YGL Enterprises, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're an SEO Agency, and I'm the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire YGL Enterprises, Inc.?

We’ve worked closely together on projects with Yvonne where we need an expert in the B2B space that brings deep knowledge in particular professional services, including legal, consulting, as well as the financial sector.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We selected Yvonne and YGL Enterprises based on her 25 years of experience in assisting professional services organizations, as well as small and mid-sized businesses in the development and execution of successful marketing strategies. Yvonne’s experience and business acumen spoke for itself from our first initial conversation.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We’ve worked closely with Yvonne on projects and campaigns related to audience-specific marketing strategy, branding, and overall digital engagement. Why we like working with Yvonne so much is that she provides strategic solutions vs. narrowly-focused tactics. We continue to work with Yvonne on both internal projects, as well as external-based projects where we require some additional consulting and support to help drive results.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We’ve worked directly one-on-one with Yvonne herself.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We've really been happy with the approach and structure of Yvonne’s approach, and have been able to see results across several segments of her work. I attribute this to Yvonne taking the time to understand the client’s marketing goals before offering solutions and diving straight in - it’s a very methodical approach.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication, as well as the workflow between both sides, has been frictionless - we’re in close in contact with multiple weekly interactions to help stay on top of status and next steps. Overall, the workflow and communication have been flawless, which is a core part of the recipe for success.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Yvonne’s ability to come in and work together with our own internal projects, as well as vice versa, with a very smooth transition during the process. We’re working now in full effect across multiple projects related to overall marketing strategy, brand awareness, as well as content marketing.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing that I can think of at this time. Everything between our engagement has been top-notch and professional. Yvonne is both responsive and more importantly, reliable, and that’s one of the most important reasons why she is so successful at what she does.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of South Part Advisors, and we’re an independent business valuation firm that specializes in the valuation of closely-held businesses, generally between five million and five hundred million dollars in revenue for a variety of purposes — such as estate and gift tax reporting, business succession planning, corporate litigation, and financial reporting purposes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YGL Enterprises, Inc.?

The major challenge was just undertaking a more unified effort in our marketing campaigns — especially when COVID-19 hit. We became concerned that we weren’t going to be getting the touches in with our key referral sources and new business partners. That’s why we brought in Yvonne and YGL to help us with that and to also move us towards creating more of a unified marketing campaign.

When I started, I was a sole practitioner. By March 2020 we had grown to four individuals, and we just felt that we needed to invest more heavily in that area.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we worked together on how we can improve our social media presence and get out to the masses a little greater. Then they started doing a number of things right out of the gate such as improving our LinkedIn profiles, help us reestablish our Facebook page, improve our content and delivery to our social media outlets.

Additionally, they also helped develop and modernize our marketing materials, report templates, website messaging, and two new lines of business which we just got into this year — corporate litigation and financial reporting.

They also put our business up on Google My Business, as well as help us expand our offices to Phoenix, Rochester, and Charlotte. Yvonne does this by training a key person in that market with business development, and how to move towards introducing our company to a certain marketplace. Right now, they’re working with our web developer and graphic designer to improve the content on our website, and an SEO expert to increase our searchability in our web rankings.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Yvonne, and we view her as an extension of our company.

How did you come to work with YGL Enterprises, Inc.?

We noticed that the website of our web developer we were working with was built by YGL. Moreover, Yvonne had actually clicked on a post that I had put up on social media, and I was curious to know who she was and found out that she had been doing marketing strategy for two big law firms.

What attracted us to her was most of our business is predominantly with attorneys, so we thought that working with her would be a good fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested probably in the neighborhood of $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

When we expanded into corporate litigation, we’ve seen some immediate returns in that area in terms of publicizing to get that information online. We’ve definitely seen an uptick in the business as a result of our marketing efforts — such as the conferences we attend, exhibits, and events that we sponsor like Charlotte Estate Planning Council, Queens University, National Center of Employee Ownership, and the ESOP Association. We’ve certainly seen our business grow double digits year over year, as a result of her efforts and working together to develop our strategy.

How did YGL Enterprises, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We typically communicate either on Zoom, in person, or through conference calls. We get together with her to decide what we need to do to accomplish our goals. She makes it happen for us because, in addition to running the company, we do all the benchwork and developing the business. 

