Andrey Voropaev, TriLan: “In 40 years, business is just beginning”
Hello! Today you will find a success story and a tour of the office of the company “TriLan” .
Andrey Voropayev, the general director of TriLan, my today's guest, modestly calls himself an old man in this business. It is believed that digital - the case of young. Indeed, the age of most of the leaders of Russian agencies and studios barely falls to thirty years. And they started, just looking up from the school bench.
Andrei founded “TriLan” at a quite conscious age, having entrepreneurial experience in other industries behind his back. His energy can only envy. And he completely breaks the stereotype about age by digital standards.
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And I was impressed by one characteristic trait of Andrei (pay attention when you read the interviews). It combines a hot, young purposefulness (“I want him to become my client, that means he will become”) and wise patience that helps to wait for the achievement of these goals. A rare combination of qualities.
- Andrei, tell us, what is TriLan company today?
- December 15, 2015 we are 15 years old. What have we come to over the years? We are a full-service digital agency, or “one window”, we are no longer seen separately as an SEO company or a web-studio, namely, as a player in the complex services market. We perform both individual services - website development, search engine optimization, launch of contextual advertising, and a whole range of activities to promote business on the Internet. Now we have about 94 - 97 employees.
From the inside, a company is a designer, a set of different legal entities in different countries. In addition to Russia, we have separate legal entities in Ukraine, Montenegro, and Cyprus.
- Why so many foreign legal entities, you have a lot of international clients? Is the digital market in Montenegro really not occupied by local players?
- Honestly, opening a business there, I made a mistake in the calculations. We hoped to work with local companies, but the calculations were not justified. Montenegrin market was absolutely uninteresting. But we were lucky, we quickly reoriented. Now our clients in Montenegro are mainly Russian companies. A few years ago in Montenegro there was a peak demand for real estate. Many Russian businessmen bought housing there and moved for six months to the sun. And we were in a good position. We focused on this audience, and it turned out that it was very comfortable for them to work with us - to solve business problems within walking distance from the beach.
But in a situation with other offices, advantages are different. When working with international companies, a flexible financial system is a very important factor. Someone convenient to pay in dollars, someone in the euro. To make it convenient to settle accounts with customers, we opened companies abroad.
- How many offices do you have in Russia? Are there regional offices?
- Now we have two offices - in Moscow and Vologda. In Vologda there is a production team, as they say, whose activities we are now turning off. Now the Vologda office itself has been liquidated, part of the staff continues to work remotely with us, part of the team moved to Moscow.
How did it happen? 5 years ago we opened a regional office. At that time, the web development market in Vologda was empty. As is often the case in the regions, those experts who were interested in web-production - layout, design, programming - either left the region or worked remotely. There were practically no large companies. We appeared very on time and got the people we needed.
However, in five years the market has changed a lot. Many companies have appeared in our segment, competition for specialists has increased, the average level of salaries has approached Moscow. At the same time, our production facilities also grew, entire departments appeared, and remote management became too expensive.
As of March 2015, we had 57 people in Vologda and about 40 employees in Moscow.
This painful situation lasted from last year. We understood that Vologda had become dear to us, but did not know where to go. We developed two strategic directions: dragging all strong specialists to Moscow or finding another suitable region. Our requirements for the region sounded more like an impossible dream: a lot of trained IT personnel, their cost is lower than in Moscow, and a small distance from the capital. Honestly, we ourselves did not believe that such an “IT-paradise” could be found.
And quite by chance I met one company. We started to communicate, then we tried to outsource projects to them. Now it seems optimal to us such a scheme of work, in which we do not fully contain the remote team, but still we have economic relations between us and they have a certain degree of freedom. We have an excellent managerial experience, and they have a large number of developers and SEOs.
Now, while the terms of the transaction are in the negotiation stage, I can say that we see certain advantages in associations and alliances, but this process is not easy. Follow our news until we are ready for loud announcements.
- Andrei, are you from Moscow?
- Yes, I am a native Muscovite. Born here and raised. My parents are land reclamations, so as a child I traveled to many Eastern countries. And then he graduated from the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman, the Faculty of Informatics and Management, specialty IU2 Instruments and systems of orientation, stabilization and navigation.
- How did you get into digital business? What influenced the decision to engage in this activity?
