BNZSA Expands into Asia-Pacific to Deliver Truly Global Demand Generation

BNZSA has built upon its European and Americas operations with expansion into the Asia-Pacific region to provide clients with global demand generation services. At present, all global client lead generation campaigns are being run remotely from Europe but uniquely, delivered by native language speakers.

“As a consequence of the outstanding campaigns we continue to deliver for clients in EMEA and in North and South America, we are responding to overwhelming demand for us to extend our offering into the diverse and complex Asia-Pacific markets,” said Brahim Samhoud, BNZSA’s CEO.

“Clients find that the unique combination of our deep first- and third-party data and insight, digital capabilities and native language contact centre agents is simply not available to them in Asia-Pacific and have insisted that we extend our services to support their sales and marketing programmes in the region.”

BNZSA, which posted 344 percent growth in Q3 2021 vs the same period a year ago, eyes expansion into Asia-Pacific as a catapult for even more impressive performance in 2022.

According to The McKinsey Global Institute, Asia’s technological capabilities have expanded rapidly over the past decade. Between 2006–08 and 2016–18, Asia accounted for 52 percent of global growth in the revenue of technology companies. The region’s global share of start-up investment increased from only 16 percent in 2006–08 to 40 percent in 2017–19, accounting for 43 percent of global growth. And McKinsey asserts that the four areas where Asia has a high share of both start-up investment and strong patents are mobile services, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and manufacturing equipment.

“The growth opportunities in hardware and software are evident, and as clients are increasingly centralising sales and marketing budgets and focusing on global enterprise accounts, they expect the same levels of service in all regionals globally,” added Paul Briggs, BNZSA’s Director of Global Corporate Development. “Regardless of geography, our teams are able to physically qualify and route leads within hours of the lead being generated. This is practically unique in the marketplace – particularly as we bring our industry standard GDPR compliance to Asia.”

About BNZSA

BNZSA is a leading marketing agency specialising in tele-based demand generation with a team of 350 than who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. BNZSA is privately-owned, has never relied on third-party funding, and has been profitable since day one. The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in 25 languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform, and is a pioneer in the use of AI, NLP and ML technologies. 

BNZSA Records 344 Percent Year-On-Year Revenue Growth in Q3 and is On-Track to Exceed 300 Percent Earnings Enrichment in 2021

Headcount Increased by 17 Percent with 67 New Hires in Q3 To Meet Increasing Client Demand and to Fuel Expansion into Asia Pacific to Deliver a Truly Global Service

BNZSA saw a 344 percent year-on-year revenue growth in Q3 2021, and added 67 new members to its multinational team – now totalling 350, comprised of 45 nationalities speaking 22 native languages. The company is confident that it will exceed its forecasted 300 percent annual growth in 2021.

Key Q3 milestones included:

“For many companies, Q3 is typically a slower quarter because of holidays, but not for us,” said Brahim Samhoud, BNZSA’s CEO. “Our campaign delivery continued to outstrip expectations, and client demand only ramped-up as a consequence.

“This means that we are hiring, on-boarding and training team members at an astonishing rate to meet demand and provide a truly global lead generation solution. Our business growth is organic, driven by reputation and recommendation. We develop a deep intimacy with our clients and are passionate about exceeding expectations with each and every campaign. So, when we overdeliver in Europe, we are asked to do the same in the Americas, and now across Asia.”

Underpinned by industry standard first- and third-party data management and digital excellence are BNZSA’s call centre agents who engage in native language personally with prospects to nurture qualify and deliver sales ready leads to clients’ sales teams. Following numerous physical and digital engagements, BNZSA agents host a three-way ‘warm handover’ with prospects and clients only when they have a clear picture of the sales opportunity – which delivers a 70 percent lead-to-conversion rate.

“We continue to grow and innovate with one objective in mind – to ensure that our clients can sell more, better and faster,” Brahim added. “While we work with partners, clients are increasingly demanding that we are their single, full-service lead generation agency to ensure that they can maintain and grow in established markets and scale-up fast to capitalise on new market opportunities – especially now in Asia. This is driving our globalisation and we are changing the industry as our people go the extra mile to deliver the highest possible quality.”

