The Funnelholic

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.

What an amazing couple of weeks it’s been since I wrote my midlife crisis post, “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and asked the question, “What should I do with my industry-specific blog now that I want to create different content?” on the Internet love of my life, Focus.com. Besides blog comments from friends and strangers, my angst went global (I got email from Sweden - Daniel Wood, who is a great sales and motivation blogger).  I spoke to people at length. Just yesterday, I was talking on the phone about my midlife crisis with Gary S. Hart, who is a sales blogger as well. The consensus is to keep The Funnelholic brand. Whether you delivered the message via phone or Web, thanks to everyone who gave your input.

Here is what I decided: The Funnelholic stays, and I will write about whatever floats my boat.  The entire process became a real awakening for me about why I blog. It’s because I love it. If I lose some readers, I have to live with it. If I started writing about things I don’t care about, then The Funnelholic would fail anyway.

Here’s what I’ve learned from the whole episode:

1. If you have no passion, then your blog will suck. It was cool to discover that people really like reading The Funnelholic. I have loved creating content for this blog, and I continue to love writing on it. That may be the most important thing I learned: people can feel your passion.
2. If you have no passion, your “social-media” presence will suck. The comment above is also true about your social media bearing. As Focus.com builds, you can see people who love what they are doing answering questions with gusto. If it pains you to write or talk about it, find a new career path. You’ve lost your passion.
3. Writing helps you solidify your ideology. I have all this stuff in my head about business, marketing, sales and so forth. Writing about it - on The Funnelholic, as a guest blogger elsewhere, on Focus.com - helps me coalesce my thoughts and properly organize my beliefs.
4. The personal online brand revolution is on. I built a brand, and the brand has a following. That was cool - and it’s something I shouldn’t start again from square one. Steve Woods and I talked about this idea years ago. He said: “There will be a new type of talent, an Internet free-agent superstar.  In some cases, companies may hire because they want that person associated with their brand.”  Interesting. I am not Chris Brogan, but I’ve got something.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and thoughtful advice.

I remain (and will continue to remain) yours sincerely,

The Funnelholic

Is it time to close (or perhaps rename) this blog? This question has been in the back of my mind for the past few weeks. I tried to create a provocative title for this post, but the real question is: What should I do with The Funnelholic? The issue at hand is that I believe I have a lot to offer beyond just the sales and marketing funnel. Here is an example: I have learned a lot about the startup business from helping build Tippit and now Focus - I want to share these tips. Moreover, with my new role at Focus, I have been reading a ton of customer service, HR, and business-building content that I want to discuss and share. Is The Funnelholic capable of expanding beyond the funnel?

Here is another scenario I thought of: What if, for my next job, I want to be hired as a CEO (for example). Would being The Funnelholic help me or hurt me?

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Today, The Funnelholic wraps up its series of interviews with the industry thought-leaders who contributed to the Focus Experts’ Guide: Sales and Marketing Pipeline and Funnel Models.

Meet Sue Hay, author of the blog 21^st Century Lead Generation and founder of BeWhys Marketing, a full-service lead generation consultancy with managed services. The BeWhys team has helped midsize to enterprise organizations increase revenue by creating and implementing targeted lead nurturing campaigns using marketing automation. BeWhys incorporates lead process management best practices, lead scoring, persona building, content creation and mapping to achieve results.

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