- In fact, by the standards of the digital-market, I am already old. I am 43 years old. I got into this industry not immediately after graduation, but after a long search for myself. And it started not from web development, as it usually happens, but from SEO.
Education was chosen by my parents. I was considered a techie. In 1989-1990, when I entered the institute, I had an absolutely clear idea of what my future would look like. I was preparing to go to work in the defense industry, there was a research institute ahead. We even had an increased scholarship - 70 rubles, when all the other 40. It was a grant from the Ministry of Defense. But by the end of the university I had nowhere to work, the system collapsed. Came the need to look for opportunities for earnings.
At my most active age, 20-30 years old, I tried many lessons. Even before the university, I became interested in programming and in the first year I wrote my theses for graduates. He collected computers and sold them, published a newspaper, worked in printing and advertising agency, and sold software.
They say that a successful business is the seventh in a row. I did it. The company “TriLan” became the seventh business that I launched in 2000.
- Where did you get your first customers?
- To answer this question, you need to tell the background. In 1999, I got into a startup, where I led the team. From the very beginning, the relationship with the owner, we have developed not entirely transparent. He wanted to develop the first release, show it to major shareholders from England and resell with a terrible margin. I learned about this much later. In reality, I listened to lectures that we need to work more, because as soon as we lift the product, everything will be very cool.
After people came from London, looked at the product and did not buy anything, the owner of this business quickly turned off all activities, abandoned the team, stopped paying. I found myself in a very ugly situation: with uncertainty, a large team on my hands and without money. We tried to independently promote this product. But nothing happened. At that moment, several active guys gathered around me, and one of them brought information about a new fashionable service - SEO promotion, which is easy to understand, but it will soon become very popular. We decided to go in for SEO.
I rushed to sell and even convinced the first client - a branch of the company in which my brother worked, taking as much as $ 150 in prepayment. But by that time, all startup employees had run away. It turned out that there was no one to do this project. Money Spent. I myself did not understand what to do. It was necessary either to give money or to provide a service. And I chose the latter. Trudging through the subtleties of SEO, after a while it dawned on me how it works. I have successfully completed the job.
I began to tell absolutely everyone what SEO is and why the future lies with it. At meetings with classmates, classmates and friends. I recalled Rodion from the movie “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears,” who claimed that in a few years there would be nothing left but television.
- And many customers brought such promotion?
- I can not say that a lot, but the orders were. However, very soon I lost interest in the process itself and was interested in it only in terms of regular income. One of the clients called me to the meeting and said: “We pay you $ 300, but not all the words are in the top. We decided to motivate you. Now we will pay $ 50 for each top word. ” And I paid 250 dollars. It really hurt me. I set a goal to get much more money from this client.
At that moment I started to create a company. Negotiations, meetings took a lot of time. It was necessary to share powers. I found a partner with whom we entered into a gentlemen’s agreement that I dedicate him to the mystery of SEO, share technologies, he begins to engage in production, and I sell. At the same time, he does not use his knowledge on the side. Our close bond still exists. Maxim Ryzhov is my partner and co-owner of the company.
- It turns out that the company has two owners?
- Now we are majority shareholders, but we still have minority shareholders from employees. But then we still did not feel like owners. I attracted clients, Maxim was engaged in production, finance and accounting, as he is a very scrupulous person. We also had a third friend who was very active in the life of the company.
At some point, we have accumulated a certain amount, about 600 dollars. We could take 200 dollars or invest them in the start of the company. The third comrade refused, saying that he was ready to invest his knowledge, but not money. And took his part. And we with Maxim left our share and became officially co-owners of the company.
- Andrew, tell me whether you manage to delegate the sales process?
- Historically, it so happened that for a very long time I actively participated in all sales personally. But then I realized that I need to build a process where I can indirectly participate. It is impossible to embrace all areas of business, even if you have tremendous experience and knowledge.
Recently I was asked to comment on Pavel Trubetskov’s article “Where does a young studio get adequate clients?” , And I said the same thing: you can’t try to do everything yourself. It is important to understand what you are strong at, and for the rest to hire people who are more experienced than you in the necessary competencies.
