Your cash flow is only as dependable as your pipeline. | Agency Sales Pipeline Improvement Case Study

How many times have you looked at your pipeline and felt like you had the rest of the year “set” — yet 2 months later, you have a cashflow crisis. And, that cycle keeps repeating itself.

What if you could actually reverse this cycle and make it DEPENDABLE cash flow that allows you to EMPOWER your pipeline? What if your pipeline dictated a constant thread of prospects that converted regularly into dependable cash flow so monthly (and annual) expectations were met. That is confident forecasting.

Anchor Advisors consulted with Jayne Agency to:

1. move from cash flow crisis to a dependable, reliable pipeline
2. enable the agency owner to mindfully integrate new clients that matched the team’s mission
3. develop a plan to confirm relationship fit with existing clients, then plan mindfully to remove unhealthy revenue in a confident and responsible manner.

That is pipeline power and you too can have that with a little hope, a little help and a LOT of discipline.

The challenge:

It’s a familiar challenge in the small business space – especially for talent based owners. After years of appropriately investing in promising yet disappointing business development resources, and making a conscious decision to no longer participate in government contracts as a prime vendor, Jayne Agency wanted to rebuild a pipeline that supported their mission based vision and provided for healthy revenue that met goals.

With a strong background in lead generation, Brooke led the team through powerful business development cycles. These cycles resulted in a very full, highly active networking schedule and task based pipeline which became unruly. Without the skills and “top of funnel” discipline to vet, qualify, “keep or kill”, the team at Jayne Agency was at risk of the pipeline driving the agency into insurmountable debt regardless of the clients on their roster.

Solution:

Brad Farris at Anchor Advisors captured the core values and audited the brand position of the agency. With a resounding positive check on both, he addressed the sales cycle and top of funnel activities. Like most creative talent, those two critical components were non-existent. While the technical strategic and delivery skills (a unique approach to revenue driven storytelling) of the agency were recognized as high quality, the ability to protect the agency from unhealthy clients and elusive prospects needed to be strengthened. Anchor Advisors intervened to provided 5 CRITICAL revenue changing operations:

1. A full workshop that provided a unifying lexicon and “sales think” for the team
2. Restored Jayne Agency and Jayne’s endearing leadership swagger based on best-in-class, award winning work
3. Re-instituted the agency’s philosophy that it was “not the right fit for everyone” as a deflection technique designed to protect the agency from those just looking to explore or waste valuable resources
4. Created a plan for removing unhealthy revenue by intentionally replacing it with healthy revenue in a 30/60/90 day plan
5. Instituted a first responders “Qualifying” que – if a client couldn’t answer four key questions in the first 30 minutes of conversation, the agency did not pursue further dialog. This preserved critical agency resources and eventually empowered the agency owner to move out of proposal development, scoping and negotiating, allowing other talent to step up and shine.

Results:

Anchor Advisors helped a small, women owned, boutique business create stable revenue in all aspects

1. Networking to signature time has decreased from 180 days to 45 days
2. Close rate has reversed from 20% in 2017 to 89% starting the DAY OF the Lexicon and Alignment Workshop
3. Reduced time to replace unhealthy revenue clients from 12 months to 1 month
4. Collections are at 0 days past due, a prideful alignment between client and team

“Growth is never easy. Brad Farris stripped years of bad sales advice, entangled client relationships, harmful policy or lack thereof, and an unruly pipeline away, and in it’s place is now a confident, growing pipeline that keeps converting into work that our team is proud to serve and nurture” – Brooke Foley, Jayne Agency, CEO

If you want to learn more about the process that Jayne Agency experienced join us on April 27th for a free webinar: “Winning Clients without Proposals”