For those of you under 30, this is a record.   When a record is broken, it repeats the same track over and over again.  As a leader of an organization, I am often repeating myself.  This is because customers, employee and partners need to personally hear the leader’s view of things in order to have confidence in the direction of an organization.  When we release a key strategy document or revise our vision statement, I become the evangelist, emphasizing the importance of the change over and over again.  I have been talking about our Core Values: Exceptional People, Customer Success, Innovative Solutions & Sound Economics over and over again for the last 8 years.  Nearly every customer, employee or partner presentation I give is focused on one or more of our Core Values.  When the leader continually emphasizes the most important principles, sooner or later the team member begin to align and the organization operates with more consistency and integrity.

Interestingly, in selecting a technology vendor, many companies do not use methods to evaluate the relative quality of the vendor’s teams.  Consultants suggest detailed processes to compare specific features of a product and selection committees pore over RFPs and participate in scripted on site demonstrations.  I would submit that, in the end, your success with a particular vendor is based on the quality of the team that will service your account.  To that end, I suggest a simple step in the vendor selection process—conduct a site visit to the final two or three vendors in your process.  Meet the executive team, meet those responsible for designing, testing and building the product you would purchase.   Meet the services team, project managers, technical support team, etc.

Once you have confirmed that the product and services will match your needs, choose the best team.  In the end, the team is what you pay for (and what you get).

In talking with our customers, I often find myself mentioning that building a team of exceptional people is my most significant and challenging responsibility as the leader of MasterControl.   As with most technology companies, most of our cost is related to our team.   Put another way, we invest most of the money our customers pay to us in a team that will provide them with the products and services they need to be successful.  If we invest the fees our customers pay to us in exceptional people, our customers will experience a positive return on their investment, if we don’t have an exceptional team, we hurt our customer’s chances for success.  This is why having a team of Exceptional People is our most important Core Value.  

Today we added 20 new clients to our Wall of Success, making 329 in total.   We have added over 200 clients to the wall since we started it in 2005.   Back then the wall looked pretty bare with only 55 plaques in the middle of a big white wall near our reception area.  It is pretty amazing to think that we will be running out of room soon.  In many ways, the Wall of Success is the greatest tangible representation of the MasterControl community.  This afternoon, we took a few minutes out of the workday and celebrated 20 successful new MasterControl customers with some poppers, confetti with a little of Queen's “We Are the Champions” in the background.  It is always great for us all to be reminded of our ultimate goal: Customer Success!

As the leader of our organization, part of my job is to attempt to speak and advocate for our extended community whether they be customers, employees, users, partners, or others.   Of course assimilating and expressing the ideas of a large group accurately is not possible, but I think it will prove useful to communicate some of the core philosphies that make MasterControl a unique and forward-thinking organization with a dedicated following, bright future and a solid and evolving purpose.  So, by reading, I hope you will learn something enlightening about MasterControl and have a little fun as well!