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

Phillip, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

How I Came Up with Ads In Motion

In 2017, I bought a bar in Lemmon Valley called Mudslingers.

Thirty days later, a massive flood hit the valley. Roads were shut down. There was only one way in and one way out. Police and military vehicles were stationed outside. Businesses were either damaged or completely cut off.

Mine was one of the only businesses that wasn’t physically damaged.

But that didn’t matter.

If people couldn’t get there — or were too afraid to — we might as well have been closed.

I remember sitting there thinking, “How do I get people to come if they don’t even remember we exist right now?”

The issue wasn’t our drinks. It wasn’t our service. It wasn’t the vibe.

It was visibility.

I looked into traditional billboards, but they were way out of budget. Digital marketing didn’t make sense at the time because our audience wasn’t necessarily online searching for us. I needed to reach people physically — in the real world.

So I started small.

I put up signs everywhere I legally could. Then I upgraded to LED signs and began placing them strategically around town — shopping centers, traffic-heavy areas, places outside the flood zone where people were still commuting.

Within a week, traffic started increasing.

Within two months, we were at half capacity.

By month three, we were completely packed almost every night.

That’s when it hit me.

The flood forced me to solve a visibility problem most businesses don’t realize they have.

In any market, only a small percentage of people are actively looking to buy “right now.” The rest are either thinking about it, problem-aware, or not even aware they need you yet.

What changed everything wasn’t that we had a better bar.

It was that people kept seeing us.

Repeated exposure created familiarity. Familiarity created trust. Trust created traffic.

A year later, I sold the bar. But I couldn’t shake the bigger idea.

What if I could help other businesses solve the same problem?

What if instead of waiting for customers to scroll past an ad or drive past a static billboard, we brought the message directly into their daily commute, their neighborhoods, their events?

That question turned into five years of development.

There were nights I questioned whether it was even possible. Mounting multiple high-brightness LED screens onto a vehicle wasn’t simple. Route planning, engineering, legal compliance — it was a grind.

A lot of people said it wouldn’t work.

But when our first fully built vehicle rolled through downtown Reno under the arches, I knew we had something different.

Ads In Motion wasn’t built because it sounded cool.

It was built because I’ve been the business owner staring at empty seats, wondering how to fill them.

I’ve felt what it’s like to have something good but not enough visibility.

And I realized the problem most businesses face isn’t quality — it’s being seen consistently enough to matter.

That flood was the worst timing imaginable.

But it forced me to think differently.

And honestly, that’s where this entire company came from.

Phillip, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Phillip Hawkins, the founder of Ads In Motion. At my core, I’m a builder and problem-solver. I’m the type of person who will spend years refining an idea if I believe it solves a real problem.

Ads In Motion wasn’t built overnight. It took years of development, testing, adjustments, and a lot of hearing, “That won’t work.” But I’ve always believed that if something solves a real need for business owners, it’s worth committing to.

My focus has always been infrastructure — making sure what we build actually works in the real world. Mounting multiple high-brightness LED screens onto a vehicle, engineering the power systems, calibrating brightness for day and night visibility, mapping strategic routes — all of that required patience and long-term vision.

Where I focus on building the platform, Eli stepped in to build the growth.

Eli originally came on as a sales agent. What stood out immediately wasn’t just his ability to sell — it was his belief in the mission. He understood the psychology behind what we were doing. He connected with business owners because he had been one.

Over time, he moved from sales agent to manager — taking ownership of strategy, messaging, and client experience. Eventually, it became clear that this wasn’t just an employee relationship. It was a partnership.

That evolution happened because of trust and shared vision.

We balance each other well. I’m focused on systems, engineering, and long-term scalability. Eli focuses on positioning, psychology, and helping businesses understand how visibility turns into growth.

What I’m most proud of isn’t just the vehicles.

It’s the fact that this company was built deliberately — and that the partnership behind it was earned, not forced.

When clients work with us, they’re not just hiring a marketing service. They’re working with people who have both built and grown businesses themselves.

