Just Another Friday at ABG

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Valentine’s Day! Did you make any special plans for that special someone in your life? Here at ABG Capital we’ve been selling roses and carnations to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Along with the pre-ordered flowers we’ve been selling for the past few weeks, we’ll be doing a cash-and-carry sale with extra flowers we ordered. This is great for those who may have forgotten to pick up flowers for their sweetie.

In other news this week, we posted two great articles on our blog: Helping Your Employees Get Their Degree and Changing Your Business to Better Serve Your Customers. Employees who get their degree become an overall better employee and ultimately drive up your revenue. Take a look at the post for more great reasons why helping and supporting your employees to get their degrees is a good idea.

The second post we had this week was on what your business can do to better serve your customers. The post covers some very well-known businesses who knew it was time for a change. Two of these companies are Samsung and Taco Bell!

Next week we have a blog post titled, Why All Employees Need to Sell. Whether you know it or not, every employee represents your company. Making sure they know how to represent you to your customers on the finer points of your organization is instrumental in continuing to run a successful company.

Last night Jeff Tapolci, Ron Eggert, Lowell Smith, and Natalie DeCario attended the annual KFMR e2e event. This event was created so that shareholders, staff, and friends of KFMR could get together and enjoy cocktails and conversation. It was a great night and it was nice to see old friends and colleagues. Thanks for putting on another great event KFMR!

The last announcement that we have to mention is that we’re going bowling next Friday. This will be the first employee sporting event of 2014 and if it’s anything like last year, it’ll be a blast. Stay tuned for pictures!

Just another Friday at ABG Capital

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

We’re so happy you could join us for our Just another Friday at ABG Capital blog post! We’ve made a great deal of improvements since our last post and we’re excited to share them with you.

Two weeks ago we introduced you to Yvonne Iwanejko who is our newest Porting Rep at VoIP Innovations. Since then we’ve welcomed three more employees to the ABG Capital team. Continue reading for a picture and a brief bio of these fantastic new employees.

Rhonda is the newest Customer Service Rep at Inspira. She comes to us from Gillece where she handled Inside Sales and Customer Service as a Benefits Manager. She recently got married in May and lives with her husband Brandon in Spring Garden. Together they have five dogs (Zeus, Zena, Shiloh, Nikita and Delilah) and two cats (Leo and Isabella). She is a fan of many sports and enjoys skiing at Seven Springs.

Justin will be working in the Call Center as a Technical Support Representative for End User Services. Justin comes to us from Verizon Wireless where he worked in Customer Service and Tech Support. He was recently married in June and lives in Butler with his wife Christina. He has a Pitbull named Gemma and a cat named Heisenberg. Justin also enjoys geocaching and camping.

Coming up at the end of February we’ll be continuing the fun tradition of our annual Staff Bowling Event! Here are a few pictures from last year:

Sally and Bruce!

We have one last announcement to make before we let you in on some great posts we have coming up next week. Great Place to Work is holding a video contest called We <3 our Workplace and we’re planning to win! We’ve already formed a committee and we’ll hold our first meeting next week. The grand prize for this contest is $5,000 to a charity of your choice. As most of you know, the Make-A-Wish Foundation is the organization that we have the most dedication and passion for. We have been “Wish Granters”, raising at least $3,500 every year since 2008 but last year we were able to grant wishes for two local children! Winning the $5,000 will put us in the running to grant 3 wishes for some amazing kids this year. When the video is complete, we’ll be counting on all of you to vote for us and spread the word to your friends and family. We’ll provide more information as we get closer to the completion of our video.

Next week we have these awesome blog posts to share with you:

Helping Your Employees Get Their Degree – Better-educated employees improve the well-being of your business. This article looks at some of the issues involved in helping your employees get ahead in their field.
Changing Your Business to Better Serve Your Customers – Sometimes the best way to help your customers is to radically change the way you do business. Take for example WePay, who over the past year has moved from a “group payments” company to a payment company for platform businesses. They felt it was the best way to empower their existing clients.

Thanks for checking out this week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital blog post. Enjoy your weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

Here we are again wrapping up yet another great week at ABG Capital. We have some great news to share so let’s not waste any more time and get right into it!

Post by ABG Capital.

