Many guidelines exist for authorship on medical and scientific publications, but in the small business blogging realm, the waters are a bit murky. When creating a company narrative and building a bank of information, who should author company blogs and content? What if the authoritative voice in the building is a great speaker, but a so-so writer? Should there be multiple authors within the building? What should be done with blogs and content an individual produced during their time at the company after they leave the organization? On today’s episode of the sales and marketing podcast, John and Lindsay discuss blogging, authorship, and development of company narrative.

Not really. In today’s marketplace, establishing a company narrative is as important as the goods and services offered. We have talked about the value of sales reps creating a personal brand; it is equally important to position the company as an authority in its industry. Blogs posted to the company website should be fresh, educational and published on a consistent basis and they should be authored by individuals within the organization. But writing is a talent not every individual possesses.  Is it worth hiring a ghost writer to create content?

Employing a ghost writer does not remove the task of research and topic generation completely from the company. The person listed as the author must contribute in some way to the content created in their name. A well trained writer is able to take an audio file, bullet points, or a conversation with an individual and create coherent, well-written pieces of content.

Companies broadcast their message to the masses on their websites and through print materials. Choosing those thought leaders within the organization who will contribute to the collective voice is an important task. Select individuals based upon their areas of expertise and have them create and publish original content on the website either authored by themselves or a ghost writer. Small business blogs should have 2 or 3 people producing content consistently.

Many marketing agencies are in the business of content development for their clients. Uncovering the essence of a client’s brand authority is important so the writing comes across as authentic. The ghost writer should not put his or her name to content they are creating for their client because he or she is attempting to capture the essence of the person they are writing for. By transposing the client’s personality into the written word, they are infusing the voice of their client into the piece. This helps establish the institution and the individual as a thought leader in their field.

Ask yourself this question; do you feel comfortable reading a piece authored by administration or someone in the company who might not be highly visible? Most of us trust people, not the institution. For example, if a piece of content is a highly technical and the lead technical person is the main contributor, mention that person in the content rather than naming him or her as the author. The exception is if that person is a regular contributor to content, then he or she should be one of the company’s authors. Make sure to mention any employees who contribute to the conversation and give credit where it is due. There ethical lines to be drawn and adhered to.

Some organizations scramble when an employee who was their industry expert is no longer with the company. They immediately erase all traces of the individual, including their written work, and change content written in their name to administration. There is no harm in leaving the content in the name of the original author and there is still value in the writing. When the author is unidentifiable, the question becomes does the company really have the expertise to solve my problem when they can’t even identify who wrote the article? Food for thought.

Content creation is an essential part of inbound sales and marketing. Keep in mind these three easy steps:

This week on the Funnel content creation is the name of the game. These three suggestions make a big difference when you are crafting the digital soul of your organization. Enhance your digital footprint by producing content that is authoritative, trustworthy, memorable and worthy of sharing. 

This episode of The Funnel is for the inbound marketing aficionados in the audience. Lindsay is joined by Bryant Duhon of Prospect Builders and the conversation revolves around marketing; specifically buyer personas. Prior to creating content, companies should make an effort to identify target prospects. By establishing a clear picture of who the intended audience is, they can then aim for and engage those potential customers with subject matter tailored to their needs.

HubSpot defines a buyer persona as a fictitious representation of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivation and goals. When a company pinpoints the persona, or personas, they wish to reach, it is easier to created content that is specific to their interests and pain points. When creating content consider what makes these customers tick, what they like to hear, and what they don’t like to hear. Craft substance in a form they will engage with and post it on the forum where they tend to convene. There is a tremendous amount of alchemy that goes into content creation, make sure that your efforts are directed appropriately.

Many interactions now begin online. In order to move the connection beyond the digital touch, companies must have an online presence that is also a conduit of their personality.  By creating a digital soul, your organization comes across as personal, even online. Every company has personality; make sure your website allows yours to shine through. Create meaningful connections with your prospects, no matter the forum.

Lindsay and Bryant discuss the process they use at Prospect Builder to create buyer personas. One of the first orders of business with new clients is to host a meeting where they identify the client’s target audience. Most small businesses have between 3 – 5 ideal clients they are attempting to reach and identifying them is key to creating meaningful content further down the line.

Questions are layered and dive deep. They range from how their ideal client views themselves in their role to how decisions are made within the organization. From those interviews, Lindsay creates a ‘story’ about each of those ideal customers. The purpose of those narratives is to help keep projects on track. Goals are identified and people are targeted for outreach.

Bryant, whose job is to create content, examines that story and weaves components of the persona into his writing. Gone are the days of sending out an email blast to an entire database. By crafting content that targets a specific audience, prospects are engaged on a personal level. Be sure to produce information that will interest and engage the persona you are targeting. If your material is valuable interaction will increase, along with likelihood of conversion.

