How does your marketing strategy compare to the competition? Is your approach more tactical than strategic? In this episode of The Staffing Show podcast, Brad Bialy of Haley Marketing shares insights into rock star marketing and what the staffing industry can learn from professional sports, entertainment, and the largest online marketplaces.
David Folwell: Hello Everyone. Thanks again for joining us today at another episode of The Staffing Show. Today I am joined with Brad Bialy from Haley Marketing. Brad, super excited to have you here today, excited about our topic. To kick things off, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you plan on talking about today?
Brad Bialy: Great to be here, really appreciate the opportunity. My name is Bialy, been with Haley Marketing now going on eight years. We are a full service marketing agency dedicated to supporting the staffing and recruiting industry, doing everything from your traditional marketing, all the way to your new age marketing and everything in between. I oversee our digital team here at Haley as our Director of Digital Marketing, been working with clients throughout the country. Going on eight years now and really doing everything we can to drive more candidates and more clients for the clients that we partner with. Outside of work, incredibly passionate about sports, love sports, music, entertainment, so it’s a really good conversation here that we’re going to have David, because it’s a bunch of stuff that I’m super passionate about.
Folwell: Awesome. Yeah. I know the audience can’t see you right now but Brad is sitting here with some baseball cards and football cards and some collectibles back on his desk. And the topic today that we’re going to be going into is, what the staffing industry can learn from professional sports, entertainment, and the largest online marketplaces. Pretty excited to hear what you have to say, to kind of give maybe a little teaser for the audience, what can people expect from this podcast?
Bialy: This is one of my favorite talks that I’ve been giving lately. When I say I’ve worked at Haley for eight years, everything that I’ve been really doing on a day-to-day basis is working in this digital marketing ecosystem. But what I also do is I’ve worked in professional lacrosse for five seasons, I grew up playing the guitar so I’ve been playing guitar for 16 years, 17 years. I’m super passionate about entertainment, sports, and looking at and learning from those industries in seeing what we can bring to staffing and recruiting. It’s looking at how we can be more observant of these other spaces and then bring that to our industry so that we can have new age cutting edge different tactics in the digital landscape.
Folwell: That’s great. And I definitely think that there’s a lot that could be learned there and I’m excited to hear what you have to say about it. I know it sounds like we’re going to be going into some of the very specific tactics on how to build an audience, think like a fan, I’ve kind of went through a couple of things that you had passed over. Now, where would you like to start off on the talk?
Bialy: When you think about rock star marketing, I think you have to think through first your overall goals. And before we get into the tactics, it’s thinking through anything that you do with your marketing. You’re not just trying to replicate what your favorite sports team is doing or what your favorite band is doing. They have their own goals, they have their own objectives and they have a plan that’s built because of that. You as a staffing firm owner, as a recruiter, as a staffing specialist, you have your own goals and the tactics that you end up deploying should be aligned with those goals. So while yes, we could talk about what’s really working right now in sports and entertainment, I think the disclaimer here is also you have your own goals. Is it driving more candidates, driving more applications, or is it driving more clients and more prospects? Start there, almost start at the finish line and then work backwards.
Folwell: Yeah, I think that’s one of the mistakes I see agencies, actually business leaders across the board, software startups, it doesn’t really matter. Say jumping like what’s that one tactic that we need to do right now to grow? And it’s like, well, what are you trying to achieve? Start with the outcome in mind and kind of take a step back, be a little bit more strategic. So with that, take a little bit of a kind of right turn here, but what are some of the things that you see that staffing agencies are doing wrong today from a marketing perspective?
Bialy: It’s a great question. Staffing agencies, what are they doing wrong? I don’t want to speak as a stereotype and say everyone’s doing this wrong, but I think agencies that aren’t doing things right are looking very tactically. They’re saying, okay, how can I go viral on social media? Or how can I do X, Y, Z? They’re getting so tactical and thinking through, okay, how do I do one great picture on social media? They’re not thinking big picture and they’re not thinking about the overall strategy and understanding that marketing it’s a spider web. You need to be everywhere and you need to be doing different things so that you can attract those candidates, you can attract the prospects in different avenues. If you just have one part of that spider web, yeah, you might get some leads, you might get something to stick, but once you start deploying other things that are all aligned with your strategy, you bring this bigger approach, this whole spiderweb approach, then you have a better approach to your marketing.
