I've never considered myself a salesman, but that's what I've done to grow our web design business over the past 14 years. When we became a HubSpot Partner Agency in 2018, we were signing up for a platform that would help us grow our clients' businesses through great marketing & sales software and business support.
Our HubSpot channel account manager, Katie Carlin, turned me on to the Pipeline Generation Bootcamp led by HubSpot sales director Dan Tyre. If you hear us use the term "Smarketing," he's the one who coined the term that combines sales and marketing into one important team.
"You're going to contact 100 new prospects in an eight-week period and we're going to show you how to successfully relate to each potential client and answer questions they have before they ask you."
Hearing that was a little daunting, but I was up for the challenge. Dan's been with HubSpot from the beginning and treats every group and person with enthusiasm and excitement, so I knew this was just what our agency needed to kick things into gear.
This course opened my eyes to the importance of prospecting and not just relying on word of mouth referrals.
We are a growth agency, no longer just a web design company. It's time we stepped it up.
Here are the top five take-aways from my eight-week bootcamp with over 100 other HubSpot partners from countries all over the world.
1. You can't get a "yes" or "no" unless you pick up the phone to connect
The sales process should start over the phone or in person - don't start with an email. Make it personal and stand out from the sea of emails. Emails and videos are great support for secondary contact, but call first.
It sounds too easy, but the more calls I made during this period, the larger our lead pipeline became and is becoming.
The number one challenge is making your list of prospects. Almost any company can benefit from content marketing and unless they are given the opportunity to hear about it, you won't make the sell.
2. First, help
Setting aside some time to give free advice in your connect call to a potential customer shows that you can provide a benefit to them. It's not about what you can get out the phone call, but how you can help their business. What can you give someone for free to build trust and show their success is your success?
I'm now able to intrigue business owners with the possibility of growing their business and they want to know how we can help them.
3. There's great power in the "pause"
Ask questions and let your prospect talk. Do more listening than talking. After recently asking a CEO what were some general "pain points" in their business marketing and sales process, he told me much more information than I would have known if I came in with nothing but suggestions before hearing what they perceived were issues on their current workflow.
4. Document the sales process
Having a sales cadence holds me accountable for following up with prospects, who all have busy days and a ton of tasks to accomplish. I've added time to my schedule every day to contact leads and follow up with those I've already contacted. Over the phone. Over email. Using 1:1 videos. As a company, we have a sales cadence that documents how often and how we follow up with prospects. Persistence pays off, allowing us to help more businesses succeed.
5. Practice makes perfect
Our sales process will continually evolve as we learn from our sales strategy. We'll learn how to be a better help to prospects and create value
I'm a growing "sales lion," ever growing because of the methods taught through this bootcamp. I have the keys to success to grow and teach for a successful sales process to help us, and our prospects, grow better.
