Leading Results

When we work as the VP of Marketing for your company, services are offered via a monthly retainer program. Our basic program is extremely affordable and includes twenty hours of time per month with a minimum three-month commitment. Unused time carries over month to month.  After an initial consultation, we will happily provide you with a price quote over the telephone.

In our first meeting with you as a client, we will develop the allocation of monthly time to the services you require. If you want or need more services that can be accommodated in the twenty-hour allotment, monthly blocks of time can be added in five-hour increments.

The services listed below are examples of those that our clients implement with our support. Any or all can be included as part of the monthly service.

Marketing Plan Development

Strategy before Tactics is the key – Marketing plan development begins with an understanding of your corporate goals including long term plan (3+ years), annual plan and sales goals and your desired end-state as to how you want the marketplace of customers, prospects and competitors to view you. We’ll work with you as needed to define/refine those goals in a way that a marketing plan to meet the goals can be developed within a budget you can afford.

Lead Generation Marketing Planning and Execution

Lead generation is the fuel for the sales engine.  Effective lead generation in today’s business climate comes from creating inbound inquiries from a reliable triad – paid marketing, public relations and referrals.

Paid Marketing - We will work with you to develop strategies and implement two-step programs that get prospects to raise their hands and ask for your expertise.  After designing the program(s), we’ll work with you to find the right vendors to execute your program and we’ll manage the process to ensure it goes off on time and in budget.

Public Relations - Making the local business community and your prospective customers aware of your firm and your services through active community engagement and outreach creates a solid foundation for your marketing and sales efforts. Leading Results will work with you and your designated agency or staff to develop a public relations program to support your successes and if desired, work with you and your team to develop thought leadership and involvement in local or industry specific communities of interest. Projecting your image and knowledge through public speaking engagements is also a key way to generate interest in your products and services and we will work with your team in identifying the right opportunities and in crafting the message for delivery.

Referrals - Your installed base of loyal customers should be a key source of ongoing, low cost revenue generation and referrals into new opportunities. From customer satisfaction surveys and user groups, to cross sell programs and new product introductions, we’ll help you create and manage the ongoing communication and revenue producing programs that keep existing customers engaged, satisfied and profitable.  And when your customers are raving fans of your business, they are far more likely to refer you to new opportunities.

Corporate Awareness & Image

We will work with you in the development of your corporate image collateral – brochures, customer testimonials and and success stories.  Your marketing kit should tell the story of your business and your customer’s success and we’ll collaborate to make that happen.

Web Presence Management

Your website is the new front door to your business. We will work with you and your web team to ensure that it meets the purpose and goal of introducing your business and your competitive advantages to the marketplace.

We’ll review and edit content both initially and on a regular basis, and if you want us to, we’ll even manage the team/vendor and the process of keeping the site updated with regular content revision. And since a web site is of no use if no one sees it, we’ll manage the search engine optimization process through a vendor with appropriate expertise.

Social Networking Presence

If your website is the business’s front door, social network sites are the house party inside. We’ll help you strategize on the right way to use these sites to enhance your business and then work with you and your staff to support any effort to build presence on sites like myVenturePad, LinkedIN and/or Facebook.

If blogging is something that your or your executive team thinks is beneficial, we can support that as well; helping each individual find their voice and creative consciousness. And if it makes sense to communicate your messages via twitter, we can help there too.

Sales Pipeline Reviews
Sales are what results from good marketing. A review of the sales pipeline is critical to understanding how your marketing messages are being received and absorbed by your prospective customers.

We will participate in periodic reviews of your prospects and sales cycles with your sales teams to get a better understanding of the market realities they face on a daily basis. As needed, we will also conduct win-loss reviews on past sales cycles to gather learning to better build your strategies and programs going forward.

Corporate Positioning Development
How you position your company sets the tone for your marketing approach and the communications that represent your identity in the marketplace. Your corporate values and vision support this identity. We will work with you to define and hone your corporate voice so that your sales team, service staff and marketing messages present a unified approach in your message to customers and prospects alike.

Management of MDF/CO-OP Marketing Account(s)
Money is a foolish thing to waste. Many businesses waste hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars (euros) each year by letting MDF and co-op marketing funds expire. Or if they don’t expire, they use the funds for items that don’t drive demonstrable return on investment. Leading Results will help you manage your available funds, from all your vendors. We ensure that you don’t let funds expire and that you are taking advantage of the most beneficial aspects of a program at the least amount of budget impact. Many times the work we will do with you in this area alone can save you enough to pay for our services throughout the year.

Sales Coaching
The staff at Leading Results is available for coaching with your staff on sales related issues. We can work with you on regular sales pipeline reviews and quarterly business reviews or work periodically on specific deals as an external voice for deal strategy and negotiation.

Sales Consulting
As you refine and develop your sales team, we can work with your sales management team to develop forecasting terminology and methodology so that you have a consistent communication process and clearer picture of what your projected business success will look like.

Motivating your team to accomplish the right goals is also a key to sales productivity and success. At Leading Results, our staff has also developed numerous different sales incentive and compensation programs that drive desired results and we can provide an experienced and outside voice to the process.

Finally if it is sales training that your team needs, whether basic skills or an advanced tune-up, our staff, or one of our trusted vendor partners can help you get your field sales or telemarketing team to the next level

(Sales consulting services are generally a one-time use services and are handled as a separate fee-for-services engagement)

Channel/Distribution Strategy and Program Design
Do you have a product or IP that you want to package into a product and take to market? Or does your vendor offer multi-level partner or referral programs you want to leverage? If so, our team has deep experience and expertise in developing channel programs as well as other routes to market.

We will work you and your team to develop the programs and metrics to drive revenue, hire the specialized staff needed for success in managing partners, and even develop the marketing programs and value measures needed to attract the right kind of partners to sell your products.

New Hire Interview Team Participation
Are your new hires a resounding success or are there some employees that you wished you had never hired? Hiring mistakes are some of the most costly ones that a business makes. The risk of litigation in firing employees only compounds the problem.

We can provide an outside voice to your interview and hiring process – providing an objective opinion to a candidates strengths and weaknesses – and allowing you to make better decisions of who to bring on and who to pass over.