The situation

The company is a venture capital-backed UK online security specialist operating globally. They offer a range of security solutions to SME and mid-sized businesses. In 2022, the company's growth stalled. They were not meeting their sales targets and were struggling to generate enough leads to support sales growth.

Problem

The company's sales and marketing strategy was not effective. They were not using a robust sales forecasting process, and their demand generation methods, consuming £150k pa of marketing spend, were wholly ineffective.  As a result, they were not able to predict sales accurately, and they were not generating enough sales qualified leads to meet their FY2023 forecast.

Solution

I was brought in to assess the company's sales and marketing strategy as part of a second-round investment process. The work highlighted the poor demand generation process and demonstrated how this could be remedied with the potential to leverage their underdeveloped partner channel, in tandem with other changes to the company’s sales and marketing approach.

We first implemented a robust sales forecasting process. This allowed the company to predict their sales more accurately and to make better decisions about how to allocate their resources.

We then overhauled the company's demand generation methods. With the team we created a new digital marketing strategy, and I implemented a new outsourced lead generation program. These changes helped the company to reach their target audience more effectively and to generate more leads.

The team are now focused on developing the important legal channel partnerships they have today and are actively opening new potential partnerships. The majority of the company’s larger customers engage through legal partners.

Results

The results of the changes were immediate. In the first three months after the changes were implemented, the company's sales increased by 20%. The company is now getting back on track to meet their sales targets for the year.

Learning

The case study shows how a robust sales forecasting process, and an effective demand generation strategy can help a company to grow its sales. The company in this case study was able to increase their sales by 20% in just three months by making these changes.

In future sales due diligence projects, I would recommend a detailed examination of the sales forecast and the customer success programmes. I gained valuable additional insight from this detail work once I had started to work with the team on a regular basis.