Montana Ames of Oso Gets Creative with Koala

In this episode of Path to Pipeline, we chat with Montana Ames, the first account executive hired at Oso. She explains why Koala is her go-to tool for generating sales pipeline.

Personalizing In-Person Outreach

Oso is a managed solution for centralizing authorization logic and protecting application data. They’re growing quickly, and Montana Ames is the first account executive to join their team. She describes Koala as her number one focus for generating pipeline, and she has some innovative uses for Koala that she’s happy to share.

One such innovation is using Koala to plan in-person customer meetings. She explains how, on a recent business trip to Boston, she wanted to make the most of her time by planning additional sales activities.

"I pulled a list of anyone in Boston who had been in our technical docs over the past three months,” she says. Koala let her target not just companies headquartered in the city, but individuals who lived there but worked elsewhere. She was able to set up two in-person meetings with companies that were a good fit for Oso.

She says that this approach worked better than past attempts to connect in person, because it feels more organic. She also knew these individuals had been taking the time to read Oso’s documentation and trying to learn about authorization. She was able to address specific concerns and help these leads learn about solutions to their unique pain points.

"The ‘what’s in it for them’ was much more tangible," she says, “I’ve realized it’s more effective to reach out when you can lead with their problem/pain and the data in Koala gives me the ability to empathize with them before we’ve met.”

Montana notes that this innovative use of Koala worked so well that she plans to do it again when visiting other cities in the future.

Re-engaging Potential Customers

Montana also uses Koala to re-engage potential customers. She tells us about a particular lead who had seemed ready to sign on with Oso during her first few weeks there but who changed their mind at the last minute, going with a different solution without providing much explanation.

It was a disappointing experience. But, thanks to Koala, Montana saw that they were soon coming back and spending a lot more time reading Oso’s technical documentation. Montana knows that spending significant time on these pages is a high-intent indication, so she reached back out to them to see if there was anything she could help with.

This approach paid off. She explains, "They didn’t like the original solution they had chosen and were ready to move forward with Oso. We just signed them as a customer last week."

Turn Intent Into Pipeline

Montana’s innovative use of Koala for both in-person outreach and re-engagement targeting shows just how versatile the platform can be. She sees it as a vital part of her toolkit as an account executive, saying, “I love it. I don't want to be in a role in the future where I don't have Koala!”

Her work at Oso is a prime example of the ways Koala can unlock the full potential of your sales team’s creativity. When your team can see who was on your site, what they were doing, and when they were doing it, who knows what they can come up with!

Let your team find new ways to fill their pipeline — try Koala today!