So for me, great question David, when you think through what staffing agencies are doing wrong, I think it’s getting so tactical and getting so caught in the, I need to be doing this because somebody else is doing this and not thinking through the why you’re doing it in the first place. I know in talking ahead of the conversation here, you said you are a Tim Ferriss fan, we kind of talked about that a little bit. I’m a huge Simon Sinek fan myself and his book Start With Why, it really fundamentally changed how I started to see marketing. I was super passionate about the what, I want to be doing this new stuff on social, I want to be on Facebook live, I want to be doing a podcast, the what. But why are we doing it in the first place? And we need to start with that why.
Folwell: Could not agree more. And I think there’s a tendency, I would actually add to not only not be strategic, focus on tactical but I would argue and at the risk of maybe pissing a couple of people off that the marketing budgets and staffing, I don’t have the benchmarks out off the top of my head, but I think it might be one of the lightest industries for spend on marketing as an operating business. And it’s everybody has put some money into recruiters, I think that’s changing. I think the digital transformation is shifting that, people are starting to look at, all right well, where do I get the most out of my budget going forward? But I do think historically, I mean, there’s a 100 person staffing firms that don’t have a marketing person on staff and that kind of blows my mind still today as somebody who’s owned an agency, worked at a few different businesses.
Bialy: Yeah. And that marketing arm, it is a marketing budget and then there’s a recruitment marketing budget and we certainly understand that but what if we flip that logic and instead of it being a marketing budget, it’s just your digital sales rep or it’s your digital recruiter. It’s thinking through, yes, it’s marketing in the sense of my terms but what if your website was really seen as that way to capture leads, drive leads deeper into a funnel. What if your social presence, wasn’t a social marketing budget but instead it’s a social recruiter budget. And it’s just thinking through that logic.
Folwell: Yeah. And one thing on that front that I’ve actually kind of helped me, I think that gave me a framework for thinking about the importance of digital and how that impacts your brand is, if you actually think about your website is essentially a storefront. The internet is a giant mall, your website is your storefront. If I went to Best Buy and they did not have a single person to ask, to answer a question or help me out, I would never go to Best Buy. And what blows my mind is when someone is like, well, do we really have to resource our staff at all the time? It’s like, you have a 1,000 people visiting it every day, do you not want to engage with them, communicate with them, try to figure out what you can do better to serve them better. So I think that’s kind of a model that helped me kind of think about it in a different way and maybe, well, with some of the people that are listening today too.
So now that we’ve kind of touched on the what agencies are doing wrong, what should agencies be doing to differentiate their brand and how can they learn from professional sports and best practices on how to do that?
Bialy: Great question. The best agencies, the best firms, it’s thinking through your why, it’s thinking through that overall goal and it’s understanding that the tactics that you’re deploying are ultimately around the goal of driving more business or more candidates. And if you can have that picture in mind and you can have that clear destination in mind, then it all sort of starts to fall in place. Your goal shouldn’t be more followers on social, that’s a tactic, your goal shouldn’t be to create great thumb stopping imagery or a great blog article, that’s a tactic. The goal, we make money, I’m putting great people to work in great opportunities, I mean, that’s the goal. So how do we drive that traffic that way? Thinking through rock star marketing, I always start with building an audience and a quick story here for you.
Growing up I played guitars throughout Buffalo and I remember coming home after one of my first shows, playing at a coffee shop, super frustrated and my mom was thinking, Brad, I remember her sitting me down and saying, “Brad, what’s going on?” I said, “I played for one person and it was the girl making coffees at the coffee shop.” So I physically just played for the owner tonight. And she goes, “Well Brad, that’s okay because you never know who’s in the audience and you never know who’s listening and you have to play as if you’re playing for a 100,000 people or you’re playing for one person.”
And when I think through rock star marketing and I think through staffing and recruiting, you never know who’s looking for their next job opportunity. You never know who’s down on their luck on a random Thursday, your right messaging could hit them the right way and now they’re applying to a job on your website. We need to build that active audience and talk in a way that you never know who’s listening. One misconception that I hear time after time is that social media is a megaphone. Social media isn’t a megaphone, social media is a one-to-one conversation that you can have a 1,000 times over. Ultimately when you post on LinkedIn, you post on Facebook, Twitter, anywhere, one person is on the other end of their phone looking at that message, you’re just having that conversation a 1,000 times. So it starts with building an audience, we need an audience because we don’t know where that next opportunity is going to come from.
