Board Support for Businesses Serious About Growth

We've found that many SME businesses don't tend to have formal board meetings.  The reasons for this can be a lack of time or simply that directors feel they know what's going from informal catch ups.  We've found that many companies we've worked with have benefited from a regular, structured review of the company's performance - otherwise known as a board meeting.  Wellmeadow can provide an experienced chairperson to help facilitate the meeting on your behalf.

We can help coach your top team to help them prepare and provide the right reports for your board meetings.  If you're having a board meeting, then there is a legal duty on you to record all the decisions that were made.  These typically take the form of board minutes.  When Wellmeadow chair a board meeting, we take the minutes live in the meeting.  Often we will project them onto a screen so that all attendees can see what is being recorded.  At the end of the meeting, the minutes are sent to all attendees.

Nobody wants to sit through ineffective meetings.  We use our proprietary software to help track actions and hold the board to account.  We are an action-focussed business by nature.  Our team are on hand to help you "get stuff done" whether that is building a cashflow for investment, drafting a presentation, or helping to coach your senior team.  Our skills are versatile.  The depth and breadth of our experience allows us to input into a wide range of scenarios that growing businesses face.

Having worked with over 100 SME companies over the past 10 years, we have a wealth of experience to draw on.  Having an external advisor or non-executive on the team can help give you new perspectives.  This provides a route into your business for fresh thinking and ideas.  Many of our clients value the insights we are able to bring from other industries.  Having been around  a bit, we're able to bring these insights in a discrete manner without compromising on confidentiality. 

We want to start by making sure that we have a good understanding of your vision and growth strategy. 

For vision setting we use the Collins-Porras method. This focuses on Values, Purpose, Big Hairy Arse Goals (BHAGs), and a Vivid Description of the future.

Strategy involves getting a really honest diagnostic of where things are today. This could include looking at the technology you use, the team, the culture, the systems, etc. From this diagnosis, we can then help map out a route (e.g. develop people, introduce new technology like HubSpot, make an acquisition) to move you towards your future goals.

It's important that we do this as it will inform much of the other growth work that we help you do.  

A core part of any growth strategy is understanding who your customers are and where your growth is going to come from.

There are a number of ways we help achieve this:

• Market analysis

• Competitor analysis

• Deep customer insights including things like mapping the buyer journey, building buyer personas

• Content audits

• Content strategy

• Marketing messages

• Brand evaluation

All these things help to paint a picture of the competition and customers in any existing or target markets.

Any growth strategy has to be tempered with a degree of realism relating to the resources available to the business.

A growing company needs to identify the financial resources it may need for capital purchases, working capital,  debt/equity options, etc.

It also need to focus on the people who will help make the growth a reality. Things like recruitment, training and development, retention strategies, all need to be considered.

The right technology needs to be in place to help scale the business. As HubSpot partners we naturally gravitate to this platform as a solution for managing customer data, sales & marketing, customer service and increasingly operations.

A business also needs the right systems in place to help it grow.

Wellmeadow can advise on all of these areas and help bring in additional resources to help catalyse your growth strategy.

A growth strategy involves experimenting, learning, and adapting.  Most often, things don't quite go to plan or new, unforeseen opportunities arise.  You need to have the tools, metrics, and monitoring process in place to help you make good decisions, quickly.

We use tools such as HubSpot, Databox, Hunter, SEMrush plus a load of others, to make sure the information you need is available.  We constantly review this data (with you) to make sure we can monitor what's happening with your growth activities.

Part of our process is to agree goals and KPIs with you at the start of the process. We can then benchmark performance against these metrics. 

Our monthly board support can also help ensure a regular cadence of reviews happens. We help keep the focus on the future whilst monitoring the present.

There's a load of different approaches to coming up with a vision.  Over the years we've used a few but have settled on the Collins-Porras model.  We use this framework to help you define you values and purpose. These are the elements that make up your organisational DNA.  We then look at your BHAGS (Big, hairy audacious goals) and help you paint a picture of what the future looks like when the BHAG is achieved.

Whether it's a traditional SWOT analysis or looking at "where to play and how to win", we can help you define your strategy.  This isn't about going through the motions or ticking boxes.  We want to help you get deep insights so that you're able to diagnose "what's going on around here?".  With an understanding of your current situation, we can help you identify how to build a path to your envisioned future.

Forget the 200-page report that gathers dust in a drawer.  We help companies build strategic plans that are based in reality, with robust guiding principles, and coherent action plans. From the strategy workshop we'll have an indication of "what's going on around here". We then help you define the guiding principles - the values or rules that will direct your decision making.  We then help you formulate a coherent action plan.  This action plan is designed to be reviewed in a monthly board meeting to help keep things on track.  We can also help with financial modelling and  business planning, to help make the strategic plan as robust as possible.

