Every company has a unique culture. Out of it breathes their products, solutions, and services.
Culture follows every move and lingers at every touchpoint.
Whatever solution, product, or service an organization provides, the current of culture determines the ultimate destination.
Here’s the current we each are striving for at Sweet Fish Media:
We Love People Well
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” — Francis Chan
Podcasting will change. Digital marketing will change. But humanity’s need for love? It’s been around for a while. So we’re going to start and end our legacy there.
This starts with our employees:
We take a lot of time to understand each other. We know who’s reading Donald Miller, which of us has written a novel, who’s taking salsa lessons, which of us is passionate about photography, who’s always in some foreign country, and which of us is (and is not) a true Pats fan.
We push each other toward what makes each of us come alive. We’ve corporately sponsored employee trips to Disney and pro baseball games. Because that’s how you love someone: You do.
And, when you love internally, you can serve externally, in a crazy-abundant way.
With our customers:
We go beyond producing exciting B2B podcasts. We don’t just write stellar content or produce amazing soundbites: We care for each of our customers personally. Because life is personal.
Some of our customers have randomly received books by their favorite authors, plaques with their favorite quotes, or gift cards when we knew their week was stressful.
Everyone on our team already knows: If there is a way our company can love a customer, the answer is always yes.
And just to make sure we’re actively accomplishing this value, there’s literally a Love Well line item in our budget.
Hone Your Craft
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” — Maya Angelou
We believe Sweet Fish Media will have a long-lasting effect on the B2B space. And not just because #ContentBasedNetworking is revolutionary, although we really think it is. Nor simply because our team is brilliant, even though we have some stellar people here.
We’ll be here for the long haul because we constantly learn, incessantly improve, and never stop pushing for better.
When our heads aren’t in a book, our airpods are injecting insightful audiobooks into our ears. When we aren’t listening to a thoughtful podcast, we’re soaking up the newest marketing tactics on industry blogs.
Again, this core value shows up in our budget, and on our schedule.
We actually host a bi-weekly book club, where we discuss classics like “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” or embrace new challenges like Kim Scott’s “Radical Candor.”
We’re all on the same page on this one: We never stop learning.
We Own the Result
“Until you own it, you can’t change it.” — Michael Hyatt
Better results don’t simply happen — they are the natural byproduct of grabbing the reins of responsibility. There is always something we could have done that would have changed the outcome.
So, here’s some words you won’t hear around here: We can’t. We don’t. We’re not able to.
We don’t point fingers, we don’t enumerate all the things we tried. We assess, take ownership, and look in the mirror with one thought:
What can I do differently to impact the result?
Words you will hear around here:
What can I do differently to make this process easier for our customers or our team?
What can our team do to enhance this customer’s experience?
We find answers before our customers think to ask the question, and we notice issues before they become problems.
We own the end result.
Period.
