Brown+Partners

Founded in 1999, Brown+Partners was a well-established print procurement services company with an excellent reputation and strong sales presence in the greater Philadelphia area. They offered a broad array of services including direct mail, commercial printing, promotional products and e-commerce solutions.

Summary

While growing and profitable, Brown+Partners knew a sale was on the horizon and two issues were risking the future value of the company. Most critically, the marketing and sales process relied almost exclusively on the referral network of the owner. And as an unintended consequence of that, they were overly reliant on a few key customers. We helped the company build a sales infrastructure that was no longer dependent on one person to deliver results. And in doing so, we were able to achieve a much more diversified customer base thus greatly improving the multiple they eventually realized at sale.  

Results

Enhanced User Experience

Results
Doubled top-line revenue
Results
Broke the $20M revenue barrier
Results
Successfully sold for a top quartile multiple to a multi-national strategic buyer
Results
Negotiated an earn-out for the owners with significant upside (that has now been realized)

How we got there...

Sales

Challenge

The CEO was the sole person responsible for generating leads and closing sales .

Solution

Built out a four-person sales team complete with training, scripts, powerful collateral, commission structure, revenue goals and monthly performance reviews.

Results

Growth rates became steadier month-over-month and significant revenue hurdles were overcome.

Culture

Challenge

The staff was used to the CEO leading the charge and posting the ‘big numbers’.

Solution


Implemented revenue accountability metrics for every member of the team: Marketing, Sales, Service Delivery, Client Services.

Results


Brought clarity and focus to the revenue goal and each team member began to pull their weight, excited to post their own ‘big number’; upsells and revenue expansion became the norm.

Operations

Challenge

Operations areas lacked formalized policies and procedures resulting in poor communication across departments, inefficiencies that resulted in unnecessary expense and missed deadlines.

Solution

Streamlined and documented all procedures;
formalized roles and responsibilities for each staff member to include measurable goals. 

Results

With individual goals now clearly tied to corporate goals and a clear understanding of job expectations, morale improved as did net margins.

“When we met Limitless, sales had plateaued and we were unsure of the path forward. Their methods quickly resulted in a profitable growth trajectory. A short time later, we experienced a successful and lucrative sale to a large public company.
Michael and Beth Brown, Founders

Main Takeaways

Acquirers reward companies that are not overly reliant on the owners, have solid steady growth rates and improving margins. 

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