http://www.accolo.com/ en ccountouris@accolo.com Copyright 2009 2009-05-06T19:02:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/have_our_prayers_been_answered/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/have_our_prayers_been_answered/#When:19:02:00Z Have our prayers been answered? I hope so, because it’s awkward in the office when the executives are doing ritualistic dances to please the recruiting deities.  We are starting to see clients hire.  Not all of them, not all at once, but here and there, jobs are opening that weren’t projected a couple weeks ago. Is this one of those “green shoots” the economists have been referencing?  Apparently, as a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal had a similar finding. For companies that are starting to hire again, the world has changed.  Yep, that’s a cliché.  But it’s still true.  When they were last with us, we were in a “war for talent.” While that may re-emerge in the long run, it doesn’t describe the current situation and won’t reflect what we’re likely to see in the short term.  The current reality is that there are a lot of job seekers out there.  It’s a “war for jobs” if you will.  In fact, Accolo saw a 69% increase in the number of applications in Q1 2009 vs. the same period of last year.  Instead of scouring the interwebs for every last candidate, it’s now time to duck and cover as the resumes come in from all angles.  For our clients, the online interview capabilities of the Universal Hiring Platform enable them to screen out resumes that aren’t a fit, and focus on candidates they might actually hire.  As hiring picks up, companies that have no infrastructure in place are going to be dishing out dollars to overpriced resources in an attempt to keep their head above water.  Companies that adopt a scalable and flexible approach now will be positioned to add top talent while still focusing on their core business goals.  As John F. Kennedy once said, “The time to fix your roof is when the sun is shining.” Have our prayers been answered? 2009-05-06T19:02:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/masters_of_the_obvious_applicant_volume_vs_the_dow/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/masters_of_the_obvious_applicant_volume_vs_the_dow/#When:00:41:00Z Because we serve as the internal recruiting function for hundreds of companies, we have some unique insights into job applicant data.  I recently pulled the data for all jobs closed since the beginning of 2007 and plotted it against the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Our resident math wiz, Mike Zaret—aka, Assistant to the HR Director—ran some regressions (linear AND polynomial, how exciting!) for me and there was a great negative correlation between the applicant volume and the Dow.  For every 1 applicant increase per job, we can expect a 45 point drop in the Dow. So the question is does a drop in the Dow drive an increase in applicant volume, or does a rise in applicant volume indicate business environment that will drive a drop in the Dow?  If it’s the latter, I’m going to start a securities business on the side and start shopping for jets.  Unfortunately, both applicant volume and the Dow are dependents of the underlying economic forces.  So what does this data really mean for us?  How can we apply it to drive meaningful business results?  I’m going to have to get back to you on that.  It appears that we’ve confirmed statistically something that is common sense.  Either way, it’s interesting data. Stay tuned for the next piece in my “Ice is COLD!!” blog series … Masters of the Obvious: Applicant Volume vs the Dow 2009-04-11T00:41:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/career_killers/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/career_killers/#When:17:07:00Z The working landscape is changing rapidly, and Career Killers today may not be Career Killers tomorrow. For example, many people in their early twenties are posting things online about beer bashes, dates gone wrong, and a variety of extremely personal information . . . with pictures!  What many people don’t realize is that much of this will be accessible online until the sun goes nova. While certain things may be shrugged off as youthful indiscretions, future employers may make hiring decisions based on what they see, and the person applying for the job would never know the difference. In other words, there would be no way to prove whether the no-hire decision was based on pictures of that candidate running around scantily clad at Burning Man.  We actually had this happen with a candidate who was about ready to receive an offer of employment. Someone on the interview team discovered that she was into naked yoga. Because of this, the offer was never extended. Maybe in the future this sort of thing won’t be a Career Killer—but I wouldn’t bet on it. Career Killers 2009-03-10T17:07:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/redefining_failure/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/redefining_failure/#When:01:05:01Z On Monday I sold our family canoe rental business in southern Mississippi—Soggy Bottom Canoe and Kayak Rental—that has been struggling for its 7 years of existence.  I bought the place as my midlife crisis (at the age of 26), and started it with my uncle.  As the losses mounted, my parents wanted to help so they jumped in to invest and manage the place as I moved on.  