Today is my first day back to work after spending a week in Cancun. I should be finishing up my workshop presentation for Thursday, but I wanted to address a couple of things that happened while I was sipping margaritas in the sun.
Every month, I have at least one Hubspot user share their statistics with me. Look at this one.
1,258 Visits (Up 0.6% since Jan) > 4 Leads (Down 33% since Jan) > 0 Customers
or this one
3,078 Visits (Up 22% since Jan) > 33 Leads (Up 313% since Jan) > 0 Customers
Can you hear the spin for the first set of results? “Look! Visits are up! Now we just have to tweak our CTAs to get more conversions.”
How about the spin on the second? “Everything’s up! Triple the leads in one month! Now we just have to adjust to attract the right leads.”
What about the “0 Customers“?
Here’s my take. Hubspot is a great tool. (Just ask them.) But, it’s only a tool that needs to be planted in a supportive process with supportive people. Hubspot not only uses inbound marketing, but they also use an inbound sales process. They also hire salespeople that are already inbound minded. Let me share a few examples by asking questions.
How many Hubspot employees had a blog before they were hired? (a lot)
How many Hubspot employees were active on LinkedIn before they were hired? (a lot)
(As an aside, LinkedIn has about 160 million members worldwide. Some of the people that I know at Hubspot have these LinkedIn member ID’s 1784249, 658789, 5408722, 36253, 7346, 25444, 820197. So, many are early adopters.)
How many Hubspot employees used Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, yada, yada, yada before they were hired? (a lot)
So, before you buy Hubspot, make sure that you’re ready.
Are your salespeople inbound ready or can they become inbound ready? Do you need to hire and inbound salesperson? Do your salespeople have a following? Is their following active or passive? Responsive or disinterested?
Is your sales process inbound ready? Is it synchronized and integrated with your marketing process? Are both integrated with your customer’s new buying process?
Before you hire a Hubspot partner, can they help you sell? Have they been evaluated as inbound salespeople themselves? Are they practicing what they preach? Have they had to spin their customers’ statistics?
Want help with the answers? Want to be evaluated? Want to kick start sales and convert those leads to dollars? Click here to learn how to Align Sales & Marketing.
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 
Great post Rick!
I think part of the challenge is also in setting realistic expectations if the client is starting at 0. It won’t happen overnight, and they need to build a following, and a relationship with that following.
As long as expectations are on the same page, success is very likely.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Rick this reminds me a lot of a blog I recently wrote because I made the mistake of convincing someone to get Hubspot before they were bought in on inbound. Im happy they havent completely turned their cheek to Hubspot because I fully believe in its potential. BTW, you can check out the blog here if you would like (http://talktohenryj.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/its-not-about-the-tools-its-about-the-religion/)