Thriving in a Down Market: Building a Scalable Sales Playbook with Steven Farrell

In today’s rapidly changing staffing landscape, how do you grow while everyone else is flat or declining? In this episode of The Staffing Show, we’re joined by Steven Farrell, Director of Sales at Your Employment Solutions (YES) and host of The Staffing Playbook Podcast, to unpack the strategies that helped his team achieve double-digit growth in a down market. Steven shares the pivotal “why” moment that cemented his purpose in staffing, the power of niching down to an ideal customer profile, and how marketing and sales alignment can create unstoppable momentum. He also dives into the development of a 45-question discovery framework that doubled his team’s conversion rate and explains why personalized outreach trumps mass cold calls. To discover how intentionality, research, and human connection are redefining success in staffing (and how you can apply the same lessons to your business), tune in today!

Get More Information About Steven’s Daughter’s Condition

[0:01:14.1] David Folwell: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by Steven Farrell, who is the host of The Staffing Playbook and the director of sales for Your Employment Solutions. Steven, super excited to have you on today. We’re going to be jumping into topics related to marketing and sales, and really I think it’s going to be a fun conversation because one of the things we’re going to be talking about today is how you are actually driving growth for your organization and seeing your 2025 is looking solid.

I’m excited for people to hear how you’re doing it and learn a little bit more about the playbook. To kick things off, I’d love for you to just tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the staffing industry.

[0:02:00.1] Steven Farrell: Thank you, David, for having me on. I’ve been a big fan of the show, so it’s an honor to be a guest today and to talk about two of my favorite topics: sales and marketing. I have been in staffing for a very short time, only seven years. So, I’m still in elementary school at this point. So, I still have a hard time saying I’m from the staffing industry because prior to that, I’ve spent over 15 years in retail and consulting.

And like pretty much everybody, I fell into staffing by accident seven years ago, and you know, I remember one of my first mentors told me that staffing is a black hole. Once you get in, like, once you’re selected in, there is no escaping. You can leave for a year or two but you’re always going to be in staffing and that is true to this day, but I love this business now. I found my “why” about two years in and never looked back.

Worked for a couple of large billion-dollar companies, and now, you know, I’m part of a more mid-sized firm, and we’re just building this thing and growing it. It’s been a lot of fun, a lot of challenges, but a lot more rewards attached to those challenges.

[0:03:10.2] David Folwell: I’ve got to ask, what is your “why?” What did you find?

[0:03:13.3] Steven Farrell: Very long story, I’ll keep it as short as possible. This was during COVID, a hard time, right?

[0:03:19.0] David Folwell: Yeah-yeah.

[0:03:19.5] Steven Farrell: We had a customer that had – we had 250 openings with them, and because of their strict COVID protocol, they had on average about 200 plus people absent at any given time, and these were life-saving devices that they were making, and you know, I get on a call with them one day, this emergency call. You know it’s, “Steven, we are in this dilemma, our patients are not going to get their needed supplies and people will lose their lives.”

And so, you know, they just challenged me on coming up with different ideas to get these people, and we couldn’t increase the pay rate. We couldn’t change the hiring requirement, the unemployment had already bounced back here in Utah to like, 3.8%, so we weren’t finding people locally, and so I just felt the weight of the world crushing down on my shoulders and you know, I was up all night, just tossing and turning.

Just really trying to figure this out, and the next day, I brought my entire team together in this emergency session. It was like, “Guys, we’ve got to figure this out. I don’t care if we need to shuttle people in from Mars, like, let’s figure this out,” and one of my managers mentioned that Wyoming was still suffering when it comes to their workforce, oil and gas was still down, mining was down, all the lights were off.

So, we called the branch manager in Wyoming and I said, “Hey, what are the chances you can get me 200 plus people at $15 an hour to be thrown on a bus and be shuttled into Utah, stay in a hotel,” and she’s like, “I can get you a thousand people.”

[0:04:50.6] David Folwell: Oh, my God.

[0:04:51.4] Steven Farrell: I’m like, “Okay, let’s talk.” So, long story short, we got the people quickly, we shuttled them in, a six-month process. It was just really difficult, you know, working 110 hours a week, and at the end of that six-month period, when we sunsetted the program and things went back to normal, the HR manager, she reached out to me and she said, “Steven, you don’t know the lives that you saved, but we do.”

And she said, “You and your team are just truly exceptional, we can‘t thank you enough,” and I’m just like, crying, and that’s when I found my “why” in staffing. That it was like, we truly are making a difference in people’s lives, and sometimes saving people’s lives and I’ve never looked back since then. That fuel in my belly, that fire has remained strong and it always will, after that.

[0:05:39.3] David Folwell: That’s amazing. I love that story and it’s when you can actually see the impact of the people you’re putting to work, and it sounds like a cool experience and I get why you got hooked at that point. So, one of the things that you’ve done since then is you’ve started The Staffing Playbook. Tell me a little bit about what that is, for those of you that see this on video, you’ll see it in his background. You got a very big sign that looks amazing. So, what is The Staffing Playbook and what’s your vision for it?

[0:06:05.0] Steven Farrell: Yeah, thank you for asking. Staffing Playbook Podcast really came from an earlier iteration during COVID when we’re trying to find help. I would do a live stream every single day across these large Facebook groups that I owned, or I was the admin with hundreds of thousands of people. So, I just streamed live into these groups, talked about the jobs, talked about the safety protocols our clients are putting in place.

We do a live stream, drive through job fair five in the morning in three different places, we’d have the news, like, it gained such a huge following and it was a massive success. We’d be hiring, you know, a hundred people a week through the live stream, and so we sunsetted that when I moved into a different role in a different company, and so that’s where it really started, but morphing into when we started it just last year, mid-year, I see that this gap in knowledge in our industry.

You have this high turn and burn in our industry, you know, 14 to 18 months with the recruiters and sales reps, and there’s all the right tools out there and the right people, you know, helping people to be set up for success, but there’s really not an actionable playbook for people in our industry. At least, I know there’s some out there, but I could never find it, and so I thought, “You know what? I want to have that playbook.”

