How Challenges Become Opportunities: A Conversation with Joe Grace

I recently spoke with Joe Grace, a seasoned executive and long-time CMO and partner at Chief Outsiders to discuss the transformative engagement he recently completed with a medical device company. The company, which sells directly to consumers –specifically men over 60 – had been experiencing some significant growth challenges and Joe was brought in to get them back on track. I was excited about the opportunity to talk with Joe about the engagement. It was a great representation of the positive outcomes he provides for his clients as well as the passion Joe has for the work he does as a Chief Outsider.

About the Company and Engagement

Despite a long history of growth which led to an acquisition by a private equity company, the business had started to decline more recently and was struggling to get back on track. The private equity firm contacted Chief Outsiders and expressed concern about the flow of leads being generated and frustration at not being able to get clear answers from the company about the cause of the downturn. Their main theory was that the agencies the company had been working with to generate ads had lost their way, leading to fewer leads and an increasingly higher and unacceptable cost per lead. The PE firm introduced Chief Outsiders to the CEO, and the CEO and PE-sponsor both agreed that Joe had the background, experience, and approach to help them solve this costly issue.

Identifying the Challenge

Joe’s approach to the challenge was comprehensive. He started with in-depth conversations with the partners at the private equity firm and key people at the medical device company including the CEO, the CFO, the head of IT, and several marketing leads to understand their pain points, and their business goals. He also conducted a deep dive into the agencies the company was using and the programs they were running. As part of his analysis, Joe identified and reviewed available reporting from the company as well as from outside resources. Through these discussions, he discovered that there were multiple opinions as to what was working/not working and disagreement about the best approaches to making corrections. Furthermore, while there were multiple reports available, they were confusing and did little to provide direction into the courses of action that would lead to better results. This led him to conclude that they needed to start with deeper insights into the business and come up with ways to get better reporting to identify where the issues were.

Uncovering Insights

Joe’s analysis of the entire customer journey revealed that the real problem was not just generating leads but also losing leads along the way. The company’s process was to funnel leads to a call center, and Joe’s analysis found that in addition to lead flow issues, the company was also doing a poor job handling the leads that were being generated in the call center. He further pinpointed the breakdowns in the process and highlighted both inadequate call center training and staffing/scheduling problems as major issues. His analysis found that there were unexpected periods in the day when nobody was manning the phones but were still generating interest from prospective customers. As a result, they were losing many calls –and potential customers – upfront, which impacted the entire business. His analysis showed that with modest improvements at each touchpoint, the company could double the size of its business in three years – even before increasing lead flow.

Implementing Changes

Joe worked with multiple people in the organization as a team to resolve these issues. They began by talking to their media buyers and working on optimizing campaigns. They also worked on improving the call center and making sure there was plenty of phone coverage. After-hours calls were redirected to an outside call center, which improved operations and lead capture. Joe worked diligently with outside and inside groups to ensure the best people were directed to the best opportunities, and the tools used to convert prospects were in place. Working with the management team, he implemented several process changes designed to make the upfront ad process and conversion activities more efficient and effective. He even worked with outside medical device reps to improve their performance in bringing in new sales.

Creating Future Opportunities

The changes implemented led to significant improvements. The company is now on track to double and potentially triple its sales in two to three years. They are very happy with the results and are very bullish about the future of the company. Based on their success, they have since made two additional acquisitions that they’ve incorporated into the business. The last thing Joe did for the company was to help find a full-time marketing lead who understood the nature of the company and the nature of marketing, someone who could bring forward the strategic foundation Joe had put in place. Because of the work that Joe had done, this person was able to hit the ground running to continue the growth trajectory that Joe started.

Lessons Learned

One of the biggest lessons Joe learned from this engagement is the importance of collaboration. He believes that it’s possible for a CMO who sees all these insights to be a bit heavy-handed and push their agenda a little too strongly. However, the best way forward is seeking the support and collaboration of everyone in the team and stressing to them that these improvements are going to make their work more enjoyable and make the company more successful.

Joe’s work with this medical device company is a testament to how Chief Outsiders can make a difference for privately held medical device companies in a challenging and competitive world. Joe has since worked with several medical device companies and used the same kind of playbook. He believes that this is an area where Chief Outsiders can really make a difference for privately held medical device companies in a very challenging and competitive world. He hopes to do more of this kind of work in the future.

By Slade Kobran , Managing Partner, Midwest

Originally published on the Private Equity blog