Little Wins, Big Impact: one year of delivering value to principals.
Team Letter | September 23, 2024
September 23, 2024
Good Morning, Alpaca!
It is such a fun week — it’s the last week of the month AND the quarter (which means it’s the most fun sales week ever!), and it’s the birthday of an Alpaca effort that every single member of our team member has a hand in creating — Little Wins!
A year ago as we were launching Little Wins, I wrote a team letter about why a newsletter filled with resources matters for our company. We talked about inbound vs. outbound marketing, and the idea of creating demand for your product instead of waiting for that demand to arrive at your door.
First, let’s see how this effort has grown.
By the Numbers:
Real quick, here are the stats:
Little Wins grew from 208 subscribers in September 2023 to 5,000+ subscribers a year later
Alpaca has built and published 103 principal resources for driving school culture, employee engagement, and educator wellbeing on school teams.
Through Little Wins, Alpaca’s principal resources have been downloaded 10,115 times.
Alpaca’s pipeline of active schools and districts has grown by 5X in the past year, often from a combination of resource downloads and event interactions.
Daaaang! That’s some great growth. But what does it all mean? A year — and 5,000 subscribers!! — later, I want to fully recognize the impact this effort is having on our company, and the reason I think it’s working.
Our resources are building trust and delivering value.
Our customers — and our future customers — love Little Wins and our resources. Mitch Holmgren, the principal at Deer Creek Mackinaw High School in Illinois, tells us:
“I find something every single week in Little Wins that I use. Sometimes, a great icebreaker makes the difference in my team meeting, and now I don’t have to go looking for something on the internet that I might not trust.”
We’re ranking higher and higher in searches for the tools and resources principals need to be great leaders. That is a clear sign of value, and a big step for Alpaca. Why? Because every customer in the world wants to know that if they’re choosing to use some of their hard-won budget with us, that it’s going to provide something valuable. We all want that in every buying decision we make, and districts and principals are no different.
Our pipeline is filled with the right customers.
Just a year ago, you’d find all kinds of things in our sales pipeline, which was approximately 1/5 the size it is now. (Read that again: we have 5xed our deal pipeline in the last year!) Sometimes it was teachers. Parents. PTOs. Corporate sponsors. Our sales efforts were all over the place and not particularly good at articulating our value as a company to a customer who could pay for what we provide.
The last week of the month and quarter used to not be so fun — we used to hit the last week and say “anyone have anyone we can try to sell to?” Not anymore. Today, we have a hundred active deals in pipeline with people who know what we do and are interested in bringing it to their district or school. We won’t win ‘em all, but thanks to Little Wins, we don’t have to convince people that we have something valuable.
Our customers count on our consistency.
I think we all know that if I was in charge of Little Wins by myself, it would have gone out 40 out of 52 weeks and probably repeated 10 different resources. But not so with our Little Wins team! Queen of Consistency and Quality Alissa Christensen makes sure of it.
A great newsletter is part of a great thought leadership strategy and what we’re learning is the key to excellence in thought leadership is consistency. It’s the same reason we try to make sure Team Letter happens every week — because leadership (thought leadership or any other kind!) doesn’t happen in a single great speech or awesome team meeting — it happens with consistent, clear effort on the part of the leader.
And what do you think happens when customers know that they can count on us to deliver helpful, valuable resources on a regular cadence, without fail? They trust us with the big stuff, like checking in on employee morale each and every month with Alpaca Pulse.
Alissa, Morgan, Kaitlynn, and Kimberly — thank you for making Little Wins SUCH a big part of our funnel strategy, our value to customers, and an open door to so many new conversations. You guys are knocking it out of the park. Special shout-out too to Nicholas Peterson, whose design of the Little Wins sub-brand just makes my day every time I see it.
And to all of you, thank you for not letting me name it “Tiny Free Things” (whew, Kimberly, you saved us on that one!), not letting me dictate what goes in it (Alissa & Morgan, I finally understand what Vertical Planning is!), and not letting me be in charge of getting it out to the five THOUSAND people who it delights every week.
Who’s ready to build it to 10,000?!
Onward!
KB