I experienced the best introduction to Avionté Staffing Software. I have been with Avionté for about a month, and much discussion concerned the Year End Party. “Katherine make sure you are free January 21, you do not want to miss this!”  The stories I heard about the past year’s party only added to my anticipation and excitement; hypnotists, dancing, coveted prizes, tigers (only kidding) and lots of dancing.

I am the sales and marketing assistant and part of my responsibilities include event planning and party prep. So the couple of weeks before the big event were spent covering every aspect of the Year End party in great detail. We needed prizes, games, munchies, transportation, name tags, booze (and lots of it), music (the Avionte band debut), and surprises! After all that planning and buying we pulled it off.

We held our gathering at the Dakota Lodge in West St Paul. The Dakota Lodge was a quintessential place to host a party. The night started off with a cocktail hour and many introductions. Just to put it in perspective, Avionte hired about 25 employees in the past year. Our Year End party guest list was double that of the previous year. After some initial mingling, everyone took their seats for dinner and a short presentation by our CEO, John Long. One of the best surprises of the night was the revealing of Operation See-A-Need, which was the launch of our Charitable Arm, The Avionté Hope Foundation. That topic deserves a blog all to itself!

We catered in dinner, enjoyed cocktails, played some highly competitive yet socially awkward team games, raffled prizes, listened to the Avionté band (New Order Wizard and the Worker Comp Claims), danced and sang.  While all of that made for a great party, it was really the amazing group of people that came together to celebrate what they had accomplished as a team over the past year that really made the night special.  There was camaraderie within this company that I had never experienced before in my previous positions and it was truly amazing to be a part of it.   Here’s to an amazing 2011 and looking forward to all that 2012 has to bring!

by John Long

We all go through those awkward moments in life.  Due to my luck and lack of some social graces, I imagine I have more than most.  Like my blog a while ago of similar nature, I had another one of those “awkward moments” recently that unfortunately happened in the restroom.  In this situation, I’m just not sure what the proper etiquette is and certainly look to get any feedback!  Don’t worry – I’ll keep this PG.

I was at American Staffing Associations Law Conference recently in Washington DC.  Btw – I strongly encourage all companies to attend for a variety of reasons including:  1) content rich updates on what is happening and 2) show our support/commitment to this industry as legislation is the single biggest way our industry could be affected either positively or, more likely, negatively.

I had just arrived at the show and wanted to hit the restroom before the sessions started.  The restroom consisted of sinks, urinals and then toilets in a long, thin room.  As I walked in by the sinks, I noticed a long time acquaintance with whom I was truly happy to see.  We’ll call him Joe, to protect his identity.  Joe had just finished business at the urinal and was walking to the sinks.  I was at the sinks walking towards the urinal.  As we made eye contact, I did what I always do, and said “Joe!” and extended my hand.

Hence the awkward moment.

In a blur of what-to-do-now thoughts, we both looked at my outstretched hand trying to figure how we should proceed.

As far as I can tell, there are several approaches in this situation, but let’s back up to a moment before I extended my hand.  You see the person for the first time, happy to see them – what do you do?

1)       Pretend not to notice the person. Quickly look the other way and then, post hand-wash for both parties, you get back to normal courtesies.   The trouble with this is a) you might make eye contact first and b) the other party might think you are ignoring them

2)      Use your face and voice to convey happiness. You could consider an optional, “how are things?” as you walk by briskly, leaving no doubt of your happiness in seeing him.   This is good, but can get derailed by either of you extending a hand or it actually starting a conversation (which is a no-no in guys restroom etiquette).

3)      Elbows or fist bumps. This shows the spirit is there, but recognition of the awkwardness of a handshake.  The downside, of course, is they don’t recognize the awkwardness and think you’ve gone all hip-hop on them.

4)      Left-handed. High on the awareness situation, typically a good alternative, but you really don’t know if the person is left handed.  Or both handed for that matter.

5)      Detour to the sink. Skip your business for a bit, and pretend you just came in to wash your hands from the sticky donut you were just eating.  Your hands are busy already and it gives him time to join you at the sink.

After I committed the two of us by involuntarily extending my hand, we both went through our few, not-so-great options:

1)       Retract my offending appendage? Wait – that doesn’t sound quite right.  Retract my extended hand.  At this point, we’d both have a chuckle internally, and wait till we saw each other outside.  If he doesn’t recognize the issue, though, YIKES that is bad awkward.  And, you can’t really explain it very well without some sort of joke, right?

2)      “Better wait on that, eh?” As mentioned above, you can make a light joke out of it and move on.  This minimizes the ‘danger’ of misunderstanding, but still forces the awkwardness.

