Extra Mile Media
The Challenge
Extra Mile Media is the owner of a small radio station group in a highly competitive marketplace. Deregulation of the industry has left it facing large corporate giants and changing media habits have challenged its role in the marketplace. Increasing regulatory and payroll expenses and decreasing revenue left them deeply in debt, threatening their existence and the livelihood of its talented, committed team.
Our Intervention
We worked with Extra Mile Media to reposition their stations in the marketplace. This involved strategically refocusing all their efforts around their core audience and rebranding their on-air product. It also involved developing greater local presence in the community and creating media products to augment commercial radio sales. We also helped them build a world-class sales team of men and women who knew how to sell in a resistant market and equipped this team to achieve significant sales increases year over year.
Results
Extra Mile Media is thriving today in spite of the recent economic downturn. The sales team is in excess of 110% of their goals for the year after two record years of sales and significant progress has been made to retire their debt. Ratings have risen from the bottom of the charts to consistent placement on the top three in their format’s demographic. Alternative media products continue to be well-received in the marketplace and team spirit among the employees continues to be strong.
Bill improved the health of our company by designing a sales process and tracking system to project our income and protect us from unanticipated shortfalls. Bill has also improved the effectiveness of our sales team through one-on-one coaching, team motivation, and specific skills training to capitalize on new opportunities and significantly grow our business
Randy Davison
President
Extra Mile Media
Underground Sound
The Challenge
Underground Sound is a wireless communications company with breakthrough technology that places them years ahead of their competition. The founder of the company, a pioneer of this technology, was the head of production, research and development, sales, and about everything else in the organization. Annual revenue was stuck at $5 million with potential for ten times that amount. Growth had plateaued, however, because the business had reached the limits of the personal capacity of its founder.
Our Intervention
We worked with Underground Sound in several ways. First, they needed a world-class sales team to represent them in the marketplace. One person could not do this on his own, no matter how smart and talented. We put a measurable sales process in place and recruited, hired, and trained to it, building a national sales force from the ground up. We then deployed them to the most responsive markets in the United Staes. Secondly, we helped the founder build a strong executive team he could trust. We facilitated weekly planning meetings with that team and quarterly off-site strategy sessions, positioning the company for future growth.
Results
This was not easy work. Changes came hard and slow at first, but ultimately sales took off and production rates soared. The company launched a second division and doubled its physical footprint. The founder began to let go of responsibilities little by little and also began to enjoy his business, and his life. A succession plan has been put in place for the company and CEO candidate is being groomed to lead it into the next generation.
Digital Web Design
The Challenge
Digital Design is a small, but extremely talented, web development firm. The principals, gifted artists, programmers, and writers, were struggling to earn enough money make ends meet. They gained jobs by being the lowest bidder on the project, but often that wasn’t low enough. The work they did was often unfulfilling, and clients were frequently slow to pay. They didn’t want to disband their firm and work for a larger company, but couldn’t see a way to make enough money from a industry that had become increasingly commoditized.
Our Intervention
We worked with Digital Design to help them understand the uniqueness of their brand and the actual business value they brought to the marketplace. We helped them create a customer profile to determine exactly who to pursue work from and who to say no to, and began getting them in front of these customers on a regular basis. We also taught them how to create value-driven proposals based on a project’s return on investment, not competing price points.
Results
Digital Design struggled at first with some of the changes we proposed. Seeing themselves as artists and programmers, not sales people, made some of our solutions seem ill-fitting. But slowly they began to find their own voice around the principles presented to them. They started gaining access to larger companies and asking for greater dollar amounts, amounts that used to make them gasp in fear. As of this date Digital Design has doubled its annual revenue, opened a second office, and are enjoying the fulfillment of their dream.
MOM Media, LLC
The Challenge:
MOM Media had a successful, community-based magazine for busy moms and their families. As a local publication it was a critically-acclaimed, high quality glossy that enjoyed modest commercial success. The leadership at the company, however, was convinced they could do more. They believed the publication could be launched in other communities, leveraging the same content in each edition with local customization and expanded revenue.
Our Intervention
We worked with MOM Media in several ways. We helped create the business model, “the box” as we came to call it, that could be scalable in others markets and identified best fit locations for the magazine to expand into. We developed a step-by-step sales process to enter these market and be profitable in six months or less. We helped recruit, hire, and onboard editors and account executives for each of their new markets and put in place an executive team to direct the business, instead of having everything rely solely on its founder.
Results
MOM Magazine expanded their locations rapidly and tripled annual revenue. They added an online presence to their printed publication and began to attract national and regional advertisers. All of this during a recession during which newspapers and magazines were closing their doors. Finally, the women MOM Media hired rave about their work, begin fully engaged in it. They have a job that pays them well doing something they love, helping other moms.
Leading Age Oregon
The Challenge
Leading Age is a statewide not-for-profit agency that meets the needs of seniors in the state of Oregon and the organizations who serve them. The rapidly aging population, both locally and nationally, has created a personnel crisis in the field with vastly more needs than there are people to meet them. To address this crisis, Leading Age decided to start a leadership development program to identify and train the brightest and best emerging leaders and, through these leaders, attract the brightest and the best into the industry.
Our Intervention
Together with Leading Age Oregon we created a customized curriculum for high potential leaders in the field of aging services. Candidates applied for the program based on the recommendation of peers and supervisors and participated in a rigorous, year-long leadership development program. This involved assessment of their leadership skills, extensive interviews of other leaders in the field, participation in site visits, completion of a project, and one-on-one coaching delivered by our team. Throughout the year the group met, both formally and informally, holding each other accountable for specific outcomes and building life-long relationships.
Results
The leadership mentoring program is now in its third year with application rates at full capacity every year. The graduates of the program feel a sense of pride and camaraderie in completing the rigorous curriculum and the projects each person pursued have brought inestimable value to aging services. Leading Age Oregon is the first state in the nation to develop their own local program like this and are contacted regularly by other states on how to accomplish the same.