Outrank.com

Not a chance. Our Superhero Sales Squad has proven themselves, again! They have earned the trust of thousands of customers … word of positive results for businesses has spread quickly and the squad continues to sign clients up at an unparalleled rate in the SEO industry.

It’s tiiiime! Vegas, Baby!

Members of our Sales Team have been working hard the last three months to earn our exciting contest Vegas or Bust, Baby! Our Superhero Sales Squad never shys away from a solid challenge, so the competition has definitely been fierce. 

The Top 5 sales people automatically qualified for the trip. There was a lot of movement within the Top 5 and the final winners were not officially locked in until March 31st.

The rest of the sales squad had the opportunity to earn tickets in a drawing based on their performance from January through March as well. As Tim and Butch revealed the Top 5 winners and got ready to draw one wildcard winner, you could cut the air with a knife. But wait, because performance was so awesome, we had a last minute surprise and were actually able to pick out two wildcard winners!

In addition, the top development supervisor will also accompany the squad to Sin City as well.  Our winner was a lock-in, earning the top DS spot for January through March.

Our card sharks will be leaving for Vegas on April 15th and will be treated to two glorious nights at the Luxor. We’ll also slip ‘em some dough to bring mama home a new pair o’ shoes! In all, 10 members of the team will be hitting Vegas up, baby!  We know they’ll have a blast!

Next in store – the sales team is working through April and May to qualify for a weekend trip to the beach in June! It’s a great time to be a part of the ProfitFuel and Outrank.com team! We’re so money!

The team at ProfitFuel and Outrank.com  have collectively covered 4,200 miles on their journey from Austin, TX to San Diego, CA.  Our team started this health initiative in January with the goal of the making it to California by the end of April.  

The staff team has taken a significant lead in the competition - already surpassing the first three recognition stops of Fort Stockton, TX, Las Cruces, NM and just recently going past Tucson, AZ with a total of 1,100 miles … just 200 miles from our final destination!

Four other teams have made it past the first two stops and have Tucson within their sites.  We have two teams that have had a bit of a slower go of it …. and are still in Texas.    

Our hope is that all employees will take up the habit of walking during their break times.  The benefits of walking are numerous.  The Mayo Clinic recently posted the following benefits of walking:

• Lowers low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol)
• Raises high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol)
• Lowers blood pressure
• Reduces risk of or helps manage Type 2 diabetes
• Manages weight
• Improves mood
• Stay strong and fit

Get into the routine of walking!

Now that it is officially Spring, the weather in Austin is at its best – so we look forward to seeing more people walk and eventually reach our goal: San Diego!

A company’s culture influences the environment and all of its employees — on all levels. The team at Outrank.com and Profitfuel  understands that a well-developed company culture creates positive changes across the board. Our management team works in tandem with employees to create a fun and exciting environment that encourages achievement through balance.

When a company has a strong culture it impacts many areas. In “Developing Your Company Culture, The Joy of Leadership, A Handbook for Leaders and Managers”, Barry Phegan, Ph.D. outlined the following areas that can be positively affected by a strong company culture.

• Productivity: A well-developed culture gives dramatic, sustained increases in productivity and performance.
• Morale: High morale is a key to success. It is closely connected to trust, purpose, team loyalty, pride, and faith in the leadership—all qualities that improve as the culture develops.
• Profits: Often, the underlying reason for improving the company culture is profits. Because the developing culture creates across-the-board improvements, increased profits are inevitable.
• Customer Service: As the culture builds, leaders learn to better manage the quality of everyone’s experience inside the company as well as the experiences of customers, clients, suppliers, and other corporate entities.
• Retention: When you have a great place to work, where people can satisfy their needs, they just don’t want to leave.
• Absenteeism: It is common sense that there will be less absenteeism when people like their jobs. They also develop a new attitude towards their fellow workers and to the problems that their absenteeism creates for them.
• Employee Morale: At the root of morale you’ll find trust, a clear purpose, team loyalty and support, and faith in leadership and the success of the organization. These increase as the culture develops.
• Employee Motivation: When people can fulfill their desires around work they are highly motivated.
• Openness to Change: A striking increased openness to change and the desire to make things work. As trust and responsibility increases, employees initiate significant improvements in operations.
• Involvement: When the leaders show that they want everyone involved, people step forward in creative and productive ways.
• Meetings: With improved openness and trust, individual contributions in meetings increases and people become more energetic, focused, and creative.
• Teamwork: Expect improved teamwork and communication between people, divisions, and levels.
• Relationships: The culture change process improves relationships between people, levels, and departments.
• Satisfaction, Happiness, Joy and Pleasure: Last but perhaps most important, there are few things more satisfying than being part of a well-developed company culture. It is a real pleasure working in an organization where people enjoy each other. Satisfaction and happiness go hand-in-hand with improved performance.

