Guiding Principles
Excellent service
Outstanding communication
Powerful tools
Passionate education & training (teaching from the heart)
Sound profits
Meaningful and long-lasting relationships
The head of my high school used to describe three kinds of citizens: those who drop a piece of trash and keep walking, those who drop a piece trash and pick it up, and those who see a piece of trash dropped by someone else and run to pick it up.
So obsessed with trash was this head of school that a group of seniors one year piled up old cans and bottles and strung them all together with fishing line. As a prank, they strategically placed the pile of trash on his route to work (he walked from his house to school every day), and upon seeing the bottles, the head of school increased his pace as he walked intently towards the bottles to pick them up. At the appropriate signal, one senior hiding behind a bush pulled the string to move the pile of trash. Without missing a beat, the head of school ran faster, chasing the bottles as they rattled around, gliding across the grass. Nothing would stop him from picking up that trash.
This man lived by example, modeling how he expected his students to behave, even if in a comically obsessive way.
Post Companies works with a diverse and challenging set of clients, each with an interest in making things better for the people they serve. Post Companies cares about our community and demonstrates servant leadership by leaving things better than how we first encounter them.
Armed with a small team of incredibly talented and persuasive servant leaders, Post Companies manages communications with and deploys creative tools for organizations of every size.
Post Companies is a neighborhood of services:
- 501Websites™ – responsive & interactive website design, hosting and management
- 365CustomCritical™ – strategic client consulting & on-site IT management services
- BroadcastGenius™ – vital email distribution tools, communication planning & management
- @social – management, branding and content creation across social networks
- @data – analytic deployments across entire organization
- Keynotes, Workshops & Community Education across the US
Five Year Vision
It is 2028, and Post Companies is an efficient, mobile and nimble consulting firm providing essential communications services to organizations who meet the following criteria:
- Want to learn more about how technology can help power their mission
- Approach new methods as opportunities rather than road blocks
- Commit to “shipping” rather than just “meeting”
Post Companies maintains a team of remote and experienced servant leaders. Our firm is focused, flexible and highly motivated.
Excellent Service
The lifeblood of our company is our desire to serve. Because we work with organizations of every size, our team has a robust knowledge of the fundamentals of service – responding to the needs of those around us by listening to and observing what is actually happening. Asking questions is at the core of our understanding. Our service model relies on observations specific to an organization (spending time within that organization to fully understand their unique mission and vision) combined with explanation and implementation of more general “best practices” based on years of experience across multiple organizations around the globe.
Response time is also a building block of our excellent service. We reply to our clients in a timely and respectful way, always aware that every point of contact is an opportunity for improvement.
In 2015, I wrote the following blog entry:
I used to dread support emails. Inevitably I would feel my heart race as I saw a ticket come in or got pinged on my phone by a long-time client. About a year ago, I decided to make a change. I adopted the following guidelines to help me realize that “support emails” are the foundation of what we do:
I am going to communicate with a joy and energy that conveys an overall vision for what my organization believes in and does.
I am going to treat every interaction (phone call, email, blog post, tweet, etc.) as an opportunity to convey my passion for what I do, and I understand that every communication crosses over “departments” – sales, service, support, training, advertising, marketing, etc.
I will use tools that empower everyone on my team to communicate effectively, efficiently and in a timely manner.
I will use tools that accurately track what is “actually happening” and I will regularly check in with these analytics to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Over the past 12 months, our average response time is measured in hours, not days. Over the past 12 months, our own products have dramatically improved, and we are serving a record number of equally passionate clients.
I now *run towards* any opportunity to interact with any organization interested in doing something better.
Outstanding Communication
The foundation of what we do exists in two equal parts: the services we render and how we communicate what (and why) we are doing them.
Communication is not about volume. Outstanding communication is fundamentally about clarity and conciseness. Outstanding communication is also about consistency. Knowing with whom to communicate is as important as knowing what to say (and how to say it).
Powerful Tools
There are two aspects to empowering our clients: powerful tools and the skills to effectively use them. This section addresses the first.
A powerful communication tool…
- allows the user to work intuitively and without distraction
- does a few things really well, rather than many things poorly
- encourages collaboration and customization
- offers reporting and meaningful analytics
- adapts to evolving technology and offers flexibility in implementation
- is cost effective and reduces the workload of users
Passionate Education & Training: Teaching from the Heart
Making assumptions can be one of the most crippling barriers to successful communication within any organization. Understanding not only WHAT to do, but WHY it is important to do it is teaching from the heart. We are so passionate about what we do because we believe (and will stop at nothing to convince everyone else to believe) that it is important to learn how to communicate effectively. Taking time to learn about best practices, to see what others are doing, and to ask questions is all part of passionate education.
Doing things well, for the right reasons, is a critical part of everyone’s mission, regardless of organization size, location or budget.
Sound Profits
What we do adds value to the organizations we serve.
We charge fair prices for our services and our experience.
We act responsibly with our own resources to secure our viability as a business.
We generally give more than we get, and we listen more than we speak.
We allocate a percentage of our revenue as “discretionary accounts” to be used by all team members to give back or pay forward to meet the needs within our community.
We are in this for the long haul. As technology changes around us, our core values remain the same.
Meaningful and Long-Lasting Relationships
In addition to knowing the names of our clients, we know their families, their funny stories and their favorite kind of coffee. We are connected in a way that sustains long-lasting relationships. We are partners with our clients, and we do not store this information in a database – we remember it because we care. We ask questions, and we communicate honestly and directly when we believe there is a better way.
We do not have all of the questions, nor do we know all of the answers. In partnership with the phenomenal organizations we serve, we continue to ask and answer the best we can.
John Goodell
Founding Partner