3)      Continue on with the handshake? Both of you know what just transpired, with me getting the worst of it.  Maybe it is a submissive role??  As a vendor, that could be a good thing.  Clearly, I’ll be sanitizing in moments anyway.

On a good note, we did end up talking for quite a bit throughout the event, so I think our awkward moment didn’t have lasting effect.  What would you have done?

For me – after that blur of thoughts, I ended up just completing the handshake.  And washing twice.

by John Long, CEO

I often worry about making sure we are selling to the right companies.  I want to sell to those companies who will make great long-term partners and truly receive benefit from our software.  What I didn’t think I needed to worry about however, was wasting time selling to a competitor.

A couple of months ago, we received a call from Karen Conner from Coats, one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in the staffing industry.  Although we are technically competitors, we really respect, like and want the best for Karen and Coats.  Anyhow – she called asking if we knew anything about Vic Turner of Talent Staffing in Georgia.  At the time, Vic Turner had already sent out an RFP and requested a demo from both of our companies.  Being based in Georgia, Matt Gallagher handled the call.   Vic and his business partner described themselves as a 15 user, 3 office company based out of Conyers doing a variety of different staffing.  The website WAS http://www.talentstaffing.net/ and the email  vturner@talentstaffing.net.

The reason Karen called, though, is because she wasn’t feeling comfortable with the information she was finding on this company.

Her – and our – suspicions were based on several factors to start:

1)      Just a P.O. Box on the website, no physical address

2)      The phone number just rolled over to Vic’s cell phone

3)      Neither Vic or his partner where ever available to meet Matt in person

4)      3 locations and we have never heard of them

After Matt had literally done hours upon hours of demos with Vic and his business partner Dan Walsh from Talent Staffing, we got even more suspicious.  So – we did a little digging.

Exhibit A:
We found several legitimate and reputable staffing firm websites whose pages were exact matches to the Talent Staffing website.  Clearly an excellent cut & paste job by a talented web designer.
Interesting how shortly after confronting the competitor we suspected, the website has been taken down or released back to GoDaddy.  Odd for an established multi-branch staffing firm that claims to be growing.

Exhibit B:
This Free website template offers the exact same services as Talent Staffing…small world!
Free website templates

Exhibit C:
There is no record with Georgia’s Secretary of State for Talent Staffing, including as a dba.  Nor is there a staffing company with the name of Talent Staffing in the yellow pages for Conyers.

Exhibit D:
The domain was registered July 2010.  Now…up for grabs if someone wants it!

When confronted with this information, “Vic” or whatever his name actually is, got defensive and couldn’t believe we didn’t think his business is legitimate.

I conversed with a representative from TempWorks who also confirmed their suspicions of this company and that they feel they were shopped.

We have indirect, circumstantial (though convincing) evidence that the competitor in charge of this operation is one of our primary competitors.  I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out who it is.

Should competitors utilize secret shoppers to gain info?

I know there are differing opinions on this subject.  Many businesses, regardless of the vertical, put a lot of emphasis on knowing what their competition is doing.  Certainly companies need to be keeping tabs on what the competition is doing, including pricing, trends and functionality.

The thing is – going undercover to get that information, just isn’t our style.  I would NEVER do something like that.  Besides just how rude it is to ask for hours and hours of demos, wasting someone’s time, I consider it quite shady.  Sure, a person could jump in the garbage can of a competitor to see if they can find a piece of paper with a prospect list.  But, I honestly don’t think my integrity and pride would allow me to do something like that.  I feel the people willing to impersonate a staffing company to get information are the same people that would cheat on tests if they thought they could get away with it.

Here is a definition to try on, that I heard from somewhere (don’t remember where or I’d give them credit) – the definition of Ethics is “Doing the right thing when no one is looking”.

I agree that Avionté needs to be sure we are being competitive in pricing and staying innovate with functionality.  But you know what – we actually LISTEN to our prospects and clients and frankly, that information is better – and more complete – than a functionality list from any of my competitors.

For the competitor that masterminded this – I’m surprised at the great lengths, resources and amount of time you spent setting up this sham.   You’re obviously worried enough that you needed to see what Avionté, Coats and Tempworks (at the very least) has to offer.  While some might take this as a compliment, I don’t see it that way and am basically just ticked off and annoyed.

