How To Gain more clients on LinkedIn?
2 Jul 2021
As a certified management consultant and a serial entrepreneur, Dancho guides startups and businesses on the path to prosperity.
But as the proud owner and founder of BizzBee Solutions, it is his duty.
Owning a business with your spouse has more pros than cons, for Dancho. They’re both deeply involved, managing different sectors of the company.
Speakers
Presentation Transcript
[00:00:07.210] – Dancho – Well, you know, we started with everything. Like we worked with any company that can afford us because we were meant for hire, so we tried to help as many companies as possible. But through the years, we started thinking in which industries we really managed to provide value and in which industry, simply LinkedIn was not intended for them. For example, we had actually a client from Australia targeting yoga studios and it didn’t work out. I mean, yoga teachers don’t have LinkedIn presence and they don’t use LinkedIn. They’re more Instagram oriented, Facebook oriented, and it didn’t work out eventually. And now we said, okay, let’s focus on high-ticket service providers, companies that really need LinkedIn. And we focused on three main categories.
[00:01:23.630] – Rose – Hello and welcome to Talking with the experts. My name’s Rose Davidson from rosedavidson.com and Talking with the experts is about all things business by business owners, for business owners. And you can find it on podcasting, streaming platforms and on YouTube. And today, my guest is Dancho Dimkov, North Macedonia. Wow. That’s a new place. I haven’t interviewed anyone from there before. And his business is BizzBee Solutions. And BizzBee Solutions is an outbound growth company with a primary focus on helping high-ticket service providers reach out the right way to their prospects, and they build relationships in their state and fill up their sales pipeline as a side effects, mainly through LinkedIn outreach as it’s the ultimate place for B2B, where business professionals are available at our fingertips. Welcome Dancho and thank you so much for joining me.
[00:02:26.610] – Dancho – Hello. Nice to meet you, Rose. I’m always happy to participate in this kind of podcast and try to add some value. As when you said I’m from Macedonia, my always key question that I ask people is, do people know where we are? And usually when we talk with clients like is it somewhere in Africa, is it somewhere in Asia, and I’m usually having a joke, if you know the Greek coastline, we’re just two hours drive from there. So that’s how people start knowing about Macedonia.
[00:02:56.280] – Rose – I have heard of Macedonia. I think it’s one of the places that was on my bucket list actually to go and visit because it’s quite pretty.
[00:03:04.890] – Dancho – Yeah, we have wonderful mountains and sightseeing, but when it comes to food and drink that does the top of the game.
[00:03:13.380] – Rose – I’m a food addict, so anything that tastes yummy, I’ll be there.
[00:03:21.090] – Dancho – Nice. But it was really nice inviting me on the podcast because when I saw it Talking with the experts, I really believe that I have a lot to say when it comes to B2B Lead Generation and since I saw that it’s targeting toward business owners, I really hope that I’ll try to inspire some of the business owners to start growing because, at the end of the day, it is a business hustle. It’s one story when you talk with entrepreneurs, but now as a business owners, you don’t solve hundreds of problems on pricing and everything, but you have one problem, and that is how to grow faster. That’s the only goal that we have here.
[00:03:57.150] – Rose – Yeah, that sounds perfect for me. I’m sure that people will get a lot of benefit out of it. So you are a serial entrepreneur and founder and the CEO of BizzBee Solutions. So tell me, what exactly is BizzBee Solutions and how do you help business owners?
[00:04:14.710] – Dancho – Well, it all started as me as a freelancer, and usually I’d say here I have a short version and a long version. And for the long version, we really need a beer or something. But in the short version is that, I started out as a freelancer, working on the freelancing platforms, helping companies in terms of as a management consultant, working with entrepreneurs on market research and business plan. And roughly six years ago, I started BizzBee Solutions as a management consulting company. But as we grew, I saw that even if we help entrepreneurs to start a business, then they don’t know how to continue growing. And when you do business plan, you’re going to find an entrepreneur, you’re going to help them. You’re going to create the market research and business plan. And that’s it, you no longer need them. Well, with the sales support, we’ve realized that it’s an ongoing help. If you bring a company five clients, they’ll just grow more and then, five more and 10 more and then they’ll hire more people. And that’s how we realized that the Lead Generation part is where we should focus. And fast-forward, six years, we have more than 400 clients so far. A whole bunch from Australia, if I can say. And over the six years we’ve grown so much that last year we even decided to specialize to the B2B service providers because that is the target that we believe that can benefit the most from the prospecting and the outreach.
