VCU 4/28/03 1 PM CDT WEBCAST Present: Teri Blankenship and Karen Flippo *** >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Hi. And welcome to the RTC webcast on market aging and job development, the business side of the process. I'm Teri Blankenship. Thank you for joining us today. Before we get started, there are a couple of items I want to cover with you. First of all, the webcast and transcripts will be archived for you by tomorrow and we will e-mail you the user name and password so you can access it. Secondly, the program is captioned. If you need this feature, just click on the captioning link off of the webcast page. This will take you to a new web page where you can see the textbook with streaming text. It is now my pleasure to introduce our presenter today, Karen Flippo. Karen is the vice president of the Brain Injury Association of America. She has over 25 years of experience in rehabilitation and disability, which includes direct service, project management, public policy, education, research and evaluation. She is currently the principal investigator for two grants. One is on self-employment for individuals with brain injury and the other on assistive technology for individuals with cognitive disabilities. So let's get started. I would now like to turn the program over to Karen. >> KAREN FLIPPO: Thank you, Teri. Welcome, and good afternoon. Reciprocity, exchange, value, recognition, and jobs. Those are all the outcomes of a good marketing process. Yet to achieve those outcomes, individuals working in organizations who work with people with disabilities need to have both skills and the art, and it's not an easy combination. The science of marketing a nonprofit organization really took hold in about 1971 when a gentleman by the name of Dr. Fill Cutler wrote a seminar book called "Strategic Marketing" - Strategic marketing and selling in nonprofit institutions. Before then, both management and marketing, in nonprofit organizations, really did not receive a lot of attention. We weren't doing it at all, and we expected that we were going to be able to have business people who were going to come to us just because there was a need. We filled the need in the community. We all know that that doesn't work, even though we open our doors, we think we have good staff, we think we have good services. That's not enough to really make the deal. And Cutler told us a couple of things. He calls it the STP side of marketing. First of all, you have to segment the market. And segmenting means that you're looking at different parts of the community. In our case, it would be for jobs and developing relationships, whether it would be in banking industry, insurance industry, hotel industry, or telecommuting or telecommunications. That's part of the segmentation. Once you've done that segmenting, then you have to look at targeting. What particular businesses within that segmentation do you want to look at and focus? And finally, the "P" is positioning. Positioning your organization and your services to meet the needs of those targets. So a way to think of it, "S-T-P," a very easy way to think about the main parts of a marketing process. Cutler also told us that promotion, some of the things that we spend most of our time in marketing -- and I've worked with lots of organizations and not only working as a consultation but working in them -- think that the only thing they have to do in their marketing is actually sending out promotional materials. And Cutler is saying that that's a waste. That's actually an end product. Promotion is something that's an afterthought. It's not a key part of the marketing process. And if you throw things like promotion -- and, in our case, job development more than anything else -- you're not going to be successful because you're missing the guts of that STP process. I mentioned nonprofit management, and Peter Drucker is one of the main theorists not only in management but also in nonprofit management, and one of the things he said is the aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary. Marketing, when you start with customers, consumers, or groups you want to serve well, that's marketing. And then Cutler goes on to say, if you start with a set of products you have and push them out into any market you can find, that's selling. So keeping in mind some of the things that Cutler and Drucker said, we're going to go through now some of the main principles of marketing that lead to quality job development and quality placement for individuals with disabilities. One of the most common definitions of "marketing" is that it is the exchange of goods or service. And this exchange has to be mutually profitable. And that mutually profitable exchange then leads to a relationship. Suzy Hutchison, who was on this webcast about a month ago talking about conversion, mentioned that her organization has been very successful, through recessionary times, inflationary times, high employment times, because they have developed long-term relationships with employers in their community. So if you have relationships, if people come to you for service that they know is credible, no matter if the times are hard or fast, you're still going to be able to have this exchange of value process. People are going to go to you first because you've proven themselves. And in terms of job placement, too, and how it relates to marketing, if you're approaching an employer, the worker needs to meet the employer's need for labor, whether that be information, production, or quality. We may think that the individual is highly talented, has tons