Q&A | What's the Education Connection?

For more than twenty years, Crossbridge has tackled a wide range of projects and topics for business, industry and all levels of education.

People often ask me, how can you be effective in such distinctly different environments?

That's a very good question. The short answer is this: We focus on the people and organization as well as the problem and solution.

Success Stories | 9 Reasons to Use Them

The site is being reorganized, so the Success Stories overview page has been replaced with other content.

This change doesn't negate the fact that success stories are one of the most popular and effective ways to market your business and build your brand. They’re pivotal pieces in the B2B marketing and promotion picture.

They come in all shapes and sizes and all levels of quality. Some are mere puffery. The best ones share valuable insights into how you used your products and services to solve a real-world problem for a customer.

Success Stories | NSF Projects

Sinclair Community College is one of the top two-year colleges in the US. It's achieved that status by anticipating workforce needs, responding to employer demands for workers with state-of-the-art skills, and delivering quality education options that help students achieve their career and life goals.

Sinclair has a track record of designing, developing and implementing leading-edge National Science Foundation (NSF) projects related to manufacturing, technology and supply chain educational challenges.

We've had the privilege of working closely with select Sinclair teams on a variety of nationally recognized projects, a few of which are highlighted below.


Success Stories: National Science Foundation (Crossbridge) -

Success Stories | Tech Prep & Higher Ed

While the national debate regarding American education rages on, take heart. A number of top-notch institutions are quietly going about the business of delivering meaningful, high-caliber educations to young people and adults.

Success Stories | Make Them Manageable

Every small business seems to have a backlog of success stories waiting to be documented. Some are current and reflect work completed in the past few months. Others are older, but still relevant and useful.

Why does this happen? It's human nature. The urgent of now captures our energy and attention, while yesterday's accomplishments represent the past.

If you're a typical small business owner, you're juggling multiple priorities that include staying on top of current projects and products, meeting with prospects and customers, making sales, putting out fires, and managing all the other details that go into running the business.

Success Story | Lean for the Machine

A recent post used Lean for the Machine examples to illustrate how to create three types of success stories, which we classify as condensed, compact and complete.

Each version can be adapted for varied uses and venues, a strategy described in Marketing: Make the Most of What You Have.

One reader suggested showing the full success story in detail. Here it is. Enjoy.

Marketing | Make the Most of What You Have

Every small business is working harder than ever to make the most of what they have by optimizing every tool in their marketing toolkit. A relatively easy and cost-effective strategy is to leverage one content piece in a variety of ways.

In the DIY Success Stories series, we pointed out that once you have a well-developed success story in hand, you can frame and reframe it to suit multiple purposes and venues. To illustrate this concept, let’s look at three versions of one success story.

Success Stories | Market & Sell

In other posts, we've discussed how useful and powerful success stories can be. Here are a few examples of Crossbridge success stories dealing with marketing and sales projects in a range of industries. To keep them compact (one page), we focused on highlights rather than extensive details.

Periodically, I'll share additional compilations focused on different core business functions. Meanwhile, these examples may prompt some ideas for your own small business success stories.


Success Stories: Business & Industry - Market & Sell (Crossbridge) -

Success Stories | Focus on Results

Why do I keep coming back to the topic of success stories? Because they're such powerful marketing tools for small business.

The following success story was developed for Bob Chapman, Sandler sales coach.

DIY Success Stories | 6 Easy Steps (Overview)

Are you ready to tackle the challenge of writing a success story, so you can use it to market your small business?

If you're having trouble envisioning how and where to start, this simple process illustration will help. It highlights the key elements of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Success Stories process.

Use it as a handy checklist as you ramp up for and complete each step. Cycle through the process as often as necessary to build a reserve of small business success stories.
 
And, for the best results, read the entire series of how-to articles:

Step 1. Market Your Business
Step 2. Get Started
Step 3. Focus on Facts
Step 4. Write It Now
Step 5. Hone the Content
Step 6. Avoid 12 Common Pitfalls

DIY Success Stories | Step 6. Avoid 12 Common Pitfalls

You’ve created a useful success story designed to market your business by demonstrating to prospects and customers your ability to help them receive the same type of results you’ve accomplished elsewhere.

The ultimate purpose is to present you and/or your company, services and products at their finest.

Before you declare victory, take time to check your work one last time, and take care to avoid the most common pitfalls.

