Case Study: Brodeur Partners

1. What new business development needs were you trying to solve when you brought in New Business Hub?

I needed to organize and unify my new business assets. They were on different office servers and on individual hard drives. RFP responses were created but not maintained in a way that was retrievable by versions or by keyword. Case histories were recreated over and over again because they were buried in pitch files. The most frustrating thing was that when a person left the agency so too did his or her new business knowledge and files

2. What tools were you using to manage new business development prior to bringing in New Business Hub?

We were using systems that were created for other functions and adapted for new business. It was a forced fit and it performed that way. Performance went from "slightly off" virtually useless. They were not designed for new business and it became painfully obvious and frustrating as hell!

3. What other solutions did you consider?

I looked around at every agency management and collaboration system and asked all my new business friends at other agencies -- nothing fit. I even tried developing my own system but it was cost prohibitive and way too time-consuming

4. What were your reasons for choosing New Business Hub over the other solutions considered?

It was created for new business with the input from new business directors. It was intuitive and simple to use. It was critical that I had a system that required virtually no training because I wanted everyone in the agency to be able to (and want to) use it for all new business needs.

5. How did you roll out New Business Hub to your team?

We started first with RFP responses -- our biggest pain point. Then we loaded in the case histories and the pitch assets such as key visuals that were used for all pitches. Next we added client testimonials and award submissions. The vast majority of the work was done by interns.

6. How did the PBworks team help you configure New Business Hub to meet your team's specific needs?

Even though all the key elements were there we wanted to make it look and feel like our system. We created a FAQ section that just related to our problems and terminology. We also created personalized "dropboxes" so people in the agency could use the Hub as their private document storage system.

7. How has New Business Hub improved the way you win new business?

It's cut down the stress and chaos dramatically. Nothing gets lost and everything is found quickly and easily. We now have a lot of virtual meetings because we can easily access remotely 24/7 and be talking about the same thing at the same time. Before, we needed to be in the same room because we were all using different versions of RFP responses and pitch elements. It was impossible to get 5+ people looking at the same elements and versions

8. How do you feel about PBworks after rolling it out to your organization?

It's never as easy as it looks but this was pretty damn close. Using interns to set up and load our existing content saved a lot of money. Once you use the system you feel embarrassed about all the time and money you wasted by doing it the old way.