Carver Peterson Consulting

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner, founder, and creative director of Figure Plant, a design and fabrication studio. We have 10–15 full-time employees and another 5–30 part-time employees.

What challenge were you trying to address with Carver Peterson Consulting?

We were trying to address our business development operations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Carver Peterson Consulting has helped us take a deep dive into our business development approach. They’ve taken a look at who are our ideal customers and developed a customer profile, digging into who those people are, where they are, and their psychographics and demographics to understand them. Also, they've set some objectives and key results around business development to attribute numbers to it and dive into these customers. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three people: Scott (Founder & Managing Partner), Selina (Former Partner), and Chris (Content & Product Lead).

How did you come to work with Carver Peterson Consulting?

A colleague in a business group was working with them at the time. We were trying to improve our business development processes, and he recommended them. We reached out and started the conversation. In the end, we decided to work with Carver Peterson Consulting due to the great referrals from their current and past clients. Also, they were organized, proactive, and highly communicative. We felt that the value we would gain from working with them exceeded the cost.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2021. We just completed the scope of the initial engagement, and we’re currently evaluating to continue our relationship.

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

We don’t have concrete numbers; we base the impact on our business development team's new activities and behaviors. We have a new awareness and approach to our business development strategy, which is what we were looking for.

How did Carver Peterson Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent. They’re very organized and communicative. We always know what to expect, what’s coming, what’s required from us, and when the deliverables are due, so they excel at that aspect.

We communicate via email and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their small and personalized approach is exceptional. The whiteboarding sessions that we did before we were even engaged had a great value, and they were a good window into the entire process with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a few sessions where we didn’t complete all of the work. Sometimes it’s challenging to keep up with the workload, so maybe they could implement a mechanism to finish everything and get it all buttoned up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do the work, follow their process, and deliver everything they ask. Also, take what they say and bring it into your process, but don’t be afraid to modify it slightly to fit your particular model.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Corporate Settlement Solutions, a real estate settlement service provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with Carver Peterson Consulting?

We needed their consulting services to improve our sales process.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Carver Peter Consulting has analyzed our sales process through recorded meetings and sales documents to identify areas for improvement and highlight existing phases that help us elevate our enterprise sales. Upon examining the process, they offer advice on optimizing our meetings, information channels, and our relationship with our stakeholders.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three resources from their team.

How did you come to work with Carver Peterson Consulting?

One of Carver Peterson Consulting’s former clients referred their team to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Carver Peterson Consulting started in May 2021.

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

Carver Peterson Consulting has expedited our sales cycles, trimming them down from one year to only 10-weeks long. Their capacity to implement solutions and provide insights that improve our sales process is our main KPI for their team.

How did Carver Peterson Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Zoom. Carver Peterson Consulting is on top of their project management game — they consistently meet our timelines and communicate each project phase accordingly to our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with Carver Peterson Consulting’s organized and detail-oriented approach, which enables us to maximize the potential of our sales process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re highly pleased with the engagement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set clear goals and provide a well-documented sales process for their team to examine.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the vice president and managing partner of Harrigan Solutions. We’re a service contractor specializing in preventative maintenance and sanitation for manufacturing companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Carver Peterson Consulting?

We turned to Carver Peterson for our general business consulting needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Carver Peterson helped us come up with a repeatable process to ensure that our whole sales structure was more cost-effective and that we could efficiently monitor the results. We wanted to make sure that what we were trying to do from a sales perspective drove the business in a positive way, so they helped us map out our current state and our desired future state to identify how we can grow the business. 

We worked with them to come up with a tool that could monitor our objectives and key results on a weekly basis. We took information from our financial reporting system and laid it out on a spreadsheet to create a usable template. This template would then help us profile ideal blue-chip clients and key stakeholder personas and eventually guide how we qualify them, how we could create a value message for them, and how we could propose, commit, or serve them. It would also guide how we put together our quarterly business reviews. 

