The following are the closing words of my State of the Company address at our National Conference in San Antonio on March 13, 2014. I wanted to write them down so that even those who didn’t join us this year could reflect on them. The video of the full speech was circulated to the all Sperry Van Ness® Advisors and Staff on April 7, 2014.
“I want to close out by reminding you of something very special and unique that exists here; something that separates SVN Advisors and the brand from any other firm in the industry, and that’s the SVN culture. It’s special, almost tangible. It’s real. And as long as we use the Core Covenants to guide everything we do with and for SVN, our unique culture will remain intact.
There are people who don’t fit our culture. Those will always exist. There are advisors who break the rules, and that will happen from time to time. But from the way in which we collaborate to market properties, to the way in which we clearly place our clients’ interests first, the unique SVN culture is real, is present…and I don’t want to sound like an evangelist but I can feel it in this room.
A company’s culture is one of the only true sustainable advantages SVN or any company has, if you think about it.
Given enough time and money, our competitors can duplicate almost everything we do (they can but they can’t). They can attempt to hire away some of our best people. They can try to reverse engineer our processes. But the only thing they can’t duplicate is the way in which we live our culture.
The culture to change the industry–we are a company of professionals. Professionals willing to share information and fees, because that’s how we achieve maximum value for our clients.
The SVN brand–synonymous with all of that, and being driven by our firm owners – local ownership – with ties and vested interests in our communities.
Our culture is unique, our culture is brave and I’d like you to give yourselves a round of applause to celebrate each other and company of which you are a part.”
Kevin Maggiacomo
CEO & President
Sperry Van Ness International Corporation
*All Sperry Van Ness offices are independently owned and operated.