Levergy & Grow – Strategic planning for the win

With the guidance of our coach, we now have a balance between innovation, creativity, and structure, gearing us up for further growth to reach our targets.

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else can. Sport can awaken hope where previously there was only despair.”

These are the famous words spoken by Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, liberation hero, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and renowned global symbol who battled against the apartheid state. To him, sport had a profound meaning that transcended the playing field, as exemplified by the fact that sport gave hope to those in a state of hopelessness and brought together disparate groups of people from varied ethnic and racial backgrounds. Mandela believed that the entire world might be transformed and united into a better, more peaceful place for everyone through sport.

Upending all areas of life, the COVID-19 pandemic made no exception for sport, creating worldwide turmoil in the industry.

As the Coronavirus spread around the globe, an increasing number of international, regional, and national sporting events and matches were postponed or cancelled to safeguard the health of athletes, fans and other stakeholders. Every aspect of sport was impacted, including sponsorships, retail, hospitality and media coverage.

Levergy, a thriving communications agency specialising in passion point marketing, including sports sponsorship and PR, activations, experiential, entertainment PR, content development, and social media, braced itself for imminent losses and anticipated a steep decline in revenue.

Despite enduring a very challenging period, the Agency retained its entire workforce, and after hard lockdown regulations came to an end, the message was clear: Levergy needed to build and maintain a new “possibility” mindset. In collaboration with their Grow coach, the Agency Founders came together and conceived “Project 15” – an initiative to improve the Agency’s profit by 5x.

After years of phenomenal expansion, the COVID-19 outbreak created unanticipated obstacles,” says Paterson. “We were unable to see the woods for the trees. We were unable to discern a path to the next level of development. We needed a new plan.

Founded in September 2012 by Clint Paterson and Struan Campbell, Levergy is the most awarded Agency within the industry, working for some of the world’s biggest brands.

The Agency works with various clients in the sport, entertainment, sport-lifestyle, experiential, content production, and corporate social responsibility (CSI) industries, and advises brands on how to achieve their goals through integrated, effective campaigns.

Levergy was acquired by M&C Saatchi PLC in June 2017, joining the M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment network and was part of M&C Saatchi Group South Africa.

In 2018, Levergy won the Nkosi at the Assegai’s for the highest scoring campaign at the awards and, in 2019 walked away with both the Strategic Sponsorship and Purpose Led categories at the Marketing Achievement Awards. Levergy once again won Agency of the Year at the 2019 Sport Industry Awards in addition to Creative Activation, PR and Digital Platform.

In 2020, Levergy was named the Hollard Sport Industry Awards Agency of the Year for the second year in a row; a third time winning the award since their first win in 2017. The Agency’s work has been recognised and awarded across the board at the likes of The Loeries, Assegai’s, Bookmarks, Amasa Awards, Prism Awards, New Gen’s and AdFocus Awards.

Levergy saw significant company expansion between 2017 and 2020. As was typical for many sports enterprises after COVID-19, turnover and profitability reached a plateau. Experiencing this for himself and his business, Clint Paterson, co- founder, and co-owner of Levergy, was concerned about how they would take the Agency to the next level.

Grow actively assisted in the implementation of a proactive and step-by-step holistic approach, aimed at equipping the company’s leaders. This was done by providing them with the tools and guidance necessary to reaffirm their long-term goals, build a stronger leadership team dynamic, communicate more effectively as managers and a company, and ultimately, drive workplace transformation.

Paterson turned to his Grow coach, who was witness to all the ups and downs of the sport industry during the pandemic.

In close collaboration with their coach, a business growth plan was established to propel the Agency back into expansion.

“We not only reached our goal of Project 15, but exceeded it.”

– Clint Paterson, CE

Project 15 was conceptualised in 2021 with the aim of 5x’ing our profitability, the following year. A little over a year later, with the assistance of our coach, we had not only accomplished our objective but exceeded it by quite some margin. Our goal had been achieved, and this was no accident. Grow was with us every step of the way to ensure the success of Project 15, and the results speak for themselves!

According to their Grow coach, the first step to achieving Project 15 was to break down the goal as much as possible, and then define and document a strategic plan to identify the Agency’s objectives and highlight areas of responsibility and ownership.

Paterson evaluated the Agency’s expected revenue for the year and then determined the gap in terms of what was needed to achieve Project 15. Naming the project worked well, and soon, everyone within the company began to refer to it as ‘Project 15’, which made it easier for everyone to comprehend the objective, serving as a tool to drive everyone toward a single, unifying goal.

It was decided to distribute the target revenues proportionally among the Agency’s several business units. Each BU leader was held accountable for determining where, and how, they may earn the additional revenue in their respective space. This was then included in a comprehensive action plan (with allocated accountability and timelines).

The plan needed to be “adaptable”. If Levergy, along with their coach, felt that a new business possibility was taking too long with insufficient progress, it would be removed and replaced with another one.

The Agency’s sales cycle had historically been quite erratic and the sales team frequently spent a great deal of time on a prospect with minimal return. As such, Grow and Levergy determined where the sales team could be more proactive in producing additional revenue and opted to focus primarily on existing clients with whom the Agency already had excellent relationships.

Paterson held regular bi-weekly meetings with the Manco team, to discuss progress and revise goals and prospects as appropriate.

Meanwhile, their coach continued to ensure Paterson and the management team had a laser- like concentration on reaching the quota and that all efforts were directed in this direction. Paterson, as CEO, had surrounded himself with a highly competent team and could depend on them to ensure that the needle was always moving.

“We were able to devise substantial, personalised incentives for the individuals we knew would be instrumental in achieving our objective. I met with my Grow coach every month, in which he provided a significant supporting role, discussing and debating matters with me, with the primary objective of convincing me to drive the team’s concentration on the figures rigorously and relentlessly.”