Motiv

We’ve shortened this case study to accommodate for humanity’s collective inability to focus for long periods of time. For the Full Monty, click here.

DNA: MECHANIC

THE CHALLENGE

How to use corporate DNA to illuminate a company’s superpower (which had been flying under the radar), and then use that superpower to provide clarity in a confusing market environment.

After serving three years on the board of Motiv Power Systems—which produces electric-powered chassis for step vans, box trucks, work trucks, shuttle buses, school buses, trolleys, and other specialty vehicles—Matt O’Leary was clear on the company’s mission: to free fleets from fossil fuel. Also clear to him was that the company had the goods to achieve that mission, that its products offered the industry’s best performance and functionality alternative to the pollution, noise, heat, vibration, and driver fatigue that result from combustion power.

What wasn’t clear: what Motiv was doing to bring that mission to fruition. “I myself had trouble understanding what Motiv did,” said O’Leary, who is today the company’s CEO. “What was its core competence? What did it stand for?”

Electrified vehicles don’t just help protect the environment; they also save on recurring fuel, maintenance, and operating costs. That’s a winning combination for any business. But the problem for Motiv was that with so many OEMs producing different components of vehicles, both combustion and electric, it was hard to distinguish what the company brought to the table that no one else did (though Motiv did make a point of highlighting its top-notch client service).“Our own customers had trouble trying to figure out what was going on” said O’Leary, who spent the bulk of his career at Ford Motor Company. “I've been in trucks for almost 40 years and even I found it confusing.” If Motiv was going to attract the further investment needed to fund its long-term plans, he said, “we needed to tell a better story.”

THE AHA!

What story was that?

During the positioning process, it became evident to the executive team that while Mother played a significant role in the company’s genetic makeup (i.e., its emphasis on excellent customer service), Motiv was in fact a Mechanic, focused predominantly on improving its products.

Along with the understanding came the realization that while the company does indeed deliver chassis—and very good ones—they weren’t what differentiated it from the competition. Flying under the radar was AdaptEV, the software that ran the company’s Electric Powered Intelligent Chassis (EPIC). “All people saw were trucks,” said O’Leary. “What they didn't see was software.”

That realization was a major aha! (as was the fact that there was no mention of AdaptEV in any of Motiv’s communications and messaging). “It’s like the difference between Ford and Tesla,” said O’Leary, pointing to Tesla’s much higher valuation. “Why? Because they are a technology company. They live and breathe software and bringing new technology.”

Motiv, in turn, lived and breathed AdaptEV; it was at the heart of how the company operated. The software’s reliability and proven field testing—it had been inspected across multiple applications—was also its superpower. “From the fleet owners’ standpoint, that means this product has been tested in a lot of different edge cases,” said O’Leary. “And so there are fewer faults—we see it in our uptime,” which he said reached the upper 90th percentiles. “Downtime is really big deal for commercial customers because if the vehicle isn't running, they're not making money.”

The result of reliable, field-tested software? Lower total cost of ownership.

We summed up Motiv’s value with the following tagline, taken near-verbatim from the positioning workshop: Motiv: it’s inEVitable.

THE RESULTS

That tagline was the clincher when it came time to introduce the new narrative at a company all-hands meeting, and the ahas! were immediate: “Yeah, that’s us!” “This is exactly what we stand for.” “I can't wait to roll this out!”

The software-as-superpower narrative has been equally effective beyond the company’s doors. Although O’Leary worried that potential customers, partners, and investors would perceive the new emphasis on software as marketing spin, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. “They get right away what we’re about,” he said. “They understand the mission, and how we’re using software to get to that mission. It’s flipped the conversation 180 degrees.”

Driving Mission Clarity

The Full Monty

THE CHALLENGE

How to use corporate DNA to illuminate a company’s superpower (which had been flying under the radar), and then use that superpower to provide clarity in a confusing market environment.

After serving three years on the board of Motiv Power Systems—which produces electric-powered chassis for step vans, box trucks, work trucks, shuttle buses, school buses, trolleys, and other specialty vehicles—Matt O’Leary was clear on the company’s mission: to free fleets from fossil fuel. Also clear to him was that the company had the goods to achieve that mission, that its products offered the industry’s best performance and functionality alternative to the pollution, noise, heat, vibration, and driver fatigue that result from combustion power.

What wasn’t clear, however: what Motiv was doing to bring that mission to fruition. “I myself had trouble understanding what Motiv did,” said O’Leary, who is today the company’s CEO. “What was its core competence? What did it stand for?”

Electrified vehicles don’t just help protect the environment; they also save on recurring fuel, maintenance, and operating costs. That’s a winning combination for any business. But the problem for Motiv was that with so many OEMs producing different components of vehicles, both combustion and electric, it was hard to distinguish what the company brought to the table that no one else did (though Motiv did make a point of highlighting its top-notch client service).“Our own customers had trouble trying to figure out what was going on” said O’Leary. “I've been in trucks for almost 40 years and even I found it confusing.”

