To coach or not to coach? That is the question. Well, at least the question of this blog post. Many managers struggle with the fine balance between knowing when to coach low performing employees and when to let them go or transition them to a new role. Whether you are new to your management role, or have years of experience, the following insights can help you to more successfully weigh the fate of lower performing workers.
Pete Rose was one of the best players to ever play the game of baseball. As a player, Rose was a switch hitter and is the all-time MLB leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215), and outs (10,328). He won three World Series rings, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, and the Rookie of the Year Award, and also made 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five positions (second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and first baseman). Rose won both of his Gold Gloves when he was an outfielder, in 1969 and 1970. As a Coach, well... we all know how that ended up... so as a player, he was a rockstar, as the coach of his up and coming rockstars, he was a disaster!
In the words of Jeff Bezos, "Part of company culture is path-dependent - it's the lessons you learn along the way." This path-dependent approach stems from the belief that managers can help to mold employees through an environment that leverages lessons learned to encourage growth.
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.
With the popularity and necessity on the rise for successful Sales Development Representatives (SDR) and Departments, being a former SDR I thought I’d give you a sneak peek of what the day-to-day of an SDR looks like. First, props to all the Sales Development Reps out there! It’s a very tough job that doesn’t get the praise and acknowledgement it deserves.
Briefly, why has the SDR role become so vital to company’s sales success? They are the lead gen engine for their pipelines. They also play a key role in the Marketing effort of inbound leads (a SDR’s best friend by the way). In addition, they create alignment between Sales and Marketing.
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.
First of all, what is a CRM? I had a new client recently ask me that question at which point I realized; maybe it’s not as commonly understood as I thought? Not only did I write this blog but we put together an Ebook, The Beginners Guide to CRM. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term that refers to practices, strategies, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving business relationships with customers, assisting in customer retention and driving sales growth. CRM systems are designed to compile information on customers across different channels — or points of contact between the customer and the company — which could include the company’s website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials and social media. CRM systems can also give customer-facing staff detailed information on customers’ personal information, purchase history, buying preferences and concerns.
