Weidert Group: Fueling Growth with Increased Focus, Discipline Growth can be as difficult to survive as decline, if a firm is not prepared for its consequences. It was growth without strategy that brought Weidert Group President Greg Linnemanstons to consult with UW-Oshkosh Director Colleen Merrill. “My intuition said that we were doing a lot right, but we had a lack of discipline around our own strategic planning,” said Greg. “I knew that it would help us if we improved that.” When Greg joined the firm in late 2000, it was a 20-year-old small-town marketing firm with a typical “we’ll do anything for anybody” attitude. Hired to do business development, within ten months Greg’s impact on results led to being named president. In 2003, he and his wife (who had joined the company as a copywriter in early 2000) bought the business.

“My intuition said that we were doing a lot right, but how do we keep ourselves from crashing and burning as we grow?”

The need for focus

Greg recognized that the company needed greater focus. Social media marketing was gaining traction, and the firm started retooling its capabilities in that area. Then the economic downturn forced the firm to downsize and look for new direction. In 2010, Weidert Group discovered Hubspot, an inbound marketing software platform. (Inbound marketing refers to activities that draw customers to online content and generate well-qualified leads.) The firm became a Hubspot customer for its own lead generation, and within a few months became licensed to offer its inbound marketing platform to Weidert clients. “In 2011 we thought declaring ourselves an inbound marketing agency was enough focus,” Greg recalled. “Within a year or so, we refined the focus to B2B [business-to-business] because we could see how powerful the discipline was. Since then we’ve gotten even more focused. Today we target industrial manufacturers and the businesses that serve them.”

SBDC provides perspective

With increasing focus came growth, which began to put pressure on the operations side of the Weidert Group. Greg sought out Colleen Merrill at the UW-Oshkosh SBDC in September 2014. Setting goals, managing capacity, and hiring and developing the team were all concerns. “How do we keep ourselves

from crashing and burning as we grow? We had no shortage of issues, and they all got on the table quickly,” as Weidert Group’s shareholders began meeting with Merrill in her role as SBDC counselor. “One thing the firm lacked was a strong outside opinion. We place a lot of value on what an expert outside perspective brings to the table,” said Greg. “When I first met Greg and his team, I knew they would be awesome to work with. We began by doing a pretty intense business analysis that I facilitated,” said Colleen. “My role was to help identify the right road, capture key issues, prioritize next steps, and hold them accountable for the plan they laid out.” Working with the SBDC led to a disciplined business plan, including a budget that examined every assumption about the firm’s growth and connected financial performance to service delivery. “We had never really put discipline into that,” Greg acknowledged. “Colleen coached us on that. She also helped us identify how critical it was to have training and development plans in place for our people.”

At a glance Name: Weidert Group Location: Appleton Year founded: 1980 Employees: 18 Website: weidert.com WI SBDC at UW-Oshkosh, 920-424-1456

A growing staff and increasing specialization

Now the firm operates by a detailed monthly budget. “We’ve never had metrics like this,” Greg admitted. “It used to be, if we had money left over at the end of the month, that was a good month.” Now the firm has goals, a plan, and metrics to evaluate its performance, which has been so strong that the firm added seven people to its team in 2015. “This company has high energy, expert staff, and culture that celebrates success. It has been an absolute pleasure to watch them grow and exceed even their own expectations,” said Colleen.   The team plans to continue to hone their focus and build their expertise in industrial lead generation. In 2015, Weidert Group was honored as a Platinum HubSpot Partner, recognizing the agency as a national leader in inbound marketing services and HubSpot implementation. “We really want to double down on that focus, and be selective as we continue to improve our client base,” Greg concluded.

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