B2B outreach and getting dates using LinkedIn w/ Dancho Dimkov

09 Mar 2021

Dancho loves the B2B world. For him, it’s not just numbers, it’s art.
Art of approaching a stranger, building a meaningful relationship, and pitching (if there’s a chance).

In this interview, Dancho talks about:
– B2B Outreach is an art, not a science
– Build relationships casually instead of pitching fast and high-pressure
– Seduce and create intrigue
– Ask for permission to proceed
– It’s email marketing not email sales
– Being a digital nomad
– Creating a self-sustainable company
– Create your own problems to grow
– Superhero mental model
– Parkinson’s law
– Pareto law
– Perfectionism
– Why people were cutting the bread before putting it into the fridge
– Outreach process formula
– Writing a book process and problems
– Experience, passion, love are the key success factors for starting a business
– Ideal client persona
– Complexity is a bad idea
– 1-2-3 step Outreach formula
– Using your fortés like being a woman in outreach
– Using LinkedIn for dating

Speakers

Podcast Links

 

 

 

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00.210] – Dancho – When I was working in the freelance world, it was really, sometimes you have a lot of clients, sometimes you don’t have so Predictable Revenue for me as a business owner was the Holy Grail. And I said, okay, I have to find some stories in my closet actually, hidden. And I said, I will have to figure something out and share something with the world out there.

[00:00:28.790] – Alisa – You’re the master of B2B Outreach. Tell me more about it. Tell me everything there is to know. The main pillars of how to do B2B Outreach. What’s the philosophy of it?

[00:00:40.880] – Dancho – I’m really excited because it is a completely different world with B2C. You know, in B2C it is, you’re targeting consumers. You put the flesh LED Facebook ads, buy here, buy here and it’s like 5-10 euros, hundred euros, people just pass their credit card. In the B2B, it is a completely different world. I mean multiple people are involved. It is a longer sales cycle, for starters. There is always a decision-maker and the sales cycle is much longer. So I need to ask my boss, I need to ask my boss and I need to ask my boss and someone needs to decide and come back to you. But on the other hand, most of the marketing agencies don’t like to do B2B. I don’t know why. For them it’s like, well, B2B, ugh, why should I bother with that? Let’s stick to consumerism. And on the other hand, we love the B2B world. I mean, it’s not numbers. It’s art. Art of how you can approach a foreigner, how you can start warming them up, how to build a relationship, and ultimately how you can actually bring them closer to you. And if there is a fit, actually try to pitch something to them. And every time when we’re looking about the relationship, in-house joke is like, okay, it’s more like you’re approaching a girl in a bar. You don’t just go Hi, would you like to buy?, or Hi, would you like to go out with me?, or…

[00:02:00.950] – Alisa – Wanna marry me?

[00:02:03.410] – Dancho – Yeah. Hi would you like to marry me? It’s more like Hello, let’s connect. Let’s chit chat. Let’s see if we are a good fit. And this is more like talking about the weather, talking about, I don’t know, Covid. I haven’t been out in a while. So I’m kinda lost in that world now. But the whole point is to start chit-chatting, start building some kind of relationship. And if you see that there is chemistry, only then you’re actually deeping up the conversation. And it’s interesting, people think that with social media, it shouldn’t be like that. Well, if it works in real life, it can be replicated in social media. So with the B2B Outreach, we’re trying to do exactly the same, reaching out to people, say, hi, let’s be friends, let’s connect. Let’s see if we have a mutual interest. Do you like football? No. Okay. I’m not going to talk about that. Do you like puppies? I like puppies. Let’s talk about puppies and then you have a conversation topic. But at the end of the day, it’s it shouldn’t be so spammy like, hi, do you want to buy this? No. Okay, thank you. Hi, do you want to buy this? No. Okay, thank you. And this is what is happening currently with this digital Outreach. People are just spamminh like, hi, my name is Dancho. I actually sell this, this, this. Would you be interested in buying? No, thank you very much. Going to the next one. Well, on the other hand, I’ve realized that if you start building the relationship, you’re the go-to guy. So when someone will be reach out to and we explain what we do on a really good matter, we become the Outreach go-to guy. So even if he’s not ready now, maybe after six months, after twelve months, after one and a half year, if he needs something that is B2B Outreach, he says, I know a guy and that’s the courting that we try to achieve.

