Don’t Fill Up on Chips!

 This real-life case study of a professional services client of Bellajack’s is all about focusing on what you do well and not trying to be something you’re not.

Bellajack feel privileged to work with some very successful businesses.

One became a client because their success almost ruined them! In fact they were so successful at implementing one particular strategy, they very nearly went broke.

They now refer to that strategy as ‘filling up on chips’ and this is what happened.

The firm in question had a very well structured business planning process which revolved largely around an annual retreat. In previous retreats they had defined their vision as;

• To be a boutique provider of services to the high net worth market.
• To generate gross profits of better than 50% of their turnover.
• To be a business that all stakeholders love to be associated with.

All of their competitors were growing rapidly and they feared being over-run. So they built a marketing strategy to aggressively grow. And, It worked brilliantly!

So what could possibly be wrong with such success? When we analysed what they’d done we found 3 key issues;

1. Their competitor’s growth wasn’t actually a threat. These firms had made a decision to play in a different pool and so were not really competitors any more.
2. Their business did not have a set process for servicing lower end clients. Delivering champagne service for a beer budget is seldom profitable
3. They had ignored their vision in setting the marketing strategy.

The results, more low end clients and they starting to lose some of its old clients. Service levels at the top end had slipped. And all of this happened because their marketing strategy was so successful!

The solution. We modified the business planning process and included a fortnightly review meeting. So all strategies could be assessed against what they were meant to be achieving. At the first of these it was realised that their competitors’ rapid growth was actually an opportunity; if their competitors were leaving the high value market, their competitors’ clients must be feeling just as disaffected as their own were. So a change from more clients to better clients and giving those clients the attention they wanted had a massive positive impact.

The business vowed never again to ‘fill up on chips’ before the steak and lobster arrived at the table. We helped them find a buyer for the portion of their clients that were not high net worth (the chips) to a firm that was set up to service such clients profitably and they refocused their marketing to target only those who did fit their ideal client definition (the lobster and steak clients).

They also double checked that every strategy had a direct link back to at the firm’s Vision. It hasn’t made all their strategies perfect, but none have hurt the business, its brand or its reputation.