Results & Customer Driven Teams Along With Loyal Clients Are The Foundation Of SGA Talent's Success

Thank you SGA Talent Teams, You All Rock!

Thank you loyal and returning clients, You All Rock!

Here is to the next 25 years!

I just want to say that I truly believe that our teams and clients just as they were 25 years ago continue to be SGA Talent's greatest assets. Thank you all. You are the foundation of our success!

The strong loyalty of both cannot be duplicated, here is to another 25! As we make our way into the 4th quarter of 2014, I would personally like to say thanks to all who have made the first 25 years of Sheila Greco Associates LLC - SGA Talent a successful one.

Looking back it has been an interesting great journey. SGA Talent started as a research house offering mapping/research mainly to search firms. At the request of our clients we entered into the recruiting/pipeline generation business. Shortly thereafter, we made a logical decision to enter into the business of customized competitive intelligence/business intelligence and in 2005 we launched SGA ExecutiveTracker. Throughout our history, SGA Talent has undergone many changes, and continues to evolve, but one thing is for certain, we understand the importance of delivering results driven services that help our clients succeed and keep them coming back.

As Mahatma Gandhi quoted, "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." All so true.

As the close of 2014 decends upon us, let me say,  thank you to our loyal clients and we are looking forward to welcoming the new ones. It is all about the team and accomplishing the goals together.

As we have done in the past, lets continue to do it in the future; learn from each communicate, deliver, and understand the true meaning of the word partnership. In our world where time is of the essence, supeior results are expected and being cost conscious is the norm lets walk along side each other and continue to be succcessful as a team.

Interesting Side Notes…Winning in the marketplace requires winning in the workplace

It's all about winning in the workplace!

Happy employees make a difference to a company's overall success.

I believe that a company’s carefully-maintained employee-first culture can and does positively effect its bottom line.

Winning in the marketplace is certainly the main focus of any company. But just as important is the company's ability to take care of business in the company's workplace. Yes, to me, it is all about winning in the workplace that drives the company's success. I cannot stress enough, the fact, that people are a company's greatest asset.

Creating a quality and winning workplace filled with content and high-flying team players does make a difference. I recently came across a quote from Doug Conant, ex CEO Campbell Soup which stated, " To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace." To me, this says it all. As a business owner of a small company I know the importance of having happy people in our workplace and how it has played and continues to play in our overall success.

As I look to maintain and build upon a winning workplace, the following are a few of our company's "must haves"  to ensure we are winning in the workplace. Please note that they are not in any specific order.

1. Offer competitive salary with the opportunity to earn more based upon individual and team successes.

2. Have in place an environment that offers a challenge to each team, holding each accountable while offering a real sense of ownership to completed projects.

3. Make available necessary tools that will assist with the each team player's successes.  I believe there needs to be relevant tools and proven processes in place to empower each employee.

4. There also must exist the opportunity for career advancement, creativity and it is okay to fail while trying something new environment.

5. Hire those who will make the team stronger. I have also learned that creating a winning workplace environment requires the need to ensure every new hire is a great one. Again, looking to maintain and enhance the all ready great colleague type of environment.

6. As a leader it is important to keep morale high, create that positive and winning workplace that will keep turnover to a minimum. It also means promoting, hiring and training leaders others want to work for.

7. Always promote the concept that the customer is always right attitude. It starts at the top and should be part of the corporate culture.

What do you believe is important to winning in the workplace?

Sheila Greco

sgreco@sgatalent.com

SGA Talent - Sheila Greco Associates - Relationships Matter.....

SGA Talent - Sheila Greco Associates is celebrating 25 years this year. Part of the celebration includes sharing this milestone with current and future clients by hosting events across the United States. The first one was held in New York City in April, which of course was a great success. But it was also confirmation that creating and maintaining relationships matter. If you think about it, relationships are the building blocks of what we do, who we are and our successes.

Why? Because the relationships we have with our coworkers, business partners, and our business communities are the means for achieving our personal and team goals. We can agree that we certainly do not work in isolation: but work together, with others! All the more reasons to have strong meaningful relationships. Often times,   successes can be traced back to the relationships that have been created and with  individuals who have come to trust, support and respect each other.

So once again, relationships in our lives do matter. Relationships move us forward. Imagine a wheel in which you may be a hub or at the center and each spoke serves a relationship with another person. These relationships hold the wheel together which in turn helps move the wheel along. These spokes of relationships continue to move us, causing each of us to achieve many goals.

In our case, as with many successful businesses, relationships matter. Hats off to our team who have built and continue to build so many great relationships with our trusted clients. It helped us grow in a variety of ways because our clients continue to use us, refer and depend on us. As the relationships continue to build, grow and unfold, we need to be reminded that they need to be approached with integrity.

Relationships do take time and effort, but can be well worth it. It is always better to create relationships before there is a need so to speak. However, many long-term relationships started when there was a need. Often times this happens in business and relationships blossom as time goes on. Therefore it is now the time to thank all who have worked with us and continue to work with us. Your relationship with us matters!

