Turning Values Into Action: Vince Borrelli on Rockport’s “Serve First” Mindset

It's not unusual to see values written on a web page, but then your actual experience is different. We are here to serve our clients and each other. We will be reliable, caring, thorough, and responsive to our clients with a genuine interest in their success. We will be positive because you get what you give. We will look for opportunity to delight the client and improve the product and process. We take personal responsibility to see open issues through conclusion. We will be better than yesterday.

We will lead the way. It's hard to be that way every day. We all have bad days. So, I don't want to come across as like, you know, this is easy, because it's not. Sometimes you're tired. Sometimes you're just not feeling it. But the fact that you're aware of that, I think, is more than half the battle. My name is Vince Borrelli. I am managing director here at Rockport, and I am also pretty passionate about customer relationships and client success. We are here to serve our clients and each other.

That's at the top of the list because that's the basic premise. If you have a servant's heart and you want to give first, we believe that over the long haul, you end up receiving way more than you expected. We believe you need to be positive and that you, we use the phrase, you get what you give. And this holds true no matter what kind of business. Say your car breaks down, and you have to get your car towed to the repair shop.

The owner of the shop brings out a cup of coffee, tells you not to worry, gives you a sense for what's wrong with the car, and offers his loaner car. You go home right away with a borrowed car, and you're like, you know what? That was the greatest experience I ever had. I don't even really care that my car broke. Well, that's the point. That's the kind of culture that we build here—client-facing with our customers. Like I said, there's no perfect product.

If somebody needs help over here, we help. If somebody needs to be lifted up over here, we lift them up. So it really created an environment that is very, very healthy, and it comes across with our customer base. Because these characteristics, these traits, these values were already inside us as people, it was just kind of what we do naturally.