About BNZSA BNZSA is a leading marketing agency specialising in tele-based demand generation with a team of 350 than who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. BNZSA is privately-owned, has never relied on third-party funding, and has been profitable since day one. The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform, and is a pioneer in the use of AI, NLP and ML technologies.

BNZSA Launches Programmatic Display to Augment Its Digital, Data and Tele offerings

Programmatic will offer customers the ability to create bespoke audience segments around technographic, firmographic and intent data to promote brand awareness and thought leadership content

BNZSA, Europe’s leading IT B2B digital, data and lead generation agency now delivers programmatic display that aims to give customers the ability to deepen relationships with prospects and to enhance subsequent lead generation campaigns.

Underpinned by the cleanest first- and third-party data available, and the largest telephone-based contact centre in EMEA, customers can now look to build fully integrated marketing programmes that utilise a multi-channel approach from a single supplier.

“Clients no longer have to search, evaluate and appoint multiple agencies for data, digital and tele to support their marketing programmes,” said Soniya Ganvir, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Digital at BNZSA. “BNZSA provides it all under one roof with owned and operated data validation and quality assurance teams that guarantee data integrity and compliance as well as lead quality. Creatives for programmatic can also be produced for our clients by BNZSA’s in-house design team.”

With programmatic, client campaigns are fully integrated from end-to-end and this means BNZSA can maintain an on-going and relevant dialogue with prospects. BNZSA can also track interest and intent and maintain engagement with relevant and valuable content to underpin the personal relationships our Business Development Resources maintain with prospects to nurture leads ahead of handing over to client sales teams.

Layering programmatic to BNZSA’s integrated services has many benefits. Firstly transparency. Programmatic advertising offers a layer of transparency that marketers have struggled to get from traditional advertising.

This transparency is often around data insights and real-time measurement, which can track how creatives and targeting is performing. Brand awarenessis also a key. Programmatic play as it is a perfect way to push brand awareness not just to scale and overall total addressable market but also relevant prospects. Programmatic can also deliver content across multi platforms and devices so can reach those prospects in multiple scenarios such as when they are travelling.

Paul Briggs, Director of Global Corporate Development at BNZSA said, “Programmatic really gives the ability to put the creativity back into integrated marketing campaigns and is a very powerful ally when it comes to converting prospects from a subsequent or parallel lead generation campaign

“Firstly, BNZSA can identify potential prospects for its customers and develop a database rich in technographic, firmographic and intent data. Secondly, BNZSA can then surround these prospects with messaging and brand awareness and measure the metrics.”

This actionable insight can help craft the content for subsequent digital content syndication and enhance prospect engagement with BNZSA’s BDRs as there is already a clear sense of topic interest, relevance and sentiment before any conversation is started.

“Following this approach has a positive uplift in conversions to our Warm Handover Process, where BNZSA agents broker, arrange and moderate a call between the prospect and our customer’s sales or product specialist,” Briggs added. “This ultimately boosts closed won opportunities for our customers up to 300 percent.”

About BNZSA

BNZSA is a leading EMEA marketing agency specialising in tele-based demand generation with a team of more than 300 who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. BNZSA is privately-owned, has never relied on third-party funding, and has been profitable since day one. The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in 16 languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform, and is a pioneer in the use of AI, NLP and ML technologies.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Business Development: Free-Up Your Sales Teams so They Can do What They Do Best… Sell

Business development is essential to keeping sales pipelines populated with qualified and nurtured leads – especially in B2B IT sales. But business development representatives (BDRs), or sales development representatives (SDRs) as they are also known, are not made in a consistent mould, and how they are categorised and deployed may differ from one company to the next.

Maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is critical to near-term monthly and quarterly forecasting and performance, but it can often be a huge challenge. And what about mid- to longer-term planning and sustained momentum? It’s not effective to start every month, quarter or year with a cold start – or an empty pipeline.

