This document discusses challenges and recommendations for global B2B sales from Ukraine. It notes that while time zone differences and a lack of local presence can be issues, most customers care more about products, flexibility and responsiveness. It provides statistics on lead generation and customer conversions in different regions. The document recommends investing more in inbound marketing, engaging customers early before features are complete, using a CRM for data-driven decisions, and analyzing the "probability" field in sales forecasts.

3. Enabling Innovations Globally
30+customers and
12+channel partners in:
✓ U.S.
✓ UAE
✓ UK
✓ Mexico
✓ Malaysia
✓ Ireland
✓ Qatar
✓ Turkey
✓ Greece
✓ Israel
✓ Ukraine
✓ Saudi Arabia
✓ Egypt
Supermarkets Shopping Malls Smart City
Airports Healthcare Manufacturing
Mining Oil & Gas Warehouses

4. Customers and Partners

6. Longer sales cycles
Meetings, Q&A, pre-sales,
proposals, multiple decision
makers.
Common Challenges with B2B Sales
Cold outreach
Large efforts, low conversions,
sometimes even prohibited (e.g.
UK).
Case studies and references
Requested for every geography and
market.
Free pilot projects
Be ready to invest in the beginning
per market or geography.
Inbound marketing
Tons of content to be created per
solution/market, takes time and
efforts.
Need for the local presence
Expensive, hard for startups, but
please see the next slide.
Custom requirements
Every second prospect, not always
ready to pay for customizations,
estimations consume resources
and time.

7. Common issue — cautious about Ukraine
Sometimes we hear tricky questions, such as “Is it safe
there?”, “Will we have a contract with the U.S. company?”.
Still, this issue has rather a low impact on conversions.
Time zone differences
7-10 hours for the U.S.; 2-7 hours for Asia.
Large B2G, G2B, B2B bids or projects — through local
partners only
RFP from large companies have checklists and one
common item is about the local presence.
Challenges with Global B2B Sales from Ukraine

8. Non-English Regions (e.g. Middle East)
Many of them speak English, but it’s 10x times
more efficient to hire the native speaker to your
sales office in Ukraine. For example: our
Arabic-speaking manager for UAE and the Middle
East.
Bottom line — global B2B sales from Ukraine is
possible without any major issues. Almost all
customers care more about your product,
flexibility and responsiveness rather than the
local presence.
Challenges with Global B2B Sales from Ukraine

9. Total February March April May June July August September October
Website Traffic to
Lead Conversion
432 leads 0.28% 1.15% 1.03% 2.16% 2.07% 1.99% 2.19% 2.71% 3.42%
Lead to Customer
Conversion
29 customers 16.67% 4.17% 10.00% 2.50% 8.16% 8.16% 9.43% 12.99% 2.22%
Inbound Statistics: All Regions — 6 months

10. 1200+ outreach messages resulted in 34 leads:
✓ Doing research in the market: 26%
✓ Pricing is too high: 11%
✓ Looking for something else: 5%
✓ Legal restrictions (e.g. HQ in Iran): 2%
✓ Talked, negotiated, then disappeared: 38%
✓ On hold for now: 14%
Closed deals: 4%
Outbound Statistics: Middle East Region — 6 months

11. Optimistic Realistic Pessimistic 5x Pessimistic
Trying to plan here All the time here
Trying to plan here
Progress
50% – 60% from the estimated realistic
12-24 months ago
1-12 months ago
Revenue Forecasts: Expectations vs Reality
Optimistic Realistic Pessimistic 5x Pessimistic

12. Defines the sales funnel size in USD
* this is just an example, not the actual sales funnel of Leantegra
✓ Revenue forecasts are normally defined as
Probability x Estimated Budget.
✓ “Probability” per prospect - just a rough guess by
a sales manager, often overestimated for
beautiful reports.
✓ Example with our prospect in Nashville, TN - 80%
to 90% probability for 3-4 months straight, the
deal was not closed in the end.
✓ How to resolve such issues with
“Probability”?
Revenue Forecasts: Probability Field

13. Decrease probability in the following cases:
✓ Multiple decision makers.
✓ Time to decision more than 1 month.
✓ Surprisingly fast confirmations or verbal
commits to buy (e.g. first meeting) — not such a
rare case.
✓ Large budget without pilot projects, purchased
demo kits or conducted onsite demonstrations.
✓ You talk to a global brand directly, without local
partners or local presence.
Revenue Forecasts: Probability Recommendations

