If you're reading this post, then you might feel a little like the kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. You've done your homework, you know that you aren't supposed to have dessert before dinner, and yet you can't help yourself ... you reached for the cookie, without realizing that if you had just done a little bit of research you could have had a cookie on top of an ice cream sundae. In other words, perhaps you have a "fake CRM" (the cookie) and have now sheepishly realized that it isn't a "real" CRM. One might say that's the way the cookie crumbles, but all food references aside, you've come to the right place if you want to a) confirm that your CRM isn't cutting it, and b) discover what you should be looking for in your CRM.
What a week. In fact it was the kind week we needed a week to recover from! So many new product services being launched, so many amazing people we connected with and heard speak. David was even a featured Speaker this year…. Also amazing.
As some of you who follow our social media pages may know we took a quick trip up to Boston for the day to meet with our HubSpot account managers and to work through some kinks we have internally. We are small business owners, it often feels like we work in a bubble. Most of what we focus on is the execution needed for our clients. Our own business often needs a pair of fresh eyes to critique it. That’s part of the beauty in being a Sales Solutions Partner with HubSpot… we get many fresh eyes to help us.
Sales and marketing have long been at odds with one another in organizations across the world. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, this tension and disconnect that exists between these two vital teams can actually lead to inefficiencies and lost business opportunities. That’s why smarketing is so important.
Smarketing is the process of aligning your sales and marketing teams around common organizational goals that focus on improving revenue. It is important for sales and marketing teams to work together if your company wants to achieve your overall business goals. Below, we’ll dive a little deeper into why this alignment between sales and marketing is essential to success and give an overview of some best practices that your company can adopt to promote smarketing across your organization.
When the average person thinks about the sales process, they picture a hard-core sales person cramming their product or service down an unwilling buyer's throat. If you are in the selling business, you know that in most scenarios, that's not the case.
While there are sales people and cold-calling and other components present in today's selling process, there are other, more strategic ways of accessing buyers and landing new, profitable business. We are talking about inbound sales as opposed to outbound sales. Both have merit and can produce results, but they are completely different animals.
We have seen it happen hundreds of times: a business owner comes to us for advice when they discover that trying to solve one marketing challenge ends up hitting brick walls due to a tangled spiderweb of systems or spreadsheets. Sometimes the problem involves attempting to get more people through a lead generation form, and sometimes the problem is the lack of a CRM tool for unified contact management. So often, business systems grow organically as user needs grow, but when do you stop and take the time to evaluate your marketing stack? Fortunately, HubSpot has created a free solution that leverages HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Marketing, and HubSpot Sales to keep your organization moving forward quickly. Here’s 7 ways you can leverage the new HubSpot Growth Stack to supercharge your business results.
No self-respecting sales development rep (SDR) has ever said, “I have enough business.” Even those crushing their sales goals crave more, and it would be nice if it came faster and easier than most deals do.
Consider for a moment that companies who contact leads within the first hour are 7 times as likely to qualify the lead than those who wait just one more hour before initial contact. Shoppers today are accustomed to businesses that respond to their requests promptly and marketing automation can be a fantastic tool for businesses interested in streamlining their marketing efforts and efficiently answering queries.
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend Hubspots inbound conference for the last 4 years. There’s no doubt that hubspot has played a pivotal role in the way we look to generate leads. The entire inbound movement has really taken off and for us and our clients, it has proven to be a great way to generate leads as you can drive prospects to your business or website as a result of your content marketing efforts. So how does it really tie into sales? For starters, check out this video intro from last week at INBOUND…
Far too often, I hear about inbound marketing campaigns that have successfully generated leads but those leads haven’t converted to sales. There seems to be a misconception that inbound leads = SALES. Many business owners and sales and marketing professionals assume that the lead is ready to buy when they visit the website and download a piece of their content. In reality, many of those leads are just beginning their buyer’s journey, which means... they need to be nurtured before they are ready to purchase.
