Hi, I'm Dmytro Shvets, your host at the Start Global Insights, where I interview experts
in different countries about local business secrets and international expansion experience.
Today my guest is Marina Solomanchuk, the CEO of the Spark Lead Generation Agency.
Marina is an expert in lead generation and worked a lot with international markets, including
the experience with many innovative digital tools that help to identify and find clients
around the world.
Hi, Dima.
Thank you for this introduction and thank you for having me today.
One of the most common questions that I hear from the exporters is how to find clients
abroad.
And to find clients is one thing, and to sell them is something very different.
So how to look for your clients abroad and do it right?
Could you tell us what are the biggest mistakes that people do during the sales, especially
in B2B, from the client's perspective?
That's a very good question, and that's a complex question.
So it can be very different mistakes considering where the company currently stands, meaning
they may not have ACP work through or when the company is short on staff and can simply
handle the lead funnel.
But one of the most significant issues is changing the strategy way too often.
For example, when the company does its lead generation in-house and expect to see a flow
of sales ready leads, like in one month, that simply won't happen.
And when it's not the case, they do a lot of stuff, they change the approach, may replace
people, do a lot of other operational workloads.
So if you start to do the outreach, you should be honest with yourself and understand that
it will take some time to ramp up.
And for some companies that have a complex product or the complex industry, it may take
months.
So that's something that should be put into your KPI planning.
So that means that you should not expect the quick results and be more long-term thinking,
yeah?
Yeah, absolutely.
So just about the strategy, the approach that will take some time.
And you should be patient during this time and understand that some things, no matter
whether you do the outreach or the lead generation in-house or do you outsource this resource,
that will take time.
Yes.
Just for our listeners that are not in this terminology, could you please explain, you
mentioned at least two terms.
One is the ICP and the second one is outreach.
Yeah.
So ICP or ideal customer profile, that's basically who are you looking for to sell to.
That's your ideal buying persona, ideal job title or job role in some specific country,
industry or geography.
That's something that you should have in mind for yourself first before you start doing
something with help or yourself.
That's your ideal client.
The client, not just you would like to sell to generally, but the client that's really
might need your product and might bring you money.
That's in a short way.
Clear.
Yeah.
And another one, the outreach, that's basically the process of reaching out the audience,
these ICP contacts that you have in a cold way.
So basically when they don't know anything about you and you start emailing them or calling
them or sending requests by LinkedIn, that's basically the process.
Okay.
Clear.
Yeah.
So that's totally understandable now.
Let's talk about the lead generation process.
So how to generate the list of your potential clients, there are many offers to sell you
a database, for example, of clients.
You can actually download that from different database portals.
What's wrong with that?
Is it enough to have that or you should do something about that?
Yeah.
In my opinion, it's definitely not enough.
So there are a lot of vendors that provide this type of databases to purchase.
And there are also several blockers to using them effectively.
The first and foremost is data accuracy and quality.
So back in the past when I was working in marketing and my goal was to expand the audience
to fund the database, I was researching this market of providers and databases.
And what they usually do when you're just in the research phase, they offer you some
free sample with some amount of contacts, which look legit and you like it.
You think, well, this might work.
And when you purchase or buy the full list and you may found out that the contacts are
incorrect, the phone numbers or emails are incorrect or people, they just simply don't
work there anymore.
So that's one thing.
And another thing that even though the phone number may be correct and you may reach someone,
that's a general office number.
So it's simply impossible to reach your desired contact because it's just a general phone
number.
And even though if you're lucky enough to get a clean and accurate database, you need
to have a strategy, communication strategy, outreach strategy for them.
Otherwise converting this contact to your sales prospect is mission impossible.
So when you think to purchase this, it may seem low investment database versus engaging
someone to do the lead generation to the outreach for you, you need to actually compare the
risks that comes with this because it's just a data and it's a matter of chance.
A matter of luck, whether you will be lucky enough to get a good one and you definitely
need to understand what to do with it.
So in my opinion, it's not enough and you should be very, very cautious about it.
So in fact, this is just a piece of tool in the whole strategy that you need to use.
Yeah.
And there are other ways to get to this contacts and be more sure that you are doing that incorrect
way.
You need to do your homework before this lead generation, before getting this database of
clients.
You mentioned ICP, so the ideal customer profile.
So you need to understand your client and whom you are selling to, especially in B2B.
