Vito Vishnepolsky: A Trailblazer Empowering businesses with Sales-qualified Leads

Building a thriving business is a dream every entrepreneur and founder is eager to tick off their professional bucket list. But running a company in today’s competitive market is extremely challenging with sales being the biggest hurdle for most leaders. Questions like: “How do I generate more leads?” or “How do I close more deals?” plagues even the savviest entrepreneurs from time to time.  However, as difficult as lead generation seems, there are potential ways one can tackle this issue.

Helping businesses along their journey is Vito Vishnepolsky, the successful Founder and Director of Martal Group, who has spent 13 years transforming his business into one of the top B2B lead generation companies.

The Initial Days

Vito has an educational background in economics and management, as well as an MBA. Before he founded Martal Group, he served as a strategic advisor providing consultative services for startups. Back in 2009, just as the last recession was winding down, he decided it was time for him to build his business.

During the first five years, much of his services centered around consulting, which didn’t generate a sustainable revenue model for Martal. Still, he was set on developing a scalable business model. After a few experimentations in service offerings, he latched onto the idea of outsourced sales, and that solution resonated with clients. From then on, the path to success was evident.

“That’s not to say that we haven’t experienced a few bumps in the road along the way. Getting Martal off the ground and running wasn’t easy by any means, especially in the early years, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons that continue to expand our client base and the services we offer,” adds Vito.

Now, Martal Group is the 60th fastest-growing company in Canada out of 1.3 million active businesses, according to The Globe and Mail’s 2022 Report on Business. The company has also been ranked as one of the top 10 B2B lead generation firms by G2 and a top B2B business provider in Canada by Clutch.

About Martal Group

Founded in 2009, the Martal Group specializes in helping B2B technology companies identify ideal prospects and set appointments with sales-qualified leads by developing and executing go-to-market strategies. Its team consists of experienced North American sales executives who are knowledgeable in a variety of verticals in the tech industry.

It provides outbound services for the entire sales pipeline, from prospecting to closing, with its most popular solution being appointment setting. Clients can choose their team structure based on their business needs. Its campaigns include a custom-built strategy implemented through a multichannel outreach approach using email marketing, LinkedIn messaging, and cold calling.

The inbound services that the company offers help increase brand awareness and organic traffic. By building backlinks with its network of bloggers and publishers, the company improves the ranking of target sites and pages so its clients can convert more website visitors into qualified leads.

Igniting the Lamp of Passion

After years of experience in strategic consulting, Vito was motivated to begin his bootstrap venture, fueled solely by the revenue he could generate. As he sought to develop a sustainable business model, he discovered that B2B technology companies struggled more than most when it came to lead generation. While these entrepreneurs are excellent at product development, business development seemed to elude them.

He discovered a way he could put his passion for helping businesses survive and thrive to good use by serving this niche market. Now, more than a decade later, his team continues to carry on the same enthusiasm for developing exceptional lead-generation strategies for tech companies worldwide.

Mission and Vision of Martal Group

Martal Group’s mission is to help B2B technology companies skip the prospecting process and scale faster with sales-qualified leads generated and vetted by top-performing North American sales executives. It strives to modernize lead generation for B2B technology companies in a way that improves the purchasing process for both vendors and buyers.

The company doesn’t provide outdated lead-generation tactics like mass-blast emails or telemarketing that drain marketing budgets without providing a return. Instead, it offers customized strategies that align with the current B2B purchasing behaviors.

While the company is devoted to pioneering the most productive lead generation strategies, it follows a strict testing process to validate its use cases in real-world scenarios before offering customers new services. Through this process, it has uncovered three particular strategies that drive continuous results: (1)scheduling Lunch and Learn meetings, (2)targeting competitors’ customers through account-based marketing (ABM), and (3)engaging prospects based on buyer intent signals defined in its databases. By implementing these processes, it has as much as quadrupled conversion rates for its clients’ campaigns.

Conquering the Pandemic Hurdles with Effective Solutions

During the pandemic, face-to-face meetings and events were out of the question. A large number of businesses had to completely rethink their lead generation process, especially B2B companies. As a “sales as a service partner,”      Martal      was in a unique position to offer advice and assistance in making a quick transition to an online outbound strategy that filled the revenue gap created by the pandemic.

ABM (Account-based marketing) became a crucial part of the Martal Group’s lead generation process. By targeting prospects based on its tech stack, it was able to identify and introduce qualified leads to its clients at a much more efficient rate than what could be achieved at conferences alone.

Additionally, in response to the surge in social media engagement that resulted from the ever-expanding remote workforce, it modified its strategies to incorporate more direct messaging campaigns on LinkedIn. By adapting its prospecting processes to match the shift in consumer purchasing behaviors, it was able to increase scheduled appointments for its clients by 58%.

Due to the significant boost in business, Martal’s employee headcount rose by 357% in two years, and it achieved 761% revenue growth over the last three years.

Adapting the Changing Demographics

Outsourced sales are forecasted to have a (compounded annual growth rate) CAGR of 8.88% till 2027 — and, looking at it objectively, it makes sense.

As companies move out of the pandemic and into a recession, Martal Group continues to see a growing need for outsourced sales services. Companies are having to cut costs, and unfortunately, this means reducing sales and marketing staff. It has seen this trend emerging within tech startups and fully expect it to affect larger businesses in the coming year.

In response, revenue leaders are seeking out alternative ways to generate leads cost-effectively. Hence, the company is experiencing an influx of clients, similar to what it had seen during the pandemic.

While the recession will slow spending, there will be an acute need for experienced lead generation specialists that can produce results in challenging economic conditions.

The team at Martal has the talent and tools to do just that. As its clients save 65% when compared to an in-house sales team, its outsourced sales executives continue to be one of the most affordable ways to fill a company’s pipeline.

Ready for a Growth-Driven Future

Over the next five years, Martal Group aspires to help a wider range of B2B tech companies develop sustainable revenue growth by significantly expanding its services.

Till recently, it has focused solely on opening opportunities for its clients in North America; now, it is expanding to the LATAM and European markets. These regions are notoriously hard to penetrate because of the strict privacy regulations. But through a refined lead generation process and creative campaigning, it has been able to turn the tides for clients targeting these markets.

As Vito mentioned earlier, the company is in the process of launching an appointment-setting strategy that will 3x conversion rates for its clients. It’s called Martal Lunch and Learn, and this service gives prospects the option to order a complimentary lunch delivered just in time for a discovery call. It’s been in pilot for the last couple of months, and it is already seeing fantastic results.

Lastly, it is adding more inbound lead generation services to help diversify its clients’ pipelines. Over the years, the company has been committed to outbound outreach because it’s often more affordable for businesses to outsource rather than handle this particular strategy in-house. However, there is a symbiotic relationship between inbound and outbound, so by running both lead generation strategies in tandem, it has seen a significant performance improvement.

From Vito’s Desk

Growth and innovation are born out of our failures, but all too often, entrepreneurs quit when success is just around the corner. If I had given up after my first big client canceled, all the opportunities Martal has provided for my customers and my team would have been lost. Starting out, you’ll have more failures than successes, for sure. But as you learn from your mistakes, you’ll develop an intuition that will lead you to better decisions in the future.