I was going to send an inspirational email out to our team, reminding them of our most important core value – but I couldn’t pick the most important…because they all are the most important!
Like many companies, as we have grown from being a start-up to an ongoing, successful company, we wanted to get our core values down on paper. I think everyone on the team operates under a joint ethic, but we wanted to make sure we could grow and maintain the culture that made us great. Somehow, we have become a great company – just ask our customers – and we strive to understand what we are doing right, and make sure we kept doing it.
That said, these are our core values:
Customer centered. This was going to be my favorite, and it still might be. Whatever we do is aimed at delighting our clients. Sometimes the question will come up – “Is this really worth the effort?” Big efforts, big lifts for all kinds of clients. And, if it delights the client, our decision is made. A lot of our products, pricing plans, processes, and more are built around this value.
Innovative and agile. OK, maybe this is my favorite. If we aren’t innovative, why are people going to use us? Our brand is innovation. And if we aren’t agile, how are we going to bring that innovation to your exact need? No need to worry – we will always remain agile.
Trustworthy and fair. Ho hum. All companies value honesty and fairness, but it means a little more for a company like ours. Being trustworthy doesn’t mean we aren’t going to steal your silverware (we won’t.) Being trustworthy in our case means that the data we provide is incorruptible and honest. We won’t “cook the books” to make a late mailer looks less late, or to protect a problem in USPS. It doesn’t mean we can’t ever make a mistake, but never a willful distortion of data. We report what we see.
Passionate. Seriously? Have you ever talked to someone at SnailWorks? We love this stuff, and we love what we do! We won’t even consider hiring someone if they don’t think what we do is just way cool.
Experts. We are experts at what we do. We are industry leaders, and the industry looks to us for our leadership and knowledge. Mailing is a complicated business, and we strive to educate our clients and the industry as much as we can. We also keep educating ourselves. Because the darn stuff keeps changing – and our customers need to know what’s going on – refer to Core Value #1 above.
Well, we’ve gone this far so we might as well throw in our purpose: We make complicated systems usable and valuable to our clients. And, really, we try to make all complicated stuff usable and valuable to you – or at least a little simpler.
So, there you go – that’s the secret to our company. We don’t have our values up on a wall anywhere since most of our walls are virtual, but you can see them in everything we do.