How Convex Helped Source $42 Million in Opportunities, and Counting
By
Jerome Simmons
A Relationship-Focused Approach to Business Development
Founded in 1984, Mechanical Services and Design (MSD) is a facility solution provider offering a range of services to maintain, enhance, and extend the life expectancy of facilities throughout the State of Ohio. With headquarters in Dayton and an office in Cincinnati, MSD provides heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, fire and life safety, building automation solutions, and more, but a key part of what makes the business so unique is the “MSD Client Centric mentality.” This means that “everything starts and ends with our relationships” explains Nick Davis, Vice President of Business Development.
Responsible for sales and strategy, Nick encourages his team to treat the sales cycle like “an interview process” to ensure the “client profile fits…our ideal client infrastructure.” To strengthen relationships, the team devotes a great deal of time researching prospective customers and Nick facilitates a highly entrepreneurial team culture. “We encourage people to get outside of the work environment to create a connection.” Team members are expected to “own [their] own business platform” and create warm relationships through local networking groups, and other activities.
Before working with Convex, the sales team took a traditional approach to business development that “wasn’t streamlined enough.” Sales reps generated lead lists by driving around town and by researching opportunities at the local library to find businesses that looked “like they have a manufacturing plant” or like they “might be a good fit.” This approach generally gave reps only the main phone number and caused many reps to get stuck at the gatekeeper.
A Mindset Shift and a Transformational Experience
Facing pressure to meet quota, prospecting became a numbers game. According to Nick, reps would “make 100 cold calls a week.” However, he realized that throwing numbers and people at the problem wouldn’t “get the growth that we were after as an organization.” The organization was “losing time that we weren’t going to get back.” Nick looked for other solutions and things really “transformed once we saw Atlas.”
You’re an incredible organization. We appreciate the partnership… Let’s continue to exceed expectations.” – Nick Davis, Mechanical Services and Design
As part of the Commercial Services Platform, Atlas provides workflows and intelligence on properties, businesses, and people to find qualified properties and the right decision makers. With Atlas Property Intelligence, Nick and his team identify properties based on attributes like square footage, property type, and whether the property is owner occupied. These powerful filters enable his team to build campaigns of properties that match their client profile.
Moreover, Nick and his team benefit from our map-based visualization layer, which allows the organization to “zoom in and look at the infrastructure… [and the] mechanical equipment that is around the building.” With satellite imaging and street views, the team can efficiently determine which leads to pursue, based on the exterior of the property.
Atlas also provides Nick’s team with people intelligence, so the team can find onsite property decision makers by job title, company, and more. The team benefits from “consistently improving contact information” that enables reps to reach prospects over email, mobile phone, and other channels like social media. Reps at MSD leverage LinkedIn profiles to perform additional research enabling them to create a warm connection.
With reps using Atlas three times per week on average, Atlas has been a game changer for MSD in terms of how they conduct research and optimize their sales pipeline. Equally important, Atlas fits neatly into their technology stack. When a team member finds their ideal client profile and determines fit, they push opportunities to their CRM, which integrates seamlessly and in real-time with Atlas.
Over the last 18 months, Nick’s team has sourced over $42 million in pipeline and is excited to continue building their partnership with Convex. We were humbled when Nick told us, “you’re an incredible organization. We appreciate the partnership… let’s continue to exceed expectations.”
Industries: HVAC, Building Automation, Electrical, Fire & Life Safety, Plumbing, Refrigeration, Manufacturing, Fabrication & Engineering
Employees: 200+
Jerome Simmons
Jerome is a Group Product Marketing Manager at Convex. Prior to Convex, he led product marketing and go-to-market strategy across different business units at Adobe and worked as a strategy consultant. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Originally published on April 27, 2023 Updated on April 27, 2023
