How Next One Technology uses Vainu to find new customers

Key takeaways

• Next One Technology offers "[t]he best project management and ERP system in the construction industry."
• Originally, Vainu was just being used to monitor Next One Technology's database and keep the data in their CRM system up to date.

• However, with Lucas Rehn at the helm, Vainu is now also being used to analyze their customer base and to prospect new companies.

The company

Next One Technology was founded in 2014 with "the vision to digitise the daily operational work in the construction industry." Offering a range of cloud-based business tools for the construction industry, Next enables its customers to focus on what matters most—their employees, customers, and projects.

The challenge

Vainu has been a part of Next One Technology's tech stack for a while, which means the original challenge that Vainu was bought to fix may have been lost in the annals of history. However, "[keeping the data in their CRM system up to date] was all we used Vainu for and that's probably why we bought it," says Lucas Rehn, CRM Manager at Next One Technology.

That said, since Lucas Rehn started as CRM Manager at Next One Technology, Vainu's usage within the company has developed from simply monitoring their databases and keeping the information within them up to date to also analysing their customers and prospecting new companies.

The use cases

Keeping the data in their CRM up to date

Seeing the benefits of having access to up-to-date company data, Next One Technology integrated their CRM system with Vainu, making it easy to maintain the company information in their HubSpot.  “We weren’t really using Vainu for anything other than monitoring our database, and that was a great benefit in itself to just keep all of our data in our CRM system up to date,"  Lucas explains.

Analyzing their customer base

A great thing about having lots of data about companies at your disposal is that you can analyze and categorize them more effectively, which means you can be more discerning regarding where you allocate your resources. They do this at Next One Technology, with Lucas saying, "[we're using Vainu] to analyze our current customer bases."

In practice, this means that Next One Tech is looking into what their customers have in common to understand better what company characteristics may be a good leading indicator for whether a prospect becomes a customer. This seems like a smart decision to us, with this information likely to play an important role in their final use case, prospecting.  

Prospecting new companies

"The main usage is to prospect new companies, to get in contact with companies within our ICP, and to make sure our SDRs have good materials to call on," Lucas explained when asked about their usage of Vainu.

While the prospecting process occurs on the Vainu Platform, it doesn't stop there. Next One Technology has integrated Vainu with their CRM system, which means they can get the data directly in their HubSpot. Lucas noted that this feature is very much appreciated at Next One Tech: "In prospecting, the most useful feature is to be able to sync between our CRM and Vainu... to be able to export [companies] directly to our CRM system through the Connector." 

Specifically, it's also appreciated that they don't have to work in Excel, "[It’s] a huge help not to have to use Excel when prospecting companies. It’s a huge hassle, and it just takes a lot of time and administration to do things in Excel when there could be an integration [to the CRM system]—which Vainu has,” says Lucas.

A somewhat surprising feature that Next One Technology uses in its prospecting is the map built into the Vainu Platform, which allows users to see where companies are located on a map. "Another company favourite, when we’re talking about features, is the Vainu Map. All our sales reps and SDRs are using the map to find where reference customers are in the country," Lucas explains. This feature allows them to see which of their customers are in the same area and segment as new prospects, which they can then bring up when starting a dialog with new prospects—a smart strategy, in our opinion!