8 Reasons Why I Love Working at Blue Corona

Last year, I was only about a month into my new job as a copywriter at Blue Corona when we were celebrating making it on to the Inc. 500 list (#174, thank you very much). Because I was still so new, I thought it best to take a date to our party at Oro Pomodoro in Rockville. The next morning as I sat at my deskical (it’s not quite a cubical—it only has three walls), pregnant with a pasta food baby and suffering a dull champagne headache from last night’s festivities, the President and CEO of my company Ben Landers stopped on his way to his office and said, “Lexie, your date from last night really looked familiar.”

In the span of five seconds, a small war played out in my head. I was still extremely new; this was my boss; and what I wanted to say was highly inappropriate. One of two outcomes was certain—I was going to get fired or I was going to go become a Blue Corona hero.

“Do you watch porn?” I asked him, with a look on my face as serious as a bathroom visit after a meal at Taco Bell.

And then he fired me.

Except not. Because I already told you at the beginning of this blog post that I’ve worked at Blue Corona for over a year. The point of this story is to illustrate the relaxed environment at Blue Corona—because it truly is one of my favorite things about working here.

The “Standard” Perks

Sure. I could tell you that Blue Corona offers extremely competitive salaries, health benefits, 401K match, performance based bonuses, and more. And I could also tell you that we get to wear flip flops to the office, have free lunch catered every Friday, and sometimes drink beer in the office (okay actually we don’t really do that anymore since I spilled a Shock Top on my laptop).

And if I really wanted to impress you, I could tell you that we’ve been on lists like the Inc. 500 (2012), Inc. 5,000 (2013), P&B Exceptional 53 (2012), or that Contracting Magazine named us their Business Service of the Year (2011).

You Won’t Find This Sh*t on Our Careers Page

But all of those perks and awards don’t really embody what is so great about the culture at Blue Corona. I kind of wish I was a professional writer so I could put into words what really does make Blue Corona such a great place to work. Oh wait. I am a professional writer. I guess I could give this another shot.

1. Since I’ve been hired, we’ve added an additional nine positions at the company. Working at a company growing this aggressively is like chasing a tequila shot with another tequila shot—you’re either in for the time of your life or you’re going to vomit.

2. You have the opportunity to directly contribute to the company’s bottom line. We’re a data driven online marketing company, which makes it easy to see how your daily tasks grow your clients’ businesses as well as our own. For example, one of my clients—a local HVAC company—attributed $80K in sales directly to work I had done for them.

3. You also have the opportunity to create your own career path. Most of our employees begin in one position, recognize a need for a new service, define the process, and manage that new process in a new, self-created role. If I could directly attribute the value of it to our company’s bottom line, my boss would probably have no problem with me being VP of the Blue Corona Animal Mask Division (did I mention that we sometimes walk around in animal masks? Cause we do.)

4. I learned more in my two week training period at Blue Corona than I learned during college. I’m now the annoying 24-year-old at parties who likes to drop smart sounding acronyms like “ROI” and “TL;DR.” Actually, nevermind that last acronym. I picked that one up on reddit, not at Blue Corona.

5. We have fun. I know most people try to tell you that about where they work, but it’s actually true here. We have holiday parties (such as our Christmas bowling party) and happy hours (where we put blue dye in our Coronas so we can say we’re drinking blue Corona—actually we’ve never done that—WHY HAVE WE NEVER DONE THAT???) like most companies, but we also genuinely have fun while working. When I first started, I was told that our office hours are 8:30 – 5:30. When 5:30 rolled around on my first day, no one left! Most of us (if not all of us) are so passionate about what we do and genuinely enjoy doing it so much that we don’t mind putting in additional hours because it doesn’t feel like work.

6. My clients are as cool as my coworkers. The other day, I had an opportunity to interview John Cochran for content I was writing for his company’s website. Who is John Cochran? He’s pretty much the Michael Jordan of the sport of fly fishing. Am I nerd for thinking this is totally awesome? To be determined. Am I a nerd for owning all of the original 150 Pokémon cards? Without a doubt.

7. As cool as I think our clients are, they think we’re even cooler. We treat their business as if it were our own—which makes it all the more exciting when we’re able to help them grow. One of our clients—a restoration company in Texas—saw a 10,000%+ ROI from a single PPC campaign. You probably read that and got a flashback to the Austin Powers movie when Dr. Evil tries to hold the world ransom for “one….hundred….BILLION dollars!!!” because that number sounds unreal. But I assure you, it’s real.

8. We have an extremely relaxed atmosphere. I already mentioned this one above. I asked the CEO of my company if he watched porn and I did not get fired. In fact, I hear him telling other people that story all the time.

My Coworkers Are Better than Your Coworkers

Blue Corona is a relatively small company (for now), so everyone knows everyone. I might even go as far to say everyone likes everyone. Here’s how my coworkers answered the question,

“Why do you love working at Blue Corona?”

“The opportunity to create your own career path. We were each hired for a particular role, but there is a system of support and encouragement in place that allows each of us to pursue specialty areas and develop self-created roles that can have a direct impact on the bottom line. Who knew when I accepted my offer letter that I’d now be working on developing a e-learning platform for online marketing?  Also: renting a 12-passenger van and driving seven hours up to Maryland to surprise our coworkers! If that’s not “data-driven,” I don’t know what is.” – Hannah Nelson

“Free lunch Friday. Also dropping knowledge on people.” – Nick Massa

“Awesome co-workers and helping small companies grow. More importantly, Sean Kelly’s outfits.” – Alanna Potosky

“Working for a small business in my hometown; giving Alanna a hard time.” – Sean Kelly

“Because it doesn’t really feel like work most of the time. I enjoy the people I work with, the lack of a formal or complicated management structure, free lunch on Fridays, occasional office beers, generous bonuses, the lack of a cubicle, the BBQ restaurant downstairs, van trips, and probably several other things I’m forgetting right now.” – Ryan Workman

“I love working at Blue Corona because no matter how much you’ve learned here, there is always more to discover. That means you’re always finding better ways to do your job! I also love the rare, sublime moments when I hear Whitney Houston blasting from the warehouse.” –Elizabeth Moore

“Helping businesses grow, being a part of successful, growing company (Inc. 500 – What What!), Free Lunch Fridays, great coworkers, happy clients, Lexie’s jokes.” -Erin Clark (No I didn’t pay her to say that last part.)

Want to Work for Blue Corona?

I’ll bet you do. Check out this blog post I wrote on “How to Get a Job at Blue Corona.” Next, check out our careers page. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call. We’re as nice on the phone as we are to look at: