How FM Solutions Grew 329% In 18 Months

The Process We Followed

Foundations...

The first thing we did was to educate ourselves in what they do. We sat through a learning exercise, and since we were not in their industry, we saw things in the same way that their target clients would.

We had no preconceived ideas and we took nothing for granted about their service, so we were able to uncover important messages that they believed their market already knew, when in fact they did not.

Market Intelligence...

We interviewed past clients, existing clients, and failed prospects (clients they did not convert but had tried to). From each one we learned something more about our client's abilities, the desires and fears of the market and the words they used to describe their workplace and prime needs.

Sure enough, there were opportunities to make explicit deliverables more clear, and to remove fears of operational trauma.

Competitor Intelligence...

We looked at competitors and what they were offering.  We got a picture of the positionings they seemed to adopt and they way they described their service and their ultimate results and deliverables.

We found clear gaps, or limits, to the service provision and promises of these companies.

Client Intelligence...

We explored the strengths and weaknesses of FM Solutions in workshops and analysed their process and promotional materials.

We discovered a true strength in their ability to accurately predict the cost savings they could make for their clients

USP Derivation...

The big picture we were getting looked something like this...

FM Solutions were very good at what they did. The cost-reducing formula they had developed was solid.  They'd already seen that others like them, supplying facility management as an outsourced service, were not as concerned with reducing costs and increasing efficiency as they were, perhaps, with simply assuming financial control over services and taking the headache out of managing them.

FM Solutions took that further, by improving the performance of their client's facility.

In short, they could do it better than the company that owned the facility itself, freeing that client to concentrate on their core business, PLUS enjoy savings in the process.

The financials and concepts behind this were complicated, and despite being uniquely adept at their own core business, FM Solutions didn't make a clear promise of value to their market.

Yet... and this was the clincher... they could walk into a prospect's facility and within a short time be reasonably confident that they could find savings worth well over 10% of what the prospect was spending on facility management and maintenance costs.

They were also adamant that the quality of facility services wouldn't decrease with that reduction in costs... it would increase.

In fact, the increased quality of services was integral to achieving those 10% savings.

The Big Idea...

When we explored this with them in detail, we showed them how they were actually in a position to guarantee 10% savings to their clients, thanks to the predictive accuracy of the method they had developed.

Now, a General Manager of a Club understands their industry well, but not the finer details of facility management.

However, every manager understands 10% savings on a budget that might be as high as $1million each year.

Depending on average gross profit margins, it takes a revenue increase of 3 to 10 times to make the same profit gains as those savings. And increasing revenue by $1million is much harder than saving $100,000 in costs.

Risk-minimising and creating the USP...

We went through the maths and introduced small caveats that made it safe for our client to offer their remarkable guarantee and yet keep it strong and genuine.

This is what we arrived at...

"We'll run your facilities better, for 10% less than you're spending right now, or we'll pay you that 10% ourselves"

It probably seems long.  For something meant to be on the cover of every brochure, the front of the website and on every business card... it is.

But it said more than the entire brochures and websites of their competitors.

It became a universally applicable headline, a core offer to make, and something very readily understood and valued by their prospects.

We had created a very compelling message to deliver to their market, and we made sure it was 100% deliverable. The right caveats ensured that no surprises lurked in the facility's figures to render the promise unworkable or dangerous to our client.

Marketing plan... the selling process...

We then examined the sales process and ‘derived' that there were several steps in converting a prospect for them... and several staff positions within any prospect company that had an interest in the outcome.

We developed a process of mailing and phoning, and controlling a ‘complex sale' process across multiple stakeholders within one prospect.

Then we tested the marketing... and it worked... In fact the test proved so effective we never rolled out a 'proper' campaign'.

FM Solutions grew so fast they actually put our services on hold for 5 months before they called us back in to help with consolidating their gains.

Later, we received confirmation that they'd gained 15th place in Business Review Weekly's listing of 'BRW Fast 100'... the one hundred fastest growing companies in Australia because their turnover had had grown by 329%.

A year later, they made the list again on the back of the same result.

FM Solutions - The Keys to Success

1. First and foremost, they're extremely good at what they do... this is a must: marketing is merely an effective multiplier of good value, and you cannot multiply bad value by any form of marketing and expect anything other than a bad result.

2. We learned exactly what their market wanted, and what that market wasn't getting from any other company.

3. We found a way to safely offer that market what it wanted.

4. We established a way to manage the sales process, targeting the right people, and making sure it happened how it had to.

5. We tested a way to reach and educate these targets.

6. We delivered to them a proven method they have since repeated without us.

FM Solutions' comments:

"The formula behind what we do is all our own work. But the formula for presenting us in a compelling way, turning complex material into simpler language, and managing the selling process is the work of Strategy and Action.

We would not have achieved the outstanding success we have enjoyed if we'd kept working as we had without your assistance, and I commend you to other companies unreservedly."

Paul Lee, Managing Director
FM Solutions

To enquire about the Complete Marketing Programme, contact us today.