It’s a similar feeling I had a while back at a gas station.  I’m standing in line one morning, probably getting a doughnut.  In front of me was this punk kid milling around the edge of the register area.  When the clerk wasn’t looking, I watched him reach past the counter and up into the cigarette bin above the counter.  He grabbed a pack and swung it into his pocket.  I couldn’t BELIEVE what I just saw.  I just stared and when he saw me looking AND knew I was about to say something, he pulled the pack out of his pocket, set it on the counter and left.  I understand the world isn’t full of ethical people, but it’s still frustrating.  You and I pay, in some way or another, for the shoplifting and fraudulent acts of others.

Anyway – I feel this secret shopping is on the same level of deceit.

So, no – I don’t think secret shoppers should be used in the software arena.  For our competitors…..feel free to follow our staffing tweets, read our staffing software blog, memorize the avionte website, talk to our staffing clients…but don’t deceive us into thinking you’re someone you’re not while taking hours of our valuable time to take part in your scam.

What now
Certainly we are going to look more closely when a company calls in.  But we are also going to alert more of our competitors of a secret shopping company when we see them.

Anyone with information about Talent Staffing (www.talentstaffing.net) from Conyers, GA – feel free to spread the word or contact me.

by John Long

OMG! As most everyone in the staffing industry heard on Thursday, October 21, 2010, Bond Adapt out of the U.K. acquired VCG out of Atlanta.  For the staffing industry here in the U.S., this is the biggest Staffing Software M&A news in years.  In fact, I’d rank it in the top 3 ever.  Not only the size of the purchase ($9MM), but also the number of clients/users affected by the acquisition.

So – what does this mean to the staffing industry, Avionté and VCG clients?

I have educated guesses on the latter question, but really it is too early to know for sure.  Many Avionté employees had asked me what does this mean to us – which I responded in a companywide email.  Let me go over those highlights.  First, a bit of history….

The other two notable acquisitions that have happened in this industry, in my opinion are:

• eEmpACT’s purchase of Dataforce in February 2004 for $1MM (440 customers)
• Bond’s purchase of eEmpACT in February 2005 for $2.945MM (reported 1000 customers with arguable counting methods)

eEmpACT’s purchase of DF

Dataforce had a huge presence in this industry during the 90’s.  I’d argue they were a dominant player, similar to Caldwell-Spartin in the 80’s.  DF had a then stellar non-integrated DOS system (Matchmaker/Spectrum).  The wheels fell off for 3 reasons:

1)    Tried to outsource development on a Windows version (Star Searcher/Pay Star) that just didn’t work well

2)    Having owners take too much money out of the company for personal use

3)    Competition from solid products including Tempworks (started from a Manpower Franchise in 1993) and eEmpACT (started from a Manpower franchise in 1990)

By the early 2000’s, DataForce was fully in the “Death” stage of a software company.  Briefly, the “Death” stage is where new sales have diminished, new development has been minimized and the focus of the company shifts to solely maintaining the legacy product.  As a competitor, we all had significant sales opportunities with DataForce customers.

Primary exit strategies for software companies in the death stage:

1)    Keep hanging on until there are no customers left to support

2)    Close the doors and allow the customers to continue using the software, unsupported

3)    Sell

When eEmpACT bought DataForce, it really was a new experience for this market.  The $1MM price tag actually seemed like a huge bargain.  In the end – I’m sure it made financial sense, as they continued getting revenue from those customers.  After the purchase, the process of setting deadlines for those companies to move over to eEmpACT began.  On the surface, it would seem that any customer would have been thrilled with an upgrade to the unarguably better system.  What took place, however, was a competitor feeding frenzy and DF clients became breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Competitors were even running ads for free Dataforce conversions.  All of us, not just eEmpACT grew because of that merger.  Arguably, with DF dying anyway – we would have gotten a lot of those customers regardless of the merger.  But – it is important to remember there are only a few main reasons why staffing companies change software systems:

1)    Price:  a significant cost savings for a similar product offering.  This doesn’t happen often.

2)    Service:  a truly errant viewpoint of customer service

3)    Functionality:  if a software company can’t keep up the changes in the industry and technology necessary to help keep staffing firms competitively

4)    Out of Business/Acquisition

The idea with the last one is if a company has to change systems anyway, why not take the time to look at what else is out there?  With regards to the DF acquisition, eEmpACT was charging a medium price (definitely discounted, but not free), and a lot of customers decided to look at what else was out there.  There was no practical benefit to stay with eEmpACT as all of us had done numerous DF conversions anyway.  There was the small benefit that the DF people they still loved – like Tom Stein – were still there.

