iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
iWorkZone, Inc. Success Plan
Executive Summary
1. Company Profile
2. Situation Analysis
3. Market Analysis
4. Growth Strategy
5. Competitor Analysis
6. Industry Analysis
7. Marketing Strategy
8. Sales Strategy
9. Strategic Positioning / Competitive Advantage
10. Business Development / Partnership Strategy
11. Product / Technology Strategy
12. Competitive Strategy
13. Business Process / Operations Plan
Appendix
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
1. Company Profile
iWorkZone provides the best possible match between employers and employees by
using sophisticated assessment tools and a proprietary algorithm. We can document
a reduction in employee turnover rates from 200%+ to under 10% in healthcare,
from 600% to 20% in food service, and from 70%+ to under 8% for other clients
using our system.
iWorkZone is the “eHarmony” of employers, jobseekers, colleges and students.
We
provide a freemium web based system that instantly finds the best opportunities for
job seekers and prospective students, while finding the best talent for employers
and colleges. The data we collect can be analyzed by economic and workforce
developers, government and others stakeholders to get real time, big data
information on regional skills supply and demand.
Our mission is to grow wealth for individuals, employers and regions by bringing
cutting edge psychometric science and tools to traditional talent mining, matching
and management needs.
iWorkZone collects data by offering both free and fee-based assessments,
occupational soft-skills trainings, virtual interviews, job analyses, job-posting and
job matching. The iWorkZone system is to business what e-Harmony is to
relationships. We build better cultures by identifying superstars, developing their
potential, and providing tools to retain them within their company. We provide a
platform for job seekers to understand what they should be when they grow up, a
system to match them to what existing top performers look like within a company,
and the tools to make companies more profitable through their people.
iWorkZone, Inc. is a Texas Sub-S Corporation, incorporated in 2012. Jody Holland
and Jon Chara are co-founders of the company. They have more than 40 years of
combined experience in the Human Resources and Human Capital industry.
Management
Jody Holland - Chief Executive Officer
Jon Chara - Chairman of the Board
Brad Lambden - Chief Operating Officer
David Griffard - V.P. of Business Development
Key Employees
Business Manager: Debbie Stephens
QA Specialist: Arlene Ockwood, over 30 yrs experience
Program Designer: Nick Robillard, over 16 yrs experience
Industry: Human Resources
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
Number of Employees: 3+ Partners
Bank: Happy State Bank - Kayla Carpenter
Accounting Firm: Dodson and Associates, Amarillo, TX.
Amount of Funding Sought: $250,000
Current Investors: Jody Holland, Jon Chara and Elaine Hand
Use of Funds: Product Enhancement and Business Development
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
2. Situation Analysis
iWorkZone, Inc. was started to capitalize on a significant need in the marketplace for
instant, easy to use and inexpensive talent mining, matching and management on
local, regional, state and national levels. The concept came from Jon Chara and Jody
Holland’s respective work in and with various types of private and government
“labor exchange” systems. The founders learned a tremendous amount over the past
30 years about what employers, job seekers and colleges need and want, and what
they are willing to pay to have access to. They used and experimented with various
models and tools and price points. iWorkZone is the culmination of these
experiences, brought into current economic conditions.
iWorkZone, Inc. was created to develop a web based platform that offered talent
mining, matching and management solutions to employers and job seekers:
1) We are a connection company. We connect talented people with great
companies, develop the potential of those people, equip leaders to retain them,
and ensure greater profitability through human capital.
2) obtaining valuable data on a large scale, enhancing the value of the company for
future sale or public offering.
The assessment and training products used by iWorkZone were obtained through a
purchase of MuRF Systems; the products’ science and market demand were well
known and proven. iWorkZone has automated the sales process and delivers these
products (among others) on a vastly larger scale than previously experienced by
MuRF Systems. The business model allows us to enter regional markets relatively
easily, provide exceptional value to customers, gaining their trust, and then promote
purchase of additional fee based products and services.
We have built Version 3.0 of our system and it is currently being implemented in
multiple states across the country. We have learned some great insights through
these efforts and are already beginning to see the success of what was created.
1) The easiest way to engage many employers in a region is by having a large
database of job seekers. The system is designed to assist employers in
promoting our system to job seekers within the area. By leveraging the
promotional ability of hundreds of employers in a given area, we will be able to
bring on quality job seekers very quickly.
2) Leveraging chambers of commerce and local SHRM (Society of Human Resource
Managers) chapters is a good introduction to employers, but will not result in
sales without consistent sales presence. We have secured the support of 4
SHRM Chapters to promote the service to their membership. Similarly,
iWorkZone has signed an agreement with the Illinois State Chamber of
Commerce to, in effect, “sponsor” the system for it’s membership. Again, the
positioning is very valuable, but we have lacked a sufficient sales force to
receive the full benefit of this relationship.
