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Hi, I'm Dmytro Shvets, your host at the Start Global Insights, where I interview experts

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in different countries about local business secrets and international expansion experience.

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Today my guest is Marina Solomanchuk, the CEO of the Spark Lead Generation Agency.

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Marina is an expert in lead generation and worked a lot with international markets, including

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the experience with many innovative digital tools that help to identify and find clients

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around the world.

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Hi, Dima.

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Thank you for this introduction and thank you for having me today.

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One of the most common questions that I hear from the exporters is how to find clients

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abroad.

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And to find clients is one thing, and to sell them is something very different.

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So how to look for your clients abroad and do it right?

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Could you tell us what are the biggest mistakes that people do during the sales, especially

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in B2B, from the client's perspective?

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That's a very good question, and that's a complex question.

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So it can be very different mistakes considering where the company currently stands, meaning

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they may not have ACP work through or when the company is short on staff and can simply

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handle the lead funnel.

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But one of the most significant issues is changing the strategy way too often.

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For example, when the company does its lead generation in-house and expect to see a flow

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of sales ready leads, like in one month, that simply won't happen.

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And when it's not the case, they do a lot of stuff, they change the approach, may replace

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people, do a lot of other operational workloads.

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So if you start to do the outreach, you should be honest with yourself and understand that

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it will take some time to ramp up.

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And for some companies that have a complex product or the complex industry, it may take

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months.

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So that's something that should be put into your KPI planning.

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So that means that you should not expect the quick results and be more long-term thinking,

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yeah?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So just about the strategy, the approach that will take some time.

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And you should be patient during this time and understand that some things, no matter

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whether you do the outreach or the lead generation in-house or do you outsource this resource,

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that will take time.

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Yes.

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Just for our listeners that are not in this terminology, could you please explain, you

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mentioned at least two terms.

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One is the ICP and the second one is outreach.

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Yeah.

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So ICP or ideal customer profile, that's basically who are you looking for to sell to.

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That's your ideal buying persona, ideal job title or job role in some specific country,

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industry or geography.

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That's something that you should have in mind for yourself first before you start doing

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something with help or yourself.

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That's your ideal client.

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The client, not just you would like to sell to generally, but the client that's really

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might need your product and might bring you money.

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That's in a short way.

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Clear.

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Yeah.

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And another one, the outreach, that's basically the process of reaching out the audience,

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these ICP contacts that you have in a cold way.

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So basically when they don't know anything about you and you start emailing them or calling

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them or sending requests by LinkedIn, that's basically the process.

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Okay.

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Clear.

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Yeah.

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So that's totally understandable now.

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Let's talk about the lead generation process.

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So how to generate the list of your potential clients, there are many offers to sell you

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a database, for example, of clients.

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You can actually download that from different database portals.

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What's wrong with that?

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Is it enough to have that or you should do something about that?

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Yeah.

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In my opinion, it's definitely not enough.

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So there are a lot of vendors that provide this type of databases to purchase.

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And there are also several blockers to using them effectively.

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The first and foremost is data accuracy and quality.

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So back in the past when I was working in marketing and my goal was to expand the audience

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to fund the database, I was researching this market of providers and databases.

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And what they usually do when you're just in the research phase, they offer you some

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free sample with some amount of contacts, which look legit and you like it.

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You think, well, this might work.

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And when you purchase or buy the full list and you may found out that the contacts are

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incorrect, the phone numbers or emails are incorrect or people, they just simply don't

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work there anymore.

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So that's one thing.

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And another thing that even though the phone number may be correct and you may reach someone,

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that's a general office number.

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So it's simply impossible to reach your desired contact because it's just a general phone

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number.

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And even though if you're lucky enough to get a clean and accurate database, you need

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to have a strategy, communication strategy, outreach strategy for them.

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Otherwise converting this contact to your sales prospect is mission impossible.

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So when you think to purchase this, it may seem low investment database versus engaging

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someone to do the lead generation to the outreach for you, you need to actually compare the

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risks that comes with this because it's just a data and it's a matter of chance.

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A matter of luck, whether you will be lucky enough to get a good one and you definitely

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need to understand what to do with it.

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So in my opinion, it's not enough and you should be very, very cautious about it.

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So in fact, this is just a piece of tool in the whole strategy that you need to use.

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Yeah.

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And there are other ways to get to this contacts and be more sure that you are doing that incorrect

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way.

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You need to do your homework before this lead generation, before getting this database of

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clients.

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You mentioned ICP, so the ideal customer profile.

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So you need to understand your client and whom you are selling to, especially in B2B.

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This is a more complicated question because you are selling not to the company, but you

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are selling to the people and you need to understand what people inside of this company

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are your clients.

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What should else be done prior to this contact list?

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Definitely it's about ICP first.

