Ep 30: Building Mobrium, Part 2 - Sales cure all ills

‍YOUR HOSTS:

Matt R. Vance is a social innovator. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Mobrium, Co-Host of The Culture Profit Podcast and award-winning author of The Review Cycle. He likes dad jokes, red shoes, running and biking. See his full bio here: https://www.mobrium.com/leaders/matt-r-vance

‍Crista Vance is the Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Mobrium and Co-Host of The Culture Profit Podcast. She loves tennis, reading, biking and good food. See her full bio here: https://www.mobrium.com/leaders/crista-vance

‍

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

Jumpstarting sales

Matt and Crista share personal updates about their family, including recent surgeries, and delve into life as co-founders of the tech startup Mobrium. 

After launching the Mobrium platform in early 2023, a few sales calls were secured, but not as many as initially anticipated. 

Matt firmly believed the Mobrium platform was built correctly, that it wasn’t a matter of methodology. After all, the Mobrium platform’s 4 key features (1. Automating employee review requests, 2. Centralizing employee review data in one dashboard, 3. Aggregated employee review reporting, 4. Aggregated employee review marketing stats) was informed by nearly a decade of lived experience and research from Matt’s book- The Review Cycle.

If this assumption was correct, more people would be buying.

But how would enough calls and messages be sent to get the word out? And was the sales approach efficiently communicating the value and pain of the problem Mobrium solves? 

A scalable mass-messaging solution was needed.

Refinement of the sales pitch was certainly in order.

Over the next several months, the couple researched how to get Mobrium in front of as many people as possible for as few dollars as possible. Crista submitted speaker applications for Matt to present at many HR conferences. Several of them were secured. They also found an outbound email partner to message thousands of individuals. Finally a way to scale the outreach.

They also connected with several seasoned and trusted sales experts for feedback on their pitch and sales process. 

With an enhanced sales approach and purposeful avenues to get the message in front of many, hopes began to rise.

Then the sales demos started coming in. Prospects became customers. It was working.

 “Business startups can be tricky. There can be a lot of ups and downs emotionally and money is always tricky when you're investing a lot into a business. The main thing we've learned this last year is that sales cure all ills. When it came down to how we could make the business successful, that's what it came back to; we needed money to fuel it.” -Crista Vance‍

A focus on giving, from day one

While writing The Review Cycle, Matt indexed over 1,000 content pieces from over 50 different reputation management companies and found that no company helped with employer reputation specifically. This key market insight, combined with the Vance’s passion for company culture led them to found Mobrium as the original employer reputation management platform. It’s a market niche- helping companies improve their online reputation specifically on platforms like Glassdoor, Indeed, Comparably and InHerSight. 

Crista and Matt wanted to do more than fill an identified market need. They wanted the business to be a vehicle for good. Before the very first customer signed up for Mobrium, they launched the Mobrium Gives Back© program. Setting aside a portion of profits, Mobrium empowers clients to earn give back credits each month, then redeem them for charitable donations of their choice. Nearly 30 different donations are available to choose from covering a wide range of options from food to medical and school supplies and more. Donations are distributed to countries around the world in partnership with Church World Service. 

“We wanted to systemize giving back from the beginning even when we weren't really making money." -Crista Vance

What’s next

• Mobrium software roadmap: Gathering customer feedback to prioritize the development of new features and enhancements for their software. 
• Mobrium Academy: Soon to launch the first professional employer reputation management training and certification. Visit: mobrium.com/mobrium-academy
• Client case studies: “We're already seeing some great results for our clients and we're excited to work on some case studies that will be shared publicly soon.” -Matt Vance‍

In HR or Employer Branding? Want to see the current health of your company’s employer reputation?

Mobrium offers a free service to assess a company's online reputation and its impact on recruiting, retaining employees and profits. Claim your free report here: calendly.com/mobrium/30min‍