Many Drupal agencies excel at technical delivery. A recent survey ran by the Drupal Executives Network shows Drupal agencies would benefit from support with structured sales and marketing. In this masterclass, three seasoned agency owners Michel van Velde, Janne Kalliola, and Imre Gmelig Meijling share their secrets, proven frameworks and strategies to help you position your agency more clearly, market more effectively, and ultimately close more deals.

Prerequisite
Attendees are founders, co-founders, or leaders of an agency or service-based business, ideally with some experience running or scaling a company.

Outline
Technical excellence alone doesn't fuel agency growth, clear positioning and strong sales and marketing strategies do. Based on real-world experience and research within the Drupal community, this session focuses on shifting from project-based selling to business case-driven growth. Using positioning frameworks and practical sales models and lesson learned from personal experience, we’ll guide Drupal agency owners and executives on how to stand out in a competitive market and build a sustainable, scalable growth engine.

Learning Objectives
The presentation is followed by an open Q&A session in which we can address your real-world challenges. Walk away with actionable insights from experienced business executives you can apply immediately to grow your Drupal agency. You will leave with a clear understanding of why and how to reposition their Drupal agency, transition from reactive to proactive selling, and implement a structured approach to marketing and sales — including specific steps you can apply immediately after the session.

About the speakers
Michel van Velde founded his first successful agency (One Shoe) in 2006, was one of the founders of the Dutch Drupal community and a board member of the Drupal association. He worked for clients like DHL, Miele and Nike and the agency won over 50 international awards. In 2020 the agency was successfully sold. Michel currently runs Craftmore, a creative digital agency and Ablestar, a strategy firm, both working for international clients (Marmot and NN group).

Imre Gmelig Meijling is CEO of React Online, a full service agency based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Imre has extensive experience in digital business leading digital teams at various international agencies. With a strong focus on people and open source, he helps clients such as Philips, Port of Rotterdam and the United Nations. Imre is a member of the board of directors of the Drupal Association. Imre gives presentations worldwide on how to be digitally successful. Imre is committed to digital sovereignty: maintaining ownership of data and digital assets.

Janne Kalliola, Chief Growth Officer and founder at Exove, focuses on creating growth with sales, client work, and recruiting. Prior to his current role, Janne was the CEO of Exove for 16 years. During that time he grew the company from a single person shop to 80 people multinational digital agency. Janne sold Exove to Rebl Group in May 2023 and continues to work on growth and green coding.

Experience level
Intermediate