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The Evolution of Evolution  |  Bridging to Mission Success  |  Ownesboro Medical Health System  |  Mind Over Machines
 

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The Evolution of Evolution

Evolution (www.goevolution.com) engaged Smith Growth Partners to develop a Marketing Action Plan to plot the course toward increased revenue growth.  During the first phase of the engagement it became evident that a cultural change within the company was necessary to support its growth goals.  A culture of accountability whereby everyone in the company bore some responsibility toward top-line growth and bottom-line operational efficiency and thus higher profitability had to be created.  In a sense, the first real breakthrough in the planning process was that. Though Evolution had engaged SGP for “marketing”, the primary case at hand (and the one that would bring the most immediate benefit) was all about sales.

SGP proposed that with full partner buy-in and an “all hands on deck” attitude toward corporate growth, Evolution would be in a position to self-fund the marketing initiatives it would need to create the breakthrough results it sought.  The team stepped up and those that didn’t stepped off without much ado.

With the partners and a few key employees leading the way on sales, the question became, what’s going to drive the highest valuation on the business—the product or managed services?  And the answer was unequivocally managed services, because of the recurring revenue built into the managed services model.  And where were the buyers (in this case the business owners) on the technology adoption curve?  Evolution is a company of early adopters of technology.  They love the bleeding edge of technology and sell the leading edge of IT to their systems integration clients, but what about business owners they’d never sold directly?

We did a lot of analysis and some hypothesizing on this subject, because if we were too early with a managed services offering we’d be wasting precious marketing dollars, and if we held off too long on going loud with it we’d risk being seen as a late entrant; moreover we’d be entering the market post-adoption and at a point where managed services had already been commoditized.  So in short the question was, “are business owners ready for this yet?”

We agreed that they were.  The technology had been around long enough, business owners had been through several cycles of hiring and firing IT people and IT support providers, and a secure, domestic, outsourced IT model seemed ripe.  In tech adoption curve terms we felt like the offering was coming off of the leading edge and heading toward full market adoption by pragmatic buyers.

How to go to market and under what name?  The Evolution name has long been associated with systems integration work, which has a completely different audience and the bulk of the company’s revenue was being derived from system integration, which we didn’t want to put at risk by diluting Evolution’s offering.  After half a trash can of balled-up paper and more than a few trips to the Web to see what URLs were available, we came up with GoBeyond IT (www.gobeyondit.com).

SGP’s role, beyond the initial planning phases and naming the company, was to develop the site map, keywords and content; select and oversee the Web design company; and develop the promotion strategies.  Along the way we found ourselves involved in event planning oversight and direct lead generation.  Today SGP continues to serve the company in an advisory capacity…and GoBeyond IT is well positioned to have a seven-figure 2nd year in business.

To find out more go online and learn about GoBeyond IT – and if you’re frustrated with your current IT provider and want a stable fixed monthly cost, GoBeyond IT !

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