Carver Peterson’s work has been completed, and they are now helping us update our executive operating system and key metrics for 2022. We’d like to have some periodic check-ins with them, but we are still trying to figure out what we can afford and what would be the right role for them as we go forward.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been primarily working with three people: Scott (Founder & Managing Partner), Selina (Partner), and a gentleman who had just started with the company.

How did you come to work with Carver Peterson Consulting?

We personally knew Scott. 

How much have you invested with them?

Up until this point, we’ve invested about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in March 2021. 

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

We've actually used the sales process and it has helped us quickly identify three different customers that weren't a good fit for our company. We've also been able to engage some of the right people and draw in more key stakeholders using the template Carver Peterson developed for us. We haven’t closed any significant piece of business, but we’ve been able to demonstrate our sales process more professionally to our potential clients. 

How did Carver Peterson Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed excellently on this front. Most of our communication is done through emails, calls, and Zoom. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Carver Peterson is very systematic and process-driven in addition to having great knowledgeability on the subject matter of sales.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If they look at building out more capabilities then they could get more business and add more value to their clients.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend some time to understand the value that Carver Peterson can provide.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a Business Intelligence consulting firm.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

Our company has grown consistently over the past 10 years, but we found ourselves "stuck" in terms of scaling our business development. We hired Carver Peterson to help us examine and overhaul our sales processes so that we can continue our growth.

How did you select Carver Peterson Consulting and what were the deciding factors?

We considered and interviewed several sales consulting firms. We ultimately selected Carver Peterson for two primary reasons. First, they have clear expertise and a specific proven-process that made sense to us from our first meeting with them. They're definitely not "making it up as they go along" as some consultants sometimes seem to do.

Second, we found their culture to be one of strong collaboration and partnership in a way that fit well with how we like to do business. They really got to know us and our specific needs and worked well with us in that context.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Carver Peterson started by doing a deep dive on our current situation. Once they had the lay of the land, they walked us through a series of workshops and "homework" that resulted in specific actions for us to take to improve our sales processes.

They provided a clear roadmap based on their best-practices but fit to our culture and capabilities.

How many resources from the Carver Peterson Consulting team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with three resources from Carver Peterson. Two were primary consultants and workshop leaders. A third consultant was in more of a supporting role, helping to keep us on track, but also bringing significant good thinking and input to our processes.

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

The Carver Peterson engagement has been revolutionary for our approach to business development. We're primarily BI consultants and IT engineers and hadn't cracked the code on how to do sales well and consistently. Carver Peterson broke down the key processes in a way that immediately made sense to us and helped us reform our business development approach.

Our engagement with them was approximately 20 weeks. Within the first few weeks we had already made changes that were having impact. By the end of the 20 weeks our sales pipeline 50% larger than when we started, and the quality of the deals in the pipeline was vastly improved. At the end of the engagement we're closing deals at a rate approximately 35% higher than when we started and the trend is that will continue to increase.

Our sales are currently at the cusp of outstripping our capacity to deliver as quickly as customers would like. That's a nice problem to have.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

At the start of the engagement, Carver Peterson scheduled all of the workshop sessions for the 20 weeks in advance. This allowed us to know who would be needed when and also prepared us for when we would need to be doing most of our process change and improvement work. They are an incredibly positive, honest, generous, intelligent, and kind group of people.

All of our team has enjoyed working with them.

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

The most impressive thing to me about Carver Peterson is their company culture. They do what they say, and they set clear expectations. They are transparent in their opinions. They are open to feedback and worked with us closely to make sure we were getting the coaching and support needed.

The quality of their people is among the best I've worked with in any consulting engagement.

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

They did a good job of balancing the need to push us to adopt their best practices with not rocking the boat too hard relative to our ingrained sales culture. We ultimately ended up adopting basically everything they recommended and in retrospect, I wouldn't have minded if they had pushed us a little harder to see the light sooner.