The HubSpot dashboard displays personas separately and makes segmenting easier. By understanding who your target audience is and creating content specific to each persona, you ensure the message each is receiving is engaging and meaningful to them. When your audience finds content they want to consume, they will continue to pursue a relationship with you. Content with a purpose is the first step in an interactive relationship and a path towards achieving greater revenue growth.

High turnover has traditionally been a challenge within sales organizations. There is inherent risk associated with hiring sales reps who will possibly leave their positions prior to the company recuperating the return on the investment of hiring and training them. Rationale for leaving can vary, but some of those reasons can be minimalized by addressing potential obstacles. This podcast addresses sales turnover ratio and what can be done to reduce that number.

The key to long term organizational sales success is strong sales management. A solid sales manager who closely monitors his or her reps will experience higher levels of success within the team. This does not mean looking at data and hammering reps to achieve their number. Highly competent managers develop their reps through coaching, mentoring and challenging them. Weekly coaching sessions that provide real value and an opportunity for dialogue and feedback are essential to honing sales processes and skills. When there is true purpose to the weekly meeting and the rep can trust that their manager is invested in their professional growth, the relationship becomes a vehicle for revenue increase; both for the rep and the company.

Second to coaching and developing talent, a sales manager must be able to hire sales reps who either possess strong sales skills or the ability to acquire those skills. Hiring a sales person requires effort beyond reviewing resumes, plucking the most polished one from the pile and connecting during a 30 minute interview. Sales managers should always be recruiting and have an assemblage of potential reps waiting in the wings to move into positions as they become available. Managers who are not using a sales analysis prior to interviewing new talent should consider the implications. A sales assessment test measures a candidate's ability to be successful within an organization and can be key in identifying skilled sales reps.

Determining how long it will take a sales person to get up to speed within your company is important when evaluating performance. Examine the breadth of information specific to your organization each rep must acquire. Analyze skills necessary to move a lead through the sales cycle and allow time to teach those skills and field time to practice and hone them. Make sure you are giving new reps enough time to acquire and practice those skills before making a decision on their performance. Spacing training over a longer period of time has better retention rates than massed training. When determining the optimal time frame for a new employee to acquiesce, factor in prior experience as well as sales skills. A comprehensive onboarding program tracks a sales reps success.

If your organization is guilty of tolerating minimal performance of reps by not dealing with issues head on, you are risking the loss of your high achieving sales people. Highly qualified sales reps cannot stomach subpar performers. These reps thrive on being challenged by their peers and managers. Stellar reps want to know they are working for an organization that will do what it takes to be successful and will want to surround themselves with similar talent. Set higher standards and establish your organization as a hub of excellence.

Studies have proven that highly qualified salespeople who have the majority of their compensation paid on commission are likely to remain within an organization versus placing them on salary based program. Why? These reps reap the benefits of getting paid for the work that they actually do. There is financial gain for those reps who recognize the more you sell, the more you make. Managers must do their research when establishing quotas; numbers must be based off actual metrics, not wishes and dreams. When an attainable quota is established, there is excitement, rather than defeat, when examining goals.

On this episode of The Funnel, John discusses the many components to reducing high turnover rate while building and maintaining a highly successful sales organization. Strive for excellence by fostering an environment that allows reps to excel and reach their maximum potential. Provide sales people with a path to success that includes increased income opportunities, more responsibility and opportunity for promotion and it will go a long way towards loyalty, retention and reducing sales turnover within your organization.

Topics: sales management, sales turnover, hire sales reps

Inbound marketing has changed the landscape of sales. The internet is the starting point of the business relationship and companies must have an online presence to clearly convey who they are and what they do. As businesses consider hiring a marketing agency and starting an inbound marketing campaign, they are often shocked at the cost associated with that effort. This week on The Funnel, John and Lindsay address the individual components of an inbound marketing campaign and why the cost, while high, is absolutely worth the investment.

Many variables are involved in the calculation of an inbound marketing retainer. The number greatly varies depending on what the client wants to achieve. What is their goal? What is their current situation? What is their budget and can they attain their goal with what they are willing to spend? The right solution takes all of these factors into consideration. Inbound marketing:  

Inbound marketing retainer deals take into account multiple factors that are dependent on client needs. Retainers cost between $4000 and $15000 a month based upon the goal projections and sales. After the initial sticker shock, some companies begin to look for alternative solutions, especially smaller companies that lack expansive budgets. They might attempt to obtain the materials and do the marketing themselves. But as Lindsay likes to say, “I can take eggs, flour and sugar and make a cake, but it is not going to look like the Cake Boss’s cake.” Sometimes people put less value on things they do not understand.

There is a high level of expertise required to drive an inbound marketing strategy. It is not easy and it takes a tremendous amount of work and time to build an effective inbound campaign. This effort is a marathon, not a sprint. So what exactly is a company paying for when they contract an agency to develop an inbound campaign?

