Earlier this year, our team took on the task of defining what we felt needed to be communicated to those of you who have the difficult task of picking a Magento Solution Partner to work with. You find yourself asking; How do I quantify the difference between one company and the next? Is bigger better, or worse? Which ones are actually going to do what they say they are going to do? Which ones are designers and which ones are truly developers? Who will listen to my ideas? What are the important questions to ask? How do I make this decision?
We also asked ourselves many questions: How do we stand out? How will we let you know who we really are? How will you know that we actually care, that we mean what we say? How do we make sure to answer your questions? The answer to this is simple but not easy; you can start the conversation. As we realized that, it shaped our thinking and we came up with three “gears” (to use an automotive metaphor) which drive our team and can serve the purpose of starting the conversation. They are:
- Commerce, Accelerated
- Partnership, Redefined
- Innovation, Driven
Today, I am choosing to focus on the second gear, “Partnership, Redefined” as that idea sits at the heart of Gauge Interactive, and ultimately drives everything we do.
As we reflected on our experiences going all the way back to the first day that Daniel and I turned on our computers and started working with eCommerce entrepreneurs, I realized the most rewarding and engaging part of what we do is the relationship we build with our clients. I personally love to build something, and I love a challenge. Hearing about a need, a hill to climb, or an idea from a motivated and ambitious business owner still ranks very highly on the list of things I enjoy most here at Gauge.
Our team also realized that our culture in large part had been built around those and other ideals. We have always valued things like:
- Communicating openly
- Encouraging each other to think creatively
- Looking at the view from 35,000 feet
- Pushing ourselves to grow and learn daily
- Working deliberately and with a purpose
- Address a challenge head on with honesty and
As we continued to discuss these things, we were able to quickly distill them all down into the phrase “Partnership, Redefined”.
We picked the word partnership because that is truly what we look for. We know it is over-used, and many times worn out. Therefore “Partnership, Redefined” is about reestablishing what it means to be a partner. To us it means:
To us it means:
- Seeing your fulfillment process in person.
- Understanding your goals and the history of your business.
- Hearing about the terrible experiences you had with off-shore developers.
- Keeping you informed about the status of your project.
- Challenging incorrect or short-sighted ways of thinking.
- When we see something broken, we fix it.
- Accepting critical feedback.
- Scheduling deadlines to serve the project, not allowing the project to serve the deadline.
- Quickly identifying mistakes and moving to correct them.
- Giving your team hands-on training.
- Doing what we say we’re going to do.
- Balancing technical expertise with clear and consistent communication.
- Sharing ideas and insights about the eCommerce industry.
- Learning from each other.
- Doing business face to face.
Of course there are more, but through repetition we will all remember to redefine partnership in every action we take.
Ultimately the exercise of building our 3 gears does double duty; it communicates to you what we stand for, and it gives us something to measure our performance by. So far we are really pleased with the results and we are looking forward to expanding our marketing around these ideas. Partnership isn’t something to throw around lightly. It is something to guard and defend, and we hope to learn new ways to redefine it as we continue to grow.