Without her, our efforts to be able to get a lot of this done would go to the wayside — we just wouldn’t have the time to do it otherwise. She keeps us moving on the deliverables that she needs from us to be able to complete the project and the tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We love their experience in both marketing and strategy, but she’s also not afraid to stretch what she knows, and get involved first hand with the SEO expert to get our rankings and visibility up. She has years of experience in an area that’s very important to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really can’t think of anything at the top of my head. YGL is very task-oriented and I would say that in general, they’ve done a great job despite the difficulties of working with business owners. A lot of times I’m machine-gunning ideas at her and she has to take all that information, hone it down and bring us more focus.

As financial analysts, we’re difficult to work with and we have a pretty discerning eye. We certainly expect a lot from our vendors because a lot is expected from us. They’ve done a good job of being able to manage us and get things done.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You have to be active, participatory, and you got to put in the time. We hired YGL because we didn’t have the time to do a lot of the work ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that we can be hands-off. We’re actively involved, but having the person there to quarterback the situation and keep us moving forward has been really great.

You can’t absolve all your responsibilities to the job.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a small intellectual property (IP) law firm, and we specialize in helping customers obtain patents and trademark registrations. From time to time, we help our clients with contested matters, potentially including litigation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YGL Enterprises, Inc.?

When I started as a patent lawyer, nobody wanted to be a patent attorney because it was for “the nerds”. In the late 80s and 90s, however, it was seen as profitable and everybody started to do it. As a result, many law firms started to claim they could perform the same services that we offered. 

As a result, over the last 20 years, it has become harder to stick out. Furthermore, many companies also promise good results at a cost-attractive price. Most of the time, however, those companies don’t match us on quality, but some clients can’t make the value distinction.

We also wanted to relay what makes a patent valuable. Arguably, a patent needs to be well written and well prosecuted. I have told clients that I could get them a patent and it would have the ribbon, the gold seal, and the fancy paper.  Nevertheless, it might not cover enough legally to be worthwhile.  Again, some clients find it hard to understand this distinction.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YGL mainly provides consulting. They don’t carry out marketing tasks, but they coach us up in terms of what we need to do to raise our profile successfully. During our engagement, we realized that we couldn't beat Google Analytics and Search even if we wanted to. Thus, the idea of using Google SEO as part of marketing doesn’t work as well for us as does reputation and referrals from lawyers and clients who already know us. I have talked to other attorneys on this topic, and they said that they didn’t get their better clients from Google.

Instead, other attorneys got their clients from referrals or from good content on social media. As a result, once we identified that our work was coming from our connections, we put more effort into keeping up those connections as opposed to focusing on Google’s organic results.

That’s why we’ve also shifted to trying to a better and regular job on social media. On top of that, we’ve purchased subscriptions so that we can curate content for publication. The team also advised us to redo our website, an update that we completed in 2020. 

What is the team composition?

We only work with Yvonne (President & Principal Consultant).

How did you come to work with YGL Enterprises, Inc.?

I met YGL through some common lawyer friends, and before we even met YGL, they were already familiar with our company. Yvonne had worked for one of the leading law firms in town in a marketing role before starting her own business. I had a poor 4th quarter in 2019 so I engaged YGL in January 2020 to help get us off the dime. YGL is a small firm so they were a good fit for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing work began in January 2020 and we meet in person on a regular basis with phone and email communication in between “live” sessions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Compared to late 2019, we’re having a normal (i.e., close to the desired budget) year at the moment. In 2020, progress was hard to measure because of COVID-19 lockdowns and related factors. Despite that, we were able to put ourselves in a decent position. Overall, the input that YGL provides has been valuable to our company. 

How did YGL Enterprises, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

What helps us the most is YGL’s accountability. We sit down once a month and have phone calls or ZOOM meetings. As such, we’ve been able to incorporate their suggestions after our meetings. If wasn’t using YGL’s consulting services, I’d just gravitate towards other tasks each day. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

YGL understands that selling oneself as an expert in the field of law is different from creating a sales funnel, receiving a lot of emails, and getting people to buy something on the phone within seven minutes. In that sense, YGL is more knowledgeable in the legal context than some other marketing advertisers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We probably could’ve saved some time thinking about Google. I’m more persuaded that trying to get high-quality legal clients by outsmarting Google is unlikely. Instead, we’ve tried to work on getting the “four horsemen;” e.g., such as a lawyer in another firm that doesn’t have my capabilities, an in-house counsel, an existing client with more work, and a business that needs our services. Those clients tend to come from other than organic Google searchers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The engagement is 80% knowing what you need to learn from YGL and about 20% helping YGL understand what we do. That way YGL can really be more effective once they’re familiar with your industry.