Cloud Nine Staffing

A lot of changes have been happening over the last several months at Cloud Nine! We’ve gone through a team shift and it’s time to update the rest of the world, so that you can keep up. The first piece of news is that Kyeli and Pace have decided to move on, after providing an incredible amount of positive energy and momentum in getting Cloud Nine off the ground. Right now they are both working on the Usual Error Project, teaching creative, mindful solutions to all kinds of communication problems. They are both really passionate about the work they’re doing, so feel free to take a moment to visit them and say hi (the Usual Error Project website is right here). We expect great things from them and wish them well!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we’re busting out all over with new team members!

We are incredibly privileged to be joined by Willi Dennis. Willi is the new Director of our Talent Department. She brings with her over 15 years of experience in recruiting and hiring. Not only has she managed hiring and HR for others, Willi has also built and sold two highly successful businesses, and been one half of an executive team that built two more companies, one of which won Microsoft’s award for one of 1997’s three most innovative new technologies. Willi has a gift not only for discovering the real candidate behind the interview persona, but also for making amazing fits between prospective employees and employers based on needs, personalities and office culture. This makes it certain that everyone is thrilled with the match. I met Willi through dancing, she is also an avid dancer who competes nationally with her instructor Richard and her partner Gene.

We’re also very lucky to have acquired Greg Roberts as our new Account Representative. Greg’s background is helping small businesses find solutions that work for them. Greg shares our philosophy of being trusted advisors to small businesses; talking to them about their needs and selecting the best solution, even if it’s not us. He is an outstanding addition and our clients are already raving about his consultative style. Greg is really into Country music and has even had some record releases and performed with bands throughout the state of Texas.

Finally, we’ve promoted one of our Admin Angels. Malinda Watson started out working on our Virtual Assistant team. Over this past year, she’s helped with everything from spreadsheets to phone calls to product assembly for our clients. Now, thanks to her management background and the amazing training that Willi provided, she is helping Willi scan the resumes that come in to get the right people into our interview process. Malinda is a proud mother of two, one boy and one girl and teaches a mean Zumba class!

In the oldie but goodie category, Megan Elizabeth Morris remains with us as our diva of all things web and social media related (if you’re reading this, Megan posted it). We’re so lucky to have someone with a combination of skill, experience, and personality to coordinate our web presence. If you’d like more information about what she does, you can find Virtual Magpie’s website here.

Finally there’s me, Ragen Chastain. Cloud Nine Staffing started as my brain child while I was doing operations consulting for small businesses full-time. We would get clients systems in place, but then they’d get stuck again — “can’t get any bigger until I get help, can’t afford help until I get bigger”. I started matching experienced admins who wanted a little extra work with small businesses who needed a little extra help. Several years, a lot of planning, research, blood, sweat, tears, and a name change later, we are a full service staffing agency who works exclusively with small businesses. Of course I’m proud of all of the work that we do placing part and full time admins, but I’m perhaps most proud of the fact that we still help small businesses who can only afford a few hours here and there to get the best quality help and make the most of those hours.

Somebody asked me the other day “If you knew that money would never be an issue, what would you do with your business?”

My answer? Exactly what we’re doing now. Maybe it’s cheesy, but the truth is we are having amazing success with all kinds of clients. We’ve been placing full-time and part-time admins, bookkeepers and telemarketers, and our Virtual Assistant business is really growing as well. We started off to create a staffing company that would serve small businesses exclusively, with the highest level of talent and integrity… and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Doing it right really does work and that’s the best Cloud Nine News of all!

When you are a business person, you hear a lot that building a business is a “marathon, not a sprint”. Ostensibly, this is meant to convey the idea that you have to go long term so you shouldn’t go fast and push hard because you may run out of energy over the long haul.

I recently watched a pretty amazing documentary called “Spirit of the Marathon”. It followed people through their preparation and running of a marathon.

One was a college student in her first marathon. She said: “My friends asked me if I thought I was going to win and I said no, not at all, I’m just in it to finish.” Her plan was to walk a little, jog a little. She was training with a running group who had the same goals.

