Collaboration is a hallmark of MVF Global’s culture. Given the customer-generation company’s global presence, this value is essential, both when working with clients and across teams.
Just ask Alex Tamez. As an account manager, it’s her job to help existing clients grow their businesses through MVF’s products.
Though they all have different roles across sales and marketing, Tamez’s partnership with colleagues like Kelly Wallace and Kevin Webster is crucial to client success and the business’s bottom line. Tamez, for example, will ask a client what goals they have and then will partner with marketing to help determine how MVF can help them achieve those goals. “Marketing completes the puzzle,” Tamez said.
Wallace agrees. As a senior account executive, she’s tasked with bringing on new clients and growing existing clients in her pipeline. She loves being able to quickly sync with her teammates to come up with a plan of attack for solving a client’s pain point — something made easier by MVF’s focus on in-office and virtual collaboration.
“We are able to collaborate on the drop of a dime,” Wallace said. “When any new client information is provided, we’re able to pivot and come up with a course of action.”
Founded in the UK, MVF has worked in the U.S. since 2013, but recently, they’ve opened an office in Austin, Texas, as part of a major international expansion that will bring dozens of new jobs to the city. Tamez and her colleagues described this as a major growth opportunity for the business, as well as their careers.
“From a professional standpoint, we’re able to get more adventurous,” Tamez said. For example, if there’s a product that’s doing really well in the U.S., there’s an established team in Austin to research why it’s taking off and provide that intel to their UK counterparts.
Built In sat down with Tamez, Wallace and Webster to better understand how cross-functional teams and an appetite for collaboration has led to real business success for MVF Global — both in the U.S. and across the pond.
‘Leaning on each other’s strengths’
Tamez and Webster, a paid search specialist, have established a bi-weekly meeting to discuss work, wins and challenges. Thanks to these regularly-scheduled conversations, Webster is able to gain information about his clients that puts his marketing work in context.
“It’s a two-way street, but I’ve gotten a much better understanding of what Alex’s day-to-day work life is like on the sales side,” Webster said. As an SEM specialist, Webster manages ad campaigns across Google Ads, Bing Ads, YouTube and display. In short, he takes what the sales team gives him and does his best to make clients successful through designing, building and managing paid search advertising campaigns. “Our team is so diverse, we’re able to lean on each other’s strengths, which I haven’t seen in other places that I’ve worked.”
A great deal of the collaboration that occurs at MVF is off the cuff. For example, if a client comes to MVF with additional funding, sales and marketing pivots in real time to develop a course of action to provide clients with ways to put that money to use. When cross-functional teams brainstorm, there’s no such thing as a bad idea.
“It’s such a safe place because we all work together,” Wallace said.
Partnership comes in many forms, including in whiteboarding sessions, strolls along the Colorado river, or simply walking over to one another’s desk.
‘No one feels inaccessible’
Enhanced collaboration has led the U.S. office to break records in various client subcategories, including hearing aids, life insurance, solar panels and bathroom remodeling.
In January 2023, the team delivered a record volume of point of sale (POS) opportunities. They broke that record again in February, as well as March, and are on track to do so again.
Watching a subcategory break a profit record is a great feeling for Webster, who spent his initial few months at the company uncovering customer intent and POS suppliers’ goals.
Collaboration gives context
When Webster looks at a campaign, he sees a laundry list of things to do: improve the volume, improve the margin, enhance the channel mix quality. But by having sales in the room, he has additional context about clients and their needs or their appetite for new customers. “That information gives me my daily or weekly agenda,” Webster said. “It gives me focus and helps with my workflow.”
“That extra context that sales provides gives us direction and helps us make appropriate optimizations with the campaigns that we manage,” Webster said.
Collaboration gives way to a company culture that Webster describes as “innovative, smart and fun.” No one takes themselves too seriously. Employees can participate in weekly trivia nights and volleyball games, and often go out to lunch or on walks together a few times a week.
“From my very first day, everyone has been extremely helpful and eager to work and talk with me,” Webster said. “No one feels inaccessible.”
AS MVF continues to scale, Wallace said the opportunities for collaboration will only grow.
“Before, if only one person knew an answer, and everyone needed that one person, we’d all just be waiting in line,” Wallace said. “But now, there are so many different minds that are intelligent, well-versed, and coming from diverse backgrounds. There’s so much more information available and so many new people to learn from.”
