The interim manager was hired to initiate a change process in a book publishing house with around 50 permanent and freelance employees and an annual turnover of 4 million euros. The aim was to give the publishing house more visibility, make it more competitive and future-proof. As a temporary member of the management board, the interim manager held the position of external marketing manager for 2.5 years. Overall, he accompanied a 3-year change process in the company, which involved all areas of the company including sales, production, strategy and marketing.
Finding and exploiting alternative utilization and sales opportunities
The company was founded at the beginning of the 1990s and had built up a solid business under its own steam. However, development stagnated. There was no marketing expertise in the company, too many traditional routines and fresh ideas were fizzling out. At the same time, there was great potential at product level: in terms of its books and authors, the publishing house could certainly compete with the much more prominent competition. However, this potential was not played out, it was not visible. Coupled with the difficult situation in the publishing industry, where sales would be lost to the stationary trade for the foreseeable future, alternative exploitation and further sales opportunities had to be created.
Clear strengths profile developed as the basis for repositioning
The interim manager first developed a strengths and weaknesses profile. He interviewed a large number of internal and external stakeholders, evaluated the statements and deepened the analysis in a workshop. The result was a clear profile of the publisher's strengths, also with a view to the market and competition.
The interim manager used this strengths profile to derive a new positioning for the publisher. He also set up internal marketing structures within the publishing house in order to be able to implement the new positioning in practice. The new positioning was consistently applied to all means of communication. A new company claim was created, a new visual language in the advertising material - accompanied by suitable wording, which was implemented uniformly across all communication channels. The publishing house was given a new face - one that now matched it one hundred percent. In addition, the interim manager worked with the publishing house management to develop special flagship projects.
Marketing structures replaced by the interim manager's network
As there were no internal marketing structures, these were replaced by the interim manager's network. Despite the lack of internal resources, it was possible to demonstrate a high level of professionalism in marketing and quickly achieve visible results. This included a new product catalog as a central sales tool. The interim manager also initiated original communication tools for the authors as the most important stakeholders, an image film at the Frankfurt Book Fair, guidelines for all social media channels and much more.
The response from the market was very good and encouraged the company to continue on its new path. Together with the management team, the interim manager then adjusted the program and product structure and developed a new, clear concept that was successfully implemented.
One of the challenges in this mandate was to raise awareness of the necessity and opportunities of change. Especially in smaller, traditional companies with fixed structures, a high level of persuasion is required to achieve acceptance and participation at all levels. This is where a hands-on strategy and continuous "proof" and successes help.
Significantly improved visibility of the publishing house in the market and greatly increased turnover
The publishing house has maintained the positioning it developed to this day and has continued to develop it independently - albeit at a slower pace, but still self-sufficiently. The 3-year support provided by the interim manager led to a sustained high visibility of the publishing house in the market environment and to the empowerment of all employees to act in accordance with the positioning.
Inside the market environment, the publishing house has gained enormous visibility. The publishing house was able to stabilize its business and tap into several new sources of revenue, while at the same time attracting stronger authors and thus increasing the number of copies sold. A gray mouse has become a player to be taken seriously.