[00:05:37.840] – Rose – Yeah, I think I mean, this time since the pandemic hit us, I think B2B and service providers are feeling a little bit stuck. And I think what the services that you offer are obviously going to help them to grow through this quiet time.
[00:05:59.030] – Dancho – Well, Corona hit everybody. For us, it was a curse, but it was also an advantage because the channel that we use are LinkedIn and email and before Corona, physical events were still doing. People will go to a conference or to a physical event and start networking and Corona came in. Planes were shot down, countries were closed and out of desperate people searching for other ways to start finding leads and for us, since we already had established solutions, we got quite a lot of clients. But the scary part was that because everything was in a panic, there was a lot of people that tried to do it on their own. They made a lot of mistakes and some of the companies didn’t survive because of the crisis.
[00:06:44.360] – Rose – Yeah, I agree. That’s why I started this podcast last year and because I could see a lot of business owners are really challenged with trying to turn the businesses around, because a lot of them, as you say, were holding in-person events. You couldn’t even do that. So everything had to be online and a lot of business owners just didn’t know how to do that. And I’m yeah, that’s how this podcast was born, because I could say that business owners just needed some help with alternative ways to do things and I guess change their pathway slightly so that they could still thrive.
[00:07:27.020] – Dancho – I see, and for me, it was even more interesting, Rose. I mean, you’re exactly on point. Is that the B2B service providers, especially the more expensive one, like 10.000 euros, 50.000 euros, 100.000 euros, they don’t really have alternatives. I mean, you cannot really put a Facebook ad and say “Buy my 50 key service” and people are like “Oh nice, I’ll just click it and swipe my credit card”. It doesn’t work like that. Or of course, content is a very good aspect of how you can reach out to prospect, but that is mid-to-long term strategy. You cannot just write a blog post, post it out there and have 10 new clients tomorrow. It takes time. So when it comes to the high-ticket service providers, relationship is the king. Also, as you said, events. When you have an expensive service, you go, you meet with people, you talk to them. We try to understand the problem. You start nurturing the relationship. And when you see that there is a good fit, you can say, well, we actually can help you with this or with that. And that is really more expensive service, but a bit longer sales cycle. And now when you take out the physical presence, it’s much harder to start reaching out to people, “Hi, do want to buy my product?”, “No.”, Okay, next one. And in high-ticket service providers, it doesn’t work like that. I’m not going to spend a hundred thousand on a service on a stranger just comes in, and start pitching to me. And when we figure out this part, we said, well, the outreach should not be about sales or about marketing. The whole goal of the outreach is to start building the relationship. Once you have the relationship, you can start thinking about the commercials and whether there is an opportunity because many times there is no opportunity. And in that case, you still have the relationship because after three months, the opportunity might arise and the bigger your network, the more opportunities you have.
[00:09:17.930] – Rose – Absolutely, absolutely. I totally agree with you there. I know that a lot of on Facebook, and on LinkedIn too, I’ve received a connection request or a friend request, whatever the platform may be. And the next thing I know, I’ve got this inbox and they’re trying to sell me something or get me to join some group or business or like their page or whatever. And I think, you know, how sleazy is that? You’ve just, you know, made a connection with me, but now you want to try and sell me something straight away. And they usually get blocked or disconnected or whatever, I think it’s so bad. And people that do that, you know, they should know better because I’ve been in business for a very long time.