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So knowing your audience, knowing who to sell to or who to engage to.

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And for example, if we expect the client to have this when they start working with us,

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but the right case is when they just have the general idea, but do not have something

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structured in place.

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So we help them during this process, we help them to structure the ICP or prioritize job

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roles because there might be so many in the brief and we need to understand who we want

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to reach first, second, and so on and so forth.

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Another thing is definitely get the contacts ready.

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And that's not about just using one database.

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It's about AD research based on the ICP, the geography, again, the job titles.

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Here it's partly we use different tools to get an accurate database.

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That's definitely more than just a LinkedIn or one simple database.

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Of course, messaging is super important.

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So if you have your ICP ready, if you have your database, then you would need to think

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about the messages that will bring the value to some specific client persona.

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That's really, really important.

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So for example, if we, I don't know, work with a client whose product is aimed to streamline

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digital transformation, then for the research of the potential prospect, we would see what

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each specific company do towards digital transformation.

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Are they doing something right now or not?

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If they do, we would use it as a trigger in our message.

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Say, hey, we see that you already are this, that, and that.

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And we believe that our product can speed up the process or do something.

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Or for example, if we don't have any insights on a specific prospect, we can start with

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a successful case from other clients that they already using the product.

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So when we say, hey, the company X is using the product and it's already increased its

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efficiency.

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So something that will catch the attention and will be relevant to the specific job role,

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someone who is definitely responsible for digital transformation.

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What tools can you suggest to look for this information?

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Because it is kind of intelligence.

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Yes, it is business intelligence, but still the intelligence of gathering information,

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I believe from open sources, first of all, I remember long years ago when we were selling

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abroad, we have been using, for example, the database of strategies of stock listed companies.

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And reading the strategy, you got a lot of insights, what is important for the company,

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what are the values that they're looking for, and what are their plans actually.

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Because in the strategy, they describe these plans of future expansion, for example.

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And as they are stock listed company, and so the strategies in open source available.

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What to do if this is not a stock listed company?

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If your client is not publishing their reports, what kind of tools, digital tools or sources

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you can use to dig this information out?

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Yeah, you may still use some open sources.

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I mean, just simply Google what is happening with this company, any recent news, acquisitions,

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hires, or layoffs whatsoever, something to give you more information.

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But also, as I mentioned, we use platforms that provide databases, but not only on the

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contact level and email form, but they also give some insights of what's happening with

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this contact, whether he or she was promoted, what's happening with the companies.

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So we also use this intelligence while building the messages.

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Sorry to interrupt you, but what are these magic tools?

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As far as I understood, they are not only giving you the database of the contacts of

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the company, but also some insights what is going on with this business and also with

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specific roles in this company.

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Yeah, so for example, there are a lot of these platforms in the market.

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They actually have some local specific data.

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Some are more good with US, Canada market.

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Some are more suitable for European markets.

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From my experience, I think the most proven are ZoomInfo and Seamless AI.

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So they give you a very comprehensive overview on a contact level, on the company level.

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For those who are listening now, you can find the links to the mentioned tools in the description

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of this episode.

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I also remembered one case when we interviewed our clients and we found out that actually

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the specific roles in the company, they have KPIs be present in media.

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In that case, that was CIO.

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So they needed to publish interviews and articles in different newspapers and magazines.

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So I believe that the media could be also a great source of information and insights

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about your clients.

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Absolutely.

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I would say super important when you follow the account-based marketing approach.

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So basically you have a very specific accounts or companies that you would like to target

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and you get the information from different sources.

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And definitely the one you mentioned, the interviews with C-level executives are also

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there.

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So that's even more deep level of expertise that you should have before reaching this

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specific account.

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So if we are speaking general and we just have, I don't know, the geography, C-level,

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whatsoever company size criteria, that it's much easier.

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So I think at this level, we don't need that many insights at the first stages.

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But definitely if we have a very narrow target, say these 50 companies only, then we will

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definitely need to deep dive.

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So it is like a step-by-step approach.

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So you need to first to have this long list of clients and then filter them out in your

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funnel to those qualified for your sales.

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Because the system can give you a very broad list and it doesn't mean that you should send

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out emails to everybody the first time.

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You need to filter them out according to additional criteria.

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Yes.

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So again, that depends on the strategy and the product and the client needs.

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But the first step may be more or less like intro general, but then you would need to

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be as much relevant to that person as possible.

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And as you analyze his digital footprint, you would know what is his mind, what is his

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business agenda these days.

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That's definitely something that would be really helpful in messaging.

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So exactly because of that, you need to filter the initial long list not to search this deep

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information for irrelevant contacts.

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Yes, yes, for sure.

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You mentioned that one of the criteria of choice is the geography.

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So the question is how does the geography or different cultures or different international

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markets influence the process?