It's a fine balance though and they did it well.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder and CEO of lulafit. Lulafit is a national wellness leader helping top organizations and real estate communities build modern cultures of well-being. Whether in a physical space or with virtual experiences, our platform amplifies physical, social, and mental health. The result is increased retention, higher engagement, and healthier and happier people.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

We've worked with the CPC on many different projects over the course of our business history. We started with basic sales team fundamentals and articulating our mission, vision, and values. Most recently, we completed a buildout of our sales playbook for two different service lines in our business. We have also been doing ongoing executive coaching for our team, as well as annual strategic planning sessions.

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

Upon meeting Scott in the early days of founding my firm, it became clear that not only could him and his team really help me fill in some of the gaps I was missing as an early-stage founder, but that there would be nobody else who would give me the time and consideration as his team would. CPC is truly a boutique firm experience with attention to detail that is unparalleled and a commitment to our company and goals unlike anything I've ever experienced. This is why we've been working together so closely for so many years.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Our most recent project included a deliverable of a sales playbook. They worked with different members of our sales and leadership team to build out a blue chip profile, key stakeholder persona canvas, value proposition statements and messaging, and more. They spent hours with our team gathering information and then did the work to compile it all into a sales playbook that is scalable and efficient. It has helped us increase our sales volume and close rate tremendously.

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

We've worked with many people on the CPC team, all whom have been incredible. Scott brings only the best talent onto his team and chooses the best talent for the project at hand. Because of this, we've had the pleasure of working with the full team throughout our time together.

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

Having them build out a sales playbook allowed us to efficiently onboard a sales team and generate sales volume and higher close rates. Their work with our leadership team has helped our best performers, become top managers (which is often a difficult thing to do). They truly know how to bring out the best in people through their work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. We used shared documents and email to communicate. We switched from in-person meetings to virtual calls when the pandemic hit and have continued that way which has been very effective.

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

The amount they care. The CPC team are more than our consultants, they are trusted business advisors and friends. They genuinely care about our business and that is reflected in the work they do and how they do it.

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

No. They are a small team that handles a lot of work efficiently and they're great at communicating what they can and cannot do.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Framework IT is technology solutions provider focused on managed IT services. Our focus is holistic IT management (IT Dept: helping organizations manage IT), with an emphasis support, strategy, and security. We also provide phone systems, VoIP, cloud services, fiber internet, low voltage cabling, and security and access systems. My position in the organization is the President of Sales and one of the Managing Members of the LLC.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

We initially hired Carver Peterson for Revenue Lifecycle Assessment, which was a comprehensive analysis and revamp of all aspects of our sales process, including but not limited to: Our target market, blue chip accounts, key stakeholder profiles, outreach methodology and messaging, deal pipeline process, meeting scripts, associated communications, proposals, overcoming objections, and handoff to operations for service delivery.

After the initial project for the Revenue Lifecycle Assessment, Framework engaged Carver Peterson for ongoing consulting focused on leadership and sales team development, sales process problem solving, project management, and operations management.

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

We considered multiple sales & marketing focused consulting organizations. The selection process involved a detailed sharing of the current state, challenges/opportunities, and ideal future state, followed up by proposals for a process and consulting engagement to further assess and enhance all aspects of our sales process. We ultimately chose Carver Peterson due to aligned methodology, credibility, high degree of professionalism, proven deliverables, stellar references, and professional respect for their consultants.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

This was a months long consulting project touching every aspect of our sales to revamp, refine, document, and adopt so it's difficult to describe in depth. I've provided a summary of key areas we worked on during the project: Revenue Lifecycle Assessment: Pre-work: Data Collection Request & Processing of Data Collection Request

Day 1: Customer Journey Mapping (Week 1) Day 2: Observation (Week 2) CPC: Consolidation of Findings (Week 3) Day 3: Validation & Alignment Session (Week 4) SALES STAGE ADVANCEMENT GUIDE Blue Chip Profile Blue Chip Prospect Lists Value Messaging & Outreach Qualification Proposal Commit Serve Specializing Your Sales Team Sales Dashboard, Sales Meeting & CRM Sign-off on Final Deliverables

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

2 resources worked with our team on the engagement, including Scott Peterson, the principal, and Selina Doran, a partner in the firm.

