Gina Catalano has been helping business owners grow their companies for over 20 years. She is a prolific speaker and author, and as the founder of Venture Solutions US. She works as a strategist and fractional COO for her client organizations. Together, they take their businesses to the next level of profitability and sustainability.
Business Challenges
Catalano was looking for a way to consistently find new clients. Most of her work came from referrals, but she wanted a consistent marketing funnel. Ideally, she’d leverage a system that would include valuable marketing material that helped establish her presence as a thought leader in the small business owner space.
She was also looking for a software solution that would allow her to stay top-of-mind with her leads. With some of them too busy to commit to immediate consulting, Catalano needed to keep them interested until they were ready to build the value of their organizations.
Catalano’s overarching goal is to help business owners find freedom from the day-to-day operations of their companies. To do that, she needed a platform that would enable her clients to imagine their business running without them. She needed the tools and technology to make it happen.
Why The Value Builder System™?
Catalano originally embraced The Value Builder System™ as a support for her speaking work but quickly discovered various ways to integrate it into her practice.
She employs several tools from The Value Builder System™: Before an event, the attendees complete the Value Builder Questionnaire. These 34 questions assess the business through the eyes of a potential buyer.
The questions provide a score based on the 8 Key Drivers of Company Value. In the presentation, she summarizes how each of the key drivers builds the value of their company. With questionnaire completion as a prerequisite, the event reinforces the concepts they’ve learned, providing them a common language to speak in follow-up conversations.
After a presentation, Catalano offers free consultations to discuss the prospects’ Value Builder Score. Their score between 1 and 100 indicates how valuable their business currently is. Between 30% and 40% of her speaking audience takes the offer. Roughly one in three of those return for paid services, in the form of a full-day strategy consultation that yields $4000 per client.
She also leverages the Freedom Workshop, a presentation template included in her subscription. Using this as a framework for her seminars, Catalano tailors the content for the audience. “I’m not really a content developer,” she says, but The Value Builder System™ offers a robust library of template presentations, videos, and eBooks she can easily modify. With a variety of content to offer, her audience quickly grew to include a local manufacturing group, wealth managers, and professional groups for women in business. “You target a certain audience,” Catalano says, “and another audience shows up.” She now speaks several times a year across the country, gaining new leads at each event.
However, “Some people aren’t ready for change,” she says. They may not have the time for an in-depth strategy session that will lead to actively growing their business. Rather than pursuing a sale, Nurture Cycle takes over. Nurture Cycle is an automated drip marketing program that sends relevant content—podcasts, workshop invitations, and new assets—on behalf of subscribers. With the ability to whitelist the content, Nurture Cycle provides a completely hands-off nurturing engine while Catalano focuses on active clients.
Recalling one business owner prospect, Mary, Catalano says, “Her company is very profitable, but she has a Value Builder Score of 40.” After two conversations, Mary disappeared, so Catalano added her to Nurture Cycle. To her surprise, Mary reached out on her own a few years after they had first talked. This was a long sales cycle—30 months in the end. The content proved to resonate. Catalano says, “She knew she wanted to work with me because of the Nurture Cycle sequence. She read all the emails—152 of them.” Finally, Mary retained Catalano’s consulting services.
Results
Catalano says that the owners she speaks to often feel stuck. They realize that now is the time to grow or sell, but they don’t know where to start. With the help of The Value Builder System™, she gives owners a framework for how to improve their businesses in a tactical and actionable way. She’s gained the perfect jumping-off point as owners contemplate their next chapter.
In The Value Builder System™, Catalano also found a prebuilt library of content to serve her advisory needs: speaking, marketing, and consulting. In addition, for owners who aren’t quite ready for advisory work, she continues to educate them and keeps her firm top of mind. With Nurture Cycle, she can free herself from day-to-day marketing while increasing billable hours and helping even more business owners reach their goals.