Folwell: I completely agree with that. And I mean, the first question that comes to mind is, how do you build an audience?
Bialy: I would start with a candidate database, I would start with a prospect database and work backwards. So again, and I know I’ve mentioned and I’m going to sound like a broken record, having a goal, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to drive candidate flow or are you trying to drive client flow? From there, start with the database. So if you have a prospect list, if you have a candidate list, use it, talk to those individuals, make sure that you’re reaching out to candidates frequently. Make sure that you’re staying in their inbox, you’re texting them, you’re surrounding them with your messaging because again, you don’t know when they’re going to be looking for their next job and you don’t know when you can provide value.
One thing that I struggle with, and I was just talking to a client out of Cleveland a week or so ago, he said, “Brad, every time we have a new job opening, my team is looking for a whole new run of candidates.” And I said, “Well, why aren’t you going back to the database that you’ve already vetted?” You’ve already put Brad Bialy on an assignment six months ago, why not send them out again? And we’re always looking for this new draft class instead of using the audience we’ve built. And it’s shocking, I get it, but we need to use that audience.
Folwell: I second that and wholeheartedly second that. The conversations I’ve had with agencies, they’re always looking at new applicants, not the 1,000 applicants. I mean, most of the time somebody in their database probably fits the role, if they know how to search it, communicate with them, keep the line of communication open. And one thing I was also going to add that I think might be valuable for it’s, I don’t know, have you ever heard of the ASK Method? I think it’s Ryan Levesque. One of my favorite books from a while back, but he actually talked about, as you were talking about building audience and talking to candidates, doubled down on that piece as well. Because I think this book basically talks about how do you build a product that has product market fit or get content that people will like. And it’s really simple — ask the people what their challenges are.
It’s like ask to have your recruiters talk about what challenges are you having and then use that to drive your content strategy, use that to drive your outreach, help them solve their day-to-day challenges on an ongoing basis. And I highly recommend that book for anybody that’s kind of looking for something that helps with the product market fit or just some ideas around marketing as well. So one of the other aspects that you have here is thinking like a fan, which from my perspective I’m thinking, all right, put yourself in your customer’s shoes, try to understand where they’re at, talk to the candidates. Is there anything else on that front that you’d like to elaborate on?
Bialy: So this is a topic and a concept really that Brian Fanzo has come up with. And he’s a mentor of mine, don’t really know him personally but somebody who I follow closely. He’s a digital thinker and just somebody who I really respect. And he has this think like a fan methodology that I include as a hat tip in my presentation to him. And he has a quote where he says, “Today’s consumers crave access.” And when you think about sports and you think about following your favorite sports team on social media across the internet, they’re not selling tickets, they’re selling the experience and they’re selling who they are as a team. We need to do that, we need to provide that access to our candidates, to our prospects, so that we can show them who we are.
And you’re probably thinking, well, Brad, it’s great if I’m the Buffalo Bills and I can post videos from inside the huddle or inside the locker room, that’s great access but what am I going to share? It’s thinking through how you can make the candidate experience better when someone does reach out to you, how can you make the client experience better when working with you. Document what it’s like to come into your office, document what it’s like to go through the application process. When someone walks through the front door, what are they going to see? What should they expect? What’s your COVID policy right now? What access can you give them to your recruiters, to your team, so that when somebody does have their first interview, they’re not awkward and shy and nervous but they feel like they already know you and they’re comfortable with you. So think like a fan again, heads-up to Brian Fanzo. It is right in line with thinking through what would you want to see if you are a fan of your staffing agency, just like what do you want to see as a fan of your favorite football or baseball team.
Folwell: And just to kind of iterate off of that, the thing that, I don’t know, I don’t have any data on this, but anecdotally I feel like there were times where you would have exclusivity on jobs, I feel like that used to be a more frequent thing. And now it feels like in a lot of verticals, everybody has the same 50 jobs and everybody is literally posting the same pay rate or the pay rate might vary a little bit, but you’re basically going after the same job and you’re trying to fight on margin. And so it’s like, well, how do you differentiate? And that’s where, I mean, you have to think about that candidate experience. I think that’s where everybody’s kind of shifting right now. There’s tools out there that are helping people with it, like Great Recruiters are actually looking at how are you measuring how your recruiter experience is with the candidate, and I think that’s going to be kind of where things have continued ahead for the staffing agencies.
