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Three-tiered service merges talent acquisition, performance development and leading-edge inventory management technology


(DALLAS) - May 7, 2009 – Industry-leading talent acquisition firm iMMpact Talent Partners (ITP) introduces a program that will dramatically enhance the way front office sales teams approach business development and account management.  Effective immediately, clients will have the opportunity to integrate the TriplePlay solution into their existing or future partnership with ITP.

TriplePlay is a robust, one-stop solution to address what ITP has identified as the three most pressing growth opportunities currently faced on sales floors today: the ability to attract and retain difference making sales talent; accessible and effective performance development programs both strategic and tactical in nature; technology that can help address higher sales inventory levels.

ITP is excited to offer this program exclusively designed to empower both those in revenue-driving roles and the dynamic leaders who facilitate their success. Through ITP’s existing service offerings and blossoming strategic partnerships, it can provide a consistent and reliable flow of qualified candidates for hiring needs that arise both in the form of new positions as well as the replacement of under performers.  Whether at an Executive or Entry Level, ITP will continue to focus on what they do best: placing iMMpact Players in revenue driving roles, quickly and economically. 

In addition, these candidates will have the opportunity to marinate in KikStart, an industry leading pre-hire performance development program designed and delivered by elite sports sales coaching professionals.  The KikStart program provides the option of continuing sales education on a monthly or quarterly basis in either an on-site or web-based format. 

ITP will then work directly with the client's sales management team in an ongoing role utilizing a leading-edge inventory management technology to help sales staff purge unused inventory in an efficient, automated and profitable manner. 

“We know a lot of teams and organizations have been able to get high levels of performance from mediocre sales talent during ‘the good times,’ but this is a vastly different selling environment we are faced with in the battle for discretionary dollars” said ITP President Mateo Marquez, a 10-year search and recruitment veteran.  “Teams are drawing a line in the sand.  We are very excited about taking our position alongside the forward-thinking sales leaders we are partnered with who believe as we do that different times demand different measures to generate desired outcomes.

 “This is a time to get ‘old school,’ to define, dominate and measure metrics, to pound the phones and work harder and smarter than ever before.  Time to 'top-grade' under performers with proven reps hungry and passionate about performance.  These are not interns or the unemployed/mentally unemployed, but battle-tested sales talent currently performing at a high level.  This has always been our core value statement and will continue to be our battle cry moving forward.

"To have a more dynamic, one-stop offering like TriplePlay in our arsenal is only going to help us further develop and nurture the value creating partnerships we establish each day,” Marquez said.

One solution, one company, one profound iMMpact to your sales team’s performance.

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About iMMpact Talent Partners
Based in Dallas, TX, iMMpact Talent Partners is a talent acquisition professional services firm specializing in the nationwide direct recruitment and placement of iMMpact Players in the professional sports, collegiate sports, sports media and sports marketing arena. Currently, practice areas include mid to senior level executive and management roles in sales & marketing, business development and operations.

About ExecuSure
For searches in which recruiting services are either retained or engaged, iMMpact Talent Partners is able to offer something no other search firm in the World currently offers. Given the investment made in hiring senior level positions and the importance of finding the right people for these leadership roles, retention and ROI are immensely vital. As such, ITP offers a 100% money back guarantee for one year on the placement fee for any senior level executive hire made on a retained or engaged basis, the ExecuSure program.

About InSourcing
Particularly with junior to mid-level searches, many hiring authorities have felt forced to seek a more passive approach to their hiring needs.  The absence of a true sourcing/screening/selecting process creates a pile of resumes and a ton of work for the hiring authority, basically putting them in a position to have to do their own recruiting for what should be the easiest positions to fill. ITP has introduced their InSourcing program, an innovative and proactive alternative to this passive approach. The InSourcing solution tackles junior to mid-level searches on a project basis, where the hiring authority will receive the personalized service of an on-site search consultant, cradle to grave, in managing this type of multiple hire scenario.

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Success in Search and Recruitment: The CEO Mentality

To be successful, recruiters need to develop a CEO mentality. They need to view their search and recruitment responsibilities as a separate company that they run with profit and loss responsibility. Recruiters should have an acid test for assessing their activities; if I had to fund every penny of my salary, benefits, expenses, and other costs of acquiring this piece of business and in return get reimbursements and sales commission, would I do it? That's the bet companies are making in their recruiters everyday which unfortunately is usually a poor bet. The best recruiters think like CEOs. They may even lack a good sales strategy, but succeed because they look at the search and recruitment cycle as a business investment.