The public’s first blush of a company is less about their building and more about their website. How does the company interface digitally? If a prospect want answers to questions, they are going to search for answers on a website; yours or your competitors. A strategy is developed to drive traffic to the website. A major component of the inbound process is evaluating a client’s website for search engine optimization. Yes, the website needs to be modern, fresh and appealing to the consumer, but the work doesn’t stop there. Attention must be given to the back end of the process; the behind the scenes work that drives traffic. All web pages must be set up correctly with long-tail key words that match the content and drive SEO. That process is complex and data driven. Google is the King of SEO; correcting the algorithm and updating it frequently. SEO is an ongoing process that must be taken into consideration with each new piece of content that is developed.  

In order to become relevant, companies needs to position themselves as a thought leaders within their industries. That is accomplished by creating content that is informative, helpful and relevant. Writing content takes time, effort, and an individual who is a skilled writer. Some companies have talent within their organizations capable of producing content, but others do not have staff able to handle the task. Content must be published on a consistent basis and provide value. A weekly blog, vlog or podcast is an excellent way to share information with clients and prospects. The inbound marketing consultant can be contracted to provide content for clients who require that service.

Landing pages are singular in function; their goal is to obtain a prospect’s information. A landing page provides an offer for a prospect and, in exchange, they must provide some information to receive that offer. The offer can be a subscription to a blog or podcast, an infographic, a white paper, an eBook; something that offers true value to the prospect. The landing page is a forum that facilitates that exchange of information. You are not exchanging currency, but the currency a prospect holds is the gold that you need; their email address. The currency you hold is the eBook, white paper, subscription; whatever it is – the valuable content you are providing. Professional individuals will go to a website and provide a real email address and the back and forth exchange information begins. That is how online relationships are nurtured and developed. The inbound retainer can include providing a number of offers that live inside your system and are available for download.

Once the holy grail of the email has been provided, a relationship can be pursued. This is not a license to bombard the prospect with multiple emails to the point of annoyance.  Track information the prospect has downloaded and provide them with similar or follow up content. Continue to nurture the prospect by providing useful information as time progresses. Each email will have a purpose; a soft sell, a hard sell, but most importantly, pertinent information that your prospect will find valuable. The email campaign is almost always part of the retainer.

Creating amazing content that has SEO will drive the right traffic to your website. But another avenue to broadcast information is the amplification of that content out to the masses. What does that mean? Social sharing. Some industries have greater success with LinkedIn and others with Twitter, but sharing relevant content with larger audiences is another way to convert individuals into prospects. Lindsay and her colleagues have been able to position their top clients as industry thought leaders. By publishing blogs on the long forum in LinkedIn, tweeting and sharing that information, and sharing the content of other thought leaders, a larger audience has access to content the client has produced, or had produced for them. Daily tweeting and posting on LinkedIn is vital to positioning oneself as a thought leader.

A buyer persona is a fictitious representation of a typical client you wish to do business with. In the sales world this persona is referred to as an ideal prospect. Companies develop personas for each ideal prospect they are attempting to reach. Content is then created around those personas and their perceived needs. These personas are fluid and additional information is added to them to further hone marketing efforts. Creating these profiles is typically one of the first tasks of an inbound agency.

The end goal of an effective inbound marketing campaign is revenue growth for the client. Sales and marketing must be on the same page when it comes to goal setting for the campaign. Inbound leads do not stand on their own as a measure of success. Sales must be involved in the process. Without inbound marketing, sales has greater difficulty penetrating accounts, creating opportunities and selling leads. Without sales, inbound leads remain warm and few are brought through the sales cycle. For sales and marketing strategies to be effective, sales and marketing alignment must be present and each team must be fully invested in a positive outcome.

It takes between 9 to 12 months to begin to see increasing revenue from inbound marketing strategies. Statistically, inbound efforts can be tracked and ROI can be calculated. Some agencies fear putting a return on investment on an inbound marketing retainer, however, those statistics can and should be utilized and tracked to evaluate efficiency. The most important component to success is that both parties, the inbound agency and the client, are fully invested in the sales and marketing strategy. Each must  commit to doing what they are supposed to, when they are supposed to do it, or the process will breakdown. The relationship needs to be solid and communication ongoing and effective. Inbound campaigns with the highest ROI are those that contract an inbound marketing agency to lead their campaign and in tandem, evaluate their hiring practices, learn how to hire sales reps and then train those reps to handle the inbound leads. Those companies are pure genius.

Throwing it back like David Letterman and his top 10 list; John and Lindsay are counting down the top 7 reasons why sales managers might be unsuccessful in their positions. Drumroll please……………

Sales management is one of the only jobs that requires a completely different set of skills from the job the person has previously performed. Think about that. Success for sales reps looks different than success for sales managers. There is one constant – the bottom line, but other than that the set of responsibilities is unique to each position. Managers are often promoted into the position because they were high performing sales reps. While it is important that they are strong sales people, their skill set should extend far beyond that. This is not to say they cannot achieve greatness; managers deserve to be trained, coached and developed to become superior.