I’m kind of jumping around a little bit here. And just so you guys that are listening know, he has a whole framework here on rock star marketing. We’re not going to go through every component of it but I’m going to kind of do the opposite of what we said in terms of looking at the outcomes and just take a couple of the things that I think are interesting and maybe a little bit more unique. You also had a remarketing like Amazon as one of their components here. I’m a huge fan of retargeting, remarketing, I’d love for you to just kind of dig in on that, share some insights with our audience.
Bialy: So when you think through Monster like Amazon, what they’re doing is they’re using remarketing and they’re using database management to their full advantage. Remarketing, everyone knows what it is, you’ve seen it. Even if you don’t know what it is, go to a site like Amazon, you look at a pair of shoes, you look at a book, you look at a hat, you go out to a site like Facebook or Google and that product follows you. I like to think of them as tracker ads because they’re following you all around the internet, that’s remarketing. Amazon is very good at it, most B2C brands are very good at it. We can do that too, we can put remarketing code on your website, on your job seeker pages, so that as a job seeker, as Brad Bialy looks at a job on your website, goes out to Facebook now he’s being surrounded by ads from your organization to come back and complete that application, to come back and apply.
That remarketing to me, when we first started really looking into remarketing, we found in looking at data that repeat visitors are twice as likely to apply than first time visitors to a website. And it makes perfect sense. You think through any sort of consumer purchase that you make, you don’t just wake up and say, oh, I’m going to buy this book and go and buy it, right? You think about it, you look at it, maybe a bigger purchase, right? You look at it, you buy it, you think about it then you buy it, a job is the exact same. You think through actually applying to a new job, it’s a scary process. You find a job on a staffing firm’s website, you leave, you think about it. Remarketing, pulls somebody back in to reapply and actually complete that application.
Folwell: I am such a huge fan of remarketing. And I honestly believe every company should be doing some form of it, especially for high intent remarketing, people that have visited a lot of pages on your site. I’ve consistently not been able to show a direct ROI on the click-through for the ads, but I strongly believe that the brand awareness, your subconscious seeing those ads, I’ve been able to track growth through businesses when we have that on and off. And actually I have a personal story on that that’s quite funny on the remarketing front. This maybe will help our audience if you’re not heavy into marketing or don’t know what remarketing is. My good friend from business school was sharing a computer with his soon-to-be fiancé, and he started ring shopping.
And he was ring shopping, looking for diamonds and then it was, oh, two weeks after he’d been shopping his soon-to-be fiancé was like, “Man, have you noticed the internet lately? There’s just diamond rings everywhere.” He called me and he was like, “Didn’t think about that happening.” So she got the hint a little early but it’s kind of a funny example of how the sites you visit, I would just call it the creepy advertising. It’s like you go to a site and now you’re going to be followed around with these ads but it’s a super powerful thing for all brands.
With that, instead of me picking out the next piece of your, the rock star marketing framework, are there any components that you would like to dig into a little further?
Bialy: Let’s talk about content sprints, because I think that’s a fun concept. And then maybe even get in a little bit of database management because I have some really nice examples there too. Content sprints, when you think about music and you think about bands, they’re putting out new songs almost every week. And in my presentation here, when we talked through rock star marketing, I have two examples. The first Lil Wayne the rapper, 280 songs, 11 are number one. So you think through a content sprint, guy is putting out new music almost every other day or was at least. 280 songs, only 11 climbed to the top of the charts.
Another example for you, The Beatles, 213 songs, only 20 number ones. So when you think through a content sprint and when you think through putting out content for your audience, create for the sake of creating because you like to do it, because you like to add value, you don’t know what content is going to be that unicorn content. What’s going to stand out, what is your audience going to love. You don’t know what’s going to be your next hit single so just create for the sake of creating. And David, I know you mentioned a book, there’s one that I like, it’s called They Ask You Answer, it’s by Marcus Sheridan, and that’s thinking through, okay, what questions is your audience actively thinking about? And how can you answer that question better than anybody else on the internet? That to me is a content sprint.
And I’m not saying that you need to have a weekly podcast, you have to do daily videos, you need to do daily blogs, you need to have daily, weekly infographics, think about what works best for you. I don’t really love to write, I used to write a lot, I would prefer to get in front of a microphone and talk, I’d prefer to do video content, that’s what works for me. Think through what works for you but really the lesson here from our good friend Lil Wayne is you don’t know what song is going to be number one but you have to just put out content for the sake of creation, love the creation process, and continue to grow from there.