So I started looking for the right people. By the way, I always had a clear idea of what kind of specialist I needed, and I already knew these people in person for work in other projects. I have never engaged in aggressive huntig, but always kept them in sight. If the direct approach “I want you to work with us” did not go through, I took a waiting position and looked for the right moment when the employee was already psychologically ready to change jobs. Anyway, this man turned out to be my employee. It happened to my brother, whom I had been persuading for three years to come to me. He is currently leading production and sales of web development.
We share sales in SEO, contextual advertising, Internet marketing and sales in web development.
I can describe my technology for working with the sales department in three steps.
Step 1. Proper selection of people. We need to find those who want to sell and who have this talent. Patiently wait for them, and then give the opportunity to be realized and earn money.
Step 2. Proper transfer of knowledge. Mentoring, product training.
Step 3. Ability to release people on time. Salespeople burn out very quickly, their priorities change, they like to move from company to company. In addition, someone catches a stellar disease and begins to tinker, and someone can do much more, but he has to constantly withdraw himself from the comfort zone, and he finds himself at the limit of possibilities. Therefore, it is necessary to correctly understand when a person needs to be released further.
- How many people do you have in the sales department?
- Our sales department consists of 5 people. But they handle not all leads, but only those that hit our CRM. We have filters at the entrance, by which we select interesting leads. Those that pass these filters, are got in CRM.
- And what is this filter by which you filter out customers?
- This is something like a check list. Cheat Sheet with points, which is used to evaluate the incoming application. For example, whether a letter came from a corporate mail or not, whether a tender is being arranged, etc. If the application scores 100 points, it falls into CRM.
- And who conducts the assessment? A separate lead evaluator?
- This is a quality manager. We have such a post. We regularly interview our clients and those who did not become them for satisfaction with the quality of service. Even if for some reason the client did not begin to work with us, the quality manager enters him into the category of contacts and after a certain time asks to evaluate the work with us: the manager who communicated with him and our commercial proposal. In parallel, the task of this specialist is the primary processing of incoming applications.
- Now you are talking about applications from the mail site. And how are the leads estimated by phone? Is it difficult to pass your filters? And why do we need such a strict screening system for clients, do you not lose at the same time?
- By the way, the easiest way to go through all the filters is just to call and explain in detail what you want. (Smiles.) In fact, these filters are needed in order to determine the adequacy of the client.
Although in the development of the agency it is important to reach a level where you choose with whom you will work. All players will confirm that in our market there are a lot of unprepared people who have to spend enormous efforts, proving the need and cost of services in vain. Also, we are not ready to go to Tmutarakan to sell the project.
But this does not mean that we only work with large capital businesses and their experienced brand managers. We proceed from the fact how comfortable the relationship between us and the client is and whether it turns out to be mutually beneficial for us to develop. We have very diverse clients, from large brands to small entrepreneurs.
Even if the client has no money yet, but he wants to come, meet and consult, I do not refuse. I’m ready to pay attention a minute and I always demand such an attitude to clients from accounts and sales. I very much welcome when customers come to our office. And I don’t understand why it has become fashionable to call contractors to tenders at tenders. Most companies can make good websites, but there can be no one except the person who comes to present the project. If other employees are banal freelancers, it will be difficult to work with such a company.
I always invite us to the office, show the specialists with whom we have to work, and with my openness I prove why you can rely on us.
- How do you build a sales force motivation system?
- The motivation system differs depending on the products. If we talk about web development, the manager receives a percentage of the profit of the project. If we talk about the sale of an integrated service, the manager is motivated by the percentage from the first payment.
So it was before. Now we are gradually abandoning this system. It often happens that the manager wants to earn as much as possible, the payment passes, and then the project turns out to be unprofitable or even unprofitable. We are moving to a system in which the manager receives a percentage of further payments. In this case, the percentage depends on how long we have been working with the client. New customer - 3%. And if we have been working with him for a year now - 20%.
- You have a division - the tendering department. Why did you take this feature into a separate structure?
- Working with tenders is different from traditional sales. There are tenders, and there are many of them when the application is sent out to the top twenty of the rating. These are false tenders, they do not fall into the tender department. Now it is a fashionable topic - to organize such tenders. Why think when you can send out a task to everyone. Let them think for me how to solve it cheaper and more efficiently. And then I will choose. Just do not take into account the organizers of such contests, that they will receive a hell of a number of answers from web studios, which will be even harder to understand.
