CFR Pulse
August 2019 Company Update
From: Colson Steber To: CFR Stakeholders
Communication Starter
What is this? An update from the owners of CFR on important things happening in the business. A source of communication so that everyone we work with can know more about what is going on.
Why? Two reasons
- The customer and employee insight survey we did for ourselves in July pointed out some gaps in communication within our teams that are detrimental to CFR having the work environment and community culture we strive for. Our customers and partners even explicitly asked for more updates.
- Over the past two months, I have had my own awakening that I must do something new to take the next step improving communication with everyone that impacts the success of CFR. Despite seeing progress over time and making what impact I can within individual relationships, I am not satisfied with where we are. I want to do better leading and creating space for good people that care and have a growth mindset to make an impact.
Team
- Chris Kreiling, VP Client Services
- In the past month Chris has spent two weeks at on-site research events for a customer as a host to respondents we recruited. The response from the customer contacts has been overwhelmingly positive, including that working with us should be considered an internal best practice. This will almost certainly lead to new opportunities doing some of the most interesting research we get to be a part of.
Customer Relationships
- We have won first-time projects with 7 new customer contacts in July and August
- We only did business with 65 companies (and ~200 contacts) in 2018. 7 new is a big deal
- The most recent, had me in over the weekend writing the screener in hopes that we can get it started and pull off 10 in-person interviews during the next 2 weeks.
Finances
- An epic push for sales to remedy our seemingly stagnant workload has paid off big time in new research projects. We have closed enough new business since the start of July to have a base of work at a very high volume for a few months.
Continuous Improvement
- Q3 priority for me is on business development (sales). Since we needed something new to happen Curtis, myself, Andrew, and Jason have a daily update meeting and defined goals for sales volume, customers, and referrals that we are working to stay relentlessly focused on.
Questions? Email or talk to Colson Steber, co-CEO. My direct line is 573-259-0320 and e-mail is CSteber@cfrinc.net