I want to help people in this industry get the playbook, learn how to grow their business, be successful, and be here long-term like I plan to be, and so that’s a big part of it is I just want to share the industry knowledge. I want to bring on some of the best thought leaders and have them share the playbook, challenge them on the playbook, make sure it’s actionable. The other part is I want to connect with our clients, our HR leaders.

You know, we don’t just focus on staffing, we focus on leadership, we focus on compliance and HR, and so it’s just really come together. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re only, you know, 32 episodes in, we’re just getting started. We got an episode coming up in a few weeks where I’m bringing on two to three HR managers, high-volume staffing. They’re going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to staffing, and it’s just going to be a really fun round table.

So, just things like that that we want to bring value to the market, and as being a big fan of your show, your podcast, I’m a big believer that with yours and Haley Marketing’s, and others like, we can bring the value to the market, and really change this industry for the better.

[0:08:22.3] David Folwell: I love it, and I mean you mentioned some of the challenges with the turnover and just I think it sounds like you’re bringing good content to life, good strategies in life, and helping people kind of understand and navigate the industry. Are there – I guess, with the conversations you’ve had, the podcasts you’ve had, any kind of underlying components in terms of when you see companies that have good retention, when you see people that are not having a turnover, what are some of the core elements that you’re seeing in those organizations.

[0:08:51.7] Steven Farrell: Yeah, I’ll keep that one simple. The smaller firms have figured it out. People matter. They take care of their people, they invest in their people, they give them the time and attention they need, they’re individualized attention and training. That’s what I see with the successful firms right now is really the smaller firms. I’m sure there’s larger firms that have made this happen, but it’s much harder at scale.

I know there’s a solution to that but today, I’m seeing the real secret sauce in these smaller firms, being able to give that time and attention to their people, to develop them, and they’re more nimble, right? They can move faster. When you’re looking at adding software tools and automation, it’s a very small expense for a few people, but at scale, when you have 3,000 sales reps in your organization, you’re looking at a multi-million-dollar annual investment, and that’s much harder to do.

[0:09:38.6] David Folwell: It’s always crazy to me as I feel like there’s so many staffing agencies out there that just – the cost of doing business is that you’re going to have this, like, unbelievable high turn rate and that’s just how our industry is, and then you know, you have people like, Eric Gregg at ClearlyRated who has the data, showing like, “Here’s how impactful that is and here is what that actually means to your organization.”

And I think focusing on retention, focusing on culture, focusing on training, making sure people have the right things in places is actually critical for driving profitable growth and doing so in a sustainable way, but it’s definitely something that often goes underlooked.

[0:10:14.9] Steven Farrell: It’s not just about you know, setting them up for success, anyone can do that but it’s that follow-through, it’s that continued development of your people that I think gets lost, and that’s why you see that turnover.

[0:10:24.8] David Folwell: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more, and one of the things that I know it – that kind of the main topic we’re going to jump into today, something I’m excited to learn from you and have our audience learn from you is you guys at YES, Your Employment Solutions, you guys are outpacing the market, you’re growing. The last time we talked I think that was – are you okay with sharing the numbers in terms of the year-over-year?

[0:10:44.5] Steven Farrell: Absolutely.

[0:10:46.0] David Folwell: Last time we talked, I think it was 18% year over year, which is if you look at SIA’s trends if you like that any of the other data out there, that’s not what we’re seeing in the market. Most people are – I mean, I jokingly say this, and I’ve been saying it longer than I would like to is you know, flat’s the new up.

[0:11:01.8] Steven Farrell: I hate that term. I heard that a few weeks ago, and I just cringed.

[0:11:07.0] David Folwell: It’s the – it’s the worst. It’s the worst and it’s also the reality for some people in the industry today, and I think from conversations we’ve had, you’re doing some unique things that I think tie your marketing skillset, your marketing sales alignment background. But maybe you could start off and just talk to us a little bit of what are some of the things that you guys are doing differently at YES that is helping drive some of that growth.

[0:11:29.0] Steven Farrell: Yeah, if I may, before we get into that, I want to set kind of a baseline of why we’re here today.

[0:11:34.4] David Folwell: Yup.

[0:11:36.0] Steven Farrell: You know, the staffing industry has now reached 28 consecutive months of being down, and things are not looking up. It’s been hard out there, you know, gig apps and smaller firms have been cutting corners to win the little businesses out there by offering little margin markups. You know, they really are not sustainable and many are doing it by misclassifying workers as 1099 to hold their margins.

All that said, in a down economy, there’s plenty of people who will complain about their business shrinking and shift that blame to justify their lack of strategic thinking. But for us, I think there’s always an upside in a down economy. There’s always new opportunities to adapt, change, pivot, you know, find new ways for growth. We don’t need to be the defense attorney for our challenges. Instead, you know, we need to be the prosecutor of our challenges and lean into that innovation, adaption, and most importantly, what the market is telling us.

And you know, the market is telling us that it’s going to be tough, and so we got to find those niches that we can carve out in the market where there is growth because there’s always opportunities where there’s a downed economy, there’s industries that are growing that we support. As the staffing industry, there’s plenty of industries that are growing that we just need to tap into, and for the businesses that are still in a decline, we can find better ways to service them, to expand our wallet share.

I want to add that last year, I just started my sales team. When I came to this organization, I had three sales rep, brand new sales reps. We grew the business by 10%, which was several million dollars, and this was primarily due to a huge pivot we did in June of last year. So, we were mid-year before we figured out what we were doing was not working, and we need to shift. So, if it’s okay with you, I want to talk about that pivot that we did.

[0:13:17.1] David Folwell: I would love to, and I’d like to know the pivot and I definitely want to know what wasn’t working, so.

[0:13:22.5] Steven Farrell: Nothing was working. We were not – we were not getting the business, we were just getting the breadcrumbs. You know, the game changed after COVID, and going into 2023, where you had inflation starting to kick off, with the interest rates being increased, market shifted, consumer demand dropped, and so did the, you know, the demand for labor. Companies tightened their belts on agency spend, many took recruiting in-house.

They were able to see that during COVID, like, “Hey, we were okay being short-staffed as many people as we were short-staff,” right? So, they looked at staffing differently, and companies that still use staffing, the wallet share got a whole lot smaller because the jobs weren’t due to consumer demands dropping, and not to mention the ones that have an agency or two in the building that still have somewhat of a demand.

