Sales, Marketing, & Technology Blog

When we're trying to bring a product or service offering to market, it's important that we go into the planning phase with a solid basis for what we are trying to accomplish.

As the owner of the business, this probably isn't news to you... But how aligned are your business objectives with the rest of your company's individual groups, particularly, sales and marketing?

Don't let your salespeople feel like they're on an island of one.

"Sales enablement" is quite the buzzword these days. But what does it actually mean?

At the highest level, the definition of sales sales enablement simply means that we're improving sales' ability to close more deals by taking advantage of advanced technologies that focus on data, automation, and objective reasoning. Sales enablement is the sales version of "growth hacking." We achieve optimal outcomes by A/B testing our way to the top.

You may have heard or thought this before - worry about what to do with your inbound leads after they are coming through the door. By then, you'll have intel on their behaviors, and can make better bets on how to distribute them into the sales pipeline. This is the best way to improve sales performance for the company utilizing the inbound methodology.

Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, there may be much bigger problems to tackle related to your sales infrastructure, which, if left unresolved, will actually diminish the value and impact of the leads you generate through inbound. More importantly, these problems are not inbound-specific, which means you have other investments at risk.

Addressing your sales infrastructure first enables quicker, cheaper wins, and a much better launch to your inbound lead gen program when you do decide to go there.

What is your mission statement really saying to your prospective customers?

Not sure of how to grow your business by leveraging your mission statement? I have some bad news... Your mission statement sucks... #sorrynotsorry.

It's not unique... not even close. Worst of all, nobody is championing it the way they should be. If they were, it would suck a lot less, because your competitors are struggling with this too. But they're not, and it's likely due to mismanagement of the issue.

I know it's a challenge, and likely one of the toughest ones you'll face, regardless of whether your company is in start-up mode or if it has been around for 30 years. However, it is worth overcoming, because you'll be in less crowded waters if you do.

Is coming up with your next growth plan frustrating the living crap out of you?

As a Sales Leader or Business Owner, you want the same things - more deals. How we get there... well, that's another story, and typically where the roads diverge.

The problem is that neither of you are right... or you're both right... or it's a combination of the two, plus something you hadn't considered yet.

I guess the real problem is that there is no way to validate or disprove anything, which brings to light the most glaring weakness plaguing your ability to grow - your data integrity.

Making decisions without data is hard.

So, why do it? Why put hunches and gut instinct in the driver's seat when so much is at stake?

If your b2b sales process is meant to scale, you need data, and your CRM is the reason why you're not getting it. 

Check out the video below for a discussion about your CRM, and how to transform it from an encumbering management tool to a tool for sales growth.

There is NO single good reason to still be relying on cold calling scripts when we have things like websites & social media to make proper introductions.

Earlier in the year we engaged with a transportation services company in an inbound marketing project that was already moving forward. Our job was to carry on the existing strategy... only better than the guys before us.

Well, if you ask me, this is a recipe for disaster, so although we took the assignment, we had other ideas.

Is the cloud making it rain for your business?

Last year more than 21,000 people attended the Inbound conference in Boston, hosted by Hubspot. To put that into perspective, in 2015 there were 14,000.... in 2013 there were 5,000... Something like 500 people attended their first year, which was in 2012.

That's a CRAZY amount of growth! No wonder the methodology isn't working as well as it used to, right?

Inbound used to be a disruptor. Now it's known and practiced by marketers just about everywhere. Your marketing team probably does some version of it today.

If you haven't heard about about inbound at this point, you're in the minority, and you're really behind. Luckily, if that's the case, the landscape is about to be hit hard with another disruption, and you could be first-in. If it's not the case... if inbound is something your business practices... then you'll be able to relate to the challenges it's experiencing. The good news is that it's once again time to strap on your party hat, and get ready for the rocket ride, because disruptive growth IS possible.

Some time ago Hubspot's Sales tool (formerly known as "Sidekick") added the ability to schedule emails to send at a later time. The premise was that your sales activities, such as emailing, often occur later in the day, when it's not an optimal time to communicate with prospects. You want them to be in their email when you send it.

So, instead of sending right away (or saving it, then setting a reminder task in your calendar), you pick a day and time for it to go out, and schedule it at your convenience. No extra steps. Nothing falls through the cracks.

But there's one major, glaring, ugly flaw...

How can you possibly know with any amount of certainty when it's an optimal time to reach out to somebody? Hunches? Gut feelings? Certainly, there's nothing telling you this information based on hard data... So, how?... Without adding another cumbersome, time-sucking responsibility....?

You may be experiencing whiplash if you spent any amount of time or effort into keeping your sales teams competitive over the last 5 years. There are new technologies, processes, and an endless supply of confusing ideas and suggestions. It's hard to know whether up is down or if they're supposed to fist-bump vs handshake...

You probably know about inbound marketing by now, and have no doubt toyed with video and a plethora of other marketing tactics.

But none of them seem to be doing what they're supposed to do - help you lead your sales teams to victory. That's because you may be missing 3 critical components that have only recently come into focus.

Does your CRM elevate your salespeople? .... or encumber them?

Sales leaders - how important do you think a CRM is to reaching your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual objectives?

I'm betting that it's pretty darned important to most of you, since a study recently showed that 75% agree that they're critical. I've been in b2b sales for most of my adult life, and I have YET to work somewhere that didn't use one. And I can't tell you how much energy I have seen sales leaders waste on trying to get their reps to use it properly.

But (and this is a HUGE but...) CRMs are typically not built for sales. They help managers, but not the actual sale.

This is a major problem.