[Update] Delegating Effectively And Growing Our $2.1M/Year Professional Writing Services Organically

Dave Thornton

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Published: May 15th, 2023

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Dave Thornton

Founder, Thornton & Lowe

$180K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Thornton & Lowe

thorntonandlowe.com

from Bolton, UK

started October 2009

$180,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

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Amazon

G Suite

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Twitter

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payments

Stripe

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The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Wor... Michael E. Gerber

Want more updates on Thornton & Lowe? Check out these stories:

1. How I Started A $130K/Month Business Selling Bid Writing Services (2020) ➜

2. How We Focused On Quality And Grew Revenue By 25% (2021) ➜

This is a follow up story for Thornton & Lowe. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hi, I’m Dave Thornton, and I started Thornton & Lowe in 2009. I completed my original starter story over three years ago, which can be found here.

Thornton & Lowe helps small and medium-sized businesses grow through winning formal, often public sector, contracts. We provide bid/ proposal writing services, advice, and training. Our customers are primarily based in the UK or looking to secure contracts in the UK, such as NHS tendering opportunities.

Over the last three years, our average annual growth rate has been nearly 30%. Our client tender win rate is consistently over 70%, and reassuringly our client retention is around 90%.

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Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

The business has grown consistently since its formation. We are currently recruiting, which will see us exceed 30 staff directly employed in the team, which I never thought we would get to.

Over the last few years, we have found our sweet spot! We know what works and how much growth we can manage and have committed to a few golden rules to keep us on this upwards trajectory:

Promote from within. Existing members of the team, who have proven themselves, cannot be overlooked for more senior external candidates. We have found this builds loyalty, maintains retention, and can provide relatively rapid progression opportunities for the team, which creates a good level of excitement about being with the business
Quality is critical. We prefer to decline new business rather than impact the quality we offer. This can be a tough decision sometimes, but we have found that, contrary to what you would expect, this approach has helped us grow overall. New leads/ prospects essentially appreciate the honesty and respect of our system, meaning we often get a second chance to support them.

At the same time, we are focusing on our existing clients and projects, ensuring they are happy and returning. If clients are unsatisfied, growing a business like ours would be impossible.

Maintain momentum. Growth in a business creates a bit of madness and lots of fun. It also creates opportunities for all involved. I firmly believe that within our team, which is highly ambitious, this momentum and growth is essential. We need to be able to offer promotions, new roles, and regular progression opportunities.

By assessing others in the marketplace, you can either be assured you are on the right path or that you need to make changes.

Our growth is still mainly through repeat business, word of mouth, and letting this snowball over time. However, like any ambitious business, we continually try new routes to increase the number of quality leads we get each month and our conversion rates. This primarily involves tweaking the mix of marketing activities that we consistently do each month - ‘consistently’ being the focus.

Our most significant change and investment recently has been our new website. Our old version did not cut it anymore. Hopefully, finding our services is more informative and accessible, with much less creaking involved while moving from one page to another!

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

My biggest challenge has been stepping further back from the day-to-day operations. I need to focus on the growth and stability of the business, and to do this means sometimes saying ‘no’.

Not always being available or directly managing more complex questions or areas of support is a real challenge, still now. To do this, we needed to further invest in our management structure, promoting our Head of Bids to Operations Director and creating opportunities for others in the business to step up.

This has proven highly effective, though I still have to fight the urge to offer a solution and deal with things directly… Considering fundamental business changes, this has to be one of the most significant.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

A big learning curve, and something I am always working to improve is patience. Taking time to consider things, ‘sleeping on it’, saving that email in the draft, and reassessing can only help in most occasions. A knee-jerk reaction gets across only your immediate thoughts and can’t compete with a considered response.

Even when trying to respond quickly to help, if your response is not well articulated, has errors, or doesn’t fully comprehend everything involved, you are only wasting your time and that of others, as it will create a lot of ‘back and forth’.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year and the next five years?

I plan on the next five years being very busy and productive! Our company Vision still very much applies:

In 5 years, we will be a £10m turnover professional services business. And I say this with confidence! It will be achieved through:

Organic growth of existing bid writing, consultancy, and training services
Further development of our software products
Strategic acquisitions
Development of new complimentary services which also support our Vision.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their businesses?

Monitor your competition! I speak to many friends and contacts who own or run small businesses, and they often describe why they are not worried about the competition and don’t need to know what they are doing. I'm afraid I have to disagree.

By monitoring the competition, first of all, it means you know who they are. Do you have more competitors than you did last year? If so, why? Is this a sign of a growing market or increased competition that could impact your margins and market share? By considering this, you can adapt, change and improve to ensure you can continue to grow and compete.

You may notice different models or structures which could almost instantly add value to your business. I don’t mean ‘copying,’ but maybe you have missed something, an easy win. You may, for example, realize you are at the wrong end of the market, working harder for less. By assessing others in the marketplace and understanding their solution, you can either be assured you are on the right path or that you need to make changes.

Quite often, a competitor may also be a helpful partner, whether that is supporting your delivery or even passing referrals, which can be another route for growth.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We are recruiting two full-time Bid Writers/ Bid Specialists currently. They will have experience in bidding for public sector contracts, including developing and managing bid plans, creating win themes, researching buyers, clients, and competitors, reviewing detailed specifications, drafting proposal content, and managing tendering portals.