CELEBRATE DOWN SYNDROME AWARENESS WITH US!!!!

Hello all Diversified employees. For those of you I have not had the chance to meet my name is Johnny Moncrief I am the Branch Manager of Richmond, Va, Br 25. I have a 2 year old son named Logan who has Down Syndrome. The Down Syndrome Association of Greater Richmond has been a great support to me and my family, and every year we are participants in Richmond's Buddy Walk. So I invite all of you to donate and help support a great cause.

Please support one of your own!
We are presently accepting donations for the
2008 Richmond Buddy Walk
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Richmond, Virginia

Team name:
LOGAN’S HEROES


Please donate to www.firstgiving.com/loganmoncrief

Sign up on our team as a virtual walker at http://www.dsagr.com/

All donations are tax-deductible and very appreciated


The walk is to promote acceptance, awareness, and inclusion of people with Down Syndrome and to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness month.

Donations go directly to the DSAGR to assist the families of children with Down Syndrome.


Other important links:
http://www.dsagr.com/ - For more information on the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Richmond and /or the walk
http://www.buddywalk.org/ - To find a buddy walk in your areas
http://www.ndss.org/ - Information on the National Down Syndrome Society

BE A PART OF A WORTHY CAUSE!!!!!

Creativity, We All Need

This is an article from Southwestern Institute, I thought to be very interesting.

DEVELOPING INNOVATION & CREATIVITY WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS

DESCRIPTION: The world has changed! To maintain competitive advantage, you must reconceptualize your business. Better quality and better service are essential, but they are not enough today. Creativity and innovation are the only engines that will drive lasting success. Edward de Bono, in 1969, coined the phrase Lateral Thinking which is now in the Oxford English Dictionary.
“A way of thinking which seeks the solution to intractable problems through unorthodox methods or elements which would normally be ignored in logical thinking.”
Over the last two decades, the two main trends have been (1) total quality and (2) downsizing—doing more with less. Today, that is not enough. You need creativity in order to FIND BETTER WAYS of doing things. It’s not enough to improve quality in each separate part of an organization. The result is that the organization is still locked into an overall operation that really needs changing. Because they have only looked at quality, not creativity, they end up operating inefficiently, but with high quality. You need creativity within quality.
Similarly within restructuring and/or rightsizing, it is very inefficient if you just have a blanket “get rid of everything, cut all costs”. You remove any cushion that allows you to do new things, to do new ventures. You maximize on your existing concepts. So even within restructuring or rightsizing, you need far more creativity than is currently the case.
The importance of creativity is from this basic concept: We have a tendency to think in set patterns, which is of value, but it prevents us from tackling problems from totally new perspectives. When you have wrung out all the fat, all of the excess, all of the unnecessary expenses, when you are lean and fit, you’re not going to get anymore benefit from downsizing and pursuing quality—That is where creativity comes in. What are the values, what are the concepts, what can you offer, what is the surpetition? Surpetition goes beyond competition (competition merely says that I am competing with my competitors).
Surpetition is seeking above, creating value for your customers and clients. THERE IS A GROWING NEED FOR CREATIVITY.

WOW, TALK ABOUT EXCITING CHANGES

After days of being sequestered, hours of conversation and planning, jubilation, cheers and high fives, the white smoke finally appeared. New presidential leadership has been anointed.

Dow Seagraves, Charles Miller, Tamara Marable, Rene Daaboul, Doug Carper, & Chris Mckenzie have been offered and have gratefully accepted the challenges of Presidential leadership.

Twenty years ago, Gene, Paul, Sam, and David, embarked upon the mission of building Dixie Staffing Services into a successful multi state supplier of temporary help. Ever present in our thoughts was the fact that at some point, we would be faced with the dilemma of succession. In keeping with our values and compassion for our employees, growth from within was always our primary focus. Over the years the ownership has operated as President while mentoring these individuals in hopes that one day, they would be ready to lead the company into the next twenty years.