[00:10:04.590] – Dancho – Well, we had a new term here in BizzBee, and it’s called Digital Outreach Fever. So, you know, you go to physical events and what you do, you meet five, 10, 15 people. You talk a bit with some people, see if there is a good connection and then try to follow up. The same person, that had physical events, if they go online, he see the opportunity to reach millions of people and they start tweaking the messages. It’s like automated. “Hi, do you want to buy?” “Yes.”, “No!” Okay, next one. And that is the digital outreach fever we’re talking because in physical life, you know that the relationship is important and you need to talk to people and everything, but you kind of get the fever when it comes to online and you shouldn’t. It’s the same psychology. You reach out online, you start a relationship with people. Some of them will be real and some of them will not. With those that are relevant, but you cannot really reach out to hundreds or thousands of people in one day. Because then you don’t have the personal touch on how things are being done. And, Rose, we have a joke here in BizzBee that you don’t really go to a bar, meet a girl and just propose to her on the first meeting like, hey, will you marry me? No. You actually start building a relationship. You approach, do some chit chat, talking about some general topics. I mean, sport is a bad topic, but some general topics, see if you’re synchronizing on the same subject and then deepen the relationship and then a few more days and eventually getting to the proposal. And we’re saying, well, why is different in the online world? I mean, it’s not like, yeah, you can scam a lot of people or spam, but at the end of the day, if you’re selling something expensive, you shouldn’t be selling. You should try to look for companies or people that have the problem that you can solve, because if you find those, you’re not scamming, you are like, look, I know how to solve this problem. If you have that problem, let me help you. And with B2B Lead Generation it’s the same. We don’t pitch, we don’t sell. We just reach out to companies, start the conversation, see if they’re struggling. There are companies that are saying we are doing fantastically. We have our own in-house team and we’re doing a lot of leads and we’re closing lot of clients. We’re like, perfect. There is not point in “well, would you like to set up a call” and start selling? There’s no point. I mean, they don’t have the need. And in my head is that if I can position me and my company as the B2B Lead Generation gurus, then I do my job well because I have established a relationship and I position the authority because after three months, after six months, after 12 months, they can call us and say, you know what, things change, we fired our SDR team or now we want to expand to new markets and now we need your help. And that is a job well done, because even after 12 months, they have you in mind, then that is a good outreach process.
[00:12:54.660] – Rose – Absolutely. Because it’s ultimately, as you say, it’s the connection. I mean, unless you fall in love with someone at first sight, which is very rare, you don’t want to be proposed to on the first date. So I guess businesses really need to, you know, they’re always looking at growth, but you need to balance that and you need to be present in all areas of your life to do that. It’s a balancing act between your personal life and your work life. And sometimes, you know, I get a bit clouded, especially if you work with your partner, like your wife or your girlfriend or whatever. Or your husband or whatever. You understand what I’m saying?
[00:13:40.000] – Dancho – Yeah, yeah, it ia a headache. I work with my wife and we started, I started as a freelancer, then my wife joined, then we were digital nomads for some time, travelling around Europe, around the Middle East. So we travelled a lot. But, you know, then you start mixing personal life and business life. But that for me was actually good because, you know, you can start thinking about how to grow the company. And I had a lot of stories for the other way around where the spouse was not actually involved in the business. And the spouses even complaining why the husband or the wife is working long hours, hustling to build the company and there is stress and everything. And when we’re together and she knows, I know that we’re giving our best in actually growing BizzBee Solutions. And for me, if I need to choose, I would rather have my wife side by side, building the company rather than going home exhausted, and then the wife complains on me why I’m working all day and not being present.
[00:14:44.460] – Rose – Yeah, it works for some people, it definitely doesn’t work for others. I don’t think that they can, I don’t know, that just can’t seem to find that balance somehow. And it’s all about work. And they don’t take it any time off for themselves as a couple to not talk about business and just have a date night.
[00:15:03.660] – Dancho – Yeah, exactly. It is very funny, Rose. I’m responsible for growing the BizzBee, like talking to companies, partnering, making collaboration while my wife holds all the money. She controls the cost, she controls the revenues and everything else. I’m just hustling and I’m like, do I have money, yes or no? She does the contracting, the invoicing and everything. So that’s why we don’t do everything together, because first, it’s inefficient. The second we are really complementary because I don’t have time to do that. And while she enjoys that, so it is really like a joint effort in growing the company.
