BGSF, Inc. (NYSE:BGSF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We hate to say that for six weeks means stabilization, but we have seen that level off on a sequential week basis. And we — right now, looking at how that performance has been, we are optimistic that the fourth quarter is going to continue along those same lines with typical seasonality. So if you look at our business, you look at the last two years as it’s tough to see the seasonality. One because we were in a very aggressive growth market, in general. And two, we had that extra week last year. But if you go back before that, right, you’ll see that there is seasonality in the professional segment, not as much is what you would see in the Property Management segment as we have really high demand in second and third quarters but we do have holidays and a little more vacations that hit the fourth quarter.

Jeff Martin: Great. And then last one, if I could. Could you talk on what you’re seeing out there in terms of wage rates and the trends? Are you seeing increased competition on wage or any other factors competitively or on a rate basis that was not [Technical Difficulty] —

John Barnett: I don’t think there would be anything to note there specific.

Jeff Martin: Okay. Thanks, John and Beth.

Beth Garvey: Thanks, Jeff.

Operator: Our next question comes from Howard Halpern with Taglich Brothers.

Howard Halpern: Congratulations, guys, navigating a tough environment. First question is regarding, I guess, the property segment. How many offices do you currently have open? And what’s the plan going forward in terms of opening new or splitting existing locations?

Beth Garvey: I believe we’re right at 64 markets in the Property Management sector at this point, but I would say that it’s always — we would love to double down and open up quickly. But that cost — that’s a P&L hit, so we manage those costs to make sure that we can grow effectively and also not stress out the teams as they open up new markets. But as you know from our prior history, we’ve always opened up new markets every year. And now that we have the new sales force marketing territorial mapping tool that we’ve been able to utilize, we anticipate that’s going to allow us to really penetrate into these larger markets a lot better than we have been able to in the past.

Howard Halpern: And in terms of, I guess, finding people to complete your customers request, how is that going in terms of educating the potential — your potential people, who will be deployed to your customers and what are you seeing in terms of that?

Beth Garvey: Finding talent is not as big of a problem as it had been in the past, but I think we’ve talked about this in the past. We strive to be a leader and attract the best talent and we do that through relationships. And so we have a very big referral program within our organization. So if somebody’s working for us, we ask them to bring their friends along and have found that to be probably our number one recruiting tool.

Howard Halpern: Are there any additional internal technology projects that you are working on or is most of it now just maintenance and just making sure everything is tightened up from what you’ve done in the past year, a year or two?

Beth Garvey: As a reminder, we went live with the technologies on the MVP, so we — they all were basics. We wanted to make sure that we could pay them bill right out of the gate and that it wasn’t disruptive to our consultants or our customers. And so we now have moved into the efficiency side of it. So less things in regards to getting it actually implemented and cleaned up and more things into the efficiencies, and we’re starting to see that move as well.

Howard Halpern: Okay, so we should — and that should impact maybe the fourth quarter, but really next year we should see some of that on the P&L line?