For me, Ads In Motion is about creating infrastructure for visibility — something stable, something tangible, something that businesses can rely on.

Not hype.

Not trends.

Real presence in the real world.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One of the biggest tests of resilience for us wasn’t a single dramatic moment — it was the long, quiet stretch in between vision and validation.

After the original idea for Ads In Motion was born, there wasn’t immediate traction. There wasn’t funding lined up. There weren’t clients waiting. There were just questions, engineering problems, and a lot of uncertainty.

For five years, I kept building. Testing screen configurations. Reworking mounts. Adjusting brightness to make sure the LED panels were visible in direct Nevada sunlight. Solving power system challenges. Mapping routes. Refining the concept over and over.

And during that time, there were plenty of voices — some external, some internal — saying it wasn’t practical. That it was too hard. That other companies had tried and failed.

When Eli came in, it wasn’t glamorous either. he started as a sales agent. Cold calls. Door knocking. Rejection. Long conversations that led nowhere. Explaining a concept most businesses had never seen before. Hearing “call me later” more times than he can count.

There were seasons where momentum felt slow. Where expenses felt heavy. Where doubt tried to creep in.

That’s where faith mattered.

Not in a loud, performative way — but in a grounding way.

There were many moments where we prayed over decisions. Over whether to keep pushing. Over whether to pivot. Over whether this was something we were meant to build or something we were meant to release.

What kept us going wasn’t hype.

It was conviction.

We genuinely believed that businesses deserved a better way to be seen — not just online fighting algorithms, but physically present in their communities.

Resilience for us wasn’t about a single breakthrough. It was about continuing when there wasn’t applause. Continuing when sales were slow. Continuing when engineering adjustments meant starting over.

Eventually, the validation came.

Clients started reaching out because they saw the vehicle. Businesses began asking how they could get involved. The very thing people questioned became the proof.

But the resilience wasn’t built in the success.

It was built in the unseen years.

Looking back, I’m grateful it didn’t happen overnight. The slow grind shaped our character, our partnership, and our clarity. It forced us to refine the product and refine ourselves.

Faith gave us peace in the uncertainty.

The grind built our endurance.

And together, that combination carried us through.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing our clientele has honestly been proving our own concept in real time.

When we first launched, we assumed cold outreach would be the primary driver — calling businesses, pitching the model, explaining the psychology behind physical visibility. We did that. A lot of it. And while it built resilience, it wasn’t the strongest growth driver.

What actually worked best?

Visibility.

Businesses started reaching out because they saw the vehicle in motion. They saw it in traffic. At events. In retail corridors. They watched it loop through their own neighborhoods. That physical presence sparked curiosity in a way a cold call never could.

That taught us something important.

You can’t sell attention if you don’t command it yourself.

The vehicle became our best marketing tool. It demonstrated the product before we ever had to explain it. Instead of convincing someone that mobile digital billboards work, they were seeing the engagement firsthand — people turning their heads, pulling out phones, talking about it.

Beyond that, the second most effective strategy has been education.

A lot of business owners are stuck chasing the 3% of customers ready to buy today. We focus on helping them understand the other 97% — the people who are problem-aware, researching, or not even thinking about the purchase yet. Consistent, physical exposure builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust. Trust drives action.

When clients understand that shift in thinking, they see the long-term value instead of looking for overnight results.

We also learned that local trust compounds. Once one business runs a campaign and sees results, word travels. Reno isn’t a massive market. Reputation matters here. Showing up consistently, delivering what we promise, and being transparent about expectations has built more growth than any aggressive sales tactic.

If I had to summarize it simply:

The most effective strategy hasn’t been persuasion.

It’s been presence.

We built something visible — and then let visibility do what it naturally does.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aimdrives.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aimdrives/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574521794798
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eli-santos-79b765348/
• Twitter: https://x.com/Aimdrives
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EliSantos-AIM
• Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/RbaPaU22SftrMST9jPKOrA

Image Credits

Eli Santos