ML&C
Management Learning & Culture is a management development consultancy that specialises in helping large organisations to develop and apply core management skills from within. They help highly intelligent, technically qualified people who sometimes struggle with managing others.
The Challenge
Business Manager Lisa Reynolds and Sales Director Paula Tasker first encountered Sussex Innovation when they attended one of our free Sales and Marketing Bootcamp sessions in Brighton. Inspired by working with our innovation advisors, Lisa and Paula brought the whole ML&C management team in to meet with us and help create a marketing plan.
During this first diagnostic meeting, it became clear that the business was evolving, and a whole programme of work was needed to reposition ML&C’s place in the corporate training market and develop a new story for the brand.
Our Solution
Over several collaborative workshop sessions, the Sussex Innovation advisors dug into ML&C’s competitive landscape and market positioning before helping to shape their brand identity and ideal customer personas. In the final, practical phase of the project, the market research team delivered a list of prospective clients to target, wrote a set of key messages and a sales and marketing plan, and helped to map out the company’s website structure and content.
The Outcome
Working on ML&C’s brand identity helped to crystallise a central part of their value proposition – that they were about “change, not training”. This realisation helped to create a point of differentiation in a crowded training market, and informed the company’s marketing strategy of promoting how learning is applied by its clients.
“The team were great at responding to what we told them and making sure that the time we spent together was valuable. Every session got us to take a step back and think about things differently. I don’t think we realized what the business really needed until we got into it, but working with Sussex Innovation gave us that focus. It was important that we developed our understanding of who we were targeting and how, which has put us in a much better position to create effective marketing campaigns.”
“It’s made us more confident about explaining who we are in a way that grabs people’s attention and gets their imagination going. We have a different language to use with our customers, and that has helped deepen our relationships from a simple transaction where they buy a training session from us, into something more extensive and meaningful.”
What’s Next?
ML&C continue to use the market positioning they developed with Sussex Innovation in sales proposals and content marketing, helping them to differentiate from other training providers and act as a long-term partner to their customers. The team uses a common language to describe their range of services and expertise, and has more confidence about the organisations that make ideal clients and how to approach them.
The company has ambitious plans over the next two years to increase turnover and build a sustainable, replicable business model that allows their senior consultants to step back and train successors.
Are you looking for support to overhaul your brand, marketing strategy and message? Or can we help with anything else that could help grow your business, from strategic consultancy to research and insight, raising finance or creating connections to the University of Sussex? Get in touch.