Although an engineer by trade, much of O’Leary’s decades of work at Ford Motor Company—where he most recently served as Vehicle Line Director for North America truck, SUV, and commercial vehicle programs—required marrying technical leadership with business management. Being responsible for securing funding for his many programs taught him the importance of effective messaging. He’d also gotten to know Andy, a fellow Motiv board member, and had read Get to Aha!, and was thus familiar with Cunningham Collective’s positioning process. He told Andy that once he’d had a chance to wrap his arms around his new position as CEO, he wanted to bring her in for a positioning exercise. “Both Andy and I knew we needed to do something different,” he said. “Even just to get aligned as a team on what we stood for, and what was key in our messaging.”

The right time came in late 2019, shortly after Motiv secured $60 million in equity funding. O’Leary had operated as CEO for nearly a year by then, and the board had approved a detailed five-year plan that outlined future products, sales goals, and projected growth. O’Leary understood that if Motiv was going to execute its plan, “we needed to change our messaging.” If Motiv was going to attract the further investment needed to fund its long-term plans, he said, “we needed to tell a better story.”

The Aha!

What story was that?

During the positioning process, it became evident to the executive team that while Mother played a significant role in the company’s genetic makeup (i.e., its emphasis on excellent customer service), Motiv was in fact a Mechanic, focused predominantly on improving its products. While there was initially a lot of push-pull around Mother vs. Mechanic, O’Leary said, the team came to see that customer service had gone a long way to aid the company as it worked to build overall product reliability, but that it was not at the heart of how Motiv operated. “Andy was good at helping people see that just because you are a Mechanic doesn’t mean you don’t also have a lot of Mother.”

Along with the understanding that Motiv was a product-first company came the awareness that while the company does indeed deliver chassis—and very good ones—they weren’t what differentiated it from the competition. Flying under the radar was AdaptEV, the software that ran the company’s Electric Powered Intelligent Chassis (EPIC) . “All people saw were trucks,” said O’Leary. “What they didn't see was software.”

That realization was a major aha! “It’s like the difference between Ford and Tesla,” said O’Leary, pointing to Tesla’s much higher valuation. “Why? Because they are a technology company. They live and breathe software and bringing new technology.”

Motiv, in turn, lived and breathed AdaptEV; it was at the heart of how the company operated. The software’s reliability and proven field testing—it had been inspected across multiple applications—was also its superpower. “From the fleet owners’ standpoint, that means this product has been tested in a lot of different edge cases,” said O’Leary. “And so there are fewer faults—we see it in our uptime,” which he said reached the upper 90th percentiles. “That's better than the diesel engine technology because you don't have downtime for maintenance. If the software is not reliable, you're going to have a lot of downtime. Downtime is really big deal for commercial customers because if the vehicle isn't running, they're not making money.”

The result of reliable, field-tested software? Lower total cost of ownership.

Also contributing to the lower cost of ownership was the software’s ability to balance the three BMW i3 batteries Motiv uses in all its vehicles. “Since the battery is the most expensive component in the vehicle, obviously it's something you want to protect,” said O’Leary. “It’s because we're able to balance across these different battery packs that we're able to get the energy, performance, and lower cost that our competitors can’t.”

Yet another aha! was the realization that there was no mention of AdaptEV in any of Motiv’s communications and messaging. (“No wonder everyone was confused!” said O’Leary). Next up, then, was how to get the “our software is our superpower” message across. Here is a synopsis of the message architecture we put together for Motiv:

Positioning statement: Motiv is a sustainable energy technology company delivering a proven software platform for the electrification of medium-duty trucks and buses.

Elevator story: At Motiv, our mission is to free fleets from fossil fuels. We deliver the lowest total cost of ownership by providing the most proven software platform for the electrification of medium-duty trucks and buses.

We also summed up Motiv’s value with the following tagline, taken near-verbatim from the positioning workshop: Motiv: it’s inEVitable.

The Results

That tagline was the clincher when it came time to introduce the new narrative at a company all-hands meeting, and the ahas! were immediate: “Yeah, that’s us!” “This is exactly what we stand for.” “I can't wait to roll this out!”

Other memes that grew out of the positioning workshop and that struck a nerve with the employees: “Your vehicle, only electric” and “Your pathway to electrification.” (The latter, in fact, was offered up by the board’s biggest Mother proponent during the positioning workshop, before the executive team aligned around Mechanic.) “Everyone went, ‘Whoa, that’s cool,’” said O’Leary. “It’s a journey. You don't just change everything to electric overnight. It takes years to go through that process and you want someone you trust to go through that process with you.”

The software-as-superpower narrative has been equally effective beyond the company’s doors. Although O’Leary worried that potential customers, partners, and investors would perceive the new emphasis on software as marketing spin, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. “They get right away what we’re about,” he said. “They understand the mission, and how we’re using software to get to that mission. No longer is it, ‘Here’s a bunch of truck guys—they don’t know anything about electrifying vehicles and they're going to try to talk to us about electrifying vehicles.’” Now they see Motiv as: “‘We’re a software company and we do the integration work to bring all these components together.’ It’s flipped the conversation 180 degrees.”