There are many functions BDRs can perform to maintain a constant feed to the pipeline and free-up inside sales teams to focus on deal closure and client relationships.

Value-added activities BDRs can perform include:

Clearly, outsourced BDRs can deliver a myriad of tactical duties to enhance inside sales teams’ performance. Here are some key strategic benefits companies can realise when they work with an outsourced business development team.

Generate New Opportunities

Working with an outsourced sales team helps companies gain access to new regions and markets without sacrificing sales for long-term benefit. BDRs who work smoothly and efficiently on lead generation and qualification can be used to test new markets, introduce new products, and open new opportunities for inside sales teams.

No Recruitment or Lengthy On-Boarding

While outsourcing BDRs can be viewed as expensive, it’s a lot more cost effective that hiring and providing benefits to an inside team.

There is No Ramp-Up Time and Leads Are Delivered from Day One

An outsourced BRD team can hit the ground running and begin filling the pipeline immediately. Outsourcing means that clients do not have to wait for a team of BDRs to become experienced. Clients gain experts instantly. The BDRs that agencies have on staff are highly specialised and often have years of experience prospecting and generating leads. 

They know what’s what when it comes to business development and will apply their knowledge to your business from day one. 

Prospecting Efforts Result in Better Leads to Fill Your Pipeline

More leads aren’t always better. Outsourcing business development means higher quality leads. The BDRs works with sales teams to identify key qualifiers for leads, then applies that to their process to deliver the people who are more likely to close.

It is Cost effective Because You Only Pay for The Days That Are Worked

Clients can structure their outsourced BDR teams to suit their needs with flexible time allocated to campaign delivery.

The Team is Scalable and Development Can Be Amplified or Dialled Down Instantly

Changes to a BDR programme can be costly and time consuming when conducted in-house. Outsourcing gives flexibility to change sales needs and can help to grow new programmes quickly.

External BDRs also know how to shift resources to where they are most needed thereby keeping costs down, while maintaining productivity and results.

Improve Your Close Rate

Better prospecting with an outsourced BDR team means better leads. Better leads are more likely to close with sales reps. 

Increase Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Freeing-up internal teams from cold calling, prospecting, and other sales development tasks means they have more time to dedicate to building relationships with clients.

Essentially, inside sales get to do the things they do best which can increase their own job satisfaction and productivity. This, in turn, provides a higher quality experience to customers and clients.

Free Up Your Time

Outsourced BDRs mean that firms can focus on more important matters. There is no need to take time building processes and KPIs for an in-house team, and there is no need for on-boarding or train either. 

State-of-the-art data science means that agents are already working on high quality prospects. Also, agents receive active personalised coaching for continuous improvement in service and quality.

Quality Control Ensures Warm, Qualified Leads

To close the loop, the best agencies vet every lead generated before it is sent to the client.

In essence, outsourced BDRs provide companies with many advantages that reduce the burdens they are likely experience when trying to build their own BDR team.

Why the Creation of Virtual Sales Teams is Imperative in an Increasingly Digital Age

In an increasingly digital first world, it is perhaps inevitable that companies look to technology solutions to solve pain points such as pipeline acceleration before they look at how to fix internal workflows and processes that should be supporting their sales teams.

But how many times has a new technology implementation failed to deliver its promise to magically harmonise the sales and marketing function or improve the customer experience or more importantly help generate revenue growth?

The answer is all the time.

But this is not to say that companies don’t need the latest and greatest technologies to manage and process great swathes of digital information from suppliers, partners, customers etc. They do.

The issue is often that internal teams spend more time collecting, analysing, and processing the data from these platforms than selling or speaking with their customers.

So, what can be done to optimise your technological investments with your human resources, both of which take a lot of funding, to get an optimised and data rich sales operation?

For the larger corporations that have the deeper pockets, the solution could be to increase investment in inside sales teams but this might not be a viable option for companies with more limited resources.

