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