Challenge
As Action Duct grew, the owner, Dan Stradford, hired a dedicated sales person and quickly expanded the sales force as business grew. When the team’s sales efforts failed to produce the desired revenue and turnover increased on his sales team, Dan felt a formal sales training program was necessary to address growing market needs. He turned to CMTC to help address this need. Since then, continuous strategic discussions and collaborative efforts between Action Duct and CMTC have led to a series of human resources, sales, business strategy and digital marketing engagements.
Solution
Based on the initial discussion with Action Duct, in January of 2019, CMTC developed a scope of work for a Hiring, Onboarding, and Training Project to help Action Duct develop a structured, strategic process and tools to power new-hire and selling success. The approach included recruitment consulting, assessment and selection of a psychometric/personality testing tool to help screen potential employees, and harassment avoidance training for all Action Duct employees. This project led to the hiring of a Service Manager, stronger hiring practices, and a stronger company culture. Once the hiring practices were formalized and new employees started coming onboard, Action Duct and CMTC once again discussed the need for training to help drive stronger sales results across the team, thus the Sales Training project was initiated. Through this project, CMTC and Action Duct developed templates and tools for both employee onboarding and sales training which are still used by the company today for both new hires and ongoing instruction.
In December of 2019, Action Duct needed to grow inbound quality leads to their website, and again turned to CMTC to conduct a digital marketing audit. This audit identified key opportunities to help Action Duct increase quality leads; and Action Duct contracted CMTC to utilize a phased approach to optimize their digital marketing based on the results of the audit. This project focused on increasing SEO and Google rankings for Action Duct’s site, with powerful results – top rankings for multiple keywords and Action Duct services.
Another opportunity was quickly recognized – create new content to promote specific services and reformat the website to further increase targeted website traffic and customer acquisition for all Action Duct locations. Action Duct once again contracted CMTC to provide assistance with this endeavor.
Action Duct’s Director of Sales & Marketing, Jessica Rivas, recalls when the impact of CMTC’s marketing assistance dramatically took flight, “From Sunday night to Monday morning, we received 92 leads from our website. We thought it was a mistake, but it wasn’t!”
Since then, Action Duct has continued to engage CMTC for ongoing strategic guidance, website expansion, social media advertising, Google Ads and other marketing channels, driving growth and ROI.
CMTC’s HR consulting services have strengthened Action Duct’s internal HR knowledge base and skillset. The suite of services provided by CMTC have resulted in increased sales through improved sales skills, more and better quality internet leads, and a stronger company culture due to formalized onboarding tools and practices.
The HR and sales training work, and the subsequent digital marketing guidance provided by CMTC, built a great foundation as Action Duct enters the exciting next phase of their business – franchising!
Impact
Sales Marketing Director Jessica Rivas estimates a 65% increase in high-quality internet leads from the very comprehensive, collaborative, and strategic approach to the company’s digital marketing efforts.
The comprehensive nature of the work CMTC has done with Action Duct has resulted in astounding benefits including an estimated $500,000 increase in sales and $500,000 in retained sales. Action Duct attributes some of their job retention to CMTC’s marketing, training and human resources consulting services, and forecasts job increases over the next several months. Finally, Action Duct estimates cost avoidance and cost savings of $250,000 based on CMTC’s contributions.
“From Sunday night to Monday morning, we received 92 leads from our website. We thought it was a mistake, but it wasn’t!”
— Jessica Rivas, Director of Sales & Marketing
