Transcription
In July, I started a software agency and joined the marketplace Bark one month later, in August. I collected $362,000, and since then, we've made $151,000 from Bark. We're looking to close another, or collect another $135.8 thousand across the next few months. By the end of the year, I imagine that number will either double or triple.
So here are the five things you need to know in regards to having success on Bark, not waste money, and actually make money. So my 10-second review of Bark is: some people say it's scammy, some people say it's great. It is what you make it. You kind of have to pay to play, but more importantly, you have to understand how to best utilize the leads that you're buying and what you're looking for. Whether you're, you know, a home service provider, you're a plumber, you're a marketer, or a software agency like myself, you can have success in it. You just have to be very careful and know what to look for.
And if you're new to this channel, I try to keep things as succinct as possible in these tips. So just be forewarned, if you can't hold your attention to this video for two or three minutes, then you should probably just go ahead and click off. I will try to make this as brief as possible.
But tip number one: Bark does a really good job of allowing you to have some filtering. For me, when I started the software agency, we went after everything: new business, established business. We would take all inquiries because I just wanted to learn as much as possible. But you should learn from my mistakes and probably the thousands of dollars that I did waste on some of these leads. So if you service regionally, you should make sure that you can actually tailor it and target it to the region that you serve. Nothing more. Don't go national. So ensure that what you're targeting, both in your service and targeting in your region, is actually applicable.
For me, we decided to target B2B businesses, so we targeted only established businesses. We kept it nationwide since we can build software anywhere, and that gives us a good starting point to filter leads after that. So again, that'll move you in the right direction of getting the right leads fed to you. Now it's on you to ensure that you are looking for the right things and buying the right leads so that you do not waste your spend and what you've bought from Bark.
Now let me show you in Bark itself what you should look for and how I sort through leads as a B2B service company. So again, here are the things that I'm looking for. For an example of a good and bad lead, let's first start with the bad. Uh, the first one here is actually, ironically, not the first one I pull up. Let's look at the name: GG. This isn't Rocket League, dude. So I'm actually looking for a real name here. So GG is not, uh, a good start to this lead. So bad with the name, first red flag. Second red flag is I can see, even though they blurred out the person's information, which, by the way, if you're not familiar with Bark, it'll blur out the person's information until you purchase the lead. Then it'll show their name, or their number, and their email. So you can reach out to them. So with that being said, I can see through here that this is a personal email. This is a Hotmail. I can see when it's Gmail. I can see when it's a Yahoo. So that's not a good thing because I'm looking for business customers. So that's going to be red flag number two.
Now I'm going to ignore some of this stuff because a lot of this is submitted. People submit these inquiries, which is just the canned responses from Bark. So you know, sometimes it can be, again, established business that's already been filtered, as I showed you previously. They tell me it's retail, I don't really care what kind of business it is, just being honest. And most of the things are budget are going to say, "No, I need guidance from the pro." When are you making a higher decision? They'll either say ASAP or I'm planning and researching. So those are usually canned responses, and I ignore those most of the time anyways because they're not filled out to, you know, any custom information that's inputted from the customer.
However, with the software development, there's actually some green flags here on this lead. Ironically enough, it's not just general software development like the canned responses often are. They actually say, "I need a phone programmer," which I believe is a piece of hardware, and we don't do that. But it's at least, if you're looking for something like that, hey, this is a real piece of detail that isn't just a general inquiry. So if I'm a phone programmer, I'm all over this. And then additional details show me that I need someone who's experienced in phone programming with G system. Anyone who knows that system will know, hey, yeah, that that's a real thing, and I do it, and you can raise your hand, and that's perfect for us. That's not relevant, but it's at least good to see that they're putting in relevant information, so I know it's a real lead. So while this was a red flag, this was a red flag, this is much of a, this is a green light enough to say, okay, if you service this person, I would actually reach out to them. If this was a bad name and a personal email, and I service B2B clients, and the additional details were generic, then I would not reach out to them.
Let me show you a good lead then. So here's Andrew. That's a real name, green flag. The second one is the email. I can see here that there's a something.org. So maybe it's a nonprofit, or he says he's in healthcare, so maybe it's a hospital. But I can see that that's a real business, that's our green flag. Second green flag for this one specifically. They say the software development is an access development, which is a Microsoft product. We don't service that, but they, it's good details. It's not just the generic canned responses from Bark. As well as the additional details are creating access to database UI reports for short-term project. That's another green light that we're looking for.
