Invoice Factoring for Staffing Companies
It is common for staffing firms to face cash challenges during times of growth.
Dealing with many different pay cycles, meeting payroll can become difficult. Many
staffing firms will turn to payroll funding or factoring to get them though their time
of need. While payroll funding is a good option for some staffing firms, factoring
offers more flexibility.
At a glance, here are some of the differences between Payroll Funding and Factoring
a staffing company:
PAYROLL FUNDING:
Funding only the payroll portion of the invoice
Long-term contracts
Usually the staffing firm must submit all time cards
No Credit guarantee
Funding Company takes over invoices payroll and tax processing
FACTORING WITH US:
Funding of entire invoice. The staffing firm may use the funds for any purpose,
payroll, marketing, expanding, etc.
No long-term contracts required
Staffing firm has total control over which invoices they submit to us.
Credit guarantee, in factored invoices
Will fund into staffing firm’s payroll account
Staffing firm manages payroll, insurance, etc
The benefits of factoring with us really boil down to adding profit to your bottom
line. Before you factor, make sure you can take advantage of the features and
leverage them into value:
TAKE ON ADDITIONAL BUSINESS
Most of our staffing clients can do more business if they have better cash flow.
Some real examples are:
Immediate access to your working capital
Shifting manpower from collection to marketing for growth
Meeting payroll efficiently and consistently
REDUCE EXPENSES
Many of our clients in the staffing industry actually reduce expenses by outsourcing
credit and administration to us, and by leveraging their healthy cash position. The
most common ways include:
Eliminating bad debt with our credit guarantee
Reducing collection and administrative expenses
IMPROVE YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION
Exchanging invoices for cash enables some staffing businesses to “get current” or
reduce strains caused by tight cash flow. It also improves their own credit rating
which is critical to do business with larger customers. Here are some examples we
frequently see:
Meeting regular payroll obligations
Bringing payroll taxes current
Reaching a higher quality customer base
How can YOUR Temporary Staffing company benefit from Factoring?
Every staffing company has a unique situation. Before signing up to factor, it’s
important to estimate how our services can increase your business, reduce your
expenses, and improve your financial situation.
Afra AmirSanjari is the Principal for Peacock Capital. Peacock Capital specializes in
solving the cash flow challenges of Small/Medium Businesses, Government Vendors
and Individuals with innovative financial solutions by providing a network for
securing operating capital.
http://www.peacockcapital.com;
info@peacockcapital.com
How to Become a Qualified Person Consultant
If you are a Qualified Person with a full time position. You may be interested to know that there are many organizations that require the skills and expertise of a Qualified Person consultant.
The organisation may require periodic batch release and would only require a QP at these times. A company may have a large project and require a Qualified Person during this time to help with the work load. Some companies use Qualified Person consultants to improve the organisations knowledge in certain areas or to set up and run new departments within quality.
Whatever the reason QP contractors are a effective and smart solution to some of the problems faced by drug manufacturing companies.
Contracting as a Qualified Person can offer a flexible working week as well as a significant boots to your finances. Qualified Person consultants can command around
Tips to Help Top Marketers Get Up and Fight in the Face of Failure
Here’s a true story to shine a light on what can happen to top marketers in the face of failure. Details have been changed to protect the innocent.
The Alpha Company has recently brought in a new marketing department head to drive revenues. Three months ago, company leaders sought outside counsel to reduce the marketing budget by 25% to compensate for downward trending revenues. Advisors said the lower budget could work if several marginal programs were cut and all remaining dollars were focused on the most important market segments.
Upon arrival, the marketing leader is confronted with entrenched programs and people resistant to change. To new eyes, it is hard to spot the sacred cows because the organization does a poor job of tracking results. Another department head served as interim marketing leader and is not at all happy to lose the responsibility. Rather than help the new person sort things out, he makes it his job to alert the CEO about missteps the new marketing leader makes. This, in turn, makes the new marketing leader less willing to take risks. As a result, the 25% cut in the marketing budget is across the board, and the programs that can most likely improve financial results are rendered 25% less effective. Revenues decline fast. New marketing leader is under tremendous pressure just two months into her new job.
