The Problem

  • Sales and Marketing departments are not producing the expected results (a.k.a., qualified leads, sales opportunities, revenue) and C-Suite leadership is frustrated.
  • Companies often position marketing and sales against one another which is a huge red flag as they should be working together as partners.
  • Marketing is the “Hunter”, and Sales is the “Skinner”. That’s how it should work.
  • When marketing and sales departments work collaboratively, revenue ultimately results quickly and people are happy – employees, management, and shareholders. When they don’t, it’s a trainwreck and costs the company money.

The Solution

The “Synthesis Assessment” unearths a professional, tactical assessment of the current operational management infrastructure with functional recommendations for implementation. 

  • This is not a cookie-cutter, high-level numbers assessment.
  • This is a very detailed and direct assessment of the organizational health supporting sales and marketing revenue.
  • This is a customized reality check uncovering every area of marketing and sales management – infrastructure, tools, standard operating procedures, CRM configuration, communications, staff experience level, management assessment, etc.

Why is this Necessary?

  • Because marketing and sales operations need to be assessed by experienced professionals in the field to confirm the viability of projected revenue.
  • Because private equity, venture capital and merger and acquisition assessment teams do not have direct marketing and sales operational experience to identify potential blind spots in infrastructure, operational management, and processes to meet sales goals.
  • Because private equity and venture capital firms are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in recent acquisitions to make up for the blind spots not uncovered during the discovery phase. Much of which could have been avoided with a proper assessment. In short, they’re doing it wrong. 

Every business is different, so the Synthesis Assessment is customized for each client to ensure the right areas are analyzed for investment and prospective, realistic growth potential.

Use Case Examples

Incomplete Marketing/Sales Infrastructure

A large private equity firm acquires a $50m software as a service (SaaS) tech company with the expectation of 40% annual growth as outlined during discovery.

However, after the acquisition, it was discovered that the company did not have a client relationship management (CRM) solution to support lead collection and proper sales process management.  They were using a 30-year-old ERP system as their customer relationship management solution.

Why does this matter?

        • Without a CRM, there is no way to track the sales cycle, salesperson productivity, communications, and opportunity management. In addition, there is no way to report on marketing return on investment – the number of leads driven into the funnel resulting in the number of opportunities for the sales team to close. There is no way to tie marketing dollars and productivity back to sales which any good CFO would demand. This is a huge red flag that should’ve been identified at the time of acquisition.
        • As a result, the PE firm needs to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into the company infrastructure and management to establish a CRM, fully configure and hire an administrator to support ongoing functional needs which will take months to deploy.
        • Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization (EBITA) will be negatively affected (up to 30%) for 12-24 months depending on how quickly implementation and adoption happen.

A medical food company wanted to expand its sales force after securing an investment from a private equity firm. After initiating their recruiting and hiring efforts, it turned out the company did not have a formal onboarding or training program. Additionally, they lacked sales operational processes and were using an outdated CRM.

Why does this matter?

        • Without a cutting-edge training program, the company was not able to effectively educate its new sales reps on the science behind their food technology. As a result, new sales reps were not able to be as impactful as initially hoped, and the company was not able to reach its goals.
        • Additionally, the CRM was not only outdated but it also wasn’t implemented correctly nor integrated with their e-commerce suite. As a result, sales data such as orders, customer purchases, and other pertinent sales data was often incorrect and rarely up-to-date.
        • As a result, the sales force became frustrated and turnover became common. In fact, one sales rep quit after only 2 weeks citing these types of frustrations as the reason for her leaving the company.

What we accomplished:

        • We overhauled their current programs and created an entirely new onboarding and training program. From making changes to how HR interacts with new sales reps, to working with the Chief Medical Officer to create a training structure complete with a syllabus and lesson plans, we were able to institute a training program similar to best-in-class organizations. Once in place, we were able to quickly transform the sales reps into ‘experts’, making them powerhouses when detailing the product to medical providers.
        • We also fixed many of the issues with the CRM, enabling sales reps and managers to have real-time access to sales data. And we significantly reduced the amount of time and manual inputs required of sales reps to work with the CRM.
        • As a result, sales rep turnover was greatly reduced, sales forecasts were improved, and overall sales increased.

Comprehensive business overhaul including Marketing Management and Business Process/Systems for established Commercial, Residential and Senior Transition Moving services.

        • Complete rebrand, regular direct marketing, website revamp/management, PR, social media management, advertising, lead generation, business process management overhaul, implementation of CRM (Insightly), training, and positioning for acquisition in 2021.
        • 50% growth within 6 months of first starting to work together in 2012.
        • 40% annual growth year over year (7 years in a row).
        • Successful acquisition in 2021 based on brand awareness, revenue, marketshare and marketing and sales infrastructure and process management.

An insurance services company was looking to expand into new markets for their current offering, as well as launch a new service. They weren’t happy with their growth and wanted help getting to the ‘next level’. After conducting a growth assessment, it became clear that certain structural and operational changes were needed.

For instance, we identified that there was not a clear process in place to manage leads. As a result, many leads just “sat on the shelf”, waiting to be called on by sales reps.

