There aren’t many places in the country where ziplining to a sales offsite would be believable as anything more than a kooky dream — but Colorado writes its own rules when it comes to workplace culture.
When the view beyond your laptop includes the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains and your desk is a short drive from staggering sandstone outcroppings and serene river trails, it would be a shame not to make the outdoors a part of office life.
Denver-based Kin + Carta takes advantage of its unmatched surroundings as often as possible, and Head of New Business David Maren credits the company’s unconventional sales culture with spurring his team to new realms of success. Alongside the ability to crush revenue goals, the organization values creative thinking, enthusiastic ambition and exceptional communication skills — all of which Coloradans have in spades.
Below, Maren shares his strategies for standing out with clients and the enviable perks that bring his team together and motivate their wins.
Kin + Carta is a global digital transformation consultancy firm that offers strategy, innovation, communication and engineering services to help clients leverage digital technologies.
Describe your company’s sales culture. What makes it unique?
Kin + Carta works collaboratively with clients to craft bespoke solutions to complex business problems. What this means is that we don’t have a typical sales team, nor a typical sales culture. If an ethnographer were to study our new business team’s culture, perhaps the first thing that would become apparent is that we spend less time with each other than with our clients, partners and other coworkers. But it would also be apparent that the time we do spend together tends to be focused on collaborative problem-solving around how best to approach the challenges our clients and their customers face in the market. What makes us unique is that we’re not sales-y; rather, clients see us as strategic partners. We hear that quite often.
What are some non-monetary spiffs, incentives and rituals your team uses to stay motivated?
At Kin + Carta, we know how to have fun and make the most of our surroundings. I’ve been known to host colleagues, as well as clients and partners, at my zipline-accessible yurt in Evergreen for strategic planning sessions. I take the crew paddleboarding on the lake and we cap it off with a great dinner at Murphy’s Mountain Grill. Concerts at Red Rocks and guided ski days also come to mind. We stay motivated by learning alongside one another and celebrating the wins we achieve.
We stay motivated by learning alongside one another and celebrating the wins we achieve.
What do you or your team enjoy most about these spiffs, incentives or rituals?
Overall, I’d say what we enjoy most is the fact that there’s never a dull moment. What ultimately motivates our team is solving the puzzle. Most new business opportunities at Kin + Carta are not straightforward; they require critical thinking and collaboration to identify, scope and build alignment around the optimal solution. But, to be honest, we have a lot of fun figuring it out!