Our recent event in New York was an example of how relationships matter. Although just 3 hours, the relationships that we either being sustained, created or enhanced were all meaningful ones. Personally it was an honor for me to be part of a group of very smart, high achieving, results driven, senior level talent acquisition and hiring managers. The many conversations were not just limited to general recruiting industry trends, but more about an individual's successes, challenges and goals. Truly, an open and casual networking session. It was incredible.

Once again, relationships do matter. I know because it has helped us reach our 25 year milestone. My relationships with all our clients matters to me! As Harry S. Truman said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." To this I salute both the SGA team and our clients. Thank you!

Video Clip of New York Event

Testimonial Page

Take it from me, Sheila Greco, relationships matter.....

Sheila Greco ----Time To Do Your Own Talent SWOT Analysis 8/25

Exploit your strengths

Work on your weaknesses

Identify opportunities that you should be taking advantage of

What potential threats are out there limiting your career advancements?

From time to time it is a good idea to do your own talent SWOT Analysis. What a better time than now. With the month of January behind you and your review something of the past, it seems appropriate to do your own talent SWOT Analysis now. As a habit I do this twice a year due to industry and personal changes. Let me also add that I do 2 separate ones, one for me and the other for my company. I like to review the company's personnel so we too, as a team can achieve more. But today the focus will be on you and how you can do your own talent SWOT analysis.

What is SWOT analysis? By definition, S = Strengths, W = Weaknesses, O = Opportunities and T = Threats. As for the Strengths (S) and Weaknesses (W), these are considered to be internal factors which you do have some measure of control, As for the other two, opportunities (O) and Threats (T), they are considered to be external factors which you have little control of. Got it! If not read this great article to learn more.

Let us get right to it. To assist you with your personal talent SWOT analysis, feel free to use the following as a guide.

As for strengths. Try to think about why you would be chosen to do a task or get a job over others. Ask yourself what have I accomplished throughout my career? Remember it is great to compare yourself to your peers for this and also ask yourself a few questions to include the following; What are my strongest skill sets? How do they compare to others in the company and the industry. Throughout my career, what skills have helped propel my journey?  Am I more results driven then others? Are my many accomplishments above average with regards to others in the company?  Am I always the first to complete the task, naturally on time while accomplishing the objective being requested? With regards to education, do I possess a better educational background then those around me? Please take note, depending upon where you are in your career you must not forget about specific certifications, grade point averages and class rankings, all of which can benefit you versus others. Also, ask yourself,  how am I perceived by others to include my boss, clients, customers, and peers? What would they consider as my strengths? Remember you do need to be objective during this exercise therefore I just want to caution you to this.

As for your weaknesses. How do my skill sets match up to my peers? Am I okay with my level of education or do I need more?  Take a look at what you may tend to avoid because of your perceived lack of confidence or interest. Do you have negative work habits? Are you disorganized? How do you handle stress on the job? How do you deal with negative people? What would others say your weaknesses may be? This is a time to look at your personality traits to reveal anything that may be limiting you in your field. A few other things to consider are; How am I with presentations, taking a stand with my opinions and beliefs? Do co-workers consistently outperform me in specific, important areas? Be realistic with yourself, for it is best to face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible. Remember this exercise is more personal so look at it internally and externally as well.

Now let's look at opportunities. How can you get ahead inside your company? How about the industry, is it growing? If yes how can you take advantage of it? How is your network? Does it include those who can help you get ahead career wise. Thinking about making a move? Look at the competition and companies that you believe your background can help them in any way. Don't forget your customers too. Can you help them in any way?

Part of this can result in creating opportunities for yourself. If you feel you need more to create opportunities get more involved. Attend conferences, networking events, ask to work on something new within your company. Seek out a mentor if you don't have one. There are no limits to what you can do. I always say don't limit yourself by staying idle and being happy with status quo.

Now lets look at the threats. Take a look inside of your company, how are you perceived? Are there potential obstacles that exist at your workplace. I am sure there is internal competition and specific demands that may be changing in your company, so take a look at what they are. Again, ask yourself, are you learning how to do more things or just avoiding them? How are your technology skills? Things are changing so be sure you are staying up on new technology advancements that are required for you to do your job. Look back at your weaknesses and see if any may be a threat for you?

One last thing to do. See below.

Start with the drawing the letter T taking up the entire page of your paper. In each box put Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. After you do this, refer to this great link for help filling in the T. For ease I have a link to an example that will definitely help with this part of the analysis.

Good luck.  Any suggestions, please comment.

Happy Hunting!

Sheila Greco

Sheila Greco Shares Wisdom and Experiences of the past 25 Years 2/25 Hiring Your First Employee

 

Hiring Your First Employee

Theme for Today is Hiring Your First Employee!

Hiring my first employee was exciting and scary at the same time. Prior to making this decision I looked at the possibility of hiring a freelancer,  but due to the business and my philosophy of wanting everyone under one roof, I decided to hire a full-time employee who would work alongside me at the office.