Bond’s purchase of eEmpACT

The Bond purchase of eEmpACT, in my opinion, was even bigger.  eEmpACT was and is not in the death stage.  In 2004, they had started to turn things around with the purchase of DF.  The owner of eEmpACT, David Fredrickson, had put millions of his own money into the creation of eEmpACT.  In fact, when eEmpACT sold their source code to Peoplesoft, the resulting tax consequence forced the other two original partners of eEmpACT (one of whom is still there) to give their share to David in exchange for David to pay the whole tax consequence.  Anyway – the Bond purchase gave David a way out that he was looking for.  The purchase price ($2.945MM) included the assumption of debt of $1.857MM.

The point, though, was eEmpACT was doing reasonably well.  One of the biggest differences, though, was Bond allowed eEmpACT to continue developing and didn’t force the transition over to their core Adapt product.  To be fair – in my opinion – Bond Adapt is much more suited for very large staffing companies looking for strong Front Office functionality and work flow customization whereas eEmpACT is primarily a good fit for small to mid-size staffing companies.  So, forcing a transition would have been a catastrophe.  To my knowledge, there just weren’t many eEmpACT customers that left because of the merger.

Bond purchasing VCG

Now – to this one.  Bond buying VCG.  Arguably, VCG has the best client base in this industry, as far as what I look for.  I’m not as interested in sheer user counts, but quality of staffing company.  VCG’s revenue for 2009 ($6.9MM) had to mostly be re-occurring revenue.  I have no direct knowledge of this, but I do see the relative lack of new sales.  Their re-occurring revenue number is enormous in this US industry.

VCG followed a similar path to DF in having a stellar DOS product (Tempware-V).  Issues for VCG were:

1)    The new version Pointwing, never really taking off

2)    Outsides investors:  Being heavily invested in by VC’s (last round was $5MM in 2007).  I think decisions were forced to be made because of the financial numbers as opposed to market demands and changes.  Decisions had to be made to accommodate the investors.  During this recession, it wasn’t a time for VCG to dramatically cut back, but the investors required it.  As of today, VCG has dramatically more users than Avionté, but we have as many staff as they did.

What it means to Avionté and the industry

Most of my staff asked me directly what this means to us.  Without giving too much away, hopefully, this transaction is a very positive development for Avionté.   Here are some fundamental truths with acquisitions, no matter the spin

1)    Fewer new sales for VCG:  While we hadn’t run against them much lately, Staff Suite is still a very valid option for staffing companies.  Many staffing companies will not choose Staff Suite simply due to the uncertain future

2)    VCG – little new development.  It’s unlikely there will be any ADDITIONAL development on VCG’s product besides what is already in progress.  I don’t believe Bond will send over 10 new developers to work on the product.

3)    Fewer upgrades to new VCG products:  All software competitors battle against the incumbent system.  Relationships have been established; knowledge of the business and typically it should cost less to upgrade to a new product than purchase a whole new system (both in dollars and time).

4)    Staff:  Subtle point, but there probably will be some turnover of high end, talented employees for fear of the future.  Not only does this slow VCG’s growth but is an opportunity for competitors to pick up talented and trained employees

5)    Relative appearance of the Bond Conglomerate:  Based on the press releases, no staffing company should even consider an alternative system based on the suite of software packages Bond has.  Fundamentally, though, people buy from people and I don’t think companies will buy VCG or eEmpACT simply because they are a part of the Bond Conglomerate.

The question of the day for me, though, is what is the Go-Forward product?  If VCG was doing very well, I don’t see why their investors would have wanted to sell.  If they aren’t doing well – how long will Bond powers, especially being a publically traded company, continue to fully support VCG products? (Aren’t there like 5 of them?)  I see this like GM in a way – their proposition statement is “we don’t care which system you like, just buy one of ours”.

Here is a great question to ask yourself:  IF this was such a great deal for VCG users – and well, Bond in general – why would they announce this AFTER the ASA show?  Wouldn’t you do it before?

So – I truly feel this acquisition will be a great thing for Avionté.  I believe it was also a great sale for VCG’s investors, by the way.

First of all, a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who attended our first Client Connection Forum last week.  Although we already knew this, it was a nice reminder of what a great client base we have.  You all showed extreme dedication and a true desire to build your knowledge and help Avionté build a better product for the future of your companies.  The turnout far exceeded our expectations and feedback at the close of the event was amazing.   Thank you again for taking the time out of your very busy schedules to allow us get to know you better and gain a stronger pulse on your technology needs.

For those of you that made it to Client Connection 2010…you can attest to the learning, networking and fun that was had by all!  For those of you that were not able to join us (we hope to see you next year!) I thought I would share a few of the highlights.  With so much information packed into three days, you may not be able to remember all the highlights… so you can use this information to share with your co-workers as to what really went on!

