Anders + Summit Merger Story
Our number one priority with the content we put out is education, not solicitation. They come to us because they like what they hear; they appreciate our style and our insights. It might not happen overnight; it might take 18 months (or more!) to convert somebody who saw us at a speaking engagement into a client. So we put out the material to help people and expand our reach. It’s a long term approach that allows us to attract and build relationships with the right kind of people. That makes our closing rate very solid, usually between 30-40%, year after year for 10 years. We get about four new clients coming to us every month—no sales call required—for an average order size of about $80,000. Our clients are essentially prequalifying themselves all the way through the process, because they know what we have to offer: our approach, our style and our expertise. Having such a strong brand, we need to be very intentional about any changes that happen because of the merger. Our audience has been following us throughout the years, so we don’t want to create any confusion about who we are now.
As we adapt our marketing strategy, we also have to reshape some parts of our message. Some of our differentiators, like being 100% distributed, are not true anymore—which means we need to come together and develop a new, cohesive marketing strategy that reflects the state of things as they are today. One action we’ve taken is hiring a branding agency to help us come up with a direction that works for the entire leadership. Lindsay Suelmann, my Anders counterpart, and I went through a lengthy process to make this decision, interviewing five agen- cies, which we narrowed down to two for final interviews with Jody, Dave and Robert. We went through several rounds with those two finalists before making our selection. Having put that kind of effort in, we all feel really good about trusting them to bring us a direction we can all get behind. In the past few months working with Lindsay, we’ve seen our marketing teams connect, build trust, and learn to work together. It will be exciting to see how we can bring Summit’s digital marketing approach and personality to Anders.
Our closing rate is very solid: between 30-40%, year after year for 10 years. 4 %
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