specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & Staffing Agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized in business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO Services, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 staffing agency coaching, kindly check here.

Ecommerce is a big thing these days and anyone wanting to get into earning money online needs to know a bit about this popular topic. Ecommerce is basically online business, whether selling a product or service on the internet, if you are earning money online, you are involved in ecommerce. This article will explain a bit more about the basics of this emerging phenomenon.

Starting an online business is not that different from starting an offline one. The concept is much the same in that you still need to have a product to promote, customers to buy it and a way to reach those customers. The process is similar to starting an offline business, you will need a business plan and funding, although ecommerce can be cheaper than the traditional storefront.

Choosing a product is the first step in beginning an e-commerce venture. This can be absolutely anything under the sun, from consumer electronics to bathing suits, from e-books and e-reports. Whether you decide to sell information products that are available online for download or physical, real world products that can be shipped to the customer is up to you and your budget.

Information products are ideal for ecommerce because they require microscopic investment, if any. If you can write, you can create an information product and make it available for download without any cost whatsoever. Physical products are a little more difficult since you need to have them on hand to be able to ship to the customer when an order comes in, and this requires maintaining an inventory.

The most common way to reach your ecommerce customers is through the use of a website or e-store, so you will either need to have someone build your ecommerce site for you or learn how to do it yourself. The advantages of having a website over a real-world storefront are many, but the first is cost. You can find extremely cheap website hosting and a domain name can be had for less than ten dollars, making ecommerce extremely affordable.

There are many resources online if you are willing to take the time to learn how to build your website and you can save a lot of money this way. However, it is often more efficient to hire an expert to create the site that you want, or to use a template pre-designed for ecommerce use. Many web hosts offer pre-made templates.

Last, you need to be able to bring in customers. This can be done through advertising, article marketing and by providing quality products and information that encourage people to tell their friends about you. If your ecommerce idea and product is good enough, you will even have other webmasters linking to you which can really boost sales!

Ecommerce is a great way to get into sales, but you do need to do some research ahead of time. Decide what you want to sell and research the market for it, then build a website and start advertising. There is quite a bit of competition in ecommerce, but you can get into it for such a low price that it is well worth the effort.

SEO Consultancy Services - SEO Consultant to Dominate Search Engines

If you are really desperate for higher search engine rankings then the expert SEO consultation is always a boon to your business. Many business firms spend a lot of money behind marketing and advertisement of their products. All serious firms are aware that search engine optimization is the brightest future of online business. As SEO is comparatively new marketing concept to the others, business owners are always in search of good SEO consultation from the experts. And they are no more wrong as it can improve your business not dramatically but drastically.

As there are millions of people searching for the services and products from the search-engines, it is always necessary to be ranked high in search engine results. To get top rankings in search-engines, you must optimize your website according with the search-engine algorithm. SEO consultants are the expert in the field of search engine optimization and they better know better about the search engine algorithm than the others.

Most of the businesses avoid hiring search engine marketing consultant seeing their higher costs. But they are not aware of their ability to boom their business significantly soaring in online market. You just need to give some attention before hiring SEO consultation.

Calculate the Right Consultancy Fees:

One of the most frequent questions comes into the mind of consulting services hirer is consultancy fees. They are always wondering that how and what do the SEO consultancy services charge to the clients.

There are numerous ways that consultancy services charge when they are billing to their clients. They can charge hourly bases, monthly bases, fixed rate contracts, extra overheads and travelling charges. Some SEO consultancy services providers also charges on performance bases which is the best and frequent choices among the clients mostly.

Knowledge and Portfolio of SEO Consultant:

Reputable and expert search engine optimisation service consultant will always have a sound knowledge of the SEO techniques and latest trends. He always keeps his client advised of new and useful industry trends. Expert SEO consultant is able to provide significant analysis and discover new possibilities and resources to boost your online business.

The SEO consultant can work with your existing staff and produce the efficient results within given timeline. Search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Bing always keep their very secret algorithms changing. So the expert SEO consultant can be able to find the latest changes in search engine algorithms. Nowadays, social media sites like Facebook, and Twitter are also producing great results so the need of SEO consultant is becoming more and more necessary.