These tenders are usually arranged by large companies and government organizations. In such tenders there are rules, conditions and a lot of preparatory work.
If you carefully observe the life in the company, then effective solutions come by themselves. All salespeople did not like and did not want to work with tenders. They understood that there was a lot of trouble in them, and the result was unpredictable. This type of people should be fed daily with excitement. At the same time, there is a type of careful people who can prepare a project for a long time, and if he shoots, they are energized for six months - a year.
Now we have only one specialist in tenders, before there were two. In their motivation, I have long insisted on giving bonuses for won contests. It was not very effective. The decision was prompted to me by one applicant whom I interviewed. He had a lot of experience in building tenders. It is difficult to immediately understand which tenders are fair and which are custom. Therefore, he motivated employees to hit the shortlists. That is, you need to get into the 5 short-lists per quarter. It is almost impossible for a specialist to influence the results of the tender, but he is able to get into the short list of the best. For the company, this result is useful because in the future tender the possibility of winning increases many times.
It often happens that marketers work with the procurement service, which sets strict conditions for the winners, and we have not fully indicated the necessary information. , , , .
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The main point of any CRM - the manager should regularly conduct it. If you need to motivate a manager to work with CRM, then this is already a 50% failure. AmoCRM is convenient because it has the lowest entry threshold, a very simple interface. And there is nothing superfluous in terms of sales for teams, as in Bitrix24 or Salesforce.
- And how many projects do you have at the same time?
- Definitely difficult to answer. Projects are different. For example, now we have a very diverse multivitrinny project at the presale stage. For each window you need to pick people who will fill it, and manage these people. It turns out that this task is at the intersection of the development and management of personnel. If we get this project, then 60% of the employees will be involved in it.
- Do you use some kind of automated system in project management?
- We are conducting projects at Bitrix24. The development uses the YouTrack ticket system, tasks are hung there, you can see their status and interaction between employees.
We also have our own wiki where people post cases, write about what they did, what they don’t, and why, what tasks they did. There are different levels for different developers. And this is one of the important components of our mentoring system, because the wiki contains information about what the developer should know and be able to do.
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- From our talk about sales, it turns out that the salesman is your sales manager, not your account. Do you have accounts?
- We have every component of the “golden triangle”: sales, PM and account manager. Sales does a tedious job of presale. He can arrange a meeting with the team or go to the client’s company. It works very well on sales.
Next is the work of the project manager. In his competence includes the timing, changes in the technical task. He also interacts with the team, is a link between experts from different departments.
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- In fact, I would not say that this certificate is of practical use. But since we received it once, we continue to confirm our level. Recently, we refused the certificate of the Russian company. Corruption is developed in Russia, and such a piece of paper can be easily obtained for money. Therefore, we switched to certification of the German company DEKRA.
- You often mentioned during the interview that you have a proven system for transferring experience. Tell me about her.
- We have a separate document, which is called “Mentoring”. It spelled out the main provisions on mentoring in the company. If a new employee is accepted into the company, a mentor is necessarily attached to it. His work is evaluated according to a separate methodology and is rewarded according to the results.
In addition, we have developed a lot of internal documents related to website development, SEO promotion, contextual advertising automation, and mobile application development. This is the background that we have been saving for years.
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- For many years I thought that corporate culture should be dealt with. We conducted corporate events, team building. Now I have come to the conclusion that this should not be carried away. Employees, like hired people, come to the company to work and earn money. You can build a culture as much as you like, but if an employee is offered a higher salary elsewhere, he will leave. And when you put a lot of soul in the staff, you are very worried about their departure.
I hold the opinion that you need to create a comfortable environment for work and study. It's enough. Artificially imposing a culture is almost useless. And you need to understand that if you take on this burden, you will have to carry it yourself all the time, no one will pick it up.
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, - Simtech Development
Andrey Voropayev, the general director of TriLan, my today's guest, modestly calls himself an old man in this business. It is believed that digital - the case of young. Indeed, the age of most of the leaders of Russian agencies and studios barely falls to thirty years. And they started, just looking up from the school bench.
Andrei founded “TriLan” at a quite conscious age, having entrepreneurial experience in other industries behind his back. His energy can only envy. And he completely breaks the stereotype about age by digital standards.
