Breaking news, there is more than just a top to the sales funnel... there's a bottom too!

The Missing Link
The Internet truly has lead to a new way in which people consume, and thus has lead to a new era in how we market to the online consumer. However, I feel a huge component has been lost in translation. We've forgotten about the end of the funnel... the SALE! We can generate all the leads we want with inbound marketing; adding and adding and adding to the top of the funnel, but what good are any of these leads if we don't get them through to the bottom of the funnel. In the end, it still comes down to having to close the deal and make the sale.

When it comes down to running a business, the bottom line to keeping a business on it's feet is the sale right? The sale is what brings in the "cha ching," and without it your business is dead.

The Take-Away
Marketing and sales work hand in hand and must align. You can't talk about inbound marketing without talking about sales. It can be said that Inbound marketing has made acquiring more leads easier, quicker, more automated, and cheaper, but however you want to say it, it's still just the means. You can't forget about the end goal; You still have to close deals, and thus you can't forget about the bottom of the funnel.

What is your demand generation requirement to meet your sales goals? Ask yourself how many people you must meet to reach these goals, and then use marketing in combination (traditional, inbound, direct selling) to work backwards from here; Because remember, Inbound marketing is only the topside of the equation.

Start closing more sales today!

 

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Be Remarkable, Be Compelling

We’ve entered a new era in marketing where the prize will go to the big brains and
not the big wallets. The playing field has been leveled and tipped in the favor of the small business owner.

Content is the new king. Keep your cash in the bank. Money will follow eyeballs. Once again, this is in the favor of small business owners who are close to their passion. Content is the currency, but passion is the fuel. In this era especially, it holds true that it’s not really what you say, but how you say it. This is a great thing for small businesses, because it allows them to eliminate the one thing that used to separate them from their larger competitors, money. Consider Blendtec, a company that sells blenders. They started creating remarkable videos demonstrating the capabilities of their blenders (we’re talking blending credit cards, McDonald’s value meals, lighters, cell phones, etc.), and then published these “will it blend” videos to the Internet for virtually FREE. Internet users found them and love them.

How the viral success impacted Blendtec

• “The campaign took off almost instantly. We have definitely felt an impact in sales. Will it Blend has had an amazing impact to our commercial and our retail products.”- Tom Dickson
• The video series earned an annual pay-out of about $15,000 from the Web video hosting service Revver
• As of June 21, 2009 the videos had collected a total of 83,238,033 views on YouTube

It just goes to show that you don’t need a ton of money to create buzz for your company’s products/services. Use your brain and create something unique and buzz-worthy and people will come to you. Pull viewers in by being remarkable.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

A business owner screams, "We need more sales!" A sales person cries out, "We need more leads!" A few short years ago, the small business owner would have been justified in saying good riddance and tossing that salesperson out on his or her rear end. But times have changed(enter inbound marketing and social media), and the business owner needs to hear this plea with an open mind and not brush it off as just a complaint from a whiny sales rep.

Pause, take a deep breath and ponder...

Is my sales person truly whiny or does your small business have a marketing problem? Is the money I'm spending on marketing producing leads for the people selling?

Ponder all you want but it is marketing's function to drive the consumer from awareness to a point of decision and the salesperson's job to get them to take action. Asking the salesperson to do this greatly increases the length of the sales cycle and leads to high turnover in sales organizations because humans just aren't wired for this.  Moreover, most sales organizations place this responsibility on the sales people exclusively.

If you admit you have a marketing problem, inbound marketing can help decrease the length of your sales cycle and maximize the ROI of your sales team. An investment in inbound marketing supports your sales process.

According to HubSpot's "2010 State of Inbound Marketing Report," the trends of 2009 have been reconfirmed. Inbound marketing decreases cost per lead by 60%. I would also contend having more sales ready leads has a major impact on the length of the sales cycle for a wide variety of reasons.

If salespeople are randomly calling on prospects (whether they are existing customers or not), they are still just throwing darts in a non linear space-time continuum hoping it lands on a star. But if they're only catching roughly 3 out of a 100 people who are looking to buy, the return on investment (ROI) for their time invested in prospecting sucks.

Over half of the respondents in the study claim they will increase their inbound marketing budget in 2010. As Seth Godin said, "by the time there is a case study in your specific industry, it's going to be way too late for you to catch up." Gary Vaynerchuk also has emphasized how fast business moves and why a wait-and-see approach is dangerous.