The entire family spent more time and money trying to keep the business afloat than I thought was possible.  It strained relationships in our family, with everything from simple arguments to my uncle quitting twice and being fired once.  I walked away with about 12% of the money I invested (wish I had that much left of my Citibank stock).  By every traditional measure, Soggy Bottom Canoe and Kayak rental was an unmitigated financial, personal and professional disaster.  Despite the disasters, I learned lessons that they don’t teach you in business school or investment banking.  I learned that the spreadsheet should be an output of the execution, and not the other way around.  I learned that a $200 time clock doesn’t make people want to show up on time.  I learned that when a guy shows up with his pupils dilated, don’t let him back up the trailers.  I learned to work toward the best, but budget for the worst.  I learned that you may build it, but they won’t come if they don’t know you exist.  When you’re looking at a business plan, everything looks great.  Delivering on the assumptions and expectations behind it is a very different story. Saturday night, we had a farewell party for everyone that had worked for us and with us over the business’ history.  The new owners joined us to meet the employees, forest service partners and local friends of Soggy Bottom.  The party was a microcosm of the last 7 years—there was a ton of potential, but the weather was terrible, half of the expected number of people showed up and we spent too much money.  That being said, I looked around at the people that showed up and was impressed.  My parents spent a lot of time in Mississippi (they live in Dallas) working on the business and made a lot of friends.  My mom passed away last summer, and the outpouring of support from the extended Soggy Bottom family both then and over this weekend was impressive.  My parents worked as hard for the people involved as they did for the business, and as a result built relationships with people that stepped up during the single most difficult time in my family’s history.  These were people that wanted as badly as we did for the business to succeed, but most importantly they wanted my family to succeed.  The new owners are great—young, energetic and ready to write Soggy’s next chapter. The business we started will become an outdoor leadership school for kids, with the potential to push Soggy Bottom’s tongue-in-cheek slogan of “Saving the World, One Canoe at a Time” from absurdity to reality.  It’s great to know that the business that my mom poured her heart and soul into will become a place where kids spend one of the best weeks of their young lives.  It’s very easy in this market to use a company’s financial performance as the sole marker of success, but as I looked around Saturday night it was clear that Soggy Bottom was not a failure.  Our blood, sweat and tears built the foundation for what will be much more than just a good business.  Over the next few years, thousands of companies will fail and tens of thousands more will struggle for survival.  Bankruptcies and layoffs make for great headlines, and I think it’s clear that we have more bad news to come.  Any time a business isn’t a financial success, it’s easy to write it off as a failure.  Financially that may be true, but the lessons learned and relationships built set the stage for new businesses and opportunities and the relationships grow and expand.  It’s during the hard times that you learn a lot about yourself, your friends and your business.  The US economy has some tough years ahead, but the lessons, relationships and foundations will survive and launch the next round of personal, professional and financial successes. Thanks to everyone that helped make Soggy Bottom a success, particularly my parents.  I hope that everyone involved took as much from the experience as I did. Redefining Failure 2009-03-05T01:05:01-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/respect_and_recruiting_in_2009/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/respect_and_recruiting_in_2009/#When:22:45:00Z The following post was written in response to “It’s Time for a Candidate’s Bill of Rights” by Kevin Wheeler. You can read it here.The idea of regulating the recruiting industry to make people mind their manners seems a bit off. That being said, it’s not happening without any structure, so I guess there’s a case to be made for something stronger than blog posts. Before environmental regulation, dumping chemicals into rivers and poisoning your neighbors downstream was just common practice—now it’s abhorrent as well as illegal.It’s Accolo’s view that candidates will vote with their feet—you treat them poorly, they won’t come back. You treat them with respect, they’ll come back and bring their friends. Unfortunately, the current employment market leads some recruiters to believe that respect isn’t required. I personally don’t think that a statement on the careers page that says, “Sorry, due to the volume of applicants, only those that are a fit will be dignified with a response,” is enough.As an RPO, it’s part of our responsibility to our clients to protect their employment brand. Respect is obviously the right thing to do, but it’s also good business—every applicant is a potential investor, customer, partner, etc. We’ve generated over 25,000 referrals because we ensure that every candidate gets a response, even if it’s not the one they want. If “doing the right thing” isn’t enough, maybe tangible business results will be.We’ve had a Candidate Bill of Rights since 2003. Respectful recruiting (since 2003) 2009-02-20T22:45:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/accolo_exclusive_people_want_jobs/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/accolo_exclusive_people_want_jobs/#When:18:51:00Z Let me be the first to break some news that you can’t find anywhere else: a lot of people are looking for work right now.  