Chasing New Logos: Essential but Exhausting

We’ve been around for nineteen years. Three and a half years ago, we chose to reinvent ourselves. Part of that process is to increase new clients who need something a bit different from the past. It’s important to grow with our current clients. We also need to bring in new logos from our new offerings. We started a team that focuses on “hunting” new logos about nine months ago. Currently, there are two account executives on this team.  We have learned a lot in nine months.

We provide managed IT services, consulting, and scalable technology platforms. This helps clients move faster, reach further, and operate securely. People sometimes find us by searching for these services. More often, we get referrals or connect with them through our outreach efforts.

As a leader of an organization, I’m constantly prospected. Some of the messaging I receive via email is so generic and unrelated to anything I need that I pay zero attention. Some messages are awful. They only promote the organization selling the service or solution. Others are decent and focused on my problem. That said, I’m inundated with so much that the decent is oftentimes overlooked. We focus our messaging on prospects by following the pain and painkiller method. We highlight their issues (the pain), show how we fix them, and explain the benefits from our solutions (the painkiller). I suspect that the sheer overwhelm often prevents people from consuming the messaging.

When is the last time you answered a phone call from a number that was unknown that came in to you? As a CEO and owner of a firm, at times I do get relevant calls that are from numbers not known to me, but rarely. Most calls that come from random numbers are scams or solicitations. I look through the last week of calls, and on average I get 5 calls a day from an unknown number. Most people are not someone I want to talk to. Our team is making about 700 outbound calls each week. We reach out to people who likely have the problem we can solve. Often, those people have gotten an email from us, or visited our website or social media pages. In general, we get very few answers, and of those answers we convert about one percent to a next meeting. It’s exhausting for the team, but there is some success.

Let’s talk about LinkedIn for a moment. This used to be a great forum for professionals. They could connect, stay in touch, and learn about new offerings. I’m not clear what happened, but the effectiveness seems to have really dropped. I can’t recall the last time I got a good message on LinkedIn. I often see messages like, “We can 5x your sales pipeline in 90 days using AI, ads, and personalized outreach.” Another favorite is, “Are you available for a quick call next Tuesday at 11:30 AM to discuss how we can position…” I have empathy for those sending these messages (at least the ones that are really trying to be relevant). We are trying to do the same thing, so I do try to pay more attention to something that is actually decent. But, it’s all terrible. I’ve noticed that our direct messaging on LinkedIn gives us the least return. I understand why.

So where does this leave us? Realistically, we are seeing some results. From the outbound, we are achieving some success. To give some perspective, we had around 3,500 outbound efforts last month. Those efforts resulted in 42 conversations (1.2% success). Those conversations resulted in 7 further conversations. Those 7 conversations created a real opportunity for 6 of them. A lot of effort for a small result. Or maybe it’s the norm for today? We continue to push forward.

To contrast all this, let’s discuss referrals. We don’t use our relationships enough. However, when we do, the data reveals a different outcome. When we receive a direct referral, we usually close around 50% of those chances. The challenge lies in getting enough referrals to make a difference. The action we need to take here is to formalize our referral program. I find sellers have a fear of asking for referrals. I’m not clear why.

In the nine months we have been hunting, we are getting results. We have a large pipeline and we are closing deals. We keep tweaking and improving the program, messaging, and approach. We keep asking ourselves what to improve.  Is it our method, our material, or who we are pursuing? How can we keep our team’s energy up and spirits high while we achieve small, but meaningful results?

For many years, we have grown our business by focusing on expanding within clients. Changing our focus to get serious about new clients has been challenging. We believe it will be successful and lead to a different kind of growth. I thrive on challenge and there are no shortages of those as an entrepreneur. This challenge is definitely teaching me it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. I need to be patient and keep paying attention to the data. At this time, we have landed seven new clients. We are grateful for those wins. We are expecting many more in the future.

What tips do you have for effectively bringing in new clients?