Serhii Huzenko, CEO & Owner of Wezom, shared his experience of building his own company and working during the war, insights into organizing processes in Worksection, as well as advice on how to build a successful company of 250+ people.
About the company:
WEZOM is a well-known player in the global IT market, whose clients include John Deere, Aptive, Cooper & Hunter, Toyota Material, Roshen and many others. WEZOM has successfully delivered more than 3,500 projects. The company specializes in various sectors including logistics, oil and gas, supply chain, real estate and e‑commerce. The WEZOM team was named one of the top 100 web development and services companies in the US in 2023.
About the Western market and work during the war
Before the full-scale invasion began, we had certain goals regarding Western customers. We had classic methods of lead generation, including a website, SEO traffic, paid advertising, etc. And then — calls with the customers.
When the full-scale invasion began, we started working with a more or less targeted customer base that I had once acquired. With the four of us living in one apartment (it was safer), we called potential clients 8 hours a day. In total, there were about 60 Zoom calls presenting our services. The problem was that the customers did not know us at all, so the conversion rate was low. So we took the following approach: provided a free Discovery Stage and held a few more calls. This is how clients saw our work and after that started buying our services.
How did the company come to Worksection?
We found Worksection pretty quickly and didn’t even hesitate. We searched for a CRM for a very long time, tested a lot, and with Worksection — we found it and bought it.
We assign tasks in the system, especially for internal projects, on a daily basis because there are a lot of cool tools that we enjoy using. We also add clients to the system when they need it
How do you “get” employees used to the time tracker?
This was a problem, and still is, to some extent. We have accounting software that “pulls” data on time spent from Worksection for a certain period. After that, the managers open the report for each department and see the planned vs actual hours worked.
This way, the manager can see the time the employee spent on work. If it is less than planned, the manager finds out the reason directly from the employee. It is convenient to monitor this during the month, because if the shortfall “shows up“at the start of the next month, it leads to losses. But if there is still some time left before the end of the month, then the employee can complete the required number of hours, and thus reach the planned profit values, marginality, etc.
How to build a company of 250+ people?
It was all built on my own mistakes, of course. Knowledge is needed to run a company, but the most important thing is people and their skills, so all of us at Wezom do our best to keep the customer satisfied.At the end of the day, we’re all human, so you have to put humanity and customer care into the product and the work.
The law of success is perseverance over a long period of time, attempts, mistakes, actions. That’s the only way something can work. The problem is that 99% of people are not ready for this. Wezom has been in business for many years, but I learned to make money about 19 years after it was founded. I had all kinds of thoughts: to quit and go somewhere I could earn 10 times more with my skills. Maybe someone else in my position would have done it faster, but it took me 19 years to understand how things work and to hold on.
“We never thought of stopping using Worksection…”
We’ve never thought of stopping using Worksection, and we’re not thinking about it now. It has soul and I enjoy working with your system, as do all 250 of my people.
Watch the full video interview with Serhii Huzenko on our YouTube channel.
Watch the full video interview with Serhii Huzenko on our YouTube channel.