Team,
As we have discussed over the last year, the competitiveness in our industry seems to be at an all-time high. We find ourselves fighting to keep business and working hard to position our people to win new client relationships and grow our business. If you look back at some of my past BE messages, we’ve talked about being competitive, being a winner, being relentless and being obsessed with our clients. I stand behind all these sentiments, perhaps even more strongly today, but I wanted to share one additional reflection that I believe goes hand in hand with our increased competitiveness. There is a “right” way to compete and win and there is another way, which we don’t support.
Over the last month I found myself both surprised and disappointed by some of the negative tactics and energy I’ve seen in the market and across this competitive industry. You don’t have to dig too deep to find industry news about many of our competitors suing each other over a variety of matters. Some companies have chosen to recruit full teams of people away from offices and then pursue those client relationships. In other instances it’s a rogue employee that decided to violate agreements and solicit past clients. Unfortunately these type of tactics appear to be happening more and more in our industry and in some instances our business has been the target of these behaviors. From my perspective, this lacks integrity and morality and this is not the way we choose to grow our business. We will fight and fight hard to protect our business from these situations, with the law on our values in our corner. This is not who we are at OneDigital. It is not how we have built our business and not how we will continue to grow and be successful. No matter how strong our desire to compete and win – we are “better” than that and will continue to be “better” as people and an organization as we build our business the right way.
As we roll into May, a very special month to celebrate all the amazing mothers in our organizations and in our lives, I also find myself reflecting on my incredible mom, Susan Bruckman, who inspires me every day to be the person and leader that I strive to be. Even though I lost her way too young in life, her incredibly positive nature and her lessons still ring through my thoughts on a regular basis. Very simply she would always say – “there is a right way to do things and wrong way to do things” and then she would just sit back smile and say “Be Better than those that choose the wrong way!’’
I’m so proud of the organization we have built and all that we stand for. From the very beginning, we have built our business on partnerships. Partnership with our clients, with our team members, with carriers and yes, even some competitors who realize that we can compete and still work together in certain aspects of our business. I have always said that this industry is very small and you should never “burn bridges,” and that mentality continues to serve us well. So as we continue to be competitive, relentless and to win in the market, it’s important that we win the right way, with integrity and our values, and that we always seek to be “better” than some of the negative tactics around us.
I’m proud that we are building our business the right way, always striving to “Be Better” in how we conduct ourselves and who we are.
Happy Mother’s day mom. I know you would be very proud of OneDigital as well!
Adam