3) The user interface must be extremely simple and “clean”, showing users only
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what they need at any point in the process. Compared to other assessment
products, the FIT is much shorter (only 20 minutes, on average) and provides
much better (more applicable to numerous potential markets) matching
science.
4) By leveraging our talents in writing clean and fast code, as well as building
great relationships, we are doing what we do best… Connecting! Our model for
success leverages the relationships of people across the country with the
science in our system to create a process that makes the sales process much
easier as we add talent to our team.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Fully developed and tested technology concept
Provisional patent
Full menu of products with sales history for immediate cash flow
Low debt load
Combined 46 years experience in these markets with these products
Multiple target markets
Strong talent / experience of core staff
Low operating costs
Weaknesses:
1. Need for expanded sales force
2. Lack of advertising funds
3. Low brand recognition
Opportunities:
1. Lessons learned incorporated into new v.3.0
2. Ready to leverage regional employers for job seekers
3. iWorkZone helps meet requirements of new legislation related to House Bill
5 for educators
4. Sales can be immediately and significantly scaled up
Threats:
1. Inability to quickly go to market in significant scale.
2. Inability to recruit enough Trainers and Sales Reps to gain significant
regional presence due to lack of capital.
3. Slow growth may equate to no growth: need significant # of jobs and job
postings (~ 75 job postings and ~2,000 job seekers is the tipping point for
any given area)
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3. Market Analysis
Our core business is making matches based on soft skills. We have been involved in
this for many years, before it became a “buzz word” in business circles. Our
experience with thousands of employers overwhelmingly points to soft skills:
almost universally, employers have told us, “Refer people who WANT to do this job,
then we can talk about whether or not they CAN do the job. We can train skills, but
we can’t motivate”. iWorkZone automates soft skills matching at a time when
businesses globally are recognizing the critical importance of internal motivation to
do a job, and to use soft skills with coworkers and customers. iWorkZone has a full
catalog of soft skills assessments and training to offer in this exploding market
climate, and we have very little competition. A simple search using Google for “soft
skills matching” will demonstrate literally hundreds of new business articles per
week.
Relevant Market Size: Employers. Our core employer market consists of businesses
with 20 to 500 employees. In the US, this includes 616,693 firms, 1, 065,332
establishments and 39,000,000 paid employees. This range typically is seeking HR
assistance, and the companies are often not large enough to own their own
assessment and recruitment systems. iWorkZone’s profits are not sensitive to any
one sector. However, we have found that healthcare and the financial services
sectors are the two who embrace what we are doing the quickest.
We have analyzed the top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) for hiring rates
and recovery from the 2008 employment trough the end of 2014, and compared
that with the greatest hiring rates between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014 to see which MSAs
are sustaining robust hiring. Regions with the greatest amount of hiring are most
likely to have the greatest number of employers who will use iWorkZone’s services.
Unemployment is still a large concern, meaning job seekers will be seeking the best
tools available.
Relevant Educational Market Size: Post Secondary Students and institutions. Our
primary target is technical colleges and “non-elite” 4-year institutions. There are
2,951 4-year educational institutions in the US, 2,275 2-year entities and 1, 861
training entities with less than 1 year programming.
Enrollment in degree-granting institutions increased by 11 percent between 1991
and 2001. Between 2001 and 2011, enrollment increased 32 percent, from 15.9
million to 21.0 million. Much of the growth between 2001 and 2011 was in full-time
enrollment; the number of full-time students rose 38 percent, while the number of
part-time students rose 23 percent. During the same time period, the number of
females rose 33 percent, while the number of males rose 30 percent. Enrollment
increases can be affected both by population growth and by rising rates of
enrollment. (source: National Center For Education Statistics)
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Between 2001 and 2011, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds increased from 28.0
million to 31.1 million, an increase of 11 percent, and the percentage of 18- to 24year-olds enrolled in college rose from 36 percent in 2001 to 42 percent in 2011.
(source: NCES)
Increasing importance of making a correct college choice: For the 2011–12
academic year, annual current dollar prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and
board were estimated to be $14,300 at public institutions, $37,800 at private
nonprofit institutions, and $23,300 at private for-profit institutions. Between 2001–
02 and 2011–12, prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public
institutions rose 40 percent, and prices at private nonprofit institutions rose 28
percent, after adjustment for inflation. (source: NCES)
The retention rates for full time students who enroll in the fall as freshman averages
between 50 and 60% by state; the retention rate for part time students ranges from
22-57% by state. (source: NCES). These realities will create an incredible secondary
market for us to sell data to these institutions to help predict educational
completion and to help students correctly identify what they will be passionate
about before going to school.
