For searchers, roll-ups and the investors behind them
You
got
the
keys.
Now
give
the company
one
story.
The first 100 days after you close decide what everyone says about the company. I get your team, your customers, your board and every company you add saying the same thing, land a few wins the board can see, and keep it on course until the next buyer hears a growth story worth paying for.
You close, and you inherit a website, a sales team and a way of describing the business that somebody else built. A lot of these companies are good at selling and not very good at marketing, because the founder was the marketing. If you bought more than one, each company still has its own site, its own campaigns, its own customer list and its own idea of what a good lead is. Customers hear five versions. So do the people you're trying to hire.
If you're a first-time CEO, there's a board watching how fast you get your arms around it, and marketing is usually the part nobody trained you for. If you're the investor, you're watching the value creation plan and wondering why the story at the next board meeting sounds different from the last one.
None of that fixes itself. Every month the companies tell different stories, you pay for marketing that points nowhere, and you hand the next buyer a harder company to understand. You paid a real multiple for this business, and the only way to earn it back is to grow it faster.
The first 100 days after an acquisition,
then one direction for good.
I own the sentence and the relationship on every company. My team builds the work around it.
Listen to everyone who matters
I talk to you, your leadership team, your best customers and your board, and I read everything the company and its competitors have put out. Then we decide what to keep, what to drop and what the company says next.
One direction across every company
One sentence your customers would repeat, the message behind it, and a plan for where the marketing money goes. We land two or three quick wins the board can see, and name who owns growth. If you own several companies, each gets its version of the same story.
Keep it on course
Month to month, my team and I keep the direction alive: a weekly call, a plan every quarter and every year, reporting in the same terms as your value creation plan, and the ads, content and campaigns run the same way across the portfolio. It runs without you having to chase it.
“We had endless activity and work being put into efforts headed in multiple directions. Bethany helped us streamline our efforts into one clarified and unified direction, and it paid off in dividends, and continues to.”
Solutions Group
Today Solutions Group's whole leadership team says the same thing. They have two new brands, a CEO with a published book, and more than 5,000 subscribers on their channel.
What the work has won
in new business won by pitches I wrote and delivered, including one deal over $1M
in new business in my first year at the next agency
an agency's top line after four years of me leading new business, up from $15M
I won these while I led new business at agencies. They're on my resume under my name.
How I work with a fund
Start with one company. When it works, we do the next one, and you end up with one person who knows your whole portfolio.
Right after close
The first 100 days for a new owner, so the company has one story before the old one sets in again.
Every company you add
Each add-on gets folded into the same direction, so customers and recruits hear one company, not five.
The raise or the exit
When it's time to raise or sell, the growth story is already there, backed by results, and the pitch and the deck are built on it.
Month to month
My team runs the work across the portfolio, and I keep every company pointed the same way.
Questions searchers and investors ask
When should we bring you in?
The company already has a marketing person or an agency.
We bought a few companies. Do they need to become one brand?
What will the board see by day 100?
Will you rebrand everything?
Who do you work with, the fund or the company?
How does this help when we sell?
You bought it to grow it.
Give it one story and watch it move.
Tell me what you bought and what's going on, and we'll go from there. If you'd rather write first: bethanyecranfield@gmail.com