“Chief Outsiders confirmed our market choice and gave us the tools to effectively penetrate that segment and establish ourselves as a market leader. Our company now is infinitely scalable and way more valuable to shareholders and the community.”
Les Trachtman, Managing Director, Purview
Purview helps healthcare providers securely organize, share, and access remote medical records for diagnosis or treatment. Seeking to unlock growth by appealing to enterprise clients but challenged with the required transformation, leadership engaged Chief Outsiders Fractional CMO, Jennifer Apy to accelerate the process. Instituting best practices, prioritizing activities, and refining the brand to increase competitiveness, Apy partnered with leadership through the six-month transformation and confirmed her permanent replacement. Purview now enjoys market leadership, with ARR up 33% YoY.
Background
A Red Ocean
A healthcare software company that seeks to connect more people to better care, Purview helps providers securely organize, share, and access remote medical records for diagnosis or treatment. Looking to unlock growth, Purview’s leadership recently began an effort to appeal to larger enterprise clients.
“We knew that we could not continue solely in the market we were pursuing because it couldn't be scaled,” related Les Trachtman, Managing Director. “It was a red ocean and getting worse. We needed to identify a new segment. Otherwise, we were relegated for a long time to being one of many.”
Transformation Required
Previously focused with its SaaS product on a small transaction size, Purview faced significant challenges in pursuing larger enterprise sales. “It required that we deal with a completely different marketing and sales cycle and a different type of individual in the enterprise,” explained Trachtman.
“So, everything we did had to be transformed,” he continued. “We were starting to make progress into that market, but we hadn't done a systematic transformation. And we were swimming upstream.”
Connecting with Chief Outsiders
Fortunately, a CEO colleague suggested that Trachtman work with Chief Outsiders. “We obviously had a need,” he related. “So, I followed up and had several discussions with Chief Outsiders (including several candidates) and made the decision to move forward.”
“Jennifer Apy was our first choice,” he continued. “With both big and small company experience, she was the most entrepreneurially oriented. So, we engaged her when she became available.”
Knowing that he needed to revise Purview’s messaging and approach to be more enterprise-like, Trachtman’s goals for the engagement were to have at the end of 6 months:
- Line of sight into the things we were not thinking about but should
- A strategy, process, and staffing model in place for an effective go-to-market effort
- More targeted/better quality leads to focus our efforts more effectively
- A better GTM story to tell in raising capital
- An overall upgraded presence worthy of the enterprise market
At the time, Purview’s non-strategic marketing effort consisted primarily of tactical marketing activities.
Growth Strategy
On-Site and Remote
About one year ago, Apy came on site at the beginning of the engagement, handling everything else remotely. She met with Trachtman and interfaced with other executives weekly, conducting ad hoc check-ins using video conferencing and Slack.
“We were in constant communication through the engagement,” related Trachtman. “We were lucky to have started with a face-to-face. After that, we were as efficient as you could be in the relationship and what we accomplished.”
Problems Identified
Trachtman identified several problems to be addressed, including:
- Not enough marketing automation to cost-effectively follow up on leads.
- Erratic content marketing efforts were not delivering a sustainable pipeline of inbound marketing leads.
- The need to evaluate the existing team and determine if Purview had the right skillsets and processes to maximize its sales potential.
- The need to better understand the overall plan to create a self-sustaining marketing/sales engine and clear and consistent execution on that plan.
Working Hard and Productively
According to Trachtman, Apy works hard. “She was always there when we needed her,” he explained. “She was on top of things before we even noticed. She drove us hard, and we were all marching to the schedule that she set.”
“That works for us,” he continued. “And it works for me, because I’ve got a lot of other things that I could be doing. But with somebody looking over my shoulder, I would have to get it done. She was very good about that, which made us all very productive.”
Effective Go-to-Market Strategy
Apy and the Purview team developed a way of thinking about the product line that helped marketing understand the goals they were driving toward and the amount and type of investment in content vs sales touch. They also created structure for communicating competitive differentiation for each product within its category and target segment.
Working to establish a more effective go-to-market strategy before migrating to the leadership of a new CMO, Apy also infused best practices and prioritized the role of each program in the marketing mix, including:
- SEO
- Content Development
- Email Nurturing/Marketing
- Client Referrals and Expansion
- Website and Funnel Metrics
- Lead Scoring
- List Building
- Lead Gen Forecasts
- Google Analytics and HubSpot Data Analysis
She also translated product offering, product benefits, and competitive differentiation into the brand story and copy approach to the website.
- Planned out event series with panelists from key customers and prospects.
- Mentored leadership through the changes and transitions.
- Provided referrals to open doors and bring in needed capabilities for the team.
“Jen's a consummate professional who understands the marketplace and the marketing function, both from an analytical and an aesthetic point of view,” reported Trachtman. “The quality of her work was extremely high.”
Results
Market Leader and Accelerating with ARR Up 33%
Less than 12 months from the beginning of the engagement, Purview is reaping real benefits from its work with Chief Outsiders. “Effectively, we’ve already become the market leader in our targeted niche market,” confirmed Trachtman.
“Jen helped us bring the entire organization through a transformation and refocus our business in the way we think and in our go-to-market strategy,” he continued. “We've gained a ton of momentum in the enterprise segment and it's accelerating!”
Trachtman acknowledged that sales are up as a result. “ARR is up 33% year over year,” he reported. “Our pipeline has never been bigger, and we've closed on two major logos in the enterprise space since Jen completed the engagement.”
Moving Forward Independently
After the engagement concluded, Trachtman evaluated and replaced his tactical Marketing Director with a Chief Marketing Officer. Apy interviewed and confirmed his selected candidate. The move fulfilled the Chief Outsiders promise of short-term assistance to generate long-term growth.
“Chief Outsiders provided the right level of talent (CMO) at the right price (fractional) at the right time (while we figured out what we needed to do and before we were ready to hire a full-time CMO),” he confirmed.
“They turned out to be a more important resource than I expected,” he continued. “We got a hard worker who helped us establish a new value proposition. There is a lot of need for what Chief Outsiders does.”
Transformation Complete
“We got what we paid for, if not more,” Trachtman volunteered. “I was very skeptical of hiring an outsider to do this intimate task and I was pleasantly surprised. Jen uniquely ingratiated herself with the team. She might as well have been an employee.”
“She was generous with her time and her industry contacts, and it was a great relationship. She will end up being a trusted friend forever.”
“We were heading in this direction, we just didn't know how to get out of our own way,” he concluded. “Jen cleared the congestion, plotted a new course, aligned the employees, and gave us the first few steps. And now we're following that path… a remarkable transformation.”
/cmo-Jen-Apy.jpg?width=400&height=400&name=cmo-Jen-Apy.jpg)