Another was a man in his late 60’s. He said: “I want to improve over my time from the last one but I’m in it for the t-shirt” [Which is to say he had no expectation of winning]. His strategy was to try to jog at a slow pace the whole time. He was training with a more aggressive running group.

The third was an elite athlete. She said: “I want to win.” Her strategy was to run her ass off. She had a training regimen, a diet regimen, a personal trainer and massage therapist - all of which were at an elite level themselves.

So what happened?

The college student finished.

The older gentleman finished and beat his time.

The elite athlete did not win but she was in the top three. Her time averaged out to a five minute mile. No, seriously - a five minute mile…every mile…for 26.2 miles.

What does this have to do with business?

So, back to our analogy that building a business is a “marathon and not a sprint”. Well, it turns out that the people who win marathons SPRINT the marathon. (Try running ONE five minute mile let alone 26.2 of the buggers.) They don’t say, ‘well…I have a long way to go so I’m going to hold back’. They say, ‘I have a long way to go, so let’s get after it, push as long and hard as I can and see what happens. I’ll rest IF I collapse but I won’t let a fear of collapse hold me back from seeing what I can truly accomplish’.

So let’s dig a little further - what allows someone to do that seemingly inhuman feat? If we look back at the movie we see that it’s the time-honored combination of training, dedication, hard-headedness and surrounding yourself with people who are elite in their field. If our elite athlete’s massage therapist was second rate, she could easily have been sidelined with an injury and not able to compete at all - even at the college students walk/slow jog pace.

Now, all three succeeded at their goal - they ran 26.2 miles and let’s not think that I would, even for a moment, take anything away from them. I don’t even want to drive that far that early in the morning. There is a distinct difference, however, in what it takes to finish and what it takes to be the best.

In my experience the college student types usually don’t last too long in business…they don’t sweat the details, make excuses, and decide that a call can be returned tomorrow or on Friday. They surround themselves with other people who are doing business as a hobby, they always let their personal lives take precedence over their business. At some point the well dries up or it gets too tough and they get jobs. By starting a business they still accomplished a goal very few do - they finished the race at their own pace and by their own goals and that’s just fine.

Then there are those who are happy just to be a little better than the day before. Their businesses usually succeed to become “lifestyle” businesses. They almost always require that the owner be the main part of the business and they almost never make more than a subsistence living, which is fine for their owners. They have also accomplished their goal and finished their race on their own terms.

Then, there are the sprinters. The movers and shakers, the innovators, the fearless, driving few who make things happen. Seen by others as maybe obsessive compulsive, or just a little crazy, they are the elite. They are in it to be the best. They are sprinting the marathon, taking the pain and being mentally tough. Watching them grab a Gatorade on the fly, the other business folks shake their heads, but can’t hide a bit of awe and maybe even envy in their eyes. It is not enough, however, to be an elite business person - it’s true that we are the company we keep. It’s not that the sprinters are better or worse, they are just at a different level with different goals and they must surround themselves with the same type of people or downshift. That’s really hit home for me with my current 21-day productivity “Eagles” group. It’s just a different deal when you work with people who are in it to be the best.

So here we are at Cloud Nine, sprinting the business marathon, taking the pain and being mentally tough. We’re just going to slam these powergels and keep moving forward because that’s how it all happens – for us, that’s where the magic is. To quote one of my favorite authors:

“I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.” -Og Mandino

Friday’s meeting was really eye-opening for us. From the very beginning as Cloud Nine Staffing we wanted to help people, but it’s grown over time. That need to help has become a sort of drive, a need, and we’ve realized lately how incredibly important it is to us that we make a difference in the way this industry works. There are too many people feeling trapped into one way of doing things — and so often that way of doing things fails to be successful or efficient, much less conscious or compassionate!

But our view of what needs help is limited by, well, ourselves. We are only a handful of people working from our own perspectives, our own life stories. And that’s done well for us so far, but we want to push further. We want to understand the difference that needs to be made across the board, not just in our lives and in the lives of people we know personally, but in the lives of everyone with an unfulfilling experience in the staffing industry. Yes, temps. Business owners. Staffing professionals. Human resources directors. And beyond that, maybe even anyone who wants a positive, effective relationship with someone they work with. That’s really important. That’s what we want to give our clients and Angels: A positive, effective working partnership that is based not on the bottom line, but on mutual benefit.