Clearly an opportunity exists to decrease student turnover rates, a benefit provided by
iWorkZone’s ability to match it’s primary Focused Interest Test results to a standard, US
Department of Education program taxonomy (CIP Codes, or Classification of
Instructional Program Codes).
Employers, obviously, have many options if they are looking for job boards or
assessment systems. They have NO options if they are looking for a job board loaded
with thousands of pre-assessed job seekers who can be matched to their hiring targets
(Talent Patterns), along with receiving Hiring Reports on any applicant they desire,
through their paid account. We don’t want to directly compete with Monster, Career
Builder or the other big job boards, and we have no desire to be another of the
approximately 17,000 smaller job boards in the U.S. Our market position is truly unique,
and our model exposes our fee-based products and services to thousands of employers
through the “warm call” of having them as existing users of our system. We are planning
on further market differentiation and penetration by creating an API that allows applicant
data from iWorkZone to be imported into an employer’s exiting HRMS (Human
Resource Management System) system (this will be attractive to larger employers.)
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
4. Growth Strategy
Educational Strategy
We have examined 4 different growth strategy models: Market Penetration, Product
Development, Market Development and Diversification. Our clear path to sustained
growth is with Market Penetration. Our product and delivery platform is unique, and our
nearest competitors do not have the product mix, price points, delivery mechanisms or
value-added services and features that our system offers. We can quickly expand into
existing regions with moderate to robust hiring by concentrating on building a sales force,
collaterals, sales management, refining our sales process and advertising campaigns.
iWorkZone will implement a growth model that leverages independent sales
representatives, through a hybrid management system. This allows us to expand very
quickly, while paying great commissions, and still mitigating our financial risk. We will
be leveraging the relationships of these representatives and providing a business
opportunity platform for them at the same time.
Education. High schools and post-secondary institutions are mandated to provide career
counseling and (with colleges) outplacement services. Additionally, colleges are in an
increasingly difficult, competitive market, with high freshman turnover rates. iWorkZone
can alleviate much of this stress, automatically, with no addition of staff. Again, our
growth strategy involves dramatically reducing costs to use the core functions of the
system (high school will not be charged at all). We will sell targeted student prospect lists
to colleges and pay-per-click advertising based on targeted interests and target program
growth, but our real goal is getting students at all levels into the system. Many high
schools do not provide career or educational testing to their Juniors and Seniors. Instead,
they provide testing from 8th grade to 10th grade (based on the requirements of HB 5).
Independent Sales Representatives / Certified Consultants Strategy
By using our own systems, we are able to create a success pattern of what a top sales
representative will look like within our own organization. This allows us to quickly
“clone” our superstars and then build out our success through their leveraged efforts.
Based on our systems and a predictive sales success model, each representative should be
able to reach $20,000 per month in gross sales by month 6 in our business. This would
be a commission to them of $8,000 per month. By month 12, each of them should be
able to achieve 42,000 per month in sales, for a commission to them of $16,800 per
month. This positions them to be in business and hire their own support staff to sustain
their business venture.
Seminar Strategy
Many of the small businesses that purchase an annual account from us will buy the
$750 per year program. They may purchase some additional credits as well. Once
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we have built a relationship with them, we will be able to market additional training
programs to them, including our half day and full day seminar programs. If we can
acquire 100 small businesses in a market, this should open up the opportunity for
an average of 4 people per year per company going through an additional seminar at
$200 each. That would be a projected total of $80,000 per year per market of 1-off
seminar participants. For our medium sized-businesses of 100 to 300 employees,
this should provide an even great opportunity for us as an organization.
Promotional Seminar Strategy
iWorkZone has developed seminars in the following topic areas that our Certified
Consultants can use as a part of their strategy to obtain business. Over the last 16
years, these programs have been tested and have proven to provide value to
participates while enticing them to purchase solutions from the founders.




Building An Elite Workforce – This program teaches participants about the
fundamental changes in business as a result of the shifting generational
values in the workplace. It introduces them to solutions that can help to
retain young people and can help ensure the right hire on the first try.
Identifying and Retaining Top Performers – This program teaches
participants how to Identify, Develop, and Retain their top performers. It
helps them to understand the soft-skills model and demonstrates how
research has proven that they system we use increases their overall
profitability through enhancing the performance of their people.
Cultures of Success – This program shows how an organization measures,
monitors, and builds a great culture. It pulls in the tools that we use to
accomplish that for an organization and provides the enticement for the
participants to seek out more information on how their company can
participate in the process.
Top Performance Interviewing – This program teaches the process of
behavioral interviewing and demonstrates the model for hiring based on
behavioral predictions.
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5. Competitor Analysis
There are currently no direct competitors with iWorkZone. However, elements of
the iWorkZone suite of services and products do exist.
