Industry: Management Consulting

Client:

Business Innovation Consulting (BIC), a global innovation consulting firm specializing in helping automotive, consumer goods, and med-tech companies create competitive products, was seeking a partner to help them reach their aggressive growth goals.

Challenge:

The absence of a sales and marketing process impeded BIC’s attempt to expand beyond its referral base and create new relationships with senior executives of large global companies.

Intervention:

BIC turned to Wellesley Hills Group to establish a sales and marketing function, and to manage and implement business development strategy, including developing and maintaining relationships on the telephone as BIC’s outsourced business development arm. As we established new relationships, BIC leaders played the role of thought leader and expert in our outreach activity. We executed a four pronged approach to attract new clients and accelerate revenue growth:

1. Developing the List: We mapped out target companies and identified specific prospects at various levels. Targets included Fortune 500 firms broken out by business unit. This generated multiple contacts within each company’s various operating units.

2. Distilling the Messages: We first built and then refined marketing messages based on what resonated most to generate leads and relationships.

3. Creating and Managing the Pipeline: With the list, process, and value proposition in place, we generated leads, and worked with BIC leaders to move leads through the pipeline. This included tracking and analyzing all sales activity and building specific campaigns aimed at advancing the best opportunities.

4. Nurturing Leads: For each industry and buyer type, we built nurturing plans to help cultivate prospects into ready buyers. The plans featured sequenced, value-based marketing that offered resources and insights, demonstrating BIC’s value to the targeted prospects.

Results:     

• Within one year, we generated:
• 175 sales conversations
• 30 referrals
• 5 proposals totaling $2.1 million
• $375k in closed business in the first year – with the typical sales cycle longer than one year