Over a 10+-year partnership, Growth Heroes has helped System Scale (an industrial services provider) overhaul their processes and systems throughout Service, Sales, Marketing, and Finance in a drastic business transformation. In 2023, our work with System Scale won the Mira award for Digital Transformation.
Total Digital Transformation for an Industrial Services Provider
Founded in 1979, System Scale is a leader in the weights and measures industry with several locations across the South and Midwest. When they came to Growth Heroes in 2013, they were looking to overhaul outdated business processes through Digital Transformation. Together, we began a decade-long partnership and a total transformation of every area of their business, including Marketing, Sales, Service, and Finance.
From 2013 to 2021, the employee count at System Scale stayed at 99, but the company saw a 23% annualized increase in the ESOP share price from $96.75 to $500.01, for greater than 5x growth.
System Scale’s Tech Stack Before
In 2012, System Scale was still largely relying on systems and processes put in place 20+ years ago, like many small-to-medium industrial services firms. They still used a DOS-based accounting system, carbon copy paper, and standard phones. Marketing efforts mostly consisted of local customer appreciation events and print advertising.
System Scale’s Tech Stack Now
We implemented a tech stack full of modern automation tools, all centered around and integrated with Salesforce.
Marketing Transformation
2012
Besides the website, Marketing was 100% offline. Most new customers were created from sales pounding the pavement. Marketing attended local trade shows and hosted local barbecues with the “System Scale Smokers” team, which traveled to each office. They produced a promotional video and brochure, raffled off yeti coolers and tumblers—but without digital tools, there was zero visibility into ROI.
Now
- We set up an online-first digital marketing strategy, with visibility into performance metrics.
- We set up digital ads, and integrated leads all the way through the website into Opportunities in Salesforce—automating tracking of Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).
- We implemented multi-touch attribution tracking on all Opportunities and Campaigns.
Impact
- We started marketing for System Scale in 2017. By 2018, we had grown marketing-based leads from almost nothing to over $2 million per year. (Prior to 2015, there was zero tracking of lead sources or marketing ROI.)
- The two-year Return on Advertising Spend for net new customers is $29 per $1 spent.
- The immediate Return on Advertising Spend is over $5 per $1 spent.
- To date, marketing-sourced new clients in 2021 have spent over $5 million. In 2022, new clients spent over $1 million (in the first year.)
Sales Transformation
2012
With one sales rep located at each System Scale office, they were each solely responsible for servicing existing and new customers. Reps received commission on parts orders from existing clients equally as on net new clients, so a rep could easily meet their quota without gaining any new clients. Representatives only had email, their phone, and printed marketing materials in their toolkit. The manual process was time-consuming and clunky: they’d scribble down each Quote over the phone, or write it up from scratch in Microsoft Word, and email it to the customer.
Today
- Opportunities and Quotes are generated in Salesforce with Conga, allowing reps to save time and avoid losing track of deals.
- Sales pipelines are visible and transparent across the company.
- Automated commission includes rules and splits based on sale type and lead source.
- We created inside sales to handle the higher volume of marketing and web-based leads.
- Closed Won Opps automatically generate Orders and Work Orders and notify Service and Office Managers.
Impact
- In year 1, we closed over 250k in forgotten deals.
- From 2019-2023, System Scale saw a 70% increase in Product & Parts Sales.
- The Sales team is now able to focus on new customers and “whale” Opportunities, vs. low margin Opportunities.
Service Transformation
2012
Before our partnership, System Scale’s Service toolkit included cell phones, a scheduling white board, and carbon copy paper. All certificates had a leave-behind copy, a filed copy, and potentially another copy mailed to the state. Additionally, it was impossible to see trends on equipment, what equipment was on a contract, or when the next work order was due without shuffling through the paperwork.
Today
- We set up Maintenance Contracts and Work Orders in Salesforce.
- We set up processes for Parts & Equipment ordering, receiving, consumption and accounting.
- We built a custom, offline-first iPad application for service technicians to use while working in remote areas.
- With all data in Salesforce, we built a customer portal to generate certificates on demand, see trends, and pay invoices.
- All work, time, travel, parts, equipment, skills, and trainings are tracked in Salesforce to maintain ISO quality standards.
Impact
- In 2016, we found over $40k worth of parts that had been shipped, but not invoiced. System Scale was able to recover the $40,000 in missing payments.
- System Scale was able to reduce overtime from 2700 to 1700 hours, and increase total billing efficiency from 67% to over 82%.
- From 2019 to 2022, Invoiced Service Revenue increased over 6x.
- From 2016 to 2022, the total active number of Preventative Maintenance contracts increased by 20%.
- Invoiced Work Order Service Revenue has almost doubled year-over-year.
Finance Transformation
2012
- Office managers had to remotely sign into a Windows XP server that ran DOS inside an emulator. Only one person could be in the system at a time.
- The only way to compare financial performance across the company was to manually compare Profit and Loss (P&L) reports from each office.
- When customers wanted to pay by credit card, the team had to manually take down their information over the phone and write or type in a note to be process later.
- All invoices were manually printed and mailed, rather than delivered electronically.
Today
- We igrated to Quickbooks Online with all locations in one system.
- We automated Invoice generation based on Orders and Work Orders to avoid missing anything.
- We automated Sales tax calculation, reporting, and payment to states.
- We created an online payment portal, CalVault, to pay invoices, store payment information, and retrieve Work Orders and Test certificates.
- Employee payroll and timesheets are compared to billed time on-site.
Impact
- We cut the Accounts Receivable “days outstanding” average from 64 to 36 days.
- We reduced invoice write-offs by over $250,000 / year.
- By 2017, we had doubled profit margin annually.
- We cut credit card fees in half by implementing advanced automated reporting via authorize.net.
How Our Partnership Transformed The Business
Our complete Digital Transformation with System Scale resulted in an investor-worthy 23% annual return. This return is directly attributable to our partnership, rather than an increase in footprint or headcount. System Scale became 5x more efficient per person.
In 2012, leadership couldn’t readily track any data past Profit and Loss. Now, every metric System Scale relies on is updated in Salesforce in real time or monthly and is added to a Dashboard all employees can see. The company can focus on specific metrics each quarter and move the needle, to continue increasing revenue and profit.
Mike Sale, CEO of System Scale, has been pleased with our partnership: “Growth Heroes helped bring System Scale into the 21st century by integrating all of our systems, from marketing and lead generation to our financial operations. We’re much further along than we would have been without their help. Their flexibility, technical expertise, and business process acumen have led to a partnership that began in 2016 and continues today.”
