​- Hey everyone, I have Peter Iansek here with me today from Operative Intelligence. He’s gonna be sharing a little bit more about himself. He’s working together on the B2B lead machines, his results and a little bit more about his business and who he helps. So thanks so much for joining us today, Peter.

– My pleasure. Happy to be here around, thank you.

– Awesome. Well, can you start by telling us a little bit about your business and who you help?

– Sure, so Operative Intelligence is a new insight solution for contact centers. What we do is we help them get to the real reasons why their customers are calling, specifically the root cause of why customers make contact. And we help them understand in a really easy to understand way, what are all of the things that they can do to systematically improve their customer experience, people performance and operational efficiency. We launched in January of 2020, and we’re headquartered in Los Angeles in the US and Melbourne, Australia.

– Awesome, awesome. Aussie company making it big in the USA?

– That’s the plan.

– Sweet, that’s what I like to hear, cool. And how did you first hear about, I guess us, b2bleads.com?

– Well, LinkedIn of course. I think you actually reached out to my co-founder James and he thought it was worth having a conversation. But we’d been having some discussions in kind of the weeks and months leading up to you, getting in context. So yeah, it was great timing and that’s where it all started.

– Yeah, yeah. It’s quite interesting, like oftentimes, I mean, most of my clients I do meet on LinkedIn and they often say, you know, I get these messages all the time but for some reason I just paid attention this time round. So, I think I was just lucky with James at time round, got him at the right time and yeah, and then here we are.

– Yeah, well look, I think I probably get about 15 LinkedIn requests a day and I still think looking back, if I’d got your message versus James, I probably would have responded cause your messaging did stand out. I remember kind of reviewing what you asked James about, so I’m kind of just props to you there.

– Awesome, well that’s fantastic to here. That’s what I like to hear. And I guess before starting working together, what was the situation? I know you’d been trying cold email outreach and cold calling as well.

– Yeah, so we started, as I mentioned at the start of last year, which was pre-pandemic week. We signed up our first customer in the US in all about five minutes, you know, so I thought kind of going into the year was, we’re just gonna absolutely crush it with sales, all of our sales are gonna be as easy as the first one, but what we kind of found was, we went after cold emailing and cold calling as a kind of primary way to engage prospects and get them to have a conversation with us. To cut a long story short, it was just a lot of work, you know. Identifying the prospects, accessing their information, programming CRMs, like executing all of that was just… It took a long time, it was very tedious, and ultimately it was just very low yields. You know, out of all of that work over a period of six months, I think we probably needed on average like one booking a month. You know, which for us and just the way that the sales funnel works wasn’t sufficient, and ultimately we’re in a situation where we just couldn’t consistently build pipeline where we’re having kind of consistent conversations with prospects and getting them to a point whether we’re gonna become a customer of ours.

– Yeah, and I guess by comparison to the work that we’ve done together?

– I mean, it’s really kind of not in day, to be honest. You know, I think the B2B Leads Program and kind of leveraging the tolls, it’s probably a 95% reduction just in terms of manual administration. You know, everything from setup to maintenance. Most importantly within the first week of launching on the B2B Leads Program, we had pipeline. I think we had something to the tune of like a 10% response rate, and we were able to get out to a lot more prospects, but instantly, essentially there was no kind of header or delay. We where we’re waiting to kind of figure out how we’re gonna reach those certain individuals. And ultimately within the first two weeks of using the B2B Leads Program, not only did we have pipeline and we’re having consistent conversations with customers, but we actually landed our first customer who’s kind of one of our landmark customers here in the US that we’ve got a kind of a big partnership with, I mean 2021 and moving forward as well. So that was just an awesome, an awesome resolve.

– Sweet, that’s fantastic. Remember your saying you’ve gotten some pretty big leads as well. Like someone at Samsung was it, or there were some… I know there were some, maybe we can’t mention them here, but I know you mentioned there was some big multi-billion dollar type executives and stuff you’re getting on calls with.

