In addition to being a senior advisor at Battery Point Capital, Brian co-founded Seabrook Partners in January 2011. Prior to Seabrook Partners, he spent five years as a Managing Director and National Head of the Capital Strategies Group at Citigroup and then Morgan Stanley following the sale of Smith Barney by Citigroup to Morgan Stanley. The Capital Strategies Group provided M&A services to middle-market companies in the U.S. During the five years Brian ran the Group, it completed more than 110 transactions with aggregate value exceeding $3 billion.
Brian spent three years at Aether Systems, first as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and later as President, Enterprise Solutions Division, Aether’s largest operating division. Brian was instrumental in transforming Aether from a 20-person private company with an annual revenue run rate of $1 million into one of the leading wireless data companies in the world with annual revenues in excess of $100 million. He was responsible for managing the company’s acquisitions, joint ventures and public equity and debt offerings.
Brian ran the East Coast Technology Group at Smith Barney in New York where he worked from 1988-1998. Brian began his investment banking career at E.F. Hutton in 1986 and later worked for Robertson, Colman & Stephens in San Francisco.
At Battery Point Capital (BPC), Tim specializes in analyzing company and brand positioning, go-to-market strategies, and digital marketing/sales enablement for all BPC portfolio companies. He also oversees our joint venture with The Inforefinery, a leading lead generation firm.
Tim has over 25 years experience in the public and private capital markets, investment banking and asset management. As an investment banker and capital markets specialist, he has raised more than $10 billion of debt and equity capital for companies in the retail, utility, energy, manufacturing and technology industries.
While a capital markets specialist at Chase, Merrill Lynch, and ABN Amro, Tim specialized in corporate finance advisory, rating agency advisory and capital structure optimization for large public companies like Walmart, International Paper, General Motors, and General Electric. As an adviser at Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, Tim advised entrepreneurs on growing, improving and selling their businesses.
Jay Wright has over twenty years of experience in finance and public markets. As the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer or Chief Financial Officer of three public companies over the past eleven years, he has structured numerous private and public financing transactions. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for TAMSCO, a privately held government contractor, which he helped sell for $83.5 million in 2003, and was a founding shareholder of Chesapeake Government Technologies, which was acquired by Widepoint Corporation (Amex: WYY) in 2004. He has expertise in all aspects of structuring private placements and in creating exits via mergers and acquisitions and open market sales.
Previously, Mr. Wright worked as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch in New York and a mergers and acquisitions lawyer with Foley & Lardner in Chicago and Skadden, Arps in New York. Mr. Wright received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School and his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University, summa cum laude, where he also serves as an adjunct finance professor. Mr. Wright is a member of the Illinois state bar and is Series 7, 24 and Series 66 qualified. Mr. Wright is the co-author of Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers, Sixth Edition (Perseus Books, 2010).
Kevin has over 30 years of investment banking experience. Kevin has worked on a broad range of M&A and corporate finance transactions, both domestic and cross-border, including leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, divestitures, initial public offerings, high yield financing transactions and private capital raises.
As an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Kevin’s clients have included corporations, boards of directors, private equity firms and individual owners. Kevin’s transactions have spanned a large range of industries, including packaging, consumer products, transportation, oil and gas, renewable energy and health care.
Representative clients include International Paper, Sealed Air, Chesapeake, Grief Industries, Kennametal, Plastipack, MeadWestvaco, AGCO, True Brew, Spear Power Systems, H2Bev, Shorty’s, and Saratoga Chips.
Our Process & Resources
Whether you are contemplating new markets, expanding your sales team or even evaluating strategic M&A, we can help you fund your growth initiatives.
In many cases, taking over the position of an owner or existing shareholder represents a fast way for us to take a significant equity position while also providing capital for growth. We are prepared to acquire companies outright or gain entry via a partner buyout.
By far, the most important area of focus to drive growth is by improving the overall sales & marketing approach. Companies can be grown faster than ever, but detailed planning and the efficient allocation of marketing resources is the key to a successful go-to-market strategy.
Whether upstream, downstream or lateral, companies can often transform themselves fastest via a transformational acquisition. We have been advising companies on inorganic growth strategies for decades.
Whether its a brand new product line, new features for an existing product, or an overhaul of a successful product, all can drive increases in revenue.
For some companies, a major investment in new sales software, ERP systems or business intelligence will lead to a revenue breakthrough.
In many cases, investing in or improving the marketing and sales tech stack will be the highest ROI spend.
Improving processes, reducing expenses, expanding channels and improving existing products are strategies that all require investment capital and can yield dramatic revenue improvements.
Battery Point Capital is an investment-oriented family office, formed to make control-oriented buyout investments in established lower middle-market U.S. companies as well as earlier stage, fast growing companies that are not yet profitable.
We prefer to make growth equity investments, both minority and control, in the following company types:
By far, the leading reason companies raise capital is to invest in sales and marketing. Once product-market fit is established, companies should be focused on building a great sales and marketing process.
