Lake One

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CMO of Storj

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Storj provides globally distributed cloud object storage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Lake One to accomplish?

• Ongoing implementation of Hubspot
• Support various marketing activities (PPC, SEO, social, email marketing)
• Advise on Hubspot CRM and Marketing best practices

SOLUTION

How did you find Lake One?

Referral

Why did you select Lake One over others?

Referred to me

What was the size of Lake One’s team?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We have been working with Lake One for over year. Primarily around our Hubspot implementation yet have continued to expand with their services to email marketing, social, PPC, SEO and overall best practices for Hubspot sales and marketing automation. This is an ongoing consulting relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Leadflow optimization between Sales and Marketing
• Metrics and reporting set up and ongoing development
• Continued best practices with Hubspot

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Access to the full scope of their team via an account manager who helps allocate the right resource from LakeOne for the project at hand. Given we work with the team daily, we use a slack channel and email along with virtual meetings as needed. They are timely and responsive to deadlines and workflow.

What was your primary form of communication with Lake One?

Virtual Meeting

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

We are a small startup team and the LakeOne team has truly become embedded in our team. They bring expertise in marketing as well as know hubspot in every detail. I'm impressed with their team's great range of talent to apply to our various projects on demand. They are excellent to work with; responsive, creative, thorough, and super fun.

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

Nothing I can think of off the top.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Manager of RPI Consultants

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are ERP Consultants primarily for enterprise level organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Lake One to accomplish?

• Implement HubSpot CRM
• Refine our business processes
• Implement HubSpot Service Hub

SOLUTION

How did you find Lake One?

Referral

Why did you select Lake One over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We went through a full HubSpot implementation. It started with just refining our marketing automation, then we made the full move to implement the CRM and replace our old one. We purchased Sales Hub and went through migrating and refining our sales process with the help of Lake One. After others in the organization got word of how great HubSpot was working for us, our managed services team decided to purchase the new Service Hub and use that for all support tickets.

Lake One was able to navigate us through two very important go-lives ahead of when our old systems were expiring. We were always given detailed explanations of Lake One's best practices that helped us be better than we were before.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Increase in lead capture
• Availability of pipeline reports

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

As a consulting firm ourselves, we are very in tune with what good project management looks like. Lake One was incredible with their project management. Rachel was on top of everything. Always took impeccable notes and followed up on action items. Any delays in the project were always on our end. Lake One managed this project to perfection in my opinion.

What was your primary form of communication with Lake One?

Virtual Meeting

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

They were the perfect combination of incredibly professional, incredibly knowledgeable, and incredibly friendly and easy to talk to

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

I can't think of anything they need to improve on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the cmo of pocketnest

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We license our financial wellness app to financial institutions and employee wellness programs to help make financial wellness more accessible to the masses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Lake One to accomplish?

• paid media strategy and execution
• sales operations efficiencies
• general marketing strategy support

SOLUTION

How did you find Lake One?

Referral

Why did you select Lake One over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me, Other

What was the size of Lake One’s team?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

lake one has been absolutely critical to our sales/marketing operations and cohesion, paid media strategy and execution, CRM optimization, client onboarding and continued success, and so much more. we initially hired them to focus on paid media and quickly learned they offer MUCH MORE value beyond that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• increased awareness / conversions
• sales/marketing operations efficiencies
• clear marketing/advertising ROI for investors/board

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

great!

What was your primary form of communication with Lake One?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

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

they really understand our space (financial institutions, credit unions), know our CRM inside and out (hubspot)—and I didn't even know how critical that element was!—and they have expertise across sales and marketing functions, helping me to be more efficient and prove our ROI to our board and investors.

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

None. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Emily Zellner: I’m the COO of Financial Navigation Group, an accounting, tax, and outsourced CFO service provider.

Bjorn Zellner: I’m the CFO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Lake One?

EZ: We wanted to talk more about our CFO services because those services were the direction in which we wanted to take our business. Thus, we wanted to do more advertising and set a clear direction for our marketing efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

EZ: Lake One helps us with our marketing and advertising, which has included SEO. The process has been very comprehensive, and it has involved changing our name and developing a new website.

Initially, we didn’t know what we wanted; we just knew that we needed to improve our marketing. Thus, Lake One took the reins and helped us make decisions about what we needed and wanted.

The first step was to get clear about who we were as a business and who we were striving to be in the market. Initially, we sent Lake One some documentation and content pieces to set a starting point, but we already knew that those assets were outdated, and we wanted something new.

Thus, Lake One helped us walk through that discovery process and developed a brand playbook for us. They’ve also helped us develop our ideal client personas, which has helped us get a clear sense of who we wanted to target.

BZ: The brand playbook is the most important deliverable that Lake One has created for this project, and we’re now working on implementing those guidelines into our marketing strategy.

EZ: As we were going through the discovery process, it was clear that we needed a new website, so Lake One started working on that project simultaneously. They’ve developed our business website on WordPress, implementing different features and adding information to let customers know about our services. For example, they’ve added a blog page and helped us write the posts. Currently, they’re also implementing HubSpot, and they’re going to help us launch a newsletter.

As for SEO, Lake One is in charge of keyword research, and they’ve implemented SEO tactics on our website. This part of the project is one of their biggest responsibilities.

What is the team composition?

EZ: We’ve worked with Ryan (Founder & CEO), who kickstarted our partnership, and Rachel (Senior Director of Operations), who has been in charge of most of the project. We’ve also worked with Mark (Marketing Technology Specialist), who is helping us with the HubSpot implementation, and some of Lake One’s partners, who have helped us with the brand playbook and branding design.

How did you come to work with Lake One?

EZ: We found Lake One through a referral; we both had the same business coach.

How much have you invested with them?

EZ: We’ve spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

EZ: We started working together in August 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

EZ: Lake One has been really helpful in putting together all the marketing and advertising strategies we needed. Although we don’t have any hard metrics to demonstrate the success of our engagement, we feel more clear about who we are, and we’re excited about where we’re headed. We’re still getting everything ready to launch our new name and brand, but we feel confident we will definitely see an ROI.

How did Lake One perform from a project management standpoint?

EZ: Lake One’s project management is great, and they’re very caring. They handled our onboarding so well that we’ve actually had them take a look at our own onboarding process.

We have constant communication with Lake One’s team, which is very helpful. Every week, Rachel sends us updates and meets with us to keep the project moving forward and keep us informed. We share information through Google Drive, communicate via email and Slack, and use Zoom for our meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

EZ: Lake One is very similar to us; they’re real and helpful people. I’ve really appreciated their onboarding process and their ability to keep the project moving forward.

BZ: I really like Lake One’s energy. Both of us are relationship-based businesses, so it has been nice to have a partner with the same focus.

Are there any areas they could improve?

EZ: No. Most of the hurdles have been on our end.

BZ: No, they’ve been great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

EZ: If you’re ready to start, Lake One is ready to do it. They will take the lead and help you navigate through the process.