Episode 018
Sherry Cadsawan
In a world of products and services, how do you stand out? According to Sherry Cadsawan, founder of Talence Group, you do it through the “Experience.” In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, Alice Tang explores how Sherry built a million-dollar executive search firm in just four years by treating every customer touchpoint as a “mini success.”
Sherry shares her transition from high-tech leadership to entrepreneurship, revealing why she doesn’t believe in “analysis paralysis” and how she uses the “Ideal Team Player” philosophy to hire and lead. Whether you’re hiring your first employee or scaling a global team, Sherry’s insights on “Humble, Hungry, and Smart” leadership are essential.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
-Why you must “spend money to make money” to reach the million-dollar mark.
-The “Analysis Paralysis” trap: Why waiting for all the facts can lead to missed opportunities.
-How to use market downtime as a strategic window for internal “house cleaning” and innovation.
-The EQ vs. IQ debate: Why being “people smart” is the ultimate leadership luminary.
"You might not always be doing the work you want to do, but trust me; there's value in it.
[00:00:20] Alice Tang: I’m so happy to be with my friend Sherry Cadsawan, who is the owner and founder of Talence Group, and later on she’s gonna tell you a little bit about her company. She’s a very established woman and we are happy to have her as a guest to Women’s Million Dollar Conversation where we interview guest who has saved a million, made a million or earned a million. Sherry, tell us about yourself.
[00:00:47] Sherry Cadsawan: Absolutely. So I started Talence Group about 12 years ago because I saw a need in the market. I used to hire the people that do what I do, which is [00:01:00] executive search, leadership search, management search, and figured I could do it better.
So with that, I established Talence Group and we are focused on helping companies hire great leaders. And we know the impact that they make on companies. So we wanna get it right the first time. And we also do leadership coaching and some training and development.
[00:01:23] Alice Tang: Well, that’s a lot. So we are here to talk about your million dollars. We conclude it right before we hit the record button, is the million dollar revenue. So how long does it take for you to get to your million dollar of revenue?
[00:01:37] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah, that’s a good question. It took about four years to get to a million dollars and I would say it took investment. So you have to make, you have to spend money to make money.
[00:01:52] Alice Tang: Wow. Very profound. You have to spend money to make money.
So let’s go dip a little bit here. When you hit your [00:02:00] million dollars, how does it make you feel?
[00:02:02] Sherry Cadsawan: I would say I didn’t feel much when it happened, because I was working so hard. And when the success came, I kind of expected it.
[00:02:14] Alice Tang: You expected it. Wow. So, Did you pause and spell the roses or check move the post?
[00:02:21] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah. I moved the post. Which is not great advice. You should stop and celebrate the moments. I got better with that over the years, but when you’re in the heat of it and it’s happening you get really focused on not making money.
It wasn’t about making money. It was about doing what you promised you would do and doing it exceptionally well. So when we were that successful, I think the celebration was seeing the smile on our client’s faces and getting all of the endorsements and referrals from our clients to make us continue grow.
[00:02:58] Alice Tang: Doing what you’re supposed to do, [00:03:00] and the rest will be taken care of. And the smile of the client’s face.
[00:03:04] Sherry Cadsawan: Yes.
[00:03:05] Alice Tang: Wow.
[00:03:05] Sherry Cadsawan: Absolutely. A hundred percent. We didn’t focus on hitting a million dollars. We focused on how do we change companies, one company at a time by improving the way that they hire leaders and who they put in those seats.
[00:03:20] Alice Tang: Very good. Very good. What I’ve taken out is, who am I want to be as a person that will take care of where I want to go or what goals do I have.
[00:03:32] Sherry Cadsawan: Absolutely. And it’s, really, the success is not mine. The success is my team. I’ll give myself credit for hiring really good people to help make it successful. But every touchpoint our customers have with us. It’s one of us and it creates an experience, good or bad. And what got us to that million dollar mark was having those good experiences, pretty much a hundred percent of the time.
[00:03:59] Alice Tang: Yes. I [00:04:00] really what you said just now every touchpoint. Every touchpoint. Is your success, a mini success?
[00:04:07] Sherry Cadsawan: Yes.
[00:04:08] Alice Tang: Because you make it a break. It.
[00:04:10] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah, you leave an impression.