Having gone to all the effort to create a vision and design the strategy (and strategic plan), it needs to be communicated.  You might be envisaging a poster on the wall with the company values on. We'd only recommend doing that if you're actually living the values. There are loads of different ways we can help you communicate your messages to employees, investors, banks, etc.  We use our creative team to produce videos, animations, podcasts, or even posters (if you really want them!). We help you craft the messages so that the tone and delivery are right for your business.

A fractional CMO can significantly enhance an SME's brand awareness by crafting and executing a bespoke, data-driven marketing strategy. Leveraging deep expertise, they identify the unique value proposition of a business. They identify target customer segments, deploying targeted campaigns across optimal channels to raise the businesses profile. They can work with your internal team to optimise SEO, engage in social media marketing, and utilise content marketing, to elevate your business' visibility and reputation. 

By identifying the target customer segments, buyer personas, and analysing what happens a each stage of the buyers' journey, a fractional CMO can help develop a content strategy.

Wellmeadow uses it's Growth Generator framework to help businesses identify where it should focus its lead generation activities.

A fractional CMO can help a business oversee this aspect of RevOps analysis. They will quickly analyse the data to identify opportunities to optimise lead generation activities.  

Taking a data-driven approach combined with creative insights, a fractional CMO can help you get more "bang for your buck".

This could be through working with ads specialists to ensure CPC rates are optimised. Additionally, working with web developers and marketing to manage landing page designs, they will oversee the drive to optimise conversion rates.

A fractional CMO will often get involved from a  strategic viewpoint on how marketing and sales should work together.

Listening to the sales team to get insights into customer behaviour, pain points, and new product ideas are things that a CMO gets involved with.

A business will grow if it can win customers and keep them.  Developing customer retention policies, procedures, and initiatives is where a fractional CMO can help add value.

Things such as client advisory boards, customer interviews, and CRM analysis can all be utilised by a CMO to get insights into your customers' experiences. These can be feed back into marketing and sales teams to help drive future growth.

A CMO can help you measure and monitor your marketing effectiveness. 

Measure such as ROI, lifetime customer value, cost of acquisition, channel effectiveness measures are all important metrics to understand.

The CMO can help bring these metrics into board discussion and offer suggestions for where investment should be made with respect to marketing activities.  

An outsourced sales director brings a wealth of knowledge and experience accumulated from working across various industries and markets. For an SME, this means having access to proven strategies and insights that can be pivotal in navigating competitive landscapes. This expertise enables the development of a robust sales strategy that aligns with the company's goals, identifies new market opportunities, and avoids common pitfalls. Essentially, it's like having a shortcut to best practices and innovative approaches that might otherwise take years to discover and implement.

Hiring a full-time sales director involves significant financial commitments, including salary, benefits, and potential training costs. For SMEs, where budget efficiency is crucial, outsourcing offers a way to gain high-level sales leadership without the full-time expense. This arrangement allows businesses to invest more in other critical areas such as product development, marketing, and customer service. Moreover, it provides the flexibility to scale sales efforts up or down based on market conditions and business needs, ensuring that spending on sales leadership is always aligned with current business priorities.

Being external to the business, an outsourced sales director can offer an unbiased view of the business's sales processes, strategies, and team performance. This objectivity helps in identifying issues that internal stakeholders may overlook due to familiarity or inherent biases. They can introduce fresh ideas and innovative sales tactics that have been successful elsewhere, which can invigorate stale strategies and propel the business forward. This fresh perspective can be invaluable in challenging the status quo and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation.

SMEs often need to respond swiftly to market changes to remain competitive. An outsourced sales director can quickly adapt strategies and processes to meet evolving market demands. They are adept at identifying and implementing quick wins to boost sales performance in the short term while also building and scaling sales operations to drive sustainable long-term growth. This agility allows SMEs to capitalise on opportunities faster than competitors and adjust their sales force size and strategy as the business grows or as market conditions change, without the delays associated with hiring or restructuring internal teams.

The journey begins with deep discovery. We dive into understanding your business’s core—your mission, vision, values, and the unique value proposition that sets you apart. This phase involves stakeholder interviews, market research, and competitor analysis. Our goal is to gather rich insights that form the bedrock of your brand.

Armed with insights, we craft a bespoke branding strategy. This roadmap outlines how we'll position your brand in the market, your brand personality, voice, and the emotional experience we want to evoke in your customers. This strategic framework ensures every branding element we develop is aligned and purposeful, aimed at capturing the essence of your business and resonating with your target audience.

With a strategy in place, we bring your brand to life through design. This goes beyond the logo; we develop a comprehensive visual identity system—colours, typography, imagery style—and apply it across all touchpoints. From packaging to digital experiences, we ensure consistency and distinctiveness, creating a cohesive brand experience that stands out.

The final step is to introduce your refreshed brand to the world. We support you in rolling out your new identity, from updating your digital presence to launching marketing campaigns that tell your brand story. But it doesn’t end there; we equip you with guidelines and tools to maintain brand consistency and continue building brand equity over time.