Driving a High Performance Culture
Jeff Gau | CEO | Marco
About Me
 United States Air Force
 University of North Dakota Graduate
 Joined Marco in 1984 as a sales
representative
 Corporate Sales Director
 Appointed President/CEO in 2004
About Marco
 1930
The Typewriter Shop
 1973
Marco
 1975
Copiers
 1985
Voice and Data Networks
 2001
100% ESOP
 2002
Audio/Video Systems
Document Management/Workflow
 2005
Managed Services
 2010
Lean Continuous Improvement
 2013
Cloud and Carrier Services
 2014
Managed Video Conferencing
Corporate Headquarters - St. Cloud, Minnesota
Local, Regional and National
Sales, Service and Support
Marco Locations
Minnesota
South Dakota

Alexandria

Aberdeen

Bemidji

Pierre

Brainerd

Rapid City

Detroit Lakes

Sioux Falls

Mankato

Watertown

Marshall

Minneapolis/St. Paul

Rochester

St. Cloud

Thief River Falls


Willmar
Worthington
North Dakota
Iowa

Cedar Rapids

Decorah

Des Moines

Fort Dodge

Mason City

Quad Cities

Sioux City

Waterloo

Bismarck

Dickinson

Fargo/Moorhead
Wisconsin

Grand Forks

Eau Claire

Minot

La Crosse

Madison
Marco’s 10-Year Growth
(2003-2013)
Average Annual Growth
Revenue
Profit
Stock
Value
28%
54%
42%
Organic Growth - 55% of Total Revenue
Acquired Growth - 45% of Total Revenue
Employee Growth:
2003: 141 employees
Today: 750 employees - 165 sales representatives and 430 certified systems engineers and
technical representatives
Building a High Performance Culture
What does good look like...
 Industry – Are you performing in the top 10%?
 Financially – Are you achieving double digit top and bottom line growth?
 Strategic Focus – Are you growing in the “right” areas?
 Employees – Are you attracting and keeping good people?
 Customers – Are you adding and retaining good clients?
Here’s How We Drive Performance
❶ Stack the Bench
❷ Validate Performance
❸ Look Around Corners
❹ Execution
❺ Fail Forward Faster
❶ Stack the Bench
 Understand yourself first so you can understand others better
 Play to your strengths
 Sales driven, innovation and execution
 Augment your weaknesses
 Operations and processes, information systems, finance and admin
 Create careers – not jobs
 Provide a career path for every single employee
 Develop a talent management and mentoring system
❶ Stack the Bench
 Always be recruiting
 Even when you don’t have a position
 Restaurants, sporting events and social activities
 Pay matters
 Pay at the top quartile – it’s actually cheaper
 Consistently assess compensation (third party and employee survey)
 People value work-life balance
❷ Validate Performance –
Employee Satisfaction
Best product, best service and best price
Q#29: I have pride in what I do.
604 of 624 employees agreed or strongly agreed
Q#40: My supervisor trusts me to do a good job without
watching over my shoulders.
590 of 624 employees agreed or strongly agreed
Q#56
Management is competent at running the
business.
609 of 624 employees agreed or strongly agreed
❷ Validate Performance –
Here’s our report card:
YEAR
FTEs
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
725
630
407
342
306
252
267
243
211
192
Work
Satisf.
4.32
4.26
4.22
4.15
4.08
4.17
4.17
4.21
4.18
4.06
Employee Satisfaction
2014 Results Best in 26 Year History (with 86% response rate)
Mgmt.
Training
4.29
4.20
4.17
4.07
4.07
4.05
4.02
4.15
4.16
3.94
4.13
4.02
4.03
3.90
3.99
4.02
4.07
4.10
4.05
3.94
Continuous
Improvement
4.16
4.07
4.04
4.10
4.11
4.10
4.08
4.13
4.07
3.99
Benefits
Comp
Avg.
4.17
4.14
4.02
3.97
3.93
3.88
3.99
3.83
3.93
3.92
3.92
3.85
3.74
3.78
3.72
3.82
3.83
3.87
3.78
3.57
4.18
4.11
4.06
4.02
4.02
4.03
4.05
4.07
4.03
3.90
Satisfied Employees = Satisfied Customers
❷ Validate Performance – Customer Satisfaction
Our survey process:
1. Keep it short – 12 questions
2. Mail the survey; don’t email it
3. Follow-up with personal phone call
(83% response rate)
4. Respond to issues and improve (CAR)
5. Consistently track, review and share results
91% Recommend
❸ Look Around Corners
 Develop an attitude toward growth and opportunity
 Be active in your industry and peer groups
 Get in the field and listen to customers
 Pay attention and listen to people in their 20s
 Influencing decisions
 Changing the way we do business
❸ Look Around Corners
 Be innovative – it could be right in front of you
 Take a play from Amazon
 Package something you do differently (Managed Services)
 Try something new (Cloud and Carrier Services)
 Stay current with communication and adapt





Twitter is the new newsstand
Texting is today’s conversation
YouTube is the #1 search engine
Video is the new voice
Allow social media in the workplace
❹ Execution … the Hard Part
 Promote a culture of bold ideas – and actually do it
 Everyone has good intentions
 Talking about it does not get it done
 You don’t need to know every detail to move forward
 Managed Print Services
 Managed IT Services
 Be willing to make upfront investments
 Put the cost in front of the revenue
 Managed Services call center
❹ Execution … the Hard Part
 Pay people (consultants) to hold you accountable




Training
Marketing
Service
Strategy
 Best efforts vs. Determined results
 Customer satisfaction metric dropped to 88% recommend
 Determined to get to 90% recommend
❺ Fail Forward Faster
 Widely known philosophy of mine and the company’s




Failure is a part of business and leadership
You’re going to screw up, might as well be okay with it
Just don’t do it all the time
Part of building a culture of innovation
 Been there, done that; doing it again
 Help Desk – 1980s initially
 Telemarketing
 Training
 Take risks, but never risk the company
 $1.2 million acquisition before $10 million acquisition
 How have we failed at Marco?
Failure: Retail Storefront
 Marco was going to be the next Super Store (late 80s)
 Retail office supplies, office furniture
 Moved corporate headquarters to Division Street storefront
 Weren’t very good at working nights and weekends
 Zero experience in retail
 Didn’t fit our go-to-market strategy
 Decided to exit and never looked back
Driving Performance - Takeaways
 Stack the Bench
 Evaluate your talent - who is missing and who could be promoted?
 Validate Performance
 Prove employee and customer satisfaction; share and leverage results
 Look Around Corners
 Get involved in your industry; pay attention to the millennials
 Execution
 Don’t just talk about it, do something
 Fail Forward Faster
 You’re going to fail, get over it
More on Leadership
 Check out my blog on Leadership Culture:
ALeadershipCulture.com
 Some Posts of Interest:
 Fail Forward
 Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
 5 Ways to Tell You’re Not a Leader
 Do you Carry a Briefcase or a Backpack?
For employee or customer survey example:
jeffg@marconet.com
Thank you!