==> Wealth, Power, and Success

Photo: NorthForker.com

"So, how can you find more success, peace, and happiness in your life? You have to make a decision. The decision is whether to pursue your passion and enjoy it and be at peace with that path in life … even if you never make much money doing it."

Good Morning Folks,

What a beautiful fall, pumpkin picking weekend it was on Long Island.. amazing.. chilly, quiet, peaceful, and more.. a day full of inspiration and spirituality.

I was catching up on my reading file links this weekend and really liked this piece by ace copywriter Bob Bly. As Bob sees it, there are 6 factors responsible for any individual’s success or lack thereof, especially in business and wealth building.

They are:

==> Aptitude … 
some people gravitate towards activities that make money (e.g., they are interested in investing or business) – while others are naturally attracted to fields that are less lucrative (e.g., poetry, pottery).

==> Hard work … 
some people are willing to put in grueling hours to achieve great wealth and material abundance. Others are not willing to sacrifice their hours for dollars, and would rather spend their time in other ways, from playing golf to going camping with their kids.

==> Luck … 
no matter how much of a technical genius or savvy businessman Bill Gates is, a lot of his success was largely the result of being in the right place at the right time.

==> Perseverance … 
many rich and successful people got that way simply because they persisted vs. the vast majority who give up at the first roadblock or failure.

==> Brains … 
being smart – either in the classic I.Q. smart or street smarts – is a decided advantage. And despite what our Constitution says, not all of us are born equal in this regard.

==> Talent … 
no matter how much I want it or how much I train, there is no chance on Earth of me becoming the next American Idol – or even runner-up.

All of these factors obviously have a great effect on the course of your life. But of these, I believe aptitude is the most important – and unfortunately, the one least under our control. I mean: you like what you like.

You read about those guys on Wall Street with their million-dollar bonuses. And maybe you turn green with envy. But in your mind you know — and say to yourself — “Hey, that ain’t for me.”

The comforting old saying motivational speakers love to spout is that “if you pursue your passion, the money will come.” Sadly, this often isn’t true.

My friend SB pursued his passion as a poet for over 40 years. He had dozens of his poems published in magazines. But he is neither rich nor famous – although I believe (but don’t know for certain) that SB is pretty happy.

So, how can you find more success, peace, and happiness in your life? You have to make a decision. The decision is whether to pursue your passion and enjoy it and be at peace with that path in life … even if you never make much money doing it.

Or, you can decide that your primary goal is money; i.e., You want to be rich, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen – reasoning that once you are rich, then you can afford to indulge in your passions.

Which path have you chosen — and why?

Have a GREAT Day and LOVE Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Looking After The People Who Look After You

"If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple." ~~Richard Branson

Good Morning Folks,

Spring is in the air this beautiful Monday morning, and also in my step.

As Richard Branson says, "If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple."

We train people well enough so they can leave, and treat them well enough so they don't want to. To me being a great boss means hiring talented people, loving them every day and letting them know it.

For years my brand has represented perfection. It has been synonymous with the best service and best people ever. 

Whether a salesperson, an experience associate, a records manager, an informationalist, or messenger, what makes our folks so special is their ability to think beyond their daily tasks and think like our clients. 

"What would the client want? What do they need? How could I be more proactive in their eyes? How could i really impress them?"

As a true partner who never stops looking out for you, we always take that extra second to ask and then ACT! We know that productivity is about all about delivering quality and value and working smart. (With a smile!)  

To our FSO rockstars I remind you to put our promise to practice. You hold the power to make an incredible impact and a difference in the wealth and success of others.

Treat our clients like gold. Be a good listener be a good friend, be generous, don't be critical, don't try to find fault, at the end of the day— smile.

Treat your teammates like family and never ever give up and I promise you will thrive.

As we head into a new week remember that everything we want to achieve is in our grasp! Everything we dream about can happen. We just have to have the conviction to go get it. We have to have the heart to make it happen and the desire to put forth the effort.

