Bringing focus and proactive pipeline management to a growing internal audit and risk consultancy
The challenge
Littlechild & Haley is a fast-growing consultancy providing internal audit and risk services to public and private sector organisations. In the short period they’d been up and running, the founders had secured high‑profile clients, built strong credibility, and won places on key public sector frameworks. But growth had become reactive rather than deliberate. Co‑founder Donna explained:
“We were busy, but growth felt accidental. Wins were coming, but not predictably. With more competition and bigger tenders, we needed clarity on who we were for, what we’re best at, and how we communicate that.”
Business development was largely relationship‑led and tender‑driven, messaging varied across proposals and conversations, and time was being spent on opportunities that didn’t always translate into repeatable, profitable work.
With ambitions to double turnover within three years and triple it within five, the team needed:
- Clear priorities for audiences and services
- A stronger, differentiated market position
- Better decision‑making around bids and business development
- Structured processes and data to support a more predictable pipeline
As co‑founder Paul put it:
“We already had a strong reputation, but we needed a structured way of turning that into consistent, scalable growth.”
Why bring in an external marketing and data consultant?
Littlechild & Haley chose to work with Glew rather than developing a marketing strategy in house.
“We didn’t have the expertise to do it properly, and we didn’t want a half‑job. An external perspective also brought objectivity – someone to challenge assumptions and see what we couldn’t.”
Time was another key factor.
“Doing this internally would have dragged on alongside client delivery. Outsourcing gave us pace, structure and clear outputs.”
A step-step-step, practical approach
Glew led Littlechild & Haley through a three‑phase, evidence‑led process to produce a strategy that was not just aspirational but practical.
1. Understand
A structured discovery phase and marketing audit helped to build a clear picture of the opportunity and constraints. This included:
- A review of existing marketing, content, systems and digital presence
- Market, competitor and SEO analysis with collaborative partner Heledd Jones Marketing
- Workshops with the leadership team
- Interviews with clients to ground the strategy in actual rather than assumed buyer perspectives
This showed where Littlechild & Haley’s strengths and credibility lay and where their efforts weren’t paying off. As Paul said:
“The data made the strategy ‘real’ because it’s based on evidence, not just instinct.”
2. Develop
A series of collaborative strategy workshops helped guide clear choices for the recommended strategy:
- Target audience segmentation identified sectors, roles and services with the strongest fit
- Positioning and messaging helped to articulate what genuinely differentiated Littlechild & Haley
- Prioritisation of target segments led to a set of clear bid/no‑bid criteria to support better use of the team’s time
- Client journey mapping helped to identify activity gaps and opportunities between awareness, trust and conversion
- A structured implementation plan aligned marketing to their business goals and delivery capacity
“The client journey mapping helped us see where things were breaking down between ‘someone hears about us’ and ‘we win the work’.”
“Georgie translated what we knew intuitively into practical decision frameworks. She made sense from spaghetti!”
3. Implement
The strategy was handed over to the team with tools to support execution, including:
- Detailed target client personas to guide creative decisions and messaging
- A focused content strategy with clear themes, audiences and purposes
- Guidance on LinkedIn and thought leadership aligned to priority services
- CRM recommendations and guidance on pipeline metrics
- An implementation roadmap covering time, resources and budget
Key strategic decisions
1. Focus over breadth
Rather than trying to appeal to everyone, Littlechild & Haley prioritised audiences and services where they had:
- Proven credibility and delivery experience
- Clear differentiation (including partner‑led delivery and IT/cyber expertise)
- Better lifetime value and repeatability
Lower‑value or distracting opportunities were deliberately deprioritised.
“The process forced decisions about focus, what we say no to and how we organise marketing alongside delivery. Now, each piece of content has a purpose, rather than being content for content’s sake. Within weeks we had become more visible in Google searches.”
2. Clearer, more confident positioning
Messaging shifted away from generic audit language towards what mattered most to clients:
- Confidence as well as compliance
- Their beyond ‘tick‑boxes’ assurance
- A people‑led approach underpinned by strong IT and cyber capability
This gave the team greater confidence in competitive bidding and in identifying who they could best service.
3. Different routes to market for different services
The strategy recognised that not all services should be marketed in the same way:
- Some lend themselves to relationship‑led or account‑based approaches
- Others benefit more from authority‑building content and inbound demand
- Events, webinars and peer engagement play a critical role in building truat
Early impact
Although targeted at long-term growth, the process also provided immediate benefits:
- Greater internal alignment on which types of clients to target and why
- More consistent messaging across proposals, the website and conversations
- Stronger bid/no‑bid decisions, saving multiple days of effort each time.
- A clearer, more reliable pipeline rather than sole reliance on word‑of‑mouth
- Cleaner data and improved visibility of insights
Paul explained:
“We’re following fewer random pursuits and submitting more relevant bids. We installed Pipedrive to address the missing part of our funnel that Glew identified to capture data on our bidding. Our enquiries have significantly increased, and we are able to ensure we align with who we work with. Growth feels more deliberate and defensible.”
Donna added:
“We now have an approach we can repeat — clearer qualification, better follow‑up, and marketing that supports specific stages of the pipeline rather than ad‑hoc ideas.”
Early successes include stronger engagement, improved tender performance and a healthier pipeline with less reliance on low‑probability bids.
What’s changed since having the strategy
- The team have saved time by stepping away from poor‑fit bids
- They’re more proactive in targeting the right organisations
- Their content and messaging are purposeful and has more impact
- Their marketing decisions are easier
- They can say ‘no’ with more confidence with less fear of missing out
Advice to other consultancies
Donna’s advice to other professional services firms is not to treat marketing strategy as a nice‑to‑have:
“Use it to make decisions — what to prioritise, what to stop, and how you’ll measure progress.”
Paul said:
“Trying to market to everyone exhausts your team and convinces no one. A good strategy gives you permission to be specific and protect delivery quality.”
The outcome
Working with Glew gave Littlechild & Haley a clear strategic foundation for sustainable growth, one that enables better decisions, stronger positioning and a more predictable pipeline.
“Using Glew was a great investment. It gave us clarity internally and confidence externally. Georgie really listened and got to know us an individuals and as a business which really helped to gel with her.”
It’s a living strategy we actually use, not a document that sits on a shelf. We’ve repositioned, tightened up our Bid/No Bid process and have real clarity now. With a 40% success rate on tendering, which continues to grow and some clients direct awarding too, we are on track with our financial forecasts and already scaling into Birmingham, Bristol and London.”
In a further validation of the direction they’re going, Littlechild & Haley were awarded runners Up in Small Business Awards 2026 South West & Wales.
