I’m a big fan of Mathew McConaughey and I can’t help but think that we had our own mcconaissance in 2020 when we stopped working with private sector customers. “Come back to banking” they would say, but no we stood firm and delivered the search campaign of our lives.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The other thing I like about him is the phrase his father used when he said he was going to leave law school and become an actor; “don’t half-ass it”. It might be because I watched The Gentleman (again) this week, but on Wednesday in our monthly performance improvement call we talked about our processes.
And that’s what rang true – we don’t “half ass it”. Ever.
We spend way more time and effort (and money) than we need to on every process that we run, using a gold standard even for more junior roles.
To “half-ass it” would be to weaken our delivery, and we know that it would compromise the quality of our customer experience. We work with fewer customers than we probably could and, shorter term, we could probably increase that number, but we know that quality would suffer and the whole team agree that to do that would be unacceptable. We also won’t start charging exorbitant fees for what we do, because to do so would be irresponsible and hypocritical given our sole focus on supporting public and non-profit organisations.
If it’s a CV race with the high-street agencies, or a fee and therefore quality race to the bottom, we won’t work it. If we can’t work as a true partner, trusted adviser, and extension to your organisation, we’re probably not for you. If you aren’t committed to customer experience, then you definitely aren’t for us.
So, I will continue to drive the same culture for as long as we are here; and the entire team will choose quality over quantity every single time. That’s why I’m so proud of what they do.
Our business is here for the long term, and so are the relationships that we foster. So, whilst fewer customers and better relationships will always be the right choice, whether to ‘half-ass it’ or not isn’t a choice at all.