Staffing Advisors

Constant Contact Customer Since: 2004
List size: 1500
Open rate: 51%
Favorite feature: Reporting
Website: www.staffingadvisors.com

Bob Corlett makes staffing problems go away. Through his business, Staffing Advisors, he helps employers in the Washington, D.C. area connect with the resources they need to achieve their business goals. Bob isn't a headhunter. He used to do that. Now he is an independent staffing broker. He has connections with contract recruiters, specialty search firms, temp agencies, and a wide range of HR consultants. The bottom line is, if you live in the D.C. area and have a staffing issue, Bob can help, and often he's able to help at no charge to the employer. How does he make money? The companies he connects you with pay the bill.

Bob has been in the recruitment industry since the late 80's. He started his own business four years ago. Staffing Advisors is 100% referral-based. "I never needed to cold-call anyone. People call me with staffing issues. For example, I recently got a call from a trade association that was doing a CEO search. The search committee had never run a search at that level before, and wanted advice about how to organize the process and pick a good search firm. I worked with them to help them understand what they should be looking for and expecting from a firm."

Bob started using Constant Contact after seeing an email from a colleague. "I was impressed by someone's newsletter and looked at the bottom and saw the Constant Contact logo. I was sending a newsletter, before using a CRM system. I had spam problems, bounces, and my anti-virus software would sometimes block my own email from going out. I put up with it for a year. It was awful. I would delay sending the newsletter because it was such a pain to put together. When I switched to Constant Contact, I didn't have any of these issues. Doing my newsletter became easy."

In addition to the fact that Constant Contact was so easy to use, another selling point for Bob was, "The crazy-low price point."

Bob sends out three newsletters to his list members. The first one he started was HR Jobs, which lists available jobs in the D.C. area.

"I had clients telling me about jobs, and I had friends who were looking. I started the newsletter because I felt guilty for not hooking my friends up. Every job I heard about, I included. People kept referring their friends to the newsletter and more and more people signed up."

Bob didn't start the newsletter with the idea of growing his business, but that's exactly what it did. "I started to realize that I was getting a lot of business from the HR Jobs newsletter. People would be wrestling with a staffing issue, see my newsletter, hit 'reply' and ask for my help."

About 18 months ago, when Bob was asked to take over and run a local HR networking organization, The Staffing Alliance of Maryland Employers, the first thing he did was set up a website and start sending event announcements on Constant Contact. Within months the organization saw meeting attendance quadruple. The mailing list has now doubled, and the last monthly meeting had a waiting list of people who wanted to attend.

Bob started a third newsletter, The Staffing Advisor, which is now his business' main communication piece. It goes out to his entire client list and is comprised of current research and articles applicable to his clients. Like his first newsletter, this one also surfaces new clients, as well as a number of speaking engagements.

Bob believes that if you offer your list subscribers something they value, they will come to you when they are ready. "There is nothing "salesy" in any of the newsletters. I share the best thinking and research I can find and include links to white papers I have written. If someone agrees with my view point, they give me a call."

When Bob moved over to Constant Contact in July 2004, he had 400 subscribers. Now he has 1,500. How is he growing his list? "People forward the newsletters - they get them and send it to a friend. We also have a lot of people signing up on the website."

Email marketing is the primary tool Bob uses to promote his business. He does not advertise or cold-call. "When I started the business, I networked by serving on boards and attending an average of 15 HR networking meetings per month. I was doing all of this face-to-face, but there were only so many places I could be. Constant Contact gave me the ability to reach 1,500 people at a time instead of 50. Now the business has grown to the point that I only have time to attend about five networking meetings a month."

Not only is email marketing saving Bob time, but it is helping to increase his revenues. "My revenues have doubled every year for the past four years. I can comfortably attribute half of that growth to using Constant Contact's service. By providing value in each newsletter, I'm reminding people of the range of issues I can help with, resulting in more new business for the company. Constant Contact helps me to say, "Hey look! I'm here and I can do something for you."