That one day is now. It is a new and exciting time in your company. New Name. New Leadership. New products. New marketing material. New web site. As owners, we believe Diversified Sourcing Solutions, is in very good hands. We are confident, you feel the same.

Additional changes are in the making. Current ownership will take on a Board of Directors role. This will allow us to stay involved, while allowing new leadership to be more creative and in control of day to day decisions. Our home office, branch 10, and branch 11 offices are being place on the market for sale. Your home office has about 8000 square feet of unused space. Time for a change. Branch 10 in Lithia Springs operates out of a remodeled house. Time for a change. Branch 11 has over 3000square feet of space. Time for a change. As Bob Dylan would say, "The times they are a changing".

So, congratulations Dow, Charlie, Tamara, Rene, Doug, and Chris. It's been a job well done. We look forward to you taking us into the future.

Happy Days

Congratulations to Misti Kelley, Branch Manager in Birmingham AL on her nuptials, Stewart and Misti were married over the Labor Day Weekend. Stewart and Misti honeymooned in the Virgin Islands and had a wonderful time. However Misti, we’re all curious why so many pictures of the Captain of the chartered boat trip????

Can anyone say Captain RON :-)

HEAR YE HEAR YE---READ ALL ABOUT IT

Yesterday, Leon Mcgowan traveled to Birmingham to participate with Misti Kelly and her staff in presentation of a proposal for PEO services to a 60 employee company. Last week, Mark with SOI participated with George Lopez on a proposal presentation in Miami. Today, George and Patricia in Miami are presenting their second proposal while awaiting their third and fourth proposal to arrive via Fed-Ex.
Currently, branch 36 in Coral Springs has three request for information out with clients while Larry Hern in branch 10 forwarded to AES a request for proposal yesterday.

Wait that's not all.

Even though Houston is facing hurricane Ike, they received news today that their direct hire for a Geologist has been accepted. This 65,000 dollar position that is being billed at 15% starts 9/22,(whew, can you do the math on that commission), way to go Kay Jordan. In addition to starting this Geologist position, Karen Powers, our national direct hire recruiter in Fort Worth, has started an operations manager at 17%, as well as a sales associate at 15%. There are currently seven other open positions Karen is working on. Birmingham and Lithia Springs between them also have up to four direct hire positions open as well.

How exciting it is to look across the company and find these services being sold. Equally exciting is to see how well our valued employees are accepting the continued education, quickly learning the value of these new products and being able to put them to work for yourselves and your clients. Congratulations and thanks.

Appearance and First Impressions

This is an article from Dale Carnegie that I wanted to share on the blog....

How to Make a Better First Impression

1. Look your best so you feel confident about the impression you are making and about you. Keep in mind, the way you treat yourself is the impression that someone has of how you will treat them.

2. Demonstrate immediately that the other person - not you - is the center of action and conversation. Show that you are not self-centered, and first-time acquaintances will be eager to see you again.

3. Demonstrate good listening skills. Give positive verbal cues: "Hmmm? interesting!" "Tell me more, please." Nonverbally, you show you're a skilled listener by maintaining steady eye contact.

4. Use the name of a new acquaintance frequently. It will retain in your memory for the next meeting and it shows that you have paid attention from the start, catching the name during the introduction. Equally as important, you'll make conversations more personal by including the listener's name several times.

5. Be careful with humor. Although a joke can be an icebreaker, stay away from sarcastic remarks that could backfire. Because you don't know a stranger's sensitivities, prolonged joking might establish barriers you can't overcome.

6. Confrontations with somebody you've just met will destroy rapport before you even start building it. Wait until you have established credibility before you challenge another's statements.

7. Rather than mumble, speak so you're easily heard. Enunciate clearly. Alter your pitch, to avoid the dullness of a monotone. Display animation in both voice and facial expression.

Calling all creative people, I'm looking for ideas!!