of skills and abilities and interests, and could succeed anywhere. And -- but that's not true if the employer doesn't value that person or the service in the person for what they bring. Remember that the employment decision is a business decision, not a personal decision. I remember when I used to do job development, and when things didn't go well and I would be very frustrated and saying, "Well, they're not seeing what I can offer, they're not seeing all the gifts of that person," and what I didn't want to look at was that I didn't see what they had to offer and I didn't make that exchange process possible. That's the art and the skills of marketing. It's not one-way. It's got to be hearing the needs and fitting the benefits and features to those particular needs. And that is why it's a delicate balance of acquiring knowledge about the job seeker and matching that to the local business community and specifically the local workplace. I hope that everybody who is doing job development, regardless of what group of individuals that you're working with, what community that you're in, what kind of jobs you're seeking, but I certainly hope that all of you are engaged in some type of person-centered planning process. This is a holistic, complex, long-term process that over time reveals what individuals truly want to do, what they value in terms of their careers, and the kinds of supports or services they might require in order to become employed. This process, as I mentioned, is long-term because all of us don't stand in place. And even after you become employed, the job situation may unfold in certain ways that other skills are needed, or maybe there are other opportunities at that job place that the individual wants to apply for, and the career planning process does help unfold those kinds of gifts, as I said, so it's much easier to move from job to job successfully. From this person-centered planning process, the job developer, employment consultant, whatever the name may be of the career professional, is able to have a road map of then where to target jobs in this specific community. But one has to follow the other. The person-centered planning process must take place before job development does. However, marketing is ongoing. And generally doesn't matter who you're engaged with in the job development process. Let me explain that a little bit. All organizations should engage in marketing, and marketing is much more than job development, although that's probably why you're listening to that -- this particular webcast. Marketing gives an organization credibility and recognition in the community. It opens doors for fund-raising. It opens doors for public relations. Marketing never stops. Every day, someone in the organization should be engaged in a marketing activity. And often you're not even aware that you're doing so. Every time you identify yourself as being from an organization, you're marketing to someone. Every time you answer the phone, you're marketing who you are and your organization. So marketing doesn't stop or start, depending upon a particular job development activity. Marketing is ongoing, and it should be carved -- especially for job placement people, employment specialists, it should be part of their job every day to pick up the phone, go do an informational interview, maybe write an article for a business newsletter. Marketing is ingrained in your jobs, and job development flows from the marketing activities. In order to do marketing well, you need a marketing plan. And technically, this is part of an organization's annual strategic plan. It includes time lines for different types of activities. For instance, it could say something like, "We're going to segment into four different industries within our community and then target 20 organizations within the next 12 months for contacting about our organization." It should also include promotional ideas. And remember, I said that promotion shouldn't be first. Promotion is an afterthought. And promotion may be putting something up on a web page, putting a one-page fact sheet out in the community, but some type of promoting what your organization is doing for the job seeker and employment sector. Marketing should be a priority. I talked a little bit about why it is important in organizations. And in order to be a priority, we're -- we're in the nonprofit sector which means many of us don't have a lot of resources. However, if you're going to do it well, it does entail a line item in the budget. You need to have those resources assigned, and to be in the strategic plan, it means it has importance within the organization. Sometimes, too, employment consultants or specialists are not paid for marketing activities. It may be that their funding service or organization -- state or federal -- doesn't provide those kinds of resources, and so marketing needs to be in the organization's budget so that the employment specialists do have some resources to pay for their salaries as they're going out and doing all of these different kinds of marketing activities. Closing the deal. Marketing, as we talked about, does involve the relationship. And the relationship is based on a mutual agreement upon an activity. What that activity is going to be. Now we're going to look at some of the ways a person and people in an organization can close the deal. These tips are really time-intensive. Individuals need to spend an awful lot of research, as well as person-to-person contact to figure out what actually goes on in a business. The first thing is -- and most important thing as we talk about the