Case study, professional services
A founder with a great reputation and a referral pipeline he could not forecast. Demand creation and demand capture, running together, turned $6,767 in ad spend into $750,000 in deal flow.
Professional services · Sells to seven, eight and nine figure business owners
$750K
Deal flow
$6,767
Total ad spend
110x
Deal flow per ad dollar
60
Days from launch
Ad spend from LinkedIn Campaign Manager · Raw exports, no blended numbers
The founder
A veteran in his industry who has run multiple companies and built a strong business on reputation alone. Everyone in his market knows him. The work is excellent. The referrals keep coming.
They just do not come on a schedule.
The problem
That is the rollercoaster every referral business rides. Two months of deals appearing out of nowhere, then a quiet stretch with nothing in the pipe and no explanation for why. You cannot forecast it, you cannot hire against it, and you cannot plan a year around it.
He came to us for one thing. A pipeline he could count on.
Demand creation
We installed the growth system on top of his own expertise. One recording a month, cut into content that went out under his name, then the best performing pieces amplified with Thought Leader Ads.
The unlock was the targeting. He sells to business owners, ideally seven, eight and nine figure ones, and everyone running ads at that audience bids on the same three things: job title, company size and industry. That auction is crowded and expensive. So we targeted the rooms those CEOs already sit in instead: vetted founder and CEO networks such as YPO and other business membership groups, where every member has already been qualified by the time they join. That was the sweet spot of who this firm serves best, and almost nobody else was advertising to it.
Once that audience had seen the founder's content, we followed with warm outreach to the same people. The outreach led with something useful instead of a pitch: an executive salary calculator showing what the current market pays for the role a CEO is about to hire. It answered a question every hiring CEO has, and it started the conversation on their terms.
Same buyer, different door. The people bidding on titles never saw us coming, and the impressions cost a fraction of what that audience normally costs to reach.
Demand capture
At the same time, we scanned every day for the signals that come right before an executive search:
When a signal hit, the decision maker heard from the founder that same day, while the need was fresh and before a competitor saw it.
What happened
Demand creation made sure the right CEOs already knew his name. Demand capture reached them the moment they needed to hire. Within 60 days of the first booked call, this founder had multiple deals on the table worth more than $750,000, including one engagement large enough to reshape his year.
Total advertising investment to produce it: $6,767.51. That is roughly 110 dollars of deal flow for every dollar spent on ads.
A full year of our services and his advertising was paid for inside the first 60 days of working together. The engine is still running, and the pipeline is still filling.
Why it worked
The content came from a founder with twenty years of real opinions. That is why people stopped, and that is why the calls started warm instead of cold.
Vetted CEO networks like YPO reached the exact same owners as title targeting, in a far narrower audience, at a far lower cost per impression.
New CEOs, executive moves, company sales and private equity deals were reached the same day. For a firm like this, timing is everything, and the window is short.
Demand creation built familiarity before the need. Demand capture showed up the moment the need appeared. Each made the other convert better.
Thirty minutes. We map your buyers, find the audience nobody else is bidding on, and show you what the first ninety days looks like.
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