Gaining high search-engine rankings gives you a very high return on investment. The right SEO consultancy services can give your business a great exposure and take it to the next level. Your website is your online identity and search-engines are the great tool to make it more powerful and prominent.

SEO Consulting For Big Brand Websites - 20 Tips on Dealing With Different Levels of Administrators

SEO consultation for large brand websites challenges the SEO consultants with unique situations. Dealing with the different levels of executives and managers is one of these unique problems.

In reality the actual SEO techniques used for small sites and large sites do not necessarily change. However, the problems which SEO consultants have to overcome can be far apart. One factor is of course the size of the web site. Small sites may contain a few hundred pages whereas large corporate sites contain thousands of pages that continue to grow with time. The other major factor is the number of people who are involved in managing and maintaining these large websites. In a small website, it is usually the business owner who will take all the decisions, but with a large website ten persons or more could be involved in the process.

The following tips will help SEO consultants survive the experience of providing SEO consulting to big brand companies:

1 - The vital element in providing SEO consulting to these big sites is to start an educative training program to inform all involved levels and departments of the importance of applying sound search engine optimization techniques as well as how, when and where to apply these techniques.

2 - The top administrative levels are more important to convince of the essential need for effective SEO practices. They are the decision makers and the survival of the whole SEO project depends on them.

3 - The staff of different departments must be involved in the process, from the web development team to the marketing team, sales representatives and even financial officers and controllers who determine budgets. SEO is a team effort so anyone who is involved with the web site development, from designers up to the CEO must be included.

4 - All levels need education and training to have a common language and realistic expectations. Based on his or her initial evaluation of the company's website, an SEO consultant should prepare a comprehensive educational and training seminar or workshop for the staff.

5 - An SEO consultant must try to arrange a weekly or monthly seminar to all staff and executives involved in the SEO project to explain to them the process and set realistic expectations to avoid failure.

6 - SEO consultants must avoid any personality conflicts or issues at all costs; they may cause failure of the whole project. Many SEO companies charge more for the difficulty to work with administrators.

7 - As an SEO consultant you must be able to teach and train the executives and staff. In the mean time, an SEO consultant must be capable and ready to learn and acquire new expertise from each member in the team mainly through different questions and challenges that will arise during the long process of SEO.

An SEO consultant, executives and other staff members must be able to work together as a productive team, share experience and learn from each other.

8 - Be realistic. Every body must know that SEO is a team work and it takes a lot of time and hard work to show results.

9 - Be motivational and keep the enthusiasm of all the team high.

10 - Evaluate and update knowledge and the information of the executives. A lot of their information is obtained from forums and blogs which are at most times outdated and wrong.

11 - Make it clear to all the SEO team that for each hour of SEO consultant's work, there is 6 - 8 hours needed by the company staff to implement and do the recommended changes.

12 - SEO Consultants must be able to explain and justify every recommendation or change they ask for.

13- Select areas where SEO will be successful or easy to show quick results first.

14 - Explain to the SEO team that all recommendations must be followed, not only part of them. To get to the first page is like competing in the Olympics: every effort must be done to get the gold medal. It is very competitive out there.

15 - Company executives usually ask for a Traffic estimate, so you must have a goal.

To estimate the expected increase in the search engine traffic, you need to find out the monthly search volume for all the long tail keyword phrases that you are optimizing for. Usually you will get 10% of these searches if you managed to get your long tail keyword phrases to the first page of Google.

In reality, SEO is not about ranking, it is about traffic. Every body must start to understand this important fact.

16 - Prepare a set of tools to allow you to monitor and track different sources of traffic and every possible change in your progress.

17 - Define your base line before you start, so you can evaluate your progress and measure of success. Decide where you are in ranking and traffic and what your goals are.

18 - Every executive is eager to see results and success. Explain to everybody that it takes as long as it takes; it is not like PPC. We have no control on Google spiders. Traffic will reach its goal, but how long it will take is not an easy question to answer. Many factors can cause delays. Google changes its algorithm more than 400 times a year. Search engines take time to consider these links, some times up to several months and the competition is optimizing and affecting our results every day.

A stable search engine ranking for a competitive keyword can take anywhere from 4-12 months, but you have to remain focused on the ranking objective over time

19 -Weekly or monthly prepare reports to show continuous improvement once the SEO strategy is in place.