[00:03:49.680] – Alisa – Okay, so what’s the right way to talk to a person, righ? Because you make these two comparisons of like going the way of like, oh my God, I’m not worth your time. I have to quickly deliver my message and just run away because your time is valuable and I’m not worth it. And the other way is more about like relationship building. But how do you do that without, I guess, like, falling into that idea of like, oh…

[00:04:20.540] – Dancho – Well, the creek is completely the bad thing that people are in the rush. Okay, I need to pitch immediately, otherwise I might lose them. And then the mistake starts to happen because it is one way when you’re trying to get to know a person, it doesn’t have to be a boy-girl relationship. I mean, when you hang out in a bar with the other girls, it’s not like, hello, I would like to sell you something. It’s more like let’s hang out and see what happens, because I realized that when it comes to deals, people work with people. If I trust you, if I like you and think, okay, what are you doing, how can I invest in your business or how can I work with you? Because I like you. I want to work with you. I want to build our relationship. And of course, I won’t give you a million euros. I’ll start something small, see if it works, then I’ll increase and increase. But it is a starting of a great business relationship. On the other hand, there was a story saying, that when you go to the airport and if you want to offer some tourist tours around the city in Barcelona, for example, you don’t just go around, hi, do you want to have a whole tour or something? No. Okay, thank you. Hi, do want to have a whole tour or something. It’s more like Hi, what is the time as a very simple introduction in order to get the engagement going. And when they say, what is the time, then you’re saying, oh, thank you very much. Do you, by the way, need a ride to the Capitol? Because the airports are usually far away. And if they really need, yes, but if they don’t need, of course, there is no point in pushing them forward. But if they need a ride, then you’ve served yourself a half an hour conversation in order to realize whether they are guests, visiting relatives or whether they’re just trying to sightseeing. And if they’re trying to do some sightseeing, then you can say, well, I’m actually a tourist guy. Would you like me to spend the whole day tomorrow in order to show you around Barcelona? And if you see it is a value ladder, it’s like just how much is the what is the time? It’s very little effort, just someone to tell you. Having to drive to the Capitol is still a low priced product, that it is an entrance doors to you and that’s how relationships should be built. It’s never like, as you said, hi would you like to marry me? It’s more like, hi, can we start chatting and see where this goes?

[00:06:39.720] – Alisa – So practically, it’s seduction. You find an excuse to break the ice.

[00:06:48.600] – Dancho – Yes, yes, but it’s funny. It is kind of seduction in the B2B world where if you just go and just say, hi, my name is Dancho, I actually offer this, this, this and this, we can make you this and we can make you this. That’s boring. I mean, where is the curiosity? Where is the excitement of sell? And we are actually moving the other way around. We’re doing it a permission-based. Hi, I’ve actually worked with several companies in your area. If you want, I can share them with you. I can share some key studies, I can share some testimonials, but I’m not giving them out because that we call value vomit, where, hi there is a PDF, an ebook, there is something. And they’re like, but I didn’t ask for any of this. Why do you keep sending me this stuff? And permission-based is like, hi, I do this if you want, I can share you free examples. And, you know, that’s a hook. And you’re actually testing if some of them will actually bite, will actually someone be interested in engaging? And it’s not flirting, but you put it good. You’re trying to start not being secretive. But, you know, mystique, promote curiosity, because that’s the only way people will actually say, okay, I want to know more about this. We have a formula that we can help you. We’ve actually helped three companies that are in the same industry with you, and we know how we can help you as well. And if he says how, then we’re saying, okay, come on a call, I’m happy to tell you more. So you see, we don’t want to just tell them everything during the Outreach because the whole goal of the Outreach is not to sell. I mean, I know it is a misperception that email marketing is a marketing is not email sales. If it was an email sales, then it’s like, hi, I’m selling this, this and this. It’s email marketing, which means it’s getting to a cold prospect, bringing the awareness-raising and see if there is an interest. If there is an interest, then you’re moving them to the sales process. Everybody wants to have a stable supplier. It’s not just us, it’s not our clients. That’s why they always prefer a relationship, because if you manage to build a good relationship with your clients, you’re their supplier. They no longer want to even look for alternatives, even if someone gives a bit cheaper service than you. If you have a good relationship with the client, it’s like, yeah, that is a bit cheaper. But I love working with Alisa or Dancho. So I’m going to just stick with this because I really enjoy the experience of working with them. I was working as a freelancer. I was on all freelancing platforms like oDesk. I think now it’s Upwork, Freelancer, peopleperhour, you name it, I was there. And there I was able to work what I love doing, market research, business plans, working with entrepreneurs. Some had some very fancy mobile apps that want to conquer the world. Others actually had some very viable products. I was like, wow, this is 22 century products. And so I cut myself up like eight hours at work and after work I need to do what I want to do as a freelancer. And there was a tipping point where I started earning more money from my freelancing world then compared to the full time work. And then I said, okay, now it’s time to actually quit my job, devote my freelancing. I was recently married, so I was with my wife at that point and we said, okay, let’s become digital nomads. Sounds like a very exciting experience for, you know, you can work from wherever you want and you can travel the world. For the world, you need a bit more money, but travel Europe because I’m from Macedonia, you get in a car, you start going Serbia, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands. We had Belgium, we went to France, to Monte Carlo. So, you know, like a forty five days euro trip where you get up in the morning, you do some work on your laptop, you have a coffee, you do some sightseeing, then you come back and keep on working at the night or you go to a bar, you just order some coffee and Wi-Fi. And it was a dream come true. I mean, at twenty something I don’t know, twenty six, twenty seven, to be able to just pick your backpack and start and work from wherever you can. It was a really interesting experience. And we were with a car, sometimes we weren’t even able to find accommodation or hotel. So you just put your seat back and you can sleep in a car. It’s not a big deal. It’s even more exciting, although scary, depending on which country you end up. But at the end of the day, you had everything that you need. Now this became the problem at some stage because at one point in France, I actually got sick. I mean, not sick seriously, but I had some fever and I it kept me in bed for almost a week, and then we realized that if one of us is actually sick or unable to go to work, then we’re both stuck. I mean, even my wife couldn’t work. I couldn’t work. And then we realized that, okay, this is a problem in the digital nomad. You work, you get paid, you enjoy life. You have international clients. But if you need some time off from work, you no longer get benefits or salary or anything. And this was the tipping point where when we got back in Macedonia, I said, okay, lesson learned. We need to have a serious conversation with my wife, because on the other hand, we said, well, how are we going to start the family if we continue this digital nomad life? Because, you know, if my wife gets pregnant, she cannot work. And if a baby comes in, I cannot work as well. And then that’s how the story behind BizzBee came in. We said, well, actually, we need to start it as a company, bring some more people, then push it a bit harder to establish the company as a business and then try to take a step back in order to raise the family, ensure that we have some health benefits and everything. And that’s the tipping point that we realized that as a freelancer, you can do pretty decent money. Don’t get me wrong. But on the other hand, if you want something more stable or something more sustainable, then you actually need a company and hire more people and you can even take a few days off. And you know that the company still brings in more revenues. And with that mindset, when we started the business, we said, look, we need a company that can work without us. And that was the key driving force in BizzBee Solutions. So from day one, we were actually broke. We took four interns when we started with some few computers. But the whole goal was that, okay, these people need to start bringing revenue. And as we grow, we need to have an organizational structure like project managers, marketing manager, sales manager. So even if I disappear for two weeks, for three weeks, I know that things are still going perfectly. And indeed, I mean…

