It’s a new year, and with this new date on the calendar it’s a natural time for reflection. I took last week off work, and spent most of the time with my family, taking hikes and watching movies.
(By the way, Netflix’s collection of Christmas movies is astonishing to someone who doesn’t watch Hallmark – just add the word Christmas to Castle, Knight, Prince, Princess, Wish or Wedding and there will be at least one, if not several, movies with those words in the title.)
But amidst the terrible movies, and the new year’s resolutions, I also spent some time thinking about why we do the work that we do.
In one sense the answer is simple enough – we choose work we are good at, that other people will pay us money to do. That money then comes in useful for things like food, housing and Netflix subscriptions. But is that all? Is our work simply a means of converting our labor into movies and popcorn?
For some people, unfortunately, the answer is yes – but I am privileged to have more than one skill. I can write mediocre code. I can document processes. I can bake cookies. Hey, I once even got paid to sing in public.
So why this? Why did I (and the wonderfully talented team of people who work with me at Award Consulting) decide to devote our working lives to helping local service providers?
It’s all about people and relationships
From our perspective, we find it very rewarding to work with you.
- We work in a manner that supports building relationships with people. We talk to our clients on the phone, we Zoom with the video on, and over the course of months or years working together we get to know you as people.
- There’s a really great feedback loop built into any technical support / consulting work. You have a problem, you ask us for help, we help you, and you are happy. Most people even say thank you! This progression from problem to happiness is really rewarding – we enjoy solving problems and helping our clients.
Life is better when we build positive relationships with people – and we can do that with our clients through our work. But it’s not just about our experience of work, it’s also about the way that you (our clients) are contributing to your communities.
What I love about local service providers is that you’re embedded in the communities you serve. Most of our clients provide voice and internet service to a few towns, or a few counties in a particular state. The employees live in the same community. You have offices where your subscribers can drop by. You send technicians out to homes and businesses to help install new service or troubleshoot issues.
In other words, you’re engaged in the community as a small business – serving the community and building relationships in a way that a huge corporation is never going to do. In fact, Comcast and other large communications service providers are renowned for their terrible customer service. We believe that small businesses built on personal relationships are good for society, and help to foster community, so we are delighted to be helping smaller, local service providers to survive and thrive.
If you’d like to read more about local service providers can compete against over-the-top competitors, check out this article on strategy. If you want to learn more about our support retainer services, where we build long term relationships as a part of your team, you can read more here.
