Case Study

How we helped build a brand from startup and under $1 million in annual revenue to over $30 million in annual revenue and a $300 million publicly traded company

The Elixinol engagement was an opportunity to apply the Conscious Growth® Blueprint and philosophy into a company whose leadership and founders were completely aligned. In order to have success with any project you must have a combination of expert strategy along with a strong leadership team and culture that support it. When this happens, the outcome can be incredible.

Where We Began

Elixinol was selling 1 retail product and had a team of less than 5 people. The website and messaging was very tactical, only selling the retail product and offering bulk oil sales with less than $1 million in annual revenue. With a highly competitive market landscape and many new companies jumping into the industry, it was difficult to identify how to create a clear advantage in the market. The goal was to create one of the most dominant and respected brands in the Hemp/CBD industry.

Our Approach

Learn about the team, business model and the vision of the company

We performed a comprehensive interview process to learn as much as we could about the founders, their core values and the reason they decided to build the company. While they had a truly incredible story, they never put it into writing or articulated it to anyone, including on their website.
We also invested time away from the business and went on a retreat to do some visioning on both a personal and professional level and to create alignment with the founders as well as our team. This was one of the most powerful and important things we did to chart the course of the company.

Discover And Told The Story About
The Founders And The Leadership Team

We then went into a creative process to tell the story of Elixinol. We identified that one of their founders had been deeply involved in the Hemp industry since the early 1990s, far longer than any founders of other competitive brands and had a tremendous passion for the environment and sustainability. The other founders also had great experience in the healthcare industry and we created messaging that shared this story to connect with people in a powerful way.

Clarify Their Values,
Purpose And Mission

We authentically created a purpose and mission for the company that revolved around environmental sustainability, natural healthcare, transparency, safety, educating consumers and partnering with industry leaders to create a positive transformation in the world.

Applied The Conscious Growth®
Business Blueprint

We then went into a creative process to tell the story of Elixinol. We identified that one of their founders had been deeply involved in the Hemp industry since the early 1990s, far longer than any founders of other competitive brands and had a tremendous passion for the environment and sustainability. The other founders also had great experience in the healthcare industry and we created messaging that shared this story to connect with people in a powerful way.

Create A Business Philosophy Based On Values

Creating a powerful culture that inspires leaders to join your cause is an integral part of creating a successful brand and we developed Elixinol’s 7 Pillars of Success which was designed to share with channel partners, distributors, wholesalers, potential employees and the entire supply chain so they could see and then experience first hand the core values, culture and business philosophy that was far more than just another company in the industry.

Telling the story is only a surface level step. The key was to then ingrain this philosophy into the very fabric of the company and we played an integral role in this process on a daily basis.

Recruit, Select And
Onboard Team Members

Because of our powerful purpose, mission and culture we attracted incredibly talented team members and distributors around the world because they saw Elixinol as a company that they wanted to be a part of while being valued for who they were and their ability to contribute to our mission. We also played an integral role in recruiting and hiring sales and marketing team.

Identify And Execute Business
Development Strategies

After creating the important foundation we began identifying specific business growth strategies to grow the business. This included direct to consumer marketing, eCommerce strategies, social media and public relations as well as proactively building relationships with wholesalers and distributors around the world.

Developed World-Class
Customer Experiences

Understanding the importance that customer experience has on reputation, generating repeat customers and referrals, we invested significant time architecting World-Class customer experiences for every type of customer relationship. From there, we integrated this architecture into a CRM, set up systems to ensure they were designed to scale and the company grew and trained the entire staff on how to deliver.

Integrated Sustainable Practices

To follow through on our commitment of being environmentally sustainable, we made sure we used the most sustainable packaging possible including thing such as using glass bottle instead of plastic and biodegradable foam instead of styrofoam. In addition, the product sourcing and ingredients in all new product formulations we as sustainably sourced as we could find including organic ingredients and fair trade.
We also became the first company in the industry to include Certificates of Analysis on every product on their website and shared why this is so important, to ensure that there were no molds, pesticides, heavy metals or other toxic ingredients in their products. No company in the industry had taken such a stand before.

Actively Gave Back
To Create A Better World

We identified and built relationships with non-profit organizations that were directly serving our ideal clients in a number of areas and created a powerful “Giving Back” strategy, unlike any of its kind in business where we empowered each of our customers to choose the non-profit organization of their choice that they wanted us to contribute a percentage of our revenues to.

This developed loyal customer relationships, inspired viral word of mouth sharing and allowed Elixinol to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to non-profits that we believed in to create a better world.

Become One of Our Success Stories

We’ve had a significant impact helping Conscious Business Leaders dramatically increase their revenues, develop greater meaning and create a positive impact in people’s lives and the world.

Gabriel Ettenson
Co-Founder of Elixinol

“Doug Sutton and Conscious Growth was a catalyst in the success of Elixinol. In addition to developing our branding and core messaging as a start-up, he helped us create and share our vision and values, which provided a significant competitive advantage in an emerging, never-before-seen industry. Doug also helped to build a strong culture that attracted top talent and further supported our mission to positively impact the world. One of the biggest concepts he instilled into our culture was the importance of delivering a world-class experience to every customer and how to do this while never forgetting the importance of giving back to a greater cause. After hiring Doug, we experienced significant year-over-year growth and even after our official consulting engagement ended in 2018, he remained a trusted advisor to the company, and still is a trusted advisor to me.”

The Results:

Elixinol experienced tremendous year over year growth and sustained their momentum to become one of the most successful brands in the Hemp/CBD industry worldwide. Even after our initial consulting engagement, they continued to expand and grow their revenues to $32.5 million in 2018.

Elixinol has become a World Leader in the Hemp/CBD industry with distribution that has expanded to 5 continents.
Based in Broomfield, Colorado.

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