It is easy to get into the rut of doing something the way it has always been done, and traditionally managers have been put into positions with very little training. In sales there is not enough focus on sales management training programs. Reps who achieved some level of success in sales are moved into management positions. More often than not, these new managers have nowhere to turn for sales management development. Some of these people are trained by the managers who hired and managed them; poorly at that!  The lack of training is generational within companies and the cycle continues year after year. How much respect does a manager get from his or her sales team when they know that their manager has no idea what he or she is doing?  What type of culture does that create within the team and company?

Sales management is a position where the individual is squeezed from both angles. Reps are pressing for answers and support while trying to close business and make their number. CEO’s and VP’s are squeezing from the top, looking for revenue growth. It is easy to fall into the trap of putting out fires. It starts with picking up the phone every day and navigating muddy waters for your reps.  It progresses to negotiating internally and externally for your reps. The overwhelmed sales manager ends up not doing his or her job; they become the 'go to' person that fixes everything. First, that is not healthy physically or mentally for an individual. Secondarily, how can a manager expect to develop and grow their team and revenue when they are racing around day in and day out? Something has got to give. Sometimes you have to step back, center yourself and ask, “What is my true value? What am I attempting to accomplish?

Some managers are put into place and expected to succeed without being provided structure or defining parameters for their new appointment. Imagine taking a position without a proper job description! With very little structure in place, they are left to their own devices to develop their own sales management strategies. Senior managers then scratch their heads as these stellar sales reps turned managers are not as successful as anticipated. Avoid perplexity by providing new managers with a detailed job description that clearly defines their new role and responsibilities. Disclose the reporting structure and what they are expected to do with their team daily/weekly/monthly. People react positively when a well-defined role is presented. A word of caution to senior management, don’t put a program in place and walk away. That is a recipe for failure.

THE primary role as a sales manager is sales coaching and development. Evaluate the entire team and have a plan in place to coach and develop them into successful sales reps. Have the tenacity to let go of reps who do not respond to sales training and are not successful in their positons. Hire sales reps that possess sales skills and are capable adapting and learning new ones. Develop the team so that individuals can reach their maximum potential. Sales training should be a combination of individual coaching sessions and large group training. This is real, solid work and is the foundation of how to be an effective manager. These exceptional men and women earn the respect of their team by providing high quality coaching and development.

Imagine holding a position of authority and craving the need to be liked by everyone. That is a deadly combination for a sales manager. It is an awkward transition from friends in the sales pit to managing colleagues. If a sales rep believes you are his or her buddy, you have no ability to hold that rep accountable for their actions. Sales managers should strive for the respect of their colleagues. There is a huge difference in someone needing to be liked and wanting to be respected. Respect is earned; not by the position you hold, but how you perform in that position. A good sales manager will go to the ends of the earth for their reps, but that is not because that person is their friend, it is because that is their JOB. When friendship is the goal of a manger, they will not be able to hold their team accountable for actions or behaviors. In their new position managers must change how they act and interact with reps.

A manager is only as good as his or her team. When you don’t know how to hire sales reps and fill the team with quality players, how will you be successful? Senior level managers, if you have not trained your sales managers on how to hire the right sales people, shame on you. There is more to hiring a sales rep than looking at a great resume that touts accomplishments and achievements and then connecting with that person during the interview. Develop and follow a hiring process. Use candidate assessment tools prior to the interview to weed out those people who do not have the skills or the ability to learn those skills. These sales assessment tests give great insight into the potential new hire. Make sure your interviewing skills are well honed. Develop an onboarding process so that new reps can learn how to perform their job and succeed. Take the initiative; if your company is not willing or able to train you, seek out management training and development programs to increase your skill set. If your management future is dependent on the people you hire, you better get good at it.

This week on The Funnel, John and Lindsay examine how to be a good manager and the pitfalls that can derail a career. The most important action a manager can take is to be invested in their professional development and enroll in sales management courses. Training is the best solution for developing and nurturing the skill set necessary for management. Guide your career to new heights by honing your skill set and developing a stellar management style.

This week on The Funnel, John and Lindsay begin with a ‘technology nod’ to Blab; a live streaming portal that allows groups of people to collaborate and interact real time. Up to four people can video chat simultaneously as an audience watches and comments. The moderator chooses the video participants and as the conversation progresses can switch the featured participants within the screens. It’s like Periscope on steroids. John and Lindsay decided to dip their collective toe into the water and hosted their first Blab session last week. The conversation centered around Inbound15 and by happenstance, Jill Rowley jumped into the session! Their conversation morphed to one surrounding sales enablement and went on for 90 minutes. That’s the beauty of Blab, you never know who will show up and add amazing content to the conversation.

Some companies need direction when approaching the task of how to build a sales team and position those reps for success. First, hire skilled people. Next, provide the right tools for them to be successful. And finally, provide sales skills training and sales skills assessment tests to evaluate their progress. Seems logical, but these basic steps provide the framework for a successful start.