So here’s our line, and we really mean it: How can we help you?

I’m completely serious. I want you to email me — do it, click that link right now — and tell me how we can help you. We will read through all the responses we get, and we’ll post about them — and they can be a beacon for us, guide us to the paths that will make us most effective, most powerful, most capable of making a difference!

You might be a business owner, or someone working a temp job right now. You might be thinking about working with a temp agency in the near future, or years out of practice. You might be anyone at all connected to the staffing industry. You might be someone concerned about a friend with a temp job she hates. You might be somebody’s son or daughter or grandparent, connected in some way with a business that needs administrative staffing service. I even want to hear from those whose connections to the staffing industry are tentative — if you think you can give us a direction to move in that allows us to really help people in this industry, we want your email.

In an industry where so many good citizens get shuffled underfoot and business owners feel pressed to think about the bottom line, the bottom line, the bottom line — instead of people! – we know we can make a difference. And we want you to help us focus our energies in the best ways possible.

Here’s that link again: Please tell us how we can help.

Our beloved 2007 is coming to a close, but as 2008 begins in our new offices we’re barely hanging onto our excitement: The paint is drying just in time for the next coat, the furniture is on its way, and we’re putting the finishing touches on things we’ve anticipated for months. How appropriate that it should all come together as the year turns over! Everything is shaping up beautifully.

We hope you have similar gleeful anticipation of something fantastic, because it feels so good — and we’d like to wish you a glorious New Year!

I’m a software engineer who majored in Logic & Computation. This probably tells you something about the way I think and the way I approach problems. When I first started working for Cloud Nine Staffing, I approached the problem of HR like I would approach any other engineering problem. I asked myself questions like “What is the conditional probability that someone will stay on the job for at least N days given that they gave answer A to interview question B?” I thought of Human Resources as sort of a cross between Statistics and Psychology.

Boy, was I wrong. The current “state of the art” is more like a cross between Chaos and Guesswork.

When I first started helping Kyeli as Cloud Nine Staffing’s CTO, I did a bunch of research to find out the answers to the kinds of questions I had been asking myself. And I found nothing. In fact, I found articles like this:

The thesis of this article is that HRM research falls short on all three of the criteria that define a successful science: rigor, relevance, cumulative progress.

The little I did find that seemed to have actual scientific and statistical grounding was closely guarded and proprietary, like the statistics behind the SOS survey.

So one of my my goals for Cloud Nine Staffing is to give our process a solid scientific and statistical grounding. This doesn’t mean I want to make all our Admin Angels into numbers and grind them into cogs in our machine; that’s exactly the opposite of how we want our company to be. I believe we can have both. We can be kind and caring while still being scientists; we don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.

But sheesh, have I got my work cut out for me. (:

This week I finished Fast Food Nation, a book by Eric Schlosser that people seem to know from the movie of the same name. It’s no secret that I’m nuts over food books these days, but this one has started me on lines of thought that have nothing to do with food — or at least, the kind you eat.

I was quite surprised to find myself thinking more about business than food, in fact. (And while no one’s surprised that I’m thinking about business again, I wouldn’t have expected a book on the evils of fast food to be my catalyst. But then, what do I know?)

Fast Food Nation is a fascinating glimpse into the heart of a particular breed of American entrepreneur. It starts out white and fluffy, but turns progressively darker. It feels good to watch someone build an empire out of nothing, but it doesn’t feel so good to realize what some have overlooked on the way — things like life, care, human decency. It gives you sort of a sinking feeling in your stomach, actually.

Many industries do a lot of rotten things in the pursuit of profit. In our culture I think we’ve come to expect it, to not let it surprise us. Lying, cheating, stealing isn’t the half of it. Disregard for human life is at the top of the list more often than you might think. And sure, we can talk about the food industry, but it happens everywhere. People are treated like children, or robots, or perhaps something more dispensable. And to come a bit closer to the point, when we say that there are companies out there treating their employees like cogs in a machine, it’s not a marketing gloss — it’s true. (Unfortunately, some of us know from experience.)

