Happy Sunday everyone!
Last Sunday I flew to Atlanta for a baby shower and saw a few of my reps while down there.
Introducing Rachel Woodyard and Ashton Jarrell!
They started around the same time last year, do excellent work for our clients, and are great additions to the team.
Rachel resides in Georgia and Ashton lives in Florida.
After our event, the 3 of us grabbed dinner and caught up!
Cheers Rachel and Ashton!
Happy Wednesday everyone!
Last week, I visited with the wonderful Contact Science team in St. Louis.
I live in Kansas City, one of them lives in St. Louis and the other resides in Tennessee.
I’m glad we all drove since the FAA grounded all planes that Wednesday morning.
So we met in the middle and strategized about our 2 companies working together and grabbed dinner and drinks afterward.
They provide a wonderful platform and we provide quality BDR’s.
Contact Science (https://www.contactscience.com/) has a premier sales engagement platform that provides a complete CRM, dialer, reporting, and accountability for tech firms and MSPs. Please check them out.
As I’ve said many times in the past, Zoom is great but meeting in person and spending quality time together is priceless.
Included in the pic is Bob Howard, the CEO of Contact Science, Mel McCaleb, the VP of Operations, and myself.
Happy January!
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000. Cheers!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Here’s a follow-up video that Addie Kate, my marketing and social media manager, put together of our time training.
Cheers and Blessings!
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
“The days are long but the years are short.” – Unknown
How true! 11 months down, 1 remaining in 2022.
Yikes!
I was in the Atlanta metro this past June visiting team members.
I hadn’t met some of the newer members plus I needed to do some in-person training, so I flew out Thursday and returned Friday.
The team and I shared a few meals, huddled in a hotel conference room, and did professional training to grow their team.
There’s no substitute for face-to-face in-person time and Zoom meetings can get old quickly and attention spans wither.
Pictured here from left to right: Frankie Teel, Shamar Slappy, Addie Kate Pruett, Casey Cantrell, and Rachel Woodyard.
I’m excited and proud of the Southeast Team!
PS: Happy birthday Frankie!
Happy Saturday everyone!
Every now and then, Connect 5000 gathers together via Zoom over lunch and gets to know each other better without talking about work stuff. Because everyone is remote and isolation can occur, it’s beneficial to huddle up and get to know colleagues better, so we did Friday afternoon. It helps build relationships and a stronger culture.
For other remote firms out there, I encourage you to do the same! #team #culture
Thank you Casey Cantrell for facilitating Friday’s session.
I”m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
Happy Sunday everyone!
And the flights and travel continue!
As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I visited Seattle and Portland over Memorial Day weekend with my family.
2 days later I flew with a colleague to Atlanta to visit the Southern Region Team and meet reps who I hadn’t met in person yet.
2 days later I then flew with a colleague BACK to Atlanta for a training session in North Carolina.
My flight was originally supposed to leave around 10:30 am Sunday morning, June 5th. The airline canceled it and rebooked me but the layover via Minnesota would have put me into Atlanta late.
So I took the 5:30 AM flight direct to Atlanta, grabbed my luggage and rental car and grabbed a hotel for a few hours, napped, and picked up my colleague coming from Michigan and we drove 140 miles north to our destination.
Nisah Tahara, my head of Training, Learning, and Development, and I did a training session with a client over 2 days. I had never met her before but we had spoken countless times via phone and Zoom, and wonderful to meet her.
We drove back to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and parted ways. I enjoyed my time with her as well as the client doing live training. First time since the pandemic. Other sessions had been strictly remote.
3 trips down 1 more to go. I head to Indianapolis, IN tomorrow morning!
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
(Pictured is Nisah and I at breakfast!)
Happy Saturday everyone!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently did a family vacation to Seattle and Portland and flew back.
2 days later, Tiffany Miller, my Director of Operations, and I flew to Atlanta to see some Southern Region team members we’d never met in person.
We had planned to back in February but with sickness and Coronavirus Omicron variant raging, we decided to postpone it until June.
So we flew in Thursday night, had a lovely dinner with the team at a great Italian restaurant called Venucci, and then went out for drinks later that evening with our team’s spouses and significant others.
The next day we had a quick manager’s meeting and another pleasant lunch with the team at Taste of Lemon.
Thank you Casey for your excellent, southern hospitality and shuttling us around those 2 days.
Pictured are several members of the Southern Region team who live in the great state of Georgia.
Happy Summer Everyone!
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
Pictured here from left to right: Ray, Rachael, Jessica, Frankie, Casey and Tiffany.
So to get straight to the point: I lost the election handily. I lost approximately 70% to 30%.
It was a fair race and as far as I know, my opponent kept it clean and professional and he ran a good race.
In fact, my neighbor brought me 3 pieces of direct mail she received from him in the last month of the campaign.
I’m glad I ran, it was a good experience, and I met some wonderful people.
With that being said, I’m retiring from politics with a perfect record of 0-1.
I knocked on about 30-40 doors while campaigning and realized while doing it, I didn’t like it and wasn’t energized or passionate about it. Ironically, I’m a high extrovert who really enjoys meeting new folks. Not in politics.
So I lost the sales contest but kept my values and character intact.
You can’t complain but sit on the sidelines. Politics is not for the faint of heart.
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000. Happy Thanksgiving!
PS: Photo by Depositphotos (<a href=”https://depositphotos.com/category/holidays-events.html”>Neon Concept of winner and loser Vector Illustration. Glowing neon sign – depositphotos.com</a>)
Happy Sunday everyone!
Over Memorial Day weekend, my family and I flew to Sanibel Island in Florida and enjoyed our first family vacation in over a year and a half.
We were gone from the Saturday before the holiday to the following Thursday.
Other than keeping an eye on email and Slack and handling invoices and payroll, I was able to disconnect, spend time with the family at the beach, sightsee, enjoy dining out at various local places, and getting out of the normal day-to-day flow. I even ran into a fellow small business owner from Kansas City who was on vacation as well with her family, 5 miles away. We were able to get the families together for the first time and dine out.
I had let my staff know in advance that I was going off the grid and that unless it was an emergency, don’t contact me. That they should contact the two other managers in charge. I’m all about delegating!
As small business owners and entrepreneurs, it’s tough and at times feels impossible to disconnect, unplug, and get away. Our companies are our “babies” and we have the mentality that our firm can’t function without us. For solopreneurs, that may be true.
Yet it’s critical to step away, unplug, rest, and come back with fresh eyes and ideas. I encourage you to get away when possible.
At Connect 5000, we have had some solid growth and have probably doubled the number of reps since last year.
With growth comes challenges and growing pains and the culture kind of takes a life on its own. More personalities and problems to manage and get out ahead of. But such is the life of small business ownership and entrepreneurship!
Happy Summer everyone!
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
(Photo courtesy of Elizeu Dias.)
Happy Friday everyone!
A few weeks ago, my firm finally joined the correct century and moved from IMAP email to Google Workspace.
Christy Rogers of Training Umbrella did some remote training with my team and was excellent! Continual education and professional learning are musts in this current remote age of working. I highly recommend her training and company.
(Not all of the staff are pictured here.)
When your team is working remotely, they may feel isolated and disengaged!
Have some friendly lunch and learn sessions and let them expense their meals to the company.
If you don’t have any topics to come up with, have your staff go around, share interesting facts and stories about themselves that others may not know about, and it’s a wonderful way to teambuild.
I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.