Really.  I swear.  Allow me to trot out some data to support my extraordinary assertion.  At Accolo, people join our Career Network for one primary reason: they want to apply for a job that we’re supporting for one of our clients.  (The second most prevalent reason they join is to be part of the coolest Career Network around, but I think it’s safe to assume that people are more focused on employment than coolness.) In the fourth quarter of 2008, we had a 78% increase in the number of people who joined our Career Network compared with the same period in 2007, adjusted for the number of jobs we supported.  In fact, for every job Accolo supported, the average number of people joining our Career Network went from 65 to 116. Depending on how you look at it, this deeper candidate pool is a blessing or a curse.  The benefits are obvious: more options as you look to fill an open position, backup candidates should one of the finalists renege, and an ability to negotiate on compensation all come to mind.  On the other hand, how do you evaluate that many applicants? And who is burdened with that responsibility? Most companies have two options: the hiring manager or a recruiter. The hiring manager has a day job, and extra time spent filtering through resumes is time not spent on core business initiatives.  That seems like a losing proposition.  So what about the recruiter? You could be forgiven if this scenario seems like a recruiter’s dream: tons of qualified candidates who aren’t exactly flush with other opportunities.  But when they’re seeing a 78% increase across every position they are asked to fill, don’t be too surprised to find your recruiters curled up under desks that are threatening to collapse under the stack of unviewed resumes.  Since most economists are projecting that unemployment will get worse before it gets better, we’ll likely see even more applicants over the next few months. Since you’re still with me, I’m guessing you’re at least mildly intrigued about how to solve the “massive number of applications” issue. The best option is to automatically interview and pre-qualify candidates as they apply.  This enables you to do two things: highlight the candidacy of qualified individuals and screen out those who are not a fit for the role.  If done properly, a hiring manager only spends his/her time speaking with qualified candidates.  You can also respond to everyone who is not a fit for the role, treating them with the respect they deserve. If you guessed that Accolo enables you to choose option three, then you’re like Yogi – that is to say, you’re smarter than the average bear. Accolo Exclusive: People Want Jobs 2009-02-06T18:51:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/who_knows_you_know_it/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/who_knows_you_know_it/#When:18:26:01Z Social networking, for all the recent hype, is hardly a new concept.  One example from Mark Twain can be found in Two Little Tales, first published over 100 years ago.  In the story, a man has an idea that will revolutionize the military, but feels lost because he doesn’t know the man who can implement his idea.  The story tells of how the man works his relationships, starting with a customer in his shop who knows someone, who knows someone else, and so on all the way up to the military’s Director-General.  The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon phenomenon illustrates this point in a more timely example, so perhaps I’m just dating myself.

 People are using networking sites to get a glimpse into who’s working where and who’s hanging out where to get a sense if they, too, would like to do the same.  So what do you do when you find where the cool people hang out?  Get to them.  Start making calls and work your way into the circle.  But the time to do this is not when you’re in the breadline with them.  The time is now. Looking at the most recent networking numbers for Accolo’s Career Network, it seems to me that a lot of people get it.  We closely track how many individuals register to be kept apprised of new opportunities as they open up.  In Q1 of 2003, we saw a huge spike of registrants – almost 25% more than we saw in Q4 of 2008.  People were proactively throwing their hat into the ring to try to stay ahead of fickle markets and (perhaps not so unexpected) downturns.  The last quarter of 2002 was showing employment progress, and 2003 the same.  The IT bubble was repairing itself; we were recovering from the 9/11 blow.  Seeing that things were starting to clear and recognizing the value of the myriad social networking sites available at the time, numbers of registrants spiked preemptively against an uncertain employment future.