In our experience, this requires companies to leverage the most relevant marketing channels and marketing technology in order to scale. Whether this is executed via outsourcing or by building teams and processes internally is company specific – both approaches work, though we prefer outsourcing.
Most of the companies we speak to spend far too little on sales and marketing (between 0 and 5%).
Your spend will depend on the opportunity – larger markets with good opportunities and low competition demand a budget of 20% or more of revenue for sales and marketing.
The rule of thumb for established and/or smaller companies ($5mm or less in revenue) is 5-10% of revenue should be allocated to sales and marketing efforts.
For faster growing companies (30% or more YOY growth), it is not uncommon to see budgets of 30-50% of revenue.
SaaS companies often spend anywhere from 80 to 120 percent of their revenue on sales and marketing. It then plateaus around 50 percent from year five on.
High-growth technology businesses spend 25 to 45 percent of revenues on sales.
A new product launch can boost sales and marketing costs to 30 percent for a small business, while the steady state spend is 10 to 20 percent of revenues.
High revenue/low margin companies can plot their spend goals against cashflow.
We are major proponents of outsourcing sales & marketing for most of our portfolio companies, at least in the early stages. The complexity and execution risk in the modern go-to-market effort is substantial, and the requisite talent to execute is simply too hard to find.
Even for larger companies with substantial revenue, we have pushed out the horizon on bringing sales and marketing in house. Better to allocate that capital to professional support, onboarding, training new clients etc.
For marketing to be effective, it needs to be innovative and engaging, so relying on your own staff will only get you so far. Outsourcing connects you with marketing agencies that can stay on top of new technology and trends.
In a perfect world, a company would have a clear idea of how they would allocate the capital we might provide. The level of detail in your plan will vary by industry, but here are our general views:
In 2020, after countless interviews with external agencies, we decided to create a joint venture with a leading database company and a leading paid media company to deliver services to our portfolio clients.
We now have substantially more control over the fate of our investments and can deliver best-in-class services to our companies. The specialists working with our clients have decades of marketing experience.
This joint venture is focused on delivering value in the core tasks and marketing channels as we see them – SEO & content marketing, web redesign, email marketing, paid search and social media marketing.
At Battery Point, we often provide capital for acquisitions and we have extensive career experience in increasing the valuation of a business via M&A driven growth strategies. We are able to help our partners drive value via acquisition through the following advantages and experience:
M&A execution is our core skill. Because acquisitions are our expertise, we often focus on acquisitions to add on to our existing portfolio companies whenever possible. We have extensive in eliminating overlapping costs post acquisition, allowing our portfolio companies to concentrate on growth opportunities.
We understand the need for thorough due diligence & research. We understand that much of our return on investment in an acquisition-based strategy is based on an ability to acquire businesses in the best way possible from the start and to minimize their risk. We are aggressive in sharing our M&A experience with our portfolio companies, providing them substantial help in identifying acquisition targets that fit their criteria. Prior, we help perform substantial industry and competitor research as well as generate valuation estimates. We can also help our companies identify underperforming businesses that can be improved through better management and proper investment in critical areas.
We are experienced in the upgrade. As soon as an acquisition is completed, we help our partners establish strong financial controls, internal reporting, eliminate unprofitable units, streamline operations, and help management to identify operational inefficiencies. We also know the importance of having excellent software and IT operations and encourage our partners to move quickly to upgrade to the best available solutions that provide enhanced business analytics to support better decision making.
We can help with use of appropriate leverage. We help our partners access debt capital to fund an acquisition strategy, as leverage sets up a much higher internal rate of return (IRR) in the long run while also allowing our companies to consider large, transformative acquisitions. As important, we understand how to leverage the balance sheet of the target acquisition to close larger acquisitions.
As a growth equity investor, minority positions are more the rule than an exception, so we are prepared to work with companies to create investment structures that fit best with their objectives. In fact, we see minority investments as potentially more advantageous than control stakes for the following reasons:
Better investments: Companies selling minority stakes often have more attractive growth prospects, specific expansion plans, and clear roadmaps for investing the capital raised
Confidentiality and reduced execution risk: Sellers often don’t want to publicize their desire to attract a third-party partner and sell a minority stake, fearing adverse publicity and customer fallout if the transaction fails. Unlike the vast majority of control deals, minority deals are typically not consummated through formal auctions.
Competitive advantage for patient capital: Minority stakes usually provide early participation in the growth of companies, and allows us to build relationships with owners rather than simply participating in a public auction. Investing in building relationships with family owners and senior managers takes time and effort, but we have learned that all the calls, meetings, and industry conferences eventually pays off.
We do consider a variety of factors and take certain steps when making minority investments:
When they work: Minority ownership interests can work well when the key means of value creation are related to top-line growth and governance. These include facilitating organic or inorganic cross-border growth, professionalizing management teams and processes, enhancing governance, and consolidating fragmented sectors.