[00:13:43.204] – Alisa – Did you manage?

[00:13:45.650] – Dancho – Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:46.210] – Alisa – Do you have full independence from it?

[00:13:49.420] – Dancho – Completely full, never. But I could easily take two or three weeks, just unplug from the regular life. I mean, I was in Dubai for three weeks. I was in Sri Lanka for three weeks. I was in Europe for another month. But in that period you’re on holiday and you know that things are good in the company. And when you start as entrepreneur…

[00:14:14.500] – Alisa – Do you sleep well?

[00:14:14.500] – Dancho – Yeah, and I was still checking my email every morning just to make sure that there is no fire. But, you know, when you start the company from the ground up, just having that mind of self-sustainable ecosystem, even when you’re hiring people, is like, okay, would you survive without me? And the internship programs that we still have is like the moment you can work without me, you’re hired. That was even how we recruited people.

[00:14:40.480] – Alisa – I love that idea.

[00:14:44.080] – Dancho – This way actually gave me the power to work on the Growth, working not in the business, but on the business and actually start improving it.

[00:14:52.930] – Alisa – I love that. But instead of being the firefighter, you’re like a step back and thinking of like, okay, what is going to be the future? What is the big picture? What is the direction we’re heading?

[00:15:06.610] – Dancho – But Alisa, there are always fires. As much as I would love to say, okay, I live in a fire-free environment, that is just a lie. I mean, I’m happy that the majority of the small problems my project managers can take care of. Whenever there’s a big fire, of course I’m involved. That’s the story behind the Superman shirt, because whenever I was free, I was just like, I’ll go to sales, and like, okay, what’s the problem? And they’re like, we don’t have a problem. I’m saying, impossible there has to be a problem.

[00:15:40.000] – Alisa – Give me one. Make it up.

[00:15:41.380] – Dancho – Exactly. And they’re like, well, there is no problem. And then I’m saying, okay, so we need to change something in sales. We are introducing a proposal solution or we’re introducing how we change things. So I’m actually making a problem because that’s the only way to grow. If there is a problem I’m trying to solve to grow. If there isn’t, I’m introducing a problem.

[00:15:59.950] – Alisa – Resistance. Yeah.