[00:15:45.110] – Rose – Well done Dancho.
[00:15:48.120] – Dancho – I got lucky.
[00:15:49.080] – Rose – Yeah, you did. Yeah, you obviously did. Because, I’ve got some friends in America, and they just about to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, and they’re launching a book about how to work together in business, and I’m really looking forward to reading the book because honestly, they just do everything together. It doesn’t matter where they go, they’re always together and they’ve managed to survive 30 years of marriage. Doing what they love, you know, so, yeah, well done it’s a good thing. So I guess what types of businesses or service providers do you work with? You know, what industries are they in?
[00:16:36.580] – Dancho – Well, you know, we’ve started with everything, like we worked with any company that can afford us because we were meant for hire, so we tried to help as many companies as possible. But through the years, we started thinking which industries we really managed to provide value and in which industry simply LinkedIn was not intended for them. For example, we had actually a client from Australia, targeting yoga studios and it didn’t work out. I mean, yoga teachers don’t have LinkedIn presence and they don’t use LinkedIn. They are more Instagram oriented, Facebook oriented, and it didn’t work out eventually. And now we said, okay, let’s focus on high-ticket service providers, companies that really need LinkedIn. And we focused on three main categories. One are actually consultants because consultants have usually high rates, high charges, and they are being paid a lot. They don’t want to do the outreach and prospecting and nurturing relationships. So they are really willing to just outsource to a company. And that’s where we found a good fit. Because if I could find a client to our clients, if I can bring a new client to our consultant, they’re going to get a lot of money and they’re happy to keep paying us for an eternity. And that’s actually the long term collaboration. The second target, our marketing consulting agencies, because we did a lot of partnership. We even have a partner from Australia, a marketing agency, that what they are doing is that they do SEO, content, ads, all the marketing agency content creation strategies. But there are clients that say, well, in addition to that, we also want to use outreach. And since it’s a really particular expertize, they don’t have it. So they’re partnering with us so we can actually together work on a client project. So we find that very useful. And also as a marketing agency, they also charge high-ticket services or annual contracts, which are pretty expensive. And the third target are the software companies, whether it’s a software as a service or software development companies. You know, with the IT grow, they are earning a lot of money for a project, especially we work with artificial intelligence platforms, with deep learning and whatever. And from what I can see, that those projects cost like hundred thousand euros, two hundred thousand euros. And they really appreciate the prospecting part, because if we manage to bring them leads or clients, for them that is worth a lot. And since it’s worth a lot, they’re willing to pay a lot for a lead. And having this said, those were the three key target that we focus and not just because they can afford Lead Generation process, it’s because they have so much expensive services that nothing else works for them. They cannot do Facebook ads, “Buy me as a consultant, only ten thousand euros and swipe a credit card” or those kind of high-ticket services. As I told you, since the relationship is the key, we just found a way how we can do the relationship building for them. And they can just be the, you know, the celebrity, the star of the match. So we do all the hard work and heavy lifting and relationship and nurturing and outreach and they just show up on the calls and show their true expertize.
[00:19:48.010] – Rose – Yeah. So I guess that leads into the question of how do B2B companies gain more clients only with using LinkedIn?