Job Boards. Because our software platform and product delivery was designed for
mass deployment in order to gather significant data points, we will be competing
with the myriad of job boards in the US (well over 17,000 currently exist). We will
not directly compete with Monster, Career Builder, etc, but rather look to them as
potentials for acquisition of iWorkZone once our database is mature. Our key
differentiator is our assessment. This will obviously lower the potential number of
job seekers and employers using iWorkZone vs resume uploads to job boards;
however, the trade off is the quality and amount of data points we can acquire about
a region’s skills supply and demand.
We are unique in that we compete at different levels with different companies.
On the job posting side of things, we compete with…
 Monster.com
 CareerBuilder.com
 ZipRecruiter.com
 Hireology.com
 And the traditional model of posting jobs in the paper
On the testing side of things, we compete with…
 ProfilesInternational.com
 HireRight.com
 There are a number of testing companies that are solo-ventures by PhD’s.
On the video interview side of things, we compete with…
 InterviewStream.com
 HireVue.com
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6. Industry Analysis
We used Porter’s Five Forces model to analyze the HR Assessment industry. Our
conclusion is that iWorkZone is superbly empowered to compete in this industry.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers: There is very little competition here as most
competitors (including iWorkZone) own the intellectual property rights to their
product.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: It is impossible for buyers to drive down the
price of a free service; the number of free job seeker users has a definite,
quantifiable value to the company. Therefore, there is no buyer power threat on the
assessment side of our product line. However, our operating revenue and profit are
dependent upon up- and cross- selling employers, and selling our other live training
programs, along with selling our regional labor market data reports. In that line of
our company, we face very mild buyer power. Our primary defense against this is
our low price point: credits are sold for $25 each, and many products cost as little as
1-4 credits, significantly less than competitors, reducing the likelihood that buyers
will threaten to switch vendors. Additionally, we are not marketing to only a few,
large vendors; our business model matures at 1,800 employers, most of whom will
have 20-500 employees.
Competitive Rivalry: iWorkZone has tremendous power here, as there is no
other product like this on the market. Buyers can get pieces of our offering
elsewhere, but not for the price and not with the convenience of a single login
environment. Competition among assessment providers is relatively light. It is very
heavy in job boards, but there are no other job boards in which every job seeker and
every posted job has been assessed and scientifically matched, and offered for free.
Threat of Substitution: Buyers cannot substitute their own methods for doing
what we provide. They can and do provide pre-hire assessment and post-hire
training, but they cannot create their own job boards and populate them with
hundreds of thousands of pre-assessed potential applicants.
Threat of New Entry: a new entrant to this market would have to have a
validated psychometric soft skills assessment that can be done on line in 20 minutes,
plus a menu of pre-hire, on-boarding and training tools and products at a discount
price, plus a sophisticated delivery platform that not only assesses job seekers, but
actually recruits them, plus a validated job analysis method that can develop a
quantifiable hiring target in 20 minutes without staff time involved. iWorkZone is
the culmination of many years building the various tools and methods that have
come together to create the company and its core tool. Large companies such as
Monster and Career Builder could marshal the resource to do this, but not at the
price points we have. Our strategy is to gain the participation of a large volume of
employers, schools, workforce boards and job seekers so that larger companies will
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offer to purchase rather than try to convert our users. Users of iWorkZone will have
entered their basic company info and whichever staff they want to use as Subject
Matter Experts (we offer to do this for them), they will have already created Talent
Patterns using those SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), and they will have an archived
list of job posting events using those talent patterns, all at a very affordable price
point. It will be hard to convert these customers to a different system, and that has
been our past experience; once they are in iWorkZone’s environment, they will stay.
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7. Marketing Strategy
iWorkZone is focused on a growth-hacking model for marketing our services. There
are three target markets that we are focused on. The first is on the job seeker, which
is the product that we will ultimately sell to the employers (2nd market) and the
economic development and workforce regions (3rd market). Growth-hacking,
originally developed by Andrew Chen, has been used to grow and expand social
media sites, email systems, and a host of other types of business. Growth-hacking is
a model of enticing the very people you are doing business with into sharing
information about your company with their contacts and networks. Our growthhacking strategies are outlined by category below.
Job Seekers
Job Seekers are the product that we sell on the front end. By utilizing our system, we
offer a unique way of evaluating and searching for superstars that isn’t offered
anywhere else in the market today. We are the only company that pre-tests all job
seekers and then makes them searchable by soft skills matching, which is the singular
thing that is the greatest predictor of success.
Share My Awesomeness!
This would be a report sharing feature. Each
person will have the ability to share a synopsis
report on Facebook or LinkedIn and a link to a
report on Twitter. This way, they can show their
friends how awesome they are.