 So what does this tell us about today and what we all need to be doing to ensure our own economic future?  Do your research.  Network with your friends and past colleagues – see who’s where and what they’re up to.  Better yet, I’m calling for a national Take Your Recruiter to Lunch Day to get a feel for where the jobs are, what the companies are like, and where you might start poking around a little bit to find an opportunity that you hadn’t considered yet.  Maybe somewhere deep in your experience there’s an idea that will revolutionize that company and make you a hero.  Day by day, work your way through to the top.  Twain would be proud. It’s Not What You Know, But Who Knows You Know It

 2009-02-06T18:26:01-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/be_the_hedgehog/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/be_the_hedgehog/#When:04:10:00Z Lessons for the job seeker from Good to Great   In May of 2002 I left my job at JPMorgan.  Granted, financial services (particularly telecom investment banking) was on a serious slide, but my job was secure at the time.  Being young and stupid, I assumed I’d move out to the Bay Area with my special lady friend and pick up a private equity job.  I took the summer off to start a family business (an unmitigated disaster, by the way), and in the meantime every bank in San Francisco laid off thousands.  By the time I arrived in August, being an unemployed investment banker was like being a leper with a felony.  I voluntarily put myself in the same position as millions of Americans now find themselves—unemployed in a crappy market with experience from an industry that is cratering.     For those of you in that position now, I’m not going to sugar coat this – prepare yourself financially and mentally for the long haul.  Just like the company you were with, cut spending deep and cut it now.  What I thought was going to be a 3-month job search ended up being closer to a year.  I actually never found a job – I had to make one up and start my own consulting business.  I had enough to get by financially, but I was cutting it VERY close.  If I had budgeted better early on, the situation would have been a lot less tense.   More important is the mental preparation.  I started losing it.  Granted, I was staying in a crappy extended stay hotel (we had not yet found an apartment) with my dog, my lady friend’s parakeet and a long list of rejection emails.  I would sit in the room all day emailing, calling, praying, sobbing, emailing some more, etc.  I had one pair of pants that I wore every day – my unemployment pants – and I showered only on an as-needed basis.  Melissa (the aforementioned lady friend) came home one day and I’d applied to law school. These were dark days.   If I were to do it over again, I’d change a few things: 1)   Set the parakeet free – let it out the window when Melissa was at work and say it was an accident; Joey torments me to this day and I couldn’t stand his cheerful pity. 2)   Set working hours – you can’t job search for 12 hours a day; work until noon, and if you have nothing scheduled in the afternoon, go enjoy the day (doing something free) 3)   Change pants every day, no matter how soft and broken in they feel 4)   Focus, focus, focus   Number 4 is where Jim Collins’ Good to Great comes into play.  Good to Great is one of the best selling business books out there, and there’s a reason – it’s fantastic.  Collins studies companies that were good for a long time, then suddenly broke from the pack and became great companies.  He compares and contrasts them with peers that were good for a long time, but stayed good.  I’ll greatly simplify and distill his findings and core concept – the hedgehog vs the fox.   The fox is smart and agile, and looks great in a pinstriped interview suit.  He comes up with countless new strategies and angles of attack to try to catch the hedgehog.  The hedgehog, however, is brilliant in his simplicity.  He knows one thing very well – when you see the fox, roll up in a ball and give it a mouthful of spines.  He attacks you in the woods – roll up in a ball.  He attacks you in the field – roll up in a ball.  Caught at night?  You guessed it, roll up in a ball.  You get the point – the hedgehog knows one thing really well, and executes it flawlessly.  The fox may be faster, smarter and more agile, but the hedgehog still wins.   Within the hedgehog concept there are three concentric circles for companies to think about:   1)   What are you passionate about? 2)   What can you be the best in the world at? 3)   What are your economic drivers?    If you are making a strategic decision, and it doesn’t land in all three spheres, don’t do it.  That thinking applies to your job search just as it applies to companies.   What are you passionate about? When it comes to the job search, I think this is the most important.  Who would you rather hire - someone that is really fired up to be part of your company but has some gaps in the resume, or someone that is exceptionally qualified but aloof?  I’ll take the energy and passion any day.   