Beau Graves for Employee Testimonial

Speaker: Beau Graves, VP of Client Strategy

Beau Graves: My path to VP of Client Strategy, has been a really long adventurous path. Which has been just so incredibly powerful for me as a professional, even just as an individual, it's been so fun to watch our organization change. When I started at Avalaunch in 2014 we were like nine employees and I've watched it grow, and expand, and develop, and watched our teams grow and mature, and leaders grow and mature. And it's just been so fun to to watch Avalaunch develop over the years. When I came to Avalaunch, I was recruited as an SEO. To just be an individual contributor on a team and help and develop our SEO pocesses and fulfillment. It was such a fun challenge to come in and literally just be number two on a team of SEO Fulfillment and management. Back then we would do the account management and fulfillment. And so you know from there I had the opportunity, after a couple of years, to be able to step into the Director of SEO role and we made some model shifts and changes. I helped improved processes there and at that point, we had decided to focus on the SEO team being SEO fulfillment, and decided to split out and have account managers be account managers. I was able to help develop the account management team as well and bring them along. Then eventually we made another model shift, I moved into a Strategist role and was able to help build out the Strategy Team and at the time there was just two of us. Then from there, helped build out the Strategy Team and oversee the Strategists. That has been such a fulfilling role and responsibility for me to be able to help and develop Strategists, but also help and develop other leaders and build processes. You know we definitely are always constantly learning and trying new things and figuring out what little tweaks we can make two create better experiences for our clients, and better experiences for our employees. It's a really rewarding satisfying role of being able to help those teams be part of the Executive Team to help and guide and direct the organization. Also be able to just work with some of the most incredible marketing professionals that are in the industry and some of the best clients that you could ever ask for. I love my role and I constantly tell people that I have the best job, not only an Avalaunch, but also the best job I could possibly have for what I do. So grateful for my opportunity here at Avalaunch, for the trust that the owners have put in me to help develop and guide the organization. The the trust they constantly put into me and my teams to help and guide and direct our clients as well.

Beau Graves: My favorite part of my role at Avalaunch is absolutely professional development. Helping others find their success here as individual contributors, as leaders of the organization. It's so fun to just see that play out and see others be as rewarded with their roles and responsibilities at Avalaunch, as I am. To just see people find success in what they do, whether that's as a leader of others and developing others, or if it's finding success in helping clients and creating great strategy. Creating, you know, amazing world class deliverables for our clients. It's so fun to watch people develop over the years and be able to come in as an individual contributor, work themselves all the way into being amazing leaders of departments with an organization. That has been so fun and fulfilling for me as a professional, as I watch these amazing folks around me, be able to develop themselves and want to drive Avalaunch and want us to be successful. Also drive our clients and want our clients to be successful. And so, by far, watching others professionally develop is the most rewarding and favorite part of my job here at Avalaunch.

Beau Graves: We had a client that we were able to work with for a couple of years, that did culture development and professional development for organizations and helped organizations be able to hone in on the right elements of their business. To be able to be successful, develop and grow. As we learned more about what they did, we come to find out that they had a heavy focus on trying to differentiate between hard culture and soft culture. Come to find out we were very focused as an organization on the things that matter on the hard culture elements of an organization. Which are things like, being able to have tough and difficult conversations, but knowing that the outcome is going to be efficient, successful and we have the proper amount of buy in from our employees. It's so rewarding to watch those things be key drivers inside our organization. We certainly have some of the soft culture things. We want to have food in our cabinets and drinks in our fridge for the employees to be able to take advantage of as well. Those are typically some of your soft culture elements. Our hard culture is really where we focus our our time and effort to try and develop great relationships between our employees and our departments. Relationships that allow us to be able to have those difficult and tough conversations, but know we've got each other's back as well. We can be vulnerable and we can allow ourselves to have those difficult conversations. Another element of our culture is, we have a Culture Club. Which is something I've had the opportunity of being able to develop here at Avalaunch and be a part of over the years. Watched that Culture Club team, morph and transition as it's needed to. Watched members of it come and go. It's been so fun to watch as the Culture Club develops and people come and bring the initiatives they're passionate about. Focus on the things that they want to help the organization improve on. Whether that's, sustainability or working with nonprofits, charitable initiatives. You know, more of our philanthropic side of our organization. Then also, parties and having fun. Having a really fun culture to be able to come to work, and know that, we can grow and develop as an organization and a team. Be able to have some of the fun things inside our organization that everybody wants to have.