E016 Bart Kowalczyk: Certified HubSpot Partner

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:09
Once upon a time, there were millions of businesses struggling. Every day they wasted time, effort and money on repetitive tasks that added no value than one day. The better automation podcast by PROCESIO came to help them find a way. Because of this, these businesses save time, reduce costs, innovate, and make better decisions because of that these businesses grow, scale, and use human creativity to change this world. Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm your host that Better Automation podcast by PROCESIO where I interview the world's top experts and share their very best ideas on how to improve automation in your business, processes, and life. My guest today is Bart Kowalczyk . Bart is the founder at Automate Now, he is a sales automation expert as well as a certified HubSpot partner. Bart is focused on H2H, human to human sales automation, because a human approach is the only one that sells. Bart, how are you today?

Bart Kowalczyk 1:31
Hello, Aziz. And thank you very much for inviting me to your podcasts I'm very, very well I live in Scotland is today surprisingly not sunny. It's it's a little bit of gray day. But hey ho, we will be talking today about automation. And I will be happy to share some of the insights with the clients that we run over past few years.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:54
Thank you. I'm feeling honored. I'm feeling grateful and excited about h2 age. So if someone is listening, and they're like, What is age to age? Why is it important? Why are the existing or older ways of thinking no longer relevant? Tell us more? What would you say

Bart Kowalczyk 2:14
I think the H2H is a little bit the opposite to what is called cold calling. So we used to get quite a lot of different calls, especially during the COVID pandemics, people know that we are actually in at house and home and they know that we can pick up the phones and you might laugh number of calls I had. So H2H is quite opposite, which means basically the human to human interactions. And what it means in very just simple word is h two h is approaching with customer, they will know your customer better to know your customer better to get a little bit of more context in which you're approaching the customer. And I will be talking about couple of techniques, and also ideas, how we can I apply into the business to be more to be more human.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 3:03
Thank you. I love this. I agree with it. But I'll play the devil's advocate a little bit where there are some when it comes to entrepreneurship, or thought leaders in business that say building relationships does not scale. So you have to do things that don't scale. Basically, they're saying that h two ACS is wonderful, but it's not really something that can be automated. What's your counter argument to this? If somebody is having this obstacle in their thought? What would you tell them?

Bart Kowalczyk 3:36
I think, first of all, we can't automate humans. So this is a little bit of a myth. So we can't automate everything because otherwise we will be robots. So it's the first first thing second thing is that automation is the process. And I think the way of thinking rather than just automating everything that you can see. So in in essence, automate, automate, shoot, anything about automation should help you to drive the business. And when you look at the different processes of getting the clients into the pipeline, and nurturing them, then moving them towards the kind of evangelist what HubSpot calls, so people who actually will talk about your business. So there are certain things that we can automate. Automate means taking the right data in the right time, so you can be relevant. But also automation means that you're not spamming people. You're not spamming people, you're not sending irrelevant messages to your inbox. So once you apply these rules, everything can't be automated, but certain parts of the tasks within sales and marketing can be you might achieve one number one you're your customers will be more happy because they will be more relevant. They will be they will get more relevant messages, but also your staff will be more happy because they will be the people customers will to talk to you, and what do you want to achieve? Right? That is that is the one of the principle of growth, staff retention. That's number one. And number two, happiness of the customer,

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 5:11
I love this, if I understood you correctly, this is what's happening, customers are moving through their customer journey. And rather than randomly giving them information offers whatever touch points, you understand exactly what they need, what they're thinking about the questions on their mind. At every specific point, you're answering them giving them the information, they need to help the value. And therefore they feel you understand them, everything is relevant, they're looking for it, and therefore, they won't ignore it, as well as one of the things that will really cause your employees to be frustrated is the friction that happens when they're not giving the customers what they're looking for. They're meeting them at the wrong time or with the wrong thing, which causes resistance where and people will call that rejection, it hurts them, it makes their day is really frustrating and annoying, where they feel they're an unwelcome best, rather than a welcome guest. And therefore, if they're coming to the people at the right time, at the right place, and the customer journey after they have been educated in the correct way, when they're ready to buy the people will be like, Yes, finally, I was waiting for this opportunity. And therefore it becomes a co creation, rather than a co origin. Did I understand correctly?