Your energy, enthusiasm and professionalism are always greatly appreciated and looking forward to a great week!

Inspire a Nation, Fulfill Dreams and Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Mitch's Monday Musings: Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future

"Whether you want to advance faster at your present company, change jobs, or make the jump to a new field entirely, the goal is clear: to build a career that thrives on your unique passions and talents."

Good Morning Folks,

You know that I am a big fan of management books and that I encourage all leaders to never stop learning and to soak up every ounce of knowledge one can get from someone smarter than themselves.

That in mind, this weekend I came across another GREAT Harvard Business Review book that I wanted to share....


Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future
by Dorie Clark
Source: Harvard Business Press Books
240 pages. Publication Date: Apr 09, 2013. Prod. #: 10835E-KND-ENG

How important is a personal brand? Is that phrase even able to stay alive in this day and age? There is no doubt that our individual reputations are online and available for the world to see, but what does that really mean in a world where everyone is connected, has a Facebook profile, a Twitter feed, a blog and more? Dorie Clark has spent some serious time trying to figure out how individuals can better connect and build their personal profile and reputation. 

In this book, The Harvard Business Review and Forbes contributor, Dorie Clark, the newly published author of Reinventing You looks at the power of personal brands and what they mean in this day and age. Enjoy the conversation...

A step-by-step guide to reinventing you… Are you where you want to be professionally? Whether you want to advance faster at your present company, change jobs, or make the jump to a new field entirely, the goal is clear: to build a career that thrives on your unique passions and talents. But to achieve this in today's competitive job market, it's almost certain that at some point you'll need to reinvent yourself professionally. Consider this book your road map for the next phase of your career.

Dorie Clark has literally written the book on personal brand reinvention, and she knows what she’s talking about. In a past life she was a presidential campaign spokeswoman. Before that she wrote for an independent newspaper in Austin. That was after she’d earned an MA in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

Now Clark puts her experience to use for brands like Google, The World Bank and Yale University as CEO of Clark Strategic Communications. Her book, Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, comes just as people and businesses are learning, sometimes the hard way, how disruptive the web can be.

It' just $25 and you can order it HERE

Busy, busy week here at FSO so I am going to cut this short to attend to big welcoming ceremonies here on 41St Street. It's something you'll be hearing a lot about in a major announcement November 1 So keep your eyes on your email!

Have a GREAT day,

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Guest Post: What’s the Best Way to Attract Talent in 2013? via Recruiter.com

This is the question that all employers should ask themselves at the beginning of each year. Why? Because we are seeing massive changes in the way that candidates look for jobs in terms of mobile and social media adoption, and we are seeing changes in the make-up of the candidate marketplace as Baby boomers begin retiring and more and more Millennials start entering the workforce. And it seems not a month goes by without some disruptive little start-up deciding to shake up the sourcing marketplace with some exciting new sourcing tool that we simply can’t wait to get our hands on.

Amidst this excitement and chaos of experimentation with disruptive sourcing technologies, it can be easy to take your eye off the ball and lose sight of the important question, which are, “Among all these sourcing options, which is proving the best way to attract talent? Has it changed since last year, meaning I may need to adapt my talent attraction strategy to stay competitive?”

To help us answer these questions, each year since 2005, CareerXRoads has produced its Annual Source of Hire Study, which outlines the most influential forms of hire over the past year. Some of the results are discussed below:

Some of the main takeaways from the research for talent acquisition professionals and recruiters:

1. Word of mouth is still the best way to hire

Employee Referrals and word of mouth still lead the way as the most influential source of hire with24.5 percent of roles being filled this way. Referrals have led the way in being the most effective source of hire since 2005. This means that if you haven’t done so already, there’s compelling evidence to suggest that you should begin incorporating hiring via word-of-mouth into your resourcing strategy. This is straightforward in its implementation, simply requiring the establishment of an effective employee referral scheme with some great incentives, which motivates your employees to spread the word about vacancies in your firm and make qualified referrals to your business. These schemes have become much easier to administer thanks to the arrival of a whole army of employee referrals apps, such as Jobvite, GooodJob, BullHorn Reach and Meshhire, which leverage the power of social networks.