[00:16:01.620] – Dancho – Yeah. And just to take sales as an example, it’s like, okay, what’s the problem? There’s no problem. Okay, let’s look at the funnel. How many are reconverting? How many are becoming leads, how are we currently selling? Let’s introduce a promotion or let’s introduce different templates that could improve our conversion. Let’s introduce three different tools like Amelia for calendar scheduling for the events. Let’s start creating videos for this. So if there is no problem it means is status quo and I never want the status quo because status quo, if you past five years you haven’t moved even a millimetre. But if you keep on introducing new problems, you’re actually growing as a person, as a company and as a team. So that’s why I actually got the Superman nickname around, because I just go around and solve problems and also create a lot of problems along the way.

[00:16:52.030] – Alisa – Saving a woman, killing a building.

[00:16:55.660] – Dancho – Exactly. And it’s funny because to give you an example in marketing, we’re pretty good now in creating content and attracting clients with written words. So we do biweekly blogs on the Outreach, of course. We actually have a biweekly newsletter. We are very active on the social media, but all that’s in the written media. And then I said, okay, how are we doing it? And they’re like, we barely stabilize the written partner. We do a lot of words, a lot of Outreach, a lot of content is being generated from BizzBee. So now everything is stable. I’m saying, okay, so now we are ready to the next stage. And they’re like well, we just barely stabilized the system of copy, the blogs and everything, who does what. Okay, perfect. Let’s move to the next stage. All new problems arise, which once we solve them, we are on a completely new level.

[00:17:48.530] – Alisa – Yeah, I like that, you know, there’s this law, I don’t remember what’s the name of it, but the idea is like if you will give a person an X amount of time, let’s say six months to achieve something, the person will allocate their time in a certain way. So they actually achieve that in six months. But if you give them less time, let’s say three months or two, they will still do the same thing. They will just procrastinate less.

[00:18:17.710] – Dancho – That’s called the Parkinson’s law. I know it because I use it as a reference as well, because I mean, it’s of course, if you need to rush it, it will affect the quality, but not by that much. There is another law called Pareto law. I don’t know if you heard about that one. He’s an Italian guy, 80, 20 percent. And I’m like, well, if we manage to do 80 percent success with just 20 percent effort, I know that we’re talking with clients, I know when we’re talking with clients, those 20 percent are the cream of the cream and it has to be done. But we were actually trying to do a lot of things in parallel.

[00:18:57.710] – Alisa – I feel like a lot of things that we’re doing, we’re just like mimicking them. And most of the times they’re not the best way done. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:06.470] – Dancho – I see, now on Indiegogo or these platforms, it’s like things reinvited, sneakers reinvited or very simple products that we use in everyday just reinvented, let’s have some technology. And let’s reevaluate how things are being done. And there was just another example that, you know, a long time ago, people were cutting the bread and putting it into the fridge. And when they asked the new girls, why are we still cutting the bread? And they said, well, that’s how it’s done in our family. And they went to their mothers. It’s like, why are you cutting the bread before putting it into the fridge? It’s like how my mother did it and they went back a few generations. And then it became that long time ago the fridge had this much space. And so they had to cut it just to fit the bread. The grandmother was doing that and the mother did learn. And now you had huge fridges. But still it’s that’s how we always do it. We just cut and we just put it into the fridge.

[00:20:03.920] – Alisa – Wow. I’ve never heard of that. That’s amazing.

