What Should A Company Celebrate?
There are a lot of companies out there who make a living giving awards to other businesses. The awards can be fun and can help spread the word about what you’re doing. But we should all think about what we really think is worth celebrating.
As people, we celebrate milestones in our lives: birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and more. It seems reasonable that a company should also commemorate important milestones. Of course, it’s also reasonable to ask what should be celebrated and why. I suspect that many owners and founders will answer this question differently depending on their personality.
Some companies have built businesses around creating awards and recognition for other companies. Lots of companies, for example, rank the best places to work. Inc. magazine ranks the fastest growing privately owned companies. Titan CEO has popped up around the country over the last few years, applauding the top 100 business leaders in cities across America. There are plenty of other local and industry awards and recognitions.
I don’t wish to pass judgment on any entrepreneur who applies for, receives, and celebrates these awards. Building a business is hard work that too often goes unappreciated. We should all accept whatever recognition comes our way. I have attended Titan and Inc. 5000 events where people and teams have celebrated and left feeling good about themselves and their efforts.
Personally, though, I have never applied for the Inc. 5000. Most of my reasoning is that I don’t think we should celebrate top-line growth because I see the damage that chasing it can do to businesses. You may have heard the saying, “Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity.”
At MultiFunding, we applied for the Titan 100 award in Philadelphia once, received it, and purchased 10 tickets to their event. I wasn’t sure how we won or why. When I got home that night, I posted on Facebook, “Now I am a Titan 100.” The marketing effort was successful, I guess, as hundreds of positive comments were posted on my feed. But the truth hurt a bit when my daughter chimed in, “What exactly did you win this award for anyway, Dad?” I didn’t have a good answer.
What have I chosen to celebrate, to feel good about? In our first few years, we marked the company’s birthday with a cake every year. And then, at some point, we stopped. I am not sure why. Maybe we were a little less surprised that we’d survived another year.
About four years into our journey, we crossed the $100 million mark in loans funded, and we made a big deal about it with a press release. It seems so small now, but it felt so big back then. Four years later, we crossed the $300 million funding mark, and we celebrated with a cake. Last week, we crossed the $1 billion mark, and we had a party to celebrate the milestone. That’s a billion dollars in funding that went to almost 1,500 companies. That’s more than a thousand entrepreneurs who were given a slightly better opportunity to pursue their dreams. I felt that was an accomplishment worth celebrating with my team.
I encourage everyone to find things to celebrate that resonate with you and then make the most of them. Like me, you might have a cynic chirping in your ear, but try not to pay too much attention. My daughter teased me about the Titan Award, and she was right. Last week, when I posted about the $1 billion in funding, she commented, “And a billion complaints also!!” I corrected her, and told her that in 15 years I have only fielded three customer complaints, which is really something to celebrate! In any case, I am taking her comments as a sign of love!
And now we’re getting back to work – on the next billion.