20 - Carefully analyze and interpret the results from different tools, and publish to executives these regular reports about the progress in ranking, traffic and link popularity.

By following these recommendations, SEO consultants can ensure a smooth productive relationship with different levels of executives of big brand companies and all other staff members involved in the long exhaustive process of search engine optimization.

How an SEO Consultant Can Grow Your Business

Once you step inside the world of internet marketing, there is so much ground you have to cover. For a fact, going online and marketing your products and services globally is a big step towards the growth of your business. However, not every businessman who goes online achieves what every businessman desires for: to be #1. For this reason, the inauguration of SEO Consulting took place and started to change the most ordinary and typical means of internet marketing.

I have done some research myself and found a superb way to learn more about how an SEO Consultant can help online businesses grow and how SEO Consulting can improve sales and returns on investments (ROI). By directly contacting several SEO Consultants and hearing their stories myself, I was able to know why SEO Consulting is a proven way to boost sales and gain exposure globally.

Before I let you know where to find a knowledgeable SEO Consultant who can help you market your products and services online, let me first give you a quick overview about SEO Consulting and how a consultant can actually convert website traffic into sales.

There is so much to learn about Search Engine Optimization and a single article is not enough to explain to you how everything works. However, I will try and make it a point to make this article your one-stop resource to finding the best SEO adviser online so you can achieve your dreams of growing your business and entering the global market.

SEO Consulting: How Is It Done?

SEO Consulting is basically the act of setting up of plans on how to improve your ranking on popular search engines like Google or Yahoo. For example, if your company is selling cheap glucometers online, you will want to come up on the first page of Google or Yahoo when someone types in "cheap glucometer" on the search bar. You will not be able to achieve this if you have no understanding about how Google ranks pages or how Yahoo counts clicks. For this reason, a thorough but understandable briefing from an SEO Consultant should be done first before you immediately give up when you find out that your site is not on the first page of search engine results.

To get outstanding SEO Consulting that is effective in terms of gaining traffic and turning clicks into sales, you need to know how to look for the best SEO Adviser online. To do this, you have to be aware of the qualities you have to look out for when choosing one:

Top 3 Characteristics of a Good SEO Consultant

1. The SEO Consultant is Eager To Learn About Your Business.

It is believed that before a consultant can begin detailing the strategies for successfully becoming #1, the SEO Consultant must first "have an understanding of the clients' business and marketing goals to develop the strategy and approach for a winning SEO campaign."

If the consultant is interested in what you are marketing and is knowledgeable about what it is that you want to achieve, then for sure, doing business with this SEO Consultant will be a breeze.

2. The SEO Consultant is Knowledgeable in the Different Fields of SEO.

"Ideally, the SEO Consultant should understand things like: Business Objectives, Marketing Strategies, Demographics of Target Audience, Media Mix & Flight Dates, Creative considerations, Messaging, Success Metrics, Dependencies, and Methods of Measurement".

SEO Consulting requires the consultant to not only just have a variety of skills but also hold a wide array of knowledge on the different aspects of SEO. Working with a consultant who knows how concepts work will definitely be beneficial as you already know that the consultant knows what he is doing.

3. The SEO Consultant Communicates Effectively.

Ongoing reporting and monitoring should definitely be performed by an SEO Consultant so that the client has an idea if there has been any progress with the strategies taken to achieve business goals.

An SEO Consultant who is able to make suggestions as to how to improve traffic after a month's report is proof enough that he is knowledgeable and fit to do the job well. Constant communication, whether relaying good or bad reports, is always the key to effective SEO Consulting.

If you're looking for a good way to improve your sales, venturing into internet marketing is ultimately the best idea. However, dipping your feet into unknown waters is not advisable so be sure to seek help from a knowledgeable SEO Consultant who can give you the best advice on how to grow your business.

Twelve Points to Consider Before Hiring an In-House Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consultant

When a Small, medium or big sized business needs a competent search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, there are four options available:

1 - Assemble a team of in-house webmasters, programmers and marketers to do the job.

2 - Contract the job to a specialized SEO company.

3 - Post an advertisement to hire an SEO consultant to work as an employee in the company.

4 - Get an in-house SEO consultant from a specialized company to work with their staff without being an employee.