But there’s nothing inevitable about this cold capitalist wasteland that surrounds us — not the interruption marketing, the casual trickery, the disregard for life, the cash-centric approach to business, the relentless drive for more efficiency at all costs. We found that out when we started doing our own thing — that providing a service and getting paid to do it didn’t mean sacrificing everything we believed in just to pay the bills. In fact, we suspect that doing what we believe in will “pay the bills” far better than any other pastime, and while our electric stays on, we’ll be feeding our souls. (I knew food would figure into this somewhere.)

It’s increasingly clear that we don’t have to make our fortune at anyone’s expense — and we want to make it at everyone’s benefit, whenever possible. We think respectful and responsible are important. Proponents of conscious capitalism suggest that we have a duty to change the world if we think we can do so, and it’s not a bad idea. We want to leave the world a better place than we found it, and we think we can do that. We think you probably can, too.

Just… think about it.

At Cloud Nine Staffing we do things that are cutting edge, state-of-the-art and revolutionary.

One of those things is the way that we provide benefits for our employees. All of our employees get health, vision, dental, prescription and chiropractic through a group discount plan. Our company pays 100% of the cost of this plan, and enroll them in the program on their first day. We also have a benefits budget set aside for them that they can “spend” as they like on various benefits. Two of the things we would like them to be able to spend that money on are pre-tax contributions to a 401(k) and/or HSA (Health Savings Accounts).

This is not normally how these things are done. At a “standard” company you can contribute out of your salary only; if you get benefits, the company will tell you what benefits you want — and you’ll by-god like them! We never want to be a standard company, so this is not solution for us.

Fast forward to my fourth (soon to become fifth) hour on the phone dealing with setting up HSA plans: I have started to put ticks on my notepad for the number of times that I hear the words “What companies usually do is…” In four hours, I’m up to 24 ticks. Finally, I just… lose it.

The following is the conversation that transpired when I interrupted the conversation:

Ragen: “Wait… do you have anyone there who is new?”
Experienced HSA Person: “Um, what…?”
Ragen: “Someone new — I mean brand new — someone who just got there today and barely has their computer hooked up. Do you have anyone like that?”
Experienced HSA Person: “Um, huh…?”
Ragen: “WAIT! Better yet even — do you have someone who is in trouble with your boss all the time for breaking the rules? You know what I mean… someone who is always in the office getting yelled at but the clients love them so they don’t fire them…”
Experienced HSA Person (finally regaining some composure): “Ma’am, I have many years of experience in this field. I am very well versed in how companies usually handle these things…”
Ragen (making tick number 25): “That’s exactly my problem. I didn’t start a company to do what companies usually do. Obviously, there are already companies out there doing that so what would be the point? I started a company to do what NO company has ever done and although you are trying to be helpful, you are in fact standing squarely in my way. I completely understand if you operate under the norm. Most people do, but I and my company do not. I’m just looking for a little vision here, so I’m guessing that a new person or a trouble-maker would be the representative for me — do you have someone like that?”

And then he hung up on me.

There’s a gift in every seemingly wasted four-almost-five-hours, and in this case the gift for me was in remembering what I want this company to be for our clients. I want to be the company where every employee says, “Wow, I’ve never heard of doing that before — let’s see how we can get it done.” I want to be a rule-breaking, trend-setting, renegade staffing agency that makes our clients and our employees happier than they even knew was possible, because we are groundbreaking even when being groundbreaking is hard. Twenty years from now when some company wants to give their employees money to spend as they like on benefits they will actually use, an Experienced HSA Person will say “That’s no problem, that’s how companies usually do it…”

And I will smile.

