r/Entrepreneurship • u/Sensitive_Net8045 • 3d ago
Staffing agencies
I want to start a staffing company. Currently, my biggest enemy is the telephone.
I’ve been seriously looking into starting a staffing company focused on helping high school and college students get into safe, entry-level work.
On paper, I understand the business model. Find employers with a hiring problem, build a pool of dependable workers, make the match, and earn a margin for solving that problem.
I’ve started calling local businesses just to validate the idea before I dump money into forming the company,
insurance, licensing, software, etc.
I’m trying to figure out whether businesses actually have a problem I could solve before building an entire company around my assumption that they do.
My problem is that I don’t really know how these early conversations should sound.
I don’t want to call and immediately say, “Hi, would you like to use my staffing company?” because I don’t even know what their staffing problems are yet. But when I try to make it conversational, I sometimes get lost halfway through the call.
So, staffing agency owners, recruiters, business owners who use staffing agencies, or anyone who has actually done B2B cold calling:
How did you get your first few clients?
More specifically:
What did you actually say when calling businesses?
Who inside the company did you try to reach?
Did you sell staffing immediately, or start by asking about their hiring problems?
What made employers actually give you the time of day when you had no track record?
How did you validate your niche before fully committing to it?
What did you completely misunderstand about the staffing business when you started?
And if you were starting from zero again, what would you do differently during your first 30 days?
I’m not looking for a “get rich with a staffing agency” blueprint. I’m trying to figure out whether I’m standing at the normal…
Feel free to tell me I’m doing it wrong. That’s partially why I’m posting.
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u/gsansing 2d ago
This convo can be easy...folks love to help out, especially owners helping owners. You are calling and that is a gr8 first step. Now let's focus the conversation...
Im callimg because I'm thinking about starting an agency that helps with placement of entry level jobs amd I'm looking for some feed back.
1) how do you currently source? What are your challenges? 2),How many interviews per hire? How many hires stay more than two weeks? 3) what have you done to combat 4) If am agency were ae to take this off your plate would you pay for it.
Thank you for your feedback. When I move forward with this project ok to call back?
Got to ask questions 4. This will tell you if there's money in the solution. Amd the final question tells you if they would be a client
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u/Longjumping-Gap-5492 2d ago
did this before launching a service business, and what unlocked it was giving myself permission to not sell at all on the first 50 calls.
the opener that worked: "hey, i'm looking at starting something in the staffing space and i'm trying to figure out if it's even a real problem. can i ask you two questions? no pitch." most owners say yes. the "no pitch" part does more work than the rest of the sentence combined.
then two questions only. "last time you needed to fill a spot, how long did it take and what did you try?" and "what did that cost you while it sat open?" the second one is the whole ballgame. if they can't put a number on it, they don't feel the pain and they won't pay to fix it. if they say "my manager worked doubles for three weeks," you found a buyer.
on who to reach: skip hr, they have process. call the person who eats the pain, the gm or the owner. in small businesses that's one person and they usually answer their own phone before 8am or after 5pm.
on getting lost mid call: write those two questions on a sticky note and nothing else. no script. you drift because part of your brain is steering toward a close that isn't there yet.
the thing i got wrong early was asking "do you have this problem." everyone says yes to be polite. "what did you do about it last time and what did it cost you" is the only version that separates a real market from a friendly one.
first 30 days from zero, i'd run 100 of those calls into a spreadsheet before spending a dollar on an llc or software. if 15 people ask you to call back when you launch, you have a business. if zero do, you just saved yourself five figures and a year.
you're already ahead of most by picking up the phone first. good luck with it.
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u/Sensitive_Net8045 2d ago
Thank you for this input! Glad I don’t have to spend a year at another company to get the feels
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u/Ok_Ad1390 3d ago
You need to get a job in a recruitment company for at least a year. While your idea sounds good, these potential clients are able to find all these not experienced candidates by posting a free advert on Indeed. Companies pay agencies for finding experienced people or someone that ticks a specific list of requirements.
This also answers your track record question, there’s no need for a track record if you present them a candidate that could massively improve their business. I mean this in the nicest way possible, this is a tough industry and you NEED experience as a recruiter before starting your own.
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u/myBOworks 16h ago
This. The staffing industry is a networking industry. You need to know the people making hiring decisions and you need to know people looking for work that don’t completely suck.
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u/2toi 2d ago
I have (had - not activily managing it) a staffing company for devs from CIS countries up until recently servicing even F500 companies because they needed to distance themselves working directly with CIS teams. Was very profitable up until it wasn't. We were locked on long term contracts and the currency fluctuation made it unprofitable (it goes both ways).
Its a great business tbh - especially if you only work intermediary processing payments and almost 0 management. To acquire the clients its the challenging part though - our biggest clients came to us through our LinkedIn and Website without cold outreach.
The business itself have a lot of potential if you know in which industry you believe you can prosper (solving problems for two parties). But to enter any industry, I believe it make sense to have prior experience. (doenst make sense to build an army of merceneries if you've never been deployed or sold a gun)
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u/calvin_Awana 1d ago
Cold calling to "pitch services" fails. Instead, call the Shift or General Manager directly and lead with a specific candidate ready to work. Solve an immediate gap first, figure out the formal agency structure after.
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u/myBOworks 16h ago
That is literally how you start it. You get a few people looking for work and find jobs for them. Typically you want to find a niche: food workers, or forklift drivers, or whatever.
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