Gear's Thoughts: It Really Was Nice to Meet You!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 1:20PM ;)
If you follow our blog or social channels, you probably know that we recently returned from the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, a 7 day stage race that traveled around Colorado. What you may not know, is that this was the first big event we have ever sponsored. Sure, we've been to an event expo here and there, including the recent Boulder 70.3 and USAT Nationals in Vermont, but we committed more than 15 employees and a sizable financial contribution to support this event. With a world-class bike race in our back yard, we simply had to be part of it. It took a ton of planning, logistics and coordination, but our team pulled it off well, and the event was a huge success. After all we figured, nearly all of our customers are training for some kind of endurance event, and we thought it would be great to go meet a few of them (hopefully). Frankly, we had no idea what to expect, from traffic volume to the type of questions we'd get. We prepared for a wide range of questions by having members of our support team, marketing team and even several of our developers staff the booth, just in case the questions got really deep.
Would there be enough people that even stop by? How many people have even heard of us? Would we meet a few customers? How many people would grill us for not having some feature? Really, will anyone even know who we are? Would we spend the day explaining what TSS was? Maybe it would turn into a device download training session. We just had no idea.
We setup our two expo tents and decided that we'd make our long-running "tag line" of asking "What are you training for?" our primary conversation starter. We had a wi-fi printer and took photos of customers and non-customers holding a white board that showed what event they were training for to earn a free TrainingPeaks t-shirt. We handed out cowbells, sunglasses and sunscreen to passers by. We talked to hundreds of people throughout the week about software, training, racing and everything in-between, and there was one common theme we heard over and over: We Love TrainingPeaks!
It was amazing to us, so many current and past customers would stop by and almost be shocked when they saw our tent. As if our website had materialized in front of them. We'd hear "Hey I used you for my Ironman this year, it was awesome!" or, "I love that nightly email!". We'd get compliments on our customer support and have people gushing about our latest updates. Mind you, this happened not once or twice, but every single day, over and over. For me, it was the best part of the entire event. I can't tell you how humbled or proud it made me feel hearing customers thank us for helping them to achieve their fitness dreams. The enthusiasm was energizing to everyone working in the booth or riding in the lead car, and it re-confirms that we're doing something right.
I want to personally thank everyone that stopped by and talked to us, or for screaming your support as we drove by on Independence pass. Customers and non-customers, it was simply awesome to be able to meet and chat with you and hear what you're training for. For me, it's what keeps me going day in and day out: Knowing that we are helping to make a difference through our software. I love it, I feed off the energy. It feels good to be part of a bigger effort to improve people's lives, and one thing is certain, we're on the right track. Indeed, we have a long way to go, but our mission to build the world's best training software for athletes and coaches isn't going unnoticed, and we're more committed to it than ever before.
We'll be at one more event this year. If you're in Kona for the Ironman World Championships coming up in October, please stop by the booth and say hi. From everyone here at TrainingPeaks, thanks again for your tremendous support!
Best of luck in your training and racing!
-Gear
Reader Comments (1)
I met Courtney while in Steamboat. She gave me her card so I could get in contact after returning home which resulted in my being able to purchase the upgrade to my WKO+ software.
Thanks Courtney for getting back to me so promptly!