')
And I was impressed by one characteristic trait of Andrei (pay attention when you read the interviews). It combines a hot, young purposefulness (“I want him to become my client, that means he will become”) and wise patience that helps to wait for the achievement of these goals. A rare combination of qualities.
Brief information:
Positioning: Comprehensive Internet Marketing
Brands: MoszarubezhStroy (repair and reconstruction works of the Kremlin, construction of foreign representative offices in Moscow), Forex Club, Contingent (the oldest furniture manufacturer in Russia), Pronto-Moscow (From hand to hand newspaper) ), JOB.RU website, Computerra Publishing House, Aeroflot, etc.
Offices: Moscow, Vologda
Staff: 97 employees
Ratings: 14th place (Runet Rating, web studios rating), 10th place (Runet Rating, SEO companies rating), 10th place (Ruward, Golden 100 Russian digital), 37th place (Tagline, leading rating digital production of Russia).
About company: designer from legal entities in different countries
- Andrei, tell us, what is TriLan company today?
- December 15, 2015 we are 15 years old. What have we come to over the years? We are a full-service digital agency, or “one window”, we are no longer seen separately as an SEO company or a web-studio, namely, as a player in the complex services market. We perform both individual services - website development, search engine optimization, launch of contextual advertising, and a whole range of activities to promote business on the Internet. Now we have about 94 - 97 employees.
From the inside, a company is a designer, a set of different legal entities in different countries. In addition to Russia, we have separate legal entities in Ukraine, Montenegro, and Cyprus.
- Why so many foreign legal entities, you have a lot of international clients? Is the digital market in Montenegro really not occupied by local players?
- Honestly, opening a business there, I made a mistake in the calculations. We hoped to work with local companies, but the calculations were not justified. Montenegrin market was absolutely uninteresting. But we were lucky, we quickly reoriented. Now our clients in Montenegro are mainly Russian companies. A few years ago in Montenegro there was a peak demand for real estate. Many Russian businessmen bought housing there and moved for six months to the sun. And we were in a good position. We focused on this audience, and it turned out that it was very comfortable for them to work with us - to solve business problems within walking distance from the beach.
But in a situation with other offices, advantages are different. When working with international companies, a flexible financial system is a very important factor. Someone convenient to pay in dollars, someone in the euro. To make it convenient to settle accounts with customers, we opened companies abroad.
- How many offices do you have in Russia? Are there regional offices?
- Now we have two offices - in Moscow and Vologda. In Vologda there is a production team, as they say, whose activities we are now turning off. Now the Vologda office itself has been liquidated, part of the staff continues to work remotely with us, part of the team moved to Moscow.
How did it happen? 5 years ago we opened a regional office. At that time, the web development market in Vologda was empty. As is often the case in the regions, those experts who were interested in web-production - layout, design, programming - either left the region or worked remotely. There were practically no large companies. We appeared very on time and got the people we needed.
However, in five years the market has changed a lot. Many companies have appeared in our segment, competition for specialists has increased, the average level of salaries has approached Moscow. At the same time, our production facilities also grew, entire departments appeared, and remote management became too expensive.
As of March 2015, we had 57 people in Vologda and about 40 employees in Moscow.
This painful situation lasted from last year. We understood that Vologda had become dear to us, but did not know where to go. We developed two strategic directions: dragging all strong specialists to Moscow or finding another suitable region. Our requirements for the region sounded more like an impossible dream: a lot of trained IT personnel, their cost is lower than in Moscow, and a small distance from the capital. Honestly, we ourselves did not believe that such an “IT-paradise” could be found.
And quite by chance I met one company. We started to communicate, then we tried to outsource projects to them. Now it seems optimal to us such a scheme of work, in which we do not fully contain the remote team, but still we have economic relations between us and they have a certain degree of freedom. We have an excellent managerial experience, and they have a large number of developers and SEOs.
Now, while the terms of the transaction are in the negotiation stage, I can say that we see certain advantages in associations and alliances, but this process is not easy. Follow our news until we are ready for loud announcements.
History: a successful business is the seventh in a row
- Andrei, are you from Moscow?
