Reminder Media President Luke Acree on the Importance of Accountability

What has surprised you most about running a business?

I always trust that people will follow through, but that’s backfired on me. I’ve learned that you need to hold people accountable. You need to have incredibly high standards and refuse to waver on them. People aren’t bad, but you can’t assume that everyone will be true to their word just because you will be.

What are some of your biggest accomplishments?

I’m really proud of when we made the INC 5000 for the fourth year in a row. But going deeper than that, I’m proud of two things. I’m proud of building out our sales team. We went from basically no callers on the phone to over 100 and had to figure out how to take our business from outside face-to-face sales to this inside on-the-phone sales focus. The other thing I’m proud of is that I’ve been in the trenches since I joined the company. I did sales calls to teach my team how to do them. I worked with clients to teach my team how to handle them. I’m proud to have been this hands-on through the entire process.

Is there a motto you live by?

The difference between top producers and mediocre producers is that the top producers take action. Your intelligence or talent aren’t the deciding factors; it’s whether or not you acted that makes or breaks things.

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