And just because you can afford to staff up, should you when there are agencies that can provide the necessary expertise and processes to offer business development representatives (BDRs) that can enhance your sales strategy, close more deals and boost revenue?

Benefits of outsourcing your business development

If your current pain points are involved in looking to build sales pipeline and scale faster, you probably should seriously think about working with a partner to provide you with a virtual sales team to instantly add more skin to the game.

Outsourced teams are also extremely useful when you want to reach new markets and to take advantage of the outsourced team’s expertise, technology, and extensive services that you might not otherwise have access to in-house.

And as mentioned above, another reason why companies outsource BDRs is because it tends to be more cost efficient than hiring a full inside sales team. 

So, if you are considering going down this route, here are a few things you should consider when outsourcing BDRs:

1. Save money with outsourced BDRs

Business development efforts often require a sizeable financial investment. Clients will need to weigh the cost versus the benefits to ensure they can gain a proper but realistic return on investment. 

To do this, firms must consider how much it would cost to build an in-house team, their goals, and the timeline to reach these objectives. This will give a better understanding about the direction to go in and identify actual budget and expectations.

2. Save time with outsourced BDRs

Setting up a whole in-house team of BDRs takes a long time. Outsourcing is a lot quicker. The best agencies can start by working with clients’ messaging, customer journeys and playbooks because they already have the experts and infrastructure in place. They can start delivering warm, qualified leads in a matter of days, not months.

3. Reduce the effort required from your in-house team

Realistically, clients will need to be involved with the outsourced BDRs. How much, depends on the agency selected. In the beginning, they may require a lot of information. But the best agencies provide clients with a dedicated Account Manager who is the main point of contact and can provide campaign reporting with a high degree of agreed frequency.

Overcoming Negative Perceptions of Outsourced Business Development

Pricing is the most common objection BDRs hear when they are meeting with prospects. Clients may think it costs a fortune and that you don’t have direct control over the results. This can make it scary to venture into the unknown if you’ve never used these kinds of services. But instead look at the actual value that comes with the cost. Cost savings is usually one of the main reasons for outsourcing BDRs in the first place. Bringing on an in-house team is quite expensive with recruitment, salaries, benefits and real estate to consider. Not to speak of the time and cost investment in training new team members.

Control is another reason why companies opt out of outsourcing sales. Some might think that because BDRs are in direct contact with prospects, there is concern about if they will represent the client company well. It may seem like total loss of control to have sales reps out of sight. But consider this: In-house staff can’t be monitored all the time as they complete their tasks – especially in today’s increasingly remote working environments. 

Rest Assured…

Good BDRs are self-managed most of the time, but the best agency teams have strong developmental support systems and feedback loops. Also outsourced sales agencies have a system of checks and balances to ensure their BDRs are performing the proper activities by quality control, mentoring and coaching.

Remember, agencies are only as successful as their clients are. They will have a vested interest in providing clients with the best results possible. The best success is achieved through trusted partnerships. And The best route to success, is a physical team of well-developed and mentored BDRs underpinned with state-of-the art tech.

BNZSA Maintains Hypergrowth Trajectory Recording 274 Percent Year-On-Year Revenue Uptick in Q2 and 176 Percent Growth Year-to-Date

Headcount Increased by 163 in Q2 to Enable Significant New Business Delivery and Client Enrichment

Leading European B2B IT sales and marketing agency, BNZSA, confirmed that it is in a phase of hypergrowth by delivering 274 percent year-on-year revenue growth in Q2 2021, and booking 176 percent year-to-date growth. BNZSA forecasts 300 percent annual revenue growth by year-end.

Key Q2 milestones included:

BNZSA is one of Europe’s largest B2B marketing agencies and specialises in tele-based demand generation. It is expert in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads to many of the world’s leading technology brands, deploying campaigns globally in 16 native languages. BNZSA has more than 100 clients, which include Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Juniper Networks, Oracle, Samsung and SAP.

