8 new clients in 2 months: how EWL turned cold calls into inbound calls
EWL reached 6,625 manufacturing decision makers by email and LinkedIn and got 174 interested leads. Buyers started calling, and 8 new clients signed in the first 2 months.
Written byVytas MikulėnasFounder, Lean Sales Systems- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 6 min read
TL;DR
- EWL, a staffing company, reached 6,625 manufacturing decision makers in Lithuania by email and LinkedIn and got 174 interested leads.
- Buyers started calling EWL: 10 inbound calls a day during campaigns, with the same small sales team.
- EWL signed 8 new clients in the first 2 months, about 4 a month, up from 1 every 2 to 3 months. The work paid for itself within 2 months.
On this page
EWL places factory workers with manufacturers in Lithuania. Lean Sales Systems replaced its cold calling with an automated email and LinkedIn system that reached 6,625 manufacturing decision makers. 101 of them replied with interest in the first month of email alone. Buyers started calling EWL, and the team signed 8 new clients in the first 2 months.
| Client | Industry | Service | Market | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EWL | Staffing and recruitment | Managed lead generation | Lithuania | February to October 2025 |
Key results
| Decision makers reached | Replies | Interested leads | New clients |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6,625 | 1,039 | 174 | 8 in the first 2 months |
Interested leads are replies tagged Interested in Reply.io. New clients are signed contracts reported by EWL.
About EWL
EWL is part of EWL Group, an international staffing company founded in 2007 and based in Warsaw. In Lithuania, a small team led by Country Manager Pavel Druto sells staffing and recruitment services to manufacturers: factory workers who fill open roles fast.
The challenge
EWL had a service every manufacturer needs when it is short of workers. What it lacked was a way to reach those manufacturers without its small sales team doing everything by hand.
| Challenge | Why it hurt |
|---|---|
| All sales work was manual | Finding companies, finding the right person and writing to them filled the sales team's day. Little time was left for selling. |
| No data on decision makers | Without names and direct contacts, cold calls landed at reception. Most calls never reached the person who decides on staffing. |
| One active channel: cold calls | Cold calls rarely worked, and email newsletters brought no results. There was no second way to start conversations. |
| A small team in a big market | A small team cannot call every manufacturer in Lithuania. Most potential clients never heard from EWL. |
| Slow, unpredictable new business | EWL won about 1 new client every 2 to 3 months. Growth depended on a few lucky calls. |
| Time spent chasing conversations | The team spent most of its time trying to get someone on the phone, not talking to buyers who wanted workers. |
Markets and focus
We focused on Lithuanian manufacturers, starting with the ones hiring factory workers right now.
| Market | Who we reached | Companies | Volume | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | CEOs, HR managers, heads of departments and finance managers | Manufacturing companies across Lithuania, first those with open factory job ads | 5,357 email contacts, 1,268 LinkedIn connection requests | 1,039 replies, 174 interested leads; 44% accepted the LinkedIn connection |
The solution
We built a system that does the non-selling work: finding the companies that need workers, finding the right people, writing, sending and following up. EWL's team only took the calls and the conversations.
| Building block | What it did for EWL | Why we used it | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AI lead research with hiring signals | Collected open factory job ads from CV Bankas, Lithuania's largest job site, and built a table of about 3,000 manufacturing companies with their decision makers. Each message mentioned the role the company was hiring for. We refreshed the job ads during the campaign. | A manufacturer with an open factory job has a staffing need today. Writing about that job beats a generic staffing offer. | CV Bankas job ads, Clay (a data platform that combines 100+ data sources and AI in one table), LinkedIn |
| 2. Email finder and verifier | Found the work email of each decision maker and checked that the address exists before sending. | Emails to dead addresses push a sender into spam. Clean lists meant 98.2% of emails reached a valid address. | Clay |
| 3. Automated outreach tool, a sequencer | Started with LinkedIn in March 2025, then added email in April. Sent personal messages and follow-ups on a schedule and stopped when someone replied. Every email carried EWL's phone number. | A small team cannot follow up with thousands of people. With a phone number in every email, interested buyers called EWL instead of EWL cold calling them. | Reply.io |
| 4. Hand-off to sales | Replies and calls went straight to EWL's sales team. EWL picked the leads that fit its staffing plans and turned down the rest. | The team spent its time only on buyers who wanted workers. | Reply.io inbox, EWL phone line |
| Extra: separate sending inboxes | Set up 10 new inboxes on 5 domains, warmed them up and kept daily volume per inbox low. | Protects EWL's main domain and keeps emails out of spam folders. | Zapmail |
What made the difference. The first LinkedIn campaign showed how much demand was waiting. In the first 2 weeks, 625 decision makers got a connection request, 42% accepted, and 43% of the people who got a message replied. Email followed in April and brought 101 interested replies in its first month.
What changed
These are tracked or client-reported results, not estimates.
| Metric | Result | Tracked in |
|---|---|---|
| Companies researched | About 3,000 Lithuanian manufacturing companies | Lead research table |
| Decision makers reached | 6,625: 5,357 email contacts and 1,268 LinkedIn connection requests | Reply.io |
| Emails delivered | 98.2% reached a valid address, 1.8% bounced | Reply.io |
| LinkedIn connections accepted | 44%, 562 of 1,268 | Reply.io |
| Replies | 1,039: 666 by email, 373 on LinkedIn | Reply.io |
| Interested leads | 174 replies tagged Interested: 101 in April 2025, the first month of email, 37 more in May and June, and 36 in the October 2025 campaigns. LinkedIn conversations and phone calls were not tagged, so the real number is higher. | Reply.io |
| Inbound calls | 10 a day during campaigns | Reported by EWL |
| New clients | 8 in the first 2 months, about 4 a month, up from 1 every 2 to 3 months | Client feedback |
| Payback | Within the first 2 months | Client feedback |
| Extra salespeople hired | 0. The same team handled the calls. | Project setup |
Pavel told us EWL now gets inbound calls and emails every day, and the results paid for themselves in the first months. With more demand than it could serve, EWL could also turn down leads that did not fit its staffing plans.
Extra benefits
- Inbound instead of cold calls. Buyers called EWL. The team stopped fighting past reception.
- More clients, same team. No new salesperson was hired. The system did the research, writing and follow-ups.
- The best leads first. With a steady flow of interest, EWL could choose the clients that fit its workforce.
- A live hiring signal. Open job ads show which manufacturers need workers now. Refreshing them keeps the list current.
- Main domain protected. All outreach ran from separate inboxes, so EWL's own domain stayed clean.
What this could be worth
The numbers below are estimates, not results reported by EWL. We keep them apart from the tracked results on purpose.
| Estimate | Value | How we calculate it |
|---|---|---|
| Value of outreach work | about €29,800 | 6,625 decision makers x €4.50, the typical in-house cost to research and contact 1 person in Lithuania |
| Manual work saved | about 1,100 hours, or about 7 months of 1 full-time person | 6,625 x 10 minutes to find, research, write to and follow up with 1 person; 160 working hours a month |
This is the value of the activity, not a return. We do not project deals here, because EWL reported real ones: 8 new clients in the first 2 months. EWL does not share deal sizes, so we do not estimate revenue.
In EWL's words
Lean Sales Systems brought us 8 new clients from top manufacturing companies in just 2 months. Before working with Vytas, we struggled with cold calls that rarely worked and slow results, maybe one client every 2 to 3 months. Our email outreach wasn't performing either. Now, we're getting inbound calls and emails daily. The results far exceeded our expectations and more than paid for themselves in the first few months. We're truly enjoying the boost in sales opportunities and highly recommend Lean Sales Systems to anyone looking to grow faster.
Pavel DrutoCountry Manager, EWLWhat happened next
EWL renewed in autumn 2025. In October 2025 we launched new manufacturing campaigns and a first test with hotels, a second market that hires staff in volume.
A system problem, not a hiring problem
Most companies treat new clients as a hiring problem: add a salesperson, or make more cold calls. It is a system problem. Lean Sales Systems builds the research, outreach and follow-up system, and your people have the conversations. See more results in our B2B case studies.
FAQ
How fast did EWL see results?
LinkedIn outreach started in March 2025. In the first 2 weeks, 42% of contacted decision makers accepted the connection and 43% of those messaged replied. Email followed in April and brought 101 interested replies that month. EWL signed 8 new clients in the first 2 months.
Where did the leads come from?
From open factory job ads on CV Bankas. A manufacturer that is hiring needs workers now, so Lean Sales Systems wrote to its decision makers about that exact role.
Did EWL need more salespeople?
No. The system did the research, writing and follow-ups. EWL's existing team took the inbound calls and closed the deals.