At first, my job search was very focused – I wanted to work for a small- or mid-cap leveraged buyout firm. When that didn’t work, I started getting more creative. I interviewed for a financial analyst job, and during the interview pitched the CEO on doing a buyout or selling the company (they were acquired 6 months later).  I interviewed with a money management firm for a role doing public market research, which bores me to tears.  Eventually, if there was going to be someone in the building that had a spreadsheet open, I decided it was close enough and applied.  Nothing stinks like desperation, and I stunk.  After an interview with Covad, for a role paying a third of my compensation at JPMorgan, I officially hit bottom.  The hiring manager called me and said she knew I could do the job, but it was abundantly clear that I was just desperate and not really interested in working there.  She was right – I’d become the fox.   As a job search drags on, you will be tempted to “just take something”, and depending on your economic drivers, you may need to. However, stay focused as long as you can on where your interests truly lie.   What can you be the best at? By nature, I’m a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.  I like doing lots of different things, even if none of them are perfect.  I can reach an acceptable level of mediocrity at [profanity] near anything, but don’t have the patience or attention span to be an expert in anything.   WARNING:  In a down market, specialists get jobs and generalists starve.   I struggled to find a job because I had trouble identifying the one thing that I did better than anything (or anyone) else.  Focus your job search around the one skill or experience that is the biggest differentiator.  If you are really good at research, but a genius in financial modeling, focus on financial modeling jobs.   In this market, you may ask why you should only focus on the skills where you are exceptional, even though you may be much better than average in several areas.   I’ll use the example of comparative advantage, from the Econ 101 class that you slept through freshman year.   Stanstanistan is a country that’s great at pretty much everything, but there are some areas where it truly excels.  For every $1 of cost, it can produce 5 bushels of corn or 10 bushels of wheat.  It’s neighbor, Narnia, produces only 4 bushels of corn or 5 bushels of wheat for every $1 of cost.  Stanstanistan wins on both fronts, so why bother trading with Narnia?  Comparative advantage says the optimal situation for both is for Stanstanistan to produce only wheat (where it has the greatest advantage) and Narnia to produce corn, and then trade.    Both countries have $4 to invest – Stanstanistan produces 40 bushels of wheat and Narnia produces 16 bushels of corn.  They then trade, with Stanstanistan giving 16 bushels of wheat for 11 bushels of corn.  Stanstanistan walks away with 24 bushels of wheat and 11 bushels of corn for $4 in total investment.  To produce this on its own – even though it was stronger than Narnia on both fronts – would have cost Stanstanistan $4.60.   Okay – wake up now, econ lesson’s over.  You should take a hard look at your experience and skill set and identify your comparative advantage.  What skills allow you to really separate yourself from the pack, rather than just be at the top of it.  By focusing on the top 1-2 areas where you really excel, you will maximize your value for both the potential employer and yourself.   What drives your economic engine? In the context of a business, Collins is focusing on the 1-2 key metrics that drive the company’s economics and profit.  For our purposes here, I’ll shift this to focus on what you really need versus what you really want.    Companies are scrutinizing every dollar they spend.  If it’s not core to the business or doesn’t have a clear and acceptable return on investment, it’s on the chopping block.  We should approach our own finances the same.  Just as the time for companies to investing in gaining market share or launching new ventures is a few years away, make your own adjustments now.   There will also be tradeoffs between your passions and skills and your economic realities.  You may be passionate about teaching or working for a startup, but your economic situation may not allow it.  Chances are, what you are best at has played a key role in your professional success to date.  However, you may be in a situation that your greatest strength (subprime mortgage origination?  speech writing for Republican presidential candidates?) is no longer valued by the market the way it was 6 months ago.  As you look at your passions and your strengths, take a closer look at how the change in the market may have impacted the economics of potential career changes.   Don’t be afraid to start something While now may seem like a terrible time to start a business, I can personally attest that it’s possible.  I ended up starting a consulting firm for small, struggling companies.  We were scrappy and creative, and managed to feed ourselves and build an interesting little business.  