[00:20:00.640] – Dancho – Yeah, well that’s a very great point because when we do outreach, you can do LinkedIn, you can do email, you can do cold calling. And we are really advising LinkedIn because with the cold calling, a consultant should not be able to start cold calling people. It feels like a desperate measure, like, “hi, I’m a consultant, would you like to buy my services?” It’s the nature of the service is not intended for cold calling. For the email and LinkedIn it is more intended because you’re not selling, you’re just starting to introduce yourself and bringing them in your network. But at the end of the day, back in the day before Sales Navigator rules, we were building a database. So if a consultant comes in, we had, I remember vividly, we had a consultant from Australia that was doing leadership and the personal development consultancy, and he was targeting the Fortune 500 companies, specifically. And, you know, we’re going to build a database. We’re going to find the C-level executives, find their LinkedIn, find their email and start doing the outreach. But within six to nine months, that database becomes obsolete because people change jobs, people get promoted, go to other companies. And it’s funny that LinkedIn, although it has hundreds of millions of people in a database, people update the status. So I change the job, I go on LinkedIn and I say, you know what, I changed the job. You got promoted, you go on LinkedIn and you’re going to change that you got promoted. So LinkedIn became a self-updating database, which was a miracle for us. And just by using the Sales Navigator, which has some advanced filters, helps reaching out always to relevant prospects, and when you compare it to email and LinkedIn, email is a bit spammy, of course, depending on what kind of message you’re going to write. But people kind of get used to get a lot of emails per day and start ignoring them. While the LinkedIn style is more like chit-chatty, hi, how are things with your company? How are you? How is life? How are you currently managing to grow? Do you use that? I found a nice article that I think will really help you. So you see it’s more chit-chat, it’s like “Hey!”, and not “Kind regards, Dancho.” And it’s funny that people try to copy the email message and just paste it on LinkedIn and it looks very weird. Like you get the message, “Hi Rose. I would be delighted to and honored to blah blah blah with kindest regards, Dancho”, with the signature and everything. And I’m like, who writes that kind of message naturally. And you immediately know that it’s a copy paste message either from an email or from some template.
[00:22:39.920] – Rose – Yeah, absolutely. I’ve gotten a few of those and it’s spammy. No originality in the messaging at all.
[00:22:51.420] – Dancho – And that’s counterproductive Rose, because as a consultant, you have to establish your authority. If you’re being perceived as spamming or if you’re being perceived as a desperate even, nobody want to work with that kind of consultants. So that’s why the outreach that we’re doing is we don’t mention sales, we don’t mention pitch, we just start building relationships. And by building the relationship, we try to impose the authority either by sharing some content that you’ve created or some e-books or whatever I see, or even you’re creating a webinar or an online event that you’re doing. And with that, you’re just showing your expertize and credibility rather than, “Hi, my name is Dancho, I’m a consultant. Would you like to buy my services?” And that is not how consulting should work. I mean, consultants also have some ego and they don’t want to be perceived as a commodity. Consulting should be perceived as a luxury good, as a pain solver, that you pay a premium, but you know that they’re going to solve your problem.
[00:23:52.380] – Rose – Absolutely. I totally agree. Now, where can people find you Dancho?
[00:23:59.370] – Dancho – Well, we are all over the place. But when it comes to content creation, I mean, bizzbeesolutions.com is our website. Every two weeks we actually create a new blog post that’s quite fresh. We have an academy, where there are like seven or eight different ebooks, that are talking about each stages from the outreach, how to nurture, how to create messages, how to build a database. And when it comes to social media, we are quite active on LinkedIn. I mean, obviously we do what we preach, not just preaching it. And on Facebook, but we kind of move toward more on LinkedIn because that is where the business community is. It’s interesting, Rose, you know, with generations, LinkedIn is really a B2B network. It doesn’t have to be only for finding clients. We become clients to some people that we reach out because it is a network. Sometimes you need a supplier, sometimes they need a supplier. Sometimes it’s a collaboration partnership for joint effort. Facebook is kind of more B2C when it comes to consumers. Facebook is nice. Instagram is really more consumerist. Either it’s yoga or physical products or e-commerce stores. Then what’s out there. Tik Tok is really for younger generation, people that I’m kind of too old for that.
[00:25:17.250] – Rose – Yeah, me too. I don’t like it much.
[00:25:18.270] – Dancho – I mean, I’ve seen the clips and everything, but it’s not really that you’re going to reach out on Tik Tok to business people and start building a relationship.
[00:25:26.060] – Rose – Like Snapchat. My kids love Snapchat. And I couldn’t use it. It just wasn’t something I could get my head around.