A recruiter with a CEO mentality understands that they have to manage and control five assets to be efficient in their day-to-day recruiting activities. Recruiters have to be effective asset managers and must be protective, judicious, and discriminating about who they will allocate their assets to.

The five assets are:

Time, Information, Resources, Relationships and Self-Concept.

• Time: Your single most important asset. Unfortunately, it depreciates and cannot be recovered. Once you've given it away you can never get it back. Since time is money, be very discriminating as to whom, when, and under what circumstances it is allocated. Not only do we have to manage spending time on the right candidates but we also have to work to shorten the length of time it takes to recruit these iMMpact Players. Time kills all deals, and shortening the recruiting cycle is critical to managing time. The longer they sit out there the greater the chance they will go south: take a counter offer, no show for training, take a different offer, etc. Most recruiters operate under the exact opposite assumption. They believe if they hang in there, outdistance the competition, show the candidate they care, and be assertive they will ultimately prevail. In reality, this is simply not true. Professional recruiters are good at disqualifying their candidates and quit early when they are operating under non-optimum conditions. They know there are only two winners in a competitive recruiting situation, the recruiter who landed a phenomenal new hire and the recruiter who lost early and saved time.
  
  Recruiting is more about sifting, sorting, and selecting iMMpact Players and searches that have the greatest likelihood of closing as opposed to always trying to sell, convince, persuade, and cajole. A CEO would look at acquisition cost as overhead that needs to be judiciously guarded and protected. Unfortunately, 80 percent of what recruiters are spending their time on has low value and probably won't close. Working this way is a waste of your most valuable asset, time, and not consistent with a CEO mentality.
  Time should also be viewed as an inventory control system. A CEO looks at inventory with one thing in mind, how to turn it as quickly as possible. A recruiter with a CEO mentality sees his sales pipeline in the same way. He must move his candidates quickly and profitably through his pipeline, while keeping them comfortable and feeling no pressure. He knows the longer it takes to recruit them, the more time and money he has to invest.
  
  Recruiters believe they can manage time. Time management is an oxymoron. You must become a master of prioritizing. Most recruiters make the mistake of trying to manage time by organizing their week with activity that is unqualified and a poor use of their time. Two of the greatest skill sets a recruiter can have is being able to quickly assess whether a candidate has a compelling reason to make a career change, and being able to confidently walk away from candidates that will be a time drain as they have no intention of leaving or have disqualified themselves as a fit for the opportunity. Top recruiting professionals are not afraid to walk away and strive to walk as early in the courting process as possible, supported by an effective disqualifying model.
  
  
• Information: Recruiters misuse this valuable asset by giving out information and solutions to candidates before they qualify. Recruiters are frequently rendered to the status of free consultants because they freely and willingly give out information believing it will make the placement come together. If they had a CEO mentality, they would guard and protect their information knowing that it is one of their most important assets. Recruiters must realize that the most important information is the information the candidate has. But since most recruiters are so job description-centric they lead with their information, which invariably invites comparison, confusion, and objections. Ultimately, the best presentation you can give is no presentation at all. Your job is to get information, not give it. Use the information you get from the candidate to build a presentation that they are less likely to object to.
  
  Most search and recruitment organizations are finding that their value proposition is valueless, because the information they tout--quality, service, reliability, expertise, value and performance--is a mirror image. All of the hard work they do to create a difference actually ends up making them look the same. Unknowingly, they are marginalizing, commoditizing, and denigrating their value. The real value proposition lies with the candidate, not the recruiter. So your most important job is to understand where the value gaps are. What are the costs and consequences of not getting the career opportunity you have available? The placement and the trust are won in the diagnostic phase, not in the prescription phase.
  
  
• Resources: With a CEO mentality you must guard and protect company resources and only allocate them when appropriate. Most recruiters operate as if their company had infinite resources. They promiscuously pitch and battle for talent they have little chance of hiring, and with little consideration of the cost and drain of their company's resources. They involve management's time and energy on deals that don't fit the company's strategy and squander its development costs trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They freely give recruiting pitches to anyone who asks. If they had a CEO mentality, they would quickly realize that the company's resources are really their own. Companies' resources (presentation documents, technical expertise, and management's time) are leverage points but only as validation and proof steps to move the placement to its completion. It is imperative that these resources be used on well qualified iMMpact Players and at the right time in the recruiting cycle.
  