“Coming off the back of a record-breaking 2020, we planned for 2021 to be a year of hypergrowth,” said Brahim Samhoud, BNZSA’s CEO and Founder. “By January a lot of meticulous planning had been done – in business development, client services, data, IT and HR – to ensure that we are able to effortlessly scale-up throughout the year and meet unprecedented client demand.

“The phenomenal performance in the first half of the year demonstrates the unique value BNZSA brings to the B2B IT lead generation marketplace. It also indicates that demand for enterprise hardware and software solutions is very strong globally. We are seeing businesses aggressively investing in their infrastructures to enable their teams to operate effectively from wherever, and to ramp-up their agility in responding to customer needs.”

BNZSA’s teams are able to physically qualify and route a lead within hours of it being generated to provide client-side sales reps with pipelines that have a 70 percent led-to-conversion rate.

“BNZSA is built on four core values – people, highest quality, extra mile and changing the industry,” Brahim added. “Firstly, our business is all about people and the relationships we build with clients and their prospects. We’re obsessed with the quality of the information we hold, how we use it and the insights it brings to client programmes – as well as the quality service we deliver daily. Going the extra mile is not a nice to have, it’s how we operate. Bring all of this together and we’re changing the industry by default.”

Arnaud Burel, Channel & Distribution Manager France/North Africa at leading wireless edge solutions provider, Cradlepoint, concluded, “What’s really different about BNZSA is that they don’t just deliver leads, they deliver meetings – and meetings that convert. That is truly unique. It means that my team is able to focus on nurturing the great relationship that BNZSA’s agents have already developed. It shortens the sales cycle and enriches opportunities.”

BNZSA in Numbers

About BNZSA

BNZSA is a leading EMEA marketing agency specialising in tele-based demand generation with a team of more than 300 who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in 16 languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform, and is a pioneer in the use of AI, NLP and ML technologies.

Game Changing Warm Handover Delivers a 70 Percent Lead-to-Conversion Rate to Drive Sales Success for B2B Tech Clients

BNZSA’s Agents Host 20,000 Warm Handover Calls a Year to Deliver $1.5 Billion Pipeline Opportunities for Clients

Madrid, Spain, 24 June 2021 – BNZSA delivers a ‘Warm Handover’ process – unique in the market – that creates a lead-to-conversion rate of up to 70 percent.

In order to ensure this outstanding level of client success, BNZSA’s agents host more than 20,000 three-way calls a year to personally introduce client sales reps to qualified prospects.

BNZSA specialises in tele-based demand generation with a team of more than 250 who are experts in delivering sales-ready leads to many of the world’s leading technology brands deploying campaigns globally in 16 native languages. BNZSA has more than 100 clients, which include many of the leading global IT vendors including Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Juniper Networks, Oracle, Samsung and SAP.

“The warm handover is a value-add like no other in the industry,” said Brahim Samhoud, CEO of BNZSA. “It ensures that client sales reps and their prospects are a long way down the path to a deal before they ever meet one another. In researching and engaging with prospects, our agents make many calls into client companies over time. Our teams map buying committees, develop personal relationships, understanding and trust with budget holders, decision makers and influencers. We only host three-way meetings between clients and prospects when we have a complete picture of the sales opportunity – which delivers conversion rates unprecedented in the industry.”

The warm handover was established to overcome a number of common issues that remain endemic in the industry today – that even the warmest leads can be difficult to convert. In designing the warm handover, BNZSA addressed a number of pain points:

Harry Beijersbergen, ICT and Channel Marketing Expert said, “Expensive sales staff must spend as much time cultivating relationships with their prospects and customers. The long road to getting in front of prospects consumes too much valuable time. BNZSA shortens the sales cycle by helping reps to be fully prepared with prospects, where mutual expectations and benefits are clearly understood from day one.”

“For sales reps to be productive, they must be focused,” added Johan Olberdling, leading international Sales and Marketing Consultant. “The BNZSA warm handover ensures that reps’ time is best spent speaking to qualified leads, and not wasting their time on prospecting. It helps them to do their job faster and better – which is to close deals.”