Our team at Outrank.com and ProfitFuel is focused on maintaining a strong company culture.  We feel we have created a great enviroment together where people can succeed and have fun along their journey! Get a glimpse of how we roll here or here!

The team at Outrank.com and ProfitFuel have proven that the team that plays together – stays together. It’s no secret that our team likes to have fun … and our company encourages it!  We realize that a sales environment can be a bit stressful so we’re constantly looking at ways to have fun – inside and outside of the office.

This past Friday we opened up our reonvated Fun Room – with additional space and amenities. Along with our pool, ping pong, and foosball tables, the expansion allowed us to add another ping pong table and a Pop Shot basketball game to the room. By the end of next week we expect to have our overhead projector added so that we can play video games as well!

We also upgraded our bar set-up for weekly Happy Hours. We are now fully-equipped with a Keggerator as well as a refrigerator to hold snacks and additional beverages. The new space also includes a socializing nook with comfy chairs and tables to relax at during breaks and off hours.  

In addition to our weekly Happy Hour, our company supports stress-relieving and wellness activities outside of the office. Currently, we have employee teams in local volleyball, pool and basketball leagues. We encourage participation, publicize the schedules and give weekly updates in our company meeting to let everyone know how the seasons are going. And, as it goes when people talk about their favorite sports teams, the light-hearted banter is always entertaining. After all, we’ve got a large sales team: our Superhero Sales Squad. Naturally, you’re going to get some good ole fashioned and friendly competition.

As we did in 2010, we also expect to break multiple sales and service records this year. And plan to have fun along the way.

Last month the team at Outrank.com and ProfitFuel set off on a wellness initiative to walk from Austin to San Diego, California. We formed into a few teams and have been diligently adding miles to our trackers each week.   

Each group has their own strategy for adding mileage to their team’s totals. There are small groups that have started walking around the building during break times and those that are running/walking at home or on the weekends. 

Our first goal is to make it to Fort Stockton by February 11th. We hit a bit of a stumbling block last week with the freezing weather – but the sun is back out and teams are back on track!

The Account Manager team has gotten off to a strong start. They have already passed through Fort Stockton and have currently accumulated 640 miles. Coming in second is the Staff Team – who is just outside of Fort Stockton on their way to Las Cruces with a total of 315 miles. 

The remaining teams are picking up speed but will have to kick it into gear if they want to make it to our first recognition destination. *Ahem*  

Every team member that makes it to Fort Stockton will earn a ProfitFuel water bottle to help keep them hydrated while exercising.  The main goal is to incent people to get out during breaks and enjoy some fresh air while doing something healthy for themselves.    Judging from the early results – we are well on our way to accomplishing our goals!

See you in San Diego!

This week the team members at ProfitFuel and Outrank.com put their skills and recipes to the test during the 1st Annual ProfitFuel Chili Cook-Off!  Dun da dun!  Every group in the office was represented – Client Services, Sales, Marketing and our Staff team.

Challengers had been tweaking their recipes weeks prior to the kitchen battle and chili ran the gamut from old family secrets to new favorites created especially for the competition.  Ingredients and flavors ranged from Vegetarian Chili, traditional Texas No Bean Chili to Guinness Chili!

Here’s how it went down:

On Thursday, eight teams brought in their masterpieces to test the taste buds at ProfitFuel. 

The kitchen stadium rules:

Everyone was required to bring at least 2 gallons of chili to feed our entire (and hugrily awaiting) family at ProfitFuel and Outrank.com.  Each competing team also had to bring any special sides to accompany their chili. The judging began at high noon and the com-pe-ti-tion was fieerce.

All employees could vote only once and each team had their eye on the coveted trophy that would earn them bragging rights for an entire year — until the next Annual ProfitFuel Chili Cook-Off.

When the votes were tallied, one team was determined as the clear winner of the competition.  The reigning team was announced during Friday’s Company Meeting … and the winners of the First Annual ProfitFuel Chili Cook-Off were … Team “O-Ring”! Jay Chappell and John O’Brien are the winning Chili Masters who set off our pleasure alarms with their Two Good Ol’ Boys from Texas Down Home 10 Pepper Chili.  Yep, that’s a MOUTHFUL!  As Team ”O-Ring” accepted their award,  resident culinary expert Jerry Franklin chimed in to challenge the Champs to a throwdown!  Jerry will put his award-winning chili up against the Two Good Ol’ Boys from Texas Down Home 10 Pepper Chili.  We’ll see who reigns supreme in the next ProfitFuel Kitchen Stadium Chili Throwdown!