job, the particular requirements of the job, the tasks. And the employment specialist has to understand the requirements of the particular job, unit, department, team, and how that really relates to the whole organization. How does that little piece, that particular job and the tasks within, make the organization go forward? How is this done? Well, two primary ways. Interviews. Interviews with as many people as possible. Sometimes people feel that if they have an interview with the human resource person or if they have an interview with a supervisor, that's enough. Well, really it isn't enough. It's important to interview with as many coworkers as possible, certainly the supervisor, and we're going to talk a little bit later, try to go as high up as possible and even talk with the business owner, the president of the company. It depends upon the size, generally. But the more information that you get from as many people as possible will yield a richness and almost an ecological observation about what's really going on at the job site. And it's also important, especially if there are different shifts, to talk with people at different times of the day about how the job is done, and another interesting question is: Has this job changed in the past 12 months or six months? We all know that things don't stay in place anymore. Our tasks, our productivity, really depends so much on what the customer wants, and job descriptions are frequently changing, even before we can find out what they're all about. So these probing interviews are really important. Some of the best employment specialists that I've met are people who have incredible observational skills. After you ask the questions and spend time and just watch. Watch how people talk to each other, watch how people do the tasks, watch if people do the tasks differently at 9:00 in the morning versus 4:00 in the afternoon. These observations are really important, and often yield a lot because people may not know that you're there, kind of the unobtrusive observations about what's really going on at the job site. And you're paying attention to all of this and trying to record it. Maybe not then, but afterwards. Because, again, this is the true richness of what's going on there. Now, after you observe the job, do some interviewing with the individual, you need to know from the employer what the need is, what they say their need is. And this may not come out from an interview. You may have to actually ask the questions about what do you need in employees. The match, the relationship, the exchange, the reciprocity, is based when the individual is able to match the benefits of the individual and the service that your organization may be providing to the employer need. And the employer need is not something that you can just offer to them based on what you've seen. They have to tell you what that need is. If they tell you, then they're -- they're basically saying, "I value this. This is a problem that we're having right now, and I need some help to get around this in terms of personnel." Once they can articulate that, it really opens a door for you to provide how the individual you're working with, the service, will meet the features of what you're doing will meet their need. And it also -- this also opens a door for you to be able to maybe provide some convincing -- not hard sales, convincing -- now, what's the difference between hard sale and convincing? Convincing means that you have enough information about them that you really feel that you can turn the door. Hard sale is that you don't really care what they're telling you that they need; you're going to make that placement, you're going to get in the door because that's part of what your job is about. And if you keep going the hard sales, you're not going to be effective because people aren't going to want to see you anymore. I think all of us have had the unfortunate experience of having that sale or having that arm twisted. It doesn't feel good, you can't wait to get out of there, and even if you may be inclined in the beginning, you're certainly not going to be inclined through the process. So the marketing takes time, takes time to get the information, takes time to develop trust, and slowly and carefully, again, meeting that need to fit the person. Now, the employer may think, especially if they're not familiar with the kinds of services that employment services organizations provide, especially in relation to individuals that they may perceive need a lot of support, job accommodation, maybe technology, they may not be aware of what the cost is. And so you're going to have to convince, through data and information, that the cost and the risk is less than the overall benefit. Those of you who are out there who may have more experience doing that know that you have rich data, that you can talk about your stories, that you can really be very honest with costs and time and resources so that employers see that the risk is really minimal, that some of the things they've thought about or heard are not really valid, and this is, again, the importance of where your credibility comes in, your trustworthiness about being very honest, being very forthright, and having the data to say, "I know my business. I know what we're doing here, and I can give you the bottom line." This is the credibility. The credibility that you start from the very beginning by showing your professionalism. You've been through this, you have the experience, and that it's not going to be fly-by-night. It's not only that you're going to bring someone in for an interview, turn