Folwell: I love those stats, I had no idea he had so many songs. Lil Wayne is always… he hits my playlist every now and then.
Bialy: Yeah. Of course.
Folwell: So with that, how about database management? What are your thoughts around that?
Bialy: Database management is critical in staffing and recruiting and unfortunately often overlooked. Three examples for you from emails that I’ve received in the last month or so. The first Instacart, my wife and I love to use Instacart for our groceries, you pick your grocery list online, someone shops for you, you go to Wegmans, you pick it up, 30-second process, right? What I love about Instacart though, is every other week we get an email that says, reorder your items with one click, you click that button and the cart repopulates. We’re creatures of habit, we both know what fruits we like, we know what veggies we like, we know what sort of bagels we like in the morning, what coffee we like, repopulating that makes it so easy for us to order our standard grocery list.
How could you do that with the jobs on your job board? Can you have something that automatically populates that candidates are drawn back to apply again or back to submit a resume or submit an application? Another example from our friends at Amazon, they send out a monthly email newsletter about books that they think I’ll like based on my purchasing decisions. Are you doing that with candidates? If Brad Bialy applied to a marketing job on your job board a month ago, are you using that information and that data to your advantage to send an email saying, “Hey Brad, if you’re still looking for a marketing role, here’s three more that we have that are available,” use that data. And then the last is from Uber and this was a really cool example. I was speaking at a conference in Clearwater last month and I booked my first Uber in a year and a half because of COVID, having traveled with my wife and I booked my first one. Within two minutes I got an email that said, “Welcome back. We missed you, Brad.”
Not only did they put my name in the subject line, which I am a huge sucker for when it comes to automation, that personalized automation just absolutely blows my mind, I love when companies do that, but the whole message on the inside, “So happy you’re here, we have some exciting changes for you.” And they gave me a whole quick email about all the new changes and safety procedures that they’re running through with Uber so when I got in that car at the airport, I knew exactly what to expect. They used that data of me not having booked a car in a year to their advantage so that when I finally did they knew exactly what to say to me. Same respect staffing and recruiting, when a candidate comes back who hasn’t applied in six months, what are you doing? Is your messaging the exact same, “Thanks for the application, thanks for the apply” or is it, “Welcome back, Brad.” Are you having that personalized automation because you certainly can if you’re doing everything effectively.
Folwell: I love those examples and love those stories. Taking those stories a little bit further, I know Haley works with a lot of staffing agencies, I know you guys have been helping companies grow, find more applicants, do you have any specific stories or examples of staffing agencies that are doing things really well? Any kind of use cases?
Bialy: Yeah. Awesome example from a client I worked with just last week. So out of Cleveland, they were going to be sponsoring and working at a local farmers market. Sort of an atypical place for a staffing firm to be, right? Usually you’d go to a career event, you’d go to another event, but they thought it would be different if they brought a table to a farmer’s market because that’s where people are hanging out.
Folwell: Oh, that’s fun. That’s interesting.
Bialy: People are going to get their groceries, their produce so they wanted to be there too. We thought about database management throughout the week and I had said, “Hey, if you’re going to be there, why don’t we send out an email newsletter, an instant mail to your candidate database and say, ‘Hey, if you’re stopping by the farmer’s market this weekend, we’d love to chat and just see how you’ve been the last year.’” Nothing selling, we’re not talking about jobs in the email. The subject line was, “We’re excited to see you at the farmer’s market” and we put the city in there, too.
So we sent it out to 18,000 people on their candidate database then 2,000 people opened it up. So 2,000 people see that message now and all it is, is promoting a local farmer’s market, but it also ties in the fact that this company is super, super laser focused into their community, they’re passionate about the community, and I haven’t connected with this client yet this week, we have a call tomorrow, but I don’t know if anybody stopped by the table, I mean, that would be awesome too. It has that extra value because it’s that brand awareness and it’s just a fun way to use your database effectively.
Folwell: Yeah. I mean honestly, something like that. I think a lot of times people get lost in that, well, how many applicants did we get from that specific email? And it’s like, well, you may not have got one that you might be able to tie back directly, but something like that might make somebody who’s on the fence working with another agency and they’re like, oh, well, these guys are local, they care about the farmers market, I care about the farmers market, it might lean them towards you down the road. So I think that that’s a great example and a great use case.
