The Secret to Achieving Big Goals: Accountability

A core Zylo value is that we set and achieve big audacious goals. And one of our biggest goals is that we will be the innovative enterprise leader for SaaS management and optimization. We won’t settle for anything less.

This mantra about goals directly reflects the best parts of Zylo’s culture: The faith we have in our product and the accountability we create for ourselves and our customers.

Accountability Creates Trust

I learned about the importance of accountability from my grandfather: You do what you say you’re going to do.

For me personally, as a sales professional focused on connecting customers to Zylo’s solution, that means I am directly accountable to our customers, prospects, colleagues, and partners. But the thing that gets overlooked sometimes is that commitment needs to be focused inward as well.

When I’m working with potential customers, I’m setting the framework and messaging for what those customers will expect when they eventually interact with everyone at Zylo.

The important thing here is if you say you’re going to do something, you or your teams actually do it. This is paramount to fostering trust in your relationships.

Accountability Demands Being Realistic

Sometimes you have to say no. Accountability means you have to be aware of your limitations and protect your reputation for delivery. You have to understand what you and your team’s threshold for delivery actually is, and you must keep that in mind at all times so you’re not promising more than you can deliver.

For me, that also means treating a new opportunity to meet customer’s needs like a project. My role is not to schedule meetings and attempt to collect a signature. My goal is to discover an authentic connection to the customer’s problem.

So my role as the project leader is to connect customers with the people, the content, and resources they need to make an informed decision about Zylo. I’m accountable to the customer. I’m accountable to the Zylo team. And I’m accountable to myself.

Accountability Breeds Innovation

Practicing accountability to the customer and actively listening to their challenges (and not just selling them a one-size-fits-all solution) leads to something remarkable: real innovation.

When you set the big, audacious goal to be the leader in SaaS management, you also set the expectation that you can’t guess your way to the top. The market and the customers decide what features are valuable for them. You must be accountable for creating an environment where the customer’s voice and customer feedback are at the forefront of every decision.

And when you can prioritize and incorporate that feedback into the continual improvement of your product’s features and benefits – like we have done at Zylo – that innovation creates a superior product that actually answers and exceeds customer expectations.

Creating a category is a high-paced and incredibly rewarding process. Accountability and keeping focus on core goals and values are required at every role in the company and every stage of growth.