Tag: M&A

Learning, organization design, Strengths

Unlocking Client Insights: How We Are Refining Our Brand and Messaging by Learning From Our Clients

by: Claire Curry & Brandon Curry

The Situation:

In 2024, we worked to strengthen our brand awareness and to better communicate our points of differentiation to current and potential clients. We wanted to approach this in the same way we would advise our clients, including a practical diagnostic to learn from our clients’ experience with our services and delivery. By doing this, we aimed to grow awareness and support for inbound opportunity flow, optimize our brand’s messaging, communicate our differentiated value proposition, and ultimately be the easiest partner to work with and refer. Here, we’re sharing our process, what we learned through the process, and to exemplify how we work – applied to our services.

The Work:

We started by reaching out to select customers we have completed projects with and asked if they would be willing to provide feedback on their experience working with us. After they agreed, we sent a short request with some prompting questions (shared below) and requested either a reply or a short call to discuss their responses.

Re: Work Arts Feedback Request

Hi <Client>, 

Thank you for agreeing to provide some feedback on your experiences with us. We’re entering year five of our advisory practice and are working on refining the marketing and promotion of my advisory and design services. Your insights are incredibly valuable to me.

I’m interested in learning about your experience working with us  and what has been most impactful for you. Specifically, I’d love to hear your thoughts on:

  • What would you say are the most impactful results we’ve achieved?
  • What differentiates our approach from other advisors/designers you’ve worked with?
  • How would you describe our services to a friend or colleague who might be looking for similar assistance?
  • Are there any areas where you feel I could improve or expand my offerings?

Your feedback will help me better understand your needs and tailor my services to provide even greater value to clients. Please share your thoughts in a quick email reply or, if you prefer, we can schedule a brief call to discuss.

Best, <Signature>

After receiving the group of responses, we reviewed them for themes and created a series of case studies and testimonials. 

The Results:

These cases and testimonials will share the experience and view of our customers through a series of posts that both illustrate our body of work and honor the privacy of our clients.

We also fed the responses into Gemini AI, asking for it to draft a summary of the testimonial themes. With the help of Gemini, we created the following summary:

Since completing this work, we have been leveraging what we learned from this project to deploy learnings across our Work Arts social media feeds, our website, service summaries, and proposal templates, and we plan to make this process a part of our ongoing account management process.

due diligence, M&A, Uncategorized

M&A Roundtable Column – Transition Service Agreements

Reblog from April 2024 HR M&A Roundtable Newsletter

I’m about to work on my first deal with a TSA. Do you have any tips for me?

TSAs are often needed to manage the transition of an acquired business for both the buyer and seller to be successful.

For the buyer, a TSA can help to:
● Ensure critical business function continuity during the transition period.
● Avoid disruption to customers and employees.
● Bridge gaps in expertise in running the business with access to the seller’s expertise and experience.

For the seller, a TSA can help to:
● Mitigate the risk of losing customers and employees during the transition period.
● Ensure that the buyer can successfully integrate the acquired business.
● Give additional time to manage any stranded costs as the business becomes smaller.

The terms of a TSA will vary depending on the circumstances of the acquisition, but the most common TSA failures are:
● Poorly defined services: The scope, duration, and price of services to be provided by each party is not clearly defined, leading to misunderstandings and disputes.
● Unrealistic expectations: The TSA does not allow enough time for the buyer to transition to the new services, leading to disruption and inefficiencies.
● Inadequate pricing: The price of the services is not based on fair market value, leading to either buyer or seller dissatisfaction and if too low, poor incentives to end TSAs.
● Lack of communication: The buyer and seller do not communicate effectively, leading to problems and delays.
● Poorly defined dispute resolution and termination provisions: The TSA does not clearly define the circumstances under which either party can terminate the agreement, leading to uncertainty and legal disputes.

A Few Recommendations:
● Get input from relevant stakeholders, including legal, finance, and operations teams to ensure that the TSA is properly drafted and executed.
● Communicate broadly why the TSA is the best option to both buyer and seller rather than the long tail of the trivial many.
● Be clear that the TSA is not an enduring service line; the objective is independence.
● Set clear and objective measures of service levels and cost. Monitor the performance of the seller and terminate the agreement if necessary. (Pro-tip: allow the costs/service levels to be fit for purpose yet worse than market or to diminish at an agreed upon timeline to motivate conclusion of the TSA)
● Identify a person to fully own and advocate for the interests of the buyer and the seller early on. Being generous with each other often ends with contempt as the group struggle to operate independently. Assign someone to think with bias for each group early on so that you have empathy for the two future independent parties before it’s needed.
● Ensure you are planning for your fixed cost service teams and variable cost service agreements to be resized appropriately to serve the smaller customer base by the end of the TSA period.