Our newest employee, Kimmie Rivetti, had her lunch with leadership this week! This is a great thing that we do so the new employees get to spend some quality time with Jeff and Jason Tapolci. It’s important to them they that the get to know their employees on a more personal level. Check out the amount of support their picture got when we posted it on our Facebook Page!

Yvonne Iwanejko, our newest employee!

While we were celebrating with one employee for making it to her one month mark, we were also welcoming another new employee into the VoIP Innovations Porting Department. Her name is Yvonne Iwanejko and we’re excited to have her with us! In the next few weeks we will be introducing to you to even more new people who are joining our team. 2014 is going to be a year of major growth for ABG Capital and its portfolio companies and it’s going to be exciting!

This week we also posted a great article on how to develop a great corporate culture. At ABG Capital, we take our culture very seriously. I’m not saying that we have a serious culture; I’m saying that the founders of this company have put a great deal of dedication and passion into developing a unique culture. What is your company doing to provide a positive culture for its’ employees? Share it with us in the comment section below!

Next week you can expect to see another great post that talks about the Return on Investment (ROI) that you can expect to see with professional development. Anyone can have fun at work, but are they having fun in a way that enhances their skills and ultimately can increase the profits for your company? This article will give you more insight on how exactly to achieve the most ROI.

We have one last announcement before you head out today. VoIP Innovations, a wholesale VoIP service provider, will be traveling to Miami next week to attend the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo (ITEXPO). We’ve been hearing about what they have up their sleeve for this and it seems like they’re going to WOW the crowd! If you have plans to attend the show, make sure you stop by Booth 606 and ask about their Industry leading BackOffice platform, Titanium III. You can’t miss them; they’ll be the guys in the orange ties!

That’s all that we have for you today! Bundle up and enjoy your weekend. 🙂

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday to everyone! 2014 is looking like it’s going to be a great year for ABG Capital and its portfolio companies. Business is going great and we’re planning some awesome things for our employees to take part in this year. As you read in our blog post last week, we were planning on volunteering at the Great Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Unfortunately though, it looks like we maybe have to cancel that volunteering opportunities due to scheduling conflicts with the Food Bank. Our Giving Back Committee will be meeting soon to discuss the initiatives that ABG Capital can take part in in 2014. Some of the things that will definitely be on our list again are the employee payroll deductions that go towards our Make-A-Wish contributions, Headstone cleaning at the National Cemeteries of the Alleghenies and other raffles and fundraisers throughout the year. We’ll be keeping everyone informed of any new activities that we’ll be getting involved in this year!

This week the ABG Capital Office Decoration Committee met to discuss the final touches for phase one as well as get phase two in the works. If you remember from November, we had an Open House to show off our brand new office since the build out was completed. We were able to get a few things on the walls before the Open House, but now we’re kicking it into overdrive and planning on some great things including employee awards, company awards, collages, and much more! Here are a few pictures of the things we currently have displayed in our office…

“The 12 Chimes of Life,” from a book called Live a Thousand Years by Giovanni Livera

A Timeline of our Success: Looking to the Future, Remembering our Past

Stay tuned for more pictures as the art continues to fill our office!

The last thing that I want to mention that you’re going to start seeing more great blog posts coming from us. The first one we have in store for next week talks about how to develop a positive corporate culture. This is something that we put a great deal of focus on and we want to make sure we have employee appreciation day 24/7, 365 days a year!

Have a great weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

With a new year, comes new activities for us here at ABG Capital! Once a quarter we make it a priority to take a half day on a Friday and spend it out doing something as a company, instead of working (although our support staff will ALWAYS stick around to assist our customers). We also make it a priority to go out and volunteer our time to help better our community.

Our very first event of 2014 will be volunteering at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank on January 24. This will be the second year that we’ve spend time to help out the Food Bank and we’re happy that we can come together as a company and help them serve the community. Here are a few pictures from last year:

The second event of the year that we have planned will be in February when we take a half day and go bowling! Here are a few pictures from when we went bowling last year:

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Natalie DeCario

ABG Capital is wishing everyone a Happy New Year! Take a look at this video that was created by Google+. It shows you a snapshot of what we were up to in 2013.

It may be January 3^rd but it’s not too late to make a New Year’s Resolution that will be long lasting and help you advance your career in 2014. Forbes pulled together a list of the 11 most popular resolutions that are geared towards career advancement. At ABG Capital, we want to see everyone succeed. Take a look at the list below and see what resolutions YOU can take control of in 2014..