Wake up and start creating content and enable your small business to participate in the conversations happening throughout the Web. Business are acquiring new customers by spending a portion of their marketing budget for lead generation and not just brand awareness – although you get both of these by embracing inbound marketing.

Don't set up your salespeople for failure. It's your responsibility to keep current with market trends, not just within your industry, but in how actual marketing and selling is getting done these days.

 

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

So...the day starts at the butt crack of dawn 3:45AM. The typical life of a small business owner. Trying to get billing done, invoice, study my craft and prep for a prospective new client meeting before 9AM.

I shower and cruise to Starbucks, but the address in my GPS led me to a warehouse where Starbucks apparently used to be. I happend to catch a glance of a Caribou Coffee out of the corner of my eye and head there as my back up. (What is sad is this use to be my first choice before they went public).

I plow through a few emails and decide to take a break to grab an oatmeal. I place my order for oatmeal and I get a "what type?"  I reply, "What do you mean what type?" The Barista looks at me with a blank stare...Good question, I know we have a lot of choices.  Aaargh!

While this young woman was very kind to cure my illiteracy and read my twelve choices off the menu, I was sadly reminded why my once favorite place is now last on my list behind Starbucks, Dunn Brothers and a local hole in the wall.  

So here is the lesson for small business owners in the context of my blog, Epoch.

Don't Follow, Lead. If you do follow, blow the competition out of the water!

Caribou has 500 stores and Starbucks has 9,000! Caribou Coffee is so much smaller and nimbler, it should have been the company to offer coffee in a packet you can take on the road. Or, being an outdoorsy coffee shop, their food selections should resemble those items that take you back to where the Caribou hang. For example, I would offer a breakfast sandwich called a Crystal Creek Sunrise Scramble, inspired by some customers trip they had camping at Crystal Creek in the Tetons. If you are going to follow, make sure you are clearly better than the competition. Note, more is not better. If I was running Caribou Coffee I would have hired someone to create an out of this world gourmet oatmeal, instead of the undercooked crap from a packet I'm eating right now. This would be more consistent with their attempt at "fresh baked" pastries in the store.  

One more non-coffee example: iPods were not the first to market, but they clearly were superior to any media player on the market when they hit.

Build a Community. Human beings buy stuff, not demographics.

I use to feel like the folks at Caribou Coffee were my buds. When I went into the Caribou this morning at 5:30AM, there was no one but me there. I did not get a greeting from the two people that saw me walk in.  

I will go one step further and say that if you go to the corporate Website, there are no invitations to follow them on Twitter, Facebook or the like.  Once again, this suff is free, and social media is the easiest way to stay dialed in on the market and your brand. 

I would totally leverage inbound marketing to keep a pulse and inspire my community to help shape my offerings.

Be Authentic and Avoid the Mushy Middle. Mediocre is a Horrible Aspiration!

Starbucks always has been a kind corporate, sleek refined more upscalish coffee shop. Whereas Caribou is a rough and tumble back country type of experience. However, you would never know this other than the little bits and pieces of Caribou and rustic stuff in their decor. Being a kayaker, backcountry camper Caribou used to be the place where I could go to escape with my buds. Now they are a toned down chain trying to appeal to the masses and not doing very well, based on their financial performance.

To summarize, authenticity, the ability to innovate on a dime and create an intimate community is the biggest game changer small business owners and CEOs have.  I'm certain if Caribou would embrace these truths they would post stronger financial earnings and they would again become my first choice.

 

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Nearly every business owner, start up, and entrepreneur I speak with about his or her marketing strategy and sales execution approach seems to be shackled by the same monster: trying to text and run a business at the same time. Pre-occupied with the day to day, they narrowly miss veering off the road while trying to drive and text (no, I’m not speaking from experience), or narrowly avoid missing the person bustling down a busy side walk because they too are hyper- focused on their smart phone (I really mean iPhone).

a.  Trade journals in your industry. If they don’t exist, give a colleague in a non-competitive market a call and talk to him about his top concerns over the next 18 Months.

b.  Review some trade journals for suppliers who provide services or products to your industry. Focus on articles and comments that speak to what they believe to be future trends.

 

c.  Review at least one publication (online or print) that will give you a perspective of business on a global level - i.e. FastCompany, Entrepreneur Magazine, SBA, SCORE 

Once you have reviewed this data, identify the top one or two anchors that are holding you back. Then, set out to remove the anchors to better prepare yourself for the future.  If you can carve out the time, you could play an Innovation Game(R) with your team called SpeedBoat.

Stop texting, and look up at the world around you. You may be shocked at how much faster you reach your destination when you focus.

 

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.