How Varlė gave 3 B2B teams a new sales channel with automated lead generation
Varlė's 3 B2B teams got a new sales channel: automated lead generation that their own people ran, with 60+ opportunities in 4 months.
Written byVytas MikulėnasFounder, Lean Sales Systems- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 7 min read
TL;DR
- Varlė, one of Lithuania's largest online retailers, had 3 B2B teams prospecting by hand with generic emails and an empty CRM.
- Lean Sales Systems built them 1 shared system: competitor-marketplace seller lists, AI research, safe sending, outreach automation and HubSpot.
- Varlė's own team ran the campaigns and generated 60+ opportunities in 4 months.
On this page
Varlė asked Lean Sales Systems to fix B2B lead generation for 3 business units at once: marketplace, business clients and export. We built the system, trained the team and handed it over. Varlė's own people then ran the campaigns and generated 60+ new opportunities in 4 months.
| Client | Industry | Service | Market | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Varlė | E-commerce and wholesale | Sales systems integration | Lithuania, Baltics, Finland, Europe | July 2025 to October 2025 |
Key results
| Marketplace sellers researched | Business units connected | Opportunities | Hours of manual work saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3,200 | 3 | 60+ | ~530 |
Opportunities are interested replies from new B2B prospects, as reported by Varlė's team, who ran the campaigns from their own accounts. Hours saved is an estimate, explained below.
About the client
Varlė is one of the largest e-commerce companies in the Baltic states, with a Lithuanian online store, a network of physical shops and an online marketplace for other sellers. Next to retail, it runs 3 B2B units: a marketplace that signs up new sellers, a business unit that supplies companies and public bodies, and an export unit that trades with retailers and distributors across Europe.
The challenge
Each of the 3 units had its own way of finding clients, and none of them could grow without more people.
| Challenge | Why it hurt |
|---|---|
| Very low outreach volume | The export team sent about 50 LinkedIn messages and 10 calls a month. The business team made 10 to 30 calls. Too little activity to move the numbers. |
| Generic, newsletter-style emails | The marketplace sent about 500 emails a month in Lithuania like a newsletter, with almost no replies. The only personal detail was a name. |
| Manual list building | Staff searched Google and the national company register by hand, and found missing emails one by one. |
| A crowded marketplace category | Online sellers already have bigger platforms to choose from. A generic "sell with us" message gets ignored. |
| Spam risk to the main domain | Bulk emails went from the company's main email domain, with no checks on whether addresses exist. |
| No shared process or CRM discipline | HubSpot was used mainly for newsletters. Leads sat in spreadsheets, deals went stale and nobody could see what worked. |
Markets and focus
We built 1 system with a separate target list and message for each unit.
| Market | Who we reached | Companies | Volume | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithuania, marketplace | Owners and e-commerce managers | Online shops that already sell on a competing marketplace (Pigu.lt) | 3,200 sellers researched | Part of the 60+ opportunities |
| Latvia, Estonia, Finland, marketplace | Owners and e-commerce managers | Sellers on the competitor's sites in those countries (220.lv, Kaup24.ee, Hobbyhall.fi) who were not yet on the Lithuanian list | Separate list, not counted by us | Part of the 60+ opportunities |
| Lithuania, business clients | People responsible for purchasing | Companies and public bodies, from the national company register | List built and filtered by region | Part of the 60+ opportunities |
| Europe, export | Buyers, category managers and CEOs | E-commerce stores selling 100,000+ products | List built from StoreLeads | Part of the 60+ opportunities |
Varlė's team sent the campaigns from their own accounts, so the split of results by unit was not tracked by Lean Sales Systems.
