Positioning with purpose: a strategy-led approach to sector leadership

The need

Simply Sustainable, a leading sustainability consultancy, wanted to break through the noise in their saturated sector to establish themselves as thought leaders. They came to us to sharpen their business development approach, with ambitions to accelerate revenue growth, support senior consultants, and build a thriving, engaged community around their brand. Underpinning this was the driving need to get sales and marketing working hand-in-hand to drive controlled sales.

What we did

Working as an extension of their team, we built a long-term marketing and sales plan to structure, strengthen, and scale Simply Sustainable’s business:

• Sales process and lead management (including HubSpot management): building a focused, high-quality database of decision-makers and nurturing relationships beyond the proposal cycle. As part of this, we managed and optimised HubSpot to drive better visibility and follow-up.
• Targeted email and LinkedIn campaigns: designing and delivering segmented campaigns in the UK and the Netherlands to deepen engagement, particularly in niche sectors.
• Proposal and pitch development: delivering bespoke pitch decks, running interactive training sessions, and supporting wider bid processes to strengthen conversion.
• Team wide training: running a series of tailored workshops, including ‘Ninja Networking’, designed to upskill the wider team and embed confidence.
• Thought leadership: creating and publishing a flagship annual report (which offered fresh insight and engaged over 300 prospective clients), developing and producing a podcast (‘Sustainability Insider’) and running a series of events all bringing together sustainability experts across the UK and Netherlands.
• Bid Process Handbook: designing a Bid Process Handbook to ensure long-term commercial success.
• Key Account Management (KAM): selecting accounts based on a series of financial metrics and strategic fit.   Then launching the program, providing templates and advice to help the consultants create effective, pragmatic plans, at speed.

The project also involved us liaising with their investor to ensure we were meeting their objectives for the portfolio company too.

The outcome

We significantly strengthened Simply Sustainable’s position in a competitive market through production and distribution of strategic content across a range of media, alongside well executed multichannel campaigns. Together, our efforts led to a more structured sales approach and an improvement in pipeline activity, culminating in the generation of new high-value clients.

“It’s been really enjoyable working with TBDC, and we’ve certainly learned so many fantastic things (Ninja Networking was one of the masterpieces). You’ve set us up with some great foundations; providing a clearer voice, a sharper strategy, and the tools to manage growth more effectively going forwards.”

Nicola Stopps, Chief Impact Officer & Founder