Wednesday

Most of our guests arrived without incident.  However, we did have a few victims of the thunderstorms that visited Minneapolis.  For those unlucky few (including one of our team members) they missed the opening sessions, but most were able to make it to the end of the day networking event.  We opened the afternoon with highlights from v2010 including:

• Portals, portals and more portals
• Favorites
• Mass Mail
• Outlook
• Roster
• Quickplace

It was great to have our Corporate Trainer Laura, and our Chief Software Architect Samar available to answer questions and explain the new features.  Samar also covered many of the new web portal features available with v2010 including the Spanish on-line application and the re-vamped Applicant, Employee, Customer and Vendor portals.  A new Admin portal was also created to allow Administrators to quickly add, edit and manage the data, permission and interface of all the portals.

The opening session was followed with two breakout sessions for Front Office and Back Office users.  Those that attended my Front Office session will remember the technical difficult with the baby projector (amazing how small they are getting!). Even with the setback, we managed to have a great discussion on AutoMatch  along with other  advanced front office feature.

After five we all headed to the Mall of America to get our food and drink on at Crave.  It was great opportunity to relax, network and most importantly, get caught up on the personal lives of all or clients.  Since many of our customers are in different markets, so much sharing of information took place all night.  A few stepped out to experience the mall for a bit, but most stayed and closed the place down.  I promised I wouldn’t mention names, but one of my faithful blog readers decided they needed a little more fun for the night and headed down to the next night spot in the mall.  It must have been pretty uneventful as no stories followed the next morning.

Thursday

Our day was started with CEO John Long’s comments about Avionté and the direction we are heading (the right one!).  Audience participation was greatly encouraged with the giving of free hours of development.  So if you sent one of your employees and they didn’t come back with one, well they were a little shy about talking in front of the group.

Next Samar spoke about some of the additional developments in our latest version v2010.  I am sure that I am a bit biased, but there is some pretty cool stuff our development team has come out with!  If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our webinars highlighting the new features.

The breakout sessions called…”Design an Avionté feature” and “What’s working for you” were big hits!  The only problem with all the sessions, is that there was never enough time.

John and Laura got the group thinking when presenting Staffing and Software best practices.  Many of our customers want to know how they compare in regards to order filled per user, revenue generated per user/branch or other statistics based on the size of their company.  John unveiled the project he is currently working on that will allow our users to do just that.  They can view monthly statistics compiled from other companies that are comparable to theirs.

Cory showed the group how photogenic he is and garnered a few ohhs and ahhs with some of his cool technology including the “friend maker”.

He discussed the direction that staffing is taking, automated.  The more applicants, employees and customers can do the better.  By allowing applicants to fill out their application on line, you are offering your service 24/7, not just your physical business hours.  The same applies for your employees and customers.  They can log in to your web portals and take care of their information when it’s most convenient for them.

Roundtable sessions followed covering topics such as management/operations, 3^rd party integrations, sales/recruiting and back office.  Our users had great ideas to share how they are using Avionté to boost production and profitability in these areas.

After the final session everyone loaded up to head out for a dinner cruise on Lake Minnetonka.  Although the skies looked a bit ominous, the feeling within the group was one of high spirits ready to have some fun!  Our cruise lasted about an hour before the lights went out and we had to turn back to port and wait out the storm.  A few people on the boat (I’m told) didn’t notice we had headed back or that our engine didn’t sound quite right.  After an hour in port we headed back out to the open waters to enjoy the last bit of our cruise.  Despite the weather and mechanical issues, it was a fantastic evening with great food, drink and conversation.  The night was ended with a fantastic little dance performed by one of our favorite customer’s (they are all favorites) IT people.  “There ain’t no party like an Avionté party!”

I had the privilege of driving one of the groups back.  Some of you may know that I live in Montana.. contrary to popular belief we do have paved roads, stop lights and the internet.  Sadly, we also have a speed limit, which is slightly higher than the one in MN.  Our group returned back to the hotel first.. us Montanans know how to drive.  Thanks to my group for making the drive home a fun one.  Well at least to the people in the first two rows; I have no idea who was in the back three rows.

Friday arrived, much to the sorrow of many.  It was almost like we were at camp.  Camp with really good food and comfy beds.  Everyone was invited back to the Avionté office to meet other team members and have a chance to chat and discuss any topic they wanted.  It was a great opportunity for many of our customers to have some good face time with our four partners.  I did learn something interesting while involved in one of the conversations.  “You don’t know what you don’t know”  Hmm.. I’m going to ponder that one for a while.

At 11:30 part of the group went out for a little golf; which luckily didn’t get rained out.  The rest of the group slowly departed throughout the day.  Hugs and well wishes where shared as people left for the airport to return home and share all they had learned.