In today’s sales arena, many sales reps, especially those in smaller companies, are required to wear multiple hats. The line between inbound and outbound is becoming blurred and the notion that they are different is outdated. Forward thinking organizations are crafting new definitions of actions necessary for sales reps to achieve success. Many of these reps live in both worlds; they are required to identify sales opportunities in addition to nurturing those from inbound lead generation. Sales skills are a must for any sales person. Communicating on an appropriate professional level and effectively interfacing with clients is crucial to the outcome and success of the sale, regardless of how that lead developed.  

No! An inbound marketing strategy is not a substitution for outbound efforts, it is an additional method of developing a customer base. HubSpot, the company that defined inbound, still does outbound sales. Sales reps still need to generate sales leads, but inbound activities legitimize the conversation. Think about it; when a sales rep leaves a customer’s office, what is the first thing that customer will probably do? Go to the company website, Google the rep, check out their LinkedIn profile, and possibly connect to their Twitter feed. By developing an online presence and social selling strategy, it lends credibility to their solutions. Sales conversations, regardless of their origin, loop back around to an inbound marketing strategy. Reps must follow a well-defined sales process because the customer is still going to go through the mental stages of the buying process.

It’s all about sales and marketing alignment

In the B2B world, there are lessons to be learned from inbound marketing strategies. There are also valuable lessons to be garnered from traditional sales processes. The key is that the two worlds must collide, align and work in harmony. John and Lindsay have been talking about aligning sales and marketing since 2012, long before it became the popular buzz phrase. Here is the thing; it works! When both sides of the house collaborate efforts, the company will generate revenue. So how does an organization position itself to take sales to the next level and realize sales growth? What does sales enablement look like for reps in these forward thinking companies?

The difficulty in defining specific actions that will lead to success lies somewhere between what is ideal and what is realistic. Prior to signing a retainer with an inbound marketing agency, clients must fully understand and embrace the investment necessary, both in time and dollars, to align sales and marketing efforts. Currently, clients pay retainers to their inbound marketing consultants to build these incredible marketing engines, but do not take into account the actions necessary to move the needle forward in sales. This is a serious deficit.

Marketing brings in leads; that that is their strength and superpower. The more leads, the better. But who sells those leads? Not the marketers. That is not their forte or their skill set. Sales takes inbound leads, in addition to leads they have nurtured and developed, and actually sells the product or service. When a company is looking to invest in an inbound solution, leaving sales out of the loop creates a chasm. How can marketing agencies set their clients up for success and offer all the help and support their clients will need? By bridging that gap.

If an organization is engaging a marketing agency to focus on inbound sales solutions, the agency must be realistic and identify potential pitfalls. Be realistic and point out that sales teams will need tools, techniques and training for success with inbound leads. The first step toward success is evaluating the sales force in place; are they up to the challenge? By utilizing proper candidate assessment tools to evaluate an existing sales force, or potential reps, a clear picture of sales skills is uncovered. Reps need to possess sales DNA, sales skills (or the ability to learn those skills), and they must be a cultural fit for their organization. Once people are in proper positions, they can be trained, developed and provided with sales enablement tools. These actions foster success within organizations.

Sales enablement is all about getting the right people into the optimal positions to effectively sell products or services. Avoid the trap of creating buckets for sales actions; inbound vs. outbound marketing. When building a sales team, look for people who have skills that cross multiple disciplines. If sales training and development is on your radar, check out the Inbound Sales Academy. Their first online seminar, How to Hire a Sales Rep, might help you fill a position within your company. Learn how to source candidates, interview them and understand the information the assessment yields. Isn’t it time you get your sales and marketing engine going?

John and Lindsay start today's discussion off with a nod towards the Inbound Sales Academy and a new series of online sales training programs.  One class in particular - Learn How to Hire High Achieving Inbound Sales Reps – walks you step by step through the hiring process. This 8 week seminar begins with writing a profile for the ideal candidate and follows a linear path all the way through to hiring a highly qualified sales rep using the Objective Management Group Candidate Assessment Tool. This online seminar reaches capacity at 10 participants with sessions offered on a rotating basis. If you are looking to kick your skill set up a notch, check out the Inbound Sales Academy website and see where you can grow.

Imagine this scenario, a customer signs a contract with an inbound marketing agency to help them develop inbound lead generation. The relationship starts out fabulous and all parties involved have high hopes that great things will follow. Around 6 to 8 months later, the client begins to enter panic mode because he or she does not see a return on investment. The marketing firm is perplexed and does not understand why the client is panicking.

I would love to say that the example above never happens, but it does; time and time again. This is only one reason to set clear expectations with clients up front. We live in a world where people have come to expect instant gratification. We demand services and results immediately. But are immediate results a realistic expectation when it comes to inbound marketing? What is an appropriate timeline for a client to see return on investment?