This is a more complicated question because you are selling not to the company, but you
are selling to the people and you need to understand what people inside of this company
are your clients.
What should else be done prior to this contact list?
Definitely it's about ICP first.
So knowing your audience, knowing who to sell to or who to engage to.
And for example, if we expect the client to have this when they start working with us,
but the right case is when they just have the general idea, but do not have something
structured in place.
So we help them during this process, we help them to structure the ICP or prioritize job
roles because there might be so many in the brief and we need to understand who we want
to reach first, second, and so on and so forth.
Another thing is definitely get the contacts ready.
And that's not about just using one database.
It's about AD research based on the ICP, the geography, again, the job titles.
Here it's partly we use different tools to get an accurate database.
That's definitely more than just a LinkedIn or one simple database.
Of course, messaging is super important.
So if you have your ICP ready, if you have your database, then you would need to think
about the messages that will bring the value to some specific client persona.
That's really, really important.
So for example, if we, I don't know, work with a client whose product is aimed to streamline
digital transformation, then for the research of the potential prospect, we would see what
each specific company do towards digital transformation.
Are they doing something right now or not?
If they do, we would use it as a trigger in our message.
Say, hey, we see that you already are this, that, and that.
And we believe that our product can speed up the process or do something.
Or for example, if we don't have any insights on a specific prospect, we can start with
a successful case from other clients that they already using the product.
So when we say, hey, the company X is using the product and it's already increased its
efficiency.
So something that will catch the attention and will be relevant to the specific job role,
someone who is definitely responsible for digital transformation.
What tools can you suggest to look for this information?
Because it is kind of intelligence.
Yes, it is business intelligence, but still the intelligence of gathering information,
I believe from open sources, first of all, I remember long years ago when we were selling
abroad, we have been using, for example, the database of strategies of stock listed companies.
And reading the strategy, you got a lot of insights, what is important for the company,
what are the values that they're looking for, and what are their plans actually.
Because in the strategy, they describe these plans of future expansion, for example.
And as they are stock listed company, and so the strategies in open source available.
What to do if this is not a stock listed company?
If your client is not publishing their reports, what kind of tools, digital tools or sources
you can use to dig this information out?
Yeah, you may still use some open sources.
I mean, just simply Google what is happening with this company, any recent news, acquisitions,
hires, or layoffs whatsoever, something to give you more information.
But also, as I mentioned, we use platforms that provide databases, but not only on the
contact level and email form, but they also give some insights of what's happening with
this contact, whether he or she was promoted, what's happening with the companies.
So we also use this intelligence while building the messages.
Sorry to interrupt you, but what are these magic tools?
As far as I understood, they are not only giving you the database of the contacts of
the company, but also some insights what is going on with this business and also with
specific roles in this company.
Yeah, so for example, there are a lot of these platforms in the market.
They actually have some local specific data.
Some are more good with US, Canada market.
Some are more suitable for European markets.
From my experience, I think the most proven are ZoomInfo and Seamless AI.
So they give you a very comprehensive overview on a contact level, on the company level.
For those who are listening now, you can find the links to the mentioned tools in the description
of this episode.
I also remembered one case when we interviewed our clients and we found out that actually
the specific roles in the company, they have KPIs be present in media.
In that case, that was CIO.
So they needed to publish interviews and articles in different newspapers and magazines.
So I believe that the media could be also a great source of information and insights
about your clients.
Absolutely.
I would say super important when you follow the account-based marketing approach.
So basically you have a very specific accounts or companies that you would like to target
and you get the information from different sources.
And definitely the one you mentioned, the interviews with C-level executives are also
there.
So that's even more deep level of expertise that you should have before reaching this
specific account.
So if we are speaking general and we just have, I don't know, the geography, C-level,
whatsoever company size criteria, that it's much easier.
So I think at this level, we don't need that many insights at the first stages.
But definitely if we have a very narrow target, say these 50 companies only, then we will
definitely need to deep dive.
So it is like a step-by-step approach.
So you need to first to have this long list of clients and then filter them out in your
funnel to those qualified for your sales.
Because the system can give you a very broad list and it doesn't mean that you should send
out emails to everybody the first time.
You need to filter them out according to additional criteria.
Yes.
So again, that depends on the strategy and the product and the client needs.
But the first step may be more or less like intro general, but then you would need to
be as much relevant to that person as possible.