For our first effort, I think it was pretty amazing.  Brenda and Briana can’t be thanked enough for the hours and hours they spent making sure that every detail was taken care of.  I would love to hear some comments from those who attended.. and for those of you who couldn’t make it this year – we would love to see you next year!

by John Long

Father’s Day weekend – reminded me of another of life’s lessons:  Seize the day and appreciate the little things

In today’s society, with all the events of our lives, the hectic schedules and relative focus on material things – it is so important to appreciate the little things of life.   Life is Journey, not a destination, right?  I struggle with this concept – as do most of you, I bet.  

The Journey analogy rang true for me recently.  Father’s day weekend, we drove 2 hours each way to attend a distant, barely-related, they-won’t-remember-us-next-week wedding reception.  Most of the way, although it was a beautiful drive along the river,  I was focused on getting there as opposed to really taking in the cool sites and great scenery passing by. 

After this day – I’ll never get it back.  Time is inescapable.  I lost my mother unexpectedly last year, which really puts mortality on a person’s mind.  There are any number of things that can shorten a life unexpectedly.  What makes it worse, though, is that I find myself thinking “If only I can get past next month” or “if I get that payment paid off, then…” or “I’ll start doing that activity when…”.  I struggle with remembering that today is today – and tomorrow it will be gone.  I’m not talking about spending yourself to oblivion (unless it is on a really great staffing software system I know of   ) or doing crazy, death-defying feats just to prove you can.  I’m talking about enjoying today for what it is.  And if you can’t – maybe you should change it.

Tips to help you make the most of every day you have… 

• Enjoy today. Carpe Diem or any other slogan meaning the same thing.  Even a nice walk with your significant other is a great thing
• Appreciate what you do have.  Borrowing a song verse from Sheryl Crow – “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got” – or something close to that.  I believe dreams and goals are great – see previous posts.  But, there is a limit. 
• No excuses.  Arguably one of my biggest pet peeves is people that just make excuses.  Anything that comes up, they are QUICK to figure out rationalizations as to what happened, why something didn’t happen, whatever.  UGH!  A line from Invictus and the poem for Mandela:  “….I am the master of my fate”.  Folks – no excuses.  If you don’t get out of life what you want, it’s primarily on you. 
• No regrets.  Yesterday is past – use those experiences to do tomorrow better.
• Reflect.  Spend a few minutes at night, reflecting on the day.  Did you make the most of it?  Did you do what you wanted? 
• Plan.  Spend a few minutes in the morning thinking about the day ahead.  How do you want the day to go, what do you want to accomplish.

I don’t believe in destiny.  I don’t believe my time on earth is pre-determined.  I believe thoroughly that I’m extremely lucky, with regards to my health, body and mind.  But, at some point, my time on earth will end.  From right now until that point, there is X number of days.  Unless something goofy goes on – or cryogenics works <ahem> – that number is less than 50 years (18,250 days ish). 

Folks – we all have the gift of life.  Appreciate it.  Appreciate it today.

by John Long

This past weekend, my neighborhood had a massive garage sale.  There were over 50 houses participating, attracting people from all across the metro.  This is the first year we had actively participated – mostly because this is our “Not having any more kids sale”.  As novices, we had/have a lot to learn.  Full disclosure – when I say “we”, I’m using the term loosely, as it really is more of “she”, as in my wife.  My role comprises of a) building the clothes racks b) watching kids c) running to get ones to make change and d) offering a beer to those who buy more than 3 items.   The first night a couple truths came out – one of which is about presentation.

In all business, including garage sales and staffing software sales, presentation really matters. 

Here are 4 things that proper presentation can bring:

1)       A quick overview of what is being offered.  In our garage sale – we are about kids clothes – lots and lots of kids clothes.  For our software, what does it do?

2)      Accentuation of the positive.  All businesses have strong points and not-so-strong points.  Proper presentation helps to get those positive points to the prospect quickly

3)      Prospects can visualize using the product/service.  To buy, prospects need to be able visualize the use of the product/service.

4)      Allows prospects to easily find what they are looking for.  For garage sales, clothes hanging on racks dramatically improve the chance of sale over products on tables or “in a heap”.  People don’t want to work for finding the right product. 

Now – I’m not great at presentation so I’m not going to try and ‘teach’ anything here.  Heck, if you have any good suggestions, especially relating to garage sales and software (!), please send them on.

But the first step in the process is to figure out your strong points.  Even if you get outside help on presentation/marketing, you still need to be able to communicate to them what features you want to promote. 

