Inc 5000 Conference Perspectives

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Inc 500||5000 Conference in Washington DC. The conference is an annual gathering, composed primarily of companies represented in the annual ranking of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in the United States; Cape Medical Supply has been honored to be included on this list for 2007, 2008 and 2009. The companies come in all shapes and sizes and there is diverse industry and geographic representation, but we all share the issue of creating and confronting the challenges of high growth companies and it is an incredibly passionate group of business owners and executives.
A few key themes were represented; culture and service, they are most certainly related and one feeds into the other.
Culture would be the environment created within the business; the values held by employees, what the company stands for and believes in.
Service is how you prioritize the treatment of your customers – how does your service or product make them feel? Do you prioritize their needs? Do you go above and beyond to meet and exceed their needs?
In a time of economic turmoil businesses across our great nation are growing and expanding by creating a culture of excellence with their employees and retaining and growing their customer bases by offering excellent service to their customers. Value is not defined by price alone – and the way a company makes a customer feel is often the deciding factor in whether or not they will return or refer to that company.
The speaking line-up was fantastic; a few standouts were Tony Hsieh, CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos.com who spoke about the customer experience and how by providing the highest levels of service possible have fueled dramatic growth of the company, and recently the sale of the company for $900 million to online juggernaut Amazon.com.
Noted business author Jim Collins delivered an amazing presentation, which mostly focused on the things great companies do to destroy value and their reputations. Of course there is a lesson in the mistakes of others and Jim gave a great presentation on the “5 Stages of Business Decline” which struck home with everyone. Of course Collins is noted as the author of “Good to Great” one of the most widely read and respected business books ever, so it was interesting to see him take the concept in reverse and apply his relentless analytical rigor to the process of decline.
Also, David Neeleman, founder and former CEO of Jet Blue gave a nice talk on service and creating a unique environment for employees and customers alike.
The conference was inspirational and informative, and as usual some of the best talks were those conducted with other attendees; the entrepreneurs creating wild growth all over the economy and working hard every day to make their companies better places to work and do business with.
At the end of the day I see that as central to my own job; making Cape Medical Supply a better place to work and a better company for our patients and partners to work with…do you have an idea on how I can make that happen? Please share it with me! gsheehan@capemedical.net – we take our customer feedback VERY seriously and we have used numerous ideas through the years to make our company better.