Zinovo

Sales…the oil, the chi, the lifeblood of any business. You may feel as an employee that you are NOT a sales person, but truthfully, we all should be advocates to the enterprises where we work. Thank goodness however that there are CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) systems in place to help the designated, ‘key’ sales folks in your organization to do their jobs. Welcome to Bozeman, Jonathan Distad and his partner Peg Rifleman, consultants who promote the Salesforce Platform to help organizations outsell, service and market their competition!

As Women Business Center and Prospera Business Network members, this Zinovo duo received guidance on how to become recipients of a $70,000 matching grant through the Department of Commerce to hire 14 new employees over the next 24 months. Having performed for over 20 years as IT consultants around the globe, both had worked with the Salesforce platform for years and collectively decided to start an enterprise of their own.

Their first consideration was a locale that could support a remote servicing model with highly-educated and skilled workers. Second was choosing a great place to raise their families. Jonathan, formerly from the Flathead area, was eager to get back to his native state.

“We’re a consulting company. People are our business. We wanted to make an impact on the community. Bozeman made sense!” With a new office on Main Street, Jonathan’s focus within the company is sales and marketing and Peg’s key roles, operations and finance.

“Our focus is national companies with a global footprint.” Jonathan shared, “I was thrilled to find the start-up support that was available in the region and across Montana. It was greater than we expected as was the support we’ve felt from other entrepreneurs in the area. It’s nice to have your model validated by an organization like Prospera and your customers, but by the community as well is exhilarating!”