OUR STORY

Ancient History: Problem, Passion, Partnership
Seth Preus
Jerome Carlile

It was 2005 and Seth was not happy – he was doing math again, and Seth hated doing math. But changing the commission plan meant changing the spreadsheet formulas to calculate commissions. But he was also unhappy because he knew he was not solving the real problem: “how can I get my team to want to do more?” Money alone, was not enough. 

PROBLEM

It was 2005 and Jerome was not happy – his boss was driving him crazy again by tinkering with the compensation plan. Every few months he would invent yet another “brilliant” way to motivate the sales team and would often include non-measurable elements like “pride” or “competitiveness”. There was no consistency and no order.

Following an ill-fated stint selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door as a teenager that left him motivationally defeated, Seth realized that some jobs just weren’t worth the money. He developed an obsession with the nuances of motivation, particularly those NOT related to money. He developed a passion for compounding “motivational force” by combining both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

PASSION

4 years in the military had taught Jerome the value of effective organizational skills. He became truly passionate about transforming complex and disjointed business processes into logical, intuitive systems. Fortunately for Jerome, he was able to indulge his passion for creating order out of chaos because his business partner was a chaos-generating machine in his dogged pursuit of the perfect motivational formula.

PARTNERSHIP

Together they created Racing Snail. Seth and Jerome made a very effective team because each relied upon the other for his unique strengths. Seth generated ideas and Jerome created processes to make those ideas possible. Over the years they collaborated with each other, challenged each other, and oftentimes argued with each other, but most significantly they trusted each other -probably the product of a lifelong friendship that began when they were 15 years-old in Colorado Springs, CO.

Recent History: Growth and Metamorphosis

Racing Snail goes online

Acquired and relaunched as Mivation

Tools upgraded and technology modernized

Massive growth to thousands of businesses in U.S. and Canada

History in the making: Continued Growth

Today Mivation assists both large and small companies in a broad array of industries to drive KPI’s, improve commission plans, and increase employee engagement by aligning employee and company motivations.