Recently I had the grand pleasure of helping bring together a great group of coworkers who all worked together at a company called CCBN which was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2004. For me it was my last corporate position and helped launch my business now known as Score More Sales.
In addition to building their inside sales team, I had the idea that this startup (35 employees when I arrived) which was hiring recent college grads needed a corporate university. So I wrote a proposal – leadership said “sure” and I created CCBN University.
Our motto was, “Developing our People, Supporting our Clients”.
It was so much fun it never felt like work, even though we had large goals, big projects and great ambition. As the company grew into the hundreds, we created cross-functional programs, a mid-level manager program, a coaching program, and a fantastic onboarding program.
In our monthly onboarding program, company president, Rob Adler, would stop by to meet the newest employees and during his talk, always say this message:
“If you have a bad day, we get that. You might have a couple bad days or a few. But if it turns out that you have a bad week and really don’t want to be doing what you’re doing, know that this isn’t good for us either. You can’t have bad weeks here – it means you need another position or a different environment. And that’s OK.”
What that did was set the tone for a positive, great work environment. Everyone knew the standard – that it isn’t acceptable to have someone in a funk for weeks at a time – which reminds me of many government agencies I have visited over the years. I’ve dealt with negative people with a chip on their shoulder.
At CCBN though, we had a creative environment conducive to making big business initiatives happen. That’s what made CCBN the #1 company in its space and an environment of colleagues who many will say was the best group of people they ever worked with.
CCBN sparked others to go off and do big things – the resumes of most of the former CCBN employees are quite impressive – from heading up global organizations to creating wildly successful companies themselves.
What amazes me most, though, were those who came up to me – many I have not seen for 15 years – and told me something specific I said when they were first new there. One former colleague told me that my boss and I had taken her to lunch her first week and she never forgot how great we made her feel coming into a new role.
You usually never get to hear these sorts of things years later, but it bears thinking about –
What will you say today that could impact someone for years?
What will you do today that could impact someone for years?
Lori Richardson is recognized on Forbes as one of the "Top 30 Social Sales Influencers" worldwide and is a Top 25 Innovative Sales Blogger. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog for sales strategies, tactics, and tips.
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