Report Mania
We would break down the reporting for the job
seeker into three areas. 1. Work report (standard)
and self coaching report. 2. Relationship Reports These would allow them to see the type of person
that they are most compatible with in a personal
relationship, the type of person they would like to
work with, etc. 3. Play - This would be a short
report in the following variations: superhero report
(male and female version), Pirate report, Outlaw
report, etc.
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For each training that they participate in, they
would get a certificate of completion. When they
get 3 certificates, they get a badge beside their
name that says Trained Seeker or something
cool. This would make them stand out a bit to
employers. They would have to do these to be a
part of the "Featured Seekers Club"
Trained Superstar
Additionally, we will eventually roll out training that
can be purchased by job seekers. We believe that
there is a significant opportunity with the “MLM”
crowd to sell programs on sales, marketing, selfhelp, and the like. The prices will match the price
of the same courses inside of the employer
accounts. These courses can also be seen as
completed by the employers when they look at a
job seeker’s account.
Super-Hero Complex
This would be a report that is generated off of their
existing test that tells the job seeker what superhero they would be. The idea would be to expand
this to the point of having Presidential reports,
Historical Figure reports, and more. This would be a
short, and shareable report designed for social
media.
My Online Resume’
This will be the accumulated information that the
job seeker has entered into the system, including
their profile pic, their work history, and a synopsis
of their report. Eventually, we will also integrate
their practice interview videos into the
system. Each job seeker will have a specific link
that is public and shareable on social
platforms. We will have a link to “get your own” at
the bottom of each online resume.” Our initial
thought is to charge an annual fee for this. It would
be one of the only things that a job seeker would
pay for. From a volume play, this would give us
access to a very large market very quickly. Initial
price estimates would be $10 per year.
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Employers
Employers are our “bread-and-butter” and provide the vast majority of our income. It is
finding ways to entice them and serve them that we have the ability to upgrade them.
Our objective is to funnel them through our specific sales process in order to make them
successful. In this way, they will make us successful in return.
Employer Landing Pages
This would be a page that would have a unique URL
for that specific employer and would be available to
any employer with a Premium Plus Account or
greater. It will have a listing of all of their posted
jobs with a “Check My Fit” button beside each one.
If a person is logged in as a job seeker when they go
there, they will be able to see a check mark beside
each of the jobs that they fit after clicking the
“Check My Fit” button. If they fit, they can apply.
This would also help to track which job seekers
came to an employer’s landing page and would
provide that information to the employer.
A very simple process, we have added at the
bottom of every notification…
Share The Love
We love people who share! Please share the
opportunity with job seekers and employers that
you know.
A link is provided for each to be able to sign up
quickly and easily.
Build An Empire
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This would be where employers recommend this to
their employer buddies and they get a new
company in their empire every time a company that
they recommends signs up. The objective would be
to compare themselves to the other companies and
build a bigger empire by bringing in more
businesses than anyone else. Each month, we
would have an "Empire Builder" award.
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Referral Partner
This would be how a company could sign up as a
referral partner and choose to get a 15% credit
towards things that they buy from iWorkZone, or
they could decide to take a 10% payment for
people that they referred to iWorkZone that
purchased.
Workforce Regions
The idea behind working with Workforce Regions is that they can funnel a very large
quantity of job seekers into the system very quickly. We will simply allow them to
funnel job seekers in and print off their reports. We will not provide a special login or
additional tracking for them. We have found them to be minimalists when it comes to
effort.
The WFC would be able to recommend this system
to another workforce area and could choose from
one of three or so standard emails and then add to
them, modify them, etc as they see fit. It would
Recommend this system to other
contain a link that would track who referred them
areas
and whether they signed up. The referring party
would get a gold star for every referral and a free
day of training when they get 10 signed up
referrals.
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8. Sales Strategy
The sales model that we have designed is based on growth hacking strategies,
combined with consultative selling by independent representatives. This model
allows for smaller capitalization to grow the business and exponential growth in
representatives for the company. The growth-hacking strategies are integrated into
the reporting systems, encouraging participants to share their reports via social
media, participate in shortened assessments via social media and invite friends
through the site and through auto-generated posts and emails. Multiple areas of the
site have been identified for growth-hacking and additional areas are being explored.
The sales process will flow through independent Certified Consultants, or CC's that
will have the opportunity to have a referral key that ties employers to their account,
regardless of geography. CC's earn 40% commission on all sales based on gross
revenues for electronic sales and adjusted gross for live training.
Sales Interview strategies will be integrated into the site and will serve as the client
survey that all employers are asked to participate in. This will be their “Business
Climate Survey” and will help us and the CC’s to understand what is important to
them.
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The sales model that has proven effective over the last 16 years is to ask the
following questions after sliding this graphic in front of the prospect.
Sales Interview Questions
1. When you look at the areas on the bubble sheet, which 3 are the most
important to you?
