We recently connected with Marc Yannaco and have shared our conversation below.

Marc , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share a customer success story with us?

Bongoze was conceived over a cup of coffee with one of my college friends. Throughout his decades-long career in the insurance industry, he was constantly working on acquiring new customers. He was spending thousands of dollars each month on marketing and SEO with little results to show. I asked him if he knew how many inbound sales calls he was missing each month, but he couldn’t answer as he did not have systems in place to track this information. I told him I thought I could help. So, The Call Catch System, a supercharged answering/messaging service, was born. This system caught every single missed call sent to our service, including callers who hung up without leaving a message or abandoned the call. After some trial and error, a viable service was built, and my friend started using this in conjunction with his marketing. He was surprised by how effective it was. Now, he and his team can call missed prospects back in real time and close the sale. He continues to write multiple policies a month with The Call Catch System and his professional sales team.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was working in the financial services industry for 20 years before I realized that I was destined to become an entrepreneur. But at the time, I didn’t exactly know which industry to pursue and the problem I was going to solve. It was that chance encounter with my college friend that made me realize I can marry two completely different industries (insurance and call centers) and solve a major problem. Another friend from my childhood had an existing call center business, which had been up and running for ten years. When I presented him with the idea to build a new entity to help the insurance industry and their missed sales calls, he was all in. As a result, Bongoze Call Answering and Messaging services was born. With the existing technology in place and a team of U.S. based call center representatives ready to go, the rigorous testing phase began. We soon realized that we had a great business in the making.
As I found out with my insurance friend, most agents have no idea how many missed calls they have each week. That’s a big problem. Insurance agents must keep selling new policies to survive in that competitive industry. On top of that, they are spending thousands of dollars each month on marketing. If you miss a call from a hot lead, that lead will simply call another agent. With our Call Catch System, we make sure you never miss a call. This allows your sales team to call that missed lead back and generate more revenue each month.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It is a frightening experience leaving the only industry you’ve known your entire adult life. But after 20 years in the financial services industry, that’s exactly what I did. The last few years I was working in finance, I knew I wanted to start my own business. When a couple of timely encounters happened with some friends, the Bongoze idea came to fruition. There was certainly a huge learning curve in the beginning. As any founder knows, you are forced to wear many hats when starting a company from scratch. I had to become the IT, accounting, and marketing teams all at once. I was able to translate my decades of experience in finance to a new industry and bring Bongoze to life.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As a bond trader, every day I had to make financial decisions that had long-term ramifications for our firm’s success. There was no time to hesitate when a client was only giving you 30 seconds to make up your mind on a trade. However, when you start your own company, everything you need done takes twice as long as you would like it to. In the beginning stages, I certainly had to relearn that patience is key. But if you are persistent, it will pay off in the end.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bongoze.com/
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/bongoze_
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bongoze

Image Credits
Lucas Klappas