Productive Strategies, Inc. - Management and Marketing Consultants: Histories

Case History #1: Helping a PROFESSIONAL firm achieve sales success in a niche market

Case History #2: REVENUE Growth Beyond Referral Levels

Case History #3: Helping a MANUFACTURING firm outsource its sales and marketing

Case History #4: A SERVICE firm defines itself, generates leads, and acquires a higher level of closing skills

Case History #5: An experienced EXPORTER leverages his time

Case History #6: FIRST TIME marketing internationally

#1: Helping a professional firm achieve sales success in a niche market
Productive Strategies was called in initially by this firm with the request that we develop a strategic plan for them. The client had recently lost out on six major opportunities in a row involving Fortune 500 clients and felt a strategic plan would help reverse this pattern. Our client specializes in a narrow niche practice, and each of its prospects was looking to engage a firm to help in its area of expertise. Our client initially sought our help because we had given them informal advice following the sixth failed situation. Our advice at that time had led to their capturing that account in a second round of bidding a year after the first attempt.

After studying their situation, we determined that the client would not immediately benefit from a strategic plan. What they needed immediately was a sales presentation capability among the partners. They reluctantly agreed to let us develop a presentation for them, even though their initial reaction was that, as professionals, they should rely on their reputation and expertise in their own area, not on "marketing."

After the initial success, however, the client was so enthusiastic about the presentation we created that they also asked us to help develop the strategy for the next four opportunities they were given to bid. At this point they have made eight successful presentations in a row. The resulting business, mostly with Fortune 100 clients, will be worth strong six figure billings the first year, and millions of dollars of future revenues. The firm recognizes the importance of the work Productive Strategies has performed, and they are now introducing us to their offices in other states.

The client believes they have obtained a significant competitive advantage through our work with them and has requested that we not disclose their name or the specific area in which they specialize.

#2: Revenue Growth Beyond Referral Levels
One of our clients who offers a professional service to Fortune 1000 size firms had been growing almost solely from referrals generated by their own satisfied customers. They wanted to increase their growth rate and knew they had to generate a new stream of leads if they were to meet their aggressive growth objectives. Prior to meeting Productive Strategies they had experimented with using direct mail, but the specific campaign they had run was not successful.

Adding to the challenge of this assignment was the fact that most companies already used a source for the service our client performs; typically a law firm or an accounting firm will already be addressing the need in some fashion. One of our challenges was to make our client's prospects aware of the unique form of service our client could deliver in meeting the need.

After specifically defining the target market from an industry, size, and geographic perspective, we built a database of "suspects." Our next step was to contact each of the suspects in the database from the Productive Strategies Call Center. Since our client sells his service nationally from offices in Chicago and New York, it was an additional challenge to qualify the suspects prior to setting up in-person appointments.

The Numbers
The value of a new account to our client is projected at $50,000 over the first six years of the relationship. Should the new client make a referral resulting in a follow-on client, the value of the new account to our client doubles to $100,000. First year, average revenue is estimated at $14,000, and the retention rate after the first sale is over 80%. (Account value is also increased from additional sales to other divisions of the same company, but that value is not included here.)

For this specific client, the cost to generate a new client is $2,400. This includes the cost to establish appointments with prospects, whether or not they immediately become clients.

The client has made the following observations about PSI's service:

They now believe they can control their growth rate since adding hours to our lead generation operation can continuously add qualified prospects.
They have reduced their cost of generating new business by having us also book prospective client meetings when they travel in support of existing clients. Each time they plan to visit an existing customer, they notify us so that we can book appointments with prospective clients in the same cities.
The business development folks much prefer meeting with prospects rather than cold calling the market place.
We make it possible for them to cover remote sales territories from their office in Chicago. We book them through a remote state on a campaign basis, starting at one end of the territory and moving them across the territory with meetings with qualified prospects. Should they decide in the future to open a sales office in those territories, they will already have developed the revenue to support it.

#3: Helping a manufacturing firm outsource its sales and marketing
One of our smallest clients is in the business of developing advanced technology for the metal casting industry. The firm has four employees, including two who actually build and assemble the hardware. After years of making occasional sales around the world at a modest rate, they decided the firm needed to grow. The father and son who own the firm, both engineers, realized that selling and marketing were not skills they possessed and they also lacked time to devote to these activities.

Our initial project consisted of four consulting days. We defined the benefits of this product, documented the savings that users would realize through its use and began to develop a database for our client. Our next project involved a mail campaign to the target market. We handled everything from the copywriting to licking the stamps. The initial mailing produced a result three times the projected rate, and as of this writing the company is talking to the largest group of prospective customers in its history. We handle all of the lead follow up for this client and assist in closing the sale. Further, we have helped this client prepare for a trade show exhibition where we also helped them staff the booth.