And as you analyze his digital footprint, you would know what is his mind, what is his
business agenda these days.
That's definitely something that would be really helpful in messaging.
So exactly because of that, you need to filter the initial long list not to search this deep
information for irrelevant contacts.
Yes, yes, for sure.
You mentioned that one of the criteria of choice is the geography.
So the question is how does the geography or different cultures or different international
markets influence the process?
Are there any differences in sales in different countries or approach of search for this long
list of companies, et cetera?
As businesses operate in a global market these days, I would say that there are actually
a lot of similarities in the process of in the general process of the communication and
of the cell itself.
But definitely there are intercultural aspects that you should consider.
I mean, just a very basic thing, but just avoid setting up the automated newsletter
on Friday, let's say for some Middle East countries since there's just their day off.
So these small things, they also matter.
You should know your prospect or your client and know the culture and the country where
they operate in.
That's for sure.
From my experience, using the local languages in your outreach strategy, something that
works great.
So if there is a resource on your side as an agency to do that in local language and
a client also has a sales team that can sell in local language, that's a winning combination.
That's definitely something that will increase the response because English is great.
It's used everywhere, specifically IT industry.
It's great.
But again, you might just have better results or have the results faster if you use the
local language.
Coming back to this messaging, to the content, is it like one time email, are you interested
in our product and that's it, or you have to plan kind of a chain of messages and how
do you do it?
Yeah, there's always about multiple efforts.
I don't know the success case when everything happens from the first touch.
It's a very rare story.
So usually it takes multiple touches to convert a person and it's not, again, the channels
may be different.
It depends from case to case, but the number of touches is definitely more than one.
So we have, and I think that's more of a market practice to have sequences built for the outreach.
Even if you do this in-house, you would definitely need to have that.
You would need to have numerous touches for numerous channels.
For example, you would have a separate email or a sequence for the email channel and you
would have a separate content sequence for your LinkedIn and other channels.
That's for sure.
I think that you should also consistently plan what is in that messages, in these sequences.
Usually what I receive from those people who I think that they are using the same tools
that you use and they try to sell me the next and the next letter is like, well, have you
decided already?
Yeah.
How have you looked at our offer?
What do you think?
And then in a week again, so we didn't hear from you and we would like to still get the
answer.
Yeah.
So this like poking the client is, I think, not a good idea.
At least it doesn't work with me.
Yeah, absolutely.
So well, you need to understand that sequence means repeating, but you should not repeat
the exact message just with the other words.
This is number one.
Another one, the time when you communicate and contact the prospect also matters.
So you need to have some gaps between the communication.
They should be based on some assumption, not just like you sent in each day or I don't
know, five days in a row or something.
So that should be some kind of a strategy behind that.
And also there should be different messages and different triggering points that you would
use to get from other side and maybe use this approach and that approach to interest your
prospect.
And that's not only about the messaging, but also about the formats.
Say if you're talking about LinkedIn, you can send a message, you can record a video,
you can record an audio.
So there are even different formats that you should use to not to be boring outreach or
but to bring the value, really.
I recently listened to some podcasts.
I don't remember which one.
And there was a really interesting message.
When you communicate to your client, you should be interesting for them.
Yeah.
So you cannot push or make them like your product or in the message.
You should give them something that would be really valuable and interesting and maybe
even entertaining in terms of invest their time in reading this message or perceiving
this information.
When we are sending something out, we're thinking about our product, our KPIs, how to sell
that.
But we forget to think or make this kind of empathy and to put ourselves in the client
shoes and to look at the same message from the client's perspective.
Yeah, I agree here.
So we all work in a competitive industry.
There are a lot of companies or people that do similar stuff to us.
So it's really important to stand out.
And using the right content is super important.
I think producing something original that you do is super cool.
I like companies who do their own researches or agencies and publish some reports, monthly,
quarterly, yearly, like state of say Outbound or state of SDR.
That's something that brings additional value.
Not just the you know, it's not sales of the service itself, but it also shows that this
company can give me some other value that I maybe not even expected.
So I consider them as an expert in the industry and they caught my attention.
Another thing is understanding in which channels your audience consume the content.
So sometimes it's just LinkedIn and that's fine.
That's also possible.
But for some clients and some industries, that's more digital formats.
So probably you should adapt your content to those formats and do something on YouTube
or a record podcast.
That's something that should be also on your mind when you think about the content strategy.