Get a Raise or Promotion
Reduce Stress
Be More Organized
Quit Your Job/Get a New Job
Improve Your Work-Life Balance
Network More Effectively
Improve Your Relationship with the Boss/Co-Workers
Develop Your Communications Skills
Get a Degree
Be Better with E-Mail and Voicemail
Have a Better Attitude.

What are you going to do to make 2014 your best year yet? Let us know by commenting below!

Just another Friday at ABG Capital

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

We hope everyone enjoyed their holiday festivities and spending some quality time with friends and family. ABG Capital employees have been in and out of the office all week long spending time with their families. Instead of posting about things going on here at ABG Capital, we want to share some tips with everyone.

As the year dwindles down to it’s final days, the New Year’s Resolutions start to fill everyone’s minds. Some might want to go to the gym more, others might want to eat less chocolate while others might even want to change their whole attitudes.

These resolutions are created with such good intentions of following through and really making a lifestyle change. It is estimated that almost 40% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions, but only 8% actually achieve their goals (via Forbes). Have you ever let your resolution fall by the wayside? Well make it your 2014 goal that you will stick to a resolution because we want to offer you some tips!

USA Today has posted an article with some helpful hits on making sure your goals stay achievable. Below is their list of ‘6 ways to make your New Year’s resolutions stick.’

Make changes to your behavior
Define SMART goals
Track your progress
Reward Small Achievements
Make it public
You are human

If you want more details on these tips, you can view the entire article here. Thanks for reading and have a great New Year’s celebration!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Welcome back to our weekly Just another Friday at ABG Capital blog post! We have a few very exciting things to share with all of you today since we’ve had a pretty fantastic week. The first piece of news that needs to be shared is the donation we made to the Make-A-Wish Foundation this week. Every year we do various volunteering and fundraising events. All of the money we raise is matched by ABG Capital and then Donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation so we can grant a child’s wish. This year though, was a little different. We ramped up our fundraising efforts and with the generous matching contribution from ABG Capital, we were able to grant two wishes this year! Giving back is such a huge part of our mission and values and we’re just ecstatic that we’ll be helping out two fantastic children who deserve to have their wishes granted. Here are a few pictures from the donation event:

ABG Capital at Make-A-Wish

We also want to mention that Kimmie Rivetti, the new employee we mentioned last week, is finishing up her very first week with us. Kimmie is working as our newest Billing Representative and we’re happy to have her as part of our team!

Kimmie in her ugly sweater for our ugly sweater party!

Since it’s right around the holidays, we decided to have a Pot Luck Lunch today along with an Ugly Sweater Contest! We also announced the winner of the Holiday Basket of Cheer today, which was Nick Jenkner. He wasn’t in the office today, but we couldn’t wait and had to call him to share the good news!

Last week we had our Annual Holiday Party and it’s safe to say that everyone had a fantastic time! There was great food, music, dancing and even some holiday trivia games! We announced our Annual Sports Awards and the recipient of our Gerard F. Tapolci Award. Randy Stegner has been with us since 2009 and since then he’s shown tremendous passion and dedication for the organization. Choosing him as the recipient of the Gerard F. Tapolci was a clear choice. Congratulations Randy and keep up the fantastic work! As for the Sports Awards recipients, each of these individuals let their talents loose and they shined throughout the games. Below is the list of awards and winners:

Bowling

· King Pin – Nick Jenkner

· Gutterball Guru – Sally Stewart

· The Striker Award – Jason Marshall

Kickball

· Golden Foot Award – Ari Sigalov

· Take Your Ball and Go Home Award – Ron Eggert

· Keeping the Peace Award – Lowell Smith

Softball

· MVP – Natalie DeCario

· The Slash Award (Cheerleaders/Scorekeeper/Photographer/Umpire) – Erica Penrod and Sara Warhold

· Best Fence Jumper – Dave Smith

Football

· MVP – Cameron Nutter

· Best QB – Jeff Linkowski

· Biggest Heart Award – Tyler Weimerskirch

· Brian Barnabei Hands of Stone Award – Brian Barnabei, since no one else could compete with his hands of stone.