Everyone who has been in marketing for any length of time has faced failure. Success and failure are close companions. Smart companies realize this and encourage a certain amount of marketing experimentation. Test markets are just that — a way to try bold new things. The best marketing people are aggressive by nature and willing to stand up to corporate pressures that would eliminate risk and good ideas.
What marks exceptional people and organizations is not whether they can avoid failure, but how they tackle it when it comes. Like our new marketing leader, you may also face a really tough situation. Here are some ways to get back on track from someone who has faced the possibility of serious failure a few times.
Pick Yourself Up. Our tendency is to focus on consequences at the point we are confronting truly difficult circumstances. Focus on what you would do if fear wasn’t standing in your way. Fear clouds judgment and suppresses creativity required to solve the problem.
Change Course. The one great thing about failure is that it has a stopping point. No organization will sit still for long when confronted with big problems. In an odd sort of way, failure opens doors that success seldom does. Management is more willing to change course and try new things. People who are obstructionist tend to stand out more and are easier to sweep aside. At the failure point, there is more risk in maintaining the status quo than in doing bold things. This is when true leaders emerge.
Assess Available Resources. The new marketing leader in our story has a big challenge to drive revenue with a small remaining budget. Her first order of business is to assess what is left and to reprioritize everything. This should then be compared with a strong plan of action to change the outcome by having the courage to make tough calls.
Let Truth Be the Guide. Marketing failures are often due to inadequate budgets in the first place. In today’s cost-saving business environment, marketing department budgets are easy trim targets. When goals are being met, it is easy to take a don’t-rock-the-boat attitude when fighting for resources. At point of failure though, an honest assessment of required resources is vital to reverse the failure. In our story, new marketing leader has little to risk and much to gain by demanding more money.
Involve the Whole Team. At failure point, many people tend to hide the facts from the very people who can change the outcomes. Resist the tendency. This is the time to gather the team and lay truth on the line. Rather than increase fear, this move actually disperses anxiety. Everyone knows things are not going as planned and shares concern about consequences. Give your team members a chance to shape the solution with their own great ideas. Most important of all, believe in yourself and stick to the job until the problem is solved.
Bill Fritsch is president of Hydrogen Advertising, an award-winning, Seattle-based advertising agency emphasizing superb ideas efficiently produced. Reach him at 206-389-9500, ext. 224 or email bill@hydrogenadvertising.com. For more information, visit http://www.hydrogenadvertising.com.
The Most Common Complaints about Translation Services
Within past years modern electronic communication has created extensive business opportunities for freelance translators. They are able to reach clients from all over the world and perform their jobs at their own convenience. It appears to be a dream profession, but yet so many translators report that it’s challenging to keep their previous clients, and that the number of clients they served has diminished. One would like to know why this takes place.
First of all, one need to be aware that nowadays there is a great competition on the market, and clients are very selective. So how do I make sure that clients will return to me, not to my competitor? There are clients who constantly need translation services, and they actually prefer to use the same translator for many different projects. They will only cooperate with you again if they were satisfied with your previous services. It is also to your advantage to be familiar with complains the clients have made about translation services in the past. The most common ones are:
1. The project was not finished on time.
2. The translator demonstrated poor language skills: grammar, spelling, punctuation, omitted words, etc.
3. The translator misunderstood the formation of the translation project. He/she used different font, style. He/she did not translate the images. He/she did not include tables, etc.
4. The translator showed poor communication skills. He/she was not flexible enough. He/she has never notified when a problem occurred during the translation process.
5. The translator was hard to reach at his/her office. He/she did not provide adequate mailing address and all the documents kept returning to the sender.
6. The translator turned out to be not reliable. He/she assured he/she knew the dialect of the language but did not demonstrate this skill. He/she advertised himself/herself as a legal translator but never certified his/her work. When returning the project he/she did not include the original seal. He/she never corrected his/her previous mistakes even though he/she promised to do so.
7. The translator was not culturally sensitive. He/she presented himself/herself as a native speaker but did not know all the aspects of the culture.
8. The translator never returned money. He/she admitted that the translation was poorly done and promised to recompense but never did.