[00:20:07.520] – Dancho – You can google it up. It is another research that people said, okay, but why? I mean, the question that the Superman logic with me is like, is there a problem? No. But why? There has to be something problem because that’s how you evolve and that’s how you grow as a person, as a team and also as a company. A year ago when I decided, you know what, I’m going to write the book, it’s going to be about our Outreach process from identifying who is your ideal client. Once you know them creating a database, now that you have a database, you need to create a copywriting that is really engaging with those people and then reaching out through LinkedIn and email. And once you start the Outreach, people will start responding where you need to nurture in order to become a client. And I said, wow, that is a fantastic process for sharing with the world on how we actually work with, I think more than almost 400 companies up to now we’ve worked with and I said, okay, I’m going to write the book. And I said, there’s no way you have the time nor commitment nor the guts, nor the inspiration to actually survive that. And then it hit me. Okay, what if I actually split it into chapters? It’s like there are six, seven chapters that I want to cover. I just told you them. I said, well, if I divided them as a mini-project, I can do it. I mean, writing a new book is a week or two of effort, but then you have a break, you can continue, then you can do another one and then you can do another one. So each chapter became an ebook and then add some additional systems and processes and frameworks. And there you go. You have a book. And this is thinking one and a half year ago roughly, or one and a half. And now I’m almost finishing. And I’m just realizing that when you finish the manuscript, you’re at the start of publishing a book because, you know, you finish the manuscript, and you’re saying I’m finished. I have a book. Now I’ve realized that’s the starting point actually of having a book, I’ve realized you need the editors, people that will actually improve your book. Then you need a spell checker, then you need cover design. Then you need to start thinking about, okay, how are you going to promote, are you going self-publishing on Amazon, Kindle or are you going to a publishing house? There were so many new problems that I had zero experience that those will happen. And I was like, okay, if I knew this one and a half year ago, there was no way I would actually get onto the project. But that’s actually lesson learned. If I knew how much work it is, I would never said, okay, let’s lock down for one and a half year. But when I divide it in small projects, I started making progress and bit by bit, we are almost finishing with the book. And I saw that on Amazon there are so many options, whether are you going to do print on demand, whether you’re going to print a lot and then keep it in a warehouse. Well, then if you get an order, do I need to actually go to the warehouse, pick it up, go to the post office? So these are all unknown to me, honestly, but I think that’s the part of growing, because when I introduce the problem with the book, I probably had some free time because I said, okay, things are to calm. I need to disturb myself again. And when I introduced the book writing, I opened so many new problems for me. But it helped me because while I was writing the book, I started reflecting on our services. Why are we doing like this? Because I need to explain in the book. Well, we’re doing the ICP by trying to understand who is the ideal target in B2B. And it’s not always a one person. It can be multiple people. And as I start writing it, I’m explaining it. And it helped me so I can then tell it to our team why are we doing it like that? And funny, we changed a lot of things in our service since I started writing the book.

[00:23:48.870] – Alisa – It’s like journaling, right? It’s like when you journal you think of what you’re doing and you’re like realizing the mistakes you made in the past. It’s like kind of the same thing, but about your business.

[00:23:57.720] – Dancho – Yes, it’s completely the same. It’s self-reflecting. You’re writing on what you’re doing. And it’s even different when you’re trying to explain someone why are you doing. You end up in a dead end. It’s like, well, why are we actually doing this particular thing? And, you know, by default, you’re starting defending them. Well, it’s important because of this, this, this, and as you’re writing, you don’t trust yourself that that’s the right way. And we’re saying, well, really, let’s change it. I mean, we’ve talked with a lot of entrepreneurs and, you know, there are entrepreneurs like we got drunk last night. I got a fantastic idea. I want to start a business.

[00:24:34.731] – Alisa – Hello.

[00:24:35.190] – Dancho – And I’m like, I didn’t think this thru seriously. We’re going to make five millions in the first three months and we’re going to be billionaires somewhere in Ibiza, on an island and just enjoy. Well, good luck with that, I’m not getting involved myself in that kind of project because I’ve been there. I’ve had that mentality when I started my first business. And I don’t believe in that. There are some exceptions, but rarely the case. On the other hand, there’re entrepreneurs, it’s like, you know what, I’m a financial accountant. I work for twenty five years in accounting. I’m really good at this. And now I want to start my consultancy and I’m like, you’re going to succeed. You have the experience, you have the passion, and you love that things, you’re even considering starting as a business. And he has the expertize with him. It’s not like, okay, now I have I want to start, I don’t know, a taxi company without even knowing anything about it or Facebook ads. I still don’t know anything about them because it’s just I’ve heard somewhere that there is money. While on the other hand these people with experience and they just want to get out from the work to do it as a full time. Their rate is far more successful as entrepreneurs. I mean, I’ve worked with them. I know that they know their things and they just need guidance and help. I mean, they know the accounting. They know that world, like how the business world. Do I need marketing, do I need sales, how to find potential clients, how I can bring people to me. And those are the people that are really nice to work with them and they actually appreciate the things that you do for them.

[00:26:10.290] – Alisa – That’s a really nice description of like the ideal client, your client persona. What is your ideal, no not ideal. You know, what’s your favorite project that you worked on if you didn’t sign an NDA? And you can tell us.