away, be gone the next day, and not be around. You're going to be there for the recruitment, for the training, for the retention. That doesn't mean that you're doing the job. Again, this is a misconception and a Miss Perception about what supportive employment services are. It's being there to be a consultant, to be a counselor through this process, to both the job seeker, the applicant, and the employer and the coworkers. That's clearly something that's valuable. It's clearly not something that you see in the market very much anymore. So that's something that employers like. It's not being intrusive, again, but it's being supportive and helpful. And you need to say, because they certainly know, that everyone is very, very different, and the employment process for both the employer and the applicant has to be different and it has to be different from the very beginning. I think part of what you're talking about when you do talk about marketing is that you do give a tailored approach, an account strategy, to the employer and the job seeker that starts from the marketing, even before an individual is identified. Now, when you start talking with an employer, it's important to get the information. I've alluded to this before, and I will throughout the presentation. Every visit is an opportunity to learn more about the employer and about the company and about the particular job. And one of the areas where I do see us falling short on, sometimes, is that we talk too much. We don't allow the employer or the coworker to provide information to us. Again, even if we may have had 13 different jobs in bank and think we know all about bank jobs, we cannot presume that every banking teller or every banking data recorder, every banking copier position, is going to be the same. And so we have to come up with a set of prompting questions that will help elicit information. And if there's anything the same every time you do a visit, it's that you have these props. But once you get into the door, that the interviewer with the employer, these visits with employer, needs to be different again, because it has to be tailored. So these are some of the prompting questions that all of you should use whenever you do your informational interviews, and even maybe interview two or three times down the line in order to get credible information from the employer. The first one: What are your personnel needs? This is very, very important and opens the door to the employers. Now, one of the things you're going to see as we go through these questions is that it's not possible for people to say yes or no. If you elicit questions that have yes or no, you're not getting the information you need in order to find out if a job match is possible. And this next one is really important. How do you foresee your business in the next five years? Long-term philosophy. Most employers will probably say, "I don't even want to speculate," and then you can say, "Well, how about the next 18 months and 12 months? Personnel changes. Do you anticipate growth? Do you anticipate shrinkage of product line or personnel needs?" Just trying to gauge where this particular marketplace is going. Some of the qualities of the personnel characteristics -- this is where I think jobs are made. They're not necessarily made in matching the application or in matching the resume to the particular job description, but many employers -- and I speak for one myself, as I am an employer -- when I do hiring, I really look at personnel qualities and how person -- personal qualities will match to individuals in the team, other people that I know who have been successful, how the individual -- individuals will fit in, into the culture of the workplace. And this is something that the employer and the coworkers have to define because you're probably not going to be able to get this from your observation; that it has to come in the interview process. And a long time ago, in learning about job development -- actually, from some folks at the research and training center -- I learned that this is a critical question, to ask people what are your pet peeves or what are the things that get people fired or into trouble? This isn't a common question that employers are generally asked, but when they do, they feel very comfortable about saying what really bothers them. And these aren't the things that you're going to find in the job description. Because of the fast-paced environment, job descriptions frequently are changed and this is important to know because especially if there's going to be a training component to the job, and in the expectations to the job applicant, it's important to know right off the bat how frequently the job may change, and you can't be surprised to say probably every six weeks because, again, we have technology coming into the workplace, we have different customer bases. If you've done your marketing and if you've done your market research, you should be able to know some of the answers to this question because you will have already been out talking to industry leaders about their own changes and how they've had to adjust to either the economy, to technology, to educational preparation, to the marketplace in terms of labor. So this shouldn't be that much of a surprise to you. Training your employees. As we know, especially individuals with more significant disabilities, we need to be sure that individuals are going to learn their jobs right from the very beginning. Who's going to be in charge of that process and what's that process going to be? And that information will also help you be able to