- Yes, I am a native Muscovite. Born here and raised. My parents are land reclamations, so as a child I traveled to many Eastern countries. And then he graduated from the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman, the Faculty of Informatics and Management, specialty IU2 Instruments and systems of orientation, stabilization and navigation.
- How did you get into digital business? What influenced the decision to engage in this activity?
- In fact, by the standards of the digital-market, I am already old. I am 43 years old. I got into this industry not immediately after graduation, but after a long search for myself. And it started not from web development, as it usually happens, but from SEO.
Education was chosen by my parents. I was considered a techie. In 1989-1990, when I entered the institute, I had an absolutely clear idea of what my future would look like. I was preparing to go to work in the defense industry, there was a research institute ahead. We even had an increased scholarship - 70 rubles, when all the other 40. It was a grant from the Ministry of Defense. But by the end of the university I had nowhere to work, the system collapsed. Came the need to look for opportunities for earnings.
At my most active age, 20-30 years old, I tried many lessons. Even before the university, I became interested in programming and in the first year I wrote my theses for graduates. He collected computers and sold them, published a newspaper, worked in printing and advertising agency, and sold software.
They say that a successful business is the seventh in a row. I did it. The company “TriLan” became the seventh business that I launched in 2000.
- Where did you get your first customers?
- To answer this question, you need to tell the background. In 1999, I got into a startup, where I led the team. From the very beginning, the relationship with the owner, we have developed not entirely transparent. He wanted to develop the first release, show it to major shareholders from England and resell with a terrible margin. I learned about this much later. In reality, I listened to lectures that we need to work more, because as soon as we lift the product, everything will be very cool.
After people came from London, looked at the product and did not buy anything, the owner of this business quickly turned off all activities, abandoned the team, stopped paying. I found myself in a very ugly situation: with uncertainty, a large team on my hands and without money. We tried to independently promote this product. But nothing happened. At that moment, several active guys gathered around me, and one of them brought information about a new fashionable service - SEO promotion, which is easy to understand, but it will soon become very popular. We decided to go in for SEO.
I rushed to sell and even convinced the first client - a branch of the company in which my brother worked, taking as much as $ 150 in prepayment. But by that time, all startup employees had run away. It turned out that there was no one to do this project. Money Spent. I myself did not understand what to do. It was necessary either to give money or to provide a service. And I chose the latter. Trudging through the subtleties of SEO, after a while it dawned on me how it works. I have successfully completed the job.
I began to tell absolutely everyone what SEO is and why the future lies with it. At meetings with classmates, classmates and friends. I recalled Rodion from the movie “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears,” who claimed that in a few years there would be nothing left but television.
- And many customers brought such promotion?
- I can not say that a lot, but the orders were. However, very soon I lost interest in the process itself and was interested in it only in terms of regular income. One of the clients called me to the meeting and said: “We pay you $ 300, but not all the words are in the top. We decided to motivate you. Now we will pay $ 50 for each top word. ” And I paid 250 dollars. It really hurt me. I set a goal to get much more money from this client.
At that moment I started to create a company. Negotiations, meetings took a lot of time. It was necessary to share powers. I found a partner with whom we entered into a gentlemen’s agreement that I dedicate him to the mystery of SEO, share technologies, he begins to engage in production, and I sell. At the same time, he does not use his knowledge on the side. Our close bond still exists. Maxim Ryzhov is my partner and co-owner of the company.
- It turns out that the company has two owners?
- Now we are majority shareholders, but we still have minority shareholders from employees. But then we still did not feel like owners. I attracted clients, Maxim was engaged in production, finance and accounting, as he is a very scrupulous person. We also had a third friend who was very active in the life of the company.
At some point, we have accumulated a certain amount, about 600 dollars. We could take 200 dollars or invest them in the start of the company. The third comrade refused, saying that he was ready to invest his knowledge, but not money. And took his part. And we with Maxim left our share and became officially co-owners of the company.
About sales: we select interesting leads by filters
- Andrew, tell me whether you manage to delegate the sales process?
- Historically, it so happened that for a very long time I actively participated in all sales personally. But then I realized that I need to build a process where I can indirectly participate. It is impossible to embrace all areas of business, even if you have tremendous experience and knowledge.
Recently I was asked to comment on Pavel Trubetskov’s article “Where does a young studio get adequate clients?” , And I said the same thing: you can’t try to do everything yourself. It is important to understand what you are strong at, and for the rest to hire people who are more experienced than you in the necessary competencies.
