by Charles Besondy

The newest Manpower employment survey was released on December 9. It revealed that 67% of the companies surveyed planned to hold steady their staff levels in Q1 2009. Caution is in the wind. Most companies are taking a wait and see position and who can blame them.

For really smart companies this is a great time to sock it to their competition with the help of interim marketing and sales talent, of course.

Taking a “wait and see” attitude doesn’t mean your company should put itself in neutral. It simply means taking a conservative stance in terms of headcount for full time employment. Use interim sales and marketing leadership to help you accomplish those mission-critical initiatives or fill key vacancies for a season. This is an opportune time to gain market share from those competitors who are hiding in their dens afraid the sky is falling.

Chuck Besondy is a principal at One Accord Partners and is co-author of Leadership on Demand: How Smart CEO’s Tap Interim Management to Drive Revenue. You can read more about Interim Sales and Marketing Management by Chuck Besondy at his blog One Riot-One Ranger.