Switching On the Growth Engine in Your Small Consulting Practice
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@explorics Switching On The Growth Engine In Your Small Consulting Practice Our Personal Turnaround Story Webinar Series Marketing Tips for Consultants
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Transcript of Switching On the Growth Engine in Your Small Consulting Practice
@explorics
Switching On The
Growth Engine In Your Small
Consulting Practice
Our Personal Turnaround Story
Webinar Series Marketing Tips for Consultants
@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
August
2010
December
2012
March
2014
Open for business Stuck High Growth
A Brief History
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
@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…
@explorics
Revenue
@explorics
Revenue What happened??
@explorics
Time To Get To Work
Customers
Talent
Value Proposition
Quality Financial Model
Operations
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
@explorics
What We Wanted
1. Recurring revenue / repeat clients 2. Happy champions 3. Work that mattered 4. Projects set up for success
Start Treating The Business Like An Engine
• Predictable • No single point of
failure • Scalable • Trainable • Repeatable • Specialized
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.
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
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
• 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?
Finding Projects
Selling Projects
Staffing & Launching Projects
Doing the Work
Quality Control
Our Engine: Q2 2013
Customer ID’d!Target market!Top pain points!
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
@explorics
Playing With Packaging
Listen up! Social Prospecting Advocate Communities
…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 advice
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?”
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!
Statement of Work Internal/External Kick-off Client Reporting
Team Directive:"Remove Brian From The Equation
@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
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!
The Best People, The Right Roles Thought Leadership
Showcase-Ready"Work
WHICH BRINGS US TO TODAY
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!
@explorics
A Compelling Story We Can Deliver
@explorics
Some Results From The Year
2010-2012
2013-2014
More Results: Pipeline
(High-value)
(Short-term)
Contact Discussing Scoping Proposal
Contact Discussing Scoping Proposal
Q1 2013!
Q1 2014!
One More: Margin
2012! 2013!
Average margin on typical project
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Work on the business, not in the business
Choose clients based on how they fit with your desired income stream
Build mechanisms to transfer trust "to your staff
Design every project to run without you
Train your staff to solve problems without you
THANK YOU! AND THANKS TO ZINTRO!""BUT BEFORE WE GO…
@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?