[00:26:26.100] – Dancho – When it comes to project, in most of them I have an NDAs. Unfortunately, the things that we’re doing are very spicy. We’re going to companies that, you know, they’re doing something very famous and then we’re not allowed to speak because behind the doors we’re cold activities for them. But if I need to talk about exciting, I can tell you a few industries that we completely got lost because I didn’t, I was not aware that there are industries like this. So I had a client from Brazil that was actually importing some stuff in Australia, and it was polymers and plastic compounds and their polymers that actually adjust the characteristics of the plastics and the shapes and the color in the fire resisting. And that was so science fiction about me because I had zero experience in that industry. For me, I was lost. Plus, I’m in Macedonia working with Australian clients, Australian Market, which was 10 hours ahead of me, and the client was from Brazil, which is 10 hours behind me. So I was actually in camp mode that broke my pillow in the office. And I said, we’re not going out. I mean, we start in the morning talking with the Australian. We’re going to do this, this, this and this. Then midday, Brazil wakes up and then we move with them. We were like, we did this. We know we’re going to do this and now we’re going to do this. And the complexity of it is that they were looking for suppliers, they were looking for manufacturers. They were looking for different parts from the market ecosystem in Australia. And our job was to ensure that they’re going to get a lot of clients in Australia before they start shipping the containers from Brazil to Australia. So then we got stuck to it. Okay, I didn’t know that there were different sizes of containers because there were 20, 40-foot containers. And for me, it was so exhausting, so draining. And when I get out from there, I said, when I see a plastic now, it’s like, you see this bottle, it has reasons to get the red color, plus the humidity of that. And it’s like it’s interesting for me, because for every client we need to understand the industry. We had a client that was working with elevators parts. I’ve learned so much about elevators that I don’t want to know all those things. But honestly, if I really want to help a client, I need to do. I mean, we have some more interesting projects in terms of a negotiation consultants, or mindset coach from Ireland or the negotiation was from Switzerland or financial gurus from Canada. And I can relate with them. They have technical expertize. They love their job. My job is just to find clients for them. But when it comes to complex technical projects, we even had some projects with the artificial intelligence and deep learning. And they had so many acronyms that I need a piece of paper and start writing each acronym next to me so I could start understanding what was going on in that industry.

[00:29:34.610] – Alisa – If they’re all from diverse industries, yeah, probably. The Romans have implemented a lot of really weird and different solutions to their Lead Generation, right? Like, what was the strangest or the most unusual, the most counterintuitive solutions that you have implemented to industry?

[00:29:56.360] – Dancho – I see, well, my ideal place of working is the gray area between the black and white, there is some gray, where it’s still not illegal or legal, but it’s more controversial way of working. And those are actually the most nonstandard way of approaching people. So we had a client which was targeting immigration, immigration agencies from around the world, and he was from UK, trying to actually create a platform from all the immigration agencies. So then whenever someone is to migrate from one country to another, he can go to his platform. And from here I want to live there and he lists which agency should be. Now, we started the systematic approach, country by country, reaching, finding out who are all the immigration agencies. For example, in Spain we go to Yellow Pages, we go LinkedIn, we go on three to five different sources. And we’re going to have these are 50, 100 immigration agencies. We’re going to say, hey, we’re actually giving you an opportunity to join. It’s for free. So you don’t need to pay anything for this and this. And we would have like two, three, five agencies like, sure, if it’s free of charge, I want to sign up. And we’re like, okay, but from hundred five or six, it’s really a low number. We need more actually. So we said, okay, what if we sent a second email? It’s like, hi, I wrote you a few days ago. You didn’t responded, maybe you missed the follow up. And for me at that stage that was a science fiction. But then I realized, okay, I was so young and dumb, but with the follow up, we get a few more responses. And I was like, okay, how can we push these companies in order to all of them to subscribe rather than working with three to five percentage? And then we said, okay, let’s do the 30 email, where in this case, we’re going to put the, I think it’s called fear of missing out. It’s like, Hi, I just want to give you a final time if you want to join, because we already have in your country this agency, this agency, this agency and this agency. So we are listing the five main competitors that they have. And it’s like we already have this signed up, this signed up, this signed up, this signed up and signed up. It’s your call. It’s triple the response rate is like, well, if you already have my biggest competitors now, I’m going to lose if I’m not there. And you know what? Now that logic, I was like, holy shit, we hack the system. We actually figure out a way how to push people to respond. And now we’re actually preparing a video interview with marketing and sales automation tools. So now in my messaging to them, it’s like, hey, I saw that you have a marketing and sales automation. We’re doing a video interview. I would love to have your part. We already have five or six of the biggest marketing sales automation tools lined up. So I would really like to include in that. And many of their responses is like, well, if either of my competitors are doing so, I should probably come on that interview as well.

[00:32:58.750] – Alisa – Social proof.

[00:32:59.020] – Dancho – And I’m like, my job is done here. And really, really, actually, they, it’s social proof when you’re talking to clients because it’s like, you know, you’re in the real estate. I have three real estates with similar problems like you. Here’s what I managed to do for them and here is the result that they got. So if you work with me, you can get the same result. That is social proof when prospecting. But then the social proofing in the competition area is like if I go to, last thing I had was a compliance consulting company from actually from Spain. And in that area I’m saying, well, I actually have one complaint from Belgium that we’re currently working. They’re working with cybersecurity, GDP risks, governance. We have another compliance and cybersecurity from Malta. And I’m also talking with one compliance company from the Emirates. I think it was from Dubai. And he was like, wow, you’re actually working with three of our competitors. Okay, tell me more. What did you do for them? Actually, how did you help them? What kind of results? Yeah, but that’s the whole point. In 21st century, it’s hard to build a relationship. I don’t know you, how I know that you’re not just here to steal my money. So at the end of the day, we’re saying… Yeah. Yeah. With the digitalize I can just turn off my computer and that’s it. But you know, we’re selling service and as a service you cannot know the results until the experience. If it is a product, you can just show it. Here is it, this is the benefit. This is the characteristics. While in the service, even with Facebook ads, can you guarantee what kind of impressions clicks and the funnel will look? No, until you start. And why they should trust you if there is someone else. And that social proof or just putting them into a corner. It’s like, well, we have all your competitors already working with us. It’s like, holy…

