A Marketing Agency Case Study: Streamlining Sales Operations with Bearworks

Estes Media, a leading digital marketing agency known for its innovative go-to-market strategies, was looking to revolutionize its sales operations. Facing challenges with manual processes and disjointed systems, Partner Joshua Estes sought a solution to streamline its sales workflow, improve efficiency, and drive rapid scalability. In partnership with Bearworks, they implemented transformative changes that propelled its sales performance to new heights.

Background:

Estes Media prides itself on crafting bespoke GTM strategies for the roofing and construction industries. However, founder-led sales posed limitations on scalability and efficiency. Manual dialing, note-taking, and a lack of visibility into call metrics was hindering productivity and effectiveness.  

The Challenge: 

Before partnering with Bearworks, Estes Media grappled with several key challenges:

1. Joshua estimates that during his 2 hour, daily call blocks, at least 30% of his time was lost to the cumbersome tasks of leaving voicemails and updating contact records in HubSpot, impeding productivity and hindering the ability to focus on building connections with prospects.

2. The absence of a structured approach resulted in manual outbound dialing. They estimate making about 50 dials per day manually. 

3. The lack of visibility into call metrics and performance data, making it difficult to assess their effectiveness and make informed decisions. 

As a founder, time is precious, and too much was spent in areas that could be solved with technology. 

Objectives:

Estes Media aimed to overhaul its sales operations by streamlining the sales workflow for greater efficiency. 

By addressing this roadblock, the company strived to scale without compromising performance, laying the groundwork for sustained growth and expansion in the competitive digital marketing landscape. 

The Solution:

In collaboration with Bearworks, Estes Media implemented a comprehensive solution that addressed its key challenges: 

1. The integration of Bearworks significantly reduced time spent on manual tasks such as dialing, note-taking, and flagging action items, allowing more time to focus on revenue-generating activities. Because of this, the team is now able to make 10x as many calls a day as they were previous

Joshua highlighted that one of the most immediate and impactful benefits of Bearworks was the ability to call over 500+ past event registrants and successfully re-engage with them in a single day.

2. Guided by insights from Bearworks' data-driven analytics, Estes Media refined its sales process, continuously optimizing strategies for maximum effectiveness. 

Joshua shares that “having insights on when to call and which talk track to use not only cleared up the ambiguity of outbound dialing, but it also improved our connect rate from 6% to 18%. With a good grasp on our ICP’s behaviors through Bearworks’ analytics, conversion rates also went up. Within one month of using Bearworks, we landed one of our biggest deals.”

3. With the implementation of Bearworks Analytics and Virtual Salesfloor, Joshua can now listen to his remote team’s calls and provide feedback supported by analytics. This combination of qualitative and quantitative insights has enabled Estes Media to undergo a strategic transition. They have adopted a hybrid sales model that integrates founder-led sales with a contract sales team, enhancing their overall sales effectiveness.

“Once we had a better idea of what worked and what didn’t, I was able to bring on appointment setters to help increase efficiency. The Virtual Salesfloor made it possible for our remote new hires to listen in on my calls from around the world. Ultimately, this made them effective at pitching Estes Media, quickly” Joshua shares. 

This shift aimed to increase outreach capabilities and leverage the virtual sales floor feature for remote team collaboration. 

The results were immediate and impressive, with Estes Media securing one of their largest deals within just one week of implementing Bearworks. 

Integration Capabilities:

Estes Media seamlessly integrated Bearworks into their existing tech stack, leveraging CSV imports initially and later transitioning to native HubSpot integration. 

The ability to import CSVs provided immediate access to critical customer data, empowering the team with up-to-date information to better engage with prospects. Shortly after, they integrated HubSpot, streamlining data management and enabling seamless access to customer insights. 

This integration enhanced visibility into call metrics and performance, allowing for real-time monitoring and analysis of sales activities. With access to comprehensive data, Estes Media gained valuable insights to optimize sales strategies and scripts, enabling informed decision-making and continuous improvement in sales performance.

Results:

The integration of Bearworks led to substantial time savings, freeing up at least 5 hours per rep per week that were previously spent on manual tasks. This allowed the team to redirect their focus towards revenue-generating activities. For Estes Media, this meant reconnecting with previous event attendees more effectively, resulting in a $15,000 deal within the first week of using Bearworks. 

Reduced admin resulted in increased dials, skyrocketing from 50 to over 450 dials per day. Guided by data-driven insights, connect rates increased from 6% to 18%. 

Finally, the Virtual Salesfloor unified the Estes Media sales team–enabling them to align on messaging, learn from one another, and ramp quickly regardless of location.

This acceleration of sales cycles underscores the platform's effectiveness in driving efficiency and facilitating business growth.

Conclusion:

By partnering with Bearworks, Estes Media transformed its sales operations, achieving increased dials, connect, and conversion rates. The seamless integration, actionable insights, and intuitive interface empowered the sales team to elevate their performance and drive exceptional results.

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