QuotaPath Senior Account Executive Alex Brennen was about to close the biggest deal in the company’s history.
In revenue size, and in the number of users, the deal would push Alex across her quota target, help the sales team hit its monthly goal, and set a new precedent for future deals.
If you’ve ever been in sales, you know the type of thrill, accolades, and especially nerves, a deal such as Alex’s can generate.
Yet it wasn’t pride, commissions, or potential loss of the deal that crowded Alex’s thoughts.
Instead, Alex remained steadfast to uncover and deliver on customer needs. And, set up steps to ensure that, should the deal go through, a smooth handoff from sales to our customer teams followed.
At the end of October, Alex rang our closing bell in front of a line of colleagues, who waited to shower her with high fives in celebration of closing the deal. Then, when onboarding took over, to their delight, they found no surprises or false promises from Alex’s sales process.
Alex’s approach to her work with customers and teammates exemplifies what it means to “Lead with empathy,” — one of QuotaPath’s five core values. And it’s why, at the beginning of the year, we recognized Alex as a winner of our new Value Awards.
The Value Awards
Following a freshening up of our core values last year, we introduced the Value Awards in early 2022 at our companywide kickoff. This annual event allows Navigators (what we call one another) to nominate and celebrate their peers who consistently embody our five values.
“At QuotaPath, it’s everyone’s responsibility to hold each other accountable for living our values,” said Carrie Carroll, QuotaPath’s Workplace & Employee Experience Manager. “Strong values help create and enhance connectivity and trust across the team. That’s why we opened up the nominations to the entire company and made it peer-driven.”
See our newly updated values below. By changing the wording to make them more action-driven, we aim to make it easier for our Navigators to recognize when our values are being upheld.
What it means to be values-driven
In addition to celebrating our Navigator winners, we embrace a values-driven culture and embed it into everything we do.
When it comes to hiring, for example, we have adopted a value-based hiring approach. This helps our candidates get a clear idea about how our values align with their own. That way, we both make sure we’re a match. Value-based hiring promotes authenticity with candidates. It creates space for people to live out their values at their own guidance.
When we’re interviewing under this approach, we look into how people execute projects and interact with customers and colleagues. Are they building trust with their teams and colleagues? Are they staying curious and trying new things with their projects?
“Instead of looking for people who ‘fit’ a certain culture, we want to work with people who live out our values in different ways,” said Angie Nelson, QuotaPath’s Recruiter.
Value-based hiring also allows for conversations about company culture and teamwork, and encourages new ideas and schools of thought, Angie added.
Values exemplified with our customers and one another
Additionally, our values drive our relationships with our customers. For instance, in 2022, we launched our QuokkaPath initiative to allow our customers to nominate members of their team who are excellent mentors, teammates, and share in our values. We then select a winner from a pool of nominations and celebrate the winners across our channels. Oh, and we delight them with quokka-inspired swag packs.
Internally, we fill our Slack channels with cross-collaboration, support for one another, opportunities to connect with people outside of our immediate teams, and post “water cooler” questions to get to know one another.
At the end of the week, the entire company jumps on a Zoom call to share our wins and offer shoutouts for our fellow Navigators. Last week’s shoutouts, for example, included a stream of praise for our RevOps team, our Director of Customer Success, and our Chief of Staff who hopped into deals, calls, and data to better support our company efforts throughout the week.
These events, whether big or small, foster connections internally and grow our community with our customers.
To see how we incorporate our values into our product philosophy, schedule a time to chat with us.
2022 Value Awards Winners
Lastly, please join us in celebrating our winners and honorable mentions from the 2022 QuotaPath Value Awards.
Lead with empathy
Honorable Mention: Darby Dupre (Marketing)
“Darby always encourages people to look out for themselves and is a huge advocate for mental health and self-empowerment in the workplace. On top of that, she’s always looking out for how to best connect with our customers and serve their needs.”
Winner: Alex “Simba” Brennen (Sales)
“With her prospects and teammates, Alex is always willing to put herself in others’ shoes and offer genuine feedback and support.”
Stay curious
Honorable Mention: Andy Keil (Product)
“Andy brings a creative and experimental mindset to product development. He is always willing to try new ideas and approaches. He constantly thinks of ways to optimize the product and improve the experience for customers, and his curiosity is the key to that.”
Winner: Melanie Taube (Marketing)
“Melanie is always willing to experiment and push the boundaries of marketing, brand voice, and design. She will hear something in a meeting, and then come back to the next one with ‘out of curiosity, last night I looked into x, y, and z.’ She is a strong example of someone who regularly explores new skill sets.”
Navigate with data
Honorable Mention: Meg Rodriguez (Customer Success)
“Meg has taken the lead on so many fronts since joining QuotaPath and at every step of the way she is seeking out ways to ground her thinking and decision making into data.”
Winner: James Truty (Engineering)
Why he was nominated: “Raw data is James’s food. It keeps him alive and allows him to perform the tasks he is responsible for. I can’t think of a response he’s ever given that wasn’t backed up by some empiric data.”
Build trust
Honorable Mention: Venu Kunche (Product)
“Part of being a great Product Manager is building trust with those you work closely with. Venu asks team members how to improve the process and takes the suggestions to heart. He works hard to test various approaches and take setbacks with grace.”
Winner: Josh Kamenicky (Customer Success)
“Josh will always be upfront and tell you what’s on his mind. Every single customer that he works with trusts him. His soft skills and ability to relate to everyone he interacts with is rare and should be celebrated.”
Promote inclusivity
Honorable Mention: Sam Manley (Sales)
“Sam is always supportive to the team and helps drive a positive workplace. She makes everyone feel included and ensures no one is left behind.”
Winner: Angie Nelson (Recruiting)
“Angie brings inclusivity to her day-to-day and is focused on ensuring that we are all creating an inclusive environment. This is evident in who we hire and how we interview.”
Navigator of the Year
Winner: Zoe Wolfe (Engineering)
“Zoe pays attention to the person/coworker as much as the task. She puts herself in others’ shoes. Then she takes that perspective with her own and provides insights into how we can make QuotaPath a better place.”
Congratulations to all of our winners!
Interested in learning more about life at QuotaPath? Check out our page here.