– Yeah, we’ve had really phenomenal access to… I mean, very, very large kind of multi-billion dollar revenue companies that is, and not kind of just assets under management. Were we’re essentially speaking, but the decision maker or a step below a decision maker. So in terms of access, quality of leads, that’s been phenomenal. The reality is that, now that we’ve kind of growing our customer base and having more of these conversations, we’ve really identified that these people are kind of getting hit with all by grade between 300 to 500 emails a day. So being outta kind of reach them in a channel where they’re active, they’re listening and they’re engaging was just, super critical for us. And we’re really kind of set us up for success, longer term, being able to get in front of these types of people, not only in terms of connecting with them, but having them as a part of our network and our audience as we’re able to showcase the work that we’re doing with existing customers to prospects.

– Yeah, awesome. And what I was gonna ask as well is what… I mean these people are getting hit from every angle, what is it that you think helped you guys stand out from everyone else?

– I think there was just kind of a big part of your… The B2B Leads course that I wasn’t expecting, which really got into kind of the psychology of sales and the types of, you know, I guess flags or proof points or the way that you present yourself is really, really critical. So, for us and to answer your question, I think it was a couple of things. I think one thing was the kind of the clarity and the clarity of the messaging and the tone of the messaging was really important. Not only has it stood out, it’s like, that’s been said to me multiple times. Like your message really jumped out at me. I’ve also been complimented on the sales style as well as being kind of not pushy, which I think people engage with. I think in addition to the messaging, which was something that I was kind of concerned about before starting the program, how we would be able to really kind of boil that down to some key value propositions and kind of laid the hooks or points, was just kind of building up the profile. So, in a number of instances before I’ve even messaged someone as a part of the outreach, they’ll actually proactively re-chat after the connection request and say, “Hey, I checked out your company, I’d love to have a conversation.” And that’s purely because we built up the profile to essentially be like a marketing one pager on what it is we do, how it can help folks. So I think just the combination of those, kind of simple things, but doing it the right way and in an authentic way, that kind of touches on customer problems is really allowed us to get traction with these prospects and customers that we’re working with.

– Yeah, and what I really love about what you guys are doing is, is it is very… You know the problem that you solve and you know, you understand it and you have a good strong offer. So, I mean, for anyone watching this video I recommend checking out Paydays company, having a look cause it’s a great example of what to do right, and it’s also a great company. So definitely worth checking out as well and if you know anyone then to to share and tell them about Operative Intelligence too, of course.

– Yeah, thanks Ryan. Look, I think everyone that’s ever called the contact center whether it’s your bank or insurance company, you probably found that you’re navigating through an environment that makes no sense to you, but makes a lot of sense to those internal people. And that’s really the shift that we’re trying to drive to make those types of operations and businesses really kind of designed around the needs of what customers are asking them to do, so that it’s easier for customers, it’s more efficient for the business which means kind of happier people. But yeah, I appreciate the feedback on Operative Intelligence.

– No worries, happy to. I guess final question is, what would you say to anyone thinking about joining the B2B Lead Machine Program?

– I’d say just go forward. If you’ve got conviction in your product or your service, your passionate about it, this is just a phenomenal way to help bring it to market, which from what we’ve learned is the hardest thing in a business. We run a pretty complex technology product and organization, so, have sales bringing in customers is one thing that a company can’t live without, and B2B Leads has been a phenomenal help for us and as well as everyone else that Ryan’s working with. So, definitely recommend it, check out the program. There’s a lot more that we learned as we kind of dug in. You know, you’ll learn not only about how to use some really cool tools that Ryan’s developed it, how to get your mindset right, what’s the way to communicate, how to think about sales is kind of a holistic process. So, it’s more than just outcomes. It’s a lot of learning along the way that will really help your business as you start hiring people and growing. So yeah, thanks Ryan, it’s been great.

– Right, pleasure. Thanks so much Peter and yeah, it was a pleasure catching up with you today. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. As always, I know you’re a business owner and your time is very valuable. So thank you so much for sharing and joining me today.

– My pleasure Ryan, thanks so much. Happy to chat.

– Awesome. Thanks Peter, bye.

– Bye Ryan.