By Todd Hussey
For too many years I was a "gym lollygagger" going to the gym too inconsistently and when I did I measured my results on how much time I would spend there. I was basically checking the health check box and got zippo results. A few years ago I finally came to my senses and signed up for a personal trainer spending a pretty hefty monthly OPEX (Operating Expense) for a committed 12 months.
Yikes what did I do and why? Spending a good chunk of change every month for a 12-month commitment was going to make me take it seriously and also I now had a professional helping me meet my goals. But the light bulb moment came when I started my partnership with HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. What?
In early meetings with Hubspot execs they would refer to inbound marketing like going to the gym - you need to do the work every day to get the results. Blogging, social media, SEO, content creation, webinars, campaigns, etc. I was told inbound marketing is like lifting weights, the treadmill, calisthenics etc. - the more you do and the more consistent you are the better the results. If you are an "inbound lollygagger" like a "gym lollygagger" you'll get nowhere.
Why am I writing this? It's pretty simple as I see it. It's impossible to argue that the marketing and sales world hasn't turned upside down - it absolutely has. Just look at retail - brick and mortar sales are plummeting and Amazon sales are going through the roof - people are going through the buyer journey on-line. The buyer is now in control and the seller needs to "get found" and nurture them through the buyers journey. Whether the buyer is looking for a bicycle, TV or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – their process is the same. To execute inbound marketing you must go to the gym - if you don't you will fail. I have seen it far too often where the business owner says he/she is committed to inbound but gets impatient after a few short months and opts out. What does he/she usually do then? He/she hires a sales rep, hands that person a list (usually a few years old) and says "start calling". Yikes! Oh, and guess what - that rep is gone in less than six months.
Todd Hussey is Co-Founder and Partner at CSBexcellence a business consultancy that specializes in providing Managed Inbound Marketing services that enable scalable, cost-effective growth specifically for MSPs (Managed Services Providers) and CSPs (Cloud Solution Providers). The company was formed in 2010 as MSPexcellence and has become a respected source of strategic advisory services to technology vendors and business-building programs for their MSP and CSP partners.