DIY Success Stories | Step 5. Hone the Content

We’re heading into the home stretch, but it’s important to stay focused and on track.

In Step 4 – Write It Now, you created a clear and accurate success story, with all the facts, figures and details in place. That’s significant.

However, while facts convey concrete accomplishment, in and of themselves, they’re not completely persuasive. To hone the content and develop a more effective success story, review your working draft with the following issues in mind.

DIY Success Stories | Step 4. Write It Now

In Step 3. Focus on Facts, we flowed high level bullet points into the basic success story outline.

Now, it’s time to buckle down and write.

The writing process is pretty straight forward. The goal is to take your working outline and transform every key point into a more fully developed description. At this stage, it’s important to focus on writing and only writing.

Tackle the Process

Here are a few guidelines for tackling this process calmly and efficiently:

DIY Success Stories | Step 3. Focus on Facts

In Step 2. Get Started we brainstormed and captured basic facts.

The challenge today is to flow that content into the basic success story outline.

The short or condensed versions are easiest to write, but it's worth the time and effort to develop a comprehensive success story at this stage. With that version in hand, you can pare down and extract key points to highlight in varied formats for print, web or digital use.

For now, let's focus on organizing the facts and information we have in hand.

DIY Success Stories | Step 2. Get Started

In Step 1. Market Your Business, we made our case.

Success stories are a cost-effective way to promote your small business. This is particularly true if you’re willing to write them yourself.

So, how do you get started? First, you need to pick a target topic for your success story.

DIY Success Stories | Step 1. Market Your Business

The Success Stories have helped establish credibility with clients old and new, and they are an effective way to emphasize the significant results our training can help produce. BOB CHAPMAN, SANDLER SALES COACH

Understand the Context

Success stories are one of the most popular and effective ways to market your business. The best ones help prospects and customers understand your products and services in context, and they add substance to your marketing, sales and promotion efforts.

They explain how you’ve helped a customer resolve a real problem, and as a result, help the reader more clearly recognize the results and benefits they might gain if they use you and your products/services.

Success stories are effective in every format.

SEO | How Online Content Helps Customers Find You

There are many differences between a customer and prospect. The most obvious distinction is one has purchased your services/products, the other has not.

Customers know you deliver quality goods and services.They have your business card, phone number, cell number, email and website addresses, and more. They can find you in person or online through multiple channels.

Referrals and prospects may have some contact information or none at all. That makes the F-factor – the findability factor – crucial. If prospects can't find you, let's face it, it's difficult to convert them into customers.

Marketing | Create Targeted Content to Build Your Brand

High quality information helps customers solve real problems, make tough decisions, and act quickly and decisively in a complex world. When that information is carefully targeted it becomes a powerful way to build your business and help it grow.

Why? Targeted content adds substance to marketing, sales and public relations efforts. It provides high-value information to prospects and customers, distinguishes your company from competitors and improves brand recognition.

Targeted content drives traffic to your website. Companies that provide quality information online achieve higher search engine rankings and are more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results.

Success Story | Sight & Sound Productions

We landed a $1 million contract today. The work Crossbridge has done for us not only contributed to this coup, it’s what positioned us to compete in the first place. JON DAVIS, PRESIDENT/OWNER

Company Profile

Sight & Sound Productions offers state-of-the-art AV equipment services to business, industry and government. Located in Jacksonville, Florida, it also provides state-of-the-art staging and events production, including audio, video and special effects for corporate meetings, product launches and themed events.

Challenge

The company faced a classic array of challenges. It was suffering from a crisis-driven approach, lack of overall vision and strategic plan, lack of sufficient personnel for day-to-day operations, low risk tolerance, and erratic marketing and advertising. The CEO and president wanted to stabilize the company and move to the next level, even if it meant stepping outside their comfort zones.

Spotlight | Bob Chapman, Sandler Sales Coach

Bob Chapman has more than 30 years experience in product marketing, sales management and personal sales production.

For nearly 20 years, he’s helped sales people, managers and business owners develop the skills to outsell their most optimistic projections.

Bob is an extraordinary sales trainer and coach, and I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from him for nearly a decade.

Why do you teach & coach?

Why is Bob such a strong proponent of the Sandler Sales System? “It’s simple,” he says. “I can’t predict what will prompt a life-changing moment, but nothing matches that feeling of pride and joy when it happens. Sandler training changes lives.”