HOW INTEGRAL WENT FROM 20% BEHIND TARGET TO A RECORD Q4
Case study: Integral
SNAPSHOT
Client: Integral
Sector: Employee communications and transformation
Market: US
Target customer: Enterprise organisations with revenue above $2bn and/or 2,000+ employees, typically in periods of growth or decline
Challenge: Underperforming against revenue target, no distinctive market position, and too commercially dependent on the CEO's personal pull
Work delivered: Market and competitive analysis, repositioning leadership, brand refresh oversight, RevOps review and optimisation, CRM rebuild, content and communications cadence, account and network growth strategy
Timeframe: 6 months
Headline result: Q4 revenue 63% above the previous all-time Q4 record. Win rate up 15%. Average deal value up 20%.
"Working with John Lyons and Soba pushed us to be more disciplined about how we show up in market and how we serve the relationships we've already built. The results speak for themselves, but what I valued most was having a clear-eyed partner who didn't let us off the hook."
Ethan McCarty, CEO
THE SITUATION
Integral is a US employee communications and transformation agency. Enterprise clients, $2bn-plus revenue, organisations either growing fast or coming apart at the seams. Good work, and genuine capability.
But commercially, they were trending 16 to 22% behind where they needed to be. And most of the business development was running through the CEO's personal charisma rather than any kind of system. That's fine when it's working. It's restricting when one person is the entire commercial engine.
THE PROBLEM
Their proposition was indistinguishable from every other agency in the category. The category itself was working its arse off to be forgettable. Corporate speak, stock photography of people pointing at whiteboards, predictable blues and greens, everyone talking about themselves.
Nobody saying anything worth remembering.
Integral had two problems at once: it didn't sound like anything distinctive, and it wasn't working the commercial opportunities already sitting in its network and CRM. Both fixable. Neither had been fixed.
THE DIAGNOSIS
A competitive and market analysis confirmed what was already obvious once you looked at it: the entire category was interchangeable. Broad positioning, polite language, nobody speaking to the customer's actual reality.
That's not a problem, that's an opening.
In parallel, a RevOps review showed the commercial setup was almost comically underpowered. The CRM was being used as a contact database. No pipeline accountability. No automation. No follow-up discipline. Disconnected data everywhere. Warm opportunities sitting untouched while the team went looking for cold ones instead.
THE STRATEGY
Two tracks, run simultaneously.
First, reposition the business so it sounds like itself rather than like everyone else.
Second, turn the sales and marketing function into something that could actually do its job.
The point was not to invent growth from thin air. Integral already had good relationships, good clients, and a capable team. The job was to make the business easier to choose, and far more disciplined about converting what was already within reach.
THE REPOSITIONING AND BRAND REFRESH
I led the market research and competitive analysis in the initial phase. Soba: Private Label worked with the business to define what Integral wanted to be known for, and built the positioning around three distinct service categories.
The new position centred on the line "work doesn't have to be a four letter word", with work rendered as w**k.
In a market that had decided corporate safety was a strategy, that gave the business a sharper, more human presence. Memorable. Slightly subversive. Entirely on brand for a business that already showed up that way in rooms, just not on its website.
Visually, the refresh leaned into Integral's distinctive jade, one of the few genuinely ownable assets in a category full of identical palettes. I led the rollout and oversaw the refresh as Fractional CMO throughout.
THE REVOPS REBUILD
We rebuilt the sales and marketing operation so it could actually do its job.
That meant processes that made sense on paper before building automated workflows, structured follow-up cycles, proper lead tracking, and better visibility of lapsed clients, unattributed contacts, and services not yet sold into existing accounts. Pipeline management got accountability.
The CRM went from passive storage to an active commercial tool.
By combining that data with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, we identified high-value warm targets across lapsed clients, existing accounts, and senior leadership networks. Business development stopped being a cold lottery and started prioritising the people most likely to convert.
EVENTS, CONTENT, AND COMMUNICATIONS CADENCE
One "Circles" event per quarter: 10 to 12 carefully selected Chief Communications Officers and equivalent senior leaders, chosen by geography, profile, and relationship warmth.
No bigger. Deliberately small. Designed to open and continue conversations, not fill a room.
They quickly started generating meetings and proposals that would not have existed without the targeting and follow-up behind them.
Content was restructured around three service lines, with workplace culture added as a fourth pillar. The newsletter was properly tracked through the CRM. A deliberate LinkedIn cadence was built across the company page and the leadership team. The CEO's public profile, speaking engagements, and trade body involvement were treated as commercial assets rather than left to run in parallel to the business.
RESULTS
Over six months, Integral went from significantly behind target to finishing the year on a record Q4.
63%
increase in Q4 Revenue on previous all-time record
15%
Win rate increase
20%
average deal value increase
Pipeline targets for new contacts and opportunities were hit month on month throughout the engagement.
Most of the growth came from existing relationships: warm contacts, lapsed clients, expanded accounts. Not cold outreach. Not a new channel.
What was already there, worked properly at last.
WHY IT WORKED
The repositioning made Integral easier to notice. The RevOps work made it easier to convert.
Brand without process is cosmetic. Process without positioning is just efficient bullshit.
Together, they created a business that was more memorable in market and more disciplined about doing something with the demand it was generating. They stopped leaving money in the network and started going to get it.
That's it.
RELEVANT SERVICES
Relevant services: Positioning, market analysis, competitive analysis, brand refresh leadership, RevOps optimisation, CRM design, sales and marketing process, content strategy, account growth, event strategy, Fractional CMO leadership.
THE CLOSING LINE
If your business has decent relationships, decent capability, and a commercial engine that still isn't pulling its weight, that's usually fixable.
The trick is to stop treating brand, sales, and marketing like separate little kingdoms.