Once we reconfigured the CRM to make it more actionable, we created the new Leads Program which included the following:

        • We integrated the revenue platform and phone systems with the CRM so that all leads and transactions could be transparent and in real-time
        • Leads were immediately assigned to the appropriate sales rep the same day they came in.
        • Sales reps were required to reach out to leads within 24 hours
        • We automated the reporting so that analytics and metrics were available in real-time as well

We then established a lead-closure benchmark and analyzed the results. The goal was to identify the following:

        • Sales Reps
          1. Find out what they are doing that is working, and optimize that
          2. Find out what is not working, and eliminate or fix it.
        • Leads
          1. What target audience, geographics, and other demographics are we having the most success with and double down efforts
          2. Understand why some leads were effective over others

We then looked at other revenue gaps and instituted similar processes. Lastly, we built out the additional sales operational infrastructure to support the new growth from these initiatives.

The end result was that the company was able to grow by 110% and have record-breaking sales.

Operational Effectiveness Assessment Areas

Marketing Management

  • Infrastructure assessment to support marketing operations/sales management

  • Brand Management

  • Market Positioning

  • Lead/Demand Generation

  • Website Design, SEO, Engagement

  • Collateral Development

  • Thought Leadership

  • Public Relations

  • Social Media Management

  • Graphic Design/Video Production

  • CRM System & Reporting

  • Management Reporting Capabilities

  • Project Management Tools/Capablities

  • Marketing Management Efficacy

  • More areas as needed…

Sales Management

  • Lead Management

  • Opportunity Management

  • Response/Conversion Rate

  • Communications/Messaging

  • Close Rate

  • Report Management for Accountability

  • Relationship Management with Existing and Net-New Clients

  • Ongoing Assessment of Staff Effectiveness/Maturity

  • Infrastructure

  • Customer Optimization

  • Pipeline Optimization

  • Training

  • Support

  • More areas as needed…

Standard Assessment Scenarios

Prospective Merger/Acquisition

Here, the acquiring company/ firm typically applies a cookie-cutter assessment based on numbers and has no idea what the true operational infrastructure and processes are to support future revenue estimates.

The Synthesis Assessment™ “lifts the hood” and looks at the nitty-gritty operations for marketing to support sales, and for sales to convert leads to won opportunities/revenue to essentially determine if their estimates are valid and/or if an investment is required to support the growth they are claiming will happen.

Post-acquisition, sales, and marketing numbers are not meeting the forecast sold pre-acquisition. Something’s a miss, and management needs to understand what’s going on – where the gaps are.

After discussion with the acquiring company, this assessment will commence with an agreed-upon statement of work to identify the problem areas and provide a concrete suggested game plan to correct them. 

Typical mid-cap ($50m+) companies that need to understand where the issues are within their sales and marketing departments, and what they need to do to resolve them to drive revenue quickly.

Client Testimonials

Through Mary’s marketing expertise and guidance, we were able to rebrand and reposition our small SaaS cybersecurity startup to successfully sell directly to large enterprises, as well as large consulting houses such as Deloitte.

Her ability to refine messaging and create an integrated, strategic marketing program transformed our business and grew revenue by 400% in 12 months. Amazing. She was a true partner as a fractional CMO and helped us solidify our company and product as the industry leader in Salesforce cybersecurity. We’re truly grateful for her efforts and highly recommend her services to any organization looking to grow.

Matt Meyers
CEO / Adaptus, LLC

David’s work in restructuring our sales and marketing efforts was impressive. I think it’s only appropriate to highlight a few of his accomplishments:

  • We now have a standard, coherent message that is consistent throughout all of our marketing materials
  • His repositioning of our services and the rebranding of our presentations, overviews, and messaging was phenomenal
  • The sales training infrastructure he created, especially the training manual, now allows us to train new sales reps on par with other best-in-class organizations
  • Most importantly, since implementing your solutions, we have had record-breaking sales and were able to finish 2019 with extremely higher revenues than we had ever expected.

 

David Delehanty
VP of Business Development / PRIZM

I’ve been in the moving business for over 30 years and had absolutely no online marketing or PR presence. Mary changed all of that within months, and to my astonishment, grew my business 60% in the first year of working together.  Her knowledge of integrated marketing, public relations, and best practices in business management has completely overhauled my business and allowed us to move into new markets successfully. I’m very grateful to her, and would highly recommend Maven Marketing Solutions to any business.

Mary Kopp
CEO / ABC Longhorn Moving

It’s been a pleasure working with you David. From your assessment and analysis to the implementation of your solutions, the quality of your work has far exceeded our expectations. Thanks to your efforts, we are now in a much better position to exceed our revenue forecasts. The delivery of your services has enabled us to operate similarly to other world-class organizations. Some of the key deliverables you’ve given us are:

  •  A formal Sales Training Program
  • A Sales Manual complete with product information, sales techniques, SOPs, tutorials, and consistent messaging
  • A Performance Assessment Program 
  • The creation of an Inside Sales Department
  • A Sales Recruitment Process

 Thank you for all that you’ve done, and please know that we are in a much better place because of your contributions.

Alan Schaefer
Head of Sales / L-Nutra, Inc

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