Fighting Shape

Charles Molineaux

December 2, 2008

R ick Myers sees pain in our trying economic times. But he also sees today as a trial by fire, a period in which businesses are relentlessly tested - some to destruction - while the survivors adapt and emerge stronger and better. "All this talk about this recession stuff is a little much," he says with a laugh. "It's a little too much doom and gloom. There's a lot of great stuff that happens during downturns. This is my third one."  

As founder and president of local recruitment and career portal company Talent Zoo, Myers says he's seen plenty of ups and downs, both macroeconomic and, he grants, self-inflicted. And, while colleagues and competitors confront the threat of recession with cutbacks and layoffs, Myers insists his company has gone through its tough streamlining process already, and now stands poised to ride out whatever comes. "We've known it was coming," he says. "We have been making cuts that we needed to make for the past 15 to 18 months. We've been pretty prepared for the storm."

Established in 1996 (the company proudly emphasizes that it was founded in Myers' spare bedroom) Talent Zoo specialized in search, recruitment and job placement for advertising and marketing professionals. Myers ticks off a client list that includes Crispin, Porter + Bogusky; Ogilvy; Leo Burnett; Proctor & Gamble; Coca-Cola and others.

But in more than 12 years, the Web site that started out as the company's online job board has taken on a life of its own, growing beyond recognition. Today Talentzoo.com is a major driver of the company's identity and business - and future.

 "A lot has been written recently about how 'internet advertising is going away,'" says Myers. "That's just bulls--t.  Advertising is my background and the advertisers and the agencies are interested in a measurable media more and more. You're going to see more money migrate away from television, outdoor, radio and newspapers and go online. We think there's a real opportunity there."

Talentzoo.com's job board, job search and salary monitor are still prominent, but so are articles on marketing strategies, web traffic optimization, the economics of the industry and even breaking industry news via links to other sites. "We've morphed into a number of different things," Myers says. "We were primarily under the Talent Zoo name as a job and career portal. We are becoming less a career portal and more a community portal with the search features and the job board. The site is rich and full of data. It's like a magazine in many ways."

Impressive as it is, Myers calls the site a work in progress, highly functional but not as pretty as he'd like.  He's promising an extensive redesign in coming months, including audio and video. "When you look at the Web site, there is the engine and the paint job.  Behind the scenes, we've got one smoking engine. It's a very transactional Web site. The clients are happy. Now we're working on the paint job."

The growth of the Web site was one area, among several, where Myers says Talent Zoo got itself into trouble by staffing and spending too heavily. "There were just a couple of years there where I think I had my head up my a--," he ruefully recalls, looking at the first quarter of 2007. "We got a little fat and happy with some stuff.  So we started making cuts back then. Our software costs were going through the roof. We now outsource IT ... and ... HR  [and] some marketing components. So 18 months ago, I had five full-time people doing some stuff.  Now I have those positions outsourced."
 
Myers says his cost cutting has gone from top to bottom, from the office phone system, to having workers gradually telecommute, working from home at first a half a day, then one full day, and soon maybe two days a week. "We have to start looking at every expense that comes into the place and question 'Do we need this?'"

After taking his staff from almost 40 to less than 20, Myers says he's begun hiring again, especially for his new venture Offset Media, a series of online newsletters, where he sees great potential. "I remember seeing newsletters, if you were an old lady and liked to knit, there was a damn newsletter for you. We think that there is opportunity online for those types of publications." 

Myers' unvarnished talk and bold approach certainly gain fans among those Talent Zoo serves. "He has just a tremendous spirit," says longtime client Joe Snowden, president of integrated marketing and PR firm McRae Communications. "He absolutely takes care of his friends and advocates for them, defends them, and sticks with them no matter what."
 
Snowden views McRae and Talent Zoo as longtime partners who have grown up together. McRae was founded in 1989 in Fayetteville, and Snowden acknowledges the location could make the company appear "geographically undesirable" for some recruits.  That's where he says Talent Zoo's work was priceless.

 "If we could get someone to our office to meet us; get over whatever mental barrier they had about going in the suburbs, more often than not, they would want to work with us," Snowden says. "An extra level of persuasion was required and [Talent Zoo was] quite good at it."

The leaner, more efficient, Talent Zoo also impresses Myers' banker Srdjan Gavrilovic, who says the company has made dramatic progress in managing accounts receivable, which he describes as a "crucial skill."

Myers won't go into details, but describes his revenues as flat for the past 12 months, with most profit improvement coming from his program of cutbacks. It's the next 12 months where he hopes to surge out of the gate.

Scanning the business landscape, he invokes his favorite quote from idol Warren Buffett: "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."

"I don't want to waste a good recession," Myers says. "Times like these are where money is made. Anybody can make money in an up market. I like to be in battle with people who are used to getting shot at.  Anybody can be nice when the sun is shining.  Let's see what your mettle is when everything around you is falling down. What kind of person are you then?"

And, Myers says, he's now looking for the right kind of people. "Anybody who is smart and fed up," he says. "Have a good attitude.  Be a little off center and willing to work hard. Most of the people who work here are pretty irreverent. They're pretty bright.  Some have pedigrees. Some don't.  But they all share a work ethic and a little bit of a maverick attitude." He adds, "My whole job is to make sure I take care of them."

© Aniram | Dreamstime.com

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