2. Of those three, which one would be the most important for us to have a
positive impact on in the next 60 days?
3. What would it mean to you to accomplish that?
4. What would it cost you to not accomplish that?
5. What are you currently doing to work on or make that area better?
6. What do you like about your current solution?
7. If you could change something about your current solution, what would it be?
8. If a solution is available that would make that would really help you get to
where you want to be, would you be interested?
The CC would then tell them that they would like to put together some
information for them and then get back together, if they see that it would be
more than a Premium or Premium Plus account as an opportunity. If not, they
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would attempt to close them on that visit. If there is resistance, they would ask
more questions that would pull out and then overcome objections.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
9.Strategic Positioning / Competitive Advantage
iWorkZone is the “eHarmony of employers and job seekers”. We are not a typical
job board; we avoid the “spray and pray” method of referral using a very fast
assessment used by our proprietary algorithm. We further differentiate ourselves
from job boards by proactively making matches, 24/7, for every new assessment
completed against every Talent Pattern used in an active Job Posting: we look for
jobs FOR job seekers, just as we look for new talent on behalf of employers. Our
company is further distinguished by our pricing model: our core services are totally
free to job seekers with no trial period. Though we include resumes and past
experience, we make matches and referrals based on assessed soft skills fit. In effect,
we are providing employers with a “short list” of applicants who will WANT to do
their jobs, and will probably be retained over an extended period of time. This has
been one of the primary complaints of employers over our 40+ years of combined
experience: they do not want to hire people who have the technical skills, but won’t
use those skills, or who leave because they don’t “fit” that job. iWorkZone combines
the volume and ease of a traditional on-line job board with the advantage of having
all job postings and job seekers analyzed and matched using a proprietary, validated
algorithm. The system creates volume by offering job seekers free use, and it
incentivizes use by providing high-value career exploration and intelligent job
referral to job seekers, while providing intelligent recruitment and on-boarding to
employers for an affordable price. The system then leverages this relationship to
introduce inexpensive fee-based products and services to employers. Finally, the
system stores and reports virtually every data point gathered, creating highly
valuable, real-time labor market reports. There is no other system like this on the
market.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
10.Business Development / Partnership Strategy
We largely bootstrapped the research and technology development phases of
iWorkZone, and are now seeking partners to help us with business development
costs (primarily advertising, marketing, distribution and sales management).
Product / Service: we are focused on a horizontal, market penetration strategy with
our current offerings, which allow us to extract value from private employers,
colleges, workforce boards, economic developers and government and private
concerns needed data regarding regional skills supply and demand, and anticipated
supply and demand, at both macro and granular levels. Our current offerings cover
customer preferences for both live and virtual services. Our greatest need is to bring
our market-ready technology and services throughout these existing markets.
We have tested potential partnerships with Chambers of Commerce, Workforce
Development Boards, Economic Developers, Industry Groups, Society of Human
Resource Managers, private consulting groups, and others. Clearly, a correct
approach to Workforce Boards can result in a job seeker user database growing
exponentially in a matter of months. We are confident in being able to get a
significant number of users putting their job seekers into the system.
Another key partner appears to be SHRM groups. Jody Holland has been contracted
with to give keynote presentations to these groups, with the specific instruction to
talk about iWorkZone. He is currently working with a number of these groups all
along the I-35 corridor in Texas. These groups, obviously, will help us get
iWorkZone used by employers.
Economic developers are wary of our newness, but very supportive of the idea. We
currently have one ED group sponsoring a larger, regional project ($20,000). As
anticipated, they are interested in the data we can secure, which they correctly see
as a type of mass survey of existing and predicted skills supply and demand in their
area. As with other government and pseudo-government groups, each wants to “be
first to be second”.
Education is another key partner, with post-secondary education putting both
students and immediate cash into our business, and high schools feeding the job
seeker side of the database. In our experience, high schools can dramatically
increase the size of the database, almost overnight, through their career exploration
requirements.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
For internal partners, the purpose of this prospectus is to secure market penetration
capital AND sales / distribution management expertise. More is covered in the next
section…
Sales / Distribution
Direct Sales: A key sales strategy is incorporated in the actual web tool; we
require a basic business skills survey of registering employers. That serves as a
focused prospect list. Additionally, the survey works in several steps, narrowing the
respondent’s stated skills challenges down to issues that iWorkZone can help solve.
The respondent is offered these suggestions and is invited to purchase credits
and/or subscriptions for products appropriate to their challenges.
Certified Consultant Network: We have recruited 6 representatives that will
serve as consultants. They have gone through our certification process and have
learned the products, the process, and the purpose. They have been provided with a
specific business growth plan that will enable them to earn $1,000,000 in 3 years, if
they execute the plan as presented.
