SERVICE OVERVIEW

BUILDING AND EXECUTING REALISTIC TERRITORY EXPANSION PLANS

What Is This Service?

Our Geographic Expansion service increases the likelihood that mid-size service firms will be successful in a new territory, region or even a new country. Many successful service firms have developed a few territories, or maybe a single territory. They presuppose that they can simply take the practices that they believe led to their success in existing territories and apply those to new territories. Oftentimes, the results are disappointing.

This is particularly evident when a founder started a professional service firm in a given region, grew it to a certain size, hired business development people and trained them and then turned them loose in a new territory with a set of big goals. At The Shattuck Group, we have seen this approach fail or under-perform numerous times.

Our Geographic Expansion service fixes this and other problems. We develop realistic, practical and executable plans that substantially increase the likelihood of success. Our plans are modeled after the strategies used by successful franchisors. We help you think through and build a plan for these critical questions:

• Who is our ideal client?
• How many ideal clients do we believe exist in this new territory?
• How many prospective ideal clients in the new territory already know our brand?
• What do we need to do to get our brand in front of these prospects?
• How do we pull prospects in the new territory into sales conversations?
• What does the competition look like in this territory?
• Will we need to unseat competitors and if so, how will we do that?
• What are the overall operating costs for us to develop the new territory?
• How much do we need to generate in revenue and profits to make this opportunity a success and in what time frames?
• How will we handle marketing for the new territory?
• How will we handle business development and sales?
• How will we handle service delivery?

Some successful mid-size service firms, especially with confident leaders who have developed other territories, underestimate the challenges of opening a new market. Sometimes it is only after they’ve spent time, money and energy and realized less than desirable returns that they come to realize that others are not able to do what they’ve done.

At The Shattuck Group, we often find that successful leaders of professional service firms, especially those who have a sales and marketing background, are unconsciously competent. They know what levers to pull to create success and assume that other people do too. They often struggle to communicate everything they’ve learned and simply do what comes naturally to them. They know how to respond to the myriad of unpredictable situations that come with a new territory.

However, very few people have those same skills. People without the skills and experience of the founder usually need a lot more support and strategic planning. Developing a new territory is akin to being an entrepreneur in a start-up. The odds are always stacked against you. Our Geographic Expansion service re-stacks the odds in your favor.

Who Needs This Service?

Professional service firms who:

• Want to open new territories and do so with a strategic plan that they feel will actually work.
• Want to develop a clear model for how to open a new office successfully so they can rinse and repeat in several new regions.
• Want to set specific metrics and timelines for success in a new territory.
• Desire to immediately fill the pipeline with prospective ideal clients in the new region.
• Need to transfer knowledge and skill from a founder or owner to people who will take responsibility to open the new office.
• Have tried to open new territories but did not achieve their desired outcomes.

To learn more about how we deliver this service, please click on Our Approach above.

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