understand the kinds of supports or services that may be needed from the very beginning. And may also give you information that you don't want to go there because there isn't any training. People are pretty much thrown to the job and they're not provided much coworker support or training support throughout -- throughout the employment process. Data is powerful, and data not only drives policy but data also helps individuals in making their decisions. If people are concerned -- we talked a little bit earlier about risks and costs. There are some large studies that have been out for quite a while, and they haven't changed much, but these studies are very powerful because over time, what we're seeing is that in employing individuals with disabilities, accommodating individuals with disabilities, insuring individuals with disabilities, is really not expensive and not prohibitive for the employers. The job accommodation network has been doing ongoing data collection through their job accommodation service to both employers and job seekers, and what they've been tracking specifically are the costs of accommodation, and some folks may think that as we've moved into more of a technological society, that we're going to try to grab the latest gadgets and gizmos that naturally may cost more money and that's not the case. Actually, 20% of job accommodations have no cost at all, and as you see on the screen here, there are a variety of accommodations, but even greater than $5,000, only 4% of all of the job accommodations are greater than that number, and if you look at some technology, that really doesn't seem to be cost-prohibitive for most places. Most job accommodations, 51%, are still between one dollar and $500, and that cost has not been going up. That's remained fairly -- fairly steady for about the past five to seven years. A few years ago, the association for persons in supported employment and the North Carolina marketing initiative project, which was funded by the North Carolina developmental disabilities council, really wanted to focus on employers and find out what they had to say about employing individuals with disabilities. And this data has not been reported that much, I think, outside of maybe APSE or North Carolina but it yields some interesting information. They found, through 10,000 inquiries, which constituted 20% of North Carolina businesses -- small and large -- and 30 focus groups, so a pretty in-depth study, that business wanted their employees to be dependable, show up. That's the first thing. You got to come in the door. Can't do any work if you're not there. Possess communication skills. And as we know, that's not necessarily that even people have to be able to have verbal expression. Some of the best communicators I've worked with are people that not necessarily could talk but they certainly made their needs known through expression and through sign. Honesty is important as an employer, and I think especially when things aren't going well. I would rather have people -- and other employers have told me, they'd rather have people kind of tell you what's up, what's straight, what things aren't working, rather than have those things swept under the rug. And that's especially true for marketers and job developers. The willingness to learn. Because what we know is that even if you've mastered a job, as we've said before, jobs are changing. There's got to be this need to take advantage of new opportunities to learn new things because that's going to be a valuable employee and have more value to the overall workforce. Now, look at this. And this tells us something about maybe where we're not marketing. In this same study, we learn that 47% of human resource executives noted that they had not been asked to hire a person with a disability. Almost half of the HR folks in one state had never been approached. Now, that says something in terms of what our marketing and job development -- and I know this wasn't a national study, but I bet that we can do some inference across other states. That people are just not being approached, maybe because we think it's just not going to work. Or this business doesn't have the kinds of positions. Or it's kind of in a labor sector that may not hire people -- especially people with the most significant disabilities. We cannot make those inferences. The information has to be provided by the employer, not by us. 19% believe that their work was too dangerous to hire someone with a disability. We're going to look at some accident studies a little bit later, but if people don't have information to refute their assumptions, they may think the worst. This data is so important because it does give us the -- the thought process of folks, so that the job seeker or the job developer can go in and say, "Well, that's not true, and I will tell you why." 11% said that they did not understand what was involved. And it could be, well, how do we even find someone with a disability? Will we have to pay? What's our liability? Will there be reasonable accommodation? What do I have to do? Do I have to change the job? They're not going to know things about job carving, probably, if they haven't had the expectation, so don't expect that word to come up. But because no one's come to them, they really don't -- don't know what's involved or how easy and how efficient it can be. And no one in this state study said that they did not need the trouble or increased effort. So they were open. They were open to the possibilities and the -- actually the benefits that employment could bring. These are some of the services that