Scoot Over. There's Always Room for One More HR Vendor.

I had an enjoyable phone conversation with the VP of HR for one of the country's largest retailers. I was surprised to learn this company used four different vendors for their talent acquisition, talent management, learning management and HRIS systems. Wouldn't it be easier to consolidate some of these vendors? Maybe in an ideal world, she told me, but it's not realistic or necessary. She explained that while some vendors are getting better at end-to-end product suites nobody excels in all. She went on to tell me that their systems all talk to each other and work just fine so there is no real business case to consolidate. There is also no financial reason to consolidate.

Hmmm. My hunch is that she is not alone in her beliefs.

This is one reason why there will always be room for one more vendor in talent acquisition, talent management, learning management or any other HR product category.

The other reason is nothing in business is static. Demographics change, technologies change, workforce dynamics change, business models and competition change. The list goes on an on.

Yet so many people view the HR marketplace as a Poloroid - or forever consolidating. And they give little attention or respect to start-ups or smaller HR vendors.

Me? I respect and admire the 800lb gorillas but I try not to overlook the little ones. True, most start-ups fail and most smaller HR vendors remain just that - small (although in aggregate they control a dominant share of the HR product marketplace). But there is always room for one more visionary / entrepreneur.

Look at the classic 1980's management book, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Americas Best Run Companies (a must read for anyone in management). Many of the businesses profiled in the 1982 book are no longer in business. You'll say the same thing about the companies profiled in Good to Great some day.

These companies would have benefited from the advice of Ray Davies in his hit song, Celluloid Heroes:

Be always on your guard,
Success walks hand in hand with failure.

FORTUNE Magazine's 2010 Business Person of the Year is Santa Cruz's own Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, a company he founded in 1997. In January of 2005, analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said that NetFlix was a "worthless piece of crap".

You know the rest of the story.

By the way, the FORTUNE article on NetFlix is an outstanding business strategy read. And a 2nd by the way, in case you missed it when it went viral in 2009, make sure to download the NetFlix PowerPoint presentation "Freedom and Responsibility Culture". There is a reason why NetFlix is so darn successful and has insanely low turnover. No, it's got nothing to do with money, stock options or "perks". If you're a CEO, give yourself a late holiday present and read Freedom and Responsibility Culture. And then make a New Year's resolution and try to implement just ONE of the policies you read about. I bet most of you can't do it.

Anyway, I digress.

As we approach end of year 2010, here's a toast to all the entrepreneurs, start-ups and "small" HR vendors. You keep the industry fresh and unique.

As for the larger and more established HR vendors? We toast you as well (in fact you can pay for the toast) - you are the ones who set the bar and inspire and motivate the rest of us.

Cheers.

May 2011 bring good fortune and raise the tide for all HR vendors.

Post by HRmarketer CEO Mark Willaman. Join Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Location = Content (Give me something I can pitch!)

We all know that real estate axiom, “Location, location, location.” Well, in the PR/marketing world, location = content.

Content is what sets you apart from your competitors. Content is the primary way to establish thought leadership in your space. Content provides real value to your customers and prospects. And content is what I can pitch.

One of my duties as a member of the services team here at HRmarketer is to pitch my clients to journalists and editorial staff at HR publications. Every month, I scour the editorial calendars in search of opportunities, trying to secure bylined articles or inclusion in articles by staff writers. And between you, me and the fencepost, I kinda dread it sometimes.

Why? Because sometimes I have no content to pitch. I used to be a freelance journalist, so I was pitching for myself all the time. What I learned in the trenches is this: editorial staff don’t have time or patience for vague ideas and unsubstantiated claims. They want a brief overview of the proposed article, plus a statistic or quote from an expert. They want to know that the writer has the goods before they’ll commit to handing over a writing assignment.

Think about it. You’re a harried (and probably underpaid) editor at a magazine. You’re always on deadline, with a million details to manage. You receive two pitches on I-9 compliance on the same day:

1. I-9 compliance is causing increased concern amongst retailers as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continue to pursue an aggressive policy of audits, fines and even arrests. Joseph N. Impastato, president and CEO of talent management software provider nowHIRE, would like to offer [major retail magazine] an article on best practices in I-9 compliance.

and

2. In October of this year, Abercrombie & Fitch was fined over $1 million for paperwork violations and I-9 errors.

I-9 compliance is causing increased concern amongst retailers as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continue to pursue an aggressive policy of audits, fines and even arrests. ICE has done the following in FY 2010:

- Conducted more than 2,200 I-9 audits — up from a little more than 1,400 in FY 2009

- Imposed approximately $50 million in financial sanctions

- Debarred 97 businesses in FY 2010, up from 30 businesses in FY 2009

Joseph N. Impastato, president and CEO of talent management software provider nowHIRE, would like to offer [major retail magazine] an article on best practices in I-9 compliance. The article would include a list of nine essential questions companies should ask as they review their I-9 process and also address historical Form I-9 accuracy and storage. The article would advocate the use of current technologies, but no vendors would be named or implied.