Bart Kowalczyk 6:34
Yes, that's right, I would probably name this as a trust. So automation equals trust. So building that trust that you need to get and by giving you the example. So if someone is phoning me up, to extend my car insurance in the wrong way in the way that I don't understand in the way that you know, they, they don't have a data set, they don't have the renewal date, for example, as a minimum option to understand my needs, then I can treat this as a spam, but at least minimum data that they want to get from that clients is the date of the renewal, I don't want to get my if my renewal is in January, I don't want to actually get any renewal messages on you know, in February, because I already renewed so that is completely irrelevant. And that is the example that we can actually use in different parts of the business, depending on on the size and industry. Thank

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 7:23
you. And let's you know, zoom out to the 10,000 feet or 10,000 kilometers or whatever, altitude to have a full perspective of the picture. Please define what is trust? What is relationship and what builds them compared to what destroys them? Because if we're speaking about tactics, we have to think strategically in the bigger picture, what's the relationship so that we know whether we'll build in it or we're not? What is trust? What builds it? What destroys it? Can you define these terms so that any listener or viewer will be on the same page? And when you speak about technique, case studies or tactics that you can fit those within a mental model?

Bart Kowalczyk 8:07
With one one single answer to that question is probably building the customer journey for the business. Because every business is different. Every business is different. And everything that we are and how we communicate is different. So touchpoint is very important. aspect, but what type of business we are we are in b2c business, we're quick sale is a normal or b2b is more relationship more? It all depends also, on the on the average deal size in your pipeline, if you tend to average deal size is I don't know 2-3-$5000 That is a little bit of different that average deal size is I don't know $50-$100. So all depends on the aspects because and the drivers. And one one idea of the model how to actually organize is, number one have a good database. I'm not referring to HubSpot is best but whatever system that you have even excel, you know, doesn't matter have a database that you actually get that signals buying signals in place. Number two buying signals what is buying signals. So if you visit the page, and you actually look at the different times in a blog post or even pricing page doesn't mean that you buy but you're driving something your emails, your social media posts are driving that conversation towards one place, usually it is your website or, or anything that you can interact with, map out these buying signals, make sure that you have a scoring system that will actually apply to the signals and then test it. So my idea of actually looking at the different automation model is to actually looking back at ideal client what they did in order to make a purchase from you. Get this data, get the data what have you done how many times they've opened the email They'll how many times they've interacted with your sales? What was the actually the place the moment they booked that final meeting with the sales rep to get this deal done? What was the driver now and then next stage is to collect that data back to your to your system. So once they they bought they bought from you? What was the motivation? Behind the purchase? Do you have a system in place to get that data even try to find them on the good salespeople, you should always form after the sales in a week, two weeks, month after by saying Okay, Hi, John, was great, you know, we have a we have done some work for you let me know why you actually choose us. And once you actually identify this is not easy work. This is probably the work that you have to constantly into every every time your customer is changing, your profile is changing. But when you once you or your company might identify key points, you might identify key aspects or what you can automate. And you know, and you can more be predictable when it comes to your income and your forecast sales forecast.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 11:04
Thank you. I love this. And if I understood you correctly, again, a lot of business people are in touch or not with the reality that they don't have infinite resources, and therefore you cannot go after everyone. Otherwise, you will be dispersed. And you'll run out of money, time, effort, energy people, whatever it is. And therefore, you should use those resources in the wisest way possible. And that is to communicate with keep in touch with follow up with help create goodwill with the people who are most likely to buy. And how would you identify those people, they do things that show they're interested whether they're reading a blog post about how to begin using a product, your product or a product similar to yours. They go, for example, to your checkout page, if that's your business model, but then they don't complete the transaction, or they're using the demo of your product, but they're really using it and they're extracting every ounce of possibility. So they're highly interested, not people who are dabblers. And if you focus on those, finding more of them, identifying more of them, and spending more money on them is the highest ROI for your business to get more money faster, quicker in a more predictable way, as well as keeping your ear open to listen, because who is buying today for whatever reason, could be different to who is buying next week or next month. And their reasons for buying and therefore you want to be caught off guard thinking oh, yes, finally I have the unlock sequence to the sales. But what you found is what's working today, which may not work, you know, one month from now, and you'll end up just doing the wrong things that used to be right before. Did I understand correctly?

