Wiseboard Insights (A Monthly Newsletter March '24)

Hello, business enthusiasts!

In this newsletter, I primarily focus on sales and marketing insights from advisors and my observations on what companies do in this area.?

Let’s dive in!

?? Market observations

Continuing our discussion on service productization from the last newsletter, I've observed three key strategies companies use to boost their revenue streams:

1. Launching a startup factory, like Genesis or Netpeak does. Companies do market research, identify promising niches, develop a business model, launch an MVP, analyze initial results, and then decide whether to pursue the product further or pivot to a new niche. Most commonly, it’s a GPT-based app. But so far, none of the companies I work with has achieved success with their initial business model — the advisors have smashed all of them, so they had to start from scratch.
2. Selling custom ready-made internal solutions. Companies usually try to utilize their bench best and develop solutions for their internal needs. Usually, it’s an ERP or sales/marketing/HR tool. When it’s ready, they decide to use it as an extra revenue stream, expand their primary services, or pivot to a product company and try to sell the solution.
3. Building Accelerators and PoC. This approach involves building solutions at the intersection of the company's domain expertise, an existing client’s market, and stakeholders’ pain points. The solution is used as a door opener for prospecting for new clients. While it may not always lead to a sale of this particular solution, it helps grab the lead’s attention and initiate discovery for potential projects.

?? Note:

Each approach requires solid market research, product development, and go-to-marketing expertise. It is where most companies struggle and fail and where advisors usually help them.

Let me know if any of these strategies are in your 2024 company growth plan – I’ll help you out.?

??Advisors’ spotlights

#Marketing

?? The golden rule:

Never think your lead has a straightforward journey when planning your outbound or marketing campaigns or calculating the acquisition cost.?

Olha Iatsyna, the Wiseboard advisor on Marketing, shares a B2B customer journey by Gartner with all channels and stages of interaction.

Since outbound sales is the priority channel for most companies, the main goal of marketing is to enhance outbound sales with relevant data, materials, and activities to increase outbound conversion. It makes it possible to get quick results.?

Building inbound marketing, orchestrating content, SEO, paid ads, and other channels remains the second priority for companies and requires way more time, budget, and expertise.

Offline events as an extra growth channel

If you decide to use offline events as your growth channel,? Daria Getsman, Wiseboard marketing advisor, shares a 3-steps guide on taking the most out of it.?

1. Collaborate with existing clients to maximize PR and reduce costs.

Investment for a top-tier event can hit up to $100k. Big market players do it every month and are usually open to cutting their expenses. Seize this opportunity to negotiate a collaboration by offering to take on their budget.

• Prepare and communicate a case study as their vendor. This will shine a light on both your expertise and theirs, making it a win-win for everyone involved.
• Participate in a panel discussion with a bunch of cases you successfully solved or help your client present the case you worked on together.
• Collect and present analytics based on your expertise and experience (market trends, pains, forecast of blockers, and solutions).
• Purchase a meeting room opportunity instead of participating with a stand – it is cheaper but still effective.

2. Create an outbound campaign upfront and after the event

• Plan your campaign quarterly: pre-event outreach (use the app that the event has to scrape the relevant leads), lead generation during the event, and follow-up outreach to the new leads.
• Before the event, join your outbound activities with partners. Tailor your outreach to potential clients by highlighting your participation in the event alongside your client that is relevant to their interests. Share compelling case studies and showcase your expertise.
• Engage in thought leadership campaigns with clients to amplify your expertise. Consider co-authoring a paid article with your partners in reputable tech media that resonates with your shared audience. This approach allows you to present your unique selling proposition (USP), boost brand visibility, and expand your network at the event.

3. Build a two-three-month content campaign around the event.

• Integrate all channels of communication: website, social media (including C-level executives’ pages, etc.) with similar messages and ToV.
• Use the content you’ve produced for lead generation (i.e. a paid co-author article can lead to the case study or downloadable whitepaper, your employees share it on social media, you may add a video YouTube to the funnel and advertise it). It will give a great boost to the campaign.
• Raise brand awareness through LinkedIn Ads. Automatize the outbound, but better add a personalized approach at the final pre-sale stage. If you see someone who is interested in the content you promote, reach out to them manually.

Book a call with Daria

#Sales

Here are three recommendations for how to increase conversion for your outbound campaigns:

1. Data-based approach

Enhancing sequences with relevant data gives better results. Anton Fedulov, Wiseboard B2B Sales advisor, recommends using industry insights to support your pitches with relevant data.?

• Read industry reports before you try to test any hypothesis. Except for Statista, where an average report price is $500, plenty of resources provide affordable or free research (e.g. Hello Tomorrow, Boston Consulting Group). Use their data to strengthen your outreach triggers for potential clients.

• Use data enrichment tools like Clay or Common Room to strengthen personalization. (Example: If you enter the Generative AI industry – you can ask to identify all the recent hires for Heads of AI Engineering within the company you're targeting).
• Compare with benchmarks when running campaigns.

Keep a close eye on your campaigns and sales funnel to ensure they're doing well. If the results fall short of the benchmark, it's time to sound the alarm.

Book a call with Anton

2. ABM approach

Using the ABM approach allowed Alex Sinichenko, Wiseboard Sales advisor to achieve a 37% response rate on cold messaging and get up to 3 additional weekly calls. Here is Alex's strategy.

• Put 80% of your efforts into personalized outreach, 20% – for mass campaigns.