2. Corporate career sites bounced back with a vengeance

Last year’s figures may have caused some of us to speculate that career sites are dead. The influence of corporate careers site on hiring slumped to an all-time low, accounting for just 9.8 percent of hires, nearly 8 percent below the 7-year-average. But, this year, corporate careers site have bounced back with a vengeance, accounting for 23.4 percent of hires. So, did you let your career site go to rack and ruin last year? If you did, it might be time to give your career site an SEO, social media integration and employer branding overhaul to fully leverage your career site as a recruitment medium.

3. Jobs boards are alive and kicking

With the arrival of social media, there have been some suggestions that jobs boards might be dead. However, even though the influence of jobs boards as a source of hire has been declining since 2010, (24.9%, 20.1%, 18.1%), with 18.1 percent of roles being filled via job boards, it is still the third most influential form of hire and still way above the 8-year-average of 15.65 percent. Clearly, it’s too early to be giving up on jobs boards, with Indeed and SimplyHired accounting for 35 percent of all job board hires. But, with this latest downward trend on job board influence, it would be a high risk sourcing strategy to be solely dependent on job boards as a means of attracting talent. It should be combined with some of the other channels mentioned above.

4. Social media hiring is not dead

And finally, just a quick mention for social media, which seems to have a strange lack of influence on hiring, apparently accounting for just 2.9 percent of hires. This is a classification issue. Social media hiring is thought to drive, combine and influence 7 out of the 11 sources of hire in this survey, but its influence is not easily measured. And, if CareerXRoads could get a measure on the exact influence of social media it might be credited with a much higher impact on sources of hire. So, despite the paltry hiring influence figures, social media is not dead; its influence is just not easily measurable and you should, of course, continue full steam ahead with your social hiring efforts in 2013!

[Read more in Sourcing]

If It Costs Up To 5x A Person’s Salary To Replace Them, Are You Doing All You Can To Retain Talent?

"Companies and management need to get back to some proactive, progressive, solution based-value added thinking that is truly focused on long term and ongoing training and development of their talent. You'll never find and or maintain true jewels or even diamonds in the rough, when you treat your talent like 
"A Dime A Dozen!"

~~Chas L. Perry II 

Good Morning Friends,

The Bizcouch is where thought leaders put their feet up and share their challenges in pursuit of profitable progress and growth. Now Bizcouch has have prepared an insightful video about the cost of talent.

If it costs up to 5x a person’s salary to replace them, are we doing all we can to retain talent?

According to one of my LinkedIn influencers, Josh Bersin, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte, "I can tell the economy is recovering: we're suddenly seeing companies tell us that "employee retention" has become a critical issue. Let me give you some research-based perspectives on this critically important topic."

Many studies show that the total cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of dollars to 1.5-5X annual salary.

Consider the real "total cost" of losing an employee:

• Cost of hiring a new person (advertising, interviewing, screening, hiring)
• Cost of onboarding a new person (training, management time)
• Lost productivity (a new person may take 1-2 years to reach the productivity of an existing person)
• Lost engagement (other employees who see high turnover disengage and lose productivity)
• Customer service and errors (new employees take longer and are often less adept at solving problems). In healthcare this may result in much higher error rates, illness, and other very expensive costs (which are not seen by HR)
• Training cost (over 2-3 years you likely invest 10-20% of an employee's salary or more in training, that is gone)
• Cultural impact (whenever someone leaves others take time to ask "why?").

And most importantly of all, we have to remember that people are what we call an "appreciating asset." The longer we stay with an organization the more productive we get - we learn the systems, we learn the products, and we learn how to work together.

That's why we are so meticulous about who we even consider for employment here at FSO.

