Treasuring the Power of Teamwork, Talent & Friendship

For those of you that have been following my business partner, Rosa Bruno, and I throughout our professional journeys you know that our dream has been realized – we are finally out on our own, working for ourselves, our clients and each other.

Working for ourselves while doing something that we love is not only an exciting endeavor – it is one that we take extremely seriously. Over the years that we spent working for other companies – with or without each other – we have observed many great accomplishments and some unfortunate failures. We have obviously learned from these events, and taken valuable business and life lessons with us. In order to review and reflect on these real-life business coaching events we have engaged in many early morning lattes, afternoon salads, and late day espresso meetings discussing, planning, and prioritizing what we will always hold to be true to our business, our clients, and ourselves. The obvious result of these many conversations is the ultimate promise that at Lynx Consulting our clientele will always be our top priority. We will work day-in and day-out to bring our clients online marketing success while developing a strong and lasting relationship with them.

Although client success is a winning priority to build a foundation on, a business cannot be successful based on that alone. With that said Rosa and I hold a few other business virtues close to our hearts and strive to make our company better by working in alignment with them every day. Three of these virtues that I feel are particularly important are:

Teamwork. We have been taught from a very young age that two is better than one. Wikipedia defines the success of teamwork as follows: ‘the quality of teamwork may be measured by analyzing the effectiveness of the collaboration.’ Rosa and I have victoriously worked together for the past five years. We have been co-workers not only at the same companies, but on the same projects and have always worked towards the same goal – and accomplished it triumphantly with the support of one another. We know one another’s strengths and weaknesses and are able to quickly and effectively assign tasks to productively take advantage of our combined skill set. When we need help with something we immediate ask each other. When we need another set of eyes, ears or hands on a project we look to each other. We value each other’s input and have never experienced the kill-or-be-killed attitude that poisons so many working relationships and office environments. From our first endeavor of having to piece together a giant tradeshow booth with a very limited budget for a national home improvement company to opening the doors to our very own office we have always worked together, and worked together well. Our combined skill set, and ability to capitalize on it together, makes us twice as valuable to our clients and to our business.

Talent. Change is a constant no matter what industry you are in – it just seems to be a lot more frequent and major when it comes to online marketing. For instance, when I first joined the online marketing industry twitter wasn’t even an idea yet – now it is a staple. We know that in order to bring our clients the best in service, and the best in results we have to constantly learn, train, research, and study. We need to keep our talent level not only up to par, but ahead of the field. We need to set aside time everyday to further develop our personal skill sets and online marketing educations. We go into every day knowing that this is a company goal and responsibility.

Friendship. We love what we do, and we love each other – this is a very powerful combination that enables us to come to the office everyday with a passionate feeling about what we are doing and why we are doing it. What better way to spend your work day than with your smart, talented, innovative and amazing friend? People often tell me that they have long considered going into business with their friends but fear that it will end on a sour note, ending their friendships and ruining their business opportunity. They ask me what I plan on doing if that happens and I have to laugh – Rosa and I have worked together for years, and our friendship has actually grown as a result. We of course have our disagreements, although they are infrequent, but we always leave them at the office at night and venture out as friends after working hours. The disagreements always manage to disappear by the time that we sit down at our desks the next morning. I guess that making the time to just be friends is important – we are passionate not only about the success of our working relationship but also want the very best for each other in our non-professional lives. This balance of professional passion and genuine friendship makes us a powerful team – in and out of the office.

However simple the concepts, teamwork, talent and an amazing friendship (when paired with a clear and present priority – our clients!) have allowed us to build the business that we have today, and will become the strong foundation for the many successes that we experience tomorrow.