We recently connected with Cierra Belser and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cierra, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you got your first non-friend, non-family client. Paint the picture for us so we can feel the same excitement you felt on that day.

I’m going to add a little twist to this question by telling the story of when I landed my first big client. I was working as a Business Development Manager for a large staffing firm. Before I get to the good stuff, I have to tell you the back story. Before I moved to the big leagues, I started my staffing career working for a small women-owned staffing firm that had less than 10 locations. This was my first step into the world of staffing and a huge career change for me. I worked for this firm for almost 2 years but quickly realized that to play in the big leagues you have to position yourself to win and this firm wasn’t it. They weren’t ready to play with the big boys and I knew that to have a lucrative career in this field, I was going to have to become a million-dollar sales machine. Although the culture of that company wasn’t a fit for me I learned a lot and fell in love with the Minority Owned Business space so I transitioned to another women-owned firm that was a little larger than the previous. They fired me after 6 months because it just wasn’t in me to close the small stuff. We still laugh about that today but it wasn’t very funny when it happened. I had big goals and working with the smaller clientele wasn’t going to get me to the million-dollar club in a year. Feeling defeated, I took 6 months to really find a company that would align with my vision. Almost 5 years ago to the day, I received a message on LinkedIn inviting me to apply for my dream role. It was a VP of Sales role for a large staffing firm with a national presence. This was my destiny but after 3 rounds of interviews my dream was offered to another candidate and I was offered another BDM role. I decided that my third time would be the charm and accepted the position with The Onin Group. I started in May and by June I received the phone call that would change my career and me forever. A large Automotive Manufacturer called and said that they were looking to add another firm. Needless to say, I was very excited and eager to prepare for the meeting of a lifetime. I researched, bought the power suit, and practiced the presentation until it was memorized. Now they are a 4 million dollar client of mine and I dedicated almost two years of my life helping my first baby grow. Every time I drive past it I smile because it reminds me that failure doesn’t mean defeat. Keep going because success could be right around the corner.

Cierra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I work as the Director of National Partnerships for Excelsior Staffing, We are a minority-owned firm with a national presence across the US. Our motto is “Create opportunity, empower people” because we believe in providing career opportunities and developing talent. My job is to help our clients develop recruiting strategies and link them to qualified talent. I love working in the staffing field because I have the ability to work with so many different industries from Automotive to logistics, to food processing to Aerospace. If you have never seen a robot put in a windshield then you have not lived.

I fell into my role by networking at a local chamber event. Prior to staffing I worked in radio marketing and sales and was an active volunteer with our chamber which is a great way to network and meet people across all industries in your community. Brian was a regional director for a local firm that would come every other month from St. Louis. He would always tell me that I would be great as a BDM and literally begged me to apply and the rest is history.

In total, I have been in the staffing industry for 8 years and have had the opportunity to work and travel all over the US and work with all types of companies from Target to Hyundai. Excelsior is unique because we bring technology and benefits to the table at a level that other companies simply can’t touch. Innovation is our big differentiator and what our clients value most about our firm. From customized recruiting strategies that help each client become the employer of choice in their communities to offering affordable benefits that are literally saving lives and giving access to quality healthcare that is usable and affordable. Show me another staffing firm that offers their temporary employees a 401K and $5 copays… I’ll wait. We’re not your average staffing firm and as we like to say, there’s nothing temporary about that.

Although my role is sales on a national level, It never feels that way because I know that a solid staffing partner is something that everyone needs. I am so proud of what we have built and the lives that we have changed because we believe in cultivating talent and providing opportunities for those that are looking for a career and ultimately a better quality of life. I have seen our teammates’ lives transform from living paycheck to paycheck to purchasing their first home all because they made the choice to go from job to career. I have walked into plants where the HR Director and Plant Managers were working on the lines because they were so short staffed but our recruiting plans fixed their talent shortages. Even I have had to step in and drive cars off the line because they needed all the help they could get. If your current provider isn’t doing that for you, then we need to talk.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Like most of us, the pandemic causing the world to shut down forced me to evaluate my career path and where I was headed. It was ugly because I wasn’t where I wanted to be and had no motivation to get there. I was tired, burned out, quiet quitting and even loudly quitting because everything and everyone was to blame for my stagnant state. I felt like my company didn’t value me or truly understand my capabilities and what I bring to the table. I was tired of being a BDM, and wasn’t sure if I was even going to have a job since the layoffs were abundant and 90% of my clients were shut down. Since life was all about Zoom calls, I remember accepting an invite for a virtual session on branding yourself. It was that call that helped me realize what I needed to do to snap out of the melancholy state I was in. I updated my headshots, revamped my LinkedIn page, started creating content, and made myself a workforce expert. This led to my public speaking career and I spent 2 years speaking to different SHRM(Society for Human Resource Managers) organizations about recruiting post-pandemic. I then decided to approach my company about a new role within their Minority owned division that would allow me to work with our national accounts team while working with those industries that value diverse businesses. Fast forward and now I just celebrated my one-year anniversary in my dream role, published my first ebook on networking for women, did my first keynote address, grown my LinkedIn following to over 8K followers, was just awarded the Birmingham Business Journals Leaders in Diversity and Inclusion award and was just named by Focus Empowers in the 2023 class of 40 over 40 . Don’t wait for success to happen, make it happen.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Being a black woman climbing the corporate ladder always comes with a backstory. I’m originally from Southern California and growing up I never paid any attention to skin color. We were all just kids from the block riding bikes and living our best lives. My single mom and I moved to Alabama when I was 10, where I learned that color is real and people see it before they see you. I quickly learned that you can be as good, smart and talented as a person with less color but you better work 10 times harder if you want to get noticed. At 42 years old this lesson still rings true today. I have not achieved my success without blood and sweat between every milestone. I too am a single mom with a 16-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. Watching them share the same struggles is hard but I have also seen how it builds resilience and determination. I can honestly say that if success was easy, I wouldn’t want it as bad. I’ve been looked over, not invited, talked about, and have even had my character questioned but in my best Maya Angelou voice “Still I rise”. I’ve come to the conclusion that just the thought of one person thinking that I can’t accomplish something is all the motivation I need to get it done. When I said I was going to start speaking, I was asked why I didn’t ask someone else in our company to do it because she has the experience. When I landed my first big client, it was just me and my amazing co-workers doing it all but now a lot of the programs that I started have become best practices. There really isn’t just one story that I can share because it happens all the time and will continue to happen. My drive and determination keep me focused and drive me to push through the bureaucracy of it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.excelsiorstaffing.com
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/cierra-johnson-belser-mbe-csp-68ba9a47

Image Credits
Michael Moorer Photography