Prospect Management, A New Way To Increase Profitability

During my career, I have always faced head-on the business challenge of achieving revenue targets. I understand that the best way to do this is to build high-performing teams that deliver exceptional client relationships through Marketing, Sales and Relationship Management.

Four years ago I was Chief Marketing Officer at Princeton Financial Systems (a unit of State Street) where I was responsible for a diverse team of professionals delivering back office technology to the financial services industry. In Marketing, I had the unenviable task of building a new team while maintaining our aggressive financial goals. From my experience, I knew the benefits of a team whose value increases from the talents and skills of different professionals.

One thing at a time: the immediate business challenge centered on achieving revenue targets. I had a small team of accomplished business executives who I was confident could, if presented with a buyer, win more than our fair share of business. The challenge, therefore, was how could I find enough qualified buyers? Our sales cycle was long and process oriented which lead me to focus on one component of the business; Marketing and filling the top of the sales funnel with qualified leads. I knew that the more opportunities we created and put in process, the better chance we would have to close new business.

My universe of large asset managers and insurance companies consisted of only a few hundred firms. In each firm, there were only a few key decision makers, who could initiate the buying process.

Our competitors were undertaking traditional methods of 'Marketing' which included; digital campaigns, conferences, smile and dial lead generation, advertising, media coverage and awards, etc. These activities are expensive and require large teams to implement. Despite this investment, they still missed business and were viewed as ‘vendors’ and not ‘trusted partners’ by the very people they were hoping to impress.

I decided to move away from these traditional methods and create opportunities in a new and innovative way. I wanted Princeton Financial positioned as a strategic partner with prospects and clients. At the same time, I wanted to ensure that we would be well placed to win business ahead of our competition.

Throughout a long career I had witnessed, despite all the efforts, significant numbers of women leave the financial sector: the demands of balancing parenting and career ambitions/responsibilities being just too high. As a keen supporter of diverse teams, I wondered if I could harness the talents and experience of these women, enabling them to continue careers and help me to maximize my business opportunities.

At this time, I became aware of a unique and innovative business, E2W, who were employing women returning to the workforce. With a thorough understanding of the financial markets and a well-proven process, E2W had already developed a solution to my challenge. Called ‘Prospect Management,' this service is delivered through the talent pool that I wanted to support, I partnered with them.

Princeton Financial flourished with the support of my E2W team, and we beat our sales targets by 34% in 2013, delivering a record sales year in the history of the company.

How did E2W make the difference? Their professionals invested the time needed to understand our business and our prospects and clients' businesses as well. The proven approach of calling on senior executives made all the difference in the world for our marketing and sales efforts. Summed up it was and is E2W's people and process that make the difference for their clients.

In 2015, I took up my current role as Chief Marketing Officer at Scivantage. One of my first decisions was to re-engage with E2W. In the first six months, I have reduced my unit’s expenses by over 50%, and have built a $40 million pipeline - and we are just getting started!

My best, Chris