An award-winning UK accounting firm used Cognism’s sales intelligence solution to:
- Close five deals in the first six months
- Build a predictable sales pipeline
- Save time and focus on closing deals
- Create a standardised process for outbound
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The company
Accountancy Cloud is an award-winning London-based accounting firm on a mission to be the number one finance partner for startups. They provide the best online accounting, R&D credits and CFO services for businesses wanting to grow.
They’ve overseen some of the fastest-growing brands in the UK. On average their startups grow their revenues by over 3x, are valued at over £500m, and they’ve helped businesses exit to the likes of Facebook, Coinbase, and Just Eat.
The challenge
We interviewed Wes Rashid, CEO of Accountancy Cloud about his experience using Cognism. Wes received a cold outbound email from one of Cognism’s sales reps.
This sparked his interest to consider Cognism’s premium B2B lead generation platform to help accelerate his outbound sales.
What problem were they trying to solve with Cognism?
"Previously, we heavily relied on valuable content, our network and referrals for new business. However, the more we scaled, the more we needed a predictable sales funnel."
"The main challenge is we didn’t have the technology to reach new customers. Cognism seemed like the perfect fit."
Did they consider any other tools?
"In the past, we’ve used Beauhurst and other providers but with no success. The main reason for that is only company information was available but not individual prospect information."
"A key selling point of Cognism was not only the company information on offer but also the enriched information about the decision-makers. This was invaluable and a no-brainer to us."
"After a month of speaking to our helpful sales rep, we signed with Cognism. We figured it would save us a lot of time and consequently help shorten our sales cycle to build our predictable sales funnel."
"Overall, Cognism seemed like a really good product and there’s a lot of social proof to back up that they’re leaders in the B2B sales space."
The solution
Wes drives the sales at Accountancy Cloud and uses Cognism’s sales intelligence platform on a regular basis.
How easy did they find the platform to use?
"With the help of Cognism’s customer success team, I initially started creating personas and built out the content for the email sequences. Within just a few weeks of signing, we generated our campaigns and started sending targeted emails!"
Time-saving was another benefit Wes saw from using Cognism. He told us more about this.
"As a CEO, I handle many hats so the tool was really self-explanatory and saved me a lot of time when building campaigns."
The results
On average, Accountancy Cloud books 8-10 meetings per month through Cognism’s premium B2B data.
We asked what ROI he’s seen from these meetings.
"Our average sales cycle ranges from thirty to forty days. We closed five deals in our first six months with Cognism, where the average annual contract value was between £4.5-10k. In addition to this, we’re speaking to three warm opportunities which are likely to turn into customers."
"Not only has the ROI been proven but the customers we’ve signed are also the perfect fit. Cognism massively helps us open doors to new opportunities and helps us sustain our reputation in the startup space."
What other benefits has Wes found from using Cognism?
"Aside from the ROI, it’s definitely allowed us to have a standardised process for outbound sales which is really important. It means we can concentrate on one tool which is far more cost-effective than using a variety of different solutions."
Being a CEO, how valuable has the Customer Success team been?
"The support is fantastic and it feels like we’re not just doing it ourselves all the time. We’ve got a partner to work with and to support us, which is great."
"The fact we are still using the tool after nearly a year is brilliant. The team trained me so well that the learning journey was a breeze."
What result has made the greatest business impact?
"The only metric we set out was to win enough sales to pay for Cognism. We have over-achieved this goal and we intend to continue investing in Cognism. It just proves that we can generate leads and close deals in a really efficient and affordable way."
"Despite us only being at the start of our outbound journey, we can see clear progress in this area of sales. Cognism's data quality has helped us build a predictable pipeline. It’s really reassuring."
What’s the biggest reason you would recommend Cognism to others?
"Cognism is the most risk-free product you can get on the market. I’ve tried a number of tools and this is the only one to provide legitimate metrics to prove its value."
What advice would Wes give to other CEOs considering Cognism?
"As a CEO, my role is very time-constrained. Cognism acts as this reassuring sales engine that runs in the background of my day-to-day tasks."
"The platform demonstrates that a lot can be gained even if you don’t have enough time. If you’re worried about investing in a platform that may not deliver ROI then think again. Go for it and you won’t lose anything from it."
"If you know your target market then Cognism is the best-in-class industry-standard tool to accelerate your growth."
Try Cognism’s sales intelligence solution
Over 3,000 revenue teams around the world trust Cognism to:
✅ Build qualified B2B contact databases
✅ Plan and launch their outbound campaigns
✅ Power up their social selling
✅ Meet and beat their revenue targets
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