Now, they’re using multiple agencies, as well as their internal talent teams, and so this is what we did to respond to that. We went through a workshop, this workshop was outlined by Allan Dib. He wrote, The 1-Page Marketing Plan. I don’t know if you’ve read that book or heard of it. Fantastic read, if you haven’t read it, and through this workshop, we went 12 weeks of this workshop. It was clear that we needed to stop focusing on everyone and anyone who could be a client of staffing.

[0:14:39.1] David Folwell: Yup.

[0:14:39.0] Steven Farrell: Which in Utah was about 18,000 companies. Our new focus started with questioning the type of business we were going after. So, if we niched down, focused on the core elements of our business, what are we really good at? That’s what we had to ask ourselves, and then we removed all of their job roles that we were not good at, that we’re failing, or just didn’t have the adequate infrastructure to support effectively.

And then, we moved into these three target segments, which represents about 3% of that 18,000. So, we really got to narrow on who are we targeting, you know there’s three types of segments we targeted. You’ll shocked what these three, you ready?

[0:15:16.6] David Folwell: I’m excited.

[0:15:17.6] Steven Farrell: Number one, companies who are hiring. They’re literally raising their hand and this is in clear daylight. “I am hiring.” It’s like a beacon on a hill, like if you can imagine standing at the top of the mountains, looking down at the valley, and there’s this beacon on every building that’s hiring. Well, that’s what we did, we looked for those beacons, and we reached out to them first.

So, that was our top priority, and then we looked at past clients who have done business with us and have stopped for, you know, a variety of reasons. Maybe it was better rates, decreased demand, or in most cases, we found, it was a service failure on our part. So, we had to repair that relationship, and eat some crud, and work on some ways to show them that we were ready to partner again.

The last one might be surprising, maybe not, companies who use staffing and are likely being underserviced. So, it was time to take some business away from other agencies, I’m sorry for those agencies that I took your business away this last year and this year, but it’s likely that they’re being underserviced. We’re reading, I believe, it came from ClearlyRated, it may have been another source.

But agencies indicated that they were focused more on new sales in 2024 than their existing business, and I saw that as an opportunity to go and take some business. So, our ops team focused on our core customers, service them better than anybody else, and then our sales team went after all the companies that are using staffing agencies that are likely under-serviced, and we started taking some of that wallet share.

[0:16:44.2] David Folwell: That’s great, and super smart in terms of the, you know, niching down to, or at least, focusing on the high-quality leads and high likelihood of people that are going to be prospects, that are – want to use your services. Did you do any deeper dive down into the industry segments into the specific verticals? Did you go down to that level as well?

[0:17:03.8] Steven Farrell: We sure did. Yeah, we first started with light industrial, that’s our bread and butter, that’s what our infrastructure is built out to service. So, that’s what we do best. So, we were in like, everything you can think of at the time, and it was like, let’s not spread our resources too thin. Let’s be more effective with the business that comes in and make sure we get the right placement for those job orders, reduce that turnover.

So, we focused on our light industrial. We had a few core people in our organization that had experience in construction and trade staffing. So, we opened up a construction division last year, and that really helped us, and so the rest, we just kind of pushed away. You know, looking at contact centers, for example, they’re being replaced by AI agents. They weren’t being replaced last year, but we could see the writing on the wall.

So, no reason to invest our time into contact centers, it was service the ones we have but let’s move on from that segment because that industry is dwindling. Then we looked within light industrial, which segments are growing, which ones are being underserviced, which ones have the highest demand? Warehouse and logistics, right? 3PLs, they’re always in high demand. Even looking at the tariffs today, which that’s been messy.

But you have, most companies that do just in time, right? And they can offshore and have deliveries made quickly, and now, you know, we’re looking at tariffs and going, “Hey, I think these companies are going to switch from just in time to just in case. They’re going to build up their inventories here on shore, right?”

[0:18:30.0] David Folwell: Yup.

[0:18:30.9] Steven Farrell: That means they need more space. They need 3PLs, and so you know, within the last couple of months, I’ve had my team go and target every 3PL and talk to them, and sure enough, they’re getting calls from companies wanting more space, and so we’re going after that business.

[0:18:47.5] David Folwell: So, it sounds like you’re focused on the people that are going to – where there will be demand and then also on the areas where creating value and you know that the market’s growing. I know one of the other areas that you and I talked about briefly is just the sales and marketing alignment but I think when it comes to like, going out and driving new client demand, you guys are doing some pretty unique things in terms of the touchpoints, your outreach. Would you mind just sharing a little bit about that?

[0:19:10.7] Steven Farrell: Yeah, great question. So, it’s taking so many more touchpoints to get a hold of a customer. Like, we’re talking 20-plus calls just to get someone to take your call, right? Or, to meet you in person, and so when we went through this workshop, the 1-Page Marketing Plan, we determined that there is a minimum 27-touchpoint journey, and so our market – and this is just to create awareness.

Whether it’s through social ads, through social selling, in-person visits, phone calls, mailers, billboards, you name it. So, our marketing team developed a 27-point journey. It was clearly written, it was mostly automated, and this marketing plan was to increase the frequency of our ideal customer profiles, so they can get to know us before even one of our team members talks to them, and you know, some of those touchpoints were physical.

I’ll give you an example, after a discovery meeting, we shipped what we call a shock and awe box, and inside that box was a thank you card. We had some swag, we had a 3D-printed Yeti for their desk. By the way, for those of you who have seen this on camera, we have a mascot, this little adorable Yeti. So, that would be in the box, it also, included a special message from our Yeti, that outlines why we care.

And how we’re going to navigate this complex employment environment together as partners, and so when most companies are cutting back on marketing spend, we double down. We even triple down on our marketing spend, and it – we – it’s proved to be successful, and it wasn’t just the marketing side, it was also my sales team getting involved with social selling. So, LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with your ICP.

But, you know, as you probably see, everyone is doing it wrong, and so are we. You know, I learned the hard way that LinkedIn should be treated like a networking event and not a spam. Everyone with our services platform, the whole post and pray, that’s not a great strategy.