Bart Kowalczyk 13:00
Fantastic. Yes. What I would like to add also is that system and that the idea also applies not to the new clients, but to the existing one. So what are we doing now, and how we mapping out that is that interaction, that relationship with current clients, because remember, 80-20 rule 80% of your income will probably be 20% 80, in your 80% of income will come from your customers. 20% is just for a new customer, use your customer database first, and make sure that these people will refer the business. And we will make sure that you know these people are actually want to be with us. So very good example is, let's say you buy the gym membership. And obviously, within gym members, you've got this little card usually and you're scanning this card on your entrance. So if you're scanning this card once a week, twice a week, that's brilliant, once a month, that is the signal for your business, okay, that person probably if that that card won't be scanned every week, probably that membership will be cancelled, because the predictability of them to actually cancel because they don't use the service. So our idea is for the gym owners, let's make sure that people will will will come back to us so they can see the value of the product.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 14:16
Thank you. I love this. Again, I keep saying it. And if I understood you correctly, the idea to think about that getting a new customer is one of the most expensive and hardest things you can do as a business. And therefore you should really take care of and have as good of a retention as possible for your client. Because every client you lose, you need to in order to grow replace them with two to replace that revenue and add more and therefore each one existing client loss is like double the effort or whatever in order to replace them. And therefore if you notice signals, which will won't be the buying signals, but like the attrition signals or whatever you might call it, you should bring those up pulled back into the fold. Serve them height and their interest they already paid you. And that's a huge signal of trust because the hurdle of paying that first dollar or pound or euro or whatever is the most difficult one if they paid once and they got something they can trust that you can keep your promises. And you spoke about HubSpot. Tell me more about it. Because I noticed you wrote once that it can replace 10 to 15 different tools, what kinds of tools so that people can understand it? What to keep in mind? What can help with like, when using HubSpot? What's wonderful about it? How can it be the cockpit for a whole business that's keeping it going on track and all the data in front of you that is relevant

Bart Kowalczyk 15:48
Aziz, perfect question. I think the best answer is a little bit of my history of why I've ended up to stick with HubSpot. entrepreneur, I run multiple businesses in the UK and I ended up with nightmare of my database. I used to run a run quite a lot of business events in London about 70 per annum. So imagine number of years data to have created with different sources with Eventbrite as a registration tool people from the web pages, then a little bit of places like old landing pages from different pay different websites, but also whole invoices, then you name it is just extra, some kind of activities like campaigns in Facebook, and ultimately, I was a bit lost. I used my different systems including like Gmail for emails, then I had a capital V Tiger and different email systems in place. But I was lost, I didn't have a one place that they can actually reflect on where I am with the business. So when it comes to HubSpot, HubSpot offers offer fantastic opportunity to actually build most of your entire business cycle in one place. So starting from attracting clients. So when you actually come to the, to the to HubSpot, you can have you can serve ads, if you wish, but from from HubSpot, but also Yeah, landing pages, everything that attract business, social media posts, so everything from marketing perspective, were emailing marketing, but then sales. So you can build the workflows around sales pipelines, automation. And then finally, once the one the client will reach and you can set up them, you can open the tickets, you can open the you can actually provide a great value. So this is the whole cycle of of it. But the beauty about how to do this probably with a dashboard, I have to say most of the clients love the dashboard. So by the end of the of the week of the month, we will have dashboards, how the traffic is generated, how much is worth to you? And how much we actually close this deal. That how is that affected our sales? And then we can actually and this is what he actually said at the very beginning, we can make a better decision we can make a decision based on the facts, not based on actually salesperson interview. It is actually the fact that that that you know that this happened.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 18:04
Wonderful. I love that it sounds very exciting. Because when you can have like you mentioned, predictable income three more predictable view in the future. You're not like many CEOs describe they say, I feel like I'm driving a car blindfolded. And that's not a good place to be. And you said, a lot of people are coming to you, you yourself, you're using the automation tools that you're using, what are usually the causes are motivations that bring people to you, that seem to be nowadays the biggest motivations for people to automate, to get better reporting, or whatever they use your services, as well as if people want to find you. Can you speak about automate now? What services you offer? And where people can find out more?

