Like a Well-Oiled Machine

There are so many teamwork clichés. “Two heads are better than one.” “There’s no ‘I’ in team.” The list goes on. But we take teamwork very seriously at CMA, especially since developing and executing a marketing plan, for instance, often entails a lot of moving parts. It’s extremely hard to be creative without different sounding boards to bounce ideas off of. For us, it’s three basic ideas that define our teamwork philosophy:

Brainstorming
Last week alone, CMA held multiple brainstorming sessions for different client projects. These sessions are often interdisciplinary, where it’s common for someone from the PR department to contribute to the development of an ad, or an event planner to sit in on a marketing strategy session. We look for fresh perspectives and draw on the experiences of one another regularly.

Quality Control
Every piece, whether it’s a press release, a capabilities brochure or website home page, is circulated to different members of the account team to ensure quality. Each team member takes time to review the material and add suggestions. With this process in place, a consensus is formed, quality is assured and the final product presented to a client is a collective team effort.

Responsiveness
People go on vacations, get sick and take business trips—it’s a part of life. But we never want a client to feel their needs have to wait until their main contacts are back in the office. Prior to any anticipated travel, CMA team members work out who will provide back-up coverage to assist with certain projects. These support people are brought into meetings and cross-trained on time-sensitive projects early on to ensure they can take the reins when needed.

Client service is a huge priority at CMA and the foundation for it is an organized game plan. After all, clichéd or not, TEAM really does spell out “Together Everyone Achieves More!”

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com