HR consultancy wins 80+ CEO opportunities, then runs lead generation in-house
HR Hint Online won 80+ CEO opportunities with automated B2B lead generation in about 4 months, then took the outreach system in-house. 5,089 leaders reached.
Written byVytas MikulėnasFounder, Lean Sales Systems- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 7 min read
TL;DR
- HR Hint Online, a Lithuanian HR consultancy that relied on referrals, reached 5,089 company leaders with automated email and LinkedIn outreach.
- In about 4 months the campaign brought 602 replies and 88 replies tagged Interested in Reply.io, at least 80 of them real opportunities.
- Lean Sales Systems then trained the HR Hint and OVC team to run the same outreach system in-house.
On this page
HR Hint Online rents out experienced HR leaders to Lithuanian companies that do not need a full-time HR head. Most of its new clients came from referrals. Lean Sales Systems built an automated email and LinkedIn outreach system that reached 5,089 company leaders and produced 80+ opportunities with CEOs in about 4 months. Then we taught the team to run it themselves.
| Client | Industry | Service | Market | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR Hint Online, with OVC | Business consulting (HR) | Managed lead generation, then Training and Sales systems integration | Lithuania | May 2025 to April 2026 |
Key results
| Decision makers reached | Replies | Opportunities | Hours of manual work saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,089 | 602 | 80+ | ~850 (estimate) |
Opportunities are replies tagged Interested in Reply.io (88 in total; we removed about 7 that were only a thank you or an auto reply). Hours saved is an estimate, explained below.
About the client
HR Hint Online, led by CEO Giedrė Vaitiekūnaitė, helps companies build HR processes: hiring, onboarding, roles, pay and staff engagement. Its main service is a rented HR leader for companies with roughly 40 to 170 employees. It also runs an HR academy, an HR club and a free online HR audit. It is now part of one company group with OVC, a large Lithuanian organisational consulting firm.
The challenge
Growth depended on people who already knew the founder. Around 70% of clients found HR Hint on their own, through referrals, contacts and social media ads.
| Challenge | Why it hurt |
|---|---|
| New clients came from referrals and inbound | Growth stopped when the network went quiet. There was no way to create demand on purpose. |
| The buyer is the CEO, not HR | Target companies often have no HR manager at all. The owner or CEO decides, and CEOs are busy and hard to reach. |
| A crowded, local market | Many Lithuanian firms sell HR rental and pay consulting. A generic "we do HR" email sounds like everyone else. |
| A small team | The founder sells and delivers. Hours spent finding contacts are hours not spent with clients. |
| No data and no tracking | There was no list of target companies, no decision maker contacts and no sales metrics. |
| Old messages were basic | Earlier cold emails only said who they were and asked for a talk. |
Markets and focus
All outreach ran in Lithuania, in Lithuanian, to leaders of growing companies outside transport and logistics.
| Market | Who we reached | Companies | Volume | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | CEOs, owners and managing directors | Companies with about 40 to 170 staff, all sectors except transport and logistics, many in the regions | 5,089 people by email, 658 LinkedIn connection requests | 602 replies, 80+ opportunities |
The solution
We built the system for HR Hint, ran it for about 4 months, and then handed it over.
| Building block | What it did for HR Hint | Why we used it | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead research agents | Built 5 lists of companies showing a reason to care about HR right now: fast growth, a higher 2024 profit, more staff than a year before, a new manager, or leaders following the EBIT business leaders' conference. Each message referred to that reason. | A generic HR offer gets ignored. A growing company feels HR pain first. | Public company financial data, LinkedIn |
| Email verifiers | An email finder and verifier found each leader's work email and checked it exists before sending. Only 20 emails bounced. | Bad addresses damage the sender's name with email providers and push emails into spam. | Email finder and verifier |
| Automated sequencer | An automated email and LinkedIn outreach tool (a sequencer) sent messages and follow-ups from Giedrė's name on a schedule and stopped when someone replied. | 1 founder cannot write to 5,000 CEOs by hand. | Reply.io, LinkedIn |
| Connected CRM | HR Hint had no CRM (customer database), so every reply went straight to the founder's inbox and LinkedIn, ready to answer. | Interested CEOs needed a fast personal answer from the expert, not a form. | Reply.io inbox |
| Sending setup and warm-up | Extra inboxes on separate domains, used gently for about 2 weeks so email providers trust them. All replies led back to the main domain. | Protects hrhintonline.lt from spam risk. | Separate sending domains |
| Training and in-house setup | A 3-month programme of weekly consultations for the HR Hint and OVC team: lists, copy, tools, sending safety and reply handling. | The team wanted to own the know-how and write its own lists and messages. | Weekly calls, recordings |
What made the difference. Every message carried a free next step instead of a sales pitch: the free online HR audit at hrauditas.lt and a free 30-minute consultation. Combined with growth signals, it worked best. The list of fast-growing companies got a 13.2% email reply rate. The lists of companies with a higher profit or more staff brought 55 of the 88 tagged replies.