Marketing:
Leadership Programs
Sponsoring Events
Growth Hacking
Targeted Ad-Words
Technology
We have a program that allows users to take the iWorkZone.com core assessment
within a Facebook environment. Our goal is to finish testing this and to incorporate
it into our marketing activities. We also are working on a mobile app version of the
tool. Both technologies will help our efforts at reaching a younger demographic in
building our database, one of our key strategies.
We are in the planning stages for several other technology developments, including
an API that allows employers to import iWorkZone data into their HRMSs. We will
also build an integrated sales management platform into the system, allowing our
growing network of sales representatives to perform sales tracking directly within
the iWorkZone tool itself using private logins. We are also planning enhancements
to the targeted student recruitment function for post secondary institutions.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
11.Product / Technology Strategy
Our primary product strategy is to create fast, large market penetration using talent
mining, matching and management tools. This exposure allows us to present for upand cross-selling fee based product. Our product line and specialty is focused on
psychometrics for occupational skills, soft skills enhancement, management training,
and large scale statistical sampling and analysis.
All new products and services must have three features:
1. High scientific validation to retain a market position as serious science
Digital delivery to contain delivery costs and increase market penetration quickly.
Validation, development, past experience. Varied suite: live, virtual.
iWorkZone.com – our primary job analysis, student / job seeker assessment
delivery mechanism. The tool also presents and sells credits to our other pre- and
post-hire assessments, virtual training, and CloudInterview virtual interviews.
CloudInterview- can decrease interview time from 20 hours to 1 hour using web
based, asynchronous technology.
Testing
Behavioral and Interest Test - This is a heavily validated, 20 minute Interest and
Behavioral Pattern assessment given to both job seekers and an employers Subject
Matter Experts. Job Seekers immediately receive a 12-14 page Individual Report
detailing their profile, with a list of compatible occupations for their results. This list
is codified using a standard US DOL taxonomy (SOC codes). Employers determine
who their SMEs are, and the system automatically assigns them this test. An
algorithm uses those aggregated scores to create a Talent Pattern, a numerical
hiring target against which the system matches Job Seeker assessment scores.
Applicants to a Job Posting using a Talent Pattern result in an employer receiving a
Hiring Report, which details specifically how and by how much an applicant
matches the various assessed categories in that Talent Pattern. Workforce Board
and school staff can receive a Coaching Report, which gives career and guidance
counselors detailed insights on the student / job seeker. This single 20 minute
assessment results in immediate value for multiple users. This assessment is
provide for free; all other products listed below are fee based.
Management Profiler - This test measures the management style, business and
problem solving IQ, and leadership competencies of an individual. It is ideal to be
implemented for anyone that the employer wishes to gain insight on in a leadership
or supervisory position.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
ProScreen - This test measures four areas of the participants. It measures their work
ethic, reliability, integrity, and ability to work well with others. It also gives you an
overview of their general work experience as it relates to applying for work.
SMARTs - This test is the sales marketing and representative traits test. It measures
a person’s capacity to function effectively in both the sales role and a marketing role.
It measures areas such as logic, creativity, self-esteem, communication, and self
presentation.
Healthy Workforce - This is the only test on the market that can accurately and
consistently predict the likelihood of retention for a nurse at any level. This test has
been psychologically validated to show how long the nurse will stay with an
organization. It also has each of the components of the ProScreen test integrated
inside of it.
Nurse Retention - This is a simplified version of the previous test. It has the one
component of predicting the likelihood of retention over nurse. This test takes less
than five minutes for a potential nurse to complete. It can be used all the way from a
certified nurses aide up to a registered nurse.
Evaluation
360 Evaluation - This is a standardized 360° evaluation. There are nine sections.
Each participant will rate the self, or the person being evaluated, using a 1 to 5 scale.
You have at least one supervisor, only oneself, at least two peers, and at least two
direct reports. The objective is to identify the perceptive evaluation differences
between each of the evaluation groups.
Leader Talent 360 Evaluation - This is an advanced 360° evaluation. There are five
leadership core qualifications with 27 sub competencies. This tool will compare the
importance of each of the sub competencies between the individual and their
supervisor(s). The tool provides a comparison between the self, the supervisor, at
least two peers, and at least two direct reports. It can be used for talent
management and succession planning as well as for developing customized training
plans for leaders.
Performance Review (Talent Eval) - This is a completely customizable performance
evaluation designed as an annual review. And allows for a self-evaluation as well as
evaluation from that person's supervisor were supervisors.
Exit Evaluation (Exit Eval) - This is a customizable exit evaluation that can be
conducted online. It allows an employer to ask specific questions of those leaving
their organization in order to identify trends for the cause of them leaving.
Customer Service Evaluation (CS Eval) - This is a customizable customer service
evaluation that can be implemented as an open evaluation from the employer’s
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
website. It allows the employer to gather data about the experiences that their
customers are having and interacting with staff.
Surveys
Employee Climate Survey - This survey measures the overall attitudes and
engagement of employees and then breaks down the information by location, by
department, and even by job title. This provides the organization with a roadmap
for what development is needed and a benchmark to know whether or not they are
advancing.
Management Attitude & Culture Survey - This survey measures the overall
management style of a management team. Based on Blake and Mouton’s grid theory
of management, this tool maps out where the potential management and leadership
issues would be with any given management team.
Team Collaboration Survey - This survey is designed to help organizations more
effectively choose their teams. It is validated to predict whether or not a team will
do well in critical tasks such as decision-making, problem-solving, strategic planning,
etc. Once the participants have completed the test, the organization and interchange
participants until they build their ideal team.
Interviews - Cloud Interview, Inc. is our interview partner. We had integrated an
auto login feature from iWork zone into cloud interview. When a job seeker matches
to a job and then applies for that job, the hiring manager has a “click to interview”
link next to their name.
Cloud Interview Enables a company to record their own custom interview
questions, add in specific evaluators for any given interview, and then simply add
the names and email addresses of the candidates to be interviewed. The system
sends a notification to the candidates. They click on the link, watch the interview
question, and then click respond. This turns on their WebCam and microphone and
captures their audio video response. As soon as the candidate completes their
interview, the evaluators receive an email notification letting them know that they
can evaluate the candidate responses. Each evaluator will rate each response on a
scale of 1 to 10. They will add supporting comments where applicable. Once the
evaluators are done, the system will rank order the candidates from best to worst
based on the numeric rating.
Recruiting - The proactive recruiting model within our system enables an
organization to test one or more of their top performers for any given position and
then searched the regional database for people who match. It then allows them to
proactively reach out to those good matches and invite them to apply for the job.
Only premium or platinum account holders have access to the recruiting module.
This means that a company will have to spend a minimum of $2500 in order to
access that system on a yearly basis.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
Live Training - We have developed more than two dozen one-day programs that
can be implemented through our network of contract trainers around the United
States. These trainings focus on soft skills, management, teamwork, and leadership.
We have a negotiated contract rate with each of our trainers and each of them has
participated in our master trainer program.
E-Learning - We currently offer 12 of our live training programs as e-learning
courses. We have both full versions and snapshot versions of our programs. The full
versions run an average of four hours in length. The snapshot versions are the
highlights from key training programs and run approximately one hour in length.
We are continuing to convert our live training programs enter e-learning platform.
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
12. Competitive Strategy
As noted, iWorkZone is unique in its product mix and delivery strategy. Our model is
designed to attract large volumes of employers and job seekers with high valueadded benefits, giving us an opportunity to sell to employers already using our
system and to accumulate many millions of data points that can be sold in several
different markets, from education to government to economic development to
private for profit. This model means our existing prices can be kept low. Once we
reach scale and obtain brand recognition, very few competitors will want to
compete for employers already vested in using our system, or with job seekers and
Workforce Boards who already have all their data in our system.
13. Business Process / Operations Plan
Jody Holland - CEO Leads all research and development. Jody delivers and
coordinates live training and provides keynote speeches, coaching, surveys and
other key services. He is our chief visionary.
Brad Lambden - COO Responsible for all daily operations, development and
implementation of all sales and marketing efforts company wide and strategic
implementation of corporate goals.
Nick Robillard is our Chief Programmer and Program Designer. He lives and works
in Abilene. Nick has worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber as a program architect
and built their proprietary eLearning system as well as their workflow tracking
systems.
David Griffard (Lead CC and VP of Business Development) – David is responsible for
business development and sales growth. He brings decades of sales and sales
management experience to the table. He is responsible for getting each of our CC’s
to $20,000 per month in gross revenue or greater. He will eventually build out our
sales infrastructure with 8 Regions across the U.S., with Districts in each Region, and
CC’s in each District.
iWorkZone is based in Amarillo TX. Our offices are currently at the Chase Building
in downtown. This provides us a training room for working with CC’s when they
come to town, as well as a base of operations. The majority of our company,
however, is virtual. One programmer works from Abilene, TX, the QA Specialist
works in Menomonie, WI, and the Customer Specialist works in Amarillo. Our CC’s
are spread out across the U.S. and are independent contractors. We work together
using various web-based tools to help coordinate and communicate. This format
dramatically reduces infrastructure costs and puts our key people in the markets
where they need to be in order to be successful!
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iWorkZone, Inc. http://www.iWorkZone.com 806-355-5567
14. Appendix and Additional Resources
For more information, please visit www.iWorkZone.net and use the password:
iamin
You can see the training site for our Certified Consultants at: www.1MillionIn3.com
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