[00:35:06.520] – Alisa – Yeah. If you’re not jumping on the train, you’re missing out. Absolutely.

[00:35:10.690] – Dancho – That’s called fear of missing out.

[00:35:13.090] – Alisa – Yeah. Did you notice, like, because I’ve had this weird trend that was really counterintuitive. Bigger companies, they not only they’re more responsive to the Outreach, but they’re more easy to speak to, I guess, because like the smaller you go, the harder is it to convince them to get them on the call or to communicate with them and with the bigger companies, which is kind of strange, if you think about it, right? It would have so many people reaching out to them, but they’re still talking to a majority, which is interesting.

[00:35:47.830] – Dancho – Yeah, we’ve noticed it as well. And I think it depends from industry. But there is some psychology in there when you’re trying to reach one to ten people. If you’re talking about the management decision-maker, like CEO, managing director, founder, co-founder, owner, management roles, they juggle between marketing, sales, accounting, client acquisition, quant retention. And they need to do a lot of things in parallel. They don’t have time to chitchat. They’re busy and by busy I think they need to get up, roll their sleeves up and just getting to the work. While on the other hand, with the big companies, they have more established role. So if you’re targeting marketing department, they have chief marketing officer who has some defined roles. Then you have digital marketing executive, then you have offline marketing, then you have advertising, then you have different roles. So when you reach out to that guy, it’s not like they need to take care of the entire marketing. They just have one section and they are more interested in just engaging on building network because it’s not that you’re just trying to build a relationship. It’s a mutual benefit. You learn something from them, they learn something from you. So they are also interested in expanding their network. While, when I was up to 10 people, I really didn’t have time to even consider about doing podcast or spreading the word or doing, you just need to keep working, bringing new clients, executing, bringing money on the table. As we grow, as I told you now we have project managers, sales managers, marketing manager. I can start breathing and I’m thinking, okay, how we can actually spread the word about BizzBee and how we can actually reach out to the bigger audience. And it’s same on LinkedIn. I mean, there are people now that’s why I said it depends on the industry, because there are some industries that are more responding to others regardless of size when it comes to manufacturing that I’m going to say again, we had very bad results. It’s really people don’t, they have LinkedIn profile, but they’re not using it. Back to your trend, we just saw that the bigger the company, there are even more people to approach, because if you’re after a marketing decision-maker within the real estate, they could have two, three, four, five different marketing people. And of course, the more people you reach out from the same company, you’re increasing exponentially your chance on getting yourself closer to the company.

[00:38:17.570] – Alisa – One thousand percent. So what is the most unexpected outcome you have received to your Outreach? Have you ever had like one hundred percent reply rates, like a unicorn like that or like zero percent, reply rate or whatever? What was the target of the campaign, a clicking on the link or something like zero – one hundred, something extreme?

[00:38:42.010] – Dancho – Yeah, it’s funny because I am as a LinkedIn guru in the area where I know exactly what I’m doing and actually my wife’s LinkedIn profile has more connections than mine. And it’s bugging me all the time because, I mean, she’s a girl, she has a good profile picture and people are more attracted to get connected with her than with me. I’m trying with connection message, being more conversational, trying to post things and everything. She does nothing. And for me, it was so absurd that I was like, it’s not fair because is it just people are choosing because of beauty, because you have a nice picture, or is it because people are more prone to accept female requests? It doesn’t have to be any I mean, uncomfortable. It’s like you as a woman business, you’re reaching out to people. We’ve realized that girls are getting far better acceptance rate than males. It doesn’t have to be anything about men and woman. But when it comes to girls, people are more keen to accept girls. So if you have a…

[00:39:49.160] – Alisa – Like non-threatening, like not like the idea is like, oh, it’s not going to be like a huge, ambitious, power-hungry person, you know, like trying to sell you a lot of things. You’re like, okay, and she can be nice like I guess that’s the feeling. Yeah, and they’re more open to connecting with girls and talking to girls. And it’s funny, if you have a sales team, they need to be girls because when you start reaching on LinkedIn or on email, it’s like, Alisa, I would love to connect with her or any girl name. And it was interesting that as we start using LinkedIn, there are some people hitting on us. I mean, in terms of expressing love on LinkedIn, it’s like, wow, you’re so beautiful. I really love to know you a bit more. And it is uncomfortable situation.

