Repositioning a business around its strengths

The CEO of a $35 million steel manufacturer was losing market share in an increasingly commoditized and pricedriven industry. The Cornucopia Group worked through a strategic planning process to reengineer the company's offerings. Realizing that the strongest customers valued the around the company's products, The Cornucopia Group repositioned the business around its people, expertise and knowledge.

Restoring profitability to a struggling division

With a languishing division becoming a financial burden, the CEO of a $15 million dollar, family-owned IT and Internet business turned to The Cornucopia Group for help. The Cornucopia Group designed a new sales process, then reorganized the division's entire marketing and selling functions to map into that process. As a result, each sales person went from an average of two to three sales appointments per week to three to five appointments per day. In just 17 months, the division restored its profitability with a more than 100 percent increase in sales.

Clarifying the CEO's vision

The CEO of a $40 million software company needed help redesigning and engineering its product offerings and promise. The Cornucopia Group positioned the company through CEO Vision Marketing, developing product messaging and a product planning template to support marketing functions. At the end of a seven-month engagement, the company's top management team shared clarity and direction on communicating the CEO's vision to its sales and marketing managers.

Creating a new stream of income

With half of his company's business coming from colleges and universities, the CEO of a 50-year-old architectural firm was looking for a way to connect with college presidents before they presented RFPs and master plans. The Cornucopia Group helped the firm create a consulting program to engage newly-hired college presidents by helping them understand the strengths and weaknesses of their facilities. This program generated a new consulting stream of income for the firm, and led to the acquisition of building projects totaling $42 million.

Increasing qualified lead generation

The CEO of a $3 million IT network consulting firm wanted to increase qualified lead generation by gaining control over its best customers and the promises made to them. The Cornucopia Group helped them understand what their top customers really valued through an educational process that included training workshops with top management teams. The company emerged with physical documents defining the right customers and their lifetime value. With that in mind, The Cornucopia Group reengineered the company's communications to create new ways to engage prospects. The sales pipeline increased by 25 percent and generated 150 opportunities in 90 days.

Diagnosing a sales problem and fixing it

A sudden rapid sales decline shocked and confused the president and CEO of a $12 million videoconferencing business. The Cornucopia Group conducted a study that identified the problems and defined the route causes of the sales decrease. Working with the president and CEO, The Cornucopia Group implemented action plans to immediately stop the bleeding and allow the company to regain stability. The Cornucopia Group also created a 15- month turnaround plan to get the company back on track.

Expanding market reach

The CEO of a $1 million custom metal fabricator wanted to take his business to the national market. The Cornucopia Group worked with him to develop a strategy that sold to architectural firms nationally, instead of directly to end customers. By offering free consulting services to the architects, the company would then be considered for manufacturing contracts with those firms. The company now works with 60 percent of its local customer base and has opened up four new national markets. Due to five times as many qualified inquiries and three times as many appointments than before the program, sales have increased 75 percent over 16 months.

Improving the sales pipeline with measurable results

The CEO of a $15 million packaging manufacturer wanted to regain control of his company's sales process, which had stopped cold calling and prospecting and slipped to relying on word of mouth. After building a rationale for the lifetime value of customers, The Cornucopia Group reengineered the sales process to allow the sales team to focus on engaging and closing new customers, instead of identification and qualification. Six months into the project, the CEO Vision Marketing Client has increased the opportunity pipeline by 300 percent. In addition, the CEO can now measure every dollar put into marketing, which before was a black box.

Reaching the target market to increase sales

A $5 million medical consulting firm, in business for 15 years, had hit a ceiling, remaining at the same top line for four years in a row. Its CEO needed to find a way to increase sales. The Cornucopia Group, discovering the company had been reaching less than 1 percent of its target market, designed a sales process for relationship acquisition that targeted 3,500 hospital CFOs. Now, the company regularly communicates with more than half of its market, leading to requests for interactive studies by more than 10 percent of its potential customers. The company expects sales to increase by nearly 50 percent in the next 15 months.

Fulfilling the promise of a nonprofit organization

When the CEO of a 600-employee nonprofit wanted to define its target audience and build a promise that matched his vision, he turned to The Cornucopia Group. Through the CEO Vision Marketing process, the CEO learned his $15 million organization could only offer two of the three major components in his vision. In order to fulfill his vision, the organization merged with another $12 million nonprofit. During and after the merger, The Cornucopia Group worked with the CEO, CFO and COO as another member of the management team to ensure that the new combined organization maintained the integrity of its promise and product offerings.

Eliminating misalignments between the company and its customers

The CEO of a $15 million professional services group asked The Cornucopia Group to help his company articulate its selling arguments. The Cornucopia Group organized the company's product offerings and defined its promise. After three months, the CEO could clearly communicate the a rguments to his marketing and sales groups and had eliminated misalignments between the prospect, the promise and the company's ability to fulfill.

Connecting with a target audience

After acquiring less than 8 percent of its potential customer base over 18 years, the CEO of a $22 million custom chemical manufacturer was searching for unique ways to reach new customers. His company's marketing had focused on trade journal advertising, assuming the publications would reach the target demographic. The Cornucopia Group showed the CEO how his company could develop relationships by publishing its own magazine. The CEO and The Cornucopia Group worked together to create a custom publication targeting chemical engineers and to control editorial content to align with the company's offerings. With a circulation of 9,000, the magazine helped the company nearly triple its customers, growing from 3,000 to 11,000 in less than 18 months.

Developing strong relationships with new customers

The CEO of a $17 million forklift distributor needed to obtain a more predictable flow of selling opportunities for his business. The Cornucopia Group created a business intelligence program that offered a free equipment analysis to qualified customers. The company sent technicians to visit the customers and diagnose their equipment inventory, and then was able to offer its products whenever equipment needed to be replaced. The program led to many appointments, strong new relationships and six-figure contracts.

The Next Step

To schedule your free Map it Now Session, please contact The Cornucopia Group by calling 412-325-040 or by sending your request via email to info@cornucopiagroup.com.