Yeah and in some countries even the paper mails are still popular.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I know.
I was actually surprised because to me, America and United States are all, you know, also
I had this idea that it's super advanced in so many ways.
But I was planning an event back in my marketing experience and I found out that it's super
relevant to send, you know, like the printed agenda to some clients and to have the invitation
printed and delivered across the United States.
That was a surprising thing for me, but that works for those companies that work for this
prospects to stay engaged with us.
So we did that.
Yeah, so you should really be mindful about that.
What about the cooperation of the sales department and the marketing department?
Is it worth doing some marketing campaigns on the same audience along the way when you're
approaching them through the messaging?
You may do the campaigns along with sales reaching some prospects, but the most important
thing that those departments, those people, you know, talk to each other.
You should definitely avoid the situation and I know such a lot of these such examples
when, you know, say the same company, but different departments, they do some, you know,
similar streams and they just don't know they are doing this.
So one prospect may receive like 10 or 15 emails from different people from one company
in a week.
It results nothing like unsubscribed rate complaints.
So it won't help your business.
It will damage it.
So you should be aligned inside first on what you're doing and how you're reaching them.
So that's really, really important.
Good.
So again, you're coming back.
You need to prepare.
You need to understand where you're selling.
You need to understand who are your client.
Then investigate or get this some analytics data about the client and his pains and possible
jobs that he needs to be done.
And then you plan your sequence of messages and you also understand where the client consumes
information.
What are the channels?
And then you plan the sequence of messages and this messages should be different and
valuable to the client.
And what happens then?
Then basically you see how it's working and you also should be mindful of that.
This is something you set up and just run and it's running itself and bringing you results
and bringing you leads and converting to sales.
No, that's live process.
And you evaluate that process preferably weekly, I don't know, monthly, yourself with your
team, with your agency, whatever you're using in that process.
And you understand what is working and what is not.
Who is more responsive and who is not and why.
Say maybe you will find out that someone really unexpected response to your emails and maybe
you should look into that category in more detail.
Or for example, you just understand that there is some blocker on the way.
So messaging is right, but when the meeting happened, someone is not ready.
So you should find these bottlenecks and try to eliminate them.
So this is always an improvement process until you will see some deals closed, some money
received and you really know that, OK, this concept works for me.
But again, this is not necessarily means that it will work three months later or six months
later.
The market, the needs, the companies, everything is changing really first.
So you should be always ready to that change, be flexible and be up to date with the trends.
It looks like you definitely need some help of digital tools to organize all this work.
So it is almost impossible to do in Excel shit or in another table.
What kind of tools do you use for that purpose?
There could be various tools really, but I think the most often used tools is the CRM.
So many vendors, so many options on the market right now, they do have similarities.
They give you a full overview, 360 degrees overview of what's happening with this once
with the content when it enters your database.
And is it sales ready?
Is it not?
Is it on the nurturing stage?
Which touches were already given to that content?
What is more tend to respond to?
What content?
What events?
So that's definitely analytics that you would need.
And using CRM platform, it's really easy because usually it has some dashboard options.
You just click on something, do some simple filtering and you will see all the data.
That's really easy and that's speed up the decision process.
So the key to success is actually the personalization.
So it's not just sending out the same messages to the whole bunch of your clients.
Like for example, I recently heard that we are cooperating with the communication provider
and he sends out SMS to thousands of our clients and it doesn't work surprisingly.
So we actually delivered information about our products to the client, but somehow he
doesn't call us and he is maybe even irritated that we contacted them with some information
that is unvaluable for them at this moment.
So the personalization is the key.
Yeah.
In the area when we are all limited on time and want to fast resources, we need to be
really, really mindful and prioritize those who are reaching to and targeting to.
We might have a more narrow database, but we are sure that these are potential ones
versus sending out a thousand and a thousand of emails just with a general message.
Good.
It looks like what seemed to be a very simple and easy stage of the sales, just getting
the database of your clients appeared to be a very long journey and quite complicated
and something that requires strategic thinking, creativity and understanding your clients.
And only then you are getting in touch with them to sell the goods or services.
Yeah, that's true.
That's amazing.
Thank you for being with us.
Thanks for sharing your information and your experience.
And I think that there are a lot of peculiarities that you need to understand in this process
more.
So I hope we will come back to that.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It was great talking to you today and sharing the insights with the audience.