When they don’t: Minority investing can become problematic, however, when the investment thesis hinges on activities such as creating value through restructuring, improving operational performance, cost cutting, and supply chain initiatives. In these instances, majority ownership and a hands-on, control-oriented approach are often more appropriate.
.
Don’t let business strategy be developed absent a thoughtful conversation on what talent needs you will have over the next months and years to execute on the strategy. In our experience, HR is too often trying to catch up to the staffing needs rather than having a measured plan in place to achieve hiring targets.
We have a process – We can conduct a thorough review of the hiring needs required for scaling
Giving an unbiased view of your current team – We can see things that you cannot and can help identify key positions to be filled
Using our Rolodex – Recruiting specific players from our existing contacts and relationships to fill key posts
Getting your compensation scheme right – we can help create and implement a robust compensation program for your existing and potential C level executives
Evaluating leadership at add-on acquisitions – Due diligence of the C suite talent at potential acquisitions
When companies grow, they are increasing their revenue equally as fast as they are adding resources to enable that increase. When companies scale, on the other hand, they add revenue at a faster rate than they take on new costs. When establishing a scaling strategy for your business, you should have the following long-term goals in mind:
Standardizing your processes: Scaling requires you to move beyond the start-up phase and standardize workflows so that they’re able to cope with increased market demands. Leveraging technologies and full-suite solutions (i.e. QuickBooks) can help business owners grow their company while saving time and keeping upfront costs low.
Aside from automation, standardizing your business processes is another essential element of scaling. When you bring in new team leaders and middle managers, you must document and distribute a clear set of instructions to the personnel responsible for handling a certain activity. These instructions should be repeated regularly and will ultimately convert an otherwise complex task into a structured regimen. Whenever confusion arises within the team, they can refer to the process checklist rather than you.
Identifying core competencies: To operate at scale, business leaders need to concentrate on mastering the company’s core competencies. For example, in every company, there are daily or weekly tasks that generate more leads and greater revenue than others. These are the tasks that must be prioritized on your business’s schedule, as they are the ones that stimulate growth. Knowing how to scale a business begins with being able to identify where you offer the most value to clients and customers and aggressively ramping up those specific operations. We can offer a fresh perspective and key insights in this regard.
Leveraging equity: To execute your plan, you need funding to leverage and complement your equity capital. We have extensive experience in securing funding for small businesses, some that are standard, some that are new to the market – traditional term loans, short-term loans, business lines of credit, SBA loans, invoice financing, recurring revenue loans (based on MRR or ARR), etc.
Our Investment Criteria
Battery Point Capital is an investment-oriented family office, formed to make control-oriented buyout investments in established lower middle-market U.S. companies as well as earlier stage, fast growing companies that are not yet profitable.
We prefer to make growth equity investments, both minority and control, in the following company types:
Building Sales & Marketing
By far, the leading reason companies raise capital is to invest in sales and marketing. Once product-market fit is established, companies should be focused on building a great sales and marketing process.
In our experience, this requires companies to leverage the most relevant marketing channels and marketing technology in order to scale. Whether this is executed via outsourcing or by building teams and processes internally is company specific – both approaches work, though we prefer outsourcing.
Sales & Marketing – Frequently Asked Questions
Most of the companies we speak to spend far too little on sales and marketing (between 0 and 5%).
Your spend will depend on the opportunity – larger markets with good opportunities and low competition demand a budget of 20% or more of revenue for sales and marketing.
The rule of thumb for established and/or smaller companies ($5mm or less in revenue) is 5-10% of revenue should be allocated to sales and marketing efforts.
For faster growing companies (30% or more YOY growth), it is not uncommon to see budgets of 30-50% of revenue.
SaaS companies often spend anywhere from 80 to 120 percent of their revenue on sales and marketing. It then plateaus around 50 percent from year five on.
High-growth technology businesses spend 25 to 45 percent of revenues on sales.
A new product launch can boost sales and marketing costs to 30 percent for a small business, while the steady state spend is 10 to 20 percent of revenues.
High revenue/low margin companies can plot their spend goals against cashflow.
We are major proponents of outsourcing sales & marketing for most of our portfolio companies, at least in the early stages. The complexity and execution risk in the modern go-to-market effort is substantial, and the requisite talent to execute is simply too hard to find.
Even for larger companies with substantial revenue, we have pushed out the horizon on bringing sales and marketing in house. Better to allocate that capital to professional support, onboarding, training new clients etc.
For marketing to be effective, it needs to be innovative and engaging, so relying on your own staff will only get you so far. Outsourcing connects you with marketing agencies that can stay on top of new technology and trends.
In a perfect world, a company would have a clear idea of how they would allocate the capital we might provide. The level of detail in your plan will vary by industry, but here are our general views:
In 2020, after countless interviews with external agencies, we decided to create a joint venture with a leading database company and a leading paid media company to deliver services to our portfolio clients.
