In Business Small Business Awards 2020 Winner: FarWell

FarWell is proud to have been named one of Madison’s In Business magazine’s 2020 Small Business Award winners! As a Madison-based business consulting firm, we are honored to share this year’s small business spotlight with other great companies like ILLUME Advising, LLC, Inspire Early Childhood Learning, Midwest Prototyping, and Revive Restoration.

Watch FarWell Co-Founder and CEO, Jason Potter’s, Dane County Small Business Awards Interview

Jason provides insight into the organization’s success and the challenges currently facing FarWell. Jason also offers advice for other small businesses.

In Business traditionally celebrates the success and impact of Dane County’s small businesses at an in-person event. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, In Business recognized the five companies that earned this year’s honors in a series of video interviews with an executive from each organization.

About Dane County Small Business Awards

For 38 years, the Dane County Small Business Awards have put the spotlight on small businesses and the contributions they make to the local economy. The program, formerly run by the UW–Madison Small Business Development Center and now run by In Business, attracted a variety of local employers in a number of industries.

Small business award nominees.

Nominees had to be a successful, for-profit organization headquartered in Dane County; employ a minimum of three full-time-equivalent employees and no more than 50 FTE employees; provide a responsible and rewarding workplace environment; and support (via in-kind or financial contributions) local nonprofit or community organizations.

This year’s awards honor employers who are on the cutting edge of manufacturing technology, early childhood education, renewable energy, business consulting, and property restoration.

Small business award criteria.

Each application was evaluated based on three main criteria:

1. Company growth and success since inception
2. Company benefits package provided to employees
3. Contributions and impact the company makes in the community

FarWell proved its Madison-based business consulting firm success in all three award evaluation categories.

Company growth was perhaps one of the easiest, as FarWell has made Inc. magazine’s list of fastest growing companies for four years in a row, an accomplishment shared by only a select few companies nationwide.

Experience-Driven Organization

FarWell has also long held a reputation for being one of Dane County’s best places to work, and providing an exception employee experience and a creative, generous employee benefits package.

FarWell is always looking to expand its benefits package, and the latest manifestation of that is the spring 2020 launching of FarWell Fringe, a company-sponsored marketplace for employees to select rotating subscription services — Netflix, Amazon, etcetera — that align with their personal interests.

“Our two key drivers as an organization are employee experience and customer experience. Obviously, as a services organization, employee experience is critical. Our people are what make our business what it is, and they are the ones that have a large impact on the customer experience. So, if we want to deliver great experiences to our customers, we need to have great experiences for our employees.”

“Fringe, specifically, is something that has resonated really well with our people,” he adds. “They’ve been really excited about the flexibility that it offers and their ability to control where those benefit dollars go.”

– Jason Potter, FarWell Co-Founder & CEO

FarWell Do Well in the Community Program

Giving back to the community is also an emphasis at FarWell, both as a company and as individual employees. FarWell gets its 50+ employees involved in the community through the “Do Well in the Community” program, which predated COVID-19 and gives employees the freedom to choose the charitable organization that’s most important to them.

The employee-directed approach has always been the company’s philosophy, but Potter acknowledges it has become a little more intentional about it in terms of how it’s structured.

“The involvement of our team, similar to the involvement of our customers, is really part of our culture,” Potter states. “We’re big on listening to what people need and want, and then structuring solutions based on meeting that need.”

FarWell couldn’t be more honored and humbled to receive this terrific recognition! Thank you, In Business magazine!

Read more about InBusiness 2020 Small Business Award winners.