Ok everyone I need some help. With social networking on the internet becoming more and more a part of everyday life, how does a company capitalize on this newest frontier. How can social networks help us recruit better employees? How can they help us capture new customers? Can they? I understand it’s a great tools to look and to evaluate potential new hires, you may be surprised what you may learn about someone based on what they put out there for the whole internet to see and read. So there’s one idea, now let’s play the what else game!! List your ideas by commenting to this post. I’m really interested to hear what ideas you may have. So here is your opportunity to chime in, lets hear what you have to say!!!

Robert Half International - EDGE Report 2008

Interesting information from two very respected sources. Robert Half and Career Builders


Robert Half International - EDGE Report 2008

Diversified Web Site Updates

Just a quick note about a couple of updates to the web site. There's a new poll if you'd like to participate. It's completely anonymous--no one can tell who you are or how you voted.

You can also sign up for our corporate newsletter. I should be able to get that going next month so now is the time to sign up!

The Contacts page is up and running and one of the talent pages is now online. The remaining talent page is a "careers" page and should be ready tomorrow, umm, later today and feature copy from an Atlanta area employee.

There's a new PEO page under the Solutions button then click "Learn more..." under the PEO heading.

I'm waiting on some risk management copy from Chris and need to spell-check and proof the site, but that will nearly complete the main pages of the site. The job listing pages and the intranet are next on my list.

Repost From May

"...5. Don't wait to get started----Here's the catch-22 of a recession. You may have less business and less revenue, yet your success depends on investing more time and resources into marketing. Companies that buckle down and cut spending on marketing may survive, but they will be the last to recover. Posted by Misti Kelley at 4:51 PM"

I couldn't help but think of this post from Misti in light of the recent discoveries that for some time now we have not been passing out scratch pads and brochures on every call. Scratch pads should be on the desk of every client location visited whether you see a decision maker or not. This is very cheap advertising and since we don't do radio, print, television, billboards, Yellow Pages, cable, and have very few sales people to boot, we should pass these things out to every business person we see. How else will prospects remember us, heck, how will they even know about us if we don't leave something behind?

Coffee mugs and calendars are coming. More scratch pads and brochures are on the way. Our brochures are only .074 cents (yes, seven freakin' cents) so let's pass this stuff out! Shame on us if we have any inventory left of any of these items by year end.

Do we want to be a company that "may survive?" Do we want to be a company that is "last to recover?" We cannot be stingy with our marketing effort. If you don't have a sales person in your branch or someone who can spend a substantial amount of time 4 days a week in the field then hire a sales person. Need a recruiter and a sales person? Hire the sales person! Pass out the free goodies! The social networking sites are full of job listings and people looking for jobs. Play matchmaker and charge a flat fee for bringing the parties together.

Make good use of your phone time. Macy's is running aggressive television ads right now to staff a call center. Phone sales can work. Make appointments, cold calls, use Sales Nexus, email, send personal hand-written letters to clients and prospects, a very nice touch that is rarely used these days.

Set yourself apart, make you and your company memorable. We have the tools and are equipping you with more tools every week. And don't forget about this blog. I want to see more sharing of sales ideas here and more posts in general. Our posts are waaay down from 31 posts in May to 8 posts in July and 12 in August. Use the blog. Leave the pads. Exchange business cards. Send a personal letter. Leave a calendar. Present the mugs. Hand-out the brochures.

We are competing with companies that have huge advertising budgets for television, radio, billboards, full-page Yellow Page ads, thousands of sales people armed with freebies, major event sponsorship--some even have professional ball parks and arenas named for them.

With absolutely no other form of advertising how will anyone ever know to call us?

My Space

Hey everyone Diversified Sourcing Solutions now has a My Space account. You can find the page at http://www.myspace.com/dssolutions Currently a Facebook account is also being created. You can use these social networks to post open positions and to network with others online. We will also be active in both network's forums. So if you are a user of one or both of these social networks stop by and add yourself as a "friend" See ya online!!!