Let’s say you are painting a room in your house. Do you go to a paint specialist like Sherwin Williams or a big box store like Home Depot? If you’re looking for new business software do you one stop shop at a “jack of all trades” like an Oracle, or do you buy best in class from a specialist? In your business do you shop like you do in your personal life or do you follow a different set of rules? Do you have a Walmart “mentality”, i.e.: “I can get it cheaper here” or is it important that you get the best quality available for what you’re buying? Are you asking your customers to pay a fair price for you product, but when you choose vendors you look for the cheapest thing available, or do you not even want to purchase when a sales rep calls on your company. Are you a small business working hard to grow but you only patronize large companies? Do you practice what you preach? Have you even ever really thought about these things and what drives your purchasing decisions? There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting the best for your money, but have our shopping habits and attitudes cost us quality?
I ask these questions because I believe that the pervasive attitude in our country is “more for less” and I believe this has cost us not only dollars but quality. I believe we need smart discussions about this. I’d like to share two recent interactions I had with potential clients that left me with the feeling that they were the Walmart type, as in price over quality.
The first case was a potential private coaching client. I spent a good deal of time discussing her needs and frustrations (3 phone interviews in 10 months. Yikes!), what my process looks like and why it works, how I work, and what our relationship would look like. She loved that I didn’t pressure her to make a decision immediately, as a couple of coaches she spoke to did, and was very upbeat and said she’d get back to me within a few days. Famous last words…I followed up a week later and received an email saying she’d “…decided it best to stay in my backyard and work with a local career coach. I can’t afford to waste any more time and to work in person with someone is best for me now.” Now I’ve been selling for a long time and am well aware that we all lose deals for one reason or another but something about this response left me thinking there was something she wasn’t saying. I don’t know anyone nowadays that cares about the location of the people they do business with (An exception to this would be a field rep who needs to live in his territory). In our virtual world there are many workarounds. In her case she and I could have had some of our sessions over computer video, especially the ones involving interviewing and negotiation. I just have a sneaking suspicion that this was really about money and she found someone cheaper. She had informed me that she was going to pay for this out of her savings.
The second case was a CEO here in town. He had been profiled on one of our local news stations as being one of the best companies to work for in Colorado and his company had worked with a consultant to see that their culture was aligned. Alignment was a great first step. I wanted to discuss their recruiting processes and what percentage of hires they were making that he considered “A” players. As I always say, recruiting processes won’t work unless they’re built around executive alignment and alignment doesn’t lead to good hires without putting an effective process in place to make it so. He responded to my 3rd attempt to reach him, which I consider pretty fast as these things go. This is the response I received after leaving 2 brief voicemails and an email about what we do and what I wanted to discuss with him: “We are hiring sales reps at a rapid pace right now in CO and NM. What would your fee be for entry level candidates?” I know the guy’s busy but did he even listen/read what I said? Or is it that what I do is still such a new paradigm that he’s clueless? Maybe it was something altogether different. Maybe he heard “recruiting” and assumed. What really concerns me, however, is his question about my fees for entry-level people. Is this seriously how he chooses recruiters? Even if I was still in the search industry and even placed entry-level employees, why would they be any less work for me as a recruiter? He must think they’re less work, thus lower fees. Not the way I ever recruited. If this is just a hint of his search process (and it is for many) does he really expect to hire “A” players and retain them? It’s just this attitude that will get him just what he pays for. And then it will cost him exponentially more when they fail and he has to replace them.
My thoughts here are not sour grapes. They are derived from concerns for the way we do business. I’d love your comments and opinions!!!