[00:25:35.880] – Dancho – Or now I see that there is a Clubhouse that I still don’t know in which direction it will evolve. But at this stage, LinkedIn is actually the best network platform for B2B communities. And that’s why I’m actually as Dancho, but also as BizzBee. We’re most active on LinkedIn.
[00:25:54.660] – Rose – Have you written any books or any books in the pipeline?
[00:25:58.210] – Dancho – Well, now that you mention it, in August, we should have a new book out. It’s my first one. It took me two years to do it. It’s like, for the next book, I learned so many lessons, it’s going to be so much easier. But for this first book, it’s going to be called “Sweet Leads, and we actually explain all the framework that we invented throughout the six years of experience with BizzBee. I actually signed with a publishing house from UK. So it’s going to be through a publishing house, through ebook, audiobooks and Amazon paperback.
[00:26:30.760] – Rose – You should send me a copy.
[00:26:32.430] – Dancho – Of course, of course. I mean, when it comes to B2B Lead Generation, I can talk for hours. But with that book, we actually outline all the steps. So it’s like a “do it yourself” B2B Lead Generation for companies. So it’s like a step one. Really identify a laser-focused your ideal client profile. Step two, now that you know who you want, build a database of those prospects. Step three, now that you have the database, create really engaging messages, but not as sales, but create an engaging conversation starters because the relationship is still the key. Once you have the messages, you’ve done with the planning, you can start with the execution, reaching out to them, start building how to handle responses, the nurturing, how to put them on a meeting and how to become a client. So it is a quite interesting book. I definitely recommend it to everybody. And I will sure send you a copy, Rose, because I really would love to hear your feedback on the book.
[00:27:28.680] – Rose – I look forward to receiving a copy. That would be great, thank you. I guess, have you any wise words for our listeners and our viewers before we finish up tonight?
[00:27:40.800] – Dancho – Well, Rose, there is so much knowledge in the B2B world, there are so many directions on how you can generate leads, so I just really hope that I inspired some of the people to try the prospecting and outreach even on their own. Many times they don’t need an agency. They can download some of the e-books, start reading and start following some basic principles. Please don’t spam people. It’s really unpolite when you start getting weird emails or weird connections. But if you have the goal of finding companies that have a particular problem that you can solve, then it’s more qualifying people and connecting with them and start building the relationship. So my end goal is that if I inspired some of the business owners to start doing the outreach, I’m really happy. Because I know that as a company we were ads, we were doing posts and we were waiting for the phone to ring. And then when we started with the outreach, it was like while waiting for the phone to ring, start proactively looking for clients. And it is a very fast forward of growing your businesses.
[00:28:42.240] – Rose – Yeah, I agree. This was really great.
[00:28:49.780] – Dancho – Well, Rose, it’s because of you, because you invited me to be guest here, and I’m really happy to share my personal experience. And I also wanted to say thank to you, because you got the idea to actually connect business owners and giving the opportunity to share their stories to other business owners, which is a fantastic networking on its own.
[00:29:12.640] – Rose – It is. And I know I love doing it. Actually I’ve had guests on my podcast who have actually introduced to other guests through LinkedIn, and they’ve actually made partnerships out of that. So, yeah, I like to connect other people, but I think they’ve got some mutual benefit. So, it’s great. Anyway, that’s it for tonight, I think Dancho dropped out.
[00:29:52.840] – Dancho – No, I’m here.
[00:29:54.540] – Rose – All right, well, Dancho, thank you so much for joining me. I’ve really enjoyed that conversation. And yeah, you’ve been a beacon of light to others. I’m sure that would be a great deal of value out of what you’ve shared today.
[00:30:10.950] – Dancho – Yeah. Rose, thanks again for inviting me. And I truly hope that I’ve at least tried to add some golden nuggets into this conversation, because at the end of the day, we as people need to start learning more and more in order to be more successful in our businesses.
[00:30:27.000] – Rose – Absolutely. All right. I spoke to you very soon.
[00:30:30.980] – Dancho – Thank you.