We now have substantially more control over the fate of our investments and can deliver best-in-class services to our companies. The specialists working with our clients have decades of marketing experience.
This joint venture is focused on delivering value in the core tasks and marketing channels as we see them – SEO & content marketing, web redesign, email marketing, paid search and social media marketing.
Growing via Acquisition
At Battery Point, we often provide capital for acquisitions and we have extensive career experience in increasing the valuation of a business via M&A driven growth strategies. We are able to help our partners drive value via acquisition through the following advantages and experience:
M&A execution is our core skill. Because acquisitions are our expertise, we often focus on acquisitions to add on to our existing portfolio companies whenever possible. We have extensive in eliminating overlapping costs post acquisition, allowing our portfolio companies to concentrate on growth opportunities.
We understand the need for thorough due diligence & research. We understand that much of our return on investment in an acquisition-based strategy is based on an ability to acquire businesses in the best way possible from the start and to minimize their risk. We are aggressive in sharing our M&A experience with our portfolio companies, providing them substantial help in identifying acquisition targets that fit their criteria. Prior, we help perform substantial industry and competitor research as well as generate valuation estimates. We can also help our companies identify underperforming businesses that can be improved through better management and proper investment in critical areas.
We are experienced in the upgrade. As soon as an acquisition is completed, we help our partners establish strong financial controls, internal reporting, eliminate unprofitable units, streamline operations, and help management to identify operational inefficiencies. We also know the importance of having excellent software and IT operations and encourage our partners to move quickly to upgrade to the best available solutions that provide enhanced business analytics to support better decision making.
We can help with use of appropriate leverage. We help our partners access debt capital to fund an acquisition strategy, as leverage sets up a much higher internal rate of return (IRR) in the long run while also allowing our companies to consider large, transformative acquisitions. As important, we understand how to leverage the balance sheet of the target acquisition to close larger acquisitions.
Minority Equity Investments
As a growth equity investor, minority positions are more the rule than an exception, so we are prepared to work with companies to create investment structures that fit best with their objectives. In fact, we see minority investments as potentially more advantageous than control stakes for the following reasons:
Better investments: Companies selling minority stakes often have more attractive growth prospects, specific expansion plans, and clear roadmaps for investing the capital raised
Confidentiality and reduced execution risk: Sellers often don’t want to publicize their desire to attract a third-party partner and sell a minority stake, fearing adverse publicity and customer fallout if the transaction fails. Unlike the vast majority of control deals, minority deals are typically not consummated through formal auctions.
Competitive advantage for patient capital: Minority stakes usually provide early participation in the growth of companies, and allows us to build relationships with owners rather than simply participating in a public auction. Investing in building relationships with family owners and senior managers takes time and effort, but we have learned that all the calls, meetings, and industry conferences eventually pays off.
We do consider a variety of factors and take certain steps when making minority investments:
When they work: Minority ownership interests can work well when the key means of value creation are related to top-line growth and governance. These include facilitating organic or inorganic cross-border growth, professionalizing management teams and processes, enhancing governance, and consolidating fragmented sectors.
When they don’t: Minority investing can become problematic, however, when the investment thesis hinges on activities such as creating value through restructuring, improving operational performance, cost cutting, and supply chain initiatives. In these instances, majority ownership and a hands-on, control-oriented approach are often more appropriate.
.
Recruiting Talent
Don’t let business strategy be developed absent a thoughtful conversation on what talent needs you will have over the next months and years to execute on the strategy. In our experience, HR is too often trying to catch up to the staffing needs rather than having a measured plan in place to achieve hiring targets.
We have a process – We can conduct a thorough review of the hiring needs required for scaling
Giving an unbiased view of your current team – We can see things that you cannot and can help identify key positions to be filled
Using our Rolodex – Recruiting specific players from our existing contacts and relationships to fill key posts
Getting your compensation scheme right – we can help create and implement a robust compensation program for your existing and potential C level executives
Evaluating leadership at add-on acquisitions – Due diligence of the C suite talent at potential acquisitions
Scaling the Business
When companies grow, they are increasing their revenue equally as fast as they are adding resources to enable that increase. When companies scale, on the other hand, they add revenue at a faster rate than they take on new costs. When establishing a scaling strategy for your business, you should have the following long-term goals in mind:
Standardizing your processes: Scaling requires you to move beyond the start-up phase and standardize workflows so that they’re able to cope with increased market demands. Leveraging technologies and full-suite solutions (i.e. QuickBooks) can help business owners grow their company while saving time and keeping upfront costs low.
Aside from automation, standardizing your business processes is another essential element of scaling. When you bring in new team leaders and middle managers, you must document and distribute a clear set of instructions to the personnel responsible for handling a certain activity. These instructions should be repeated regularly and will ultimately convert an otherwise complex task into a structured regimen. Whenever confusion arises within the team, they can refer to the process checklist rather than you.