So we kind of talked about some of the rock star marketing tactics, some of the things that you recommend in terms of building an audience. We all know that there’s a ton changing in the staffing industry right now, I mean, I think every podcast that I’ve had so far this year has been talking about how the digital transformation is accelerated, everybody is kind of stepping into what’s next. And I know you had kind of mentioned learning from online marketplaces, what do you kind of see as the future of staffing agencies? Where do you see things going?
Bialy: Right now it’s all about recruiting and it’s all about finding good talent and finding the right people. When you think through where we’re headed in the next short-term and even for the foreseeable 2021, I think it’s getting more strategic with our databases and using them to our advantage. The clients that we’re working with are using more of that marketing automation, they’re using database management effectively, but it’s thinking through what else can you do with that database. Are you surrounding that email list of, say a 100 people just to make it easy, are you running ads to those people on Facebook? Are you emailing them every other week? Are you texting them every other week? Are you asking for referrals? Are you just dropping in with a simple phone call? Are you sending them physical, tangible mail? I mean, if we’re having people on our payroll, we have their addresses, are you sending postcards and actually dropping in that way?
Thinking through database management for me has been super, super interesting because it’s how can you holistically look at the candidate experience and surround Brad Bialy the applicant with messaging because you don’t know where someone is going to be looking and you don’t know how they’re going to see their next message. Now it’s just like the evening news, some people get their evening news on Twitter, some people watch the news in the morning, some people listen to it, some people might get the newspaper, I don’t know who anymore, but you don’t know where they’re going to consume that news. You don’t know where an applicant is going to consume your next message, so you need to surround them and make sure that it’s everywhere.
Folwell: And actually I remember when David Searns was on the podcast, he was talking about how you guys have had a lot of success with direct mail with doing campaigns on that front. Which is interesting because I’ve always been a fan of direct mail, I feel like it’s kind of like every single channel when it comes to marketing, one channel gets overwhelmed, everybody moves away from it, now there’s an open opportunity to go back to it and use it again, I mean, we’ve actually had some success with direct mail campaigns as well. Have you been doing direct mailers or seen direct mailers being successful on the candidate front?
Bialy: So I talked about it. I don’t know that we’re actually rolling it out for anyone yet, but I love the thought of it. Where we are using a lot of direct mail is more on the client prospecting side of the house. What I love about that though is not just having a 13-week postcard campaign, but surrounding that with other things. Is your blogging program talking about the same topics? Is your social tied to the campaign that is your direct mail? If you’re doing video or podcasting, are you talking about similar themes and similar topics? Can individuals scan a QR code on that postcard and go to a landing page where they can learn more on your website? And we’re working people through that funnel. It’s thinking more big picture and not just, hey, here’s a 13-week postcard that we’re going to send out and bog down our admin staff, but how are we collectively going to have this messaging be the next quarter of everything that we do.
Folwell: I love that. And I actually had a couple of direct mail campaigns, one that I think they’re always fun to talk about because when people get really creative and go high-end direct mail. When I was CMO at Hotel Engine, there was a private equity firm that had reached out to the president and sent a 100 one dollar bills in a package and said, I would like 15 minutes of your time, I promise you it’s worth it. I was like, guess what? They got the call. And I’m sure hopefully they did their math correctly and they knew that, hey, for every 10 of these we get a deal over the line or whatever that is, they ran the numbers and have the model in place. But I always love hearing ideas on the unique ways to communicate and reach out to people.
Bialy: Yeah, I love it.
Folwell: So with that, here I want to jump into some of the kind of more personal, fun questions, get to know a little bit more about you. First of all, in the last five years, what new belief behavior or habit has most improved your life?
Bialy: I’m going to relate this back to a favorite book of mine so, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, it’s all about getting 1% better every single day. And that sort of methodology, when I read that book, really changed a lot of how I saw things. If I can just get 1% better every single day, that starts to compound on itself and at the end of the year, you’re pretty darn successful. You think through a workout program, I’m not going to bench press 225 tomorrow, but if I start adding half a pound every couple of days and you start really working into that, yeah, you break it down and you get better. And I love the whole thought process of getting 1% better in key areas of your life every single day, and it’s relationships, it’s business, it’s work, it’s your personal life. If it’s your faith or your religion, your finances, how can you laser in on that and just get 1% better every single day.
Folwell: Love that, I have not picked up that book but I’m going to add it to the list. One of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.