Couple quick tips:

1)       Fewer is better.  Don’t try to be all things to all people.  We had loads of little girl clothes and miscellaneous other things.  I had a person ask me if we had a “router”.  Being a tech guy, I was thinking about something completely different than what he was.  The point though, is that if you want power tools, go next door.  In software, we aren’t a fit for everyone – and that is OK.

2)      Pick features that can be communicated easily.  Getting across a marketing message is tough.  It requires repetition and you only have a couple seconds of the prospects attention.  Unless, of course, you give them free beer!

3)      Pick features that have a quantifiable return or benefit.  The temptation is to pick things that YOU think are cool.  Pick stuff your prospects like which provide true value, not just cool. 

Any of you doing garage sales – good luck and use my beer for three thought!  For the rest – I know of a great place to get girls, 0 to 5T at a great price!

By  John Long

I don’t know about you, but it seems that I’m only getting busier.  Five years ago, I was busy.  Starting a new staffing software company, no matter what the company, takes up every bit of energy you can throw at it.  Then the economy stalled out.  Fortunately for us, we were already a lean shop and with the help of a few key wins early on, we prospered.  We had to work hard to succeed, including new development, scrapping for new sales and servicing existing clients well.  And I thought I was busy then.

Looking back at those times, I can fondly remember a periodic golf round.  The question at first was morning or evening 18.  Then it was 9 or 18.  Now, it is, can I jump out at lunch to hit a bucket of balls.  As with your business, as the economy slowly turns the corner, you will be hesitant to add a lot of internal staff.  Thus, you will be doing more with your same amount of people.  Furthermore, we all have to keep our eye on the future, putting plans and processes in place to lead the pack out of this recovery.  So – all this means a lot of work!

I’m not expert – and I’d love to hear other ideas out there! – but I’ve got two fundamental approaches that I need to consistently remind myself of, to address the volume of work.

1)       Fewer things better: Our tendency is to conquer the world and institute every good idea out there right now.     It doesn’t matter that we haven’t instituted the idea over the last year, it is imperative to do now!!  Drop everything, get on this project.  In the end, you will either be overwhelmed with stuff or you half-implemented all the ideas.  So – do a proverbial clean sweep of all your tasks off your desk onto the floor.  Actually, we just had a prospect come in to the office this morning, so it is in the 2^nd drawer down on the right <ahem>.  The idea is to pick up a few tasks from the pile on the floor and finish those.  You can’t worry about all things.  Do fewer things, but do them well.

2)      Small steps that can be measured: We re-did our sales numbers here recently, with more focus on the small, measurable steps.   The End-Run number for us is # of users sold.  While this is the most important number to my business, it necessarily puts too much focus on opportunities that are about to close, as opposed to all levels of the funnel.  Furthermore, I don’t need to motivate sales people when closing.  The small steps that I’m referring to, are the measurable supporting numbers to the ultimate goal.  For example, in my business – we had over 200 companies in our database that we’ve  never directly contacted.  We label each company with whether they are a target company, too big, different vertical, etc.  There are 120 prospects in our system that haven’t been labeled.   We should be contacting all of our ‘target’ clients at least once per year.  We had 283 target companies that haven’t been called within the year.  Each of these are small, measurable stats.  We pick one and finish it within an agreed upon period.  Then, pick another.  This helps us bond as a team, focus on all levels of the funnel, but also gives us a sense of accomplishment as we meet these goals.  When it is a Thursday afternoon and you have 20 minutes – what should you do?  If you have some small steps in front of you, you can jump right on it.

Any other tips out there?

Briana Morgan

John Long
Role at Avionté Staffing Software:  Founding Partner and CEO – Facilitating sales, marketing, finances, strategic partnerships and business development.  John leads and inspires the team with his forward thinking and ability to rally through his ambitious goal setting.

Outside of Work:  John enjoys family road trips, basketball, fishing, boating and the occasional horse race.  He resides in Minnesota with his wife Brenda and their four children, ranging from ages 1 to 17!

On the Lighter Side…

• Favorite music group in junior high – Genesis
• If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be – Teaching
• Four people in history you would like to have dinner with – Jesus, Princess Diana, George Washington and Socrates
• What was the last book you read – Next by Michael Crichton
• Only the staff at Avionté knows… John scratches his head to help him think faster.

Phi Ngo
Role at Avionté Staffing Software:  Partner and CTO – Continually embraces the latest in technology and industry trends, while maintaining the integrity of the core product customers depend on. Working closely with customers, he combines his staffing industry experience with the requests and needs of the client to guide Avionté’s development.

Outside of Work:  Phi, his wife and three children live in California where he spends his free time running after his kids, running after his kids and running after his kids.

