Growth management for a B2B SaaS Startup — What do we do at Evreka
PART I: In this story, we are going to explore Evreka’s growth journey from its beginning and examine the key steps we take to have a continuous qualified lead flow.
Introduction — What do we do?
At Evreka, we digitize waste collection and city cleaning operations to make them more traceable and manageable. We have a hardware-enabled software that is also backed by specialized mobile applications for each stakeholder having a role in waste generation or waste management.
It doesn’t sound that cool, right? Well, I know. But as you know, waste is everywhere.
Even though there are well-designed waste management systems as in the Netherlands, you still have to manage a set of complex operations; and I assure you, you would be taken aback by the chaos taking over.
So, as we have been in the sector since 2015, we know for certain that there was room for a successful solution that solves the problems of the field, back office, and even the citizens. Moreover, digitization was becoming a hot topic, but on the other side, sustainability was steadily shifting toward the center of general assemblies of municipalities or waste management companies.
So, we couldn’t content ourselves with one market only. We had to expand oversees, prove our product and capabilities all around the world. We had to make a name for Evreka. But, that was the problem itself!
The sentences you will read from here aim to explain how we’ve built a growth approach from scratch and made it a well-established, measurable, and predictable one. But, we are not perfect yet. We are still learning and improving day by day. Some of the practices we implemented in our first days are already old school.
So, NO INVESTMENT ADVICE.
To not bore you and adequately focus on the important aspects, I decided to divide the article into two parts. In the first part, we will be examining our ways to have a continuous lead acquisition.
Chapter 1 — How did we start?
Would you be surprised if we started our growth journey with half-time efforts of three people from Evreka? I was one of them! I was employed as a Marketing Manager, and one day, our CEO Umutcan approached me and said “Let’s grow! Can you do that and would you like to do that?” So, I and two colleagues started spending half of our days on growth activities such as sending lots of emails and LinkedIn messages, making lots of phone calls, contacting embassies, and so on. Some things were working but we were far from being systematic. We had to have a playbook and measure our success to move forward.
Chapter 2 — A new way of growing
After we tested various approaches out on our own without any frame at all, we realized if we could invest in a growth team, specifically trying to reach out to municipalities, waste management companies, partners, and try to bring and close deals, we could succeed more than we can imagine!
So, firstly our Head of Growth Caner joined our immature yet promising story. He not only brought his prior experience and market insights (he was working for another B2B SaaS company before Evreka) but also his structural and to the point thinking.
Once he started to head up our growth, the first thing he did was doubling our growth team (my two other colleagues decided to resign but I wanted to go full-time growth because I thought this is what I needed to do from the very first day).
So, one of the first things we do with our team was reading Predictable Revenue, so-called Evreka Growth Bible, written by Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler.
Chapter 3 — What does Predictable Revenue tell you?
Predictable Revenue tells you the keys to build a sales machine bringing in predictable revenue. The new frame Aaron brings to the Sales is Cold Calling V2.
Cold Calling V2
Aaron defines cold calling as “calling someone who doesn’t know you and who isn’t expecting your call.” However, it is not only random calls from his perspective, but also a lack of study, care, and respect to leads that follow these random calls.
With Cold Calling V2, Aaron made it simpler and more effective for both leads and the sales development representatives.
In traditional cold calling methodology, everyone in the sales team prospect, try to reach out to each possible client with the same level of information, and try to sell their products without caring for the lead’s problems and needs. With Cold Calling V2, Aaron proposes specialization of the roles, deep-dive research on the lead, and a compassionate approach caring for the needs of the lead.
In our first weeks as a full-time growth team, we tried to reach various types of leads via different outbound approaches with the Cold Calling V2 perspective. Now, let me walk you through the funnel Aaron proposed, and the way we implemented it.
What we did in the first place was to identify our personas after detailed research on the industry. We did not only identify them but also prioritized them according to their tendencies and capabilities to adopt such smart solutions. For example, yes, municipalities or local authorities may sound like a perfect fit to you; but because of the status quo, bureaucracy, red tape, and other variables that we have zero control over, we decided to go after private waste management companies. On the other hand, there is a language barrier that we cannot help at all. Secretaries or gatekeepers in our business rarely speak English both in the private and public sectors.