Identifying core competencies: To operate at scale, business leaders need to concentrate on mastering the company’s core competencies. For example, in every company, there are daily or weekly tasks that generate more leads and greater revenue than others. These are the tasks that must be prioritized on your business’s schedule, as they are the ones that stimulate growth. Knowing how to scale a business begins with being able to identify where you offer the most value to clients and customers and aggressively ramping up those specific operations. We can offer a fresh perspective and key insights in this regard.
Leveraging equity: To execute your plan, you need funding to leverage and complement your equity capital. We have extensive experience in securing funding for small businesses, some that are standard, some that are new to the market – traditional term loans, short-term loans, business lines of credit, SBA loans, invoice financing, recurring revenue loans (based on MRR or ARR), etc.
Investing in a better, faster customer journey can lead to massive improvements in profitability and revenue. See what happens when you increase your pitch/demo count, increase your close rate, reduce churn, toggle your product price, etc.
Requirements – The Company must be generating revenue, have an established product/service with a short list of satisfied clients (product-market fit), and the capacity to grow (solid onboarding and CX).
Decide on deal structure:
Like any venture capital or growth equity investment, the possible deal structures are numerous. They range from a simple revenue share (see below) to a commission arrangement for new leads. Generally, we prefer revenue sharing as it aligns everyone’s interests and is the most transparent.
We get a lot of requests for certain resources, software recommendations, lists, platforms etc., to help companies in their capital raising efforts. Below are some of our favorite sites, resources, platforms and some materials to help companies achieve their capital raising objectives. If you have any additional questions about capital investment from Battery Point Capital, get in touch with us via our contact form (here).
Foundersuite Tagline: Foundersuite brings structure, speed and efficiency to fundraising and investor relations.
Our thoughts – if you really want to DIY your process – this platform is the best and most cost effective way to access investor lists, term sheets, formation documents, a CRM for running a capital raise (or sale), a place to host your deck and make it available to investors (you can even track views, etc.). It sure beats a $20-30k subscription to Pitchbook.com or Capital-IQ.
Having spent decades in capital markets at the largest investment banks, we have built our fair share of investor decks. We built a simple template based on the classic Sequoia Capital deck. Feel free to download it.
We also have hundreds of targeted decks laying around, let us know if you need a more industry-specific deck, we will see if we can get you one.
Looking for an experienced partner to initiate and manage your outbound process? We partnered with an experienced digital marketing team in order to scale our clients fast. Whether it’s Email, Social and/or Dark Funnel strategies, this team has been very successful with our clients.
“We are witnessing a decided end to the era where sales reps were the channel; now they are merely a channel to customers. Sales leaders reluctant to acknowledge customers’ digital-first proclivities will be outpaced by competitors delivering significant value through digital- and omnichannel sales models, engaging customers in digitally rich learning and discovery.”
…from your salespeople
…independent online research
…from independent buying groups
…independent offline research
…other
(click to view each example)
Nail the basics:
Mistakes to avoid:
Video Strategy Note: 80% of people say they typically switch freely between online search and YouTube while researching a purchase
How To: Marketing & Tools
“An educated consumer is our best customer” Sy Syms
We get a lot of requests for certain resources, software recommendations, lists, platforms etc., to help companies in their capital raising efforts. Below are some of our favorite sites, resources, platforms and some materials to help companies achieve their capital raising objectives. If you have any additional questions about capital investment from Battery Point Capital, get in touch with us via our contact form (here).
Foundersuite Tagline: Foundersuite brings structure, speed and efficiency to fundraising and investor relations.
Our thoughts – if you really want to DIY your process – this platform is the best and most cost effective way to access investor lists, term sheets, formation documents, a CRM for running a capital raise (or sale), a place to host your deck and make it available to investors (you can even track views, etc.). It sure beats a $20-30k subscription to Pitchbook.com or Capital-IQ.
Having spent decades in capital markets at the largest investment banks, we have built our fair share of investor decks. We built a simple template based on the classic Sequoia Capital deck. Feel free to download it.
We also have hundreds of targeted decks laying around, let us know if you need a more industry-specific deck, we will see if we can get you one.
Looking for an experienced partner to initiate and manage your outbound process? We partnered with an experienced digital marketing team in order to scale our clients fast. Whether it’s Email, Social and/or Dark Funnel strategies, this team has been very successful with our clients.
“We are witnessing a decided end to the era where sales reps were the channel; now they are merely a channel to customers. Sales leaders reluctant to acknowledge customers’ digital-first proclivities will be outpaced by competitors delivering significant value through digital- and omnichannel sales models, engaging customers in digitally rich learning and discovery.”
…from your salespeople
…independent online research
…from independent buying groups
…independent offline research
…other
(click to view each example)
Nail the basics:
Mistakes to avoid:
Video Strategy Note: 80% of people say they typically switch freely between online search and YouTube while researching a purchase
How To: Marketing & Tools
“An educated consumer is our best customer” Sy Syms
Looking to scale your go-to-market effort?