Inbound solutions begin with educating the customer. It is essential to ensure the client fully understands the inbound sales process, the exact steps necessary for implementation, and their role in the process. Producing quality leads does not happen overnight; it takes at least 10 – 12 months. Success in this endeavor requires commitment, time and effort on the part of the inbound marketing consultant and the client. Communicate that the process is not easy and requires tremendous effort. The company has hired you to bolster their revenue and return on investment is the gage of success. It is imperative that qualified people are in the proper positions to get achieve this task. At the end of the day if you expecting return on investment, and that goal is not achieved, the partnership has failed. 

Develop a document that lays out the parameters of a mutual partnership. The client must understand and agree to be a part of the solution. Within that document set expectations and lay out a timeline delineating actions and specific target dates for completion. Be precise; include tasks to be performed by the client and those to be executed by your organization. By signing the agreement, both parties have a complete understanding of the task ahead of them and clear evidence of what defines success. Sign the agreement. A mutual partnership it takes effort on both sides to be lucrative.

When an inbound marketing campaign begins to gather steam, traffic to the website increases and leads come in. Recognize inbound leads are pursued and sold differently than traditional leads. Sales reps must acknowledge that difference and approach the lead from a different angle. These reps are still selling value and using consultative selling skills but they need to be aware of the context of that lead. Reps must have the sales skills training necessary to sell inbound leads. Most marketing agencies hired to for inbound marketing campaigns are not equip to offer sales consultation services, but it is in their best interest to develop relationships with consultants who can guide sales teams and offer training for sales success.

Herein lies the rub; many sales and marketing departments are at odds. You cannot have marketing produce leads and sales not talk to marketing about those leads. Inbound solutions do not work unless both sides of the house are in sync. A major hurdle is to align sales and marketing teams so that inbound leads can be properly nurtured and developed. If a company is truly aligned, they are talking about sales and marketing at the same time.  It is the responsibility of an agency to share data that can reveal potential pitfalls and problems that will interfere with the implementation of an inbound sales solution. Using a sales skills assessment with the existing team yields information necessary for successful implementation of a sales and marketing strategy. A strong leader is essential for bringing both teams to the table and closing the loop in the sales cycle. An intact sales cycle is paramount to return on investment.

Set expectations with clients early in the relationship. Starting out on equal footing is the foundation a successful business relationship. Communication is the key to a successful inbound marketing strategy. Listen to this episode of the Funnel and learn how you can get your sales and marketing engine going.

John hosts this episode of The Funnel with special guests John and Kathleen Booth of Quintain Marketing. Quintain is a HubSpot VAR and Platinum Partner located in Annapolis, Maryland. Joining the Quintain team as the Sales Enablement Director in March, John helps Quintain’s clients implement their sales efforts and improve their sales processes. This is in addition to work at his own company, Alignment Group, that specializes in aligning sales and marketing teams to increase revenue. 

John and Kathleen founded their company 10 years ago and have a great deal of experience in the marketing arena. While their company has experienced many successes, up until this year, each time they tried to hire a sales rep it was a disaster. While there is some comfort to be taken in recognizing the mistakes they made were the typical, it was incredibly painful for their business.

The people that they hired were great individuals, but that never translated into revenue growth. Kathleen is honest when she reflects, “I couldn’t tell you if it is because they were not a good sales people or it is because we did not provide the right framework for them to perform.” Quintain never had a documented sales process or a management framework for tracking sales reps performance. The expectation was that sales reps develop all accounts from scratch. Kathleen summarizes, “We didn’t know what we were doing and the conditions weren’t in place for success.”  Failure hiring sales people pointed to a broken internal process, or in this case a lack of process, that lead to dysfunction. 

John Shea began working with the Quintain Team in March of this year. John Booth had an epiphany early in the relationship when John S. defined the hiring process. In the past, John B. was guilty of seeking out sales reps with outgoing personalities; people who were social, personable and easy to talk to. While those are great personal qualities, they are not the traits lead to sales success. Hiring a sales rep is different than hiring for other positions within an organization. Sales success has little to do with personality and much more to do with sales DNA. A high quality sales assessment test makes the hiring process less subjective. When thinking about how to hire a sales rep, the process needs to be objective.

Quintain never reached out to anyone for help when they were figuring out how to hire sales reps. They didn’t hire a placement agency because they didn’t want to spend the money. They didn’t hire a consultant because they didn’t want to spend the money. Was a cost of associated with those bad hires over nine years? “Absolutely!” states Kathleen, “Many, many times over.”  Sometimes business owners hesitate and don’t want to allocate funds for guidance, but the time and opportunity cost at the end of the day is enormous. Think of the financial strain that places on your company.

Over the next few months, each time John, Kathleen or John attended sales and marketing events and entered into discussions with other HubSpot VARS, those companies shared the same stuggles with sales reps. The names and faces were different, but the issues were the same. The trio recognized an opportunity to make an impact and help small to mid-sized businesses grow. Out of their discussions, the idea of The Inbound Sales Academy was born; online sales training courses with curriculum created for todays sales challenges.  