The solution
We did not run the campaigns for Varlė. We built the system inside the company and taught the team to run it.
| Building block | What it did for the client | Why we used it | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI research agents | Collected every seller from a competing marketplace in 4 countries, then had an AI research assistant read each company's website and add notes, categories and company codes | Replaced manual Google searches, and gave each message a real reason to write | Clay, a data platform that combines 100+ data sources and AI in one table |
| Email finder and verifier | Found the work emails of decision makers and checked each address exists before sending | Stopped bounced emails from hurting the main domain | LinkedIn Sales Navigator, an email finder |
| Automated sequencer | An automated email and LinkedIn outreach tool (a "sequencer") that sends short, personal messages and 2 to 3 follow-ups on schedule, and stops when someone replies | The old process often sent 1 email and stopped. | Reply.io |
| Connected CRM | HubSpot (the customer database) was filled with 1,700 companies and connected to the research table | Gave all 3 units 1 place to see contacts, replies and deals | HubSpot |
| Sending setup | Extra email domains and inboxes, used gently for the first weeks so email providers trust them | Kept campaign emails away from the main varle.lt domain | Separate domains and inboxes |
| Team training | A live training on LinkedIn Sales Navigator for 10 team members, plus video guides and templates for each step | So Varlė could repeat every step without Lean Sales Systems | Sales Navigator, Clay templates |
What made the difference. Targeting a competitor's audience. Every seller listed on a rival marketplace already sells online through a marketplace, so adding 1 more is a small step. The first email simply said "we noticed you sell on Pigu.lt" and offered a no-risk way to reach more buyers, with no fee to start. That is a far easier yes than a cold "sell with us".
What changed
| Metric | Result | Tracked in |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace sellers researched in Lithuania | 3,200 | Clay table and lead list, July 2025 |
| Extra marketplace sellers in Latvia, Estonia and Finland | Separate list, duplicates removed | Lead list, July 2025 |
| Companies added to HubSpot | 1,700 | Lean Sales Systems work report, August 2025 |
| Business units with their own lists and messages | 3 | Client portal |
| Team members trained | 10 | Training session notes, September 2025 |
| Opportunities | 60+ in 4 months | Reported by Varlė's team |
Outreach that used to depend on a few people's free hours can now run on a schedule. Each unit has its own list, its own short messages and its own follow-ups. Varlė's team kept the research templates, so they can rebuild a fresh list of competitor sellers whenever the market changes.
Extra benefits
- 3 business units now use 1 shared process and 1 CRM instead of 3 separate habits.
- The main varle.lt email domain is protected from spam risk.
- Reusable Clay templates rebuild the competitor seller list in any country in hours.
- New messages for each unit: Lithuanian and English versions, each with follow-ups and short subject lines.
- A quick, low-cost way to test the Latvian, Estonian and Finnish markets with the same system.
- Staff time moved from collecting contacts to talking with interested companies.
What this could be worth (estimates)
The numbers below are estimates, not results reported by Varlė.
Work the system did
| Metric | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Value of research work done | ~€14,400 of activity value (3,200 sellers x €4.50) |
| Hours of manual work saved | ~530 hours (3,200 sellers x 10 minutes) |
| Full-time months saved | ~3.3 months (530 hours / 160) |
Projected deals within 12 months
| Scenario | Close rate | Projected deals |
|---|---|---|
| Pessimistic | 5% | 3 |
| Average | 10% | 6 |
| Optimistic | 15% | 9 |
Assumptions: €4.50 per manually processed contact and 10 minutes per contact, both in-house benchmarks in Lithuania. We count only the 3,200 Lithuanian marketplace sellers, so the real numbers are higher. Close rates are typical for mid-market B2B, applied to 60 opportunities. Varlė does not share deal sizes, so we do not estimate revenue.
What happened next
The system stayed with Varlė. The team kept the lists, templates, video guides and tools, so it can run new campaigns in-house without outside help.
Most companies treat this as a hiring problem. It is a system problem. Lean Sales Systems can build the same setup inside your team, or run it for you. See more results on our case studies page.
FAQ
Can our own team run this without an agency?
Yes. At Varlė, Lean Sales Systems built the lists, tools, messages and CRM connection, trained 10 people and handed it over. Varlė's team then ran the campaigns from their own accounts and generated 60+ opportunities in 4 months.
Who should we target first?
Companies that already buy something similar. For a marketplace, that is sellers listed on a competing platform. They already sell online through a marketplace, so a short message that names the platform they use is far more relevant than a generic offer.
Does bulk outreach put our main email domain at risk?
It can. That is why campaigns go from separate domains and inboxes, warmed up for 2 to 3 weeks, and every email address is checked before sending. Your main domain stays clean for clients and invoices.