  
• Relationships: People partner with people they like, but more importantly, from people they trust and believe understand their problems and their unique situation. No longer can you rely on building relationships on personality and shared interests. Today, the only solid business relationship is one built on trust. Candidates build trust in direct proportion to your understanding of their problems, your business knowledge, and your ability to help them understand their problems in a way that no other recruiter has. With a CEO mentality you will be much more discriminating as to whom you will spend valuable time building a relationship with. Too often recruiters will build strong, long standing relationships with candidates who are at the wrong level (in the wrong type of role). Some recruiters claim that they are great relationship sellers, when in fact they are just professional visitors who bring no business substance to the relationship. They just go where they are liked and are used only as a price check or are thrown an occasional bone.
  
  Relationship sellers are more concerned that people respect them and view them as a business resource than if they are well-liked. They ask tough questions, and they are willing to walk away from relationships that no longer are mutually profitable. They build relationships wide within an organization so they are never left high and dry when the inevitable day comes when "their person" leaves and are as such constantly broadening their network in order to find “the next person.” They know when to have serious relationships and casual ones, and they are always open to making adjustments.
  
  
• Self-Concept: Recruiters consistently perform at a level equal to their belief in their self-worth. To guard and protect this valuable asset they will only work with qualified candidates. Instead of spending a lot of time giving recruiting pitches and qualifying candidates (screening them in) they spend a lot of time disqualifying candidates (weeding them out) that don't fit their ideal profile. They know that having a CEO mentality involves taking risks and pushing the envelope and nothing maintains self-concept more effective than risk, change, and learning. They know that you can't be rejected if you don't make an offer, so they sparingly make offers and only do it under optimal conditions for success: only when they know the terms will be accepted. They use a recruiting process that limits failure and preserves their dignity.
  
  A CEO mentality is not only a frame of mind, but also a search and recruitment strategy. Like CEOs, recruiters must have a strong asset management program. The more successful they are at managing their assets, the more successful they will be in recruiting.

 

 

* Based on Sell Like a CEO by Rick Farrell, Vice President at Selling Dynamics. Modified and adapted by Mateo Marquez, President at iMMpact Talent Partners

 

With all the talk going on about a global recession and headlines constantly reporting massive layoffs one might think recruiters are also out of work.  This is really not the case.  Less than 1% of all companies in the world are publicly traded.  When you read the headlines, all we see are the statistics of the top 500 public companies, not the vast majority of organizations in the world.  Most do not know that 99% of all companies are small, medium and enterprise level companies. 

The truth is by really digging into the statistics one is able to find that the unemployment numbers for the types of people that headhunters are paid to find (top 10% performers) is virtually zero.

Consider the following:

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• U.S. unemployment rate: 7.2%
  • Unemployment rate for those with a high school diploma: 7.7%
  • Unemployment rate for those with a bachelor's degree: 3.7%
  • Employees experiencing a temporary layoff and will be called back is 13.7%
  • 9.1% of the unemployed actually quit their jobs!

• Jobless Claims
  • January 1, 2008:  492,000
  • January 8, 2008: 467, 000
  • Down 9.5%

Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends Newsletter:

• There were between 4 million and 5 million individuals hired each month in 2008
• Education, healthcare and government sectors have created 400,000 new jobs in 2008
• Job opening as the end of October 2008: 3.1 million job openings

Fortune Magazine:

• The Top 20 Companies to work for are hiring in mass:
  • Average number of openings per company: 1118 openings per company
  • Openings as of January 13, 2009: over 22,000
  • Link to article: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0901/gallery.bestcos_mosthiring.fortune/index.html

Plain Dealer:

• Percentage of our economy's jobs that have been lost
  • In the recession of the early 1980's: 3%
  • In this recession: 1.7%

• Maximum length of unemployment benefits in:
  • 1933: ZERO weeks
  • 2009: 33 weeks

• Percentage of our people living below the poverty level:
  • During the 1920's before the Great Depression: 60%
  • 1959: 22.4%
  • 2007: 12.5%

• 12-month inflation rate in:
  • April 1980: 14.6%
  • November 2008: 1.1%

• Decline in the Dow Jones industrial average stock index form:
  • 1930-1932: 75.7%
  • 2006-2008: 18.8%

• Average prime interest rate for:
  • Average prime interest rate for 1981: 18.9%
  • 2008: 5.1%

• Maximum Federal Income Tax rate in:
  • 1942: 94%
    
  • 1982: 70%
    
  • 2008: 35%

 

 

Source: SearchPath International

 

At this special time of year, I want to thank all of you who have contributed to the growth and success of iMMpact Talent Partners. Being in the “people business” we are only as strong as you make us. We are very thankful to have you in our network as we look forward to an extraordinary 2009. We are continually striving to find more effective and creative ways to bring the most talented performers and hiring authorities together, as we also grow our own team with talented professionals, all to serve you more efficiently.

