I can’t imagine working for weeks on a recruiting assignment on speculation;  rushing to send in the resumes of Candidates I may not have even met or fully screened because the focus is on getting the placement, not recruiting a peak performer.

At zenPeak we recruit peak performers and the good news is our fees are lower than any Recruiter we have heard of!

Not only that – our system is front-loaded and high-compliance, so Clients don’t waste their time on reviewing all those unscreened resumes.

Here is one of our secrets… because we don’t work on assignments we don’t get paid for, and we are super efficient (while still high-compliance), our fees are as low as 10%

Call us if you are looking to hire really good people. If you are tired of being disappointed with the people you hire, or paying  ridiculous high fees to Recruiters, then…. consider a different approach where we do the work and you save time and money.

Frank Abrams 416 733-3001

One failure at MF Global was not having order entry systems to prevent the buildup of large unauthorized positions, by locking out the broker, or requiring approval by management.  What if the problem was fat fingers or a computer glitch, or even a stuck computer key on a keyboard?!

But just as importantly, in an industry where orders are given by voice, and even hand signal,  knowing WHO you empower in your company to transact those trades is paramount. In such a high risk and high-trust environment, like in a hospital surgical theater or in a nuclear missile silo, banks and brokerages need to have a complete toolkit to mitigate these catastrophic risks.

The solution is a combination of internal watchdog systems that use trading patterns, fuzzy logic and neural networks to instantly detect problems in real-time, along with a program of independent testing and assessment to evaluate whether or not the firm’s current or prospective employees, are potentially the next front-page news rogue trader.

I was an employee at MF Global at the time of this incident, and could chronicle the significant damage this event, and the operational reaction, did to the company’s brokers ability to carry on normal business. I won’t get into it because my interest is not in the blame game. My interest is in testing and assessing people to ensure peak work performance in high-risk and high-trust jobs.

The guest talked about one result of GM/Ford/Chrysler failures, would be a shortage of the cars, bringing about higher prices and no buying incentives. Supply and Demand.

For a person starting a new business this could be a time of opportunity. As stores and offices close up, the supply of goods and services shrinks. If your goods and services are what people want, there will be demand, and you will be surrounded by dropping supply.  Entrenched businesses will be in survival mode, service will likely slip, and they will lose customers.

If your dream is to open a store, or if you need an office… your rent costs will shrunk because of too much supply.  Now, you can probably go month to month as a start, or sign a more advantageous lease from a desperate landlord.

If you need to hire staff or seek out a partner, the best people will be more receptive  and will likely work for less $. This gives you an opportunity you didn’t have a year ago.

Is it a great time for wage earners and job security?… no.  But is this a new trend?… no.

There is a saying in the brokerage business that the best time to start is in a bad market. Brokers stop calling their clients, and clients are ready to switch if you have a sound investment idea. In a rising market everyone is a genius and people don’t switch. A great investment idea now is a safe deposit with federal government FDIC guarantees. Tomorrow it might be a stock that is emerging from the recession with growing revenues and earnings.

I think the same applies to many businesses as these tumultuous times shake up traditional behaviors, and loosen up relationships, so customers will give the feisty upstart a chance!

Today, I am excited about the future of Canada and the United States.

If you are in the game of registering people and collecting their emails, setup a facebook page and direct your traffic to it. No worries, people don’t have to be signed up at facebook to see your page OR TO ENTER THEIR DATA!

I discovered this by accident when I have been unable to get into FB this am. and popped one of my pages.

Then it dawned on me… some folks don’t need a microsite or blog unless they are restricting access pending a registration.

OK so maybe its not for everyone but a useful tool.

All the work and preparation to setup the meetup, invite people, pay for it, create content will fall on your shoulders. Don’t expect to share the work – the committee system doesn’t work and that’s not what meetup members want. If you are prepared to be subject-focused and not your product or company focused, the meetup will be a success!

At the end of every meetup, its time for one minute of democracy. Ask group members about how its going? And, when would they like to meet next etc. Get some feedback. That will help you run a better meetup with higher levels of satisfaction. Every member gets to rate the meetup – you let them leave with the feeling that they are getting great value but also participating in the direction of the meetup group. When they get home, an email from meetup is waiting for them in their inbox, asking them to rate the meetup – What’s the last thing they remember?

What companies want to prevent is the short shrift – unfair attacks that are allowed to gain strength, or legitimate complaints that fall on deaf ears – a neglected unhappy customer who starts to influence a lot of others, because they aren’t feeling the love.

Instead of spending money on “buzz” marketing where people fake interest in a product or service, or instead of camouflaging a corporate voice in an online network, how about showing pride and stepping into the fray in a transparent fashion.

Here is a link to a flickr album that has been viewed by 379,000 + people.  It has pictures of a dirty Wal-Mart store. Are all Wal-Marts dirty? – no.  Hmmm Its hard to tell from the comments.

http://tinyurl.com/6mutkr

Next post, I’ll start a series on which Social Networks companies should use, why and how.

Facebook pages have been out for a month or two. I have two fan pages; one for Frank Sinatra and another for Stevie Ray Vaughan. Both pages have music that I love. Fans can listen but can’t copy the tunes (which I paid for).

Facebook provides information on who your page fans are. For example you get stats on daily traffic; unique visitors, page views and stats on usage of FB apps in the page. You also get stats on fan sex and age.

So here is what I have learned about my  two fan pages.

The Frank Sinatra page  has over 500 fans and they are split 45% female 55% male, with 55% of fans between ages 18 to 24! That surprised me! and another 21% between ages 25 and 34.

Only 7% of Sinatra page fans are above age 35! If you assume that Frank Sinatra has timeless popularity, I would guess this reflects the age distribution of Facebook.

The Stevie Ray Vaughan page has been up a week and has 87 fans.   This page skews heavily to male with 93% male and 7 % female fans. The age distribution is a little older with 17% above 35 years of age, and 66% between 18 and 35 (vs. 76%  for the Frank Sinatra fan page)

By looking at the networks of the fans you can also get a geographic metric – for example, my Frank Sinatra page has a lot of  fans from Turkey. (this you have to do  on your own – not a facebook stat)

Here is the point. If you want to drive traffic to your facebook page, and from there have a "call to action" on the web etc. – you will know about your present Facebook page fan base, and you can use Facebook advertising to target your advertising.

English 35.1 %
Japanese 8.9 %
German 6.7 %
Chinese 6.1 %
French 5.3 %
Italian 3.8 %
Spanish 4.2 %

Consider the diminishing returns and poor ROI unless your company has significant operations in a local language.

http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/members/res_cgi.php/0709_countries_and_languages.php

Its a constructive social networking case study of a big company, being responsive in dealing with squeaky wheels and bad press. The Dell website traffic numbers after the Aug. 2006 event, show that the web is the critical service information channel.

IMO when someone has a bully pulpit, in any media, and is unfair and unbalanced, lets first give the consumer some credit for their intelligence and fairness, present the facts, ask for forgiveness, and get to the heart of solving problems. Thats what Dell did with bundles of transparency and quick action.

Dude… you got some good service from DELL!

Other companies should follow suit and not wait for disasters or lousy service to erode their business.

BTW…Ask me about how in my mind, Apple ripped me off in the 1990s for $13,000. in royalty profits from my CD-ROM "Search for Ancient Wisdom"  that was in the Apple CD-ROM collection, by using a middleman publisher (Double Impact Multimedia) that went bankrupt just when the checks were supposed to be mailed. Apple did nothing for the designers, developers and creatives for ours and many other titles.  Today, I would blog that injustice so nasty 24/7 – we would see their response and how they fix the problem.