[00:40:33.470] – Alisa – Yeah.

[00:40:34.250] – Dancho – And we just ignore them. I mean, there is no point in engaging, but the last crazy thing that we got was we have a male LinkedIn profile and a male started hitting on him and he was like, I don’t know if anyone tells you, but you’re so beautiful on your LinkedIn profile. And we were like, okay, I don’t know how to respond to that. Let’s just keep that guy and keep on with the campaign. But also really uncomfortable situation that we’re like, okay, someone is just hitting on girls.

[00:41:06.510] – Alisa – It’s a new trend. A lot of people are using LinkedIn nowadays as a dating site. Honestly, it’s like a totally a thing. It’s a trend.

[00:41:15.740] – Dancho – If I tell you a bigger joke, I mean, our project managers were girls and they were not married. And we were thinking, well, we’re LinkedIn expert. Let’s figure this out. What kind of people are you looking for? I mean, it was a joke to be clear, but it was like, okay, LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to choose what kind of men do you want. You can say, well, I want to be working in a company that is, I don’t know, in the corporations, put the LinkedIn filter above 500 employees. Then you said, well, do you want the creative guy so you can look for marketing positions or do you want more geeky so you can look for a software developer or you want more a management role? And then once you filter that out, you can say, okay, what kind of education do you want to have? Because you can choose masters, you can choose where did he go, whether he went to Harvard or any university. And, you know, it was funny because you can actually pre choose and filter out a filter that could actually give you a list and then with automation, it’s like, Hi, how are you? And start reaching out and building a relationship.

[00:42:25.200] – Alisa – Did you get a boyfriend?

[00:42:27.790] – Dancho – No, no, we didn’t tried. It was just, you know, in theory, you can even look at their interests. Are they interested in, I don’t know, astronomy perhaps, or if you have a hobby that you want, like mountain climbing, you can say, okay, he needs to be a member in any hiking clubs that are nearby. You can choose from which city you want them to be. But, yeah, that was more of an inside joke here at BizzBee that we did rather than actually following up on it, of course.

[00:42:58.520] – Alisa – You should, you should, you should try it honestly. Why not? Like it’s going to be an ultimate experiment, right? Tell me this. What is your favorite book or what is the book that you would recommend?

[00:43:13.140] – Dancho – Good one. When it comes to books, I have it right here because it’s always here. Yeah, no, but honestly, I have a couple of books here and I still buy more books that I can read honestly, but it’s Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross. And to give you just why I believe that’s the best book. It was published more than 10 years ago and it is the Holy Bible of B2B Lead Generation and Prospecting. I mean, he was working for Salesforce, I think. Turn your business into a sales machine with a hundred million best practice of Salesforce. So he was working in Salesforce. He made Salesforce hundreds of millions and then he said, I’m just going to document this into a book. And he had very good strategies. Okay, you need specialization within the sales team. Then you need several sequences because with one message, you’re not going to get the results. He even had several templates in terms of what kind of messages you can use. But the title Predictable Revenue, for me, it was a revolution because when I was working in the freelance world, it was really, sometimes you’d have a lot of clients, sometimes you don’t have so predictable revenue, for me as a business owner was the Holy Grail. If I know that I can consistently have this amount of new clients and this amount of leads and this amount of projects, I can start to relax a bit. And his logic was with the inbound marketing, you’re just spreading the world with content, with blogs, with podcasts. But you have no idea when the phone will ring. While with the Outreach, with the Prospecting, you know, I’m going to reach out to 50 people every day for the rest of my life. It’s not like one week. And then that 50 people per day, is it, within 20 working days? It’s one thousand. From the 1000 that I reach out in this month, 50 percent responded, from them, 20 percent expressed interest. I’ll close 10 percent. And then, you know, so every month, as long as I keep inviting one thousand people, I know I’m going to get ten meetings. One new client, or two new clients. And that’s the predictability. You’re saying okay, if I want 20 clients, then I need to multiply by ten. I need ten people, that’s going to do 50 Outreach per day. And that’s how I’m going to get 20 new clients every month predictably, there will be some months, 18, someone 22, but the average you can predict in advance. And for me that was like a Holy Grail. Honestly, from that point we said, you know what? I think that this is the problem with all the agencies and all companies that they cannot really predict consistently how many leads every day or week or month will come or predict how many clients. Since we implemented this, I mean, this is now our core service, is that we know exactly how many new clients we can expect every month, plus-minus some percentage.