Sales in Source Angel Episode 7 Founders insights on IT in Ukraine

Transcript from the video:

hey guys and welcome to a new episode of
founders insights on IT in Ukraine

where you can follow up on the latest on
development in our little company and

outstaffing and IT called Source Angel
and today I want to talk about one of

the most essential and important parts
of building a company namely sales. it

does not matter how good a product you
have or what kind of services you bring

if you don't sell it then it doesn't go
anywhere you don't have money to hire

people you don't have money to rent an
office you don't basically have anything

so even if you need to have investors
you need to be able to sell I mean sales

is everything and for us it also
actually involves not just sales to

clients but we also need to sell
ourselves towards candidates to be able

to attract the best talent so there are
there are several kinds of sales and

even when we talk about clients there's
both sales for new clients and sales for

existing clients so I would say one of
our problems for me and Henning in Source Angel

is that neither of us is actually
very good at sales we are not good at

cold calling new potential clients that
we don't know already we are not good at

selling at conferences traditionally I
don't know it's not because we are

introvert or something like that but
maybe it's because we are a little bit

not aggressive enough because for us
it's very important that we do not

oversell what we can do it's important
for us that we

do not disappoint our clients so maybe
that's that's something to do with it

and and I think it also due to the fact
that we we are both more kind of

delivery type people that we handle
existing clients very well but to find

new potential clients that has been
a struggle for us and anyway it's super

important to be good at sales
building a business and I want to

mention some of the initiatives we have
been trying out during the last few

years
for instance we hired a team of of lead

generators to simply go on the internet
and all kinds of places to find

potential clients for us there to
initiate talks with them and see if they

were interested in hearing more about
what we could offer and we called that

lead generation team that was one of our
initiatives we then we would get lists

of more qualified leads that we could
follow up we also have tried to push

through social media we hired a social
media person to make advertisement on

on multiple channels on YouTube on
Instagram on LinkedIn on Facebook and so

on I'm doing a YouTube channel now and
not so much to attract clients but it's

more an experiment also to see if we can
promote ourselves being a thought leader

in IT industry in Ukraine to be able to
attract talent to help our recruiters

to sell ourselves as a good company to
work in which is going a well by the way

with this video we are going going to
pass 1000 views we are on

990 right now so yes I fully expect that
we will pass 1000 with this episode so

what else we decided that I went
full-time into the company last summer

also to help with sales of course but
also to help in delivery and we also

have built up a network of what we call
affiliate sales so that is people that

are not on our payroll but with whom we
have a contract stating the terms of

what will be their payment in case they
refer a client to us so we call that

affiliate sales it is no salary but a
purely model where they work on a

commission based salary so if they bring
a client and they start working with us

they get paid if there are no clients
from them no pay it's typically people

that already have a full-time job in and
something else but we have met during

the years and thought that it sounds
like an interesting business that we do

and could see that it's something that
they could make a passive income from so

that that's another initiative we have
and then our biggest investment that we

have done so far in our five years as a
company is that last year in April or

May I think we we felt that we had
enough money to hire a full-time sales

guy a Swedish guy called Joar who
joined us around eight months

ago or something like that and I would
say that if we had the money we would

probably also try to hire dedicated
sales people in the markets that we

target people that could visit potential
clients face to face because in our

opinion it's simply it's a tough market
we are in with IT and outsourcing

and we feel it's very hard actually to
sell this service on the distance so if

we had more money we would probably hire
sales guys locally in the markets so a

little bit about the expectations and
the results of hiring a sales guy and

adding me to the team as well full time
it has not been a roller coaster of

new clients I don't want to hide that
fact but on the other hand I think that

both me and Henning are quite satisfied
with the results so far that we got it's

not because we have closed a lot of
clients during the last eight months I

think we have one or two to be exact and
that doesn't sound like a lot but it

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00:07:34,610 --> 00:07:39,560
takes a lot of time in our business from
the first encounter with the client to

actually close that client and when we
look at our pipeline it has never looked

better so I would expect that during the
next two three months we will close to

three four new clients and we are in the
final negotiations with several of them

so in that way it's it is really a
long-term investment to to hire

salespeople to to get them to understand
what is it that we offer what is the

domain that we are working with in order
for them to start building up a pipeline

so all in all we look at the
future very positively but until we have

the signature until we find the right
people for the client and until they pay

their first invoice we don't know if we
have a client so so let's see and I hope

I can give you updates on that during
the coming months so I want to give a

few examples of how long a process can
actually be last week Henning he gets a

mail from a client that he approached
more than two years ago and suddenly

this guy he has sold a new project
and he needs people he needs two or

three people and it cannot be fast
enough but it's two years since we

talked to this person and now it seems
like we will have a collaboration with

them another one is a client that we
started talking with in April last year

and then we didn't talk for seven eight
months and then suddenly in December he

came back to us and he needed help and
we have been working with him full-time

during January to help him with his
problems and it seems like we will have

long-term term partner here that we will
at least have one guy full-time working

for so again eight nine months from
beginning to actually start working with

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00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:05,709
them and the last one I want to mention
which one is that yeah one of the most

promising leads that we have right now
is a company that we reached out to by

chance we saw that they were looking for
people the next day

we are sitting in a call with them
talking to their lead developer and now

two weeks later we are finalizing the
contract negotiating the details of the

contract and the terms so it's very very
different from two years to eight

months to two weeks so if I should
make some kind of conclusion on sales in

in Source Angel we don't have enough data
to back our structured and unstructured

sales efforts and we don't have a model
for what is working but I want to say

that it's important not to give up it's
it's important to keep trying it's

important to keep the existing client
base happy it's also an

another source of getting good leads
it's taking care of your existing

clients and they can refer you also when
you take good care of them and it's

important to keep them especially when
we see how hard it is to get new clients

it's extremely important to go the extra
mile to keep your existing clients happy

so to wrap this up I want to thank you
for following my YouTube channel to

watch my videos if you have some
insights on sales

maybe you posted in a comment if you
have some questions of sales

put it in a comment and so give me a
like, give me a comment, share it on

social media on Facebook and LinkedIn to
help me grow the channel to get our

brand out in the market the more
attention we get the better chance there

is that we are on a sales call next week
so until next time have a great day

and see you soon!