Now, I will say, I will sometimes forego the B2B email or the business email because think about it. Sometimes when we fill out information for a service that we even want, we will put in our personal email. The reason being is because often times, you know, you don't know what you're signing up for, and you don't know if you're going to get that your email is going to get blown up, and you don't want to use your business email sometimes. If that's the case, so sometimes there will be a real person submitting an inquiry with a sufficient information, and they will include their personal email. If there's enough information to show that yes, it's a real business and real opportunity, I will forego them being concerned that they put in their personal email and reach out to them anyways. However, in the additional details, some of our best customers usually have left three to four sentences, and it's pretty in-depth. So the more details, the brighter green light you're going to see from that opportunity.
Tip number three: Your Bark profile has so much really good information and is a great selling point if you really utilize it. That means that you want to, in your about section, tell them what what they want to hear. If you service a specific person or for a person who's looking for a specific service, they should read your bio and say, you know, that's what I'm looking for. See, for us and our business clients that we service, we really focus on business software, and we tailored our messaging to a specific owner or specific owner of a business, so that when they see it, they go, hey, that's how I feel. So don't try to be everything to everybody. Really niche down and articulate who you solve what for, and that'll give you a better idea that when someone lands and sees even competitors side by side on the Bark marketplace, that you can distinguish yourself to say, hey, I'm unique, I'm different.
Another way to make sure that your profile is better optimized is ensuring that you have a ton of information, a good logo, answer the Q&As, and of course, have good reviews. The nice thing is that, you know, even if you don't work with somebody, but you know, maybe you give them good advice, and they say, you know, I decided not to go with you, but you know, I'm going to take your advice. We do that sometimes, and we ask, hey, return, can you give us, you know, a quick, uh, quick review? Or some of, if you are just starting off on the the marketplace, but you have some previous clients who love working with you, you can actually ask external people to give you reviews. Don't fudge this, make this real reviews. But if you're a little bit intentional and and you do good work, then the reviews are naturally going to come in, and that really helps establish you as a top provider on the marketplace.
Another thing in regards to profile optimization is Bark Premium. You might be wondering, well, is it worth it? I think it's around $75 a month, and we found that after not paying for it, then paying for it, it has helped us due to our profile optimization and niching down for what we solve. And then having the Bark Premium, the nice thing is it allows us to have discounts for the leads that we purchase, as well as it gives us the chance that when someone submits an inquiry for what we service, that we are listed towards the top, if not at the top, for suggested vendors. And we have five stars. So often times what happens is they'll submit an inquiry, it'll go out to the whole marketplace, but they'll see us after they submit the inquiry. They'll look at our profile. If they like it, they'll submit an inquiry over straight to us. So we're getting inbound leads through the marketplace. That's really great because that means that they are warmed up to our our brand, and they know who we are. So they want to reach out, they see it's a familiar face. So to us, it is absolutely worth it. But you need to make sure that you have the rest of the profile optimized so that it's a good one-two punch. If not, you're just going to waste your time.
The fifth and final thing I'd say is respond immediately. As soon as possible, when you get a qualified lead that comes in, and and respond frequently trying to get a hold of them. Why? Well, I I've been a previous salesperson, director, manager, and then VP of sales for startups. And when we had inbounds come to us from our website, there is a substantial drop off between responding in a minute or less, or are taking three to five minutes to respond. Now, remember, this is people coming to the software that we service and and coming straight to our website, filling out a form, saying I want to talk. But the response rate drastically decreased once you got over three minutes. So I would download the app on your phone so that when you get the push notification, you can quickly see, is this a good lead or is this not a good lead? If it checks out all the boxes, like we talked about earlier, then I would respond to it as soon as soon as possible, preferably under a minute, so that you're the first one that they're talking to. Because if you're articulate, you're quick to respond, and and you offer a good service and do good work, then you are going to get the job.
So again, this is a little bit about my journey on how my experience with Bark and how it's actually helped me get my business off the ground. I hope that this helped you. If you have any questions or concerns about what you're experiencing in Bark, leave them in the comment section below, and I'll answer them personally. Thanks so much for watching.