Through our in-house marketing platform, Scale Partners, we offer a solution for early stage companies.
Who should apply – The Company must be generating revenue, have an established product/service with a short list of satisfied clients (product-market fit), and the capacity to grow (solid onboarding and CX).
The general reseller commission rates in the market can range dramatically, from as low as 5% to as much as 50%. We look at your revenue model, pricing structure, the lifetime value of the contracts, your close rate history, etc.
We have the right to cancel the contract at anytime after the 3 month commitment period. Generally, if either 1) the close rates are low or 2) the response to our efforts is low (low traffic to our site, low content engagement etc.), we won’t continue our marketing efforts. Prior to terminating our efforts, we always work with the client to improve what we can before terminating our efforts.
The termination fee is designed to reward us for taking on a marketing commitment without any (or minimal) upfront fees. We designed it to be a proxy equity stake. It isn’t actually equity and isn’t reflected as such on your cap table.
In a perfect world, we expect the termination fee to be relevant in only two situations – the company is purchased or the Company decides to move all selling and marketing efforts in-house.
Should you decide to hire your own marketing team at some point, you can end the contract and either pay us the entire termination fee at once, or simply allow us to collect commissions on the clients we produced for the next X years, the X being the termination multiple.
In our experience, it can take anywhere between two weeks and two months to get a marketing website launched and ready for conducting campaigns. This is really a function of the complexity of the product or service and the amount of content creation that is available from the Company at the outset.
We designed this program to require a minimum amount of your time prior to execution. Too many marketing companies foist a new and heavy marketing burden onto companies that simply don’t have the staff and experience to participate. There is a reasonable amount of due diligence that will be required upfront so that we can understand the Company and the content we will need to produce.
If the program works well, clearly we expect the Company to reinvest some of the new revenue and profits into a better marketing and closing effort. This could be more of their own content ideas, better UX or CX software etc.
At the start, we will discuss the right CRM system to use, if you don’t have one. Most CRMs have an API that would allow us to easily pass leads into your CRM system that you can then run through your own selling and onboarding process.
If you don’t have one, we will set one up for you but we will charge a nominal set up fee, depending on which CRM system you choose.
Reach out and start a conversation with our team.
Last updated: July 30, 2021 This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.
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The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our servers. If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, We may require Your parent’s consent before We collect and use that information.
Our Service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Us. If You click on a third party link, You will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.
We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us:
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Please read these terms and conditions carefully before using Our Service.
The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.
For the purposes of these Terms and Conditions:
These are the Terms and Conditions governing the use of this Service and the agreement that operates between You and the Company. These Terms and Conditions set out the rights and obligations of all users regarding the use of the Service.
Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on Your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms and Conditions. These Terms and Conditions apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service.
By accessing or using the Service You agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions. If You disagree with any part of these Terms and Conditions then You may not access the Service.
You represent that you are over the age of 18. The Company does not permit those under 18 to use the Service.
Your access to and use of the Service is also conditioned on Your acceptance of and compliance with the Privacy Policy of the Company. Our Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your personal information when You use the Application or the Website and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You. Please read Our Privacy Policy carefully before using Our Service.
Our Service may contain links to third-party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by the Company.
The Company has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. You further acknowledge and agree that the Company shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such web sites or services.
We strongly advise You to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third-party web sites or services that You visit.
We may terminate or suspend Your access immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if You breach these Terms and Conditions.
Upon termination, Your right to use the Service will cease immediately.
Notwithstanding any damages that You might incur, the entire liability of the Company and any of its suppliers under any provision of this Terms and Your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing shall be limited to the amount actually paid by You through the Service or 100 USD if You haven’t purchased anything through the Service.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall the Company or its suppliers be liable for any special, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, loss of data or other information, for business interruption, for personal injury, loss of privacy arising out of or in any way related to the use of or inability to use the Service, third-party software and/or third-party hardware used with the Service, or otherwise in connection with any provision of this Terms), even if the Company or any supplier has been advised of the possibility of such damages and even if the remedy fails of its essential purpose.
Some states do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or limitation of liability for incidental or consequential damages, which means that some of the above limitations may not apply. In these states, each party’s liability will be limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.
The Service is provided to You “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” and with all faults and defects without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted under applicable law, the Company, on its own behalf and on behalf of its Affiliates and its and their respective licensors and service providers, expressly disclaims all warranties, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, with respect to the Service, including all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement, and warranties that may arise out of course of dealing, course of performance, usage or trade practice. Without limitation to the foregoing, the Company provides no warranty or undertaking, and makes no representation of any kind that the Service will meet Your requirements, achieve any intended results, be compatible or work with any other software, applications, systems or services, operate without interruption, meet any performance or reliability standards or be error free or that any errors or defects can or will be corrected.