Here are some other pictures from our Holiday Party:

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday everyone! We know that today is Friday the 13^th, but we’ve had a great week so we’re not worried about the “bad luck” that usually surrounds this day. As you remember from our post last week, we ranked No. 6 on the 2013 Best Places to Work in PA list! This was such a huge accomplishment and we’re proud to share the news again! We were in the small to medium employers who have 25 to 249 employees. Last year we ranked No. 14 and it’s such an impressive increase for our entire organization! Here’s a message that our Management Team sent out to all the employees:

“Thank you for your individual time, passion, energy, and dedication in assisting with this effort! We are very proud and honored to have a culture of success and this award is a direct reflection of your hard work, commitment and overall engagement with in our company.”

Again, congratulations to everyone at ABG Capital who helped to create the fantastic culture that we’ve come to love!

We have another great announcement to make today that involves a new hire! Kimberly (Kimmie) Rivetti will be the newest member of our ABG Capital family and will be joining our team as a Billing Representative. Kimmie is joining us from Sincerely Yogurt where she handled all accounting activity in her role as Office Manager for the organization. Her prior experience stems from Four Points Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport where she managed the overall billing functions on all accounts. Kimmie earned her Associates in Specialized Business Degree in Hospitality Management Administration from Boyd School, a division of PTI, in October of 2001. We’re looking forward to welcoming her to the office on Monday, December 16!

We have just a few more Holiday themed announcements to make and that’s it. We’re half way into December and that means that time is almost up for you to buy raffle tickets to our Giant Holiday Basket Giveaway! Remember that tickets are $1 and all of the proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We’ll pull the winning name on Friday, December 20. If you’re interested in buying tickets, please send an email to natalied@abgcapital.com. If you are not local and would still like to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation, visit their website and you can easily donate from there.

The night is finally for our Annual ABG Capital Holiday Party! This party has been going on for years now and it’s always a great time. Everyone gets to hang out and enjoy the music, award announcements and overall fantastic atmosphere of the night.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running a contest to name some signature cocktails for the night. There were tons of great submissions, but here are the winners:

Barry’s “Flaming Stache” in 1st Place
Erica’s “Erica’s Evil Elf” in 2nd Place
3rd Place was a tie between the following people who will be entered into a drawing to receive the last prize!
- Jed’s “adbase1234”
- Paul’s “The GlobalPOP”
- Jessica’s “3Amigarita”

Last but not least, here are a few pictures of the Christmas decorations we put up in the office.

Sara decorating the tree!

ABG Capital Christmas Decorations

The VoIP Innovations VI Guy was even helping out!

Sara and Sharon working on the tree!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Welcome back to the Just another Friday at ABG Capital weekly blog post! We hope that you were able to have a fantastic Thanksgiving with your loved ones. We started this week by having one of our Portfolio Companies, InspiraFS, announce their 2014 Annual Plan. Inspira has seen tremendous growth this year and we’re excited to see what they have in store!

The rest of the week was spent getting things ready for the Employee Appreciation Party that we held today. We love our ABG Capital employees and to show them that they do make a difference in our organization, we wanted to treat them to something more than their typical Free Lunch Friday (but we still provided a great lunch from Sunny Bridge Natural Foods). Once that delicious lunch was over, we brought in desert… We had a chocolate fondue fountain and trays stocked with strawberries, bananas, Oreos, pretzels and more! There was a ready to go ice cream sundae bar will all sorts of great toppings, including the fondue. We continued the celebrations by announcing the winners of our Chinese auction and then concluded with our traditional Scotch Friday. Overall, it was a great day, focused on showing our employees that we truly do appreciate everything they do.

As you know, the holiday season is upon us and with that comes changes in office hours. ABG Capital will run on a normal schedule for the rest of the month, but the office will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. We’ll also be having our annual ABG Capital Holiday Party next Friday, and we all can’t wait for that!

The last note that we’ll make about the holiday season is about the Holiday Raffle Basket that we’re selling tickets for. If you want to know more information on how you can get a ticket, where the proceeds go, or what’s in the basket, visit this blog post. Just remember that we’ll be drawing the winning ticket on December 20.

And now… Drum roll please… We are thrilled to announce that ABG Capital has ranked No. 6 in the 2013 Best Places to Work in PA list! Last year we ranked No. 14 and from feedback we took away from the surveys we were dedicated to making our organization better. We’re proud to say that we achieved that goal!

On that excited note, have a great weekend everyone.

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Author Archives: Natalie DeCario

Just Another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG Capital

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG Capital

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG