Hoover's Helps Executive Search Firm Bishop Partners Find New Clients and Cut Search Time Dramatically When Identifying Candidates

Business Roadblock

As a small executive search firm with limited resources, Bishop Partners needed a tool in its research arsenal that would put the company on a level playing field with its larger competitors. For a short time, the company used a business information resource that proved to be too expensive. That's when Bishop Partners switched to Hoover's.

"Hoover's offers pricing options that work for small businesses and that's a huge plus for us," said Susan Bishop, President and CEO. "Within minutes, Hoover's gives us, at a reasonable price and with great customer support, accurate, up-to-date information that used to take longer and cost more to find."

In addition to the need for affordable pricing for company and executive information, Bishop Partners also discovered that its consultants had an increasing need to build customized lists and conduct complex searches, particularly among smaller private enterprises.

"We do a lot of work with venture capital firms who have invested in relatively new and small startup companies, so we're often looking for executives with startup experience in their background," continued Bishop. "It was very difficult to find this sort of information easily, but through Hoover's, I was able to find a huge number of companies with revenue under $5 million."

Solution

While Bishop Partners represents some early stage startup companies, the firm has supported many FORTUNE 500/1000 companies as well, including Comcast, MTV Networks, and the Financial Times Group. With such a wide array of clients, selecting a truly trusted business information resource was critical for Bishop Partners.

"Our clients hire us because we know the businesses within the media, communications, entertainment, and broadband technology fields. But even though I know those industries really well, I don't know all the people or all the companies because the landscape changes every day," Bishop added. "Hoover's is going to stay on top of these changes better than any alternative I'm aware of. Our clients want to make sure we're going into competitive companies and finding the best people, and Hoover's allows us to do that."

"Being able to dig deep, search for people from multiple companies, and produce a spreadsheet of, for example, people with marketing backgrounds who work at banks, is a slam-dunk for us."

For Bishop Partners, Hoover's has proven to be not only a source for researching clients and finding job candidates, but also a vehicle for new business development. Consultants use Hoover's to find out who they should be doing business with by scouring the competitors of their current clients. From here, they can quickly establish contact with new prospects and expand their client database.

Bottom Line

"We haven't done a good enough job for our clients unless we've included a full Hoover's search in our efforts," said Bishop. "We recently conducted an executive search for an online financial services company, and we found our top candidate through Hoover's within two weeks, versus the typical six-to-eight-week time frame for such an assignment."

Bishop Partners' use of Hoover's has dramatically expanded the firm's pool of candidates and increased consultants' confidence that they're finding the absolute best people.

"Hoover's is a name that you respect. You know you're going to get quality information from them," Bishop added. "We get regular e-mails from Hoover's that keep us apprised of what's going on in the industry. It gives us the confidence that there's somebody out there looking out for my company's interests other than me. Plus, Hoover's customer service makes things so easy, there's no way I would consider switching to another provider."