12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

For this assignment, I chose to interview 3 financial leaders from fast-growing companies in South Florida that currently have around 100 employees and are expected to grow their headcount by 20 to 30% over the next five years. I chose this segment as I feel these leaders and companies would be some of my first target customers. I was encouraged by my conversations with them. Each leader clearly communicated that for their businesses to continue to grow at their desired rates, it will come down to their ability to strategically hire well. Two of the leaders have a hands-off approach when it comes to who gets hired – they trust that their HR teams are doing what needs to be done. The third leader is more engaged with hiring, even to the point of leveraging his LinkedIn network for referrals. Regardless of their approaches, each leader said more can be done. The two leaders that are hands-off do attend industry conferences and seek out other business leaders to get their perspectives on how their companies are hiring. The engaged leader is active in South Florida networking groups and stays on top of industry research and trends by following Gartner and SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), which are the two leading authorities when it comes to hiring.

I certainly feel this segment is aware of the need to hire better. Their approaches are different, but they all recognize the financial impact it has when they do not hire the right people. All three seemed willing to learn how they can gain more information and skills in order to help their business continue to grow. The leader who is more engaged than the other two seems to be more passionate about hiring better. Knowing this helps me to further define and target a segment of businesses that have financial leaders engaged in the hiring process versus more hands-off financial leaders.