While our client has realized excellent results from our association, this relationship is also interesting in terms of our fee structure. Throughout this relationship, our compensation has been designed to assure the client that they are getting clear, measurable value for their money. Our initial consulting project was handled on a traditional day-fee basis, with a per-name charge for the database creation. The mailing campaign cost the client $500 plus $1.50 per letter. Our follow-up handling of the leads was compensated by a percentage of sales arrangement. For our trade-show work, the client covered our direct costs while we contributed our time.

#4: A service firm defines itself, generates leads, and
acquires a higher level of closing skills
Some of our clients have technical or hard-to-explain products or services. Often this results in long sales cycles, difficulty in generating sales opportunities, and very low success rates for the few opportunities that are discovered.

In this case, the services offered by our client began as an idea when one of their clients outsourced a real estate management function that was consuming a lot of time. Our client developed an efficient method of performing the function for their client and reasoned that other firms could also take advantage of outsourcing this time consuming activity. The problem was how to sell a service that very few people understood or felt they needed.

Productive Strategies was brought in because the client was spending an average of one week developing a qualified sales lead, but closing only a very small percentage of those opportunities. Phase 1 of PSI's project involved an upgrade to the client's lead generation program. We helped the client hire a tele-marketer, performed critical research on the specific buying motives for their service, and wrote scripts to motivate prospects to request a meeting with our client. Once the lead program was successfully installed, we began Phase 2 of our assignment: the development of a professional presentation. To date almost every prospect who has been shown the presentation has purchased our client's service.

After seven months, the combination of lead generation and prepared presentation were so successful that over a million dollars in new revenues were sold. The cost to the client was around 5% of sales generated. Unlike a sales representative who would be paid a commission year after year, our fee is fixed. The client will continue to generate revenues over and over from their new clients; they will also use the systems we installed to acquire millions of dollars in added revenues. (Although our two main projects are complete, the client continues to use us on a daily fee basis to accompany him on major sales opportunities and participate in regular sales meetings.)

#5: An experienced exporter leverages his time
One of our clients exports to 70 countries and is the world's number one producer of a specific type of security device and door hardware. Their television commercials are known throughout the world due to high impact advertising. Their international department is staffed with seven full time people. In 1993 they decided that the potential for them in Brazil and Argentina was greater than their current sales activity. They hired Productive Strategies to move them from the sales level to the marketing level in these two key South American markets.

Our specific assignment was to find the most capable distributors with experience in selling to the market our client was targeting in Brazil and Argentina. The benefits our client enjoyed by outsourcing this assignment to Productive Strategies include:

Leveraging their own people's time: The international staff was supporting the marketing activities in seventy countries; they did not want to take away from this effort while preparing to enter two new markets.
Fixed cost: By using PSI, they knew the exact cost to locate and qualify the top prospective trade partners.
Defining distribution channels: Our planning structure helped them fully define the optimum distribution channels to consider using in the new markets. The client has the opportunity in new markets to copy what has been successful in other markets, or experiment with new channels of distribution that would be too risky to experiment with in existing markets.

Less time: Our entire process from planning to locating the potential trade partners typically takes nine to twelve months. Clients who have attempted this on their own often find that their own international travel requirements tend to stretch this process over a one to two year period.

Quality of trade partner: The candidates we submitted for consideration to our client were the top producers to the target market. Too often companies select trade partners (reps, dealers, agents, distributors) who approach them at trade shows whose only qualification is that they are somehow involved with the industry and live in the target market. By using PSI, our clients have immediate access to the people and distribution channels that have already proven themselves to be successful.

#6: First time marketing internationally
The client in this international case is a manufacturer of equipment and supplies sold to and through supermarkets. While product had been shipped overseas for years the client wanted to formalize a marketing plan for two international markets. They used Productive Strategies to insure that their own inexperience with international marketing did not slow up the process, make it too expensive, or take them down unproductive paths.

Our work with this client began with the development of an export plan. During the planning process it became apparent that the greatest growth in this client's U.S. market occurred in the 1950's when the technology and service offerings within supermarkets was undergoing a transformation. Part of our strategy was to select foreign countries where the evolution of the grocery store was experiencing in the 1990's what occurred in the U.S. market in the 1950's. One country in South America was selected to represent this segment of the market. We also selected the United Kingdom as a target market to establish a base of operations for Europe.

The Productive Strategies' planning process then helped guide the client in creating a description of the ideal trade partner. This is a process that works best when the experience of the client is combined with the neutral facilitator who begins the process with no assumptions of which channels and which type of trade partner will be optimum.

This client wanted to maintain privacy about their decision to enter select foreign markets without tipping off competition. By using PSI, the search and qualification process took place "in the blind" until the timing was right for revealing the identification of our client.

In our experience "blind" searches are an integral portion of upgrading international marketing for experienced firms also. Usually experienced exporters find that some markets outperform others by very large factors. Sometimes very small population markets outperform very large country markets. When this occurs there is often great potential for moving into the underperforming market and upgrading the local sales and marketing effort. Productive Strategies can do the initial search without disrupting existing relationships.

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