BNZSA in Numbers

About BNZSA

BNZSA is a leading EMEA marketing agency specialising in tele-based demand generation with a team of more than 250 who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. It was established in 2013 and has grown rapidly over eight years. BNZSA is privately-owned, has never relied on third-party funding, and has been profitable since day one. The company is based in Madrid, Spain, and has offices in the UK, France and Morocco. It invests heavily in its agents who are all native language speakers and deliver client campaigns in 16 languages globally. In addition to the uniquely human and personal dimension of the company, BNZSA is a leader in the application of technology to underpin its value proposition. It built its own bespoke CRM platform, and is a pioneer in the use of AI, NLP and ML technologies.

Contact

Clive Savage, Vice President, Communications, BNZSA, clive@bnzsa.com, +44 (0)203 7394982, +44 (0)7951 328740

Brahim Samhoud: A Man Driven by Four Core Values

I sat down with Brahim Samhoud, CEO and founder of BNZSA, to understand his motivations, why BNZSA and how it is changing the industry.

Firstly, maybe a silly question. What does BNZSA stand for?

It stands for my family initials. My name, Brahim, my son Noa, my daughter Zoe and SA for our surname. It’s not the best name in the world, and I didn’t consult an expensive branding agency. But it is personal to me and I hope it means a lot for many of our team. You could say that BNZSA is another one of my children, whose eighth birthday we celebrate this month!

Calling the company BNZSA reminds me every day why we’re doing it. It’s personal to me. It drives me every day because I want my kids to be proud of what their father has achieved, to have a legacy, and maybe for them to join and lead us one day.

Why did you step away from a progressively senior career path to set-up a one-man shop in your garage?

I wanted to create a company with a story, to be a success on my own terms, but also to build something with meaning. I didn’t build it with an exit strategy in mind. If it was all about money, then I could have gone anywhere to make a lot of cash. No, it was all about building something worthwhile, a company that stands for something more.

I want BNZSA to be the best at what it does. I want it to be a good company with values where people are treated fairly and with respect.

So, I grabbed all the things I’d learned from past experiences; I did a really strong analysis of what I would like this company to stand for. I came up with four core values which still stand today and inform everything we do: people, highest quality, extra mile, and change the industry.

Eight years later, we’re nearly 280 people with offices in four countries and delivering $1.5 billion to clients’ pipelines.

Let’s start with people. Can you tell me more about your thinking here?

The first thing that came to my mind was people. Business. Society. It’s all about people. It’s not just about the people in the company, but also the people we deal with as a company – our clients and their prospects.

A big motivation for me is that when I was younger it took me about 10 years to go from a junior position into management. I wanted to build an environment where anyone can learn, develop and thrive - and quickly. Another thing about people is that when you work in bigger environments, it becomes all about politics. It’s more about how many shoulders you stand on rather than how many people you can bring to the next level.

I also wanted to create something with respect for our various cultures. I don’t care about your background, if you’re highly motivated and you want to be successful, then this is the place for you. I don’t care if you’ve been to Harvard or whatever you’ve done in the past – your gender, religion, ethnic background, sexuality or age. It doesn’t matter to me.

I want to give our people the opportunity to be rock stars. There are so many people in the world who have ability but are never given the opportunity to shine.

Then it becomes about the highest quality and the extra mile. These tie together because people will only produce the highest quality and go the extra mile when they are motivated to do so.

The extra mile is a mindset where you are forcing yourself to go further. To get out of your comfort zone. It’s not all about doing more, it’s around training yourself to think outside of your box. It’s about training your brain to see things differently, because you know that you’re not limited by anything.

Obviously, the extra mile creates great results, but it’s about the mindset that comes out of people who are motivated, driven to succeed and to think differently. That creates a process that goes the extra mile.

So, when you take these three things together – people, highest quality and extra mile – you can pretty much change anything you want. I’m not going to try and change the world, but I am committed to changing the industry we’re working in.

If you put all those things together, it’s all about helping our clients – to sell more, better and faster.

So that that was your objective and purpose from day one?

