Customer Success Story: Innovation Factory

Innovation Factory is a Regional Innovation Centre based in the Hamilton and Halton regions. They are passionate about driving the growth of innovative Ontario businesses. Innovation Factory works with entrepreneurs bringing new ideas to market or a scaling business trying to get to the next level. They work to elevate key industry sectors including advanced manufacturing, clean tech, information technology, smart transportation, life sciences & health care and social innovations.

The Challenge

Innovation Factory started in 2010 and Mark Elliott was at the original and first open house event, the Big DiF. The founders of VA Partners were based in Toronto and Grimsby, with Hamilton in between. Startups face many challenges. There is often good support in the community around product, legal, finance, and fundraising. One of the areas that lacks support is marketing and especially sales. Mark reached out to the Innovation Factory team to see how the VA Partners team could support sales and marketing support and education for entrepreneurs.

“When innovators come to Innovation Factory, they are often looking for resources to fill a skills gap they have.  Programs, like our Sales Bootcamp with VA Partners upskill entrepreneurs who may be highly technical founders and/or have new or not yet established sales processes and teams, to help them drive revenue growth.” 

Our Solution:

VA Partners has worked with the Innovation Factory to provide many different types of sales training and support:

• The first program we launched was the Sales and Marketing Peer2Peer in 2012.  We worked with the Innovation Factory team, and local organizations to run 6 to 8 sessions a year. The topics over the years have included sales planning, using LinkedIn, Google my business, sales 101, and lessons learned from other Innovation Factory clients.
• In 2019 VA Partners launched a Sales Bootcamp with the Innovation Factory.  This is a 4-part cohort program that runs three times a year as a core training offering. The main session topics are Sales Planning, Sales Process, Sales Tools, and Managing your Sales.
• Mark Elliott is an Expert Advisor providing sales advisory support to Innovation Factory’s Venture Growth clients, Lions Lair finalists, IDEA Fund companies, and even partner programs including one with Norfolk County. 

The Results:

Here are some of the highlights of our time with the Innovation Factory.

• We have run almost 100 Sales and Marketing P2P sessions with over 1,000 attendees. 
• Have run over 10 cohorts through the Sales Bootcamp. We have worked with over 150 entrepreneurs through the program.
  
  

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