Case Studies
Selected Case Studies For Custom Access To ExecuNet’s Executive Network For Business Results
Business Service Provider Looking To Cultivate New Channel Of Customers
Business Challenge:
A 25-year old company that provides business services to consulting and other service firms was looking to create awareness for their unique service offerings with consultants and develop “hand-raisers” for their services.
ExecuNet Solution:
Working directly with the client’s CEO and marketing team, we collaborated on a series of online webinars to be delivered by their CEO on “how to be successful in consulting”. He’s now done four webinars with more scheduled in the upcoming months. Each has been publicized to our audience of over 300,000+ executive members and our large LinkedIn Group (“ExecuNet’s Executive Suite”) and attracted between 1,350 and 2,200 executives to each webinar who are interested in his insights and expertise.
Business Results/ROI:
Although our Webinars are explicitly designed to be learning not sales focused, each has generated hundreds of “hand raisers” interested in learning more about how they can work with our partner. To date, the close rate conversion on these prospects has far exceeded expectations and we’re now in discussion about expanding the partnership to include additional webinars and a “Destination Page” on ExecuNet’s website to showcase our partner and regularly attract prospects. Our client also has uncovered a new market for themselves in executives transitioning into consulting and setting up new firms.
CEO Who Wanted To Leverage His Upcoming Book and Help His Company Penetrate a New Market
Business Challenge:
The CEO of a boutique leadership development consulting, training and coaching company, that specialized with Fortune 200 CEOs, was looking to expand his practice into mid-size companies. He was the author of four books on leadership and was about to have his fifth book published. His goal and our challenge was to have this book make it on to The New York Times Best Seller List
(something he had not accomplished with his first four books) and attract a customer segment that he wanted to penetrate.
ExecuNet Solution:
Working collaboratively, we put together a comprehensive plan to introduce our partner and his research and “thought leadership” to our membership and particularly to executives in mid-sized companies. We conducted a Q&A session facilitated by ExecuNet’s CMO–that was followed by two webinars discussing the research behind the book, its findings and the implications for leaders—which we promoted to over 100,000 executives in mid-sized companies. As we got closer to book launch, ExecuNet put 4,000 copies of the book in the hands of its members stimulating sales.
Business Results/ROI:
We stimulated great “momentum” for his book launch and are happy to report that his book landed at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller List to the delight of our client and all of us at ExecuNet. Through interaction with our members in mid-sized companies he gained understanding for his product launch into that customer segment.
CEO Advisory Firm Looking To Advance Its Company Growth Agenda
Business Challenge:
A leading CEO peer advisory firm needed help increasing the number of facilitators who run their local CEO groups. Their business model was predicated on finding new facilitators who would then build up the paid membership of their groups resulting in an ongoing revenue stream for both the facilitator and headquarters. Each new facilitator was worth upwards of $90-100K to the peer advisory firm.
ExecuNet Solution:
Because ExecuNet is an executive network with 25 years of experience building executive connections with a large number of CEO members, we were the perfect partner to help them find new facilitators. We outreached to our membership using our exclusive executive job board to publicize their needs and assigned Concierge Consultants to individually and personally target hundreds of potential candidates per week directly. Most recently, our Partner began piloting and finding success sponsoring some of our 30+ face-to-face ExecuNet Connections Meetings around the country—giving them greater brand awareness and getting them personal and more direct contact with CEOs and other senior-level executives.
Business Results/ROI:
We’re told by our client that our ability to target qualified and talented CEOs and facilitators far exceeds the results received through other networks and channels and their cost/qualified prospect is running at about half of the cost of any other source they use. We are particularly happy that their success is running considerably ahead of the ambitious goals that we agreed to in our partnership. In addition, initial results from their sponsoring of our local face-to-face Connections Meetings is bearing immediate and even better results—getting directly in front of their target audience is important. We are now expanding our partnership to include finding CEO members for their peer groups around the country.
Service Provider Overcame A Negative Brand Perception Creating Uunderstanding For Their Services
Business Challenge:
A business advisory service provider, who specialized in helping business leaders find franchise businesses to buy, needed to overcome perceptions that executives had about what franchises were and what opportunities they represented. Many executives would say they were not interested in “purchasing a franchise” because of brand perceptions and deferred exploring options.
