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Valuing Relationships: Victoria Villalba's Key Move

Eastern Airlines isn’t flying anymore, but Victoria Villalba is soaring. The love of dealing with people that she learned while working as a teenaged temp in the airline’s human-resources department eventually blossomed into Victoria’s own staffing company, Victoria & Associates, which now employs about 500 people a month.

From Eastern and after college, Victoria landed a position with a locally owned temp company. “I fell in love with the industry because when you work in staffing, you work with lots of different companies, different industries and different cultures,” she says.

She landed a job with a national temp agency in Atlanta and then went to work back in Miami for Royal Caribbean, recruiting reservationists for the big cruise line. Then Victoria told her client that she really wanted to get back into the staffing business – and would Royal Caribbean promise her a big chunk of staffing business if she struck out on her own?

“I didn’t have much capital to start with, so I began my own business working as their on-site staffing company,” Victoria says. “That’s how much business they had for me. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t reflect and say thanks for a company that size that would have confidence in a young female business owner.”

But Victoria eventually lost the Royal Caribbean business to a contractor that operated on a national basis, and the severe blow forced her to diversify. “I’ve doubled my business since then,” she says.

And now Victoria & Associates covers all of the Miami area, has eight full-time employees, dozens of clients and about $2.5 million in business each year.

Victoria ’s Key Move: Valuing Relationships

As a super people person, Victoria always has been smart enough to play to her strengths: building and maintaining relationships with the circle of people all around her and her business.

As a small-company owner competing with huge national staffing chains such as Manpower and Kelly Services, the one-on-one dynamic is the best thing that Victoria has going for her. “This is a relationship business, and fortunately that’s what I’m best at,” she says.

But nurturing contacts doesn’t all come naturally to Victoria . She uses a number of tactics to make it most effective. For example, she tries to learn as much personal information as possible about her client contacts and then casually and sincerely drop it into conversations.

“I know which of our clients are moms, and last Mother’s Day time I’d be visiting offices and seeing pictures and talking about their children by name,” Victoria says. “It doesn’t mean you’ve got to give each client a gift. But you’re just checking in with them.”

Similarly, Victoria and her management staff attend lots of receptions, seminars and other special events that are hosted by her clients for handholding and networking. “We don’t just go there to hand out business cards,” she says, “but to greet, smile at and speak with people. We have customers at these events and relationships with them.”

Victoria even notes when new faces show up in her offices as delivery people, janitors – whoever they are and whatever they’re doing. “This guy delivering office supplies didn’t even speak English, but I hadn’t seen him before and so I introduced myself,” she recalls. “He had no idea what we do. So I took the time to explain our business to him.” And sure enough, “he said that if he ever hears of someone who needs office staff, he’s going to remember our name.”

The net result of valuing relationships in this way, Victoria says, is that it gives her company the biggest leg up against the big national and international staffing players.

“When I make sales calls, a lot of times directors of business development will say, ‘You guys are really different,’” Victoria says. “And it is because of that.”

Victoria & Associates was even able to get back Royal Caribbean’s complete local staffing business after a few years, because the former client sought her out after their relationship with the large national firm didn’t pan out. “Now,” she says, “they’re an anchor account once again.”

Victoria ’s Bonus Insight:

It’s important to create a culture for your company. But not everyone is a natural at business the way Victoria is, and she constantly reminds herself of that in developing her staff.

“That’s why I make a big deal of leading by example,” she explains. “I make sure I dot my ‘i’s’ and cross my ‘t’s,’ because I realize that everything I do is being modeled. After awhile we all begin to sound alike, and that’s what has led to our cohesive culture here.”