Before starting her professional journey at Belkins, Valentyna Dervisis worked in the civil service sector and video production industry. “I wanted to work at Belkins so badly I remade my CV several times and approached its creation as if I wrote a full-fledged sales letter. As you can see, it worked!” recalls Valentyna.
She became Belkins’s family member in 2020. In two years, she managed approximately 10 projects. But don’t jump to conclusions about this number: Valentyna builds a connection with her clients so masterfully they stay with her for more than a year. “My secret? Perseverance and consistency. Belkins taught me to do my job flawlessly, steady day after day, regardless of a bad mood or prospects’ rejections. I believe it is important to find the inner strength to overcome failures, consistently move on, and grow, testing different approaches.”
Brief Overview
An SDR Team Lead, Valentyna Dervisis, recalls one of the most challenging projects in her work practice. Discover how she and her team managed lead generation and appt setting for a Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) company, what obstacles she encountered, and how her hard work came to full fruition.
Project
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What was the project you were working on?
I would like to tell you about my 2-year partnership with the WSO2 company. It provides Customer Identity and Access Management services and API Management & Integration solutions. What was my knowledge of CIAM and API management before leading this project? Zero. Luckily, Belkins’s developers and my colleague Volodymyr Budko arranged a brief lecture about this concept leaving no unanswered questions.
The understanding of WSO2 specifics let my team figure out the preliminary ICP. We started targeting massive companies from the healthcare sector, but it was just the beginning of a big, exciting lead generation journey.
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What was the biggest challenge?
I think Belkins speed to projects and high-quality work is no secret. However, in this case, things happened disparately another way.
Initially, there was a strong feeling that the project would fail and the client would churn in 3 months. We could not fulfill the KPIs, and our emails were constantly hitting spam folders, so obviously, the client’s team was not happy. But two months later, we started to gain traction and saw the first signs of improvement. The client closed one of the deals, and we managed to convince them to expand into other industries and regions.
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What solutions helped you to overcome it?
The answer is the tried-and-true approach. We targeted regions like Asia, New Zealand, and Australia until we discovered one that brought tangible results of our hard work. Then, we tested dozens of niches like education, banking, and retail. We created unique email templates for each of them, constantly improving messages and letter elements.
Asian region turned out to be the most perspective: Our outreach campaigns received the highest rates, and we booked meetings thick and fast. We persuaded WSO2 to stick to this region, which was a complete win.
By the way, the company organized numerous webinars where it presented its products and services. I found them really helpful on my way to understanding the market peculiarities and adjusting the ICP.
Eventually, our decision to change the approach and expand to the Asian market resulted in appointment rate growth from 3 to 10-20 monthly meetings. Such progress was fantastic and definitely strengthened our relationship with the partner.
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Explain the technical aspects in detail: how to resolve this problem?
It was also empirically found that everything rests on the volume of sent letters in this particular project. We engaged the second SDR, Vlad Bozhenko, created 20 mailboxes, and set the daily limit to 200 emails from each mailbox (it was 4,000 letters per day in total).
Also, there were some issues with the schedule and prospecting due to our focus on the Asian zone. So I could start the appointments on time, my working day should have begun at 7 or 8 a.m. In addition, the research team struggled with finding leads fast in Asian countries due to the language barrier.
Still, they never stopped their search and did an outstanding job: They found enough leads to reach the quota and were qualified to be turned into appointments.
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What knowledge helped you in resolving the issue?
The understanding of sticking to one approach is a dead end. If your initial method doesn’t work, you cannot hope for a miracle. Only adapting and expanding your strategy will result in growth – proven by hundreds of projects.
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Are there any exceptions to this method?
In my opinion, the tactic we applied to WSO2 won’t fit small companies operating in local markets.
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What would you recommend to users facing similar issues?
Chin up! Never stop trying new methods, and keep communicating with your client to find common ground and mutual growth points.
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What did your typical day working on this project look like?
My working day started early in the morning and ended at midnight. In the first half of the day, I checked responses from the Asian leads. After that, I dedicated the rest of the day to the North American prospects. The most time-consuming process was when the targeted leads forwarded us to the real decision-makers.
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Choose a metaphor to describe the project in one sentence.
I have never failed; I just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.
