Latest / Scaling Up with Fexingo: How Small Businesses Become Mid-Market Companies / How a Niche Label Maker Scaled Past 20 Million by Fixing Its Onboarding
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this label manufacturer in the Midwest — custom labels for food and beverage companies — and they hit a wall at around twelve million in revenue. They were winning plenty of bids, but new customers were taking sixty to ninety days to actually place their first order. Luna: That's a long time. In that window, a competitor could swoop in and steal the account. Lucas: Exactly. And it wasn't the sales team's fault. The sales cycle was actually pretty tight — they'd get a verbal yes in a few weeks. But then the handoff to production and customer service was a mess. Multiple emails, re-explaining specs, waiting on approvals. The founder told me it was like the customer fell into a black hole after signing. Luna: So the problem wasn't getting the order, it was getting the order started. That's a different beast. Lucas: Right. And that's what we're going to dig into today — how they rebuilt their onboarding and used it to scale past twenty million. But before we get there, I want to mention something small. If these conversations have moved your work forward in some way, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep this thing ad-free. Luna: Yeah, no pressure, but it does help. And now back to the label maker. Lucas: So the founder, her name is Dana, she didn't realize how bad the onboarding was until she started asking customers why they were slow to reorder. The first order was the bottleneck, and it was setting the tone for the whole relationship. Luna: What did she find when she mapped it out? Lucas: She found that there were eleven touchpoints from signed contract to first production run. Eleven. And each one had a delay attached to it. The customer would send artwork, it would sit in an inbox for three days, then someone would ask for a different file format, then a spec would be questioned, and so on. By the time the order was in the queue, the customer had already started second-guessing. Luna: That's a lot of friction. Did she have a dedicated person handling that, or was it everyone's job, which means no one's job? Lucas: It was everyone and no one. The salesperson who won the deal would try to stay involved, but they were already onto the next prospect. Customer service was reactive — they'd answer questions but didn't own the process. So Dana hired a customer success manager, which is a title that sounds tech company ish but is totally applicable here. Luna: And that person's job was... what, exactly? Just babysit the onboarding? Lucas: Pretty much, but with a mandate. The first thing she did was create a checklist and a timeline. Every new customer gets a kickoff call within forty-eight hours of signing. Then a spec sheet is pre-filled based on the sales conversation, so the customer just confirms rather than starting from scratch. They set a target of getting the first order placed within two weeks. Luna: Two weeks, down from ninety days. That's a huge change. Did customers push back on the pace? Lucas: Surprisingly, no. In fact, they loved it. Dana told me customers would say things like, 'Finally, someone's on top of this.' The new pace made them feel like the company was competent, which is exactly what you want when you're trusting a vendor with your brand. Luna: So what were the actual results? Did revenue jump right away? Lucas: It took about six months to see the impact in the numbers, because the sales cycle had a lag. But once those first orders started coming in faster, reorders followed sooner. Their time from first order to second order shrank from about seven months to four and a half. That compounding effect was what pushed them past twenty million. Luna: It's interesting — we've talked a lot on this show about fixing sales cycles and pricing, but onboarding is one of those quiet levers. It's not glamorous, but it's where the relationship is actually won or lost. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a lesson that applies beyond manufacturing. Any B2B business where the first delivery takes a while has this hidden risk. The faster you get a customer to value, the stickier they are. Luna: Did Dana have to change anything else, or was the customer success manager the silver bullet? Lucas: She had to change the way the sales team handed off. Previously, the rep would just forward the signed contract and a few emails. Now, the rep is required to have a thirty-minute handoff call with the customer success manager and the client, all three of them. That ensures no information is lost, and the client knows who to talk to from day one. Luna: That handoff call is something a lot of companies skip. They think an email is enough, but it's not. It changes the whole dynamic. Lucas: Exactly. And Dana also standardized the artwork approval process. Before, it was back and forth via email. Now, they have an online portal where customers upload files and see a preview in real time. That alone cut the approval time from ten days to three. Luna: So it's a combination of process, tools, and a dedicated person. That's a lot of change for a company that size. Lucas: It was, but the payback was quick. Dana said the customer success manager paid for herself within the first quarter, just from reducing the time salespeople were spending on onboarding. The sales team could go back to selling, and the CSM could focus on making the customer feel taken care of. Luna: What about the customers who were already in the pipeline when they made the change? Did they see a difference? Lucas: Yeah, there was one customer who had been in the pipeline for three months and was about to walk. Dana's team applied the new process retroactively, got them set up in ten days, and they ended up becoming one of their top ten accounts. That story spread internally and got the whole company behind the change. Luna: That's a great save. It's one thing to show a process improvement with new customers, but proving it with a stuck deal is what convinces the skeptics. Lucas: Right. And there's a broader lesson here about measuring what happens after the sale. Most companies track pipeline and win rate, but very few track the time from contract to first delivery. That's a metric Dana now reviews monthly. Luna: What's a realistic target for a company that's just starting to look at this? Two weeks seems aggressive for some industries. Lucas: It depends, but the principle is to cut it in half at least. If you're at sixty days, aim for thirty. The key is to remove the dead time, not just speed up the work. And you can do that by assigning ownership, creating a checklist, and setting a clear deadline with the customer. Luna: So it's as much about communication as it is about process. The customer knows what to expect and when. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what Dana did. She gave customers a timeline upfront: 'Here's when we'll have your first order confirmed, here's when we'll start production.' That alone reduced anxiety and a lot of the back and forth questions. Luna: I love that this is a story about a company that didn't have to reinvent its product or its sales approach. They just made the first experience better. Lucas: And that's the takeaway. If you're a B2B business and you're stuck in that eight-to-fifteen-million range, take a hard look at your onboarding. Time from contract to first value is a silent killer. Fix that, and you might be surprised at how much upside you unlock. Luna: Any final numbers on how Dana's company is doing now? Lucas: As of this summer, they're on pace for twenty-two million, and their customer retention is up fifteen points. The onboarding fix wasn't just about speed, it was about setting the relationship up for the long term. Luna: That's a solid return on one hire and a few process changes. Thanks for walking us through that, Lucas. Lucas: Anytime. And if you want to dig into the checklist Dana uses, we'll have a link in the show notes. For now, think about your own first-order experience. Could it be better?