[0:21:13.5] David Folwell: Yeah, absolutely, and I mean you mentioned quite a few things that are super interesting there. One, the term ICP, and I know that also kind of ties into the niching strategy but for those of that don’t know ideal customer profiles, it’s an exercise that most should be going through. How did you approach that? Was that part of the workshop in the 1-Page Marketing Plan or what was that?

[0:21:34.0] Steven Farrell: It was.

[0:21:34.7] David Folwell: I know, yeah.

[0:21:35.3] Steven Farrell: Yeah, I’ll walk you through this, this is a fun story. So, we needed our customer avatar, it’s another way of saying, “Ideal customer profile.” And so, we just asked each other, “What do we already know about our customers, right?” Some of our best customers, what are they doing right, let’s kind of walk in their shoes for a day. Then we went and asked one of our customers, his name is Ron Christiansen.

He became our ideal customer profile. We took him out to lunch, told them what we were doing, and we interviewed him. We hit him with a slew of personal questions, professional questions, what does he likes to eat, what restaurants he goes to, what does he listen to, what does he watch, and you know, Ron Christiansen is in his mid-50s. He enjoys listening to the local radio stations when he’s driving home, and when he’s not listening to the radio, he is rocking out with like 90s, you know, grunge music.

[0:22:26.2] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:22:27.9] Steven Farrell: And when he’s home, he’s watching YouTube. He’s not watching network television, he’s watching YouTube. He’s on Reddit, and so a lot more about Ron Christiansen, but we identified him as our ICP. We got to know him and we wrote up a full page of our ICP and developed a marketing plan around Ron Christiansen. We took photos of Ron Christiansen and posted it all around our office, and we looked at Ron every single day to remind us of who our ICP is.

[0:22:57.1] David Folwell: I love that. I feel like this is such an easy thing to overlook as a business owner and as a staffing agency. I think for people like, “Oh, well, we’re niched. We do an LNI,” and it’s like if you – getting distilled down to the exact person who loves working with you so that you can hone your focus. One thing that I’ve seen over the years with just businesses, in general, is they tend to go, focus on fixing the problems with the people that don’t like their service, versus figuring out how to get more of the people that do.

And you did a really nice job on that front. One of the other things that you brought up that I would like to go a little bit deeper into – I think you said, 45 questions that are memorized for –

[0:23:37.1] Steven Farrell: Yes.

[0:23:37.1] David Folwell: Was it 45? Yeah, was this your discovery process, the 45-question framework?

[0:23:40.5] Steven Farrell: Yeah.

[0:23:41.6] David Folwell: Yeah, like, what – how did you develop this approach, what are the outcomes have you seen from this? Tell us a little bit about this as well.

[0:23:47.1] Steven Farrell: Yeah. Yeah, so, back in quarter three last year of 2024, I was reviewing my team’s performance like I do every week. I was doing a deeper dive and I was noticing our discovery meeting conversion rate to contract sign was pretty low. At the time, we had an 11% conversion rate from discovery meeting to contract signed. Any good team should be at least 30% and when operating at their best, they should be more around 40%.

So, recognizing this, I took immediate action. You know, think about this, David, Q4 is always busy for ops and recruiting. This is like, just show time, right? It is busy. However, it’s much slower for new sales. So, instead of giving my team a list of busy work in Q4, like I’ve done in years past, just to make everyone feel good, like, “Oh, we’re prospecting, we’re being productive, but we’re not getting much business.”

[0:24:36.5] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:24:37.1] Steven Farrell: I decided we need to pivot, and let’s focus a large portion of our selling time, a third of it, in discovery meeting training. So, over the next three months, this was in Q4, we memorized over 45 questions within what I call the discovery meeting dialog framework. It’s not that we ask all 45 questions in the discovery meeting, that’s exhausting. We get kicked out, I tried it, it didn’t work.

But, you know, the script was really more like 15 questions, but each question had two to three variations to be applicable to different situations, and I want to preface this, the goal wasn’t to sound scripted, to be scripted. The goal was to have the ability to access the right question at the right time, and let it come naturally. If you think about this, in your early childhood, you were taught a script. Please, thank you, how are you, how is your weekend?

These are all scripts we learned early on, and now, it just comes naturally, and that was the goal here, and it worked. I held myself accountable as well to memorize these questions because you’re facilitating it, you’re teaching it, you’re having fun, we get a lot of other things to do as a sales leader, but that was a challenge for myself, and it was just the most fun activity we could have done and it was the most productive, and it’s paid off, and we’ve –

[0:25:51.1] David Folwell: That’s amazing.

[0:25:52.1] Steven Farrell: We’ve already doubled our conversion rate and we’re continuing to improve on it.

[0:25:56.0] David Folwell: That’s incredible, and to come up with those questions, collaborative effort, where you kind of getting them ready together, and talk about like, how do we identify, like, into that approach?

[0:26:04.1] Steven Farrell: This style of framework is based on consultative selling. Inexperienced sales reps play this game of ping-pong, okay? I ask you a question, client, you give me an answer, and I’m thinking, “Ooh, I have the solution to that answer,” right? And so, I hit you with the solution. “Yeah, we could do that better, let me tell you why.” Here’s my next question, and then you answer.

[0:26:21.3] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:26:21.8] Steven Farrell: And then I go, “Oh, we can do that better, and here’s why.” And you’re just playing this game of ping-pong, you’re really not listening. You’re not putting the focus on the prospect, which should be minimum, 85% of your meeting. I – we role-played so many times through this and we had fun catching each other. We would never allow each other to say, “Oh, here’s what we can do,” or, “Oh, I understand that. We can do it better,” which is just natural, right?

You want to solve that problem as a sales rep. It’slike, “No.” Shut your mouth, continue to ask really good questions, lean into their answers, un-peel those layers, and then at the end, “Hey, you mentioned X problem, here’s Y solution, and here’s why we can execute on it.” And that’s at the very end of the conversation, and that takes a real discipline to have that be natural in a discovery meeting.

[0:27:08.8] David Folwell: That’s incredible and it sounds like your team really leaned into it, and just having an impact, somebody does it. If you were to, and I know we’re going to – I am going to jump into the kind of the sales and marketing alignment, and also this concept that you’d brought up that I haven’t learned about until you, but before you do, how impactful do you think this is in terms of driving growth for you guys? Like, if we’re to rate this on a scale of one through 10, what do you think the discovery process alignment is?

