Great companies don’t just happen, great companies are a result of setting (what seem to be) impossible goals, and successfully achieving them. As Steve Jobs once said, “The day of average is over. Average only guarantees below average results.” It is important to set extremely high goals in business and equally as important to make sure that every team member knows these goals and understands the processes that need to be taken to achieve them.
Like every great company, Field has a high goal. 5 years ago that goal seemed a bit impossible. Field’s ‘pie in the sky’ goal is to sustain high growth to reach $100 Million in sales and beyond. In 2010 at a dinner celebration, Field’s Chairman, Bill, announced to the entire organization the ‘pie in the sky’ goal. At the time it was so farfetched that team member’s laughed, a few even asked him what was in his drink, and Field’s President, Jim, as a joke, declared that when Field hit that goal he would take the entire organization and their spouses on a vacation to an island somewhere. Though initially taken as a joke, that ‘pie in the sky’ goal was written down on the strategic plan, and since that goal was established some pretty amazing things started happening at Field.
Establishing an ‘impossible’ goal provided the Field team with more direction and clarity. An already motivated and empowered team suddenly went into overdrive. We’ve looked at everything around us and asked “does this get us to our goal?” If the answer is no, then we move on, or make adjustments so it will help us get there. Along this road to achieve our goal, we’ve defined and enhanced an already established unique company culture that is second to none. We’ve refined our focus on what it means for our customers to ‘love’ us and our customer retention rate is at an amazing 97%. We’ve relentlessly worked to continuously improve our processes to become better from an operational and engineering standpoint. We’ve come up with a Vision Statement that defines who we want to be along the road to achieving our goal. Occasionally we’ve had to make adjustments to the path and taken the long way, or in some instances made U-turns, but we’ve never failed to lose sight of doing what is right for our customers, suppliers, the community, and team members on this road.
When we reach $100 Million in sales, and that day is coming very soon, we will all look back at what we’ve accomplished and celebrate our success. And when that celebration is over, we won’t stop, because once you’ve achieved what was once thought to be impossible, you know you are capable of so much more. So we will set a new goal, perhaps $500 Million in sales? And I have no doubt that with what we’ve achieved in the past and the roads we’ve taken to get here, that no matter what that goal is, we will achieve it.
Author: Christy Behnke | Marketing Coordinator