Andy Banning,
Cyberian Technologies
A Decade Of No Marketing, No Plan And No Direction
I started Cyberian Technologies in 2005 as a project integration company. In 2012, we started down the road of managed services. Somehow I drew the short straw to be in charge of sales and marketing, of which I had very minimal knowledge. As a business, we were essentially flying blind with absolutely ZERO plan, ZERO direction and almost ZERO marketing materials to attract prospects. We didn’t even have a scope of how big or how quickly we wanted to grow.
A couple of years later, we started seeing Robin Robins’ marketing everywhere. At the time, we just didn’t have the foresight to realize how she could help us. We continued with our zero-direction, zero-goal plan until a couple years later when one of my new sales guys and I decided to go check out Robin’s Boot Camp. I remember being overwhelmed at the end of the first day. That’s when it first hit me that we will need a REAL targeted marketing effort as well as a clear purpose and goal to FINALLY push our company forward.
We bought Robin’s Toolkit, brought it back home, and it sat collecting dust for a few weeks…and then a few months…because I didn’t THINK I had the time to implement a ton of marketing.
Finally Ready To Implement My Marketing And Start Getting Results
After way too many years of ignoring marketing (and as a result ignoring more opportunities), I got the infamous 9-Word E-mail from Robin asking if we still intended to join Producers Club. I met with my business partners, and we agreed to really focus on our growth. So, we joined Producers Club, and I hired a very focused young lady as our marketing representative. She would help us to begin implementing the marketing campaigns to start us moving in the right direction.
Our first order of business: attending Robin’s Rapid Implementation Workshop. We wasted no time in getting things done, including “Robinizing” our website, creating a “Shock-And-Awe box” to present before sales meetings and putting together our testimonial book. Almost immediately, we added 14 or 15 good, solid testimonials to our website!
We assessed ourselves with Robin’s Marketing Roadmap to see where our strengths and weaknesses were and where we needed to improve. Next, we started implementing monthly newsletters to prospects and monthly TechTips postcards to existing clients and prospects. After those campaigns were established, we started sending out direct mail.
At one of the Producers Club Meetings, we got introduced to Carver. Their cyber security expertise connected perfectly with our clients. We ran with them and put together webinars and lunch-and-learns and signed up with HIPAA Secure Now! and Breach Secure Now! to offer HIPAA compliance along with cyber security training. Our cyber security offering became really solid, and we were able to secure several deals, thanks to great contacts we made at Robin’s events.
Finally Seeing Real Growth: From $3.5M To $4.7M And A 29% Profit Jump In One Year
We found our marketing niche with networking events. From Chamber of Commerce events to webinars and lunch-and-learns, we got our new cyber security product in front of many clients and prospects. First, we landed a $25K deal, or a little over $2K a month. Next, we got a tremendous opportunity to land a $33K per month contract for a company replacing their entire IT department. We first competed against 23 different vendors, which got whittled down to seven, and then the final three! Our online video testimonials were key to winning this lucrative contract.
Thanks to this contract and many others, we increased our revenue from $3.5M to $4.7M – a 34% increase – in just one year! Even better, our net profit increased 29% and our MRR increased 160% in that same year.
Running 79 Campaigns, Adding 14 New MSP Clients And Upselling 5 Existing Clients… All In One Year
It’s hard to believe that just a few years back, I knew little to nothing about marketing. Then, in one year, we ran 79 campaigns, added 14 new MSP clients and upsold five clients for a total of $43K in MRR and $122K in project-related revenue. Plus, we still have four deals in the pipeline that could add another $150K in project revenue and $3K in MRR! In total, we grew from $3.5M to $5M from 2016 to 2018. I think that’s very sizable growth and representative of what Cyberian Technologies has been growing and doing, only enhanced by Robin and her marketing.
Our new “Robinized” website provided a good chunk of MRR clients this year – four clients, $115K in project revenue and $9,600 in MRR! We have also run multiple referral campaigns from Robin’s Dashboard to net $18K in project revenue and another $8,100 MRR in referrals alone!
Beyond the marketing, beyond the immense value I get from being a part of an amazing Accountability Group, I receive great results from what I refer to as the Robin Robins Ecosystem. When you look at the vendors and presenters she has attending the Producers Club meetings, Road Shows and Boot Camp, they are all first-class. By now delivering high-quality products to our offering, Cyberian Technologies has become far more attractive to both new and existing clients.