[0:27:33.8] Steven Farrell: It’s a 10. You know, there’s so many important things to get to discovery meeting, which we can talk about how I believe the research phase is absolutely the most important phase of the sales process, but you can do all the research you want but if you don’t know how to have a real conversation discovery meeting, and really ask the key questions to discover the active or latent pains or future pains, then you’re going home.

[0:27:57.9] David Folwell: That’s great, and do you have any pushback at all from the team in getting alignment on it or is everybody kind of just ready to try something new?

[0:28:04.9] Steven Farrell: My entire team has been long past college for several years, so the days of having them memorize things has been in the rearview mirror for a decade or more, and so everyone’s immediate concern was just more intrinsic. It was like, “How am I going to memorize 45 questions? That just seems impossible.” And so, the first couple of weeks were really rough even for myself. But once we got that rhythm, it came back to us, and then it just kept getting easier and easier as the weeks went on.

[0:28:35.0] David Folwell: That’s great, that’s really great, and the next area that I wanted to jump into was the critical element of sales and marketing alignment. Being a marketer, I think that staffing as a whole underestimates the value of marketing, the scalability of marketing. What I always like to say is just marketing is just sales at scale. It is just a different way of approaching getting to the same result. You brought in the concept of a superfluid helium.

[0:28:59.9] Steven Farrell: Oh, you remember, I’m impressed.

[0:29:02.4] David Folwell: I have never heard of that and absolutely didn’t figure out what it was and I always like moments like that. So, tell us a little bit about what that is and how that ties back to your sales and marketing alignment.

[0:29:13.7] Steven Farrell: Yeah, so just like teeth in a zipper, sales and marketing have to be aligned. If one of those teeth is off, you know, it’s just unaligned or broken, you cannot zip that jacket up, and if you’re on Mount Everest with one of your thick coats, and you’ve got a broken tooth in that jacket, one of those links are busted, you may not be making it off the mountain, and I think sales and marketing is just as crucial to be aligned just like those links on a zipper.

And so, the concept of superfluid helium, and the viewers can correct me because you know, I read this years ago, but like the concept is sound. So, superfluid helium, when it’s taken down to a low temperature near zero, it becomes really unique so it can defy the laws of gravity. Put superfluid helium in a jar, it can move up and down the jar, it can move through the jar without causing any damage or friction.

At the molecular level of superfluid helium, the atoms, you know, being billions of atoms everywhere.

[0:30:17.2] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:30:17.6] Steven Farrell: They align and become one, right? They’re one and so they can move through fixed objects without causing any friction against any other atoms with themselves or the object they’re moving through, and so that’s what sales and marketing needs to be. They need to be fully aligned as one unit, they have two different strategies, but one purpose they’re aligned with zero friction.

When you can accomplish that, which is a lot of hard work, and it’s always ongoing, you know, the sky is the limit, and it’s been a huge part of our success just being aligned with marketing and marketing aligned with us.

[0:30:51.9] David Folwell: That’s incredible, and it was fun to learn about a new concept, and I think that the – your growth kind of ties back to the importance of the alignment, and I think that you’ve done a good job of connecting all of those dots in a meaningful way that most I think should aspire to do. When it comes to kind of like what’s next and where you’re going with YES, what do things look like? What’s the playbook from here?

[0:31:15.3] Steven Farrell: David, we’re just getting started. You know, again, with the economy where it’s at, those are real problems that we’re all facing, but you know, it’s kind of like the big think idea. You think about it, your IQ is probably 170, mine is probably, you know, barely 90, okay?

[0:31:32.3] David Folwell: I’m right there with you on the 90.

[0:31:34.5] Steven Farrell: You put our IQs together and all of a sudden, we’ve got an IQ of 200 plus, right? And so, moving forward, it’s really bringing the best talent in the room in all areas, operations, recruiting, marketing, and sales, and you know, we have a vision. We have a goal to hit a certain number over the next few years, and so we’re aligned. We’re all pushing ourselves, we’re all being strategic thinkers.

And I should preface, we have a group of strategic and critical thinkers all in the same team tackling these problems. We’ve been fortunate with our growth this year, we’re double digits, high double digits right now from last year, which is one of our best years we’ve had, and we’re just finding those areas of opportunity to lean into. We’re no longer, you know, this might ruffle some feathers out there, I don’t ask my team to make 150 cold calls a week.

Like, there’s no quota of 150 cold calls a week. I want them to target just the quality leads, going back to those three segments that I mentioned, we’re focused on those segments, and I mentioned earlier about the research phase in your prospecting process. So, it’s not about just seeing who’s hiring, it’s understanding who those businesses are, what’s going on within their industries. If you’re looking at the 3PL, what’s going on with the tariffs?

How is it affecting them? If you’re looking at, you’ve got a customer that’s in nutraceuticals, what are some of their pain points in their industries? What are their vendor’s pain points? Where is nutraceuticals going in the next year or two or are we expecting a massive increase? Is it going to be flat? Is it going on a decline? What type of machines do you need to use in nutraceuticals? Like, let’s have a great understanding of our prospective customers’ business before we even go in there and talk to them.

Let’s go listen to their CEO’s podcast, let’s go read their blogs and their whitepapers. Let’s understand what they are proud of, you know, their initiatives that they’re working on, what they’re proud of. We don’t want to go in there and just say, “Hey, I listen to all of this. I know everything about your company.” But you just go in with more authority because you understand their business.

So, when they are bringing up challenges in their industry, you can speak to that, and you can have a more open conversation and you’ll be more relatable, and they’ll see you more as an authority that can help.

[0:33:44.0] David Folwell: So, it sounds like the – I always call it snipper over shotgun.

[0:33:47.3] Steven Farrell: Snipper over shotgun, I haven’t heard that but I like that.

[0:33:49.6] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:33:50.1] Steven Farrell: I might steal that one.

[0:33:51.1] David Folwell: Yeah, I feel like over the last few years, it’s – especially with the rise of automation, right? Like, it’s like everybody five years ago, eight years ago is like, not everybody had email or sequencing tools and recruiting automation, and sales automation, and now, it feels like to cut through the noise, you’re doing a really good job of guiding the team on doing that research element, and getting them to go deep.