Bart Kowalczyk 18:57
Yeah, so I think the best problem, the main problem of the people is losing the sale. So suddenly, so a they're losing the sales or they want to grow, but they have they don't have proper system in place, sales is the main factor. So when it comes to growing your sales, there are two factors. One is to help people in to help people who can actually start selling. The problem now with COVID, obviously, is that most of the people are scattered all over the countries, you can work wherever you are, but in to actually provide the service and so on. So HubSpot will actually sort this out for you because you can actually see number of activities per salesperson. So during the COVID we will perhaps put together the loads of work to actually help onboard what was called virtual sales team. We can actually have this available. We can have this you can as a sales manager of sales executives, you can you can work with your virtual sales team and you can set this up. The second motivation is is probably the last I think I would say Probably the same my story, it's your last with where you are with business, you actually come to see the proper, proper numbers in front of you. And when you actually use, let's say, different email platform for mailings, then another one for capturing the sales, the other for tickets and other one for like invoicing. And then you imagine you've got a problem to actually scale your business, most of majority of the business or the scale ups, the businesses who want to actually reach the other markets, and the system is there for them. So at automate, now, what we do is I'm entrepreneur, as I say, so I'm coming from the practical knowledge, not agency background, we are working with a handful of clients, helping them to set up the sales, marketing whatever is necessary, but the best way to engage with us is to actually add joined joined to one of our workshop we share knowledge for free, we want to build community around our you know, our automation, but also share best practice. So every, every every month, we run the half an hour shop workshop on different subjects, actually, next one is tomorrow. But what we're going to do is we can send the Automate now.uk is the website to go for, you can sign up for next available slots and and just start talking to us what is the problem, we want to actually solve the problem? Not so our solution?

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 21:27
Thank you. And that's exactly what you are mentioning that instead of interviewing salespeople, you have to speak to the customers understand their current actual problems and helping them with the outcomes they need. Right now, not what people who came to you before needed, because that's why the value of calling and getting feedback from people at the point of purchase, purchase or time of purchase or two weeks later, or whatever, because you can notice changes in the trends. Thank you so much. And I cannot end of course without saying that. For everybody who is watching or listening. If you would like to automate your business of course, use automation now and go to BART as well as feel free to test PROCESIO. PROCESIO is the modern low code, no code platform for advanced automation and creating an enterprise grade backend for your software. anybody listening can request a totally free account at PROCESIO.APP where they get one full hour of execution time, which is equivalent to 100 Human hours. That's a lot. and for those who need more, would like to upgrade there is a very generous discount code BETTER50OFF one word, capital letters to get 50% of any package they choose more details in the description and thank you Bart. This was my privilege, my honor, a very enriching and enlightening conversation and I wish you a great and hopefully sunny tomorrow.

Bart Kowalczyk 23:07
Thank you very much Aziz and it was glad and I'm glad I could be featured in your podcast. Thank you very much for watching and listening