A rebranding for a consulting firm typically involves a logo makeover, a new name and an email to clients letting them know the old shop has a new shingle.
The four partners behind RightVoter took it a step further. The DC-based firm, which began as a general consultancy, opted to relaunch as an umbrella company with four additional entities underneath offering specific services.
Under Ascent Strategic are Conversion Creative, which does design work for mail and digital, Engagement Strategies, which offers phones and texting, and the self-explanatory Amplify Public Affairs, and Pivotal Research.
“Everybody’s been excited about the idea of the company growing, but there’s still some confusion around it. Does RightVoter still exist?” said partner Michael Biundo. “We had to go back and alert all our vendors that we’re not closing RightVoter, but we’re not using it.”
Instead, the partners filed S-corporation paperwork for Ascent Strategic and all its specific service companies. “That had to be the hardest part of the whole thing — just going to open up new bank accounts and switching the credit cards over and dealing with legal. Our operations department, I give them and creative a whole bunch of credit because they’re the ones who carried a big burden on all this.”
The rebranding creative was the work of Biundo’s daughter, Amanda, now the creative director at Ascent Strategic: “Amanda drove the process and did all the graphic design,” he said. “It was her vision on all the different verticals that we’re working on.”
Coming up with the new name was another challenge.
Everyone from partners to employees were tasked with putting together a list of potential names for the new firm. After the list was finalized, the partners — which also include Andrew Boucher, Derek Dufresne, and Kory Wood — voted on their preferred choice. It took less than a week.
“Naming it is always the hardest part,” said Biundo. “Ascent talks about the journey that we take. A lot of our clients are first-time candidates. It’s an ascent to the point that Election Day comes. It made a lot of sense.”
The rebranding was also done with an eye toward landing more corporate work. “We’re a Republican firm, nothing’s ever going to change with that. But we do pitch corporate work. It’s limiting to have a name with ‘right’ in it, because the business community doesn’t look at it like the political community does,” Biundo said. “So the name has some crossover appeal to the business world as well.”
RightVoter started in 2015 as a general consultancy, but grew by offering the services it was contracting out in-house. “When we started, about 90 percent was general consulting and now it’s really diversified,” said Biundo, adding they’re continuing to hire after recently bringing on Todd Cheewing as director of client relations.
“If you look at our 2020 results, we did the most business on the side where we were selling the services. That’s where most of our revenue came from. We’re still general consultants first, but we’re building up some significant credibility within the service side of our business,” he said. “It was time to take that next step forward.”