9. The translator did not respond well to constrictive criticism.
In order to stand out from the competition, and have your previous clients come back to you, one ought to perform self -evaluation after each translation project. Be critical about your skills and ask your clients for feedbacks. Even the negative ones might provide you with another perspectives and ideas on how to improve your skills and develop your professional growth. Sometimes constrictive criticism leads to a positive change. And positive feedbacks guarantee good promotion, trust among clients, and more projects. Good luck.
The author Marian Marcinkowski is the President of VerbumSoft. He is the owner of http://www.translatorsbase.com and http://www.directfreelance.com
Translatorsbase.com it is a global provider in translation solutions, providing translation services via network of professional freelance translators and translation agencies located around the world.
Directfreelance.com it is a directory of freelance professionals searchable by category, specialization and location. Freelancers can find here jobs posted on daily basis.
Financial Gain is a Consequence of Stellar Performance
In today’s business world, the pressure for financial performance has created a supercharged atmosphere in which the only goal seems to be to make as much cash as fast as possible. Few industries have changed under this pressure as much as the advertising industry.
Industry professionals are caught in a crossfire between clients who demand ever increasing return on investment (which generally means lower price) and their own managers who seek ever escalating revenues. Today fewer people are doing more work than ever before and earning less. The resulting pressure has taken a lot of the fun out of a business that was traditionally focused on delivering big ideas and powerful solutions.
The problem has been exacerbated over the last fifteen years as the ad agency business has gone public. Estimates vary, yet most agree that over
No Guts, No Glory – The Importance of Reaching Toward Big Goals
If you want to drive your organization to a higher level of success, here’s a word of advice: set some ambitious goals. No one ever unlocked the leadership capabilities, creativity and passion of their employees by asking for modest gains. Unfortunately in our “prove-it-before-you-do-it” ROI world, some organizations limit risk-taking and inadvertently penalize those who consistently think outside the box. The result is an organization as demoralized as it is bored.
In advertising, this propensity can be deadly. The best advertising people thrive on risk-taking because that’s where the big breakthroughs live. And breakthrough advertising helps build brands and profits. When the pressure to limit risk and drive down costs is overwhelming, it shows in safe, lackluster work.
Lou Tice, personal coach extraordinaire, reminded Seattle’s downtown Rotary last month that setting unrealistic, audacious goals actually increases the likelihood that the goal will be achieved. This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s actually good common sense. Those who set small goals never stretch and grow. So sacred cows thrive, people stay in their comfort zones, the quality of their work suffers, and they influence others to underachieve. Conversely, when people set outlandish goals, the only way they can achieve them is by changing the way things are done, moving into a new zone where innovation can flourish, and turning sacred cows into hamburger.
One of the most dramatic examples of the benefits of setting big goals can be found right here in Seattle. Several years ago, City Librarian Deborah Jacobs and Executive Director of the Seattle Public Library Foundation Terry Collings decided to dream big. In what became the “Libraries for All” initiative, her team set about rebuilding the entire public library system here in Seattle. Not content with providing a much-needed facelift to the facilities, they wanted to show the world that Seattle was serious about opening our doors to anyone who was hungry for information. Reaching this goal required better facilities, more resources for books and programs, and innovative thinking about the role of the library in the digital age.
An amazing thing happened. Their goal was so breathtaking, and the leadership so resolute about achieving it, that momentum started to build. In 1998 Seattle voters approved a $196.4 million bond measure, the largest library bond measure in American history. This funded construction of the new library buildings. Private support flowed into the foundation as momentum built and this provided much needed support to buy books and expand programs. As an icon of this bold, new initiative, the foundation hired the controversial Dutch architect, Rem Kulhaus, to design what has since become the new Central Library, a building universally lauded for both its architectural merit and for bringing the library into the 21st century.
When the Central Library opened, The New York Times architectural critic wrote: “At a dark hour, Seattle’s new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon. If an American city can erect a civic project as brave as this one, the sun hasn’t set on the West. In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review. I could go on piling up superlatives like cars in a multiple collision, but take my word: there’s going to be a whole lot of rubbernecking going on.”
Today, every single community library in the Seattle system is being renovated or rebuilt.
And I’m sure it’s no coincidence that in 2005 we were named the “most literate city in America” by an annual Central Connecticut State University study.