I also hope each of you are able to take a warm respite from the cold weather, and taxing grind that working in the sports arena can be at times, to invest time with the people around you who empowered you to find the success you realized in 2008. These same people will propel you into the New Year with momentum and vivacity. These are the family and friends who have helped make you what you are and will continue to grow into.

Finally, I encourage all of you, as one of your New Year’s resolutions, to replace the word “adversity” with “opportunity” in your vocabulary. Only this time, make it a resolution that you will commit to 100%. I know we’ve all bought that treadmill in January, only to sell it at a garage sale 6 months later, or promised to work on that ugly golf swing, only to take one lesson and then quit. (Come on, be honest). All this “doom and gloom” economic chatter actually gets me excited. This is the best time to attack, this is the best time to grow, this is when the good become great and the weak erode into oblivion. When everyone else is playing defense, that’s when you play offense and make something happen. Be proactive and not reactive. I wish this for all of you in 2009.

Again, a sincere and heartfelt “thank you” on behalf of the entire iMMpact team for being a valued part of our family. If you haven’t already, check out our new website and join our LinkedIn group via the links below. May we continue to find ways within our myriad partnerships to exchange value with one another in the coming year and beyond. 2009 will be a phenomenal year for all of us who choose to make it so.

Have a blessed holiday season and let’s make it a spectacular New Year.

 

Sincerely,

Mateo Marquez
President
iMMpact Talent Partners

 

10/14/2008, Search-Consult Magazine

A survey of 1134 senior executives conducted by the AESC and Blue Steps reveals a significant increase in the number of employers offering work-life balance programs – from 8% in 2006 to 25% today. Perhaps as a result, the number of senior executives who feel their work-life balance has improved in the last five years has also risen – from 35% of respondents in 2006 to 40% today.

In addition, fewer respondents of the recent survey reported increased working hours in the last five years – from 59% in 2006 to 54% in 2008 - and fewer executives have been working longer hours due to a heavier workload – from 46% of respondents in 2006 to 39% today.

In fact, 60% indicated that the 24/7 lifestyle brought about by globalization and technology, such as the Blackberry and omnipresent internet, has caused them to have less leisure time, with little change from 2006 (59%);

“In the last two years, employers seem to have better grasped the delicate act of helping their employees to balance personal life and work,” noted Peter Felix, President of the AESC. “This issue has become a genuine concern among senior executives and therefore needs to be addressed within corporate culture. The latest survey results suggest that the work-life gap is narrowing as companies begin to see the benefits of a healthy work-life balance.”

 

Dallas, Texas, September 12, 2008 – Mateo Marquez of Frisco, TX joins SPI as its 67th franchisee. SPI is a Cleveland-based franchisor of talent acquisition professional services firms with 70 offices nationwide.  Mateo is operating as iMMpact Talent Partners, specializing in executive recruitment for the sports, sports marketing and sports media arena.

In his 9 years of recruiting experience Mateo has helped build a 500 person sales force at ReachLocal, Inc., successfully launching 25 sales offices in a mere 16 months.  During his 4 year stay at Parkwood International (dba Management Recruiters of Dallas Northwest), he was practice leader of the #1 producing Interventional Cardiology Medical Device Sales recruiting team in the World, Southwest Region Rookie of the Year in 2003, Southwest Region Top Ten Account Executive every year, Ranked #18 in the World among his peers upon leaving MRI where he qualified as a Pacesetter (President’s Club) every year he was there.

Tom Johnston, President and CEO of SearchPath International said, "The addition of Mateo is a huge win for SPI!  Mateo is a seasoned search professional with a long track record of success. His endorsement of SPI validates our platform and long term growth plans. We are very excited to add such a great producer, teacher and visionary to the SPI family.”

“I could have very easily gone into business on my own, but I saw an opportunity to grow within a supportive culture and among friendly faces and that more than justified the value of joining a franchise organization for my family and I,” said Marquez.

“I think SearchPath has a business model that is a refreshing departure from the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach of many organizations, one that caters to the uniqueness of each individual business owner and allows them to flourish in their own skin. I am very excited to be joining the SPI family.”

Mateo enjoys spending time with his one-year-old daughter, Gracyn, who he is teaching the finer things of life, including: TCU Horned Frog Football, Futbol (aka “soccer” in this country), the music of the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic, travelling, playing golf (although not very effectively) and watching episodes of The Office and Seinfeld reruns.