How has it been to get people to actually embrace that approach? Because I feel like that’s something I’ve seen teams struggle with, where you tell people why to go deep instead of making 150 cold calls, make 15 deep, like insightful outreaches. I’ve seen that where people try to apply that approach, and then they go do it, and they got zero for 15, it doesn’t work.

What are some of the ways that you’ve helped get the team on board with that change, that mindset?

[0:34:42.3] Steven Farrell: Yeah, here’s the thing, telling is one thing, doing is another. If you go watch an NBA game, is the coach up in the suite leading the game from a laptop or is the coach out on the court, right? The coach is on the court.

[0:34:56.1] David Folwell: I almost said field.

[0:34:58.0] Steven Farrell: Field, yeah, and the field, right. So, the coach is in the field, on the court working with their team every single day. If you’re a sales leader if you’re not out with your team every single week, and your sales are down, you’re not meeting projections, well, that’s one place you can start, right? Get out there, be with your team, reinforce what you are asking them to do, do it yourself.

Every week, my calendar fills up more and more, meetings after meetings after meetings. We’ve got to have a meeting about our next meeting and in between those meetings, I am making cold calls. I am looking up job ads, I am calling prospective customers, and I am practicing what I am preaching, and I am getting real-time feedback not just from my team out in the field but I’m getting feedback from my own calls.

So, I can figure out, “Is this working? What I’m asking my team, does this truly work, right?” And if it doesn’t, I’ll be the first to say, “Okay, guys, I tried it. It didn’t work. You guys have been telling me it’s not working, you’re right. Let’s try something different.”

[0:35:53.5] David Folwell: I love it, that’s great, out there leading from the field. So, I know you guys are just getting started in terms of your growth and where you’re going, and it sounds like you’ve got a good sales motion, good delivery. Where are you guys going from an expansion standpoint? Anything strategically that you guys are doing, in terms of for the rest of 2025?

[0:36:13.0] Steven Farrell: Yeah, something that we added this year to our sales development team is we’re focused on social selling. We’re no longer just posting about us or our company on LinkedIn, we are connecting with our ICP, we’re liking, we’re engaging with them, we’re producing content, like our podcast for example, we have ebooks, whitepapers, you name it. We have a customer listening event.

Three different events scheduled this next quarter, where we are bringing in the top HR leaders from the top employers into a room to talk to them about employment in 2025 and beyond and what their struggles are and what are they looking forward to, and it’s literally a whiteboard session where we are workshopping the problems. We’re leaning into one HR manager that has 400% turnover and is pulling out her hair, does not know what to do.

And another that had around 400% turnover and is now down to 15% turnover and we’re letting these two talk to each other. What is this person doing that they’re not? And so, this is another way to establish ourselves as an authority in the space because we are bringing the best and brightest into a room to talk about the challenges and come up with the solutions. So, we’re just getting really involved with our ideal customers.

We are bringing them together and we are connecting with them in a genuine way and I believe that’s what’s going to set us apart in the future. You know for expansion and growth, we’re, you know, I’m working to take this company national, and we have to not only have a strong sales team do that, we have to have a strong operations team, and that I know is a big focus in this industry is we have to stop being transactional.

We’ve been treated like a commodity and we’ve deserved that treatment as a commodity, and we have to move into that trusted advisor position, and the interesting thing is you look at any organization, you look inward, you have that experience, that knowledge, that authority, and it is about showcasing that authority by social selling on LinkedIn, providing great value on LinkedIn, by bringing customers together.

There is a lot of ways to share that knowledge you have in your organization and consult with your clients on a regular basis. You have to bring real data to the conversation. You’re probably familiar with Lightcast, very expensive tool, 100% worth it, no affiliation.

[0:38:33.9] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:38:34.7] Steven Farrell: But we use Lightcast every single day in our prospecting efforts as well as our operations front. They’re taking that data from Lightcast into their client meetings to really help our customers see the bigger picture of what is going on in the market and how they can adapt to it. You know, the economy is struggling but as a sales rep, you have your own ecosystem. You have your own market that you’re assigned to.

And those ecosystems can be very different from what’s happening across the country. You know, my sales team is leaning into their ecosystems, and trying to find those areas they can carve out to make a difference.

[0:39:11.2] David Folwell: That’s really impressive that you guys are doing all of that and you mentioned the importance of the operational effectiveness, the delivery side of it. So, it sounds like one of the ways you’re creating unique value, understanding the market, understanding the voice of the customer, having like a true sense of what their challenges are so that you can partner with them.

I know a lot of agencies right now are moving accounting-finance side or I’ve seen a lot of them shift over to statement of work, whether they’d be taking on projects, IT as well. What are some of the things that when you are going to a customer, how are you positioning yourself? What are some of the unique value props if you’re open to sharing that in terms of how you guys are doing things differently from an operational perspective?

[0:39:49.6] Steven Farrell: I have so many thoughts on this. I’ll try to keep it to a couple of things.

[0:39:54.4] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:39:54.9] Steven Farrell: So, the first thing is we don’t go in looking for a job order. Every conversation I have with new customers that I’m bringing on, part of my conversation is in agreement that we have a seat at their table when it comes to their employment strategy. I ask them straight up, “Do you treat staffing agencies like a commodity or a trusted partner in your recruitment strategy or overall employment strategy?”

And if they say a commodity, I go, “I’m out. Thank you but not worth my time, not worth my investment,” and that’s hard to walk away from someone who says, “I want to work with you.”

[0:40:26.7] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:40:27.2] Steven Farrell: But I’m going to treat you like a commodity.

[0:40:28.8] David Folwell: I’m going to work with you but for the lowest price and I’m not going to talk to you, just send me resumes.

[0:40:33.1] Steven Farrell: That’s right. So, that’s the first thing is we set the expectation that we want to have a seat at the table, and it’s not because we were asking, it’s because we’re going to earn it, right? We’re going to show you that we can bring value and we’re going to put in timelines. Like, as soon as I’ve got you signed up as a customer, here’s our plan to set you up for success. Here is our recruiting plan over the next three months.