Most people involved in this monumental accomplishment consider it a career-crowning achievement. It started as a goal that seemed too big to achieve, but teamwork, tenacity and out-of-the-box thinking brought this bold idea to its unabashed triumph.
With its unrelenting focus on ROI, corporate America may be crushing the kind of innovation that built our new Central Library. And what is particularly ironic is that bold action often provides a better ROI in the long term than a so-called safer approach. That’s why it’s incumbent upon those of us in advertising and marketing to make the case for risk-taking. We need to push back on the money people and request budgets that allow for innovation, and even the occasional failure. The more conservative, risk-averse philosophy may look sensible, but an approach that guarantees conventional thinking, bland solutions, and modest returns is far from it.
Bill Fritsch is president of Hydrogen Advertising, an award-winning, Seattle-based advertising agency emphasizing superb ideas efficiently produced. Reach him at 206-389-9500, ext. 224 or email bill@hydrogenadvertising.com. For more information, visit http://www.hydrogenadvertising.com.
Waste Not, Want Not – Tough Talk About Direct Mail
Those of us in advertising and marketing collectively have the power to move entire markets. And with all power comes responsibility. One area that needs our industry scrutiny is the overuse of direct mail and the resulting waste of precious natural resources.
As I write my bills every two weeks, I fill two wastebaskets with unwanted solicitations, mostly from financial companies. Two factors are contributing to growth in the unwanted stuff in our mailboxes. The nationwide do-not-call list is growing by tens of thousands of households per month, and massive dollars are being redirected from telemarketing into more and more direct mail. At the same time, changes in bankruptcy law have reduced risk to the credit card companies and increased the volume of solicitations to consumers. The result is a growing flow of junk in our mailboxes that wastes our time and natural resources.
Like most people, I hated the barrage of evening phone calls from roofing companies, finance firms, charities, window cleaners, and publishers. (I often wondered if the advertisers who used this technique gave any thought to the damage this technique did to their brand names.) As annoying as the telephone calls were, the growing avalanche of direct mail is starting to worry me even more. As responsible citizens on planet Earth, do we really want to use our resources in this way? And as marketers, do we have a responsibility to carefully marshal our resources and to judiciously use each channel of communication to its best advantage? Shouldn’t we leave as little waste as possible?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not against the use of direct mail. Used appropriately, it can be a powerful tool. It is just plain awful marketing that bugs me, and this leads to incredible waste of our most precious natural resources.
As I write this article, I am preparing for a meeting with a small national manufacturing company that is looking for new advertising counsel. They just completed a very large national direct mail program to support sales leads for their dealership network with disastrous results. The program cost $250,000 and netted 250 leads and 30 new customers. This means that inquiries cost $1,000 each, and customers cost $8,333 each. The company makes about $600 in profit per customer and needs to be finding them for less than $300. Oops. Even taking out one-time creative development costs from the equation, each new customer cost over $4000. Clearly, this was a flop.
What is sad about this is that any professional in our business would have looked at the initial strategy and predicted failure. This was a case where direct mail was not appropriate for accomplishing the goals. There was no mailing list available that was targeted enough to warrant the very high per-contact cost of direct mail.
The advertiser was a victim of his own misconception of the power of direct mail. Before the tactic of direct mail was chosen, this advertiser should have evaluated all possible channels of communication available to him. This was a case where a combination of targeted national cable combined with a really strong dealer referral program on the Web site most likely would have yielded the results needed for the same test budget. And the advertiser wouldn’t have sacrificed a single tree in the process.
Direct mail has been oversold as a marketing tool, and it is time to start thinking about being far more judicious when we choose this medium. With the emerging Internet and the newly found television interactivity, direct marketers have better, more socially responsible ways to meet their goals. Those of us who make choices every day in the use of media channels should be more thoughtful about the impact our choices will make on future generations.
With all this, I am not too worried about the current glut of junk mail continuing. There is sort of advertising eco-system in place that will slow the process in a few years. The more people sign up for the do-not-call list, the more calls that will go to those who haven’t yet signed up. This will increase their unhappiness. This will increase the rate of sign-up for the do-not-call list. This will increase the amount spent on direct mail which will further fill our mailboxes. The more filled our mailboxes become, the more diluted the response rates and the harder it will be to make mail pencil out. So ultimately mail volume will drop.