No. when I started, it was all about crunching data better than others. We evolved because a client at the time said we love what you do with the data, but can you have someone calling on the data? So, I hired an agent to make some calls. After about three weeks the client called to say that the calls really weren’t any good. I asked for recording and I was appalled at what I heard. I realised there and then that if I wanted much higher quality, I had to do it myself. Basically, I had to review my mission statement.

I took it on myself. I was buying data and selling data all over the world. I started the day in Japan and ended it in the USA. Every single cent I made was reinvested into the company.

As we grew, I needed an office, I needed desks, computers and phones. We started with two to three people on the phones. That’s how BNZSA started growing and evolving into a call centre based on the highest quality data.

I also began to build up a team of ex-colleagues who started working from their couches and in time relocated to Madrid. They are still with me and are trusted leaders – Cristina Biet, Chief Production Officer, her husband Alex who heads our IT and Gina Goanta who heads data. That was nearly eight years-ago and we’ve been together ever since. We have hired nearly 280 people since then – many are young and enthusiastic, and willing to learn and develop. We also have some ‘grey hairs’ with many years of industry experience. It’s a great mix.

How did you get from the garage in France to Madrid?

Madrid has a good mix of international people with many languages and cultures. It’s an open and welcoming place, and I knew that it's a place where foreigners would want to come to live as we grew. People are happy to come to Madrid for a job, it’s a place to work, not so much to party – but it still has great arts and culture.

Also, my best friend lives in Madrid – so that helped as well. Let’s be clear, it’s not all about the weather either. It’s a nice by-product, but it’s less important, and actually, it gets quite cold here in the winter.

Does Madrid give you a good pool of international talent?

Madrid is excellent for growing a business like BNZSA. There are a lot of ex-pats - which gives us our local language capabilities, and I believe it's comparable with other major European locations.

Right now, if I pooled the salaries that we offer to our people, we are comparable to London or Paris – we’re on par. And because I’m paying people at the level I am, I can attract great talent and compete internationally. For example, when the minimum wage for call centres was increased by about 33 percent a few years ago, we didn’t have to readjust our pay ranges at all.

It‘s about being able to afford to pay people the right amount of money for them to be motivated and focused, happy where they live – so they can easily live the four core values.

You’re a career sales guy. How come you’re leading a marketing agency?

Our biggest strength as a company is that we are not dictated to by the market. We’re not looking at what others are doing. We’re looking at the overall process, and then saying with the eyes of a salesperson – what would I like to change? We’re an agency providing marketing services, but with a very commercially minded approach.

The critical lens is ‘does what we’re doing going to help me sell more, better and faster?’ If the answer is yes, then we should do it. The obsession about sales processes is coming from a sales point of view, not a marketing point of view. I’m a sales guy who has access to a marketing engine. It means that as a company we can easily bridge the gap between marketing and sales. This works well for us as a company, but it also helps our clients.

My focus is foremost about asking what does my client need, and then aligning our skills and offering to meet those needs.

Another important thing about this approach is that we can easily sit down with both the marketing and the sales director. In fact, where we normally begin client relationships with marketing, I always say let’s get everyone around the table so I can fully understand what everyone’s needs are and deliver a solution for the enterprise, not just one function.

BNZSA seems to have carved itself a niche in the agency world. Can you elaborate?

Most agencies are run by the creative guys, the marketing guys or the financial guys. BNZSA is run by a sales guy, so we really do have a deeper and wider perspective on client needs.

Also, it’s important to understand that we are a direct marketing agency. We don’t go up against the creative agencies. We accept that we work in the not-so-glamourous part of marketing. Everybody hates data. Everybody hates cold calling. But that’s the job we’re doing and we’re taking it to a whole new level as we are so specialised in it. And personally, I love data!

Our clients are always telling us ‘we’re getting leads, but the leads aren’t converting’. That’s where we come it. We have weekly calls with our clients’ sales reps where our agents present them with their pipeline. You don’t get more insight than that.

BNZSA is now adding digital to the core telemarketing and data engine. Is BNZSA now going against the digital agencies?

