New Partnerships Strategy Results in 12.4% Growth
Meridian engaged with a scaling accounting firm in H1 of 2024 to completely revive the Go-to-Market strategy. This was shifted from building an Event and Outbound motion to a holistic partnership motion tied with strategic tech alliances to produce 12.4% YoY growth.
Introduction
An international accounting firm was launching its presence in the competitive United States market. To quickly drive revenue and build market share, their initial plan focused on traditional, high-overhead Go-to-Market (GTM) methods: cold call/email outreach and attending live events. Through an early assessment, we identified that this traditional approach was costly, unscalable, and failed to help them build the trust needed in a highly regulated and relationship-driven sector.
Challenge
The firm was considering investing heavily in building an outbound sales motion and allocatinga large amount of their budget to showing up at events, even with the negative ROI from past shows. A high-risk, high-cost endeavor with uncertain returns. The deeper problem was that this GTM approach missed the firm's true competitive advantage.
Evaluation
Meridian helped the firm recognize 2 key truths about its business: 1.) Accounting is a highly regulated and very relationship-driven sector. In a industry that's is based on trust and referrals, outbounding and short interactions at events don't give the sales motion enough time to build the credibility needed to succeed. 2.) The agency's strengths truly lie in its deep, specialized technical expertise. The firm converted the highest, with businesses struggling with the implementation, integration, and complex data reporting of specific accounting and ERP technologies.
Strategy
Meridian completely reimagined the Go-to-Market strategy. The firm shifted from investing in events, travel, and outbounding, to a holistic partnership motion tied with strategic tech alliances. The firm could build the most credibility as a system implementer upfront, then upsell the general accounting services that are the backbone of the business. Being the Subject Matter Expert (SME) on complex technical implementation and reporting for a key technology partner was the best way in.
Solution
Meridian formally transitioned the firm's GTM into a channel-focused model. The CEO and key accounting SMEs built strong, continuous relationships with the technology partner’s sales and executive teams, positioning the firm as the preferred referral partner for all technical challenges. Those relationships turned into leads, which produced a 12.4% YoY Increase in net new revenue and a sustainable lead gen model.