ViewPoint’s Director Talks Marketing Tech and Motivating

ViewPoint Interactive Solutions’ Director Philip Chila can’t sit still. He’s constantly on the move, segueing from team meeting to offsite client presentation to industry conference in search of compelling ways to grow ViewPoint and expose it to new audiences. In fact, getting him to hit pause for this interview was a Herculean task.

With a 25-year career that spans disparate but related disciplines — sales, business development and talent acquisition — Chila’s leadership style has been informed by close-up views of Fortune 1000 companies, including MilliporeSigma and Robert Half International, and smaller tech-sector trailblazers, such as Skyhook Wireless, Mobiquity and Verivo.

In this first installment of our new Q&A series Five (questions) in Five (minutes) Chila talks about the challenge of educating the market about new tech, and emerging trends relevant to businesses from biotech to retail.

1. How do you define success?

While certainly financial rewards are nice, they don’t inherently bring satisfaction. To me satisfaction is what success is all about. And I get that satisfaction from helping those in my orbit achieve their own goals — for instance, mentoring a new employee and then celebrating with him after he closes his first major deal.

To quote Zig Zigler, "You don’t build a business. You build people. And then people build the business." Building people — positively influencing their careers and their lives — is my definition of success.

2. What products or services does your company offer?

ViewPoint uses technology to enhance customer engagement. We create compelling touchscreen presentations for B2B and B2C audiences that deliver memorable experiences at their their trade shows and events, engage customers in their retail showrooms and enable their sales and marketing teams to dramatically express their value proposition. Essentially, we help our customers motivate their customers.

3. What are your biggest challenges in guiding ViewPoint?

Though we’re a much smaller company than a tech titan like Apple, we face the same challenge: convincing customers to embrace new technology that has no precedent. Back when flip phones were in everyone’s pocket, Apple released the iPhone. Consumers initially scratched their heads, wondering why they’d ever need a phone with computing power since they already had a computer.

So Apple had to educate the market, show consumer why they needed the product.

ViewPoint is doing the same. Our biggest challenge is educating consumers about touch technology and the novel ways we’re using it. We have to explain to businesses what ViewPoint is and show them why they need it before they’ll embrace it as a solution vital to their operation.

4. What business trends are most promising for your industry?

There are two key, overlapping trends that are relevant and exciting. The first is the increasing use of technology for customer engagement. Smart marketers understand more and more that cool, cutting-edge tech like multitouch and augmented reality captivate audiences and reach buyers on an emotional level. And eliciting an emotional response is key to a successful sale.

The other trend: omnichannel. This multi-channel approach to sales provides a customer with a seamless shopping experience across devices and channels. Marketers can drastically enhance the customer experience by delivering the same enticing, high-quality shopping experience during every stage in the buyer’s journey.

With omnichannel, it doesn't matter whether the consumer is shopping online using a mobile device, or going old school by shopping on the phone or in person at a bricks-and-mortar store. In all of these situations, the customer experience is consistent.

Both of these trends have important ramifications for ViewPoint, which is in the business of engaging customers in memorable ways.

5. Where do you envision ViewPoint in five years?

Our ultimate aim from my perspective: transform the way brands engage with and motivate their customers through every phase of the selling process.

Right now, we’re focused on part of the buyer’s journey, using our mastery of storytelling and our touch software developed in house to draw attention, educate and inspire.

To expand our relevance to other areas of the process, I expect we will continue to establish strategic partnerships with businesses that share our vision and values, as well as continue to develop our own proprietary tech-based solutions. And we’ll broaden the collaborative and consultative approach we take with our clients.

I envision ViewPoint ultimately to look more like an agency and less like a software company, but we will never stray too far from our roots as developers.