If we fail to meet your expectations, you can fire me. No questions asked, let us go, but if we meet your expectations, I’m going to be increasing our markup by two percentage points or whatever percentage point that’s appropriate because we’re going to show that we can save you more in the long run with our services and our talent than what you’re getting with your 27% markup with all your other agencies.

That’s a big part but that’s the sales part, we’re going back to operations. We have a pulse on the market, we’re using tools like Lightcast to help us understand not just the labor market but the economic and demographic trends that are going on. Maintenance techs for example are in high demand in Utah, however, there is not enough maintenance techs. So, there is a demand for 7,000 maintenance techs, but there’s only 5,000.

And so, we go in there and go, “It’s great you want a maintenance tech, here’s the data, there’s not enough maintenance techs. So, you either have to train within, upskill, build that maintenance tech from within, from the ground up, or you’re going to have to pay above market to steal a maintenance tech from another company.” So, we bring that data in, we help them to see clearly what they’re up against, and then we let them make that decision.

So, that’s part of becoming a trusted advisor with your company as we’re coming prepared to help them understand the market. Some HR leaders, they understand it, they get it, but others, they’re just – they’re worried about retention every day. They’re focused on one meeting after the other, they just don’t have the time to look into the market like we do, and so they find value with us bringing that data to these meetings.

[0:42:26.2] David Folwell: So, it sounds like really digging in on the strategic partnership side and coming prepared with, “Here’s where you’re at, and here’s how we can actually solution for you.”

[0:42:33.6] Steven Farrell: That’s right.

[0:42:34.1] David Folwell: Which – and then it goes back to the discovery, right? Like, if you’re doing discovery at that level, you are understanding that there’s actually a problem you can help with and becoming a partner on that front. One of the areas that you also touched on is like the idea that staffing has been commoditized. I see that, hear it, hear people talk about it all the time. I’m curious to know why do you think that is, why do you think staffing is going through this phase of commoditization.

[0:42:58.1] Steven Farrell: Well, I hate to break it to you, but we’ve always been a commodity, and COVID exposed that, and so it forced everyone to look inward and go, “Okay, if I continue to be a commodity, I’m going to go out of business.” I cannot fight for the lowest price. You know, the appliance industry, I spent a few years in consulting, the appliance industry, if you go in and try to negotiate a hundred dollars, 200 hundred dollars off your washing machine, forget about it.

There are no margins in appliances. The margins are in the upsells, you know, the warranties and the service plans, things like that, and the reason that happened in appliance industries, you know, one guy in the corner would drop his price by a hundred, and then the other would drop it by 200, and so everyone just kept dropping their prices until there is no margins left, and that became the new MSRP.

That was the baseline with no margins, and so because the industry’s been struggling for 28 consecutive months, people are just looking for ways to get any business that they can, and I don’t blame them. I’ve done that too, but we have to look further than that because you can’t maintain 11% gross margin on an account for very long.

[0:44:04.7] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:44:06.2] Steven Farrell: And so, you have to come in with a different strategy. I’ll give you one example here to keep it short. Large customer I was going after, I went in there, they had another agency that they have full-time, was not getting the job done, and so I asked if I could tour the facility, talk to the supervisors, really understand the roles that they’re struggling in, and so I spent the next couple of hours in the facility talking to the line leads, asking them what their struggles have been when it comes to their – retaining their talent, and I got a really – a lot of good feedback, and I came back to the HR team, and I said, “I can see why it’s been so hard to keep people here. Like, this is a hard job, and you’re asking a lot.” And so, I was validating how hard it’s been for them and for their agency.

[0:44:50.2] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:44:50.8] Steven Farrell: And I said, “I’m going to be honest, I really don’t know if we can help you.” I was being completely honest. “I’m going to take everything l learned today, back to our operation’s leadership team, and I’m going to share all of it with them, and I’m going to ask them a single question. “Do you think we can do this?” If the answer is no, I’m going to tell you no. If the answer is “Yes” or “Maybe,” then we’re going to come up with a very specific plan of how we’re going to staff you successfully.”

And so, the team said, “Yeah, we think we can do this, but we’re not sure.” And I said, “Okay, well, let’s get sure, if we can do this or not.” And so, we mapped out our recruiting plan, we had our scope of work, we had our ramp-up plan, what it would look like, went through all of it for several hours, and then I went back to the customer in the next day, and I said, “We can do it, here’s what it will take, and by the way, I cannot do this without an onsite manager.”

“So, you’re going to have to pay for an onsite manager or this deal is off the table, and number two, I can’t do it at the rate you have with your current agency. I will be 3% higher.” Guess what happened?

[0:45:49.4] David Folwell: You got the deal. I mean, you actually told them what you need. I mean, you’re – again, on that the, I think, pushing back challenge or sale approach right there, and so – but also letting them know what you need and being a strategic partner, which is great, and I – it sounds like you guys are really leaning into the solution sale in the LNI space, versus the volume play, which is I think what –

I mean, that’s a trend that we’re seeing across all of staffing right now and then I would also just add to context for the audience, I think the solution sell operational efficiency, and one of the other playbooks that seems to be working in times like this is highly focusing on how your talent pool is unique and more valuable and you have access to something that they don’t. It’s amazing to me from somebody who has recently hired through a staffing agency on the IT side.

I actually went to – I tried, I did a competition job board versus the agency, and I let them know. I was very upfront about it but I was like, the thing that gets me is like, if you’re sourcing your talent from the same exact job board that somebody has access to, and Indeed is currently selling directly to your customers, and you’re saying, “That’s where we get all of our talent.” I think that it could be a hard position to be in.

And one of the ways that Dan Mori was just talking about was that you know, using your talent pool, the solution side of it as your unique value proposition, and that as you go to market as well. So, it sounds like you’re on track on both of those fronts, which is amazing.

[0:47:16.3] Steven Farrell: Well, you have to have well-equipped experienced recruiters sitting at the desk, finding the right talent, and even recruiting the right talent away from other organizations. Even in the high volume, you get an order for 200 people. You cannot do what we did in 2021 and just, “Oh, David, you got a pulse? Great, here’s your badge.”

[0:47:37.9] David Folwell: Yup.

[0:47:38.0] Steven Farrell: Those days are long gone. Even if the client is like, “Just get them filled, I don’t care.” No, they do care, and if they don’t care, then certainly their trainers and supervisors care because they’re the ones that are dealing with that personnel every day, and so, you have to treat every single hire, out of that 200, like it was just one hire and the account hinged on getting that hire right. You have to treat every hire like that.

