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

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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?

Contact Brian Gladstein (617) 758-8998

bg@explorics.com @briangladstein | @explorics