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Opinion: Actions speaker louder than words

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As business reporters, we dislike the word success.

That’s not to say we dislike the action of being successful, but rather to say we dislike when sources describe things as successful.

“How did your business do last year?”

“It was successful.”

That tells me nothing.

Success is a feeling. Success is a word that conveys a positive emotion, but provides little hard evidence as to why. Why do you feel successful? Tell me about your revenues, tell me about your new building, tell me about your profit-sharing program – tell me something of fact.

Actions speak louder than words and this year’s Dynamic Dozen is all about action. With three-year revenue growth ranging from 20 percent to 308 percent among the dozen, these companies back up feeling with fact.

List newcomer GigSalad generated $2.5 million in revenue last year, quadrupling it’s 2012 figure of just more than $600,000 and more than doubled its staff to 26 people over the last three years. That’s proven success.

But success is about more than just money. In recognition of the other, and sometimes intangible, things that make a company dynamic, this year Springfield Business Journal added the Judge’s Choice Award. Based on company answers to essay questions about unique and innovative methods to achieve growth and philanthropic efforts, judges selected JMark Business Solutions Inc. for the inaugural award.

“One of our main focus areas is people first, technology second,” Douglas told me.

Those are the words of a dynamic leader. JMark offers three company leadership programs to help advance employees, covers 100 percent of their health insurance premiums and, last year, introduced a company profit-sharing program. Outside the office walls, JMark and its employees routinely volunteer and contribute to 22 local charities. While they didn’t make this year’s dozen, the information technology firm also posted three-year revenue growth of 27 percent.

In this space last year, I wrote about Dynamic Dozen repeat honorees and this year didn’t disappoint. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, CoxHealth claims the No. 2 spot on this year’s list for the second straight year. With 2014 revenue of $3.4 billion, the health care provider retains its distinction as the company with the most list appearances at eight total.

Not to be outdone, Citizens Memorial Healthcare is up a spot this year to No. 10, making its seventh appearance in the dozen. With three-year revenue growth of 20 percent and multiple construction plans in the works, the Bolivar-based hospital shows no signs of slowing.

Rounding out the repeaters club, purveyor of spices Red Monkey Foods hits five list appearances and MaMa Jean’s Natural Foods Market LLC marks its fourth, Marlin Network Inc. tallies its third consecutive and S&H Farm Supply Inc., Build LLC and Burgess Aircraft Management LLC mark their second.

S&H is making its comeback to the dozen, first appearing in 2005. President Eric Schnelle says he gave customers what they wanted and brought in a new ATV and UTV line in 2013. Last year, S&H pushed annual revenue to $71.75 million with three-year sales growth of 34 percent.

Congratulations to all the 2015 Dynamic Dozen award-winning companies and individual honorees from the entire SBJ staff. By listening to your employees’ and customers’ wishes, you’ve proven success is more than just a stock phrase, it’s a way of business.[[In-content Ad]]

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