[0:48:00.1] David Folwell: I actually don’t know the data on this. Do you guys measure any of the like, retention or the quality compared to what they were doing internally?

[0:48:09.1] Steven Farrell: We do, we do that with every customer, and we want to know their attrition rates, and then we want to benchmark that against ours.

[0:48:14.7] David Folwell: That’s amazing. So, you’re basically going and saying like, “You guys are hiring, then you have a 30% turnover with your hiring process. Let’s look at where we come in,” and you can actually show them our hires stay on contract longer, and so you can actually prove value from that perspective as well.

[0:48:28.9] Steven Farrell: That’s right.

[0:48:29.6] David Folwell: I love that. That’s great, but with that, we’re going to switch over to the speed round, this has been an awesome conversation. A few last questions for you, because I know we are at –

[0:48:37.5] Steven Farrell: All right.

[0:48:37.9] David Folwell: For, I think, probably the rest of the day.

[0:48:40.8] Steven Farrell: Let’s do it. We could go on for hours if you want.

[0:48:44.7] David Folwell: So, I noticed you’ve got a bunch of books behind you. What is the most influential book that has changed your approach to business or life, for yourself and/or, that you’ve gifted the most to people?

[0:48:54.7] Steven Farrell: That is such a hard answer because I was never a big reader, I was not a good student at school. I have severe ADHD, about 10 years ago –

[0:49:05.1] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:49:06.5] Steven Farrell: It’s a problem, right? About 10 years ago, I just found this love for reading, and I’m not talking about novels, you know, fiction. I’m talking about non-fiction, like history books, self-help, new age, you know, crazy stuff, like just – I love learning new things, and so, I read about 170 books a year.

[0:49:29.5] David Folwell: Wow.

[0:49:30.6] Steven Farrell: It’s not because I’m some sort of crazy speed reader. I just – I thoroughly enjoy reading it, I don’t watch TV, and so one book that helped really change the way I produce in my career, the way I’ve kind of – you know, especially when I worked with these large companies, one book that really helped me navigate the complexities of C-suite management and good leader versus bad leaders that we often find was, The 48 Laws of Power. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that book, have you read it, David?

[0:50:02.1] David Folwell: I have not read it, but I do have it, so. It was gifted to me.

[0:50:05.7] Steven Farrell: I think it’s a must-read for anyone, and you know, people read that book and go, “Wow, this is nasty.” Like, do I really have to be manipulative in the way I look at the world? No, it’s – this is how a lot of people operate in the world and you need to understand where they come from, so you can better navigate around some of, you know, the more challenging leaders, and also, you know, see the best and great leaders and that book really changed my career. It helped me not take things so personal, helped me manage my manager.

[0:50:37.0] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:50:37.8] Steven Farrell: I’ll tell you though, there is a book I just started this morning that was referenced on another podcast. I think I guess, on Haley Marketing, and that is The 12-Week Year. It’s all around productivity and –

[0:50:49.1] David Folwell: Yeah.

[0:50:48.8] Steven Farrell: So, I’ve read the first four chapters this morning and it is phenomenal. I can’t wait to dive in even more.

[0:50:56.7] David Folwell: I love it man, I’m going to check that out, and beyond kind of staffing and recruitment, what hobbies or interests? How do you recharge your battery? It sounds like reading might be one of the things, anything else?

[0:51:08.6] Steven Farrell: Reading, for sure. Trail running is my escape, where I can start thinking about things. Some of the best ideas that I’ve implemented in staffing came when I was on a 15-mile trail run. Living here in the Rockies in Utah, it’s easy to just escape and hit the trails, so that’s a big hobby of mine. Second to that is, you know, I got a daughter who has special needs, a rare genetic condition, only one of 20 people known in the world to have it.

[0:51:33.1] David Folwell: Wow.

[0:51:34.4] Steven Farrell: And so, my passion has been developing a group around this disease with the 20 other people in the world and doing the research and trying to source funding for real research into this condition so we can get some treatments or even a cure down the road, and so when I’m not trail running, when I’m not reading, I am working on this rare disease.

[0:51:53.1] David Folwell: That’s incredible and some great ways to recharge and some good insights that you shared today. Any closing comments for the audience?

[0:52:00.9] Steven Farrell: Yeah. The first one I’ll say thank you, David, for having me on. Again, big fan of the podcast, and I met you the first time at Dan Mori’s Staffing Sales Summit.

[0:52:08.7] David Folwell: Yeah, that was great.

[0:52:10.8] Steven Farrell: And, just appreciate you, let me share some of the insights here. This is just some closing thoughts is I want to speak to you, the sales rep, the business development manager, one in just a sea of sales reps throughout your organization. If you’re struggling like I think you are, like most people are, don’t rely on your organization to pull you out of this.

You’ve got to do it yourself, and all these tips that I shared today, besides maybe the marketing spend and some of the advanced softwares, you can do this all yourself. You can lean into it, spend time understanding the industry, the trends, understanding your market because it’s going to be unique compared to the nation, understand what’s happening, understand your customers and their business, dig into it.

Spend time researching them, yes, you’re going to get in trouble for not getting your hundred and fifty calls that week, but if you can get high-value accounts that produce great margins, no one’s going to complain. They’ll complain at first but over a couple of months after you show the results, you know, maybe they’re going to rethink how many calls you need to make to get to bring in the income goal or the revenue and GP that you bring in.

So, that’s my parting thoughts is sales reps that are out there, don’t give up, lean into it, develop your core skillsets, and find resources that are out there that can help you be more effective. With the advances of AI, there are AI bots out there now that can help you speed up this process when it comes to your prospecting and your workflows and to give you more time with your customers.

So, just keep leaning in, keep learning, be patient, this industry will turn around and if you can stick it out for the long haul, you will reap the dividends of all of your preparation and hard work right now, where you’re not really seeing much result from it.

[0:53:57.1] David Folwell: Awesome. Well, it’s a great insight again, Steven, really enjoyed the conversation with you. Thank you so much for joining today.

[0:54:03.3] Steven Farrell: Thank you.