We are pleased to announce that we have now increased our benefits package to include real estate benefits from the Solis Group. These benefits are available to all our Admin Angels, both part-time and full-time! Here are the additional benefits you now automatically receive just by being an Admin Angel:

• Receive 19% cash back at closing when buying or selling a house
• $100 is donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters in Cloud Nine Staffing’s name each time a transaction is closed
• Take advantage of having a real estate staff on-call for your questions, cost-free and obligation-free

For any questions about these benefits (or to begin using them) contact:
Jill M. Fitzpatrick
Managing Partner & Realtor
the Solis Group, Pacesetter Properties

MOBILE: 512-567-5998
FAX: 512-218-4849
EMAIL: jill@thesolisgroup.net

I told one of my friends about the blogging I was doing for Cloud Nine Staffing, and he responded with “I am sorry, I don’t get it.” He didn’t understand how blogging would help our company in any way. So let me explain why we blog.

We want people to know about us. The traditional method of getting the word out is to do lots of advertising and traditional marketing. But the people we care about don’t pay attention to ads, and we don’t like to bother people. So instead, we blog. The people who are interested will find us and read about us, and then we can help them. We can safely ignore the rightmost 80% of the curve, because they’re not going to listen to us until they hear about a Cloud Nine success story from one of their early adopter friends. Like Seth Godin says in Purple Cow, “Only the risk-taking, idea-spreading people on the left part of the curve are willing to listen to you.”

We are an open company. We have big goals. By blogging, we show you how we’re working to accomplish those goals. This way, you can see that we are putting our money where our mouth is, and not just making empty promises.

We care. We are people; we are not a big faceless corporation. We are a group of people who see big problems out there in the staffing industry and want to fix them. We want to help people get good jobs and we want to help clients (who are also people) get good employees. A company itself doesn’t care; it must be made up of people who care. We are those people, and we’ll show you that we care. Just keep reading. (:

Cloud Nine Staffing is currently looking into leasing office space. We’ve been talking with a few realtors, and we had an interesting experience that clearly illustrates the difference between two vastly different ways of doing business.

First we met with Realtor A. She was really talkative, but schmoozy, and it seemed like she took every opportunity to “build rapport”, saying things with the flavour of “I like that too!” or “I’m like you!” She spent a good half hour talking to us before even mentioning anything about real estate, and then we talked about real estate for another 15 or 20 minutes before she mentioned the contract she needed us to sign before we could even do any actual business. She went on and on about how great she is and how much business she’s done, how many millions of dollars of sales she has done, but then explained the need for a contract by telling us how many clients she’s lost in the past few months. She kept trying to talk us up above the price range that we gave to her; she said we weren’t going to find what we were looking for, that it just doesn’t exist. It was clear that she was trying to put us into a sunk cost situation on both sides. She was trying to sink our cost by chatting for half an hour before talking business, and she was trying to use her sunk cost to guilt us by telling us that she spent “several hours” looking at properties and compiling a list of them. In total we spent about an hour and a half with Realtor A.

The second realtor we met with, Todd Chessher (512-415-3121), was totally awesome. He was a referral instead of someone we found via a Craigslist ad. He came in, greeted us both, made eye contact with us both, shook our hands, and was very friendly and nice — very pleasant but not overly chatty. He said nice things about our business, but it seemed genuine instead of schmoozy. We talked about what we were looking for, he gave us some information about various options and locations, and he gave us reasonable expectations about what we could expect to find in which locations. He was open and honest; he let us know that he wouldn’t make a lot of commission on this job but that he hoped to help us out and forge a good business relationship. As he left, he said he’d have some information for us by tomorrow, again being very polite and pleasant. We spent a total of 15 minutes with him. Less than two hours later, we had a good list of suitable properties in our inbox. And since then, he’s been very prompt, very helpful, very pleasant to deal with, and very effective at his job.

This is a clear example of permission marketing and several of the other things that Seth Godin talks about. Realtor A is practicing the old way of doing sales and marketing, and Todd is practicing the new way. Todd, simply by virtue of being very good at what he does and by providing a very pleasant customer experience, is remarkable. And so we’re remarking on him — both in specific and as an exemplar of a good way to do business. That’s the way we like to do business too: to be open, honest, friendly, and remarkable.