West Cumbria
Support for businesses in Workington, Whitehaven, Cockermouth, Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness looking to broaden their customer base.
Prefer to speak directly?
North West based, supporting businesses across Cumbria and the North of England.
West Cumbria has an industrial economy with real depth: engineering, fabrication, nuclear and energy supply chain, marine and defence, construction, and the specialist service businesses that support them.
It also has a specific commercial risk. A great many businesses on the coast depend heavily on a small number of large customers or one dominant supply chain. That produces steady work and very little control.
The work we do here is usually about broadening the customer base without damaging the relationships that already pay the bills.
A large share of turnover sits with one or two clients, and the business has no active plan for what happens if that changes.
Revenue depends on responding to framework and tender activity rather than on relationships built ahead of the opportunity.
Genuine engineering capability is described in operational terms that buyers outside the supply chain don't recognise.
The desire to diversify is clear; the target list, messaging and activity to do it are not.
Who this is for
The coast's industrial depth means the right client here usually has real engineering capability and too little control over where its revenue comes from.
£1m–£50m engineering and fabrication businesses with strong technical capability that depend heavily on one supply chain or a small number of major customers.
Barrow and coastal businesses with genuine capability that isn't yet described in terms buyers outside the sector recognise.
Firms whose revenue depends on tender and framework activity and who want relationships built ahead of the next opportunity rather than after it's published.
Companies with the appetite and the funded intent to win work outside their existing supply chain, not just the ambition to do so eventually.
It is not suited to consumer-facing businesses, start-ups without a trading history, or firms wanting a marketing agency to generate awareness rather than a partner running structured business development.
Customer concentration review and diversification planning
Target sector and account identification outside the existing supply chain
Proposition and capability messaging that buyers in new sectors understand
Structured business development activity into named prospects
Bid and tender commercial review, including qualification discipline
Sales team development for businesses building a commercial function for the first time
Diversification fails when it is treated as a marketing exercise. We approach it as a sales project: a named target list, a clear commercial proposition and consistent activity against it, reviewed monthly.
In parallel we protect the existing accounts, because the point is to add revenue, not to trade one dependency for another.
Working across Workington, Whitehaven, Cockermouth, Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness means the coast is covered properly rather than served at arm's length from the other side of the county.
The sector pages set out the commercial detail in full — the work itself is delivered locally.
It produces steady work and very little control. The risk isn't the dependency itself but the absence of a funded plan to win work outside it, so if a contract, framework or customer relationship changes, there is nothing else running to take up the slack.
It means building relationships and a commercial proposition ahead of the tender being published, rather than waiting for opportunities to be advertised. That starts with a target list of accounts outside the existing supply chain and consistent activity against it, reviewed monthly alongside the existing customer base.
Because it's usually described in operational terms that make sense internally but not to a buyer weighing up options. The fix is proposition and messaging work that translates real engineering capability into language a new sector's buyers recognise and can act on.
It can, particularly for businesses with export-capable products or specialist capability. Growing an existing UK business into new sectors and helping it develop new-market turnover overseas draw on the same disciplined approach to targeting and business development.
Evidence
Business Development · United Kingdom → Scotland and the North of England
A major UK balustrade supplier was well established elsewhere in the UK but thin on the ground across the northern territories. Growth there needed direct commercial activity.
Sales Growth · Bradford, West Yorkshire → United Kingdom — national
Crucial Engineering wanted to expand beyond Bradford and build a genuine national sales operation. We helped develop larger Tier 1 and Tier 2 opportunities, strengthen business development and establish a profitable new automation revenue stream.
£1.5m → £3.2m Turnover in approximately 18 months
Sales Growth · Sheffield, South Yorkshire → United Kingdom
BM Architectural wanted to expand its balustrade sales and create its next stage of growth. We helped win new customers, establish a dedicated architectural division and develop additional product opportunities including glass canopies.
£6.8m → £11.5m Turnover in 24 months
How engagements work
Diversification work is usually run as a defined project — target list, proposition and monthly activity — sometimes alongside a lighter retained arrangement to protect existing accounts. Days and fees follow the assessment, once the concentration risk and the target sectors are clear.
A direct discussion about where revenue comes from today, what has stalled and what you want the business to look like commercially in twelve to twenty-four months.
A structured look at lead generation, pipeline, conversion, follow-up, pricing discipline and sales management — based on your numbers rather than assumptions.
You receive a clear view of what should change, in what order, and whether that is best delivered as a defined project, fractional sales leadership or focused business development.
Most engagements run over several months at one or two days a week — long enough for new habits to hold, with the intention that your own people carry them afterwards.
Tools
Three ways to get a clearer commercial picture before committing to anything.
A structured commercial review of lead generation, pipeline, conversion and follow-up, with the findings and the recommended route set out plainly.
Answer a few questions about how sales are run today and receive a short, personalised plan: what is holding growth back, the sales structure that fits and a practical first 90 days.
Practical reading
Growing in the UK?
Tell us how sales are run today and where you want to grow. Evans Sales Consultancy will build a short, personalised UK sales growth plan covering what is holding growth back, the sales structure that fits and the first 90 days.
Takes a few minutes. Your personalised plan is ready immediately, on screen and as a PDF you can keep.
B2B lead generation & managed prospecting
Prefer to talk it through first?
Based in the North West and supporting ambitious B2B businesses across Cumbria and the North of England. Talk through your sales challenge with Tom Evans.
It is a risk rather than a fault. The question is whether you have a live, funded plan for winning work outside it — and most businesses in this position do not.
We work on the commercial side: which opportunities are worth pursuing, how the proposition is positioned, and the relationship-building that should happen long before the tender is published.
Yes. Broadening geography and broadening sector often go together, and both are handled as territory development.
Yes — the nuclear, energy, marine and defence supply chains along the coast are a significant part of the work we do, and the diversification approach is built around the realities of long lead times and framework-driven procurement in those sectors.
We run the commercial activity alongside your existing team rather than requiring you to release delivery staff into sales roles, usually a set number of days a month, agreed once the assessment shows where the diversification effort should be targeted first.
If your business could sell more than it currently does, the fastest way to find out why is to look at the numbers together.
Prefer to speak directly?
