Switching On the Growth Engine in Your Small Consulting Practice
This presentation is from the Zintro Webinar Series: Marketing Tips for Consultants. Our presenter is Brian Gladstein, CEO and Founder of Explorics, a unique marketing firm that helps B2B companies engage enthusiastic customers through loyalty and advocacy programs. He is a serial entrepreneur, co-chairs Boston’s Lean Startup Challenge, and also serves as a go-to-market coach for growth-stage companies. Brian is an MIT graduate with an MBA from Stanford. We hope this personal story of how Explorics created a growth engine for its business will help other consulting firms and entrepreneurs approach their own businesses in interesting ways. "Fifteen months ago, my marketing consulting practice was at a crossroads,” explains Brian. “No matter what we did – we couldn’t seem to scale the way we wanted to without client projects suffering – we were stuck. In this webinar, we will discuss how we systematically took apart our business and rebuilt it from the ground up into an engine for growth. Today, we are at the center of one of the most exciting transformations happening in the B2B Marketing and PR space, and business is booming." Key takeaways in this presentation: - The importance of focus - Work on the business, not in the business - Choose clients based on how they fit with your desired income stream - Building mechanisms that transfer trust to your staff - Design every project to run without you - Train your staff to solve problems without you Be sure to check out http://explorics.com/aa to take an Advocate Assessment for your company - this is a custom-built roadmap for measuring and increasing organic advocacy.
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Switching On the Growth Engine in Your Small Consulting Practice
- 1. @explorics Switching On The Growth Engine In Your Small Consulting Practice Our Personal Turnaround Story Webinar Series Marketing Tips for Consultants
- 2. @explorics who is this guy? • CEO, Explorics B2B Advocate & Loyalty Marketing • 2-time entrepreneur • Lean Startup Challenge 2013 • Business Model Generation Meetup • Startup Coach – Quebec Tech Accelerator • Launched dozens of products • Stanford MBA • MIT Computer Science
- 3. August 2010 December 2012 March 2014 Open for business Stuck High Growth A Brief History
- 4. The Consultant’s Dilemma 1. You can’t sell and deliver at the same time 2. Sell when you are busiest 3. Successful projects – and happy clients – are your most important assets
- 5. @explorics Explorics Version 1 Aug ’10! First two clients Jan ’11! Real office space Apr ‘11! First sub-contractor Oct ’11! First full-time employee Mar ‘12! Second full-time employee Jul ’12! Ready to scale… but…
- 8. @explorics Time To Get To Work Customers Talent Value Proposition Quality Financial Model Operations
- 9. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control What We Found Anything we could get Getting harder I had all the knowledge Hard/expensive to delegate Unsustainable with growth
- 10. @explorics What We Wanted 1. Recurring revenue / repeat clients 2. Happy champions 3. Work that mattered 4. Projects set up for success
- 11. Start Treating The Business Like An Engine • Predictable • No single point of failure • Scalable • Trainable • Repeatable • Specialized
- 12. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control Our Engine: Q1 2013 The Objective: Simplify each function enough to capture it in a playbook – so someone else could do the job if and when we needed it.
- 13. Choosing Our Customers Pre-revenue startups <$1M Startups with customers < $10M Growth-stage companies $10M-$100M Departments in enterprises $100M+ Entrepreneurs CEOs Marketing Executives Product Managers Content Managers Demand Gen Managers
- 14. Choosing Our Customers Pre-revenue startups <$1M Startups with customers < $10M Growth-stage companies $10M-$100M Departments in enterprises $100M+ Entrepreneurs CEOs Marketing Executives Product Managers Content Managers Demand Gen Managers Meaningful objectives Regular, sizable budgets Clear definition of success Typically worked with 3rd parties
- 15. • Growing the team • Expanding internationally • Scaling demand generation and breaking out to multiple segments Me: What are the top 4-5 marketing-related challenges you face?
- 16. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control Our Engine: Q2 2013 Customer ID’d! Target market! Top pain points!
- 17. Customers Challenges! • Growing the team • Scaling demand generation and breaking out to multiple segments Our Strengths! • Understanding B2B customer demand • How customers think / why they buy • Creating ad-hoc communities of like- minded people Value
- 19. Listen up! Social Prospecting Advocate Communities
- 20. …And We Knew Why Advocates Matter Peers are the #1 influencer when buying B2B Advice from " a friend Search Engine Supplier Website Email Industrial Intermediary Sent by a friend Online display ad Social media Wider advic e Industry community Buyers are waiting before talking to sales reps 57% They are asking communities for help Searching within communities Vendor content Peer content Q&A 58% 31% 22% 20% “Our customers love us. Why aren’t they doing more for us?”
- 21. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control Our Engine: Q3 2013 Customer ID’d! Target market! Top pain points! Ideal projects! Price points!
- 22. Statement of Work Internal/External Kick-off Client Reporting Team Directive:" Remove Brian From The Equation
- 23. @explorics What Helped Us Most • Pre-define what success looks like as a team • Write down job descriptions for each project • Build client reporting structure in advance • Public activity board and schedule • Daily scrums
- 24. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control Our Engine: Q4 2013 Customer ID’d! Target market! Top pain points! Ideal projects! Price points! Transitions OK! Self-sufficiency!
- 26. The Best People, The Right Roles Thought Leadership Showcase- Ready" Work
- 27. WHICH BRINGS US TO TODAY
- 28. Finding Projects Selling Projects Staffing & Launching Projects Doing the Work Quality Control Our Engine: Q1 2014 Customer ID’d! Target market! Top pain points! Ideal projects! Price points! Transitions OK! Self-sufficiency! Learning org! Self-optimizing! 90% in-house! Happy clients!
- 29. @explorics A Compelling Story We Can Deliver
- 30. @explorics Some Results From The Year 2010-2012 2013-2014
- 31. More Results: Pipeline (High-value) (Short-term) Contact Discussing Scoping Proposal Contact Discussing Scoping Proposal Q1 2013! Q1 2014!
- 32. One More: Margin 2012! 2013! Average margin on typical project
- 33. KEY TAKEAWAYS
- 35. Work on the business, not in the business
- 36. Choose clients based on how they fit with your desired income stream
- 37. Build mechanisms to transfer trust " to your staff
- 38. Design every project to run without you
- 39. Train your staff to solve problems without you
- 40. THANK YOU! AND THANKS TO ZINTRO!" " BUT BEFORE WE GO…
- 41. @explorics Who Is Advocating For Me? Are you asking yourself: “Our customers love us. How can we get them to do more for us?” Get an ! Advocate Assessment! A custom-built roadmap for measuring and increasing organic advocacy. explorics.com/aa Advocate Assessment Who are my advocates? What are they doing for me? What more can they do for me? Who else can I motivate? How can I measure their impact?