This is a part of a series around Temporary Recruitment that we’ll be running in conjunction with TempBuddy this year. Here, Rod Smyth, CEO of TempBuddy suggests we try and fix how we buy software (a current BIG ISSUE of mine too if I’m honest!).
It’s time to dispel the myth that buying software is about getting one solution to match a shopping list of features or needs. This doesn’t work.
It’s not that you can’t find a system that does 80%,90% even 100% of what you’re looking for. It’s just the wrong approach.
If you have goals, and most of us do, and if you’ve ever achieved any of those goals you know that achieving the goal was not about finding a way to do everything in between, it was about finding the best route to accelerate your progress towards the goal.
If you’re in a soccer match and want to score, you don’t plan to figure a way past every player on the opposing team, you find the fastest way to the goal that gives you a chance at scoring. The same is true of software – if you want to achieve the goal of growing your business don’t try and tackle every obstacle, tackle the ones that get you to your goal the fastest.
In every thing we do we find the best solution for the job at hand not the one solution that sort of tries to do everything. (Think umbrella that acts as a windbreaker… it might block the wind if used in the right way and it definitely helps when it rains, but is it really the best solution when you live in Arizona? )
It’s the very same with software. Most buyers are obsessed with a shopping list of features they want and in this chase to find the software they don’t focus on the business goals or the solution that affects their business the most. This behaviour usually leads to finding a solution that ticks boxes (or worse, has lots of boxes your recruiters need to tick!). Have you ever wondered why the number of bookings most temp recruiters achieve each week is the same as it was 15+ years ago when we didn’t have access to technology?
Have you ever wondered why despite all the bells and whistles your business hasn’t moved significantly for all the technology investment.
It’s time to throw away the shopping list and buy solutions that can impact your business and drive towards goals. Who cares if I don’t have a tick box to say that I’ve added them to my mailing list if the product has given my sales people hours more sales time each day? Deciding on software that has the greatest impact on moving towards our goals is where the focus should be. Buy the marketing solution that gets the most leads, the sales solution that gets more sales and shortens the sales sycle, the workforce management solution that books more people not the solution that has a box to fill for everything you do but doesn’t leapfrog to achieving your goals.
It’s time to focus on outcomes. It’s time to move the needle. It’s time to stop buying Jack of all trades and buy the masters of each one.
Tempbuddy drives 20-30% more sales time to recruiters, filling bookings faster and increasing revenues and service quality. It doesn’t make you a cup of tea, but it can make you such a return that you never need to make your own tea again.
