The Origin of the ‘Gryphon’ in Gryphon

Throughout my travels as Chief Revenue Officer with Gryphon Networks, I often field questions about the origin of the Gryphon brand. After explaining the proper spelling (G-R-Y) and the fact that it’s not the last name of the founder (FOTTA), I move onto an explanation of the mythical creature for which the company was named way back when in the late 1990’s.

The Mythological Gryphon

For the uninitiated, the Gryphon is a character that originated in Greek mythology. The Gryphon is a hybrid creature with the lower body of a lion and upper body of an eagle.

According to the website, gryphonpages.com (a site dedicated to all things gryphon-related): “More fierce than dragons, more noble than unicorns, the Gryphon is probably one of the most celebrated yet most misunderstood mythical creatures in our history.”

Who knew unicorns were second fiddle to the Gryphon in the Greek myth nobility ranking?

For a company originally focused on services to support do-not-contact marketing compliance, the implied explanation for the Gryphon name was “we will keep your company from incurring fines and brand damage of do-not-contact violations (i.e. protecting the gold).”

But as the company has evolved, so has its “raison d’etre.” The 21st-century definition of the Gryphon hasn’t changed, but the 21st-century has evolved the definition of the “gold” that is sought to protect. With this evolution, the significance of the Gryphon takes on a whole new focus, one that protects perhaps the only thing more valuable than gold, the golden goose, and lifeblood of optimal revenue creation: daily selling activities.

The Gryphon Networks Company Philosophy

Sales ACTIVITY is predictive of success. If you can accurately capture your team’s daily selling activities and apply it to your coaching, training, and management quickly and in context, you WILL positively affect your team’s performance and increase revenue consistently.

In other words, sales activity IS the gold! It is of tremendous value to 21st-century sales organizations, precisely because it is so difficult to obtain accurate timely phone-based sales stats. Because of the limitations of CRM systems and rep self-reporting, managers can’t capture it effectively and its value is never truly realized.

True-to-form, Gryphon “protects the gold” by making it dead-simple to capture rep activity from anywhere and immediately process calling activity into the spun gold of realistic benchmarks, better rep effectiveness and improved coaching/training.

The only difference between the gold of today vs yesterday is that everyone knows the intrinsic value of actual gold. Incredibly, many managers are still not aware of how valuable their agent activity is and can be if it’s applied consistently and accurately. This seems to be changing, with more executives demanding more from their IT and sales operations staff. Not MORE tools, but more results and real ROI.

There is a new gold rush going on. As Summer gets into full swing, remember there’s gold in every dial and every conversation your sales reps are having with customers. And unlike the old days, the gold can find you if you know where to look. It’s time to get mining… your competition surely is.