Without limiting the foregoing, neither the Company nor any of the company’s provider makes any representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied: (i) as to the operation or availability of the Service, or the information, content, and materials or products included thereon; (ii) that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free; (iii) as to the accuracy, reliability, or currency of any information or content provided through the Service; or (iv) that the Service, its servers, the content, or e-mails sent from or on behalf of the Company are free of viruses, scripts, trojan horses, worms, malware, timebombs or other harmful components.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain types of warranties or limitations on applicable statutory rights of a consumer, so some or all of the above exclusions and limitations may not apply to You. But in such a case the exclusions and limitations set forth in this section shall be applied to the greatest extent enforceable under applicable law.
The laws of the Country, excluding its conflicts of law rules, shall govern this Terms and Your use of the Service. Your use of the Application may also be subject to other local, state, national, or international laws.
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If You are a European Union consumer, you will benefit from any mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which you are resident in.
You represent and warrant that (i) You are not located in a country that is subject to the United States government embargo, or that has been designated by the United States government as a “terrorist supporting” country, and (ii) You are not listed on any United States government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable or invalid, such provision will be changed and interpreted to accomplish the objectives of such provision to the greatest extent possible under applicable law and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.
Except as provided herein, the failure to exercise a right or to require performance of an obligation under this Terms shall not effect a party’s ability to exercise such right or require such performance at any time thereafter nor shall be the waiver of a breach constitute a waiver of any subsequent breach.
These Terms and Conditions may have been translated if We have made them available to You on our Service. You agree that the original English text shall prevail in the case of a dispute.
We reserve the right, at Our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time. If a revision is material We will make reasonable efforts to provide at least 30 days’ notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at Our sole discretion.
By continuing to access or use Our Service after those revisions become effective, You agree to be bound by the revised terms. If You do not agree to the new terms, in whole or in part, please stop using the website and the Service.
If you have any questions about these Terms and Conditions, You can contact us: team@batterypointcapital.co
Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It by April Dunford is a book about how to position your product in the market so that customers understand it, buy it, and love it.
Dunford begins by explaining what product positioning is and why it’s important. Product positioning is the process of creating a unique identity for your product in the mind of the customer. It’s about explaining what your product is, who it’s for, and what makes it different from and better than the competition.
Dunford then goes on to explain the five components of effective product positioning:
Once you understand the five components of effective product positioning, you can use them to develop a positioning statement. A positioning statement is a short, clear sentence that summarizes the unique value proposition of your product. It should include the category, customer, benefit, differentiator, and proof.
Dunford also provides a ten-step process for developing and implementing a product positioning strategy. The steps are:
Obviously Awesome is a practical and informative guide to product positioning. It is essential reading for any business owner or marketer who wants to position their product for success.
They Ask You Answer is a book about content marketing and inbound sales. It is written by Marcus Sheridan, who used this approach to turn his struggling pool cleaning business into a multimillion-dollar company.
The core of the They Ask You Answer philosophy is that you should create content that answers the questions that your target customers are asking. This content can be in the form of blog posts, articles, videos, or even just social media posts.
The idea is that when you create content that answers your customers’ questions, you are positioning yourself as an expert in your field. This builds trust with potential customers and makes them more likely to do business with you.
Sheridan also emphasizes the importance of being unbiased in your content marketing. He argues that you should not try to sell your products or services directly in your content. Instead, you should focus on providing valuable information to your customers.
When you do this, you are building relationships with potential customers. And when the time comes for them to buy, they will be more likely to come to you because they trust you and know that you are an expert.
Here are some of the key takeaways from They Ask You Answer:
How to implement the They Ask You Answer approach
Here are some tips for implementing the They Ask You Answer approach in your business:
The They Ask You Answer approach is a powerful way to attract and convert leads. By creating content that answers your customers’ questions, you can position yourself as an expert in your field and build trust with potential customers.
The Content Fuel Framework is a book by Melanie Deziel that provides a system for generating unlimited story ideas. Deziel argues that the best way to come up with new content ideas is to systematize the process by breaking it down into two components: focus and format.
The book provides a list of 10 focuses and 10 formats that can be combined to create 100 different content ideas. The focuses are:
The formats are:
Deziel recommends that readers start by brainstorming a list of content ideas for each focus and format combination. This can be done individually or as a team. Once the list is complete, readers can start to prioritize and develop the ideas into full-fledged content pieces.
The Content Fuel Framework is a valuable resource for anyone who needs to generate content on a regular basis, including marketers, bloggers, social media managers, and writers. It is a simple and effective way to come up with new ideas and break out of content ruts.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the book:
The Content Fuel Framework is a powerful tool that can help you create a never-ending supply of content for your audience.
Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares is a book that provides a framework for startups to achieve rapid customer growth. The authors argue that traction is the most important thing for a startup, as it signals to investors, partners, and the media that the company is on the right track.
The book outlines 19 different traction channels that startups can use to acquire customers, including:
Other channels –
The authors recommend that startups start by testing a few different traction channels to see which ones work best for them. Once they have found a few channels that are effective, they can focus their resources on those channels and scale their growth.
In addition to providing a framework for acquiring customers, Traction also provides advice on how to measure and track traction, as well as how to use traction to raise money and hire top talent.
Overall, Traction is a valuable resource for any startup that is looking to achieve explosive customer growth. It is a practical and actionable book that provides startups with the tools they need to succeed.
Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love by Anthony Kennada is a book about how to create a new market category for your product or service. Kennada argues that category creation is the most effective way to achieve rapid growth and high valuations.
The book is divided into three parts:
In Part 1, Kennada introduces the concept of category creation and explains why it is so valuable. He also discusses the challenges of category creation and how to overcome them.
In Part 2, Kennada outlines the seven principles of category creation:
In Part 3, Kennada discusses the impact of category creation on customers, investors, and employees. He explains how category creation can help companies attract and retain top talent, raise more capital, and achieve higher valuations.
Overall, Category Creation is a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, marketers, and executives who are looking to create new markets and build category-defining brands.
Here are some additional key takeaways from the book:
However, if you are successful in creating a new category, the rewards can be immense. You will build a valuable business with a loyal customer base.
Interested in revenue share marketing?
Ready to start your outbound strategy?
Looking to syndicate your content (lists)?
Overview of the Agreement
Marketing Agent’s Right to Create New Content/Marketing Website: The marketing agent will have sole discretion over the content and structure of the marketing website, with the exception of correcting factual information at the request of the Company.
Marketing Agent’s Right to Use Existing Content: The marketing agent will have the right to publish (on the marketing website) and distribute (via email and social media) any existing content (text, articles, videos, etc.) from the Company’s current website.
Referral Commission: Once a lead becomes a customer of the Company, ____% of all revenue that is paid by that customer to the Company is to be paid to the marketing agent within 30 days of the Company receiving that revenue.
Commission Termination Fee: If the Company elects to terminate the contract and the marketing agent is currently generating commissions at the time of the Company’s election to terminate the contract, the Company is required to pay a multiple of ____ times the annual run rate of the current months commissions due to the marketing agent. Example: If the current month’s commissions due are $10,000 then the annual run rate of commissions is $120,000.
Lead Hand Off: The Company will be required to maintain their own CRM system to provide information on all leads passed by the marketing agent. Leads that are generated through the marketing agent’s efforts will be passed to the Company via the Company’s CRM system. The marketing agent will have access to this CRM system on a “read only” basis, which will provide the marketing agent with the ability to monitor close rates, win rates etc.
Company’s Ability to Purchase Content, Tools/Entire Marketing Website: The Company will have the ability to purchase any content and website pages/features produced by the marketing agent for the website and for campaigns, according the pricing schedule contained in this agreement. The Company will also have the right to purchase the marketing website and all content and analytics at any time during the life of the contract or after the termination of the contract, according to the price in the schedule. The marketing agent has the right to negotiate prices for any content, tools and the entire website, but there will be a stated price that the Company can pay for any content, tools and the entire site.
Content and Website Purchase Schedule:
___ cents per page for written content (articles, blog items etc.)
___ dollars for the entire website and content*
*Any tools, plug-ins, features that require a subscription will be assumed/paid for by the Company.
Notice – Enforcement of Marketing Agent’s IP Rights in Content: Marketing agent will use anti-plagiarism software to measure the level of similarity between our new content and the Company’s content. We will use plagiarism software to compare our content to the Company’s website content.
Exclusivity: The marketing agent will not conduct lead generation activities for any other company that is considered a direct competitor of the Company unless and until this contract is terminated. A direct competitor is any other company selling ________products or services. The Company can conduct any marketing efforts on its own behalf and generate its own leads, and these leads will not be subject to the fee agreement contained herein. However, the Company will not engage any other lead generation company during the life of this contract so long as the minimum milestones contained herein have been met in the last two months.
Obligations of Confidentiality: Both parties agree to keep each other’s confidential information confidential. This means that they cannot disclose the information to any third parties without the written consent of the other party.
Renegotiation: Either party may request to renegotiate the terms of this Agreement at any time upon 30 days’ written notice to the other party. The parties shall use their best efforts to negotiate in good faith to reach a mutually agreeable amendment to this Agreement.
Google Analytics Reports: The marketing agent will provide the Company, on a monthly basis, a report on all website activity related to the marketing website. This report will include basic traffic statistics as provided by Google Analytics.
Termination Rights of Agreement: The parties can jointly agree to terminate this agreement at any time. Either party may individually terminate this agreement upon 30 days’ written notice to the other party, subject to the following limitations:
Minimum marketing milestones: The following marketing milestones must be met by the marketing agent each month that the contract is in existence:
____ email campaigns per month
____ website visitors per month
These milestones will be confirmed via Google Analytics (or similar software) reports from the marketing agent, and this report will be provided to the Company within 15 days after each month.