DISCLAIMER: This posting is not supposed to be a self-serving sales pitch. We are quite humble about HRmarketer's success over the last four years. We’re well aware of the fine line between success and failure and smart enough to never take our business and our customers for granted. We also know success always involves a little luck. That being said, here are some things we've learned about our success…
We recently reported 40 consecutive months of profitable sales growth.
That's outstanding and every member of the HRmarketer team is partly responsible for making this happen. We are all proud of the job we do and I am especially proud of each and every member of our team for their unique contributions. Recently I spoke to our team about some of the reasons I thought HRmarketer has been successful. I think it's important to remind a team about the fundamentals of success and how quickly a business can deteriorate when the core fundamentals are ignored. I want to share these comments with you (our readers) because I think you and your companies can benefit. Also, since most of us are in the business of selling to HR, we should understand more than most firms what it takes to run a successful business.
The three main reasons HRmarketer.com has been successful are:
- We offer a quality product
- At a fair price
- And we provide outstanding customer service
So what does HR have to do with this? Everything. Let's look at each of these three success factors.
Most employees usually have little or no say in setting pricing accept to report feedback if they receive complaints or other interesting information about pricing from customers or prospects. But every member of a business has control over #1 and #3 above – quality and customer service. In fact, on a day-to-day basis, it is every employee's responsibility and duty to insure the company is offering a quality product and providing great customer service – from answering the phones to developing new products, responding to sales leads, addressing client needs, supporting an internal department, etc. And HR must help drive this process and ensure it is culturally intact and employees are empowered and accountable at all levels for quality and excellence in customer service.
At our company, 99% of everyone's day is spent on activities that support these two success factors – quality and customer service. It is the responsibility of our management team to ensure (a) that their team knows what their day-to-day priorities and responsibilities are that support these success factors, (b) that they are not bogged down with tasks that interfere with accomplishing these activities, and (c) they have the tools and resources to accomplish these activities.
If management is providing all of the above, an employee can and should be held accountable for their area of responsibility. If management is failing to provide any of these three, the employee is responsible for letting their direct report know about it – and something is done about it.
Remember, survey after survey shows that great employees don't quit companies (e.g., poor salary, bad benefits); they quit people (poor bosses, bad leadership). And the reasons are usually because the company they work for doesn't do what was just discussed above.
Every company is different and your key success factors may be different than ours – but every employee should know what your company's success factors are, spend most of their time on tasks that support these success factors, and be given the tools to do so. And as companies who sell to HR, you should know better than anyone the importance of this. Your products and services should, in some small way, reflect this and help companies accomplish this.
Happy Holidays!