an employment services organization can provide, especially in the technology realm you may not have thought. Certainly job placement is one and the hiring and recruitment is another, but as more and more organizations are looking to technology for all of their employees, the employment services organization can help the employer access vendors who have technology. They can also be resources for ergonomic assessments, how to make it easier for people to work at the job site and expertise in job carving. Many individuals now are looking at shared work arrangements, are looking at flextime, and this is not only people with disabilities and because of the employment service expertise, these are things that you can offer to an employer throughout the process to make them want to do business. Now, here are some of the things that don't that don't work. Want ads are short-term fixes to finding jobs. Many people I know in the job placement world rely upon want ads. They don't rely upon marketing or establishing relationships. It may be successful for one job or another job, but it's not going to sustain an organization. As I mentioned earlier, with the good times, through the bad times, it's also not going to really yield a public relations or positioning in the community or to be seen as a valued entity organizationally for finding jobs. It's important to understand the current and fluctuating marketplace, and to frequently scan the market for potential contacts. And that's why it's ongoing. Even if you feel that you know everybody in your community, it may not be enough. It may not be enough. Because people start their own businesses, people leave organizations, new people come in. The work of marketing never stops. That's why you're always learning about businesses, you're always learning about the potential of growth, and the informational interviews at all levels of the business or the corporation are conducted. Even before you go in the door. You have to find out what their need is and the trends and resources in production in your community, whether it be developing farm equipment or whether it would be a library. Even if the individual or individuals don't work out, that there still will be a viable, mutually beneficial relationship. The employer will come back to you. I've heard just again two days ago, and I've heard over the past 10 years, the best kind of job development is not to do any. That your phone will ring or someone will come to you because you've established that relationship in the community. The marketing is ongoing, the job development comes naturally. And establish your business credibility in the community. You're seeing, at the chambers of commerce, the lions, the rotary, the service organizations, that your organization and you yourself are seen as a viable, contributing member of the community. Some of the problems we have -- and I don't want to dwell a lot on this, but these are really some of the challenges. Many employment specialists who come into the business have not had experience outside of the disability community, and therefore they feel uncomfortable doing the marketing, doing the informational interviews, even looking at the business reports and the business trends, but the reality is, when you're hired in an employment service organization, especially in the marketing and job placement arena, that's become your business. Certainly you're spending time with the individual, with their family -- with their family, gathering information, but you have to be seen as a business resource. Someone once said to me, "Well, if I wanted to go into IBM, that's where I would have gone." We can't be that narrow-sighted, because if you are taking this job, this is what you have to do. You have to feel very comfortable in a business environment. And marketing is a skill that's learned in practice. I have never seen any babies come out of the womb with marketing skills. This is something that takes time. It takes time talking to people, finding out what works, developing your own individual style before you may feel particularly comfortable. And in fact, Phillip Cutler says even organizations, it takes organizations about 5 to 10 years to really find their sort of marketing niche, so it's not something that happens overnight because it is a technique, it is something that involves relationships and relationships aren't made in a day. We haven't done our job. All we have to do is look at the unemployment rates of individuals with disabilities and I keep thinking about that North Carolina marketing study of 47% of employers not being contacted. People aren't going to get employed unless employers are asked, so this statistic tells me that we're still far short of where we should be in terms of the business of marketing and job development, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been our civil rights legislation, a rich piece of legislation which has called the attention of employment and provided some basic protections, is now under threat in the Supreme Court system, and so we really have to be vigilant to ensure that we don't lose the ADA. Businesses remain uninformed about the potential of carving job accommodation. This is where we really have to take our place. We have to be seen as that resource that when people think about employment, they'll say, "Call Teri, call CADI, call Joe." "call enlightenment employment service." They'll think about a name and an organization first. Each business should have an account. And you should devise an account strategy for that business. Think of yourself as a