We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chris Srubas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chris below.

Chris, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I had worked for a few other companies in the industry, so the idea was always there. I had been instrumental in each of their growth and success, I just had to shine that light on myself. That really was the hardest part, taking that initial leap of faith. Once I made up my mind to go for it, the rest just came naturally and I just went to work. I had no products, I had no inventory, just some great ideas, a phone and a computer. In hindsight, I think it is critical that you believe in yourself and your abilities. I often think of the famous Wayne Gretzky quote- “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.

The first two weeks were a whirlwind- hiring an agency, launching a website, designing sales materials, making cold calls, getting hung up on- many nights I was wracked with self-doubt. Slowly but surely, I started gaining some traction, having meaningful conversations, building a pipeline, becoming more confident. Two months later I landed my first account, a global company, with many brands that are household names. After our first event was a hit, I stayed in their ear and they started trusting me with more and more work. So much so, that two years after I started, I was running so many projects that I no longer had time to make sales calls.

I had become the trusted advisor, not only executing projects, but helping to proactively drive event strategy within the client. All of this I had done previously for other employers, but now that I was doing it for myself, it was tremendously rewarding.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I started my career working as an inside sales rep for a global sports marketing firm and quickly rose up through the ranks to be the inaugural selection by the CEO for the first GM training program. I lived and worked in Sydney, London, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and San Diego sitting in every desk of the organization. What tremendous experience this provided, experience that I still draw on today to appreciate how all those involved in any organization from top to bottom contribute to success.

From there, I worked at several mid-sized firms to help them achieve significant growth, but hadn’t quite found my forever home. During this time, I gained critical first-hand exposure to a full spectrum of corporate events, beyond the sports world, which stoked my fire to build a firm to service all areas.

What truly sets Momentus apart from any other firms, is our preset management fee and transparent pricing structure. We open our books to customers and allow them to see the true costs of any line item for an event. Our fee is set up front and does not change. This is beneficial to our customers in a myriad of ways, but a perfect example would be on a program we ran for Corian. We were tasked with executive producing their global rebranding launch for 500 people at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Across all the components we were responsible for, we were able to carve out cost savings that were in excess of our management fee. In the end, they got copies of all original invoices, so they could not only see where those savings occurred, but recoup all of the money. So effectively, they got a professionally produced event that was better, more streamlined, cheaper and saved them countless hours of time.

Once clients get a look behind the curtain and experience this level of transparency, it is hard for them to go back. So much so, on several occasions my customers received grief from their procurement departments for ‘paying’ to use Momentus instead of using the ‘free’ internal meeting planning group. That right there, lets me know I am doing the right thing.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Unfortunately, our industry is very fickle and often times is one of the first areas to lose funding during difficult economic times. I have sent this on several occasions, including right now, during the Covid pandemic. The internet bubble bursting in early 2000, all the way through the aftermath of 9/11 provided some very difficult times. The global financial meltdown set off by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the AIG event uproar in late 2008 actually propelled me out of the industry for a few years.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After returning to the industry by launching Momentus in 2012, for the last two years I’ve tied myself to the mast and have been waiting for this storm to pass. We saw a great light at the end of the tunnel in Q4 last year, but the onset of the Omicron variant put that out real fast. Is it too much to hope for no new variants?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.momentus-corp.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-srubas-7077783/

Image Credits
Chris Srubas