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.

Basware and BNZSA: An Outsourced BDR Programme That Delivers the Goods – Year-In, Year-Out

Background - About Basware

Basware is a global leader in providing networked purchase-to-pay solutions and e-invoicing services with operations in 14 countries. Its cloud-based technology enables organisations to fully manage their spend, mitigate financial risk and reduce the cost of operations via automation. The company markets its solutions to an international audience of enterprise level companies.  

The Brief - Establishing Outsourced Business Development

In March 2018, Basware asked BNZSA to support its German inside sales team with lead generation through outsourced business development using external Business Development Representatives (BDRs). At the time, Basware needed to generate more qualified leads for its team and needed to ramp-up capacity in a flexible way. It also wanted its sales team to focus on what they do best – convert leads from above the funnel marketing campaigns via a leading-edge Account Based Marketing approach.

The Solution - Trust, Collaboration and Intimacy

In order for the outsourced BDR programme to be successful, BNZSA agents had to become experts in Basware’s eProcurement solutions, and over time, have become intimate with the client teams – so the lines between client and agency are almost non-existent. Both companies have completely aligned their ways of working to the point where BNZSA’s BDRs are fully integrated into Basware’s field marketing efforts.

To make the handover process seamless, BNZSA integrated its CRM system with Basware’s to enable leads to flow directly between the companies. But it’s not just a data exchange; it’s a lot more personal. Each lead generated is personally introduced by the BNZSA agent to their counterpart at Basware via the ‘warm handover’ a value-add like no other in the industry. The BNZSA agents map buying committees, develop personal relationships, understanding and trust with budget holders, decision makers and influencers. They only host three-way meetings between Basware reps and their prospects when there is a complete picture of the opportunity.


Results - Delivering Incremental Value and MQLs

Now, three years later, BNZSA is providing outsourced BDR support to Basware in five regions – DACH, Benelux, Scandinavia, France, UK & Ireland – with a team of seven BDRs. The BNZSA team consistently delivers above expectations to ensure quarterly targets are not just met but routinely exceeded.

Indeed, in Q1 2021 BNZSA team members serving the Dutch, French and UK markets received Basware awards for sales excellence – awards usually reserved for inside sales team members only.

Awards for BNZSA's outsourced BDR team


"The relationship between Basware and BNZSA is very close and very intense," said Chris Blake, Vice President of Field Marketing, Basware. "We expect best-of-breed deliverables and exemplary service from our partners. The BNZSA team is strongly focused on our products and on client service. Our colleagues at BNZSA are collaborative with our teams, and the level of intimacy is such that every Basware regional team feels that they are working with a local agency. They are flexible, but most of all, they are focused on business outcomes and the bottom line."

BNZSA Appoints Seasoned IT B2B Sales and Marketing Leader Paul Briggs as Director, Global Corporate Development

Leading European B2B IT sales and marketing agency, BNZSA, has appointed Paul Briggs as Director of Global Corporate Development to augment its management team and accelerate its hypergrowth trajectory.

BNZSA is one of Europe’s largest B2B marketing agencies and specialises in tele-based demand generation services with more than 100 clients which include Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Juniper Networks, Oracle, Samsung and SAP. The company is in a period of sustained growth, recording 274 percent year-on-year revenue growth in Q2 2021 and is forecasting more than 300 percent annual revenue growth by year-end.

Briggs has more than two decades of experience in B2B technology starting as a journalist, then becoming a publisher for leading US, UK and European IT trade publications.

After leaving publishing, Briggs set up his own consultancy business to help marketing, media and technology companies develop a presence in EMEA and APAC and implement successful go-to-market strategies – organically, via partnerships and through mergers and acquisitions.

“I’m extremely excited to welcome Paul to the team – especially at this time of hypergrowth for the company,” said Brahim Samhoud, CEO of BNZSA. “His extensive experience in business development will help us make the right strategic alliances to extend our value proposition to clients as well as furthering our geographical and vertical reach.”