One of the most important factors to the success of any business is making sure that the good people want to stay. Having fun at work and enjoying your job are easy to talk about, but you also want to make sure the environment your employees work in is has a positive atmosphere.  This can be accomplished in a number of ways.  We value all the hard work our staff has put in to grow our business, so we make every effort to make them comfortable and provide an environment that fosters teamwork and motivation.

Among the many upgrades our staff saw this year was the complete replacement of our aging office chairs with brand spankin’ new chairs. They have a headrest, making it much easier to get that 5 second nap in between calls! Also, almost all employees received new computers with Windows 7, and many people love their new widescreen monitors, boosting efficiency!

As you may have heard, we’re adding on the office space next door, and as part of the renovations we’re repainting the whole building, installing gorgeous new carpet, and gutting the kitchen to make ProfitFuel an even better place to work. The construction noises next door are just tempting us to wonder what it will all look like when it’s complete in a month or two!

This week the employees at ProfitFuel and Outrank.com are teaming up to walk and/or run from Austin, Texas to San Diego, California.

The distance is approximately 1,300 miles.  By working together in groups of approximately twenty employees, we hope to make it to our final destination by the end of April!

We are tackling this challenge as a new initiative to promote wellness and reduce stress within the office.  We will organize into groups that will walk around our building during break times. We’ve calculated the distance and it only takes four laps around the building to reach a mile … that’s right, we will be cruisin’ to California, indeed.

To spice things up, we’ll have destination recognition spots along the way to celebrate achieving specific mile markers. To keep our teams on track we’ll dole out prizes at our weekly meeting to everyone who reaches the following mileage stops:

1. Fort Stockton, Texas = 340 miles

2. Las Cruces, New Mexico = additional 300 miles

3. Tucson, Arizona = 915 miles from Austin and our third and final stop before reaching San Diego!

We have a summer celebration planned in May for every team that completes the 1,300 mile trek from Austin to San Diego. We anticipate some fierce competition will ensue, particularly because there’s a deadline to make!

As we wind down from the holidays and start a new year, we have the opportunity to reflect on our successes from 2010.  The team at Outrank.com and ProfitFuel have a lot to celebrate!

2010 has been a year of growth and success.  The Sales team has grown and so have their sales numbers!  The new training program that was launched in the fall has made a dramatic effect on our Superhero Squad – and the results tell a successful story.  Sales have increased more than 300% year over year while our agent headcount has grown 33% from 2009.  Our conversion rate has tripled over the year – and that is something to be proud of!

Our Client Services department also had a phenomenal year.  The team increased headcount by over 500% and made major changes to their organizational structure to better serve clients.  Despite transitions and the large increase in sales, our trusty Client Services team was able to maintain customer satisfaction and saw no increase in cancel rate.

Overall, the company has grown our client base from 3,000 clients in 2009 to just under 9,000 clients as we kick off 2011.  Our company continues to expand as we add more bright individuals to our team. We’re currently undergoing an expansion in the office (nevermind the people in the celing) – adding over 7,000 square feet to accommodate our growth!

Emphasizing our work hard, play hard ethic – we again earned honors for Best Places to Work and Top Workplaces in Texas.

Before the holiday break, the entire ProfitFuel and Outrank team took time to celebrate our successes with our families at the annual Holiday Party in December, which was held at the very charming and historic Mercury Hall.

Now, we look forward to the opportunities that await us in 2011.

The holidays can be a challenging time for families, and in today’s economy, the needs have never been so great. So, in true ProfitFuel spirit, the employees at ProfitFuel and Outrank.com made it clear that we wanted to help out! Throughout the month of November, employees donated various canned food items to the Capital Area Food Bank.

We added our unique culture to the food drive by using the cans to create a structure to display in the lobby of the office.   Employees submitted different structures ranging from the “State of Texas” to an “armadillo.”  The votes were cast and tallied…. the decision was made to create a computer, and the fun began.

To help create the orange structure, employees brought Bush beans or donated cash to purchase the cans.  At the end of the month, the team donated enough cans to create a computer tower, monitor with a keyboard and mouse.

At the conclusion of our drive, all donations were taken to the Capital Area Food Bank.  The team ended up donating over 380 cans which weighed in at 404 pounds.  This amount equates to 323 meals for local families in need.  The CAFB provides food and groceries to more than 350 partner agencies in 21 Central Texas counties.  In addition, CAFB provides programs for Partners and those in need free of charge.

Our team is already looking forward to next year and are already coming up with new and more complex structures to build!