It’s been another big year here at Shared Drive and our second full year in business. This year we’ve accomplished a lot and learned even more! We’ve redefined the role we play for our clients and expanded our team and customer base.
In life and business, it’s always easy to keep moving on to the next thing, so it’s important to pause and reflect on where you’ve been, what you’ve achieved, and where you’re headed. Today we’re going to review the past year, celebrate our achievements, and look forward to our goals for the future.
How We’ve Grown
In our first year, we worked in 3 states, and this year we’ve grown significantly and now work in 14. In just 2 short years, we’ve been able to build a supportive platform thanks to our partnerships.
Our focus this year has been on allowing builders to keep their labor force small with more streamlined processes. We’ve grown and cultivated a cohort of passionate people who are always learning from one another and technology. We encourage people to strive to be the best and understand that any mistakes made in pursuing excellence are par for the course.
Our team now includes power users of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Lasso, and their knowledge helps our builders simplify their sales processes and offer a more united front to homebuyers.
We’ve revamped our services to include more of what we do best and our clients’ needs. We’ve expanded to provide building and auditing of builder’s processes, secret shops, branding, and marketing services.
Another area we’ve expanded into is OSC training. As we led and defined what an OSC is in this industry, we realized there was a hunger for our knowledge, and we weren’t interested in gatekeeping it.
We are proud to be a woman-owned organization, and we’ve attended and supported several industry events. These events include being a platinum sponsor at the Builder’s Marketing Summit and attending the Women’s Conference. Ingrid and Shari will also speak at IBS (International Builders Show) at the end of January 2023 (come say hi!).
Our team was recognized for their outstanding work by being honored with the Nationals NAHB OSC Rookie of the Year Award. This award went to two of our team members, Karolina and Don Paolo.
What We’ve Learned
Here are some of the lessons our co-founders Ingrid and Shari have learned:
Ingrid Prince
This year was a constant journey of betterment for the company and myself personally. This year took me down a different path than I expected, but through the good and the bad, I’ve learned to give myself grace and enjoy continually learning. It’s in the state of being uncomfortable that we learn so much about ourselves. I’ve allowed myself to be human and lean on those who stick with me through thick and thin.
Shari Morton
Two years of owning this business has taught me to be intentional and be a student of life. This year has challenged the skills I thought I had mastered and pushed me to uplevel further.
I’ve learned that you’ve got to learn from your team to become a great leader. You need to take the time to understand and appreciate different personalities and learn to coach them as individuals. We utilize the Working Genius test to help us further cater to our team members’ strengths.
How We’ve Changed
Our most significant change this year has come in how we serve our customers. When we started Shared Drive, we thought we would be catering to small businesses and outsourcing. Still, this year we’ve found our specialty in discovering gaps and providing solutions to streamline the online sales process.
We’ve focused on doing what we’re experts at, not trying to be everything to everyone. It’s how we ensure we offer clients only what we’re best at, and now we’re adding new services strategically. We are being intentional about discovering what matters most to our clients so we can support them.
We’ve grown mindfully this year; paramount to us are our team’s happiness and enthusiasm and our current clients’ satisfaction.
Internally, we’ve focused on developing a sustainable team – we aren’t in business for the hierarchy; we are in it for the customer. We very much believe in people over progress.
We have high expectations for our team; they’re expected to execute while we offer support. We aren’t hand-holders, and we’ve learned to choose high performers who always bring their best and work hard. Our team members get autonomy in return.
This year we have crafted a career path for OSCs. The path has changed based on our needs and will likely continue to evolve, but we’ve allowed our team to shape the career path as we define each level of the OSC ladder.
What the Future Looks Like
Next year, we’ll be focused on continuing to provide our clients with game-changing OSCs that streamline their processes and fill the gaps where home buyers often fall through the cracks or feel unsupported.
Here are some of our goals and the exciting things you can expect from Shared Drive in the coming year:
- Ingrid and Shari will speak at IBS in late January/early February
- Launch our Marketing Division
- Simplify the rating system for the industry (starting with existing builders, CRMs, salespeople, and OSCs to reflect the natural behavior of buyers)
- Focus on growing the TRIBE (our OSC training and support group)
And we’ll invite you to… Hello OSC University.
COMING SOON!
This has been a great year for Shared Drive, and we can’t wait to see what we can achieve with our partners in the coming year. Thank you for being with us!
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