Having succeeded in word-of-mouth marketing for 17 years, working with a Be the Business advisory board helped Wonky Films founder Vicky Brophy to start building a new sales strategy.
We’ll be following her journey with The Productivity Programme for six months and will keep this page updated with her progress.
Vicky’s journey with Be the Business began when she sought mentoring for help with sales. She worked with her mentor for six months and heard from him about the advisory board opportunity.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh’ because that had gone so nicely and now this would be the next level. So, I got in touch quite early on, off the back of having such a positive mentor,” Vicki explained.
The first stage of the process was two calls with specialists, who helped Vicky identify the issues she was facing and match her with the right board members.
“Just having to write a brief was really helpful because it made me think, ‘What am I doing? What do I need help with? What is the really important stuff here?’ So, that was a really good process to go through, to make it make sense and share it with others,” she recalled.
Starting work with the board
Vicky said the best part about working with her board so far is that “they’re really actively rooting for you”:
“Even the notes they took were amazing, and they’d obviously spent time on it because they hadn’t just written down what we said, it was all structured. It was almost like they had taken everything in my head and made sense of it for me!”
Vicky said she would recommend an advisory board to anyone who needs some focus on their business plans.
“If you’ve got a problem, Be the Business has got the problem solvers, and they will help you on your journey to make sure you keep focused on that,” she added.
A new sales strategy
Having gone to the board for sales advice originally, Vicky said she has come away with a plan to step up her efforts.
“I’m thinking differently about marketing and sales, and rather than asking ‘here’s what we do, do you want it?’, it’s ‘here’s how I can answer your pain point’. Just focusing on the way to engage people’s minds rather than just saying what I do.”
Vicky’s board also helped her to see the power of referrals to reduce the time she needs to spend finding leads on LinkedIn.
“I’m now going to start actively, at the end of every client project, asking who their colleagues are, and if they can recommend anyone to us. Or if someone leaves a job, ask who my new contact will be.”
Since her first meeting, Vicky has prepared some thoughts on Wonky Films’ website to present to her board, after they all recommended she focus on improving it.
“It’s really top-line, it doesn’t look great, but the meat is there to ask if I’m on the right track, if the content’s in the right order if I’ve missed anything,” she explained.
Stepping up marketing efforts
Following her second board meeting, Vicky has been deliberately making time to focus on the business improvements she discussed with the advisory board. She has updated Wonky’s website and collected case studies from clients, which her Be the Business mentor has been helping with.
“She was just a fresh pair of eyes and said that I needed one line to pull out from a case study to show the difference we made. Her background is in science, and it makes life good in a way because they’re looking at things from a general perspective which clients would see it from, as opposed to someone like myself who’s in animation and takes a lot of things for granted”, Vicky explained.
This insight from her mentor led to Vicky think about how she talks about the Wonky brand.
“We need to talk more like an advertising agency than a studio, and position ourselves and what we’re achieving against competitors, and know what people are looking for. We’ve now put ‘established 2006’ in our branding to show to people we’ve got that longevity,” she said.
Learning to prioritise
Vicky reflected that the biggest takeaway from the Productivity Programme so far has been learning to prioritise her time and focus on things that really matter to drive the business forward.
“I’m realising now I need to get results from clients more, making sure I get testimonials and who else I could get in touch with there and then while it’s fresh,” she said.
The advisory board has also given structure to Vicky’s business improvement plans, and given her the drive she needed to stick to them.
“I treat the board like clients because I respect their time and their input and it would be rude not to give them stuff to feed back on. So I’m maximising the time I have with them because I can’t get the most out of them if I’m not doing things to help myself,” she explained.
Putting expertise into practice
Having concluded working with the board, Vicky reflected that while progress has been a “slow burn”, she has put good practices in place on the board’s advice and is starting to see results.
“I’ve been putting good practices into place and working differently in the week, so I might spend a morning doing emails and more time being active on LinkedIn. Turning planning into action, basically,” she explained.
Vicky also highlighted that since refining her processes, her team is more involved in decision-making. “There are enough of them now to sit down as a group to think strategically, and get their fresh ideas on what I’ve come up with and what we’re doing,” she said.
Following the board’s advice, Wonky’s marketing push is well underway, too. “I’ve been speaking to new leads and develop new branding for the packs I send to clients about what we do. This is based on the content that’s come out of the discussions with the board,” Vicky said.
“I’ve got my case studies in place, and I’m using Mailchimp which I wasn’t doing before. I get to see the data on my newsletters and figure out what’s working, so I know how to best spend my time. Which I was kind of doing anyway, but now it’s on paper instead of just in my head.”
New-found sales confidence
Vicky reflected that the most valuable input she got from the board was her newly perfected sales strategy.
“They really helped me to refine how I speak to potential leads, position the business and explain why we’re different. The programme confirmed for me that networking is the best way of doing business and that conducting market and competitor research is something to be doing constantly, not just once when you start up,” she explained.
“The input about how we talk about ourselves has been helpful across everything – in person, online and on social media. It’s having that fresh pair of eyes to see what you can’t because you’re in it day to day.”
Becoming a mentor
Having concluded her time on the Productivity Programme, Vicky has signed up to be a mentor with Be the Business.
“I thought the board did so great, and thought I’d love to have a go and give back. I’ve been able to take what I learned as a mentee of the board and apply it to being a mentor, like being proactive with planning check-ins and giving them tasks to do in between. A lot of the information I’ve been sharing with my mentees is advice I got from the board,” she said.
Vicky concluded, “I’ve learned that you don’t need to be super experienced at everything to have something really valuable to give. It’s given me confidence that I have enough knowledge and experience to pass on. It’s such a great initiative, I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Vicky has completed Be the Business’s The Productivity Programme.
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