Last week, we held our 6th annual user conference, a.k.a., InfusionCon. It was amazing! We had 1,171 people in attendance. We were shooting for 1,000, so we felt great about the turnout. The event was a huge success all the way around. Here are a few of my takeaways …
- Our customers are impressive! To hear the growth stories, see the creative ways folks are using the software and interact with customers was simply impressive. I love getting the chance to interact with so many customers at once.
- Phoenix, Arizona in the spring is beautiful. 80 degrees every day. Plus, we always hold InfusionCon at a great resort. This year was no exception. The Arizona Biltmore is a Waldorf Astoria resort and it is truly gorgeous. I’m not sure how we’ll top that location next year.
- The features in our new release were a huge hit. On the morning of the first day, Richard Tripp, our VP of Product Management, demo’d the new release. Our new Web Form Builder, Hosted Web Forms, Integrated Spam Scoring and Web Lead Campaign Template drew rave reviews. And the design specs we showed at the booth left customers breathless. Easy is the new norm at Infusionsoft. It was fun for me to see customers begin to get a taste of that.
- The Perfect Customer Lifecycle and Marketing Automation Plan struck a chord. We introduced our methodology for delivering strategy and service to new customers… and we had tons of long-time customers clamoring for the service. I heard many times, “I wish you’d had that service available to me when I started with Infusionsoft.” That was a little painful to hear, but we spent years perfecting this methodology—we’ve implemented marketing automation for more businesses than any other company on the planet. Literally. It feels great to be delivering such a valuable service to our customers.
- Our partner community is really growing. I had lunch with a roomful of partners and had many conversations with partners who are chomping at the bit to promote Infusionsoft and provide complimentary products and services to our customers. We listened, learned, discussed our plans with them. We explained we have consolidated all partner programs under our Marketing Department, and we shared some great changes we’re rolling out now. Our partners were excited and so am I.
- The developers community around Infusionsoft is on fire. We had a breakout room for developers to work with and learn from the Infusionsoft Development Team. Every time I walked by the room, it was bursting at the seams. We will make the developer track a more significant part of InfusionCon next year, no doubt about that.
- You reap what you sow. This past year, we worked like crazy to deliver a better product and service than we’ve ever delivered before. Our stats throughout the year improved. Our bug counts dropped big-time. And our deliverability and reliability soared. As a result, the vibe at InfusionCon was great. Don’t get me wrong; the vibe is always positive at InfusionCon. But I was blown away this year at how overwhelmingly positive the vibe was. It was a great reward for a year of intense, hard work to improve our product and service. We’ll keep up that intense focus and we’ll look forward to an even better InfusionCon next year.
Finally, I was in awe of my team. Customers kept asking me if I was stressed out or burdened by the enormity of the conference. I kept telling people how great I felt, that my people were handling everything and that I was able to just show up and enjoy it. I am totally grateful for that. InfusionCon was low stress and pure fun for me, which is a testament to my great team. Kathy Sacks, Nicole Shoots, Joe Manna and the rest of the event support team did an admirable job. They are rock stars, which enabled me to just show up and hang out with customers.
I can’t wait till next year! Plan now to attend because I promise you that you don’t want to miss it.