Bialy: One of the best investments I ever made… Great question. I will say-
David: Getting 1% better every day?
Bialy: Yeah, I think that’s probably it. It might sound foolish, but just understanding that if you read 10 pages a day, the amount of books that you can get through in a year is sizable. And I think there’s the investment of consistently trying to make yourself better, whether it’s mentally, physically, whatever it might be, I pay super close attention to that. So I would say that just the overall investment in myself and just trying to get better for not only me but those around me and try to be the best version of myself for others.
Folwell: Love it. And what are the bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Bialy: Bad recommendations are chase the latest and greatest, the new shiny object. I got to be on TikTok because I see other people on TikTok or I have to be doing this, this, and this because I see my favorite band doing that. The whole concept of rock star marketing is this is others are doing, this is how we can relate it to staffing, but you don’t need to do it all, do what works best for you. I think there’s a lot of marketers who are brilliant people who educate others on just chasing the new shiny object instead of really thinking through the foundation, starting with why. And that’s really what we try to preach at Haley, it’s why are you doing the things you’re doing? What are your overall goals? And then how can we deploy the strategies and tactics to help you reach those business goals?
Folwell: Love it. And this wasn’t on the list of questions initially but since we’ve been talking about it, which professional athlete do you think has done the best job of rock star marketing or is the best example or a portrayal of what you’ve been talking about? It could be a musician, entertainer or whatever, just kind of thinking about who do you see as a kind of living what you’re talking about in terms of rock star marketing?
Bialy: Right now top of mind will be Trevor Bauer, pitcher. He’s all over social media, he’s super invested in the content, he puts out video content all the time. He isn’t afraid to chirp back when fans get negative with him, he’s also very much aware of what’s going on around him and when he’s failing he’s okay admitting that. So top of my head, I would say him. I also think he’s authentic and it’s truly him, you know what I mean? It’s not a false variation of who he might be. I think what you see is what you get with him on social, so I would say Trevor Bauer.
Folwell: Awesome. And with that, I do have to know, you got the cards sitting out behind you, I can’t see who they are, but what are the collectible, these prize possessions, sitting behind you?
Bialy: So the two that you can see here is Josh Allen, Rookie, because I’m a massive Bills fan. And then the one next to that is Zion Williamson Downtown Card that my wife actually pulled out of a pack. A pretty funny story, my wife pulls all the good cards whenever we open up a pack of cards. I can open up 20 packs, get nothing good. She pulled this one here and it’s a super rare version of a Zion Rookie that I got graded and love it now so, we’re going to hold on to that one just cause she pulled it.
Folwell: I thought you were just buying the collectible cards, I didn’t realize you’re actually going back buying the packs and doing the digging, that’s amazing.
Bialy: It’s an adventure. I mean, there’s a lot going on here. Sometimes you’re buying singles, sometimes you’re buying packs and you’re chasing that golden ticket. In this case that was one of the golden tickets that I’ve pulled, or she’s pulled, rather.
David: That is great. And then the last question I have is, how has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success?
Bialy: I’m all for failure. I think failure is the only way that you learn and develop. If you’re only riding on positivity and you’re only riding on your successes, it’s super easy to get complacent. I think looking at failure as a learning opportunity is something that my parents taught me super early on. Learning that every opportunity is a chance to grow and develop, so I love admitting failure. I’m sure my team knows I do it quite frequently, I’m okay admitting when things don’t go right and that’s how you develop and that’s how you get better. We’re all here to get 1% better every day and if I have the blinders on and I think everything is just going great, then I’m not doing my job and getting better for those around me.
Folwell: Great answer. So with that, are there any closing comments, anything else that you’d like to share with our audience today?
Bialy: Think through your marketing. Start with why, go backwards from there, don’t start with the tactics. We’re all marketing rock stars, we can all be marketing rock stars. Just because you’re in staffing and you’re looking for putting great people to work in great opportunities doesn’t mean that your marketing has to be boring, it can be like a professional sports team, like a band, like Amazon and Google and Nike. Think through your why, start with your why, and go backwards from there.
Folwell: Thanks again, Brad. I really appreciate all the insight and I hope all of you that are listening today have some key takeaways from this and can implement and/or think about applying some of the rock star marketing methodology to your staffing agency and consider talking to Haley. It seems like they’ve got a team in place to help you move that forward. Thanks again for being on Brad, really appreciate it.
Bialy: Had a great time, thanks so much.