What changed
| Metric | Result | Tracked in |
|---|---|---|
| Decision makers reached by email | 5,089 | Reply.io |
| LinkedIn connection requests | 658 sent, 459 accepted (70%) | Reply.io |
| Emails that could not be delivered | 20 (0.4%) | Reply.io |
| Replies | 602 (442 by email, 160 on LinkedIn) | Reply.io |
| Email reply rate | 8.7% overall, 13.2% for the best list | Reply.io |
| Opportunities | 88 tagged Interested, 80+ after removing mis-tags | Reply.io inbox |
| Time to first interested reply | Within the first week of sending | Reply.io inbox |
| Replies that agreed a call time in the first answer | 10+ | Reply.io inbox |
Interested CEOs asked for the HR audit link, asked for details, or proposed a meeting time in their first reply. Giedrė answered the replies herself. LinkedIn conversations and phone calls came on top of the tagged count.
Extra benefits
- A new channel that does not depend on referrals or ad spend.
- The main domain stayed safe: all volume went through separate, warmed-up inboxes.
- Clear market lessons: growth signals beat broad lists, and a free audit beats "let's talk".
- Reusable assets: 5 targeted lists, tested messages and sequences.
- In-house skills for 2 companies: the HR Hint and OVC team learned to build lists and run campaigns on their own.
What this could be worth (estimates)
The numbers below are estimates, not results reported by HR Hint Online.
Work the system did
| Estimate | Value |
|---|---|
| Value of outreach work done (activity value, not return) | ~€22,900 |
| Hours of manual work saved | ~850 hours |
| Full-time months saved | ~5.3 months |
Projected deals within 12 months
| Scenario | Close rate | Projected deals |
|---|---|---|
| Pessimistic | 5% | 4 |
| Average | 10% | 8 |
| Optimistic | 15% | 12 |
Assumptions: 5,089 decision makers, €4.50 and 10 minutes of manual work per contact, 160 working hours a month, 80 opportunities. HR Hint Online does not share deal sizes, so we do not estimate revenue.
Client quote
Everything is great!
What happened next
In August 2025 Giedrė asked to hand the know-how over to the team. From October 2025 Lean Sales Systems ran weekly consultations for HR Hint and OVC. In January 2026 the team's own campaign reached 3,490 contacts and got 218 email replies in 1 month.
Most companies treat this as a hiring problem
It is a system problem. A small expert firm does not need a sales team to reach CEOs. It needs the right list, a reason to write and a safe way to send. Lean Sales Systems can build that for you, run it, or teach your team. See more case studies.
FAQ
How fast did the first opportunities come?
The first interested CEO replied within the first week of sending. Before that, about 3 weeks went into lists, messages and warming up new inboxes. Most opportunities came in the first 4 months, with the strongest months in July and August.
How much time did the HR Hint team spend?
The team reviewed the lists and messages before launch and removed existing clients. After that, Lean Sales Systems ran the sending, and Giedrė only answered the interested replies. Later, the team joined weekly training calls to take the system in-house.
Who did the campaign target?
Owners, CEOs and managing directors of Lithuanian companies with about 40 to 170 employees, outside transport and logistics. Lists focused on companies with a clear growth signal, such as more staff or a higher profit, because growing companies feel HR pain first.