• Build personalized outreach on 3 pillars:

I. Conduct thorough research about your prospect and show you know them;

II. Prioritize quality against quantity: send less but more personalized;??

III. Identify the client’s pain, address this pain, and show how your solution can solve it;

• Find enough information for a prospect’s competitor (e.g. competitors’ news, reviews on Clutch, interviews with their former employees)

• When reaching out, shape your POV (proof of value) on the problem: “Your company has this priority and faces challenges. Here is how we can help you, as we have previously done for Company X”.
• Apply a 5:5:5 rule for personalization: 5 minutes for research, 5 – for drafting an e-mail, and 5 minutes to send it without mistakes.

Watch the full Talk with Alex to explore the strategies for both ABM and mass outreach.?

Or book a call with Alex

?? Speaking of personalization, Yurii Gnatiuk, a “CEO for CEO” advisor and Co-founder at KindGeek, shares a tool Crystalknows that he uses for stand-out reachouts. It helps to define a prospect’s personality traits and recommends how to communicate with the person.

3. “I hope this helps” approach.

Alan Furlong, a Growth and Marketing advisor with 15 years of expertise, recommends changing your “sales” title to “partner” and start giving value to your prospects.

A three steps example of how Alan has converted British Airways with a chat-bot solution for their CS team:

1. Investigate the service's problems (talk to their customer service, read customer reviews).?
2. Send them a 1-minute video of your chatbot, designed to show the list of top-5 customer complaints for today. (It takes less time to review than a meeting and immediately shows the value).
3. Don’t ask to buy it or hop on a call; just add, “I hope this helps. If you need to understand how it works –please,? text me”.

This approach allowed Alan's sales team to get 2 meetings with big enterprises in 3 days.

Book a call with Alan.

#Finance

One not-obvious thing that decreases your conversion rate is your poor finance structure.?

Сompanies often lose deals or clients because their finance model includes many private entrepreneurs and LLCs, which they must swap frequently. This confuses potential or existing clients and turns out to be the reason for dropping collaboration. To avoid this, consider establishing an entity in your main client's region, or create a financial structure with multiple entities.?

Yevhen Dubych, Wiseboard finance and accounting advisor, shares tips on choosing the best regions for running a business.

Here are important facts you need to know before choosing the jurisdiction for your company:

• Be aware of additional regulations and hidden fees in each country. For instance, the UAE will only give you a license if you rent an office there. Renting a coworking space will cost you at least €7000 per year, and you also should pay your license fee monthly. Moreover, owners must be physically present to establish a company, making it one of the most costly jurisdictions. However, it offers a resident visa to the UAE as a benefit.
• EU countries (excluding Estonia) require an annual audit of financial statements. Auditors ask for a stake of documents, and it will probably take you a month or two every year to get it done, alongside additional expenses for auditors' fees.
• Malta is not the most popular jurisdiction for Ukrainian founders, but you will pay a 5% tax if done correctly.
• In Europe, your tax rate will depend on your clients – B2B or B2C. For B2C, at least 18% VAT is required.
• US clients consider working with companies registered in the USA more reliable.

Let me know if you need financial support with any topic.

Book a call with Yevhen

?? Available Marketing talent for you

I’ve got 30 Marketing candidates for you if you are searching for such specialists.

I've negotiated with my close friend and a recruitment agency founder who agreed to share a list of vetted candidates for Wiseboard subscribers.

I also negotiated a one-time hiring bonus instead of paying a percentage of the annual salary.

?? New advisors joined

I am honored to share two new advisors who joined Wiseboard in March.

Olha Iatsyna

Olha is a former CMO at Ciklum, CMO at VeliTech, with 12 years of experience

Olha’s core expertise: B2B Marketing | Digital Marketing | Inbound | Outbound | Brand Positioning | Value Proposition

Olha can help when:

• A company needs to build a marketing function from scratch or enhance the existing one
• A company needs to enhance non-performing outbound with marketing, aligning sales and marketing teams and efforts
• A company struggles to find a differentiator and build UVP, messaging, and brand positioning.
• A company decides to enter a new domain or market and needs to build a Go-to-Market strategy

Request a call with Olha

Alan Furlong

Alan is a co-founder of Ensemble, 25 years of experience.

Alan’s core expertise: B2B Marketing | Growth Marketing | Business Development | AI?

Alan can help when:

• A company is stuck, and its revenue isn’t growing
• A company needs to build a comprehensive and aligned sales and marketing machine with a focus on growth
• A company struggles to sell on the US, UK, and EU markets and needs guidance from a native marketer.
• A company decides to enter a new domain or market and needs to build a Go-to-Market strategy

Request a call with Alan

?

?? Wiseboard updates

• Join Wiseboard Talk #14: LinkedIn Ads for B2B with Raisa Shafar, Cross-channel marketing manager at Toptal.
• My article: ?Growth Strategy: How IT Businesses Could Enhance the Cooperation with Clients?.
• Den Rudenko’s article: ?How to Get IT Business Ready for Scaling?.
• Our Case Study about How NetHunt has increased revenue by 20% through sales and customer success transformation, guided by Alex Zlotko, Wiseboard sales advisor.
• Wiseboard has joined the biggest tech community in Ukraine – the Lviv IT Cluster. With this membership, we will join forces to help tech businesses grow and prosper.

?? Worth discovering

• 43 highly effective E-mail CTAs by Alex Sinichenko to enhance your outreach
• Gartner IT and business conference calendar. It is easy to filter and find events, aligned to your role (including C-level executives, Marketing specialists, HR, Security and Risk Management managers, etc.), interests, and location.
• Y Combinator released the perspective niches for developing new products in their Request For Startups 2024.

That's all for this month. If you found this update valuable, please share it with others who might benefit.

If you feel your business faces challenges or plans to grow this year – let’s jump on a call; I’ll help you.

?

Best wishes,

Artur Founder & CEO at Wiseboard

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