Daniela Seitz, the wing(wo)man for your business

There’s such a thing as “too successful”. Enquiries from new customers can be overwhelming, and if you aren’t careful, the experience can tarnish a brand.

Here’s where Twigdoo comes in. It’s a lead management company, which handles enquiries from potential new customers. This allows business owners to be more efficient with their time, focusing on their warmest leads – and effectively land more sales.

We want to save small businesses from soul-sapping cold leads

“We want to save small businesses from soul-sapping cold leads,” says Daniela, who co-founded Twigdoo with Matt Wilson. “We take each lead, and guide it down the sales funnel, so that each enquiry is converted into a solid customer.”

When an enquiry arrives via any channel, be it an email, Facebook, Instagram, or anywhere else, Twigdoo replies within five minutes. Companies on average lose 71% of leads because they usually take about 46 hours to reply, according to Daniela. A speedy response like one from Twigdoo makes a huge difference.

This first message asks for basic information, such as what service is required, the dates, and sketches out prices. This weeds out weaker leads to cut down on time-wasting.

Strong leads are nurtured, and passed on to the client when ready to close. Maybes are kept warm, by Twigdoo’s team.

“We take care of the initial few steps,” explains Daniela. “We respond to your enquiries very, very fast, and we do all the chasing. We individualise all your requirements, have our team talk to potential customers, and when they are red hot, pass them on to you.”
When an enquiry is first generated, the most important thing is to get back to it within 5 minutes, failing to do this may decrease your chances of a sale by up to 20 times. That’s a very hard goal to meet if you don’t have a sales team manning your phone and email 24 hours per day.

Business owners want to focus on what they love

At any moment, clients can see their lead pipeline via an online dashboard. It brings technical rigour to small businesses who might otherwise handle leads in a haphazard manner.

It’s a terrific service for businesses who lack the time or resources to cope with enquiries. “Business owners want to focus on what they love,” says Daniela. “Photographers want to take photographs, chefs want to cook, and decorators to paint. They didn’t get into it to be sales people!”

And the politeness and efficiency of the service pays dividends. “If you’re the first business to reply to a customer, with a beautiful message that starts a conversation, you’re in a much better place than your competition.”

Twigdoo is a young company, but already building a strong roster of clients – mainly small businesses and sole traders. “Hearing a customer say that we’re awesome, and that we’re changing their life, is amazing,” says Daniela. “It’s humbling hearing a testimonial like that, because we’re working so hard that we just don’t know until someone tells you.”

Headcount is about to hit double digits, and the fast growth is creating stress of its own for Daniela and her team. “Even the busiest person only has ten or twelve working hours a day. The week doesn’t get longer because you are successful.”

Running a business is a steep learning curve

A business account with Tide is helping. “Running a business is a steep learning curve,” says Daniela. “One of the nicest things about Tide is that I knew what to do without asking. At a previous company and different banking provider, I would need to ‘Create a Transfer Template’ to pay someone. Why? With Tide you just hit this button called Pay Someone. I was like ‘Hallelujah!’. Why make it more complicated?”

Logging in is quick, via biometric entry on a smartphone. Or with a desktop, via an on-screen QR Code scanned by a smartphone. “It’s so fast,” says Daniela. “I think it’s absolutely amazing, because when you want to pay someone or receive money, you can just do it.”

Now her admin time is actually falling, despite Twigdoo growing month after month. “I’m now doing less than an hour a day.”

This leaves Daniela and her team more time to help their own customers save time. It’s a mission they love, and the feedback from the customers is keeping them energised.

“We recently talked to a customer and he said, ‘You’re giving me back time to spend with my family’. That feels great!”