[00:04:12] Alice Tang: Exactly.
[00:04:12] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah, it doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes, and it doesn’t mean we can’t make mistakes. When mistakes are made or when something doesn’t go as a client expected it to go, it’s usually no one’s fault. It’s just. Running into the unexpected, and it’s how we manage that and turn it into a success. I would say the other part is how we own that. So if maybe we could have done something better or differently to avoid a problem that occurred. We just get after it. We own it. There’s no blame, right? It’s more just how do we keep our eyes on the ball and make this successful?
Because when you do what we do, there’s a lot of obstacles, challenges, and we’re, we’re in the business of humans, not products. [00:05:00] So you can’t predict humans and human behavior. And what could happen throughout an interview process with a candidate.
[00:05:07] Alice Tang: Yes. A while back we as a team, we watch a podcast it’s talking about we are in the era of not a product, not a service, but experience.
[00:05:16] Sherry Cadsawan: Oh, yeah.
[00:05:17] Alice Tang: Providing excellent experience above and beyond experience. That they don’t expect. And that’s how you can keep clients close to you and keep them as advocate for you.
[00:05:31] Sherry Cadsawan: And that is an excellent point. And that’s there is a movement towards that. So a lot of companies now they are hiring what they call customer experience experts or leaders.
And so we’ve hired some of those that are, they’re the VP of customer Experience.
[00:05:47] Alice Tang: Yes. Yes. How can I put a smile on your face. We have talked a lot about this area. Let’s jump to another area.
Since this is a conversation about money, especially for women, what’s the value of money for you?
[00:05:59] Sherry Cadsawan: It’s [00:06:00] a means to an end, and the value of money is hard for me because I didn’t have it growing up. And like many people in my generation, our parents weren’t wealthy. And, I started working when I was 11 years old. So when I think of the value of money it does, it is peace of mind to have security, to have financial security.
But at the end, what I learned when I finally started earning my own income was sharing that money and giving back to the community that helped me be successful. I think the value of money to me is really about how do we make this world a better place with all the money that exist.
[00:06:39] Alice Tang: How to make the world a better place with all the money that exists. We love that. .
Now as you are building to your million dollar, of course you are way beyond, right? Fourth year you hit it and now you’re 12 years. So not to hear, not to be here, to pray and do your privacy of really how much is the company making, but we wanted to know. [00:07:00] In your journey to that success continuously, what is the biggest bias you have faced as a woman or as a founder of the company.
[00:07:10] Sherry Cadsawan: It’s morphing, I will say. So the bias I had going into it was simply being a female because I was focused in high tech. And I at least my experience has been, it’s exacerbated in high tech because you’re dealing with a lot of males because they’re engineering organizations, so they tend to have a lot of males, and that’s who makes it to the top.
So it’s challenging or was challenging. Still is challenging to be in an environment that is male dominated with leaders. I think the good news is that I feel like that it’s swinging to now where more women are getting into leadership positions. And so it’s, the playing field is being leveled a bit and I don’t feel that bias. I’m not saying it’s not there, but I don’t feel it like I used to. [00:08:00]
[00:08:01] Alice Tang: So what you have said is over the years you have felt there is an improvement. The gap has narrowed.
[00:08:09] Sherry Cadsawan: Yes. We have a long ways to go.
[00:08:13] Alice Tang: Yes. No kidding.
[00:08:14] Sherry Cadsawan: But but it’s definitely getting better and given the nature of our work, we’re in hi in charge of hiring executives and leaders. We we focus on hiring diversity for diversity, and we bring those people into our pipeline and it’s made, I would say, when our clients are doing that, have that same focus of diversity hiring. It’s made their businesses stronger and better and I more open to doing things differently and it’s improved innovation, creativity global thinking.
[00:08:49] Alice Tang: There’s so much good things that is coming with this trend or this movement now. We want to talk a little bit about, in the journey of success, of course, you have
[00:09:00] big decision to make , whether it is a hire or fire, a acquiring company. All of these things. All of these things.
When you make a big decision, how do you prepare yourself? How do you process?