Significant growth warranted this move as did the number of future hires shortly thereafter. My hiring strategy was such as to hire an "athlete"; a solid citizen with a strong career background and track record of success. Ideally I looked for professionals coming from a relatively small company who were not afraid to roll up their sleeves and be utility players. Qualities of these professionals needed to be; must have a strong work ethic, the desire to work hard, the ability to set his/her own goals versus what the company sets and to be engaged with who we were and what we did. Additionally, I preferred to hire those with great personalities, were athletes in high school and/or college or involved with extracurricular activities that required these folks to go the extra mile for themselves and others. Ok, don't crucify me with this one, but I really found great success with recent college graduates who had come from a family where females worked as opposed to being at home. Truthfully, in the beginning I was just looking for professionals who had thick skin, were not afraid to ask questions and were okay with rejection. Remember research 25 years ago required the use of the telephone and our successes were dependent upon obtaining accurate information for our clients to use. A researcher's job is not an easy one as many of us know, so hiring for this role was not that easy either. However I must say we did make many successful hires many of whom today continue to be employed with us.

How did I go about the hiring process? I networked. I believe if people knew me, my personality and what I expected from an employee this route would be the best way to go. Honestly, it worked and still does. I would also like to mention the value of internal referrals. Many of my first 15 employees were the result of employee referrals.  So my advice to entrepreneurs is do not neglect employee referrals, be sure to investigate them. Make it a habit to ask your employees who they know and of course no family members please. However this resource dried up as time went on, so the need to look beyond this resource became a must. It became necessary to look outside our networks and rely on others for future candidates. However to this day, I still ask the team who they know when we are looking to hire.

I must say that I am happy how we have grown over the last 25 years and we must have done something right since over 75% of our current employee base were amongst the first few hiring waves. I love my team!!

Happy Hunting and sure hope you enjoyed how I hired my first employee (s)!

Sheila Greco

Sheila Greco Shares Wisdom and Experiences of the past 25 Years 1/25

Success does not just happen!

You make it happen!

But long-term the secret is how to continue to make it happen!

Sheila Greco Shares Wisdom and Experiences

Decades of success requires determination, the ability to recognize change and the need to evolve as part of a long-term plan. For me, I can say if you want to succeed you need to evolve. Part of my 25 year journey was not an easy one, but I must say a rewarding one. As I continue on with this journey, I continue to learn, work hard, stay passionate, innovate and surround myself with smart people. The next 25 will be even better for me, the team, the company and our clients. Why? Because we learned from the first 25!

For the next 25 business days I will be sharing a few of my favorite experiences, events and happenings with all of you. I hope that you can learn from certain ones, relate to others or just enjoy reading them. It's been a great ride and I do look forward to the next 25. Thanks team, mentors, clients and all of you who have been with us along the way!

The theme of Day 1 of 25 is to share with you advice I was given before I started the business, and shortly thereafter. Enjoy today's blog Sheila Greco Shares Wisdom and Experiences!

Starting a business is hard, it is scary, but if you are going to do it, just do it, give it your all and don't look back! This is pretty  much my dad's advice who of course was an entrepreneur. Thanks Dad! Today, I want to add to what he had said as well as offer my own advice to the next entrepreneur. I believe that in order to be successful you must love what you do, be passionate, have the desire to win, over deliver, the drive to work hard, a sense of humor, the ability to listen/learn from others, and never stop setting goals. Oh and by the way, for those who like to say or believe successful people got lucky, my response to that is I believe you make your own luck.

The next advice I was given was by Rick Miners, (Mentor) an ex-Partner at Goodrich & Sherwood whom I worked with in New York City early on in my career. He impressed upon me the fact that our industry is such that time is always of the essence and clients expect everything yesterday. Boy is this true! Running with this advice I soon realized quality services are assumed, and quick results are expected. Additionally he said each project and assignment needs to be completed to the client's satisfaction because again in our industry we are only as good as our last project/assignment. Again so very true.Thanks Rick.

Another piece of advice, given to me by Don Mitchell (Mentor) was to search for inspirational quotes to refer to as often as it makes sense and as times change look for new ones that correspond to your goals and changing times. So I can remember, so clearly, that on the Sunday night before I started my business, I searched through hundreds of quotes to find the ideal one. I finally did. It was a quote from Sir. Thomas Watson, and it is "To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart." This quote stayed taped to my phone until I finally got rid of it in 2001. But of course it has never been forgotten.

The last bit of advice was from George Bradt who advised me to seek out mentors. Of course he being one of them, I went off and carefully selected 4 more. Thanks George you have always been there for me and continue to be. I must say that these mentors over the years have helped me with decision-making, ideas, guidance, inspiration and always open and honest. My advice to everyone out there....you need one or two mentors. If you have one, great if you don't go find one.

Well folks that is it for the day! If you have any questions, want to learn more or just want to have a conversation about my experiences, call and let's set up a time to chat.

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for 2/25, Sheila Greco Shares Wisdom and Experiences !

Happy Hunting!

Sheila Greco

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