If there's one thing that FSO lives and breathes everyday – it's the employee experience. We focus on motivating and driving the hourly employee to deliver great service with a skip to their step, twinkle in the eye and fire in the belly. We do this in so many different ways:

• Providing an unlimited career path not just a "job"
• Inspire Greatness coaching sessions
• Employee Experience Luncheons to show our appreciation for their hard work and efforts
• Regular Off-site parties to celebrate their great achievements
• Wall of greatness dedicated to onsite staff at each location (photos, certifications, awards etc.)
• Unlimited opportunities for on the spot recognition
• Monthly rewards, incentives and recognition
• Constant communications and motivating messaging from Mitchell Weiner
• Clear succession planning
• The most comprehensive training, awards and recognition programs in the industry, keep our staff happy and WANTING to come to work on a daily basis; resulting in exceptional service delivery to the customer.

We believe people make or break the success of an organization. FSO hires for character, desire and attitude and then takes better care of that individual than one could ever imagine. We take care of our people and in turn, they take care of you.

If you think you have what it takes to be part of the hardest working, fastest growing and more abundant with opportunity outsourcing provider on the planet, JOIN US!

Now get out the popcorn and enjoy this brief but informative film. Then head over to Bizcouch on Facebook and join the conversation.
 

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

.........................................................
"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile"
.........................................................

New Hires and Promotions At Fast-Growing FSO, Fortify the Onsite Outsouring Industry's Most Passionate and Productive Team

"I personally could not be more committed to finding 

good people and making them great."

Good Morning Folks, 

As the owner of FSO, I personally could not be more committed to finding good people and making them great. 

To support our growing infrastructure, we continue to make substantial investments in our People Solutions (HR) Department with the addition of Harvey Hirsh as People Solutions Manager. Working directly for Stacey Mainiero (VP, People Solutions), Harvey will be responsible for all HR related items (excluding recruiting) for FSO. This includes benefits, HR compliance, best practices, policies and procedures. With over 20 years of HR experience within multiple different industries, Harvey is the recipient of multiple awards for turning around departments and improving customer service.

Also joining the People Solutions team is FSO’s own Shalaine Adams. No stranger to the onsite outsourcing industry, Shalaine has worked herself up in FSO from Informationalist to Site Manager. Shalaine truly understands the importance of excellent customer service, and as a result has been promoted to FSO’s Corporate Trainer. As part of the People Solutions team, Shalaine will draw on her own experience, tenure and passion for teaching others to assist in executing the FSO commitment to enhance employee training and development. 

Additionally, to support the needs of FSO’s growing number of employees, Chelsea Weiner has joined the company as a People Solutions Specialist. With a BS in Educational Studies from Roger Williams University, Chelsea will work alongside Stacey in the field to support FSO's Mail & Logistics Associates, Facilities Managers, Records Associates, Copy Operators and Informationalists. Additionally, Chelsea will be involved in all trainings and any HR relates issues. 

FSO continues on a path to greatness, attracting our competition's most tenured leaders with the addition of David Christian to the FSO Family. Dave, who joins FSO as Regional Director of Operations, has a rich history in the outsourcing business and with me personally – dating back over 20 years. Over his illustrious career, Dave has progressed through a variety of ever advancing positions – from Site Manager to Operations Manager to Director of Operations for the Mid-Atlantic region overseeing 70+ sites and 400+ full time employees. Like so many others, Dave has “come home” and FSO is thrilled to have him onboard. 

Also joining the Operations team is Aida Hibbert as Experience Director. I spotted Aida at a recent corporate event delivering Service Extraordinaire - with a smile no less - to our large group. Drawing on her extensive background in events, hospitality and people management, I am certain Aida will be a tremendous asset to our FSO family.” 

As FSO continues to win new business across the country, we have an eye open for finding great talent who have that skip in their step, fire in their belly, and twinkle in their eye to fill dozens of new positions are being added daily. Interested? Let us know.

Our goal remains nothing short of greatness and perfection in the way we deliver services, and the way they we care of their people.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer