SalesTechStar Interview with Nicolas Vandenberghe, CEO and Co-founder at Chili Piper

Nicolas Vandenberghe, CEO and Co-founder at Chili Piper shares a few thoughts on Chili Piper’s recent product innovations and what B2B brands should keep in mind as hybrid/in-person events start making a comeback as businesses and economies try to limp back to pre-Covid normalcy:

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Hi Nicolas, welcome back to SalesTechStar, we’ve enjoyed our chats with you before! Chili Piper recently announced the launch of their Chili Events platform: tell us the story and inspiration behind this launch / product?

Thank you for this opportunity! We’re very pleased to launch our Chili Events solution. In-person events are critical for B2B revenue teams as they allow for increased networking and leads. Yet most companies don’t take full advantage of their investments in events, hence they have a hard time proving the ROI of that investment.

Typically they send emails to their best prospects with only a very vague call to action, like “we’ll be at Dreamforce, meet us at Booth North 605.” And then once on the floor, they think they’re doing great scanning badges and following up with an email campaign a week later. These are losing strategies, as buyers barely check their emails and very few opportunities are created from this lead generation strategy.

Instead, companies need to “go straight to meetings.” They need the ability to book in-person meetings to be held at the event, and once on the event floor, they need to book meetings directly at their booth. This is made easy with our solution, Chili Events.

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As in-person conferences and events start to pick up pace again after the break caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, how do you feel B2B sales and marketing teams will respond – as they adjust to hybrid models and virtual selling modes.

For sure hybrid events will be the norm, at least in the near future. Some people are very keen on meeting in person again, while others don’t feel safe yet, so the sales and marketing team will have to adjust to this new, maybe temporary, reality. And, so will the technology supporting Events.

What are some of the ways in which brands can improve their in-person event experience during this time, as events make a comeback in the B2B market?

As more events move to the hybrid model with in-person and online attendance, the in-person component will be much smaller than the pre-Covid era. The best marketers will take advantage of this new reality by making events feel much more personal. They will organize dinners, invite-only demo sessions, one-one-one meetings and other special experiences. The quality of engagement for in-person events will more than compensate for the decreased quantity of participants.

We’d love to hear more about some other upcoming innovations in store at Chili Piper?

We’ll soon be launching “Distro,” an automation technology that routes, qualifies and assigns inbound leads in real time, no matter the source. Nowadays any delay in action on a prospective interest results in a huge lost opportunity. This new launch will make Chili Piper the world’s first one-stop-shop for all real time lead routing, scheduling, and assignment needs.

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How do you hope to scale and enhance this platform as the years go by: we’d love to hear about the future trajectory you’ve planned?

Our mission is to help Revenue Teams be successful and have fun in the process. Currently, one of the most important issues is to convert inbound prospects. This is why we’ve built a suite of products to double inbound conversion rates. Our Events solution is part of this suite: booking meetings at events is the key to converting interest to pipeline. Inbound conversion is a complex problem so we look forward to coming up with many more innovative solutions to help our customers succeed.

Some last thoughts from the perspective of a salestech founder before we wrap up?

Every decade or so, some new phenomenon completely transforms the job of marketers and sales reps. First it was the emergence of the internet in the 1990s then the rise of online advertising in the new millennium, social media in the last decade, and now the “dark funnel.” The dark funnel is fueled by the emergence of Slack groups and online review sites where buyers make up their mind without even talking to any vendors. These are some of the things salesteach and martech founders have to adapt to and what makes it both fun and rewarding as we continue to drive revenue growth opportunities in this new era.

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