So I started looking for the right people. By the way, I always had a clear idea of what kind of specialist I needed, and I already knew these people in person for work in other projects. I have never engaged in aggressive huntig, but always kept them in sight. If the direct approach “I want you to work with us” did not go through, I took a waiting position and looked for the right moment when the employee was already psychologically ready to change jobs. Anyway, this man turned out to be my employee. It happened to my brother, whom I had been persuading for three years to come to me. He is currently leading production and sales of web development.
We share sales in SEO, contextual advertising, Internet marketing and sales in web development.
I can describe my technology for working with the sales department in three steps.
Step 1. Proper selection of people. We need to find those who want to sell and who have this talent. Patiently wait for them, and then give the opportunity to be realized and earn money.
Step 2. Proper transfer of knowledge. Mentoring, product training.
Step 3. Ability to release people on time. Salespeople burn out very quickly, their priorities change, they like to move from company to company. In addition, someone catches a stellar disease and begins to tinker, and someone can do much more, but he has to constantly withdraw himself from the comfort zone, and he finds himself at the limit of possibilities. Therefore, it is necessary to correctly understand when a person needs to be released further.
- How many people do you have in the sales department?
- Our sales department consists of 5 people. But they handle not all leads, but only those that hit our CRM. We have filters at the entrance, by which we select interesting leads. Those that pass these filters, are got in CRM.
- And what is this filter by which you filter out customers?
- This is something like a check list. Cheat Sheet with points, which is used to evaluate the incoming application. For example, whether a letter came from a corporate mail or not, whether a tender is being arranged, etc. If the application scores 100 points, it falls into CRM.
- And who conducts the assessment? A separate lead evaluator?
- This is a quality manager. We have such a post. We regularly interview our clients and those who did not become them for satisfaction with the quality of service. Even if for some reason the client did not begin to work with us, the quality manager enters him into the category of contacts and after a certain time asks to evaluate the work with us: the manager who communicated with him and our commercial proposal. In parallel, the task of this specialist is the primary processing of incoming applications.
- Now you are talking about applications from the mail site. And how are the leads estimated by phone? Is it difficult to pass your filters? And why do we need such a strict screening system for clients, do you not lose at the same time?
- By the way, the easiest way to go through all the filters is just to call and explain in detail what you want. (Smiles.) In fact, these filters are needed in order to determine the adequacy of the client.
Although in the development of the agency it is important to reach a level where you choose with whom you will work. All players will confirm that in our market there are a lot of unprepared people who have to spend enormous efforts, proving the need and cost of services in vain. Also, we are not ready to go to Tmutarakan to sell the project.
But this does not mean that we only work with large capital businesses and their experienced brand managers. We proceed from the fact how comfortable the relationship between us and the client is and whether it turns out to be mutually beneficial for us to develop. We have very diverse clients, from large brands to small entrepreneurs.
Even if the client has no money yet, but he wants to come, meet and consult, I do not refuse. I’m ready to pay attention a minute and I always demand such an attitude to clients from accounts and sales. I very much welcome when customers come to our office. And I don’t understand why it has become fashionable to call contractors to tenders at tenders. Most companies can make good websites, but there can be no one except the person who comes to present the project. If other employees are banal freelancers, it will be difficult to work with such a company.
I always invite us to the office, show the specialists with whom we have to work, and with my openness I prove why you can rely on us.
- How do you build a sales force motivation system?
- The motivation system differs depending on the products. If we talk about web development, the manager receives a percentage of the profit of the project. If we talk about the sale of an integrated service, the manager is motivated by the percentage from the first payment.
So it was before. Now we are gradually abandoning this system. It often happens that the manager wants to earn as much as possible, the payment passes, and then the project turns out to be unprofitable or even unprofitable. We are moving to a system in which the manager receives a percentage of further payments. In this case, the percentage depends on how long we have been working with the client. New customer - 3%. And if we have been working with him for a year now - 20%.
- You have a division - the tendering department. Why did you take this feature into a separate structure?
