Everyone wants to earn more money, but in today’s new normal economy raises are hard to come by. And where raises exist they amount to rather little. A highly incentivized comp plan presents the best opportunity for the company and its producers to be on the same winning ticket and amounts to potentially a lot more then a raise. For sales reps and recruiters, commission can be tied to margin cost with a sliding scale to motivate and retain people as they become more valuable to the company. Appropriate steps and risers are needed, with the levels and rates to be determined by the market, the competition and ones own P&L. Although we have designed dozens of plans over the years, no two are ever the same. The values are typical set on an annual production basis, but other time frames can work. A trail and error approach is best to arrive at a “win-win” program that works best and is reset as conditions warrant.

Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

“Metrics” isn’t a dirty word that some people use as a report card; it should be used as a tool to help people succeed. We can breakdown metrics into two topics, productivity and efficiency. Productivity is how hard one works, as measured by the number of telemarketing, tele-recruiting or email conversations one has over a period of time. Efficiency is how that is converted by a series of steps to a placement, i.e. job orders/telemarketing and e-mail conversation; candidates/tele-recruiting call and email conversations; placement/job order (fill ratio), send outs/resume submitted, hours/placement (assignment filled), margin cost/bill, cost (margin rate), etc. If these values are high one will make more placements and everyone wins, however, there are tradeoffs. For example, if one prices (margin rate) are too high their fill ratio will suffer and so will their margin cost and commissions. A profitability algorithm integrates the various term into how many margin costs are generated so one can evaluate these tradeoff to make the best decision.

How have you used metrics to help your team succeed?

Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

“Metrics” isn’t a dirty word that some people use as a report card; it should be used as a tool to help people succeed. We can breakdown metrics into two topics, productivity and efficiency. Productivity is how hard one works, as measured by the number of telemarketing, tele-recruiting or email conversations one has over a period of time. Efficiency is how that is converted by a series of steps to a placement, i.e. job orders/telemarketing and e-mail conversation; candidates/tele-recruiting call and email conversations; placement/job order (fill ratio), send outs/resume submitted, hours/placement (assignment filled), margin cost/bill, cost (margin rate), etc. If these values are high one will make more placements and everyone wins, however, there are tradeoffs. For example, if one prices (margin rate) are too high their fill ratio will suffer and so will their margin cost and commissions. A profitability algorithm integrates the various term into how many margin costs are generated so one can evaluate these tradeoff to make the best decision.
How have you used metrics to help your team succeed?
Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

Source: Optimal Blog  

There is always a balance to maximizing profits. One can’t usually adopt a single strategy, but a mix of things to reach their objectives. We have found that there is no free lunch and a tradeoff must be made to increase profits, such as lowing prices for higher volume, or lowering cost in order to lower prices. The key is to make sure you analyze your options before making a change, i.e. a 10% price decrease to get 12% higher volume could result in 5% lower margin cost if margin rates fell 15%.
What kind of tradeoffs do you make and how do you measure if your tradeoff was worth the effort?
Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

Source: Optimal Blog  

Change is, of course, a constant and those that are attuned to changes and react to it quickly have a good chance to benefit from it versus getting left behind. Some of the ones we use in our consulting work include:

Identifying key events as opposed to many events which make it hard to isolate the ones that are really important. i.e. initial telemarketing and e-mail conversations instead of attempts, messages left and e-mail blasts
Measuring key indicators on a timeline so you can see if they are getting better or worse which is hard to do by looking at something as an event, i.e. are your return on sales rising and are they on par with your competitors vs. are they “acceptable”
What are your clients say about your services compared to your competitors? Are you using constructive criticism to your advantage and encouraging your staff to share the bad as well as the good news with you?

What strategies do you use to keep abreast of changes?
Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

Source: Optimal Blog  

Reblogged from Management and Career:
Many freelancers’ incomes are on the rise and they expect good things for 2013, according to a recent survey. A look at the ups and downs of this trend.

FORTUNE — More and more, it seems the early 21st century will be marked as the beginning — or return, as the case may be — of the era of the American freelancer.
Read more… 989 more words
A great article that came out this week about the growth of the freelancer.

Source: Optimal Blog  

In today’s highly competitive and changing marketplace one needs to provide leading edge solutions or risk falling behind, losing market share, or having to provide their services at commodity prices. At Optimal Management, we call our leading edge solutions our OptiPlus© services. One of the tools that we create is the Value Wheel.
The Value Wheel(C) Optimal Manangement
We create “win-win” programs for all of the stakeholders in your company: prospects and clients, professional staff, temps, temps to hire and perm candidates. We can customize similar graphics for use with your clients.
• Prospects and clients. Your professional staff brings you their dedication and skills. You provide them with a career and compensation of value for a “win-win” proposition with our marketing programs.
• Professional staff. Your professional staff brings you their staffing requirements and problems. You provide them with the people and solutions of value for a “win-win” employment relationship with our compensation programs.
• Temp and perm candidates. Your temp and perm candidates bring you their trust. You provide them with a job of value for a “win-win” arrangement with our staffing modules.
To learn more about the value wheel and other services offered by Optimal Management, please visit our website or give us a call at 650-655-2190.
Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.

Source: Optimal Blog  

Today, at Optimal Management we want to wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving. We’re celebrating the day with our families and friends and we hope that you are too.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Image courtesy of pamsclipart.com

Source: Optimal Blog