Which one do you think the editor would pick? Which one would you pick? The second example, because it offers concrete evidence to back up its initial claims. The second example is the actual pitch I wrote last week for nowHIRE, and that pitch was accepted. I was able to score quickly for my client because he had a good content piece that I drew those statistics and facts from. And good content begets more content. There’s a ton of other ways to leverage that content (webinars, blogs etc.), but that’s a different blog post.

I’ve landed two other articles in high-profile publications for clients recently, and those two were also based on solid existing content. Of course it’s possible to win placements without existing content, but believe me, it’s a LOT harder. So, as the new year approaches, consider making a resolution to consistently produce good content. Your PR/marketing folks will love you for it! And your odds of greater exposure will increase significantly.

What's In a Brand? Quite Possibly Too Much.

The latest Barrons has an interesting little sidebar article titled Bargain Bin?—Buying Into a Name.

It discusses a recent New York auction of business and product names that drew a "paltry crowd and pallid bids". The article mentions that despite the fact that rights to 150 names had been amassed by the seller, including iconic brands like Handi-Wrap and Infoseek, only 50 people attended the event.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

"What's in a name? If it's Continental Illinois, the grandaddy of all bank bailouts, the name goes for $1,500. For Shearson, the old-line brokerage and investment firm bought in the 1970s by Sandy Weill on his way to becoming one of Wall Street's most powerful bankers, the price is a considerably higher $45,000."

"Given that it can cost $5 million to launch a brand, the sums offered seemed downright paltry."

"Credit Suisse analyst Michael Exstein recently wrote that Wal-Mart was able to gain market share when it bought the White Cloud name for tissue from Procter & Gamble in 2000."

This got me thinking about brands in the HR marketplace. In B2C a brand can quickly develop negative equity and lose value fast - just ask BP. But it's unlikely that a B2B brand will ever carry such negative equity.

There are a number of reasons why. Relatively few HR brands have widespread recognition - even in the HR marketplace. And the relationship that B2C buyers have with brands tends to be more complex and emotional compared to those of B2B buyers.

A lot of HR vendors spend a lot of money on brand building campaigns. But putting excessive marketing dollars into building brand awareness in HR does not guarantee success.

This is not to say that a professionally developed brand is not important for a B2B HR vendor. It absolutely is - just not as important as it is for B2C brands.

We'll discuss this topic in great detail in Q1 when we release a new HRmarketer eBook on the subject of making marketing allocation decisions in B2B.

The eBook will help marketers understand how each marketing tactic influences buyers as they move through the classic purchasing stages of Awareness, Interest, Information Search, Evaluation and Purchase.

Most marketing fails because of bottlenecks that occur along this purchasing process. One of these bottlenecks is between Awareness and Interest, often related to companies overspending on brand awareness tactics at the expense of tactics that move buyers through Interest, Evaluation and Purchase. Start-ups tend to be most guilty of this.

The most challenging decision for marketers is deciding how to allocate the marketing budget. It used to be easier simply because we had fewer choices .

Then came the Internet.

Then came social media.

So it's not surprising that a lot of companies don't get the marketing spending mix quite right. It's one of the top pain points of CMOs regardless of company size or industry.

Post by HRmarketer CEO Mark Willaman. Join Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter.

2011 HR Buyers Report. Survey Now Available. Please Help Us Promote.

It's time for our 8th annual Buyer Report: Trends in HR Marketing: HR Buyers’ Behavior — What to Expect in 2011. And we need your help!

The report provides information on trends and best practices for marketing to the human resource and benefits marketplace, and more specifically on the purchasing behavior of the typical HR buyer. It includes an analysis of HR buyer research and purchasing trends and their budgetary priorities in 2011.

The survey is being sent to our HRmarketer in-house list of 100,000+ HR decision makers. It takes about 10 minutes to complete.

Everyone who participates will receive a complimentary copy of the report when it’s ready in February 2011.

Please help us promote the survey by referring HR decision makers to:

http://www.hrmarketer.com/HRBuyerSurvey

Thanks!!