After consultations with senior RiskSpan leaders, industry experts, and the literature, I pitched to the CEO and won support for my ‘Growth Team’ plan and its implementation.

My Growth Team plan in essence was:

1)    Simplify and streamline our offering in the market;

2)    Implement best practices marketing;

3)    Use sales analytics to identify, segment, and target customers.

I did not pretend to be a long-time marketing or sales director, rather I ask the right questions and work with partners to figure out the answers together. This approach served me well at RiskSpan.

Working with business line leaders, I first helped RiskSpan clarify and simplify our offerings by combining categories and emphasizing unique advantages of our business and software solutions. We reframed our product offering on our messaging, collateral, and website to improve its attractiveness.

Equipped with our streamlined offering, I turned to marketing. RiskSpan had a part-time marketing person also was tasked with supporting HR, administration, and many duties around the office. While this professional had a can-do attitude, their time was so divided they were not able to focus on the marketing function nor innovation.

Marketing is a quantifiable endeavor, and it is possible to quickly implement and measure best practices. I proposed that RiskSpan begin investing in creation of public-facing pieces to educate customers. I also advocated that RiskSpan participate actively in conferences, staying engaged on social media websites and on industry sites, and selectively employing paid media to targeted customers. If customers then desired more information, they could become inbound opportunities for the company. To implement this marketing plan, I was able to hire Riskspan’s first full-time marketing coordinator who could quickly develop the company’s best practices.

A modern sales analytics process in which RiskSpan would transition from dependence on individual salespeople’s relationship-based sales to an efficient and transparent customer relationship management was a major part of my plan. I hired a business analytics associate who gathered the sales contacts from the individual salespeople, categorized them, and worked with a consultant build our new system. I then guided our team to train RiskSpan on the new process, so the company increased visibility on contacts. Importantly, this new system categorized and segmented customers for improved targeting by the sales staff. I also supervised building our forecasting of opportunity flow, so that we could have visibility in the pipeline for project staffing and better execution, which would delight our customers and help feed back to the sales funnel.

Individually, each of these three parts of the Growth Plan was an exciting development, and together they helped RiskSpan double our website/social media hits and double our opportunity pipeline in less than a year—over $20 million in new opportunities. RiskSpan has continued to double down: to professionalize its go-to-market strategy, hire quality experienced marketing and business development staff, and maintain activity in the thought leadership, social media, and earned media space. My organizational innovation and successful implementation increased sales, reduced risky dependence on relationship sales, and have enabled RiskSpan’s continued growth.