Two descriptions of the same capability
Each business unit's website and decks describe the shared offer in their own terms. Customers notice before the sales teams do.
Turn a combined portfolio into one usable cross-sell offer.
You may recognise some of this.
Not every team has every one of these. They are the situations that usually prompt the conversation.
Referrals that disappear
A salesperson spots an opportunity for the sister business, sends an email, and never hears what happened to it.
Ownership nobody has settled
No one has decided who owns an account both businesses serve, so the referral stalls, politely.
From trigger to accepted result.
We follow one cross-sell route, from a spotted opportunity to a referral the receiving business accepts.
Step 1: Cross-sell opportunity
- Account owner in the referring business
- Shared qualification guidance
- The opportunity is checked against the agreed offer.
Step 2: Agreed capability boundaries
- Sponsor and business unit leads
- The reconciled offer description
- What each business delivers is written down.
Step 3: Consolidated evidence
- Marketing or bid support
- Evidence from both businesses
- One set of references and credentials, not two.
Step 4: Shared guidance
- Sales in both businesses
- Qualification guidance and offer description
- Both teams describe the offer the same way.
Step 5: Accepted referral
- The receiving business
- The referral ownership process
- Accepted or declined with a reason, within an agreed time.
What this looks like in practice.
An anonymised scenario drawn from patterns across our past work, showing how this kind of problem gets solved. Named projects follow further down the page.
One offer between two business units
A bounded piece of work on one cross-sell offer, with a named sponsor. It is not acquisition integration as a whole.
What you supply
- Current offer descriptions, decks and pages from both businesses
- Case studies and references from both
- A named sponsor with authority over this offer in both businesses
- Interviews with a salesperson and a delivery lead from each side
What you receive
- A reconciled offer description
- A consolidated evidence pack
- Qualification guidance for both sales teams
- A referral ownership process
What stays with you
- Leadership resolves account ownership and delivery authority
- The sponsor approves the offer description
- Each business confirms it can deliver what is described
When it is complete
- Both businesses have approved the offer description
- Referrals follow the agreed process and are tracked
- Open leadership decisions are listed, each with an owner
Scope, fee, timing and how much of your team's time it needs are agreed in writing before any work starts.
Measured against your own starting point.
During scoping we agree a baseline for each measure from your own records, then compare at the end. We do not promise a percentage before we have seen the work.
Ownership and delivery questions still open.
From referral sent to accept or decline.
Why referrals are declined, recorded consistently.
How often the shared material is actually used.
Similar work, and why it is relevant.
Work by the people behind ECM.DEV, chosen because the workflow is similar, not because the sector is identical. Each case study says how it was delivered, and client names do not imply endorsement.
Unified Positioning for a Sustainability Reporting Firm
Unified the messaging across an advisory, an academy, a data platform and a recently combined specialist consultancy into one positioning. The closest match to a two-business offer.
Read the case studyMarketing Technology Due Diligence & Investment Strategy for a Private Equity Firm
Independent due diligence for a growth equity investor evaluating an acquisition. It shows familiarity with the investor's view of a business; it was not integration work.
Read the case study
Founder · Fractional content operations lead
Senior ownership for the work between expertise, content and sales.
I help your team turn specialist knowledge into clear, approved material and repeatable workflows. That means connecting the people, information and systems needed to keep content useful across buying journeys and markets.
Start with one defined project. If you need continued support, I can lead agreed priorities, coordinate contributors and keep approvals and improvements moving, with a scope and rhythm that fit your team.
Start with one conversation.
A scoping conversation is about the work in front of you: which workflow, which material, who needs to be involved. If a first project makes sense, you receive a written scope and fee. If it does not, we say so.
- Understand the problem
- Agree one project
- Deliver and review
- Decide whether more is useful
A completed project with nothing further is a good outcome. Ongoing support is there if you want it, not a condition of starting.