ExecuNet Solution:
We helped the service provider develop a series of educational webinars to explain how to explore options for buying your own business, personally taking control of your career and creating financially rewarding opportunities for retirement by owning your own business. Franchises were introduced as an opportunity. A unique “hand-raiser” option was included so interested parties could follow-up with our partner. We then developed case studies and audio interviews with successful executives who had bought franchises. Custom targeted outreach into our membership by our Concierge Consultants was employed to generate even more prospects and we created a website destination page for how to buy a business which was used to enable members to explore more deeply on their own what the “franchise opportunity” represented. The service provider also became a sponsor of some of our local face-to-face ExecuNet Executive Connections Meetings to enable more personal interaction with our members which is propelling prospect development and sales.
Business Results/ROI:
The integrated solution we created for this service provider enabled them to sell over 20 franchises in the first year and generate over $300,000+ in sales in their first year. Their success has us offering a “category exclusive” sponsorship to maintain the benefits of access to our exclusive group of executives.
Leadership Expert Wanted To Generate C-Level Interest In Leadership Event
Business Challenge:
A leadership expert, who is a part-time Fox Business TV consultant, was rolling out a series of two-day workshops and seminars, focused on bringing 20 executives at a time together for an intensive leadership “boot camp” learning experience. At the time, this expert was having trouble generating a reliable source of senior executive attendees for his programs which cost $8K to attend. Intrigued by our unique network solely for CEOs and other senior-level executives and our Leadership Exchange platform, this expert approached us for help.
ExecuNet Solution:
We suggested that this expert become a contributor of “thought leadership” articles to our Leadership Exchange site so he could share some of his knowledge and regularly get in front of our membership and become known within our community. We also proposed a series of online webinars so members could get to know him more personally and he could have more personal interaction with our members. He knew from experience that personal interaction often lead to higher quality prospects for his programs.
Business Results/ROI:
This expert was ecstatic about the flow of interested prospects we generated for him. We helped him sell out his most recent leadership “boot camp” and established a flow of qualified prospects for future events.
Educational Institution Wanted To Break Through “Market Noise” To Tell Brand Story And Attract Decision-Makers
Business Challenge:
An executive education program for a major university wanted to accelerate their entrance into e-learning on the executive level. They were introducing a new business and wanted to target executives in the US and internationally and drive them to their new website and services.
ExecuNet Solution:
We proposed a customer multi-pronged approach for their unique needs. We established them as a sponsor of our Leadership Exchange and prominently promoted them as a contributor and partner on our website. We established a series of webinars for them to share their expertise with our members and build greater awareness for their new service offerings and website. We promoted these webinars to our membership, our large LinkedIn group, called the “Executive Suite”, and promoted them through our “twitter sphere” reaching over 1 million executives.
Business Results/ROI:
We attracted over 1,000 executives to attend their webinars and inspired a little under 100 CEOs and executives to request more information about the program, including application information, for a program ranging in cost from $12-15K.
Expert Who Wanted To Do Research With CEOs To Define Attitudes And Trends
Business Challenge:
One of America’s workplace productivity experts wanted to quickly reach CEOs to define their attitudes toward and identify emerging trends and needs for organizations in the area of workplace productivity for an upcoming book.
ExecuNet Solution:
We designed a series of online webinars to introduce the expert to our community. We will follow with some surveys to be done by participants to gain additional insights.
Business Results/ROI:
Our Initial webinar demonstrated our ability to attract and reach the expert’s desired audience and provide a platform for interaction and learning. The expert commented: “I really enjoyed it and wish we could have had more time for questions…people asked such good ones. …looking forward to next steps”.
Author—Who Wanted Publicity For His Current And Upcoming Book
Business Challenge:
A well-known author who writes about how companies create cultures and business strategies for success was not getting the support from his publisher to promote his current book he would have liked.
ExecuNet Solution:
We promoted him and his book to over 300,000 executives as part of creating an online webinar where he could be interviewed, could share his “thought leadership” with our members, and could dialogue with our members more personally and intimately. We attracted over 1,500 executives to the event for an exclusive webinar event and provided a unique way to create “hand-raisers” interested in further interaction. The program is now archived as a “Classic” and continues to generate additional interest.
Business Results/ROI:
The author was blown away by the reach and interaction we created. He could not measure book sales but commented: “This presentation approach is unparalleled…really enjoyed the webinar and very pleased with the feedback. We’d love to work with you again. Will be in touch …to plan webinars for the launch of my next book.”
