Q. How do you build a strong
foundation?
Solid infrastructure is one thing.
We’re a technology company,
and we have the advantage of
being so. What that means is our
infrastructure from a technology
standpoint is extremely strong.
Try your best to hire the best
people you can at the time. You
walk into some firms, and people aren’t taking care of the
environment. Part of the foundation is making sure you have
a good environment with your
team and a good environment
when your customers come
through the door.
It doesn’t have to be looking
like the Oval Office. But it
should be clean and well kept. It
should have a peace about it —
the infrastructure, resources,
organization and tools.
Also, we have goals — and
not just corporate goals but all
the way down to every employee. And, every quarter, there is a
presentation by each person of
how they stand with regard to
their goals.
Of course we start with corporate goals, business unit goals,
internal service unit goals, and
then each individual within each
of those areas has their own
goals. All of those lead up to
supporting the corporate goals.
Q. How do you measure
progress toward those goals?
The goals must be smart —
we call them S.M.A.R.T. They
have to be specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and timely.
Basically, you might have a
corporate goal of meeting a certain revenue. That’s fine, but
how does marketing contribute
to that? One of the metrics they
use is the number of earned
media placements. That certainly doesn’t have a direct correlation, but if you had no visibility
in the marketplace, you would
probably get no business. Our
recruiters, they have to make a
certain number of phone calls
and/or a certain number of
interviews. Business developers
are going to have financial goals
of their own, but then they bring
that down to tasks, like they are
going to make X number of visits or trips, etc.
Each of those goals feed into
the total, but it is directly related to what that person’s job
might be.
HOW TO REACH: The Newberry Group Inc., (636) 928-9944 or www.thenewberrygroup.com