14. Decrease probability in the following cases:
✓ You talk to the Middle East customers in
June-August or the U.S. customers in December.
✓ Customer keeps discussing ROI and counting
financials — doubts, doubts ...
✓ No schedule on a customer’s side - ideally you
should rush to some deadlines, otherwise your
solution is optional.
✓ No meetings or calls are requested by a
customer, you keep driving all communications.
Revenue Forecasts: Probability Recommendations

15. U.S. Sales Director
Asia and APAC
Manager
EMEA + U.S.
Manager
Leadgen team: 3 people
Senior Marketing Manager
Web
Developer
Designer
Customers & Partners
Leantegra Sales and Marketing Team

16. Hiring senior sales staff in the U.S. (e.g. Sales
Director in NYC):
✓ Less challenging than expected — easy to
find candidates on such web sites as
Indeed.com
✓ No recruiting agencies were involved, just
the manual search and interviews.
✓ High initial expectations about the base
salary — $150,000+. But some of them were
ready to sacrifice and to work in the
commission mode for startups.
✓ It took less than 3 weeks to find the best
candidate in NYC.
Hiring Sales Staff and Contractors
Outside Ukraine

17. Engaged and cooperated with the U.S. lead
generation agency — main team with expats in
Thailand:
✓ Advanced methodology and native speakers
experienced with the U.S. markets.
✓ Acceptable prices — $5000 per month for
the whole team (3 people).
✓ Despite all the theoretical advantages — the
actual results were bad. Terminated our
cooperation after 8 weeks.
Hiring Sales Staff and Contractors
Outside Ukraine

18. Engaged with multiple partners around the globe:
✓ Reselling and local support for Leantegra
solutions — commission-based model,
without salaries.
✓ Good strategy to save money on B2B sales
and marketing for startups, though it’s hard
to follow any sales forecasts or
commitments.
Hiring Sales Staff and Contractors
Outside Ukraine

19. Some details about Leantegra products
✓ More than 3 years of product development - 8
commercial releases.
✓ More than 70 man-years invested into
development.
✓ Product roadmap is based on the sales funnel
and the real customer feedbacks — since 2014.
✓ Still, every second customer requests
features, which we don’t have.
The Story About Features for B2B Markets

20. Recommendations
✓ Do not hesitate to engage with customers and
partners even before completing the features.
✓ Early marketing and demand validations are
important, especially for the early adopter
markets (e.g. IoT, VR, AR, AI).
✓ You will always lack some features, which are
requested by customers — just keep in mind
when doing sales.
The Story About Features for B2B Markets

21. Early mistakes at Leantegra — no CRM process and daily
usage during the first 12-18 months.
Missed opportunities to do:
✓ Sales dashboard — real-time status updates, not just
the weekly meetings (faster decisions).
✓ CRM marketing — outreach to contacts when the
previously discussed features were ready, newsletters,
better targeting.
✓ Records for conversions and rejections — what didn’t
work and why? prices? features?
✓ Automated collection of the inbound leads — some
web site contacts were not recorded correctly.
✓ Data-driven decisions for product roadmaps — no
rough guesses, features based on statistics.
The Story About CRM

22. Early mistakes at Leantegra — no CRM process and daily
usage during the first 12-18 months.
Current configuration and process:
✓ CRM is integrated with the web site - all incoming contacts
are collected automatically.
✓ CRM marketing and newsletters.
✓ Product-sales collaboration is based on CRM statistics —
better feature planning.
✓ Other common things in CRM: sales dashboard, meeting
records, automated reporting etc.
The Story About CRM

23. Invest more into inbound marketing
Content, web site, Google Ads.
Less experiments with outreach campaigns
Sending more e-mails doesn’t mean any results.
Engage with customers and partners as early as
possible
You will always lack some features, don’t hesitate to
engage earlier for marketing and demand validations.
Outsourcing B2B sales - most likely will fail
Especially for advanced tech products and early
adopter markets.
CRM is important at all stages
Multiple reasons: data-driven decisions, CRM
marketing, commercial offer management, content
marketing etc.
“Probability” field — closer attention and analysis
For not hitting pessimistic (or worse) sales forecasts all
the time.
Summary: Recommendations