What Our Clients Are Saying
From Limited Visibility to
The Name in Workplace Investigations
Barker Hutchinson owned the regulatory investigations space.
Their reputation? Rock solid.
Their track record? Decades deep.
But workplace investigations required reaching an entirely different market – one where they had virtually no presence.
The buyers were different. The channels were different.
It was an industry where Barker Hutchinson hadn’t yet made their name.
“Now, it feels like we are light-years ahead of where we were.
Working with Start Some Shift, we’ve significantly increased our reach in the first year, referral volume is up, and our branding is on point.”
– Greg Hutchinson, Co-CEO Barker Hutchinson
First, we got laser-focused on the niche.
Working collaboratively with the Barker Hutchinson team, we made a bold decision: specialize in Trauma-Informed Workplace Investigations.
In a conservative industry where well-entrenched brands built the narrative and have done little to change it, this focused positioning allowed us to catapult Barker Hutchinson into view as a progressive voice.
Then, we modernized their identity to match.
New logo. New website. New positioning that communicated clarity and certainty. Because when stakes are high, Barker Hutchinson is the period at the end of the sentence. The final word that settles everything.
Next, we built the engine.
- Launched an educational webinar series that positioned them as the experts
- Created a lead capture system that turned attendees into prospects, and prospects into clients
- Got them on stages at high profile, well-attended industry events
- Marketed their first-ever industry conference, making them impossible to ignore
Within a year, Barker Hutchinson became the name that people associated with progressive and defensible investigations.
Here’s what we delivered:
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Created a repeatable system that grew webinar attendance, on average, by 963% (average attendance ranged from 250 to 600 people per webinar)
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Built an email list from 0 to over 2,000 qualified prospects in under 6 months
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Achieved a 61% average open rate on email campaigns, driving 4,000 website sessions from email alone
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Secured high profile speaking opportunities that elevated brand awareness and perception
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Established Barker Hutchinson as a foremost authority in progressive Workplace Investigations, creating a consistent stream of inbound leads
When you combine deep expertise with strategic positioning and relentless execution, you don’t just move the needle.
You become the standard everyone else measures against.
Defending the Premium Position
Spakinect created the telehealth Good Faith Exam industry. As the originator of their market segment, they operated for years as the only option. Then the competition arrived.
New players moved fast, moved cheap, and moved dirty. One competitor went from zero to over 4,000 Google reviews in a single year – not through earned trust, but through review manipulation. They planted their flag firmly at the low end: lowest price and a bucket social proof to be convincing to buyers who didn’t know better.
For Spakinect – a company built on compliance, ethics, and doing things the right way – the pressure was real. Hold the premium position and risk losing clients to cheaper alternatives. Or race to the bottom and abandon everything that made them worth choosing in the first place.
“I was looking for an option that was cost-effective, and brought in experts — people who know a lot more than I did that would move the needle.
To now receive compliments from big player in the industry, that they love what we’re doing — you can’t put a dollar figure on that.”
– Paulina Riedler, CEO Spakinect
We didn’t race to the bottom.
We made the bottom irrelevant.
The first step was getting ruthlessly clear on what Spakinect actually is: the standard of excellence in the industry.
Not a more expensive version of the competition – a categorically different choice for aesthetic practice owners who refuse to compromise.
We quantified what “best” actually looks like.
- Lowest wait times in the industry
- A team of 30+ employed, licensed practitioners – not side-hustlers
- 1.65 million Good Faith Exams performed without a single board action
We built the brand around this proof.
Then, we went to work building authority at every level.
Social proof, redone right.
We built an army of 15+ video testimonials from real clients.
A brand that commanded respect.
We rebuilt the website from the ground up, repositioning Spakinect not as a service provider, but as the industry’s benchmark – the name serious practice owners measure against.
Authority in the room.
We got the CEO featured on CBS, ABC, and Fox. We secured speaking engagements at industry events and placements on both industry and non-industry podcasts. When your competition is gaming algorithms, you show up in places that can’t be gamed.
Content with a point of view.
We shifted Spakinect’s social presence from GFE-focused content to owning the conversation on compliance and regulation. We led.
800 new organic followers in 90 days, and posts that had previously peaked at a few hundred views were now reaching up to 80,000.
The message to the market was simple:
when your license, your reputation, and your clients are on the line, you don’t cut corners on who you trust.
Here’s what we delivered:
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30
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More than doubled inbound leads from marketing in under 6 months – even under rising competitive pressure
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Increased Instagram following by 1,000 (100% organically) in 5 months
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Grew 90-day video views from 7,200 to 217,000 – a 30x increase
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Increased organic site traffic, direct traffic, and time on site by 50%
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Almost tripled leads through paid ads while slashing the cost per lead by 73% and cutting CAC by 1/2
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Built 15+ authentic video testimonials that no competitor can replicate
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Secured national media placements on CBS, ABC, and Fox, elevating brand credibility and CEO authority