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Company: Foundation Financial Group
Company Description: FFG is a multibillion dollar corporation that offers customers Best in Class service through its Insurance, Retirement, and Mortgage Divisions. FFG is also dedicated to its communities; encouraging team members to personally make a difference through active volunteerism. As it grows and competes with the world’s largest financial institutions, FFG remains focuses on its customers and communities.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Meeting of the Year

Nomination Title: Foundation Financial Group Maximizes Synergy via Managing By Appreciation at Expo 2012

Tell the story about your organization's sales meeting (up to 525 words). Include sections describing the genesis, development, production, and results to date of the event:

FFG’s annual Expo kicked-off with a spoof of Ocean’s Eleven. Boyer’s Seven introduced top executives from Sales, IT, Legal, Video, Operations, HR, and Finance in a slick, contemporary humor that depicted department-heads contributing over-the-top stunts to secure financing for a client.

While glamorized and dramatic, the video emphasized how each department contributes in some significant way to each transaction. The theme of Expo 2012 was synergy, a message that synchronizing efforts across departments leads to a more efficient use of energy.

Expo provides an opportunity to inform, engage, and unite over 200 employees in the corporation’s mission and vision. The two-day meeting occurs in a luxury hotel and all travel, meals, and accommodations are corporate-sponsored. Invitees are encouraged to bring their spouse or a guest. Attending gives guests an in-depth look at the FFG culture and insight into how supportive loved ones contribute to productivity.

For employees who typically interact electronically, Expo is a chance to meet and celebrate FFG’s success in person. Top performers are asked to collaborate and deliver breakout training seminars to their peers. 2012 breakout sessions were inspired by the book “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.”

The Managing by Appreciation campaign was initiated to ensure every individual feels valued. Morale is an integral factor in sales productivity. Without appreciation, the connections that bind employees to one another and to FFG’s mission erode. Discouraged workers voice resentment and spread dissatisfaction. Learning the best way to reach each person optimizes the effectiveness of appreciation communication.

Sessions identified appropriate ways to implement the five languages: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Tangible Gifts, Quality Time. Praise and candy were tossed to active participants and helped elevate engagement, which accelerated as people began relating.

Presentations summarizing the campaign are available via FFG’s intranet. Periodically, follow-up emails are sent with links to new resources about speaking the languages of appreciation. In corporate visits to FFG offices across the country, Talent Development heard from salespeople that small things like team lunches (Quality Time) and collaboration on difficult files (Acts of Service) were becoming frequent.

The clearest indication of a successful campaign has been feedback submitted by employees via FFG’s Diamond Award nomination process. Managers are submitting nominations for employees that tie employee actions to admirable character traits, which compliments the person and more powerfully affirms their value. Perhaps even more telling, nominations for managers contain phrases like “goes out of her way” and “gets down in the trenches with us.”

The Managing by Appreciation workshops were also relevant to personal relationships. Spouses realized they were speaking different appreciation languages and left Expo with tools to translate their gratitude. Refining appreciation communication continues to enhance personal and professional relationships within FFG.

Since, FFG received a Silver Stevie for Sales Growth Achievement of the Year, was featured on the 2013 Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, was named National Best and Brightest Company to Work For, Florida Trend’s Best Company to Work For 2013, and other awards. While Managing by Appreciation is intangible and difficult to measure, we know valuing each employee is the only means of succeeding the FFG way.

Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that staged the nominated sales meeting:

Foundation Financial Group CEO, Mark Boyer, is responsible for the company’s portfolio performance maintaining the top-five percentile for all private investors. A delegated affiliate of the FHA since 2008, Boyer supervises the department that ensures corporate compliance with state and federal regulatory standards and is a spokesperson and mortgage expert for FFG. Additionally, he spearheaded the company’s Philanthropy Department, through which employees donate thousands of dollars and hours each year to worthy causes. Boyer aids in upholding company principles and FFG’s core beliefs: hard work, efficiency, and sustainable growth strengthen FFG’s commitment to its employees, communities, and to customer satisfaction.