New business delivers investment-neutral model for SME growth

A new Lancashire-based business has pledged to get the county’s SMEs back on their feet after COVID-19 by teaching them how to create a client journey experience (CJX) that retains and grows their client-base. CJX Business Services will offer Lancashire businesses an investment-neutral route to gaining tailored commercial advice and help them build their business plans to secure future growth.

CJX Business Services has been launched by Joanne Boyd, who has recently returned to Lancashire from the USA, where she spent 27 years in Senior Director, VP and Non-Executive Director (NED) roles. She has spent her career working in and with SMEs, national corporates and Global Fortune 1000 companies. Her goal is to deliver bespoke business growth solutions for Lancashire businesses across all business sectors, including IT & technology, manufacturing, engineering, construction, transportation & Logistics and healthcare.

By signposting companies to sources of loans and grants, Joanne believes that CJX Business Services will be able to help Lancashire SMEs access funding that will make the business planning process Investment-neutral and release funds to drive growth.

“My aim is to provide big business thinking at an affordable, local level and help Lancashire SMEs grow by creating tailored plans that work,” explains Joanne. “Many SMEs don’t realise how much funding is out there and don’t have time to find out. We have that information at our fingertips so we can help them identify funding that will pay for the commercial planning process and provide a springboard for growth. For example, there are funding options of up to £5000 available from Lancashire’s Boost business growth hub and, as a Boost & Co Partner, we are well-placed to help companies identify and apply for the right funding for their company.”

CJX Business Services’ approach is to begin with a SWOT analysis to establish each SME’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, thereby revealing the areas on which their business strategy needs to focus. From here, the company’s mission, vision, value proposition, objectives and key strategies will be established, and a critical path will be put in place to develop a client journey experience designed to protect existing client relationships and implement effective marketing to attract new ones.

“The client should always be at the centre of any business, including all commercial strategy and marketing” Joanne continues. “It can take 5 times mores investment to bring on a new client as it does to grow what you already have, so it’s critical to focus on building those existing relationships and tailor what you offer to what your clients need.

“The challenge is to create a client journey experience that helps you differentiate and build loyal, lasting relationships with clients. Those clients then become advocates and businesses will grow exponentially as a result.”

CJX Business Services will develop bespoke strategic solutions for individual SMEs, tied to achievable client journey objectives and commercial outcomes. The company has an agile business model that allows it to bring in specialist expertise to advise on sector-specific requirements or particular market challenges, enabling a much more cost-effective approach to high-value business advice.

Joanne adds: “Clients are any business’s biggest assets and our goal is to help SMEs in Lancashire to fully realise the value of those assets by creating a client journey experience that inspires loyalty and growth.

“There are more than half a million SMEs in the North West and they power our regional economy. Our plan is to begin in Lancashire and roll out the service across the region and we’re really excited to demonstrate what can be achieved locally with business thinking on a global scale.”