The first offering from the Inbound Sales Academy is a seminar called How to Hire High Achieving Inbound Sales Reps. Classes are small, capping at 10 people per class. By hosting online meetings, using GoToMeeting Video, the class has a similar look and feel to an individual coaching session. The model offers question and answer opportunities so participants can work together. There is a great deal of knowledge transfer and participants take away the same information John offers during his one on one sessions with clients. Because the class is online and is has 10 participants, it is affordable for companies with limited resources. The class runs 8 weeks, with each session lasting approximately 90 minutes. Two additional “office hour” sessions allow individuals one on one question/answer time.

The Inbound Sales Academy launches its first class on September 16th.  Think you don’t have an inbound sales rep? If you have sales people, you do. Sales reps are mini marketers; Building their personal brand by posting on LinkedIn, tweeting, contributing to blogs, sharing content. These activities are necessary for sales success in today’s competitive market. High achieving sales reps hunt for new business, build credibility and attract opportunities to themselves, similar to a company using inbound marketing efforts. It takes a unique set of sales skills and ability to handle that that kind of business. The objective of this first offering is to teach participants how to locate, interview,hire sales people, on-board and train them.

There is a huge demand for this service. It will be interesting to see what companies participate and the results they achieve. Participants will receive multiple tools and templates including an Objective Management Group Candidate Assessment License that they can use to hire a sales rep. This award winning sales skills assessment test help sales managers identify salespeople who will succeed in the specific role for which they are being recruited, interviewed and selected. The Inbound Sales Academy will offer multiple online sales training programs as it continues to grow.

It takes hard work and effort to become skilled at hiring sales reps and by doing so you significantly reduce the risk of failure. Invest in sales assessments and sales skills training and you will achieve revenue growth. John and the entire Quintain team will be attending Inbound 2015 next week. If you are there, find them and introduce yourself; they would love to meet you. In the meantime, keep filling the Funnel.

On this episode of The Funnel, John and Lindsay are joined by Harry Hawk, a well-known face in the inbound.org community. Harry’s official title is Advertising Testing Manager at Inbound.org. This new forum is the brainchild of Rand Fishkin of Moz and Dharmesh Shah co-founder and CTO of HubSpot. It is designed to be a one stop shop for questions and answers pertaining to all things inbound marketing. In creating a community of people who share ideas and content, the platform is the perfect gathering place for professionals looking to gain knowledge in a fairly new field. The forum is attempting to become the resource for questions and answers pertaining to inbound marketing. Any member is welcome to post a question or create a group.

This online community was designed and created for marketers. With current membership at 80,000 members and growing, their goal is to connect with every marketer on the face of the planet. They welcome anybody into the forum who has an interest in inbound marketing, modern communication techniques and is interested learning about inbound and the social platforms associated with the field.

So how does that pertain to sales? Why would a sales rep consider joining a community for inbound marketing agents? As John points out, it is a great place for sales reps to:

It is in the best interest of all parties involved to share sales and marketing strategy on this platform. Sales has the ability to provide feedback from the field to assist marketing departments in their efforts. Marketing has the ability to provide exceptional content to sales teams; so a harmonious relationship is a benefit to all. 

Podcasts are an alternate vehicle to explore the industry you currently work in as well as industries that interest you. They are easily consumed any time of day and offer another way to reach and target an audience. They are also a great way to develop content. Harry shares information about the 5 shows that will be featured during the initial 16 week season.

The Unicorn’s Horn (Marketing Success Stories):

This podcast focuses on case studies from the world of inbound marketing. Discussions revolve around marketers who have planned, executed and tracked them. These guests discuss data and real world metrics that document the success of their marketing efforts.

The Inbound Toolbox:

This podcast showcases new software and online technology tools that help lead to successful inbound marketing campaigns. Harry is recording episodes with both marketers and vendors. The conversation revolves around what problem the tool solves and how it is designed to make life easier.  Both quantifiable results and value proposition are examined. Technology is rapidly evolving and this podcast is a great vehicle to share knowledge with the community.

JobHacker:

This podcast covers everything you need to be a marketer today. Designed for those entering the industry or looking for a new job within the field, discussions offer tips about marketing jobs available and qualifications necessary. Harry discusses jobs listed on the jobs board on inbound.org. What would you do if you were applying? Also focused on are effective ways to stand out from your peers when applying for a position. Learn what every Marketer needs to do to snag their next dream job.

The Methodical Marketer:

Harry Interviews academics, researchers, and marketing industry professionals to get insight about the current and future practice of inbound marketing. This is a deeper dive into the data behind marketing efforts; empirical evidence to back up the story.

Inbound Dispatches:

Inbound community manager Mary Green and co-host Harry Hawk take a look at what topics will be discussed during the next week on all of the podcasts. This podcast is short and sweet; providing little snippets of information on upcoming guests and topics.