Let’s help it along by only choosing this medium after a careful evaluation of all alternatives.
Bill Fritsch is president of Hydrogen Advertising, an award-winning, Seattle-based advertising agency emphasizing superb ideas efficiently produced. Reach him at 206-389-950o, ext. 24 or email bill@hydrogenadvertising.com. For more information, visit http://www.hydrogenadvertising.com.
Picking the Right PR Partner
Finding a PR agency can be one of the toughest things you’ll have to do to promote your business. The right PR agency can get you mentioned in newspapers, magazines and broadcast programs across the country. The wrong agency can be a drain on your company’s resources and red ink on the bottom line. This column, Picking the Right PR Partner provides five key tips to finding a PR agency that is right for you.
1) Your PR Agency Should Match Your Business.
If you’re a large, multi-national company, you should look to work with a large, multi-national public relations agency. Conversely, if you’re a small company, you should work with a boutique agency. The goal is that you want to be a big fish to your PR agency and let’s face it, if you’re a small business, $3,000 a month could be considered a major investment for you. Instead of being laughed off the block from a large public relations agency, check into a boutique firm, to whom $3,000 per month will be a bigger deal.
2) What Can the PR Agency Do for You?
Look at more than the budget (although that’s an important part of the selection process). Look at what the agency can do. Are they only media relations specialists or do they offer media training as well? Ideally, you’ll want to go to one place with a full suite of services from press kit writing, media relations and media training to strategic counsel, website cooperating and business consulting.
3) You’re Hired!
Interview the agency as you would a new employee. It’s not about the fancy Powerpoint presentation, the eloquently written proposal or even the budget — it’s about knowing and liking the PR agency you’ll work with. If you dislike working with the key account people (or person) on your account, you’ll be dissatisfied in the long run, no matter how low the monthly retainer.
4)What do other clients have to say?
Talk to other clients, both past and present, to see what they have to say about the agency. Also talk to them about the results they got vs. what they expected. This says a lot about the agency’s ability to deliver results and maintain client satisfaction. If the business is a former client, find out why they are a former client. This will often give you insight into the agency. Try to speak with business owners both inside and outside of your industry.
5) Show me the Clips!
Any agency worth their monthly retainer will have clips or a highlights reel for past and present clients. So, ask the agency to see those recent placements. This will give you an idea of their media relations ability. Also, quiz the agency about reporters they work within your industry. This will give you an idea of how connected they are within your industry.
By following these simple tips, you’ll soon be on your way to effectively working with a PR agency.
Al Martin is president of What Works Communications (www.whatworkscomms.com), a boutique marketing communications firm based in Chicago. What Works Communications specializes in books, financial services, consumer products, food and nutrition, corporate communications and community relations. Al can be reached at amartin@whatworkscomms.com.
Interview Questions, the Recruiters Guide
It can be as simple as to write down your questions.
Keep the same questions for each candidate that comes through the door.
The main object as an employer or recruitment consultant is to compare people. Their individual answers and responses to a pre-selected list of questions. This will help select the right person for the job. By changing the questions from person to person will make it more difficult. Okay! Some times in an interview there is an opportunity to work with people and follow a line of job related questioning/information to get the full picture of the prospective employee. However, basically try and keep to a single format.
Some obvious questions to ask would be:
“What do you know about our company?
What do you know about the job or the position?
What is your previous experience?
How do you deal with conflict or difficult situations?
Give examples of working under pressure.
What attracts you to this job?
Why did you leave your previous job? “
These are all generally good questions to ask. There are many more. Books and information can be found all over the net on this topic. In many cases, free information.
As recruitment professional the objective is to end up getting good responses from the candidates with very answer. This makes the job of evaluating who is the best an easier process.
A final recommendation is to always do a reference check on the short list. If the candidates have not supplies at least two previous employers to contact ask if they can supply their previous employers and if they do not I mind to be contacted. This strategy is very powerful. As a recruiter “you” are getting a third party testimonial. That’s value! Somebody giving an honest opinion; however, again, when you phone make sure there are only 2 to 6 questions. Don’t ask the previous employer unfair questions or wasting their time.