No. The reason to add digital to bring another dimension to our client prospects’ experience with us. To be end-to-end, we need to engage with them digitally as well as on the phone. Plus, our data is so rich, we can ensure that the digital programmes are really relevant and enhance the overall experience with us. We look at the funnel as a whole and need to have everything in-house.

It’s the same when we see how bad other companies are with data or telemarketing. We're bringing the same approach to the highest quality to the whole experience. We don’t force irrelevant content on prospects. We only provide material that’s relevant and useful to them. What we’re doing is powered by real people for real people.

How does BNZSA tie-up the client and prospect’s experience?

That’s the icing on the cake, and really is the BNZSA difference – we call it the 'warm handover'.

Our data team is constantly cleaning the CRM so the insight we have is both the highest compliance, but very rich. We’re engaging digitally and also having many calls with prospects to develop the relationships – understanding and trust. We're informing our clients’ reps on a weekly basis of how their pipelines are developing and then when the time is right, we have what we call a warm handover.

The warm handover is a value-add like no other and ensures that client sales reps and their prospects are a long way down the path to a deal before they ever meet one another.

In researching and engaging with prospects, our agents make many calls into client companies over time. Our teams map buying committees, develop personal relationships, understanding and trust with budget holders, decision makers and influencers. We only host three-way meetings between clients and prospects when we have a complete picture of the sales opportunity – which delivers conversion rates unprecedented in the industry.

You talked about real people working for real people. Can you tell me more about training and development?

The great thing about generating a lot of cash is that we can reinvest it into the business. Training is very important to us because it’s our agents that deliver success for BNZSA and our clients.

For instance, five or six years ago it might take three months for a new agent to be up-to-speed, confident and effective. Now with our investment into on-boarding, that timeframe is more like two weeks. This means that a brand-new agent is contributing almost immediately and is a productive part of the team rather than being a cost to the organisation.

It comes back to always trying to find ways to do things better, faster and more efficiently. It’s back to the core values – take care of the people, they will go the extra mile to deliver the highest quality, and in doing so, we’re changing the industry.

What is it that really motivates you personally?

My personal philosophy is very simple - you can only eat with one spoon at a time. I don’t want four sports cars or seven villas or yachts – or to travel on a private jet. Actually, I would quite like the jet from time to time, but I don’t have to and it’s not good for my carbon footprint!

I’m excited when something contributes to taking us toward my vision for the organisation and how I want the organisation to be. I take a lot of pride when I see people join the company and become incredible at what they do and move up in the business. I’m really proud of the people and the teams that surround me and how they are stepping-up and supporting one another. But I also want everyone who works for BNZSA to be well treated and proud to say they work here. I want them to feel proud of their achievements at BNZSA.

Finally, what vision do you have for BNZSA in say, three to five years?

Simple really. To keep doing what we’re doing. To grow. To live our core values and help our clients to sell more, better and faster.

Case study: ABM demand generation - collaboration software and hardware solution

The campaign has been running for six quarters and has delivered more than 200 leads and more than 12 times return on investment. 

The brief

The client asked BNZSA to help support ambitious sales goals for a collaboration software and hardware solution. Due to the relatively low market awareness of the product, the client tasked us with building a demand pipeline within a target list of 120 accounts, and amongst mid- to large enterprises with a large number of collaboration spaces.

The client had field sales representatives ready to receive high value leads and several resellers available to receive lower value / volume leads. 

BNZSA’s job was to provide qualified leads that met the client’s audience parameters and setting appointments to hand-over the leads to the client’s sales team and resellers. 

Our response

We developed a comprehensive database of target customers and decision-makers that matched the client’s requirements and built a repeatable sales engagement model.

BNZSA agents used client-provided assets such as video content, whitepapers, and solution briefs to engage, educate and sell to more than 2,000 accounts.

Critical to our success was making sure that our team fully understood the solution. To this end we installed a demo area in our office and ensured that our team to make sure that had hands on experience using the technology.