People appreciate high quality content presented in unique way. A podcast is a great vehicle for learning something in a quick bite. Harry and the members of the team at inbound.org are hard at work as the Inbound Podcast Network gets ready to launch their inaugural season. Content will be dispersed amongst 5 podcasts, publishing content 6 days a week. Check out their website and look for them to go live. On our sales and marketing podcast we often discuss the importance of aligning sales and marketing efforts. It is the golden ticket to revenue growth! Harry and the good folks over at inbound.org must feel the same way too.

On this episode of The Funnel John and Lindsay are joined by guest Bryant Duhon for a conversation about inbound marketing. Bryant is a writer and the Content Conductor for Prospect Builder.

The conversation is sparked by a blog Bryant wrote titled 6 Blind Copier Dealers and the Inbound Elephant. This clever piece demystifies the inbound process by weaving inbound into the famous fable from India. In the tale, each blind man, only touching part of the elephant, has a preconceived notion of what an elephant is. One of the challenges to selling inbound marketing strategies is presenting clients with the benefit of inbound vs. outbound sales. Bryant talks about how he used a parable to demonstrate the advantages.

Some of the misconceptions companies have when considering adapting an inbound sales and marketing process is:

Debunking those myths is just one of the jobs of Bryan and his colleagues.

Equally important is creating high quality content to be distributed on the appropriate channels. It is just like when companies would buy air time on network TV as a way to reach people. There are multiple ‘stations’ today and not all people like the same channel. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn – this is just the tip of the iceberg. Find out where your customers spend time and focus your efforts on sharing content on those platforms. Consider using multiple channels because your prospects might live in different spaces. Create useful, valuable content, make it free and easily available, and set yourself up as an industry expert. Recognize content is only one vehicle to drive you toward a sale.

Inbound selling requires cooperation and support from the client to make it effective. It also demands sales and marketing alignment. Implementing the process requires, belief, trust and patience on all parts. At the same time, there must be recognition this is business. If an inbound marketing campaign does not lead to sales, the job is not being done properly. Revenue generation must be present to validate ROI.

The automation on the front end of inbound marketing is beautiful. When customer enters a website and touches a piece of content (and then another and another…) each move is recorded and tracked. An organization begins to gain an understanding of who that customer is. That valuable knowledge allows you to tailor content to their tastes and deliver it in a time frame that best suits your industry.

However, automation is not automated; it is manual on the back end. I imagine the Wizard of Oz working frantically behind the curtain and crying out when the curtain is pulled back, “Nothing to see here!” There are many people on the back end of the inbound sales and marketing process making the connections. This process requires strategic and tactical thinking at the same time; it is a major time commitment and it is hard work. Inbound marketing requires commitment on every front in order to be successful.

The “memory aspect” of inbound lead generation yields specific results that are a gold mine for sales people. That progressive profile, knowing the information that customer is looking at and consuming, allows inbound marketing consultants to create content designed to target that prospect. The contact is nurtured, through the inbound marketing efforts, until it is deemed ready to hand off to sales. Then the inbound process loops around to the sales department. Armed with information, sales reps can view information prospects have consumed, determine their pain point and then tailor a conversation or an outreach to that person. The inbound lead, by allowing the rep to target and address the prospect’s issues, shifts the starting point of engagement in the sales process. The ‘warm lead’ is a different animal than a cold one.

At the end of the day, inbound marketing does not work without the human element. While the way people view and consume information has changed, the human connection has not. Prospects must feel comfortable with the information they are receiving and the company they are interacting with. Inbound is really about people and making meaningful connections. Just like traditional sales, the relationship evolves as you build and develop trust. Be a person.

One of the myths about inbound vs. outbound marketing that needs to be debunked is an inbound lead does not mean the customer is going to buy from you that day, just as a blind date does not mean you will get married tomorrow. All leads, traditional and inbound, require work and effort. First determine if the relationship is a fit and if it is, take the steps necessary to move the relationship forward. The inbound sales representative must foster the relationship just as he or she has done in the past with other leads. 

For the inbound marketing strategy to be successful, there must be sales & marketing alignment on both ends of the spectrum. Sales must gain an understanding of marketing and what they do; marketing must gain knowledge of the sales process and how reps operate. Marketing needs sales input to craft content geared toward attracting prospects who are purchasing and sales needs the information gathered from marketing to know the starting point for a targeted conversation with their prospect. Collectively, it is their responsibility to understand and engage the customer to the point that both sales and marketing are bringing value to the table. When both sides of the house are actively engaging the prospect, and fully communicating with each other, inbound leads convert to signed deals.

On this episode of The Funnel, John and Lindsay discuss the ins and outs of inbound and the real work that goes into converting leads to sales. It all boils down to alignment. Consistent feedback and conversation between sales and marketing will hone the inbound sales process into a practice that shows ROI and gains real clients.