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

Framework shifted its target market successfully and was able to generate consistent engagement with target accounts. The new sales process has increased average contract value significantly (+50%) over the previous year and feedback from prospects about the sales process has largely been positive in terms of the level of professionalism, credibility, and thoroughness it conveys.

We were also able to develop a new sales team hire to a successful account executive capable of selling deals as a result of the process documentation and training resources provided by the Carver Peterson team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely effective in terms of accountability, timeliness, organization, information transfer, communications, etc.. It's been a very positive experience.

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

The depth and breadth of knowledge and problem solving kills of their consultants is impressive, to say the least. Also, their own disciplined demonstration of the skills, habits, and processes that they teach clients.

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

Not really

Please describe your company and your position there.

Solid Digital is a web and digital marketing agency in Chicago, IL. I am the CEO, and my primary focus is on sales and marketing for our company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

We have hired a couple of sales people in the past, but have not been able to create a strong process that would enable us to onboard, train, and create an effective way to do sales. Most of our business is through inbound leads or referrals. We were (and still are) trying to create a sales strategy which can be used to develop our business and be able to have more of a choice in who we bring on as clients.

What were your goals for this project?

Develop a sales process and strategy which could scale and be replicated to form a sales team.

How did you select Carver Peterson Consulting?

I had been approached by a previous employee at Carver Peterson a couple of years ago. At the time, we had just hired a sales person and we were struggling to help her find success at our company. I set up a time to meet and do a whiteboard session with them, and in those 90 minutes I took so much away that opened my eyes to how behind we were. It literally changed the way we approached our prospects... However, we were not in a position to hire them to do the full consulting program, so it was about a year later that I reached out to engage with them.

Describe the project in detail.

Initially there was a lot of data gathering. They asked us for an analysis of all our existing clients, how long we've worked with them, how we acquired them, and who was the main point of contact within our organization. We also shared details about lost deals and why we thought the deals fell through. They interviewed our entire leadership team and discussed our delivery process, who we thought were "blue chip" clients (they're term for best-fit customers), and how we organized our offerings.

Once we were done with the discovery portion of their process they provided us with a full assessment they call their Revenue Lifecycle Assessment. It was over 200 pages of findings, strategies, and recommendations they had composed for us. It was amazing!!! I don't think I've ever seen something that was so accurate, thoughtful, and specific to how we could improve our business.

Upon delivery of the RLA it was up to us to continue to work with them to implement their suggestions. It did not take long for us to make the decision to do so. There's almost too much for me to list here, but overall we defined our Ideal Customer Profile, the steps in our sales process, and our metrics for success for the different sales roles in our organization.

Beyond that, we created ways to improve on-going relationships with clients to create longer cycles of retention. Bottom line: It was a game-changer for our company!!

What was the team composition?

We worked directly with Selena and Scott during the process. Selena was responsible for most of the day-to-day work and Scott was involved in our meetings. We broke up our team into 3 groups: Owners, Leadership, and Sales Department. We all had different objectives and discussions around our own priorities.

