When I started my first company, I thought we had found a unique problem in the market. Which we did. There were only a few strong competitors and many companies with legacy solutions and clunky interfaces. These companies weren't that good, yet they had customers. What was their secret? We expected customers to come easily with our brand new, easy-to-use design, but we were wrong.
As a baby startup, we struggled to get our first customers. I hired a PR person, then a PR firm, hoping they would help give us some coverage and turn it into prospects. We spent a lot of money, but it didn't work. Each month, I'd receive lists of mentions and articles. But the quality? Far from impressive. The result was devastating: no clients, no meaningful coverage, just wasted time and money.
With resources dwindling, I dug deeper. I hired a sales agency, hoping they'd bring in customers and shower us with golden opportunities. But once again, I was wrong. The agency outsourced cold emails to contractors in India, and the outcomes were dismal. It didn't work.
Frustrated, I decided to reach out to prospects myself. I knew our product best and could explain it better than anyone. To my surprise, this worked. We converted a few companies into clients and closed our first six-figure enterprise contract. It was a pivotal moment. I realized that delegating sales to someone who wasn't bonded to the product or, in the worst case, didn't care, was a mistake.
We started to grow because we understood that we were our own best customer success team.
Nowadays, I see another problem: there is too much automation, and emails feel robotic. It takes thousands of emails to convert a prospect into a lead. Despite using multiple channels to acquire customers and having a fully dedicated core customer success team at Konstantly AI, I'm jumping back into doing demos and sales calls myself.
If you want to know how we can streamline your onboarding, compliance, and training processes and help your team transfer knowledge with ease, let's connect.