For simple to digest information related to the interview questions and job sites, try http://www.job-advertising-advisor.com/
I hope you found this article interesting. Len Coles
Len Coles has worked within the employment field for over 20 years. Understanding people and how they react at an interview, what question to as, and how to assess them can be learnt over time or from someone that has the knowledge. Gain from this knowledge go to http://www.job-advertising-advisor.com/ where there is a very helpful resource.
Let’s Reinvent the RFP Process to Work Better for All
If companies used the same process to hire chief marketing officers that they use when selecting advertising agencies, the wheels of commerce would grind to a halt. Imagine a CEO saying “We need a new marketing vice president. Call purchasing.” This is happening in corporate America as the advertising business is seen as a commodity entrusted to the lowest possible bidder.
Gone are the days when advertising agencies were selected on chemistry, powerful ideas, and personal insights that translate into industry defining work.
Today, among the last considerations are chemistry and quality of interaction between agency teams and client. Many clients are dictating price, service terms, and advertising strategy in a take-it-or-leave-it approach that leaves agencies scratching their heads.
“Advertising purchase decisions are often handled by corporate purchasing agents. The process is becoming ritualized around return on investment,” says Jim Copacino, founder of Copacino+Fujikado. “I don’t see this changing soon. The only way that agencies can combat this is to focus on creativity and their ability to demonstrate that powerful ideas can change consumer behavior.”
That’s tough to do when more advertising reviews often keep contact with agency people to a minimum. Good matches between clients and agencies used to be made by with a healthy dose of interaction between parties looking for the right talent match, expertise and fit. Agencies inspired to invest in learning a client’s business were greeted with an open door. Clients would form an opinion of an agency by the quality of the questions asked and the thoroughness used in investigating the opportunity.
Today’s politically correct advertising review process deemphasizes interaction. For example, my recent request for an input meeting with a potential client was met with this voicemail reply: “Send me your questions in writing, and we will respond via email to all the agencies. It would be an unfair advantage if we were to answer your questions in person.”
The process isn’t about being fair. It is about finding the firm best suited for the job.
If companies hired marketing leaders the way many select agencies today, hiring mistakes would be rampant. Several candidates would be expected to write complete marketing plans without any interaction with the company or its people. Research wouldn’t be shared. Budgets would be kept secret. Each candidate’s first meeting would be in front of several people where they would be expected to present their plan. Chemistry would be inferred from how the candidates present to a group.
Hiring success is not about skills alone. Attitude, chemistry, leadership skills, personality, building bridges between departments, personal charisma, and personal interest in the product or category are what matter most. This is why companies invest so much management time getting to know their top candidates and finding out what makes them tick.
When the right ad agency joins your team, revenues can escalate and market share can advance. To make the right choice, invest time and effort to narrow the list of candidates to appropriate finalists. Then, invest more time to get to know them in a way that will help you predict what it will be like to work with them over the long haul. Resist all temptation to make the review process an arm’s length transaction. Rather, develop a three-tier process that:
1) Allows you to look at many agency portfolios. The more the merrier. You will be surprised by what you see, and this will help you to develop a quality list of semi-finalists. And, by all means, don’t require submission of 100-page capabilities statements and financial details at this stage. Chances are the best agencies will decline participation. That won’t serve the process of finding superior talent to get the job done.
2) Provides opportunities for semi-finalists to present their capabilities. This should be an open process, inviting each agency to interact with you as they see fit. This will tell you a lot about working with each.
3) Narrows the field to no more than two or three of the most qualified firms. These are the firms that will invest their time, creativity, and resources into demonstrating that they are best for you. Part of the evaluation process should be to rate the way they gather information and how capable they are in gaining insight into your markets. Most of all, let the process be a bit messy. It will tell you a lot.
If clients and agencies alike would follow this process, we’d all be in a better position to do the best work of our lives, and what could be better than that?
If this column hits a collective nerve, let’s continue the conversation by phone or e-mail and possibly organize a seminar or webinar with industry leaders on the RFP topic for a later date.
Bill Fritsch is president of Hydrogen Advertising, an award-winning, Seattle-based advertising agency emphasizing superb ideas efficiently produced. Reach him at 206-389-9500, ext. 224 or email bill@hydrogenadvertising.com. For more information, visit http://www.hydrogenadvertising.com.