[00:09:11] Sherry Cadsawan: I would say that’s a really good question. I don’t overanalyze. I think I see this happen a lot with executives where, it’s what I call analysis paralysis. It’s overthinking something and sometimes you need to take the data that you have, the information you have, and make a decision based on all of your experience. Right? Because and I don’t consider that your gut I consider, you have the data, you have to make decisions without all the facts, and you have to take some risk. So trust yourself. So when I’ve had to face challenging decisions, I took my time, took a step back. Never do it when I’m emotional.
It’s kinda like I don’t get on phone calls if I’m upset or emotional about some topic. I wait for myself to cool down [00:10:00] and clear my head, but, when we’ve had to make big decisions, or for example, tell a client that they, they can’t have what they’re asking for because they’re not asking for the right things.
It always works, you know, we do it. When you make these big decisions, do it with pride and with expertise and trust yourself and it’ll work out.
[00:10:17] Alice Tang: Take time. Don’t make that call when we are emotional. Calm down. Based on the data that you have, take some risk. It will work out. Very good.
In the 12 years I’m sure business has been great. Business sometimes has done this to us. It’s oh, what’s happening this last year? Perhaps the pandemic year, what’s going on and can we continue? So there are many times that we face these difficulty that we are hanging with our pink finger. Can we make it or do we, or should we? When you think about quitting, what kept you going?
[00:10:55] Sherry Cadsawan: That’s another really good question, and it’s a big question because our [00:11:00] business can be quite cyclical based on the markets. We very much follow the markets, and so when there’s a reaction in the market as there is now to a recession, that does impact us. But in those times, what I find is that, it’s a great time for you to get your house in order and focus on the things you’ve been neglecting.
It’s also a great time to get innovative and creative and start maybe looking at why your clients value you so much and are you still offering the right services, the right product? Should you change something up? Should you add something? And and it’s a time to me where I really focus on those relationships that have supported Talence Group over the years, trusted us and spend more time with them.
Find out what are some, new services that we could offer that would be valued.
[00:11:48] Alice Tang: Recap what you just said. So reassess because we have some downtime in this situation. We were talking about reassess and reevaluate both internal process. External [00:12:00] is do. Meaning clients or the market still need what I, what we got to offer? Do we need to make changes? Do we need to employ technology? Do we need to be doing some innovation here?
[00:12:11] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah. Downtime is a time to invest. Right. It’s just, and it, I think it’s very healthy because you get so busy. When you have lots of customers, you have lots of work to do. Everybody’s heads down working to serve those customers, but you start maybe losing sight of, down the road. What about getting new customers , what about venturing into a new service that you know your customers can really use? What about cleaning up that mess you have in your database that everybody complains about, right? It’s okay, we gotta clean, do some house cleaning internally.
[00:12:46] Alice Tang: Very awesome. So make use of those times.
[00:12:50] Sherry Cadsawan: Yeah.
[00:12:50] Alice Tang: No quitting .
[00:12:51] Sherry Cadsawan: No quitting, no. No quitting option. Not an option. Never an option.
[00:12:56] Alice Tang: All right. The audience who’s looking at Sherry is thinking,
Play When you make a big decision, how do you prepare yourself?
[00:13:00] oh, I wanna be her. I wanna be her. What’s, what is the one thing or two thing you would like to tell a young woman or even a woman who has a less number of years in business. What’s the thing they must do? They have to do?
[00:13:14] Sherry Cadsawan: Wow. So that’s a question I’ve been dealing with for a while because I have been helping a lot of kids that are, coming outta college or in college trying to figure out how to get internships. It is a tough world out there. So for a, whether it be a recent college graduate or someone earlier in their career you are in a spot where you have to prove yourself and you do that through showing up, being interested and having really high integrity and tenacity in your job. So for someone early in their career, if they wanna get to where I am, it does take a lot of hard work, and you have to earn your stripes. So you might not always be [00:14:00] doing the work you want to do, but trust me, there’s value in it.
Even if it’s something very simple and not something you love, there is value in it. And you’ll learn that, for example, you hate doing that type of work. There’s value in that, knowing what you don’t like. And then people will want to keep working with you if you’re a great teammate and you can do that grunt work when it’s there and you’re the one that raises your hand and volunteers to do that extra load when it’s there. People will remember that.
[00:14:31] Alice Tang: Wonderful. Wonderful. I remember when I first started I had to, cold call, right? 200 calls in the morning.
[00:14:37] Sherry Cadsawan: That’s so hard. I know.
