My three words for 2016

Happy New Year!

I’m a fan of using any given day, week, month, etc. to recalibrate your priorities, objectives and habits.  But there’s something about January 1st that makes resetting a whole lot easier.

I’ve also been a fan for years of Chris Brogan, and have a few times taken my own shot at his annual ritual of naming and enumerating three words that serve as themes for his focus over the coming months.

For 2016, my three words are:

Teach
An early draft of our noble sales purpose described Heinz Marketing as a teaching organization.  We’re still working on the right words to describe our noble sales purpose (more on that in the coming weeks) but the idea that we’re inspired, driven and motivated to teach fellow B2B marketing and sales professionals how to better manage and convert their pipelines is core to who we are.  The notion that we are teaching our clients and prospects also requires us to stay creative, be generous, and actively pursue a variety of outlets (our blog, webinars, events, discussion boards, etc. ) to provide value to the market at large.

Culture
I’m really proud of our values, and even more proud that we’ve assembled a team that lives them daily.  It’s all of our jobs to maintain and keep those values alive, but as president I consider it my job to build an environment where those values can thrive, where we can recognize and reward acts that represent our values, etc.  We made some key steps in 2015 to focus more intently on our culture, and it’s going to be an important part of our 2016 as well.  I’ll share on occasion examples of that on this blog, but for the time being I’ll leave you a two-word teaser – helmet stickers.

Responsibility
To each other, to our clients, to our partners.  We could have interchanged this with accountability, or even empathy, but responsibility (at least for me) holds a certain weight.  You’re accountable to your objectives, but responsibility is more personal.  I want us to be excited to come to work in the morning, and proud of ourselves when we go home at night.  I want us to continue treating our client’s business as our own.  Their objectives are our objectives.    We are champions of their objectives, their jobs, their business’s success, just as much as they are.

Enjoy the long weekend.  On Monday, the marathon begins…