Briggs began his career as a journalist for Computer Business Review and has written for and edited many leading European IT titles within VNU Business Publications, Ziff-Davis, IDG and Reed Business Information. He later became the publisher of leading trade publications including ComputerWorldUK and Computer Weekly. 

Briggs set up his consulting business, Media Mantra in 2011. One of his first clients was Madison Logic where he was responsible for its EMEA business and then as an employee the General Manager of its EMEA and APAC business. At a Madison Logic he was one of the first suppliers to offer customers content syndication based on intent data. He also helped roll-out an automated platform for account-based marketing. Briggs then moved on to performing a similar pan-European General Manager role at Selling Simplified.

“I’ve worked with BNZSA since its inception and have developed close professional ties with many of the team over the last eight years,” Briggs added. “I’m thrilled to be joining the organisation in a period of rapid growth and innovative development. I’m looking forward to devoting a lot more of my time to growing the BNZSA partnership ecosystem to accelerate its international growth.”

BNZSA in Numbers

About BNZSA

BNZSA is a leading EMEA marketing agency specialising in demand generation services 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.

Contact

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

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.

How Data Enrichment Can Generate Better Leads

Gina Goanta, Chief Data Officer, BNZSA

Data enrichment is an often-overlooked area of B2B marketing strategy. But why? It’s time consuming and doesn’t give the adrenalin hits of getting straight out in the market. But without it your marketing, business development and sales teams will really miss out.

Enriched data can give you:

What is data enrichment?

Depending on the dataset you’re starting out with, it simply means adding additional data to your list of key accounts that will support your efforts from the prospecting stage through to sale.

Best practices for data enrichment

How we can help with data enrichment

AI in B2B lead generation: the search for intelligent life

Along with the Internet of Things, 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other nascent technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a cornerstone of the 4th Industrial Revolution. 

AI has evolved from the whimsical, yet engaging Cortana, virtual assistant to the Master Chief of the Halo Xbox gaming franchise of my youth, to be something far more real and indeed powerful. It’s touching all aspects of our business and personal lives from scientific and pharmaceutical discovery, enhancing manufacturing processes, to understanding financial risk and managing debt. Or as IBM puts it – "AI has moved from science fiction to business fact."

Much has been written and said in praise of AI and its myriad applications – and rightly so. But I want to explore if AI will revolutionise B2B sales, and is it ultimately a usurper of humankind in this space?

The evolution of sales

Data – its collection, storage, verification and classification – lies at the heart of B2B and B2C sales and marketing. Fundamental to the ultimate success of any campaign is the accuracy and richness of the data held on potential customers, with insights into their needs and intentions. In theory, this should enable agents to target their out-bound pitching far more accurately by tailoring propositions to a buyer’s needs – thus, improving campaign performance and delivering more personalised customer journeys and experiences.

Digital transformation has been on the agenda for B2B sales and marketers for decades – and has only been accelerated in recent months as a consequence of Covid-19. Firms reacting quickly to the “new normal” have had to identify new ways to communicate with customers and stakeholders – with the result of considerably boosting digitisation processes.

As a consequence of this acceleration, AI is fast underpinning companies’ CRM systems.

A hitherto dormant class outside of the lab, AI is rapidly emerging as a high growth and high value category with a number of potential applications in B2B sales.

AI can be used by sales leaders to forecast demand; to better understand customers through analytics; it can help agents focus on the best prospects; and automate routine sales activities like setting-up meetings.

AI solutions - fit for purpose, but is this enough?

There are many vendors and AI applications in the B2B sales space – which include analytics, lead generation and predictive scoring, chatbots, automation, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and account-based marketing (ABM). 

Analytics vendors like Qymatix and Zilliant help to deliver insights about customer’s likelihood to buy, and those who might defect. They may also identify cross- and up-selling opportunities, price intelligence and lead scoring.

WotNot is a chatbot that claims to be able to start the conversation with prospects, ask relevant questions, offer value, and deliver qualified leads to sales teams.