[00:14:38] Alice Tang: That two meetings in the afternoon, I don’t get to see Sherry and your family yet and Moonlight to fill out the application. Make sure I submit it and follow up, see if there is any craziness in the application is not going through. As simple as opening an investment account.
So I think there is value in that, [00:15:00] those work. I hate those work because I’m not such a, admin organized person in that route. . But today, if somebody come to me and tell me something that is not in line with that, I know it’s not truthful. Here is what I know because I’ve done it before.
[00:15:16] Sherry Cadsawan: Yep.
Play What would you tell a woman with less years in business?
[00:15:17] Alice Tang: Okay, so how about if you were to start over again, what is one thing, one thing that you would like to do differently?
[00:15:25] Sherry Cadsawan: I think I would’ve started the business earlier. And I say that he hesitating a bit because I thought that after I started it I did such a good job planting the seed before I started the business with my network, letting ’em know, Hey, I’m starting up Talence Group in case you have any needs coming down the road. I said, I’m gonna be starting it up. And before I even got out into the market, people were calling me. So I did think, oh, maybe I should have started this a couple years ago. At the same time. I don’t, I’m not backwards looking, I’m forwards looking, so I wouldn’t [00:16:00] change anything. I think there was a reason why I didn’t start at two years earlier.
I think I had two more years of growing to do by working inside of a company helping leaders, executives, and CEOs hire their executive team. So I don’t wanna be too cautious and I think I took the risk at the right time.
[00:16:17] Alice Tang: Very good. Last but one question, what is the one piece of very good advice, of very bad advice that has given you the highest impact?
[00:16:27] Sherry Cadsawan: The best advice that has given me the highest impact. Can I give two things? I think one is one of my mentors told me I needed to trust myself and just have more confidence. And because he told me that. I realized that I must not be showing up that way to others. So it was great advice, and at that time, I knew I was an expert at what I was doing. I just needed to show it more and be more confident.
But what’s made the biggest impact on me, honestly, is I follow leadership [00:17:00] luminaries. I’m a student of leadership. I’m always reading books. I’m always trying to keep up on the latest and greatest of what’s going on out there in leadership. And there’s a leadership luminary I follow, Patrick Lencioni.
[00:17:15] Alice Tang: Yes.
[00:17:15] Sherry Cadsawan: He he wrote a book called The Ideal Team Player, and the theme is humble, hungry, smart. So always be humble, always be hungry, meaning staying on top of your discipline, so you’re never status quo. You’re always making improvements in whatever you do. And then smart means be smart about people. It’s about EQ, not IQ. So emotional intelligence. How do you team with other people? How do you work through other people? And how are you viewed by other people? And can you get people to want to follow you, right? And be under your leadership? I highly recommend that book, but those are the tenants that we live on at Talence Group.
[00:17:55] Alice Tang: Very special to us. Last, last question. What are you [00:18:00] grateful for?
[00:18:00] Sherry Cadsawan: I’m grateful for you. and the community that I live in.
[00:18:04] Alice Tang: Wow. Thank, Thank you, Sherry.
[00:18:06] Sherry Cadsawan: Thank you.
[00:18:07] Alice Tang: Thank you, Sherry. This has been great. Thank you so much. If people want to find you how do they?
[00:18:14] Sherry Cadsawan: We have a website, it’s talencegroup.com, T A L E N C E. G r o u p. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, which I highly recommend. We have connections to a lot of people. It’ll give you access to more people. And I also recommend that people find everyone, all of the search consultants that are part of Talence Group and connect with them on LinkedIn as well.
[00:18:39] Alice Tang: Thank you, Sherry.
Sherry Cadsawan is the Founder & CEO of Talence Group, a minority- and women-owned executive search and leadership advisory firm dedicated to connecting bold organizations with exceptional leaders.
With over 20 years of experience in global talent management, Sherry combines corporate insight and entrepreneurial strategy to help companies attract and develop leaders who are Strategic, Motivational, Authentic, Resilient, and Transformative (SMART®). For more than 13 years, Talence Group has partnered with a diverse clientele—from Fortune 100s to mission-driven nonprofits—to build leadership teams that successfully elevate culture and drive growth. Sherry is committed to building legacies through leadership that changes companies, communities, and the world.