I just moderated the Focus Roundtable: How Important is the Phone to Growing Revenues, and it was off the hook. Lori Richardson put it together, and what was really cool is she brought people together from two camps: the “calling” camp (herself and Trish Bertuzzi), and the “content” camp (Ardath Albee and Kirsten Knipp). You should listen to the MP3 file when you get the chance; meanwhile, here are my top take-away messages:
HubSpot generated 40,000 inbound leads last month (via Kirsten Knipp). What the hell? Dude, when I heard that I fell to the floor. That is the definition of “eating your own dog food.” Here is your Funnelholic tip of the day: Copy them. Period. Whenever people ask me for advice, the one thing I always suggest is to find someone else (a competitor) who is performing exceptionally and copy them. For some reason, that concept is really hard for b2b folks. The b2c guys do it all the time. They copy landing pages, whatever. Why wouldn’t you? Oh and BTW, HubSpot tells you how they do it. Their content is their playbook. They want you to copy them. Those lead numbers are absurd.
The Phone is not dead ‑ it’s more effective than ever. Speaking of HubSpot, they call people to sell them s#!*. That’s right. We had another Roundtable, Inside Sales Tune Up, with Chad Levitt. Mike Damphousse was the moderator and the big point is: To convert prospects from lead to opportunity and from opportunity to sale, you have to call them. Inbound marketing is not defined as “sales that fall in your lap.” They are leads that require the leveraging of outbound sales skills to convert.
Phone Pt. II: It’s never been easier to reach prospects over the phone (via Trish Bertuzzi). There is a hidden benefit to the inbound marketing craze: The phone has been freed up. Trish believes because organizations are “sitting back” and waiting for people to come to them, that it has never been easier to get people on the phone. It’s a great quote, but more importantly, what a great opportunity! This doesn’t mean to call stupidly. Make sure you are relevant (which takes research) and professional (which takes training). There is a great conversation on Focus.com on the topic.
Net-net: you want inbound leads, copy Hubspot because you can. And if you want to turn leads into revenue — call them. It’s it and that’s that.
Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter
