Ep. 4 of Out of Line with Tiffany Scott, with Kelli Christina.
Kelli Christina has spent about 25 years in medical staffing. She founded KD Staffing in 2007, right before the recession, kept it open through the pandemic, and spoke up about problems in her industry when staying quiet would have been easier. She has written books about it, including In Good Faith.
I'll be honest: Episode 4 is one of the heaviest conversations we've had on the show. Underneath the hard parts, though, there are some of the most practical lessons for agency owners I've heard, especially about how you treat candidates and how much you depend on any single client.
Kelli is the founder and CEO of KD Staffing, which staffs hospitals with medical professionals, and an international bestselling author, public speaker, and business coach. She became a boss at 19. In corporate staffing, she helped grow a new travel division to about $10 million in roughly two years before starting her own firm. She has also worked on staffing and recruitment issues with government officials in Texas and Washington, D.C.
Kelli doesn't mince words about operators who put more effort into cutting corners than doing good work. Her point is that the same energy, pointed in the right direction, pays.
"success and money is out there the honest way. That's what I'm about."
In an industry where buyers are already skeptical of agencies, that's not just a moral stance. It's a competitive advantage. Your reputation follows every recruiter you've ever had on the phone.
Kelli launched KD Staffing as the economy was heading into a recession. She said it plainly: going into a downturn, your sales have to be well above water or you're in trouble. On top of that, a new owner is learning a budget, deciding which professionals to pay, and building a team, often while working seven days a week.
Her advice to her younger self was simple:
"go one step at a time. You go one day at a time."
If you're just starting out, pipeline is your oxygen. Everything else can be built in order.
Kelli's firm staffed hospitals nationwide. That meant working with a nurse, and also their partner, their kids, and their pets, through the interview, the offer, onboarding, paperwork, and a move. Those relationships last for months.
"So it is an art. It is an art what we do, and there is a degree of of passion and going and being above and beyond."
That hit home for me. Early in my recruiting career, a candidate told me I sounded like a robot reading a script. I was in my early 20s, and it changed how I worked from then on. This job affects people's lives. It isn't transactional, and your training should treat it that way.
Experience changed how Kelli handles fit. Earlier in her career she'd push the sale. Now she'll tell a medical professional early that a job isn't right for them, and it surprises people.
"I'm more apt to cut you out of a job earlier stages knowing that this is just it's not going to work out, right?"
Clients and candidates both remember the recruiter who saved them time. Being cut and dry at the right moment builds more trust than a forced placement that falls apart.
This is the lesson every owner should sit with. Before the pandemic, KD Staffing was serving hospitals in four states, including what Kelli described as the largest healthcare system in the United States, a client she'd worked with for 11 years. Then that client decided to cut outside staffing companies and add more HR internally. Eleven years didn't matter.
Hospitals bringing staffing in-house and buyers consolidating vendors aren't new trends, and they can happen to anyone. Spread your revenue so that no single decision in somebody else's boardroom can take you out.
Kelli grew that corporate travel division so fast that leadership pulled her out of her quiet corner office and put her in the middle of the nursing division, so others could learn how she talked to her team. Like nearly every founder I've interviewed, she says the job is to get the right people, people smarter and better than you, to run the pieces you can't.
Look at your revenue by client. If one account is more than a third of your business, start building the next two now, while things are good. Give your recruiters a clear standard for honest, fast answers to candidates and clients, including the no. And write down how the business runs, so the people you're developing can run it without you.
Connect with Kelli on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/kelli-dennehey-christina-326ba12a), read her blog at kellichristinaauthor.com, and find KD Staffing at kdstaffing.org.
Kelli's story is a hard reminder that one client should never be your whole business. Building a wider pipeline of companies that are actually hiring is the work myScout is meant to make easier.
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