So, what is the best option for your company? There are many points to consider before taking your decision.

1 - Assembling your in-house team of webmasters and marketers will never work: From my long experience, assembling a team of in-house webmasters, programmers and marketers to do the job will never succeed as none of them has enough experience in optimization. Moreover, they do not realize what are the challenges that they are up against or the hidden problems from which their website is suffering.

2 - Applying the best SEO practices: When starting any online project, the in-house SEO consultant will work with your managers to ensure that the Best SEO Practices are applied to every project, which will make it much faster to get your new web pages and other internet promotional advertisement to the first pages of Google and other major search engines.

3 - SEO training seminars and workshops: An in-house SEO consultant will be able to organize SEO training seminars and workshops for different departments and different levels of employees on how to apply and include the Best SEO Practices in every online project.

4 - Getting more profitable and productive ideas: The daily discussions and the direct communications between an in-house SEO consultant and the company administrators, managers, directors, programmers and webmasters will spark many new ideas on both sides. A simple idea or a suggestion in such an atmosphere can make a huge difference in starting a new campaign or modifying and existing one to be more profitable.

5 - Creating the most SEO friendly websites: An in-house SEO consultant will be able to work more easily with your managers to apply any necessary modifications or redesigns to your websites in order to convert them into the most SEO friendly websites in the shortest possible time and with the least efforts. This will ensure that your websites will rank in the first pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines in the shortest time.

6 - Detailed SEO audit: working with your webmasters and programmers, an in-house SEO consultant can more easily perform a detailed SEO audit to list all the points that need correction or modification in your website and in your different online advertising campaigns.

7 - Selecting the most effective and profitable keywords to use for optimization: Having a direct contact with your staff in different departments will enable the in-house SEO consultant to finish the process of selecting the most effective and profitable keywords in no time, so the whole process of optimization can start quickly and become more effective and productive.

8 - Adding social media marketing as an integral part of your internet marketing strategies: The in-house SEO consultant will have a direct relationship with a few selected employees in different departments to train them on how to establish a solid presence in different Social Media platforms. Maintaining a healthy presence on different Social Media platforms is a costly and time-consuming process. Having the in-house SEO consultant start and only supervise the selected company employees doing the daily Social Media Marketing activities will significantly reduce the cost involved in the process.

9 - Publishing press releases: Being in direct contact with different levels of administration, it is much easier for an in-house SEO consultant to find dozens of ideas for new press releases every week. He can coordinate and publish many press releases every month to promote the products and services of the company, enhance branding and create hundreds of high quality back links which will post the positions of many keywords to rank in the first pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines.

10 - Blogging: An in-house Consultant will have better chances to get many blog posts from different departments to post in the company blogs every week. An outside SEO company will not be in a similar position to contact different experts in the company to write blog posts. Every well written and optimized blog post is an asset and a testimony for the company. Blog posts will create hundreds of high quality back links in addition to promoting the products and services of the company.

11 - Saving your time and money wasted on interviewing and hiring: Hiring an experienced SEO consultant is not an easy task. Hours are wasted in evaluating and interviewing many candidates. The interviewers usually do not have enough knowledge to enable them to pick up the most qualified candidates. On the other hand, getting an In-House SEO Consultant from a specialized SEO company will ensure having an experienced consultant without wasting any time in the hiring process.

12 - Full-time or part-time: An In-House SEO Consultant from a specialized company can work one or two days per week, one or two days per month or five days a week. Depending or you needs and the turnover of your online projects, the in-house consultant can work one or two days in one week, five days the next week and one day in the following week. This provides you with flexibility which is not always possible when you hire an employee and save your business a lot of money when there is not much work for an SEO consultant.

In Conclusion:

Hiring a competent SEO consultant is never easy especially if the hiring managers are not proficient enough in SEO to identify and pick the best candidate.

An in-house SEO consultant will work wonders for any business website by establishing clear standards for the Best SEO Practices in all company departments involved in the process of launching, modifying, improving and maintaining the many websites of your company.

Getting an in-house SEO consultant from a specialized SEO company is the most productive and cost-effective option. Many companies have realized the value and the cost savings involved in getting an In-House SEO Consultant. These companies have achieved their goals in getting higher returns on their investments in web optimization and internet marketing.