“We were a bootstrapped company that grew organically in revenue and product lines. To help us grow further, we had to think creatively, even if meant finding the executive marketing capacity outside our team.”
Doug Claffey, CEO, WorkplaceDynamics, LLC
WorkplaceDynamics, LLC, helps organizations build better workplaces by intelligently polling staff to gauge the state of their business. With the launch of a new product on the horizon, WorkplaceDynamics wanted to assemble the best marketing team it could, including an outsourced CMO. It engaged Chief Outsiders for an interim CMO to help quarterback a product launch, grow its existing business, and optimize its team for success. With the right strategic plan, people and processes in place, the company has all the right pieces in place to ignite growth moving forward.
Business Background
Glassdoor.com is no place to find out if your employees are happy or not.
And that’s why it pays to listen to what they have to say.
Enter WorkplaceDynamics, LLC, a company in Exton, Pennsylvania, that provides organizations like AAA and ING Direct the intelligence and programs needed to improve their workplace experience.
It does this by providing a turnkey survey service for organizations to gauge how their staff feel about their work environment, as well as the Top Workplaces program to recognize the best workplaces across the country.
Said Doug Claffey, CEO, WorkplaceDynamics: “Our mission is ‘Making the World a better place to work together’, and that’s what we’ve always aspired to ourselves.”
Walking the Talk
As an organization, WorkplaceDynamics is certified by B Corp Labs for meeting standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
It also works hard to help its people succeed in an information-rich world where sales no longer act as gatekeepers, and where purchasing patterns have shifted to inbound marketing.
Part of this commitment meant that the leadership team recognizing that it needed some added capacity.
Explains Claffey: “Each of our products has different marketing needs, and it was quite difficult to find someone who could tend to all marketing aspects of the business."
“We were a bootstrapped company that grew organically in revenue and product lines. To help us grow further, we had to think creatively, even if meant finding the executive marketing capacity outside our team.”
Why A Fractional CMO
That’s when it turned to Chief Outsiders for help in growth strategy consulting.
Claffey had heard of Chief Outsiders and its fractional CMO service through a meeting of Vistage Worldwide, a peer-to-peer membership organization for leaders of SMBs.
After doing their due diligence, Claffey and his COO, Dan Kessler, searched for a Chief Outsider CMO that had a strong track record with product launches in the SaaS and SMB spaces.
The search led them to a Chief Outsider CMO, a Microsoft veteran with SMB CMO experience under his belt.
Added Kessler: “This was going to be the first time we were going to partner externally at such a high level, so we really did our homework. The thing that sold us was the glowing recommendations of [the CMO's] previous clients.”
Growth Strategy
The CMO got down to brass tacks quickly. He started with investing the time to earn the trust and respect of not just the WorkplaceDynamics leadership team, but also, the rest of the staff.
Said Kessler: “[The CMO] came with all the experience and skills needed to get us ready for our launch. The only ramping up he had to do was to learn about our company and our people, and he took that on as one of his main goals early on."
“He had a way of seeing the big picture, and of pulling different parts together from product to marketing across the company.”
With his signature style, the CMO got the WorkplaceDynamics team fired up about how inbound marketing would be instrumental in the upcoming product launch.
As part of its corporate growth strategies, WorkplaceDynamics built an inbound marketing muscle centered around content marketing, testing, and metric-tracking. These include:
- Identifying customer personas for the new product
- Building out the various stages of the buyer’s journey
- Mapping the right types of compelling content for the right people, at the right time in their journey
- A more SEO-focused marketing campaign
- A discipline on tracking and measuring important KPIs and other important metrics
Growth Results
The CMO accomplished all that despite being three timezones away in Seattle.
Explains Kessler: “We prioritized experience over proximity, but frankly, we had some concerns about that at first."
“That has turned out to be a non-issue, because [the CMO] prioritizes the work he does with us and has become a true member of the leadership team. He’s there on the phone with our team when our business day starts at 8 am – you do the math! And when we need him here on-site for important meetings and events, he jumps on a plane, no questions asked.”
While one of the CMO's main goals has been to help the existing team grow and attain new skills, another important way that he helped position WorkplaceDynamics for success was by selectively bringing in other talent where necessary.
“The great thing about working with [the CMO] and Chief Outsiders is that you are not just working with a single talented person. You have an entire network of immensely talented individuals, and that in itself is one serious value proposition.”
Although it is early days yet, WorkplaceDynamics is expecting big returns in 2016.
Said Claffey: “[The CMO] has a real passion around people and developing them into a team. He has done a phenomenal job of building their trust, putting the right people in the right places and providing tactical leadership and direction to get them cracking to get things done."
“With his help, we feel like we have an engine in place where we feel we can really see serious growth in the coming year.”