Stop Winning Work By Accident.
Twelve weeks to a predictable order book — without hiring a salesperson, rebuilding your website, or spending another £7,000 on a trade stand.
"They can back up theories and concepts with plenty of real-life, relatable examples."" - Sam. B
"I highly recommend to anyone who's struggling to know what to do with their marketing." - Lucinda O'R
Pathfinder Growth Programme
Marketing & Sales for Manufacturers Under £3m
It's twenty to nine on a Tuesday. Everyone's gone home, the compressor's off, and the unit is finally quiet.
Three quotes need pricing. They've needed pricing since Thursday, but Thursday went on a breakdown, Friday went on the customer who wanted his delivery pulling forward, and Monday went the way Mondays go.
The business is good. Thirteen people, work you can't just get anywhere, customers who've been with you nine years.
That last part is the problem. Two of those customers are most of your turnover. You've never said the number out loud.
You know what you should be doing. New customers. New sectors. Something about the website. But every hour spent on that is an hour not spent quoting, not solving, not on the floor. And the last time you tried — a stand at a show, £7,400 by the time you'd counted the hotel — you came home with a lanyard full of cards and one job worth two grand.
So the order book fills the way it's always filled. Referral, reputation, luck. Six weeks solid, then a gap you can see coming and can't do a thing about.
The advice out there is no help. Post on LinkedIn. Do SEO. Run ads. Start a podcast. None of it is written for a business that makes things, sells to buyers and design engineers, and has a sales cycle measured in months.
You don't need more tactics. You need to know which three things matter — and a way to actually do them while running a factory.
That's what Pathfinder is for.
This is probably you
- Two or three customers make up more than half your revenue, and you'd rather not dwell on it.
- You have capacity — a machine, a cell, a second shift — that isn't earning.
- Every new customer you've won in the past three years came from a referral or an old contact.
- You send quotes and hear nothing back, and you couldn't tell me your win rate.
- You can't justify £50k plus car for a sales manager — and the last one didn't understand the product anyway.
- You're the estimator, the technical lead and the salesperson, and selling is the bit that slips.
This isn't for you if
- You want it done for you. Pathfinder builds the system inside your business. You run it afterwards. If you want an agency to take it off your hands, I'm the wrong call.
- You need orders next month. Industrial sales cycles being what they are, first new orders typically land in months 4-9. If cash is tight this quarter, fix that first.
- You're over £3m. The Strategy Sprint is built for you instead.
- You can't find twelve hours over twelve weeks. That's the honest floor. Below it, nothing changes.
Customer Testimonial
Twelve weeks from now, here's what you'll physically have.
- A one-page growth plan. The Pathfinder Growth Canvas. It goes on the wall next to the production board, not in a drawer.
- A named target list. 10-30 specific companies — the firm, the sector, the person who signs off — chosen because they need what you're genuinely best at. Not "engineering SMEs in the Midlands".
- A capability story your buyer understands. Why you, in the language of a procurement manager and a design engineer. Tolerances, lead times, certifications, what happens when it goes wrong. Not "passionate about quality".
- A quote follow-up system. The cheapest orders you'll ever win are sitting in quotes you've already sent.
- Your numbers. Enquiries per month, quote-to-order conversion, average order value, cost per order. Most owners at your size have none of these. Once you do, the decisions make themselves.
How the twelve weeks run
Week 1 — Where you actually make money
Four hours, at your place. We go through 6-12 months of orders and separate the jobs that made money from the ones that quietly didn't. You come out knowing what you sell, who to, and why they should pick you over the shop down the road.
Week 5 — Getting in front of them
The target list, and the two routes to market that suit a long industrial sales cycle. Two. Not eight. Most of what's sold as manufacturing marketing is built for businesses that take card payments online.
Week 9 — Turning enquiries into orders
How the quote is structured, how it's followed up, and the conversation that gets you past "can you sharpen your pencil".
Weeks 3, 7, 11 and one after — Execution sessions
Sixty to ninety minutes, one to one, on what actually happened. What stalled, why, and what we change. This is where plans usually die, so it's where most of the accountability sits.
Sessions run at your unit, not on Teams. I'd rather see the machines.
"Adam and the team are brilliant. They know their stuff, make an effort to understand your stuff and then plan and execute! Thoroughly recommended!”
Raam S: Equitus Engineering
Your Investment
FROM
£3500
(Excl. VAT and Travel Expenses)
Payment plans available. Travel to your site included within 30 miles, charged at cost beyond that.
Put it against one order. If your average job is £5,000 and Pathfinder brings you two you wouldn't otherwise have won, it's paid for itself before the twelve weeks are up — and you keep the system that won them.
Five businesses a quarter, because I deliver every session myself and most of them are on your floor. There's no junior and there's no cohort of forty on a webinar.
Why me - Adam Payne
Thirty-five years in industry, in management, senior and executive roles at Doncasters, Goodrich, Stadco and Unipart. Aerospace, automotive, rail. Businesses where there was a budget for everything and a department for everything.
Then I watched owner-managers with fifteen staff try to run that same playbook, and it flattened them. A £2m manufacturer doesn't need a brand architecture workshop. He needs to know which twenty companies to call and what to say.
I've since founded or co-founded four businesses, all of them in industry, so I've had the other version too — the one where nobody hands you a department. Between the two I've run growth, strategy and operations across sites in the UK and overseas, and stood on the floor of more than a hundred of them. I know what your Monday looks like because I've had it.
My job isn't to hand you answers. It's to ask the questions that get you to yours, then hold you to what you decided. I'm not here to carry you — I'm here to walk the route with you and point out where it goes.
"Adam has a wealth of knowledge and his pragmatic approach means he explains concepts well. His extensive experience means that he can back up theories and concepts with plenty of real life, relatable examples."
Samantha B. - Business Owner Manufacturing ERP