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Are there any differences in sales in different countries or approach of search for this long

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list of companies, et cetera?

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As businesses operate in a global market these days, I would say that there are actually

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a lot of similarities in the process of in the general process of the communication and

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of the cell itself.

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But definitely there are intercultural aspects that you should consider.

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I mean, just a very basic thing, but just avoid setting up the automated newsletter

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on Friday, let's say for some Middle East countries since there's just their day off.

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So these small things, they also matter.

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You should know your prospect or your client and know the culture and the country where

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they operate in.

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That's for sure.

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From my experience, using the local languages in your outreach strategy, something that

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works great.

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So if there is a resource on your side as an agency to do that in local language and

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a client also has a sales team that can sell in local language, that's a winning combination.

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That's definitely something that will increase the response because English is great.

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It's used everywhere, specifically IT industry.

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It's great.

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But again, you might just have better results or have the results faster if you use the

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local language.

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Coming back to this messaging, to the content, is it like one time email, are you interested

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in our product and that's it, or you have to plan kind of a chain of messages and how

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do you do it?

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Yeah, there's always about multiple efforts.

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I don't know the success case when everything happens from the first touch.

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It's a very rare story.

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So usually it takes multiple touches to convert a person and it's not, again, the channels

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may be different.

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It depends from case to case, but the number of touches is definitely more than one.

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So we have, and I think that's more of a market practice to have sequences built for the outreach.

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Even if you do this in-house, you would definitely need to have that.

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You would need to have numerous touches for numerous channels.

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For example, you would have a separate email or a sequence for the email channel and you

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would have a separate content sequence for your LinkedIn and other channels.

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That's for sure.

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I think that you should also consistently plan what is in that messages, in these sequences.

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Usually what I receive from those people who I think that they are using the same tools

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that you use and they try to sell me the next and the next letter is like, well, have you

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decided already?

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Yeah.

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How have you looked at our offer?

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What do you think?

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And then in a week again, so we didn't hear from you and we would like to still get the

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answer.

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Yeah.

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So this like poking the client is, I think, not a good idea.

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At least it doesn't work with me.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So well, you need to understand that sequence means repeating, but you should not repeat

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the exact message just with the other words.

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This is number one.

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Another one, the time when you communicate and contact the prospect also matters.

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So you need to have some gaps between the communication.

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They should be based on some assumption, not just like you sent in each day or I don't

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know, five days in a row or something.

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So that should be some kind of a strategy behind that.

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And also there should be different messages and different triggering points that you would

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use to get from other side and maybe use this approach and that approach to interest your

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prospect.

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And that's not only about the messaging, but also about the formats.

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Say if you're talking about LinkedIn, you can send a message, you can record a video,

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you can record an audio.

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So there are even different formats that you should use to not to be boring outreach or

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but to bring the value, really.

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I recently listened to some podcasts.

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I don't remember which one.

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And there was a really interesting message.

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When you communicate to your client, you should be interesting for them.

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Yeah.

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So you cannot push or make them like your product or in the message.

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You should give them something that would be really valuable and interesting and maybe

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even entertaining in terms of invest their time in reading this message or perceiving

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this information.

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When we are sending something out, we're thinking about our product, our KPIs, how to sell

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that.

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But we forget to think or make this kind of empathy and to put ourselves in the client

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shoes and to look at the same message from the client's perspective.

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Yeah, I agree here.

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So we all work in a competitive industry.

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There are a lot of companies or people that do similar stuff to us.

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So it's really important to stand out.

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And using the right content is super important.

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I think producing something original that you do is super cool.

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I like companies who do their own researches or agencies and publish some reports, monthly,

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quarterly, yearly, like state of say Outbound or state of SDR.

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That's something that brings additional value.

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Not just the you know, it's not sales of the service itself, but it also shows that this

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company can give me some other value that I maybe not even expected.

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So I consider them as an expert in the industry and they caught my attention.

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Another thing is understanding in which channels your audience consume the content.

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So sometimes it's just LinkedIn and that's fine.

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That's also possible.

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But for some clients and some industries, that's more digital formats.

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So probably you should adapt your content to those formats and do something on YouTube

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or a record podcast.

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That's something that should be also on your mind when you think about the content strategy.

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Yeah and in some countries even the paper mails are still popular.

302
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Yes, absolutely.

303
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, I know.

305
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I was actually surprised because to me, America and United States are all, you know, also

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I had this idea that it's super advanced in so many ways.

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But I was planning an event back in my marketing experience and I found out that it's super

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relevant to send, you know, like the printed agenda to some clients and to have the invitation

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printed and delivered across the United States.

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That was a surprising thing for me, but that works for those companies that work for this

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prospects to stay engaged with us.

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So we did that.

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Yeah, so you should really be mindful about that.

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What about the cooperation of the sales department and the marketing department?