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

1. We established a strong sales process that is now a big differentiator.
2. We defined our Ideal Customer Profile (and created a graphic to illustrate it)
3. Our close rate went from 56% to 80%
4. We started saying 'no' more often to customers that were not a good fit
5. We continue to work with them on an on-going basis

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Culturally speaking, we are a strong match. If you're an open organization that is willing to have tough conversations, see your flaws, and then execute on ideas -- they're going to be amazing. That's how it was for us. There is a lot of laughing, engaging debates, and excitement in every meeting.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I have spent over a decade building this company. I did not think someone could come in in a span of a few months and be able to make such a significant impact to our organization. The way we qualify clients, handle leads, and generate business through outbound initiatives is incredible. The entire team has been blown away by their abilities and what they've done for us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are minor things that didn't hit the mark, but no one is perfect. Their experience and ideas were great -- I would not change a thing.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a leadership development consultancy and we serve clients within the Fortune 1000 and Private Equity to accelerate the development of leaders from C-suite to the first time manager.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

Our company has grown in recent years and to keep up with this growth, we needed to develop a stronger set of sales habits and disciplines to ensure that we will be able to continue to scale.

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

We selected Carver Peterson based on their alignment around the principals of Scaling Up as well as their hands-on, action-oriented approach to analyzing our current business and delivering a custom set of training and sales playbook.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

The project consisted of analyzing our current and past sales data, interviewing a number of our clients and internal stakeholders. From there, CPC built a customized 6 month training curriculum accompanied by action-based tools to bring our sales team up to speed on the ways to articulate our value proposition, define our target Blue Chip prospects, engage the right stakeholders in the prospect organization, qualify opportunities, present proposals and conduct partnership reviews. Carver Peterson Consulting instilled the discipline needed in sales forecasting and reporting to drive performance.

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

We worked with 4 resources within CPC. The founder and 3 sales consultants.

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

We have incorporated Carver Peterson sales methodologies and best practices into our own playbook. We have closed a large new client and following the playbook was a big part of this success. Our approach to targeted prospecting that focuses on Blue Chip criteria has provided a focus to our sales efforts, and the introduction of Customer Partnership Reviews has positioned us to gain referrals from our existing clients.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

CPC team was highly responsive and able to pivot when we needed to shift timelines due to urgent client matters. CPC sought feedback and always focused on listening to our needs and feedback.

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

Their ability to breakdown the sales process into a series of digestible steps and tools. They made everything easy for non-sales professionals to understand how they can positively impact revenue creation.

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

Building in more time for role-plays and skill practice could have been a nice additional feature to the program.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the head of operations at AMS Performance and manage the organization's operations and finances. My number one goal is to scale AMS, and I regularly work with all of our department leaders to do so.

For what projects/services did your company hire Carver Peterson Consulting?

We engaged Carver Peterson to help us fully restructure our sales team and completely rethink the way we handle our customers and our sales process.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to build a well oiled sales engine to help kickstart the next phase of growth for AMS.

How did you select Carver Peterson Consulting?

Scott and I both provided consulting services to businesses of similar size, and I found that Scott's expertise in sales to be a perfect fit for what we were facing at AMS.

Describe the project in detail.

Scott and Selina helped me by analyzing our team, approach, customers, and competitiveness within the market and provided us numerous recommendations on what we could change to overcome the obstacles we had been facing for several years. Scott and his team provided us a bulletproof plan of attack and supported us through implementing a complete overhaul of the sales department. They successfully helped us build processes and a team that scales as our sales do, and helped us create a culture of high performance.

What was the team composition?

Scott and Selina managed most of the engagement, with help from a number of team members offsite.

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

It's been a couple years since we've completed our project, and it is safe to say that the Carver Peterson team was crucial to helping us set the foundation we needed for massive revenue growth. We've experienced significant double digit revenue growth for the last two years, which would not have been possible prior to our engagement with Carver Peterson.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was great. It was a mixture of onsite time, calls, and remote Zoom meetings always well scheduled in advance. We did a series of working sessions solely with management, with the entire team, and even one-on-one with individual members of our sales organization.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their truly holistic approach. They looked at every aspect of my sales team and our position in the market and used all of the information to put together a well-crafted series of recommendations specifically crafted for our business and situation. Their support throughout implementing the changes was also fantastic. They were there every step of the way throughout the implementation.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I truly couldn't ask for anything else, given we've already seen first hand what kind of impact this project has had on our revenue.