When I was interviewed for Executive Leaders Radio, I was asked what’s important to be a team leader and how do I pull people together as a CEO. My answer then is the same as it is now. The key to being an effective leader is hiring the right people.

Our business is focused on service and sharing expertise. So it’s important for us to hire people that are interested in delivering services that meet law firms’ needs, and to make the people that we work with successful within their firms. I’ve often said to my clients, “As long as I’m doing something to serve you, I’m happy. I’ll take out the trash as long as you pay my rate.” Our success is dependent upon making our clients successful, so we place a high value on hiring the right people.

We’re not the only ones that think this way. We see how important people are to our organization each time we issue an appointment release. We see an immediate spike in website activity each time we announce a new hire. I keep close tabs on what news prompts the most activity. Partly because it gives me feedback about what information is important to our audience. But also because by nature I like to look for trends in data.

We saw a huge spike in social media activity and web traffic after announcing that Marc Cram joined our team. The news generated our second highest number of page loads compared to all of the news we issued in 2015. The number of unique visits was close to our all-time high, which occurred following news of our certification as a services partner for Intapp. The Intapp news prompted the most page loads, unique visits, first time visits, and returning visits in our history. And it’s not just web bots driving the numbers as we can see when we drill down into the visitor activity.

Even news about our new office in Florida generated a high number of visits, partly because it mentioned the governor of Florida, but I believe it’s also because we focused on how Shishir Shetty is leading the team at this location. After that it’s all “people” news that prompts the highest traffic. Marc set the bar high earlier this month, but news of Suki Sahansara joining our EMEA office and Russ Haskin’s addition to the business of law services team follow closely behind.

These website results reinforce what I’ve always believed. That our people are Wilson Allen’s greatest attribute. Hiring the best people not only makes my job easier – it enables us to do a better job of helping our clients succeed.