On the Lighter Side…

• What is your favorite music genre?  Alternative Rock
• Name one thing you miss about being a kid…  Recess
• Favorite color….  Blue
• What do you think is the greatest invention?  The transistor; essentially it is the basic building block of all electronic devices.  If it wasn’t for transistors we would still be using vacuum tubes and thus micro electronics would not be possible.
• Only the staff at Avionté knows… Phi gets more comps in Vegas than the whole company combined.

Sandeep Acharya
Role at Avionté Staffing Software:  Partner & COO – Leading the implementation department and applying the technology and resources to our clients and their company. This includes, but certainly is not limited to, providing leadership to software implementations and staffing software solution design.

Outside of Work:  Sandeep enjoys spending time with family and friends, any activities outdoors and relaxing while watching movies.

On the Lighter Side…

• Favorite candy bar – Doesn’t eat much candy.
• What super power do you wish you had and why – A magical remote to selectively mute people/sounds.
• You wouldn’t be caught dead where – At a Taliban training center.
• What is the strangest food you ever ate – Roasted snake.
• Only the staff at Avionté knows… Sandeep won’t be late, he’ll be just-in-time.

Samar Basnet
Role at Avionté Staffing Software:  Partner & Chief Software Architect – Dictates and guides the quality, design, and development of Avionté Software. He manages a team of software professionals in the United States and coordinates the development effort abroad.

Outside of Work:  Samar and his wife Sunny are expecting their first child.  They enjoy taking walks around Lake Calhoun, watching movies – specifically thrillers and comedies, and going out to dinner at their many favorite restaurants.

On the Lighter Side…

• Favorite TV show – 2 and a Half Men
• What is your motto in life – Material abundance with a spiritual spirit.
• If you could live anywhere for 1 year where would it be?  New York
• What would we find in your fridge right now – Milk, oranges, vegetables, and cheese.  Samar enjoys cooking for his wife Sunny.  (And she says he is even good at it!)
• Only the staff at Avionté knows… Samar can’t get enough of the dark roasted coffee.

Angela Pitts

There are two main topics society says we shouldn’t talk about – politics and religion.  Since I’ve been talking about Politics already on previous posts, I figure I might as well hit the religion side

While this topic did come out of the sermon this week (I go to Eaglebrook Church, Bob Merritt Sr Pastor, deliverer of this sermon), it is VERY practical advice.  The concept in this 8 part series is how to build a great life.  This week (#2), the topic was about Discipline.  Not necessarily in ‘disciplining someone’, but more of having discipline.  He quoted someone famous, as saying Discipline is the thing we want the least but need the most.  Bob broke it down to having 3 main points to follow, in order to have a disciplined life:

1)       Get out of the Entitlement mindset:  I’ve seen this myself, especially in the younger generations.  As a society, we have this entitlement perspective that things should be handed to us.  Yes, this does dovetail in with my political views as well.  Americans just aren’t working as hard, being as innovative or creating new things.  We expect that just because we were born here, then it is society’s job to give us a good life.  Working hard and being independent is even biblical.

2)      Practice Delayed Gratification:  The notion of working hard for something – or saving money for something – has been trampled in today’s mindset.  Think of credit cards – people want to buy that widget and they want it now.  Since they don’t have the cash at the moment, let’s just charge it.  Also – the mindset becomes if I have to work for something hard, maybe it isn’t that great.  At Avionte, we’ve always tried to look for the right people instead of the right experience/knowledge.  We can teach SQL, we can’t teach attitude.  We’ve looked at energy level and problem solving more than degrees or past experience.  During the sermon, Bob quoted a study saying that self-discipline is twice as important as intelligence in predicting success.  Read that one to yourself again.  LITERALLY, an average person with high discipline is twice as likely to have success as a really smart person with average discipline.

3)      Make Advanced Decisions:  Bob had made 6 life decisions early in his life (Spiritually strong, Financially stable, physically fit, sexually pure, strong family and good leader) and lived his life according to this principles.  I relate it a little differently – if your current lifestyle/habits are not producing the results you want – make a decision to change.  If you are sick of being poor, not having enough money to do what you want to do – change something.  You either need to increase your earnings (new job, 2^nd job, marry a rich person?) or decrease spending (eliminating interest, cutting bills, buying less, divorcing a rich person?).  If you don’t have a plan for your future, your life will look much the same as it does now in the future.

If you are interested, you can see the video at http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=38656 .  Bob quotes Bill Gates as well.

Quoting a great philosopher of the recent era, Larry the Cable Guy, Get ‘er done!