The Client
Draper Hinks is a business brokerage for accountants, where they facilitate the buying and selling of accountancy practices. The business has brokered over 450 deals since its inception 20 years ago. They deal only with accountants in practice.
Draper Hinks has significant specialist knowledge of the marketplace and offers a great deal of support to anyone who is looking to sell or buy accountancy fees. They provide accountants with access to a broker that can advise and help them to make the right decisions at the right time, saving them from potentially making costly mistakes.
The Challenge
Nicola Draper, Managing Director of Draper Hinks, knew Lindsay of Lindsay Woodward Marketing for several years, as they were both members of the Rugby Independent Business Network.
Having read Lindsay’s book on marketing, Nicola was impressed by Lindsay’s depth of knowledge on the subject, so Nicola enquired as to how Lindsay might be able to help Draper Hinks improve its marketing efforts.
While Draper Hinks was already very proactive with its marketing, there had never been a professionally developed plan, so Lindsay suggested that this could be a good place to start.
The Solution
Nicola took advantage of the Small Business Strategies package that Lindsay Woodward Marketing offers, to enable smaller businesses with more limited budgets to be able to get access to professional marketing support.
The first step was for us to send Nicola a questionnaire to complete, providing us with a wealth of information about the business and its market. From here we plotted a strategy and plan aimed at meeting Draper Hinks’ key marketing objectives.
We were able to share with Draper Hinks a range of ideas, some of which just tweaked their existing activity to potentially boost results, others of which were completely fresh ways that Draper Hinks could market itself.
When the plan was agreed, we then worked closely with Draper Hinks to support them to roll out some of the elements of the plan. We also trained up some of the team on LinkedIn marketing, meaning that Draper Hinks could manage its own marketing moving forward.
The Result
Nicola was very pleased with the results and how closely Lindsay Woodward Marketing had worked with herself and her team.
Nicola said: “I loved filling out the questionnaire. It forced me to take the time to think about my own business and the market we were in, which is always a good thing to do.
“When Lindsay presented the plan to us, she had so many ideas, some of which we’d never thought about before. It was great, because we could choose what was right for us, and Lindsay really listened to our needs and our thoughts.
“Lindsay worked with us in the way that was right for us, and she was very helpful training up one of the team on how to get the best out of LinkedIn. Lindsay really knows what she’s doing. As a business owner it is sometimes difficult to find someone who really understands your business, and that enabled us to have meaningful discussions about opportunities and potential yet untapped. I would highly recommend Lindsay Woodward Marketing to anyone looking for any sort of marketing support.”
