Following our recent presentation as a Showcase Company at the Center for Entrepreneurial Development’s (CED) Tech Venture Conference, we were overwhelmed with the level of interest we received over the two day event. From potential channel partners to forwarding-thinking technology minds, we enjoyed sharing our story of how inMotionNow is working with groups like Disney, DuPont, and Habitat for Humanity. We were quite proud to get the nod from Sunil Nagaraj at Bessemer Ventures who highlighted inMotionNow as one of two companies that he felt are delivering real value to their customers.
I always enjoy these events as they bring innovative companies together to share their ideas on what constitutes a strong foundation for success. Beyond the necessary innovation and disruptive technology components, I saw a common thread among the companies with whom we shared the stage. Reflecting on the CED event and what has led our success, I capture a few fundamental drivers. This list should be familiar, but with a couple of twists we have made to drive inMotionNow’s success.
The first key driver is client-centric people. Every successful entrepreneur and executive understands the importance of finding and retaining talented people. What we look for in each new addition to our team is somewhat unique. We look for those who share a passion for solving our clients’ challenges first — rather than focus on the needs of our company. The difference might sound minor, but the results are measureable. By building a culture in which every discussion starts and ends with our customers in mind, our team first adds value for our customers which then helps build value for inMotionNow.
The next key driver is strategic focus. During his Tech Venture Conference session, Jesse Lipson of ShareFile highlighted the importance of strategic focus, suggesting companies invest their finite resources on initiatives which are most valuable to their target market. Our specialization centers on delivering flexible software solutions and best practices to marketing and creative teams to get higher quality advertising and promotional content out to market faster. With each new release, our teams invest considerable time analyzing the needs of our existing and prospective customers to whom we can best deliver value.
Another key component of success is opportunity integrity. We understand that inMotion will not be a best fit for every marketing and creative team. As such, our commitment to opportunity integrity starts with our marketing to sales handshake process. We have built a team that understands our prospective clients’ needs and offers them direct feedback on how and if we can build value. It’s about having an honest conversation with your prospects — challenging them to rethink how they run the business to determine if there’s a good fit. If we can’t add value, we move on — quickly. Not only have we made good use of the customer’s time, but we’re able to focus our attention on another prospective customer who would benefit from inMotion.
The final key driver is finding the win-win-win scenario. Most successful long-term partnerships are cyclical in nature. You can add value to your clients — your clients in turn rewards you with year-over-year loyalty and the opportunity to reinvest in the business — that reinvestment provides the continuous value that fosters the long term relationship — and so on. It’s the classic win-win. So what’s the third ‘win’ in the win-win-win scenario? This third ‘win’ is the value that your company delivers at the individual level to your key point of contact. For inMotionNow, that may mean anything from positioning your POC to drive additional revenue to getting home to her family sooner every day. Simply put, this individual win should be the primary focus of your initial customer acquisition and stay top of mind in your retention efforts. The individual ‘win’ not only shortens the sales cycle, but also establishes strong lines of communication to help you maintain (and possibly expand) the partnership.
Coming to the close of 2014, it’s been another terrific year at inMotionNow. The CED Tech Venture Conference was a great opportunity to take a moment to celebrate our success with our leading companies. With a terrifically talented team serving an equally enjoyable customer base — we’re excited to be in motion!
Ben Hartmere
CEO, inMotionNow