Also, let me be honest 1, WE HATED COLD CALLING OR DISCOVERY CALLS OR WHATEVER IT IS CALLED! It is so tiring and such a waste of time, we believe. The world is changing, why would you even call a person if they have an email address or social media accounts?
Companies are too dependent on cold calls. Phone skills are critical, but use calls as the second step in prospecting. Begin with email, and even use the phone to follow up to people who respond. Simple email templates can get you an 8-12% plus response rate even from high-level prospects.
So, for almost every country, we had a draft list of our ideal customers we should approach. To start prospecting systematically, see the current situation of each deal, and disqualify the bad fits in a systematic way, you need a CRM tool; we use Pipedrive for this purpose as it is fully customizable, integrated, and easy to use. So, thanks to our prior research, we started to fill out and organize our pipelines. Were we ready to roll? Hell, no!
In our industry, an enterprise-level B2B sales cycle takes 6–9 months on average, meaning that you have to make regular follow-ups with your prospects.
How long is a SaaS sales cycle?
40.1 Days: <$5K
62.2 Days: $5K-$10K
84.1 Days: $10K-$50K
116.6 Days: $50K-$100K
169.6 Days: >$100K
Overall average: 84.3 Days
So, we had to make sure that they are regularly touched, but this was impossible as we already had hundreds of prospects in our pipelines. That’s why we automatized this process.
Let me be honest 2, it was INCREDIBLY HARD TO GET USED TO PIPEDRIVE. WE COULDN’T REGULARLY FOLLOW-UP OR UPDATE THE DEALS. IT FELT LIKE SUCH A BURDEN IN THE FIRST PLACE! But then, once you start seeing hundreds of deals in your pipeline and having tens of online meetings in a month, you realize why it is crucial and start to obey. And also, we have a KR now evaluating our Pipedrive use, so…
According to different prospect types and different deal stages, we had different mail cycle automation that we were able to build within Pipedrive. For example, a prospect under the “reach out in progress” deal stage receives one automatized and customized introductory email every week the same day, and 3 follow-up emails follow that introductory email including a call-to-action directing them to book a demo meeting with us.
If we do not hear anything back from the prospect, then it’s a “long time no response”; and we add new contacts to that deal from the same company until we get a response, even if it is no (for that no to stop us, it needs to come from the CEO; we don’t quit otherwise).
As you can imagine, if we contact the prospect, then we change the deal stage to “contacted” and then we send totally customized and deliberative answers. If we stop hearing from them after a couple of customized follow-ups, we restart an automatized cycle until we receive a response; since due to the density of the responsibilities we undertake in a startup, it is impossible for us to follow-up with the prospects or leads manually, one by one. We need to utilize our times in the best way possible.
80% of sales require five follow-up calls after a meeting; 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up.
The other way we prospect might surprise you a little bit. While we were experimenting to find the best ways to contact the key decisionmakers, we realized that LinkedIn is the best way to reach out to these people who receive hundreds of undesired emails every day and never or barely answer their phones even if you get to surpass the gatekeepers.
So, just as Pipedrive, LinkedIn - Sales Navigator is a sales tool we use to find the most of our leads. Because of competitive reasons, I won’t explain how we use this tool in detail, but leave me a message if you are interested and would like to learn more :)
Once we get the meeting confirmation from the lead, then it gets qualified; as the contact obviously sees benefits in our products and likes to learn more about further details. When you get to this point, congratulations, you have a possible commitment! Now, you will get in touch with the client in a more real-world, so you need a different set of skills. Although you need specialized roles in the best scenario, we are not that big yet, and I would like to tell you about our story :)
In the next part, we will be focusing on the bow-tie model from Winning by Design, and how to proceed with a qualified lead further.
To create myself a forcing function, I proudly announce my next Medium Story date as the 1st of March.
Also, please let me know what you think about my very first story, and help me improve myself further. So, any comments are more than welcome!
Until then, take care!
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