liaison to that account. And that you're servicing them. Even if you don't know anybody or you haven't employed someone at that particular business. The marketing factor is that you're calling to find out the personnel needs, what things are changing, could you be of service to them. Every year, forever champion 500 companies and working women put out lists of the best companies to fork for. These are companies that generally are wonderful to their employees, have some flexibility, build in a lot of support services. If you check these lists and these companies are in your communities, make the calls. We certainly want to make sure that the people we work with are employed in wonderful companies that provide services to their employees. Take time out each day for marketing. I can't stress this enough. Build databases for information. Who's been employed where? Who were the contacts? Keep the data updated. We talked about the key contacts at the business, and always at the very beginning, if you can, don't go to the HR person. Go to the president or the business owner because they're going to set the stage for employment within their organization. The time to establish a job placement is before one is needed. When you're asking for help and a relationship isn't there, then that's selling. That's not part of marketing. And that's not part of the mutually profitable relationships that we've been talking today. I mentioned that you need to know more than one person in the organization because we have a transitional employment force. People are moving in and out. Establish your credibility not only with your one-to-one relationships, but through your portfolio of success. Keep letters of references. Ask employers to market for you. The best marketing are not the brochures, the expensive brochures. It's a peer-to-peer relationship. Match your business personality to that of the business. Know their jargon, how they talk. Know about sales figures if that's in their communication. And, you know, take a sales class. All the things I've been talking about, even though we don't want to do hard sales, but all the things I've been talking about have been taught in marketing and sales for many years. Take something from the pros. Plan for growth of your business as well as the employment sector. And talk to the people who know. Especially business advisory councils. Have them work with you in your recruitment strategies, and your marketing strategies. Have them provide expert advice. We talked about the importance of establishing yourself in your community as a business leader. Read the business section every day of your newspaper. That's where the wealth of information is about trends. They may talk about new contacts, people who have been employed or promoted. Those are the people that you can then contact for your informational interviewing and that you don't have to make a call because you have a name and maybe something about them. Also, evaluate every visit. After you've come back and talked with someone, what happened? What were the results? What are the things that you could have done differently? You want to be responsive. You want to be known as responsive. You want to match the individual to the position, and know fee to the employer. These are the services you want them to think about when they think about you and your organization. Job carving to match the individual needs of them and how that could benefit the job applicant. And your dependability and credibility. One thing about objections. Anticipate them. If you don't get them, that probably means that you haven't given them enough information. Have data ready to refute the objections, respond proactively, not defensively, feel, felt and found. I can understand why you feel that way. Others have felt that way too. But we have found that if you employ someone that we have worked with, you're going to be successful. Now, that's a very sort of easy and glib way to say it, but feel felt and found is an improved and proven technique that shows you're hearing what someone says, you're listening to them, but you can show them another way. Balance the scale of knowledge of the job with the job seeker and the employer, and the more you know about each, the better able you will be to make a good job match. Carving and customization, which may be necessary, is still okay. It will happen if the relationships are strong with both parties. I have some data up here, Harris poll data, DuPont survey, that you can see a little bit later that, again, provides you with some information that may refute some of the objections that you get from individuals. How do you want to promote the last part? Remember, not the first part, the last part of your marketing strategy. Maybe on your own company website, ads in local newspapers, targeted flyers. And I've seen these be some of the most expensive -- most effective and least expensive, ads in company publications, updated business cards, and ongoing contact. The outcome. And this is why we're in this business. It's measured not by the number of the job placements, but by the quality of the job placement, as testified by the job seeker and the employer. Thanks for being with us this afternoon. Bye-bye. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Thank you, Karen. We hope that you've enjoyed this webcast and that you'll join us in our chatroom. If for some reason you're not able to post your question today in the chatroom, you can post it in the bulletin board throughout the week. Thank you again for participating, and we'll join you in the chatroom.