Archives for January 2012

Fidelis is starting a newsletter!

Talk about a BUSY Friday!!! This week definitely started off pretty ‘down in the dumps’ around the office with sickness bouncing from cube to cube, but today really rose above for us. Both of our AM’s have rocked it today. Multiple openings have rolled in this afternoon, which is cautiously telling us 2012 is definitely off to a good start. Oh, and not to mention a deal that was closed in the middle of this week. Wow, what a great time to be in this industry!

Now to the real great news…Michelle and I talked back in October about kicking off a quarterly newsletter to keep our consultants and manager updated with news & updates within each others sides of the business. I was very excited about this considering I come from a Comm & Journalism degree, so this was right up my alley! So it was put in the back seat as I picked back up my new role as Project Coordinator – I had to get back into the business development routine and start tracking down all this new business that’s rolling in! Then the end of the year rolled around and other projects took precedent. But now, now I’m ready to go!

I’ve slowly started setting up our account and tracking down the consultants and managers we are already in contact with so we’ll have a strong base to start with. I did the webinar training, took lots of notes and finally  got the opt-in form designed and ready to go. Today was the big day for the consultant side. It was time to see how this is going to go…

Success! The opt-in form went out this morning to all of our ERP consultants (our EMR newsletter is now in the works, but 1 baby step at a time, right?) and it was time to wait.

Now you should probably know that I am one of the very few “millennial’s” at Fidelis so social branding is something new I’ve been trying to push through. It’s slowly being embraced, but I want everyone in the office to embrace it.

Because of this, I was THRILLED when before the first batch of email’s had finished sending people were already signing up! How exciting! It’s awesome to see that consultants, even with all the emails, calls and crazy schedules, want to stay connected with Fidelis. We’re using this newsletter as a platform to keep our consultants updated with market rate fluctuations & trends, hiring activity, new projects that are rolling out and any other useful information we can pass along to them. And on the other side of this, we will being doing the same thing for our managers. We want to keep our contacts ahead of the curve every chance we get.

Right now we’re at about a 5% opt-in success based on the amount of emails that went out this morning, but to be honest, I would be thrilled if even just one person chose to opt-in. Like I said, I’m a Comm & Journalism girl at heart and knowing that anyone is reading what I write is an awesome feeling. Then throw in that (hopefully) the information is helpful to them, well that’s just icing on the cake.

I almost forgot, do YOU want to check out our newsletter? Please feel free to opt-in here:

http://eepurl.com/ixP2M

Until next time,

Casidy

The Difference Between ERP & EMR Consultants

2011 was a great year, but I have to say, 2012 sure is starting off nice. We’ve started gaining steam in our EMR division, going through the hiring process for a new internal Account Manager and the days are flying by with plenty of stuff to do! (At least for me!)

The last two weeks of December were pretty long and slow, with almost everyone using up their last vacation days by the end of the week. But I was here (with no vacation days to spare unfortunately) enjoying the quiet. My manager, Michelle Cessnun was able to complete not 1, but 2 training manuals for our contract division AND our Lawson and PeopleSoft software. Now we just need that new person to start so we can test it out. And as for me, I wrapped up a lot of “admin” projects I wanted to roll into the new year successfully. Now it’s on to 2012, a year of surpassing goals, unparalleled productivity and awesome production numbers for our division!

Now to our bubbling EMR progress…talk about some eager and pleasant consultants! This week alone, I reached out to one new consultant, and along with sending me her resume she also gave me the names and phone numbers of 10 other consultants that are looking for projects! I’m not sure if it’s because the new year has kicked off and projects are off of hiatus or the sad fact that these eager professionals have yet to be burned like the PeopleSoft & Lawson consultants by the, I’ll loosely use the term “eager” for them as well, recruiters of this industry. It’s a very sad comparison but that’s all I could think as I’m actually talking to these people AND getting returned calls and emails! It has been a very different market than the one I’ve worked in for the last year and I hate to think that in a few short years, or just one bad phone call, this market could also be burned and scarred.

Now don’t get me wrong, the consultants ARE NOT the bad ones!! They have just been treated so bad over the years, they’re very protective of their information. The consultants that I’ve spoken with and the one’s my manager works with understand there are the good and the bad firms out there. And it’s difficult at times (especially when you’re new to this industry) that the short answers and lack of information on the first couple of conversations is only a defense of the consultants’ relationships that they have worked very hard to maintain. Each project they work can either make or break their reputation, and once you realize that you’ll be golden! Once you show them that you call when you say you will, you actually check references, not flip them for sales leads and don’t beat them on rate, travel, etc. then they will start showing you a little bit of good will as well.

So back to what’s coming up in 2012. I think I’m starting to get some routines in place that will help speed things up and keep things organized in the coming year. I’m rolling my social media efforts out to the rest of the team, even last week I helped one of my Account Managers vamp up his LinkedIn and add some applications and skills that might help him stand out when managers start checking around. And let’s not get started on how Twitter’s 140 character tweets have flowed into my every day process. My other Account Manager loses interest in about 30 seconds, so I’m trying to follow #Twitter’s business plan and give him brief updates, questions, instructions and process changes in short, two line emails to keep his attention span in check.

All in all, as my first official year at Fidelis and out of college came to an end last Friday, I couldn’t be happier with where I landed and where we’re going. Definitely stay updated, as I’m sure things will get interesting and stressful with our increased goals and plans for the year.

Until next time,
Casidy