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Is it worth doing some marketing campaigns on the same audience along the way when you're

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approaching them through the messaging?

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You may do the campaigns along with sales reaching some prospects, but the most important

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thing that those departments, those people, you know, talk to each other.

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You should definitely avoid the situation and I know such a lot of these such examples

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when, you know, say the same company, but different departments, they do some, you know,

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similar streams and they just don't know they are doing this.

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So one prospect may receive like 10 or 15 emails from different people from one company

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in a week.

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It results nothing like unsubscribed rate complaints.

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So it won't help your business.

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It will damage it.

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So you should be aligned inside first on what you're doing and how you're reaching them.

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So that's really, really important.

329
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Good.

330
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,840
So again, you're coming back.

331
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You need to prepare.

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You need to understand where you're selling.

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You need to understand who are your client.

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Then investigate or get this some analytics data about the client and his pains and possible

335
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jobs that he needs to be done.

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And then you plan your sequence of messages and you also understand where the client consumes

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information.

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What are the channels?

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And then you plan the sequence of messages and this messages should be different and

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valuable to the client.

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And what happens then?

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Then basically you see how it's working and you also should be mindful of that.

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This is something you set up and just run and it's running itself and bringing you results

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and bringing you leads and converting to sales.

345
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No, that's live process.

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And you evaluate that process preferably weekly, I don't know, monthly, yourself with your

347
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team, with your agency, whatever you're using in that process.

348
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And you understand what is working and what is not.

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Who is more responsive and who is not and why.

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Say maybe you will find out that someone really unexpected response to your emails and maybe

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you should look into that category in more detail.

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Or for example, you just understand that there is some blocker on the way.

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So messaging is right, but when the meeting happened, someone is not ready.

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So you should find these bottlenecks and try to eliminate them.

355
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:43,320
So this is always an improvement process until you will see some deals closed, some money

356
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received and you really know that, OK, this concept works for me.

357
00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:54,520
But again, this is not necessarily means that it will work three months later or six months

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later.

359
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,200
The market, the needs, the companies, everything is changing really first.

360
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So you should be always ready to that change, be flexible and be up to date with the trends.

361
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:12,760
It looks like you definitely need some help of digital tools to organize all this work.

362
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:19,680
So it is almost impossible to do in Excel shit or in another table.

363
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What kind of tools do you use for that purpose?

364
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:35,080
There could be various tools really, but I think the most often used tools is the CRM.

365
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:41,840
So many vendors, so many options on the market right now, they do have similarities.

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They give you a full overview, 360 degrees overview of what's happening with this once

367
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with the content when it enters your database.

368
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And is it sales ready?

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Is it not?

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Is it on the nurturing stage?

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Which touches were already given to that content?

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What is more tend to respond to?

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What content?

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What events?

375
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:08,320
So that's definitely analytics that you would need.

376
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,920
And using CRM platform, it's really easy because usually it has some dashboard options.

377
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,640
You just click on something, do some simple filtering and you will see all the data.

378
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:22,440
That's really easy and that's speed up the decision process.

379
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,680
So the key to success is actually the personalization.

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So it's not just sending out the same messages to the whole bunch of your clients.

381
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Like for example, I recently heard that we are cooperating with the communication provider

382
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:46,280
and he sends out SMS to thousands of our clients and it doesn't work surprisingly.

383
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:52,240
So we actually delivered information about our products to the client, but somehow he

384
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:58,680
doesn't call us and he is maybe even irritated that we contacted them with some information

385
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,160
that is unvaluable for them at this moment.

386
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,600
So the personalization is the key.

387
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:04,600
Yeah.

388
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:10,160
In the area when we are all limited on time and want to fast resources, we need to be

389
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:15,080
really, really mindful and prioritize those who are reaching to and targeting to.

390
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:22,920
We might have a more narrow database, but we are sure that these are potential ones

391
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:28,800
versus sending out a thousand and a thousand of emails just with a general message.

392
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:29,800
Good.

393
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:36,680
It looks like what seemed to be a very simple and easy stage of the sales, just getting

394
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:43,440
the database of your clients appeared to be a very long journey and quite complicated

395
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:51,360
and something that requires strategic thinking, creativity and understanding your clients.

396
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:57,000
And only then you are getting in touch with them to sell the goods or services.

397
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,400
Yeah, that's true.

398
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:00,900
That's amazing.

399
00:29:00,900 --> 00:29:02,480
Thank you for being with us.

400
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,880
Thanks for sharing your information and your experience.

401
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:11,080
And I think that there are a lot of peculiarities that you need to understand in this process

402
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:12,080
more.

403
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,760
So I hope we will come back to that.

404
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:16,160
Thank you very much for inviting me.

405
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:30,160
It was great talking to you today and sharing the insights with the audience.