Events &
Trainings
Discover CONNSTEP-led trainings and partner-hosted events focused on strengthening manufacturing businesses statewide.
Strategic Growth
Move from vision to execution. CONNSTEP
helps you identify market opportunities and drive revenue.
Strategic Growth
Move from vision to execution. CONNSTEP helps you identify market opportunities and drive revenue.
Strategic Planning
Chart a Clear Course for the Future
Growth requires more than ambition—it requires focus, alignment, and a continuity plan. CONNSTEP helps manufacturers move from vision to execution by working directly with leadership teams to define priorities, assess readiness, and build strategies that support sustainable growth and long-term success.
Our Strategic Planning services provide a structured, executive-level approach to growth and transition:
Planning for Growth
Through in-depth discussions with your executive team, we help clarify your mission, business goals, and value proposition while evaluating market opportunities, risks, and internal capabilities. You gain clear, actionable recommendations to determine whether your organization is ready to pursue new markets, scale operations, or launch growth initiatives.
Comprehensive Strategic Planning
We evaluate your business across key functional areas to identify strengths, weaknesses, and priorities. By aligning mission, vision, and goals, CONNSTEP
helps you articulate a clear direction, prioritize initiatives, and establish metrics to track progress—laying the foundation for a stronger, more competitive, and more profitable enterprise.
Succession Planning & Leadership Continuity
To ensure long-term stability, we help owners and leadership teams plan for transitions due to retirement, sale, or organizational change. Through facilitated workshops and follow-up support, CONNSTEP
helps develop practical succession action plans, current and future-state organizational structures, and development paths for both emerging and high-potential leaders.
Outcomes You Can Expect:
Clear visibility into growth opportunities and risks
A prioritized roadmap for strategic initiatives
Improved leadership confidence and organizational readiness
Reduced vulnerability from unplanned transitions or retirements
A sustainable plan for ownership and leadership continuity
With CONNSTEP, strategic planning becomes a practical, disciplined process that positions your business to grow with confidence—today and into the future.
Sales & Marketing
Align Outreach with Revenue Goals
Manufacturers often have exceptional products and capabilities—but without a clear strategy to communicate their value, potential customers can be missed. CONNSTEP helps companies create integrated sales and marketing programs that generate leads, expand market reach, and convert opportunities into measurable growth.
Our Sales & Marketing services provide a full-spectrum approach:
Brand & Marketing Strategy Development
Define your company’s unique value proposition, craft messaging that resonates with prospects, and develop a marketing roadmap to increase awareness and drive sales conversions.
Collateral Design & Development
Translate your capabilities and value proposition into professional print and digital materials that clearly communicate your strengths to target markets, reinforcing your brand identity across channels.
Digital Marketing
Expand your reach through email campaigns, social media, digital advertising, and keyword optimization. Track and measure engagement to focus efforts on the most effective tactics, while strengthening your online presence.
Lead Generation
Implement hands-on programs to identify and nurture qualified prospects, maintain a steady pipeline, and deliver actionable leads to your sales team—helping small and midsized manufacturers efficiently grow revenue.
Market Research
Gather insights on customers, competitors, and industry trends to inform strategy, guide product development, and support data-driven growth decisions. Voice-of-the-customer research and competitive benchmarking provide actionable intelligence for smarter market positioning.
Market Scouting
Identify new potential markets and untapped revenue streams through a blend of competitive research, stakeholder interviews, and expert analysis—turning insight into opportunity and qualified prospects.
Web Design & Development
Optimize your digital presence with user-friendly, mobile-accessible websites, automated forms, secure customer portals, and SEO strategies. Modernized sites reflect your business accurately, drive traffic, and support lead generation.
Outcomes You Can Expect:
Clear messaging and positioning that differentiates your business
A coordinated marketing plan that aligns with revenue goals
Expanded market reach and measurable lead generation
Data-driven decisions supported by research and market insights
Enhanced digital presence that attracts and converts prospects
With CONNSTEP, your sales and marketing efforts become focused, measurable, and aligned with growth objectives—helping your business turn opportunities into revenue.
Entrepreneurial Ventures
Incubate New Business Ideas
Launching a new product or business can be complex, especially in manufacturing. CONNSTEP helps entrepreneurs navigate the entrepreneurial ecosystem by connecting them with the right partners, resources, and funding opportunities to move ideas from concept to commercialization.
We provide guidance and support across key stages of entrepreneurial development, including:
Ideation & Prototyping: Defining new product concepts and creating first proofs of concept.
Funding & Market Research: Identifying seed capital, assessing market potential, and evaluating new revenue opportunities.
Manufacturing & Legal Support: Connecting with supply chain partners, commercializing products, and protecting intellectual property.
CONNSTEP, together with partners across the ecosystem, serves as a central resource to help entrepreneurs navigate each step, leveraging workshops, expert advice, and strategic connections to accelerate their ventures.
New Product Development
Innovation from Concept to Launch
Connect to Innovators & Scale New Products
FORGE
is a nonprofit partner that supports entrepreneurs and manufacturers by bridging the gap between innovative startups and the regional manufacturing supply chain. Based in Connecticut with collaborative support from CONNSTEP, FORGE helps innovators who are developing physical products move from prototype to commercialization more quickly and with less risk—all while creating new opportunities for manufacturers to grow.
How FORGE works
FORGE prepares startups with manufacturable physical products by offering manufacturing readiness support, education, and access to non-dilutive product development funding. It then makes right-fit introductions between innovators and manufacturers—opening doors to production partnerships, supply chain engagement, and new contracts.
Why This Matters to Manufacturers
FORGE’s network helps manufacturers connect with innovators seeking local production partners, creating new business opportunities without cost to join the network.
Manufacturers engaged in the network have seen millions in known contracts come through these introductions.
Participation positions companies to expand into new markets, diversify their customer base, and collaborate on cutting-edge products within Connecticut’s ecosystem.
FORGE also Supports Startups With:
Training and education on manufacturing readiness
Access to non-dilutive product development grants (e.g., up to $100,000) to help scale production and reach commercialization milestones
Connections to engineers, supply chain firms, and technical expertise that reduce risk and accelerate time to market
With FORGE, CONNSTEP
extends its Strategic Growth support by connecting your manufacturing capabilities to innovation opportunities—enabling growth through collaboration and product ecosystem development.
Upcoming Industry Events
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Grow. Improve.
Succeed.
Connect with our team today to find out how CONNSTEP can empower your manufacturing business to compete and thrive.
Grow.
Improve.
Succeed.
Connect with our team today to find out how CONNSTEP can empower your manufacturing business to compete and thrive.