People.ai and Expert Systems use NLP technology to track prospects and customers across multiple accounts and ensure that the right contacts and activities are matched correctly in the CRM. 

Cognism is built to target customers and improve lead quality with real-time data, while Leadfeeder automatically scores leads and alerts agents when companies visit client websites. 

Affinity claims to be able to help agents identify prospects that are best suited to make the crucial introductions to infuencers and decision makers. And AI-powered ABM tools can help sales agents target the right prospect. 

And that’s only a quick taster of what’s out there.

OK. That’s a lot of great stuff that can only make the lives of sales and marketing a lot easier – and revenue officers a lot happier. Right? Maybe…

The human touch - the authentic and really intelligent bit

The key question for me is  – are these amazing technologies interoperable – or rather, does it all glue together? Can I get a fully joined-up AI solution from one vendor? Or at least – can easily integrate one or two and get the full value that I am looking for? It would seem not, and there isn’t a single overarching offering that truly answers all the needs of B2B sales teams today. 

That’s, of course, because the algorithms that power AI applications are only built for a single purpose. As yet, AI can’t multi-task. To put it another way, AI designed to beat Garry Kasparov at chess can’t do something a lot easier like play noughts and crosses.

Clearly there’s a need for varying degrees of customisation of ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions. But even with perfect customisation I passionately believe there is no digital solution that can fully replace people.

Simply, the two can and should co-exist.

My company BNZSA is a leading European marketing agency that specialises demand generation for some of the world’s most recognised IT brands. We have a team of more than 160 who are experts in delivering qualified, sales-ready leads. We invest heavily in our sales representatives who are all native language speakers and can deliver client campaigns in 14 languages across EMEA. We invest in technology too!

Our teams cannot succeed without state-of-the art technology to underpin, assist and enhance their human touch. But we always need to customise. For instance, we are building our own CRM platform because no CRM on the market allows us to capture the depth of data we need. Within the CRM is our customised AI – adapted from Expert Systems’ Cogito.

Cogito is made for text analysis and translation to speech. It was the best solution for our multi-lingual international team – but we did need to pop open the bonnet and make some tweaks to turbocharge the engine’s performance.

To be brutally honest, when we started on our AI vendor assessment, we found that all the solutions on the market fell short in one way or another.

What we learned

Happily, with a bit of work – the Pimp My Ride bit – we now have AI embedded into our CRM to really deliver tangible benefits. 

First and foremost, our AI ensures full regulatory and legal compliance around issues like GDPR. It also ensures the we operate to the highest ethical standards. Yes, ethical AI really is a reality.

At the same time, we are enriching the information we hold on contacts by dynamically searching for and feeding in public information – like companies’ financial statements, business development announcement and deal histories. This means that we know a contact who has recently made, say, a significant SAP investment isn’t a viable lead for a competitive Oracle solution.

Our AI enhances and speeds-up targeted client campaigns because its natural language capability is constantly gathering unstructured data from our campaign activity and turning it into useable insights.

This in turn improves campaign targeting and efficiency. That is to say that we can spend more time focussing our campaigns on buyers who are likely to be in market and less time manually processing data or even worse – using a campaign scatter gun approach.    

The human / AI interface also improves our overall offering to clients as what we learn in executing Campaign A continually improves the database thereby enriching Campaign B, C, D etc.

Well informed sales teams make for a better prospect experience, which in turn has the softer, but no less important consequence of maintaining and maybe enhancing client reputations – while quickly and effectively delivering qualified leads to in-house sales teams.

In conclusion

• AI vendors serving B2B sales and marketeers must practice what ‘we’ preach. Vendors need to be more responsive to our needs and provide us with rapid, low touch customisation.

• For AI in the B2B space to truly work, it’s essential to find the right blend of automisation and human intervention. One cannot cancel out the other. People and machines can and should co-create campaign success together.

• Never forget that people ultimately make it happen. Don’t over digitise at the expense of the human touch – however sentient our artificial friends become.