- Working with tenders is different from traditional sales. There are tenders, and there are many of them when the application is sent out to the top twenty of the rating. These are false tenders, they do not fall into the tender department. Now it is a fashionable topic - to organize such tenders. Why think when you can send out a task to everyone. Let them think for me how to solve it cheaper and more efficiently. And then I will choose. Just do not take into account the organizers of such contests, that they will receive a hell of a number of answers from web studios, which will be even harder to understand.
These tenders are usually arranged by large companies and government organizations. In such tenders there are rules, conditions and a lot of preparatory work.
If you carefully observe the life in the company, then effective solutions come by themselves. All salespeople did not like and did not want to work with tenders. They understood that there was a lot of trouble in them, and the result was unpredictable. This type of people should be fed daily with excitement. At the same time, there is a type of careful people who can prepare a project for a long time, and if he shoots, they are energized for six months - a year.
Now we have only one specialist in tenders, before there were two. In their motivation, I have long insisted on giving bonuses for won contests. It was not very effective. The decision was prompted to me by one applicant whom I interviewed. He had a lot of experience in building tenders. It is difficult to immediately understand which tenders are fair and which are custom. Therefore, he motivated employees to hit the shortlists. That is, you need to get into the 5 short-lists per quarter. It is almost impossible for a specialist to influence the results of the tender, but he is able to get into the short list of the best. For the company, this result is useful because in the future tender the possibility of winning increases many times.
It often happens that marketers work with the procurement service, which sets strict conditions for the winners, and we have not fully indicated the necessary information. , , , .
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The main point of any CRM - the manager should regularly conduct it. If you need to motivate a manager to work with CRM, then this is already a 50% failure. AmoCRM is convenient because it has the lowest entry threshold, a very simple interface. And there is nothing superfluous in terms of sales for teams, as in Bitrix24 or Salesforce.
About project management: the “golden triangle”
- And how many projects do you have at the same time?
- Definitely difficult to answer. Projects are different. For example, now we have a very diverse multivitrinny project at the presale stage. For each window you need to pick people who will fill it, and manage these people. It turns out that this task is at the intersection of the development and management of personnel. If we get this project, then 60% of the employees will be involved in it.
- Do you use some kind of automated system in project management?
- We are conducting projects at Bitrix24. The development uses the YouTrack ticket system, tasks are hung there, you can see their status and interaction between employees.
We also have our own wiki where people post cases, write about what they did, what they don’t, and why, what tasks they did. There are different levels for different developers. And this is one of the important components of our mentoring system, because the wiki contains information about what the developer should know and be able to do.
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- From our talk about sales, it turns out that the salesman is your sales manager, not your account. Do you have accounts?
- We have every component of the “golden triangle”: sales, PM and account manager. Sales does a tedious job of presale. He can arrange a meeting with the team or go to the client’s company. It works very well on sales.
Next is the work of the project manager. In his competence includes the timing, changes in the technical task. He also interacts with the team, is a link between experts from different departments.
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- In fact, I would not say that this certificate is of practical use. But since we received it once, we continue to confirm our level. Recently, we refused the certificate of the Russian company. Corruption is developed in Russia, and such a piece of paper can be easily obtained for money. Therefore, we switched to certification of the German company DEKRA.
On personnel management: the system of mentoring and the transfer of experience.
- You often mentioned during the interview that you have a proven system for transferring experience. Tell me about her.
- We have a separate document, which is called “Mentoring”. It spelled out the main provisions on mentoring in the company. If a new employee is accepted into the company, a mentor is necessarily attached to it. His work is evaluated according to a separate methodology and is rewarded according to the results.
In addition, we have developed a lot of internal documents related to website development, SEO promotion, contextual advertising automation, and mobile application development. This is the background that we have been saving for years.
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- For many years I thought that corporate culture should be dealt with. We conducted corporate events, team building. Now I have come to the conclusion that this should not be carried away. Employees, like hired people, come to the company to work and earn money. You can build a culture as much as you like, but if an employee is offered a higher salary elsewhere, he will leave. And when you put a lot of soul in the staff, you are very worried about their departure.
I hold the opinion that you need to create a comfortable environment for work and study. It's enough. Artificially imposing a culture is almost useless. And you need to understand that if you take on this burden, you will have to carry it yourself all the time, no one will pick it up.
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, - Simtech DevelopmentSource: https://habr.com/ru/post/293824/
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