Our second client was Accolo, for which I’ve now worked for close to 5 years.  If you are passionate about something that leverages your greatest strength, hang your shingle out as a consultant.  Don’t confuse this with abandoning a focused job search – creating a job is the same as finding one.  If you’re fortunate enough to turn it into a viable business, or find a temp-to-hire position that lets you try before you buy, so much the better.   Back to the hedgehog – focus, focus, focus The longer things drag on for you, the more tempting it will be to use a shotgun approach – throw as much lead in the air as you can, and see what falls.  You will be happier and more successful if you use the rifle approach.  Research your prey, spend a LOT of time stalking it, and when the time is right and the wind is blowing your direction – pull the trigger.  If you need any extra motivation, I’ll drop off Joey the Parakeet to keep you company. Looking for a job?  Be the hedgehog, not the fox 2008-12-10T04:10:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/thinsourcing_great_white_paper_on_bpo/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/thinsourcing_great_white_paper_on_bpo/#When:18:31:00Z Matt Cooper mentioned “thinsourcing” to me in an email a while back, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I tracked down the piece to which he was referring.  Turns out, he was talking about a white paper written by someone at DialAmerica. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, it’s well worth it. Thinsourcing: A New Way for Businesses to Operate succinctly explores the differences between outsourcing, insourcing, and “thinsourcing.” According to the author, thinsourcing is the happy medium between out- and insourcing: it combines the autonomy of an outsourced provider with a service that is “virtually indistinguishable” from the company itself. The ideas expressed in this article are at the heart of any good Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service and is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in learning more. This particularly resonated with me and others here at Accolo because this is the nature of the service we provide. Thinsourcing—great white paper on BPO 2008-11-13T18:31:00-08:00 http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/why_cheap_can_be_scary/ http://www.accolo.com/insights_and_expertise/accolo_blog_detail/why_cheap_can_be_scary/#When:16:48:01Z While pitching our value proposition recently, a CFO I spoke with exclaimed “how and why are you so cheap?” I was taken aback, because frankly, I never thought of us as cheapos. But the fear and doubt in his voice was a familiar tone. It should be, since I myself used it yesterday when I received an email regarding a 7-day cruise for $199. Nonetheless, Mr. CFO led me to think about why, in such an economy wherein frivolity is out of style, cheap is still one of the scariest things out there. If “smart buy” were synonymous to “cheapest”, then it would simplify things for everyone. Since this is not the case, let’s put a tube of toothpaste through my value decision matrix to find the comedy in how scary the purchasing decision can be. For $4, you get a brand-name tube that seems to have everything…cool packaging, tartar-control, whitening agents, and an on-call massage therapist (which I could really use). For $1.99, you get a generic paste that also claims to have all the goodies – even the packaging looks cool so it must be ok. But then for $2.50, you can get a brand-name that’s on sale yet is slightly smaller in size than the other two (therapist not included). Impressively, I’m able to calculate (or read the supermarket pricing label) how many cents per ounce I’m paying so I can look at cost on a level playing field. But now I’m stuck with questions about taste, cleaning power, squeezing ease and whether or not other toothpaste users in the house will agree with my decision. The fact is, no matter what, I need the toothpaste. So why not just buy the cheapest one? Why doesn’t everyone? Because the fear of cheap sinks in. If I really need something, then I’d rather pay a little more lest I suffer the consequences. In this case, bad breath, ugly teeth and unpleasant visits to my dentist. Fortunately, there are products out there that are truly a great buy and at times, are also the most affordable. Like locally-grown organic fruit at my farmer’s market. Or my VOIP that has eliminated my international phone bill. Or the super soft towels I bought at a major department store chain that is closing. Or Accolo (yes, here comes the plug) which is the #1 On-Demand RPO solution and is such good value (cheap, to Mr. CFO) that it can put 6% or more of a VC’s investments back into a company’s core business. So let’s not be too scared of cheap. It takes some thought, research, trial and error and sometimes even personal sacrifice (last year’s ugly haircut comes to mind) to find true value, but once you do, it’s worth it. Why cheap can be scary 2008-10-30T16:48:01-08:00