*Editors Note: Live updates from the Sales Hacker Conference NYC are brought to you by PipelineDeals. PipelineDeals is simple and useful CRM software in the cloud. Follow us @pipelinedeals.
This session is titled How Hubspot Scaled Through Science and Social Selling by VP of Sales at Hubspot, Mark Roberge
Old School Sales vs. Modern Sales – Prospecting
Old school salespersons used a salesperson-centric method for prospecting. The strategy for old-school prospecting was:
- Target prospects that were a good fit for you.
- Cold call prospects with your elevator pitch
- Push through your sales process
The emphasis for the prospecting was all on the salesperson pushing their process and product onto the customer. Today, modern sales prospecting entails listening to the marketplace and engaging with people in the way in which they want to engage.
One way that modern salespersons prospect is through better understanding the context of their contacts and leads. How did a contact find you? What products and services are they looking for?
Modern Demand Generation
LeadGen in the modern era has changed how we buy and sell. Consider the following: how many people in the last 6 months have bought something from a direct mailer? Now, consider how many people go to their social groups via social media, google, etc. to buy products today? Most people are doing the latter. How do you help people find you?
One of the biggest opportunities that companies can create for themselves is helping customers find them. Ideally, you will be found when and where your prospects are searching.
Blogging about your marketplace and area of expertise is a great way for customers to learn more about you and your product. Don’t write all the blogs yourself though – find a journalist or professional writer in the area who can help you. Setup an interview cycle with one of your execs and have them conduct the interviews and blogs for you. Create your content calendar and create a call-to-action at the end of each piece of content. Call to actions only requires first name, last name, email address.
Old School vs. Modern Outbound Sales
Old school outbound sales was time intensive and repetitive. Conducting research on prospects, consulting our CRM to see if the lead was in our CRM, and entering this information took a lot a time. To improve this experience, we developed an internal product that can quickly pull research into our CRM and validate that a prospect is a new lead. We’ve taken what used to take 20 – 30 minutes, and automated the process so that it takes 3 seconds.
Old School vs. Modern Messages
Old school prospecting messages sent the same message over and over and over. These messages were dull, repetitive, and didn’t respond to the needs of the buyer.
Modern contact strategies for prospecting focus on sending messages that are timely, relevant, and unique. We use research tools to observe customers, what they’re looking at on our website, and what their competitors are doing. We also follow whether our prospects are engaging with us over email, social media, and our website. These are all signals.
Next, you want to engage with those people in a really human way. Send different messages that speak to data that you’ve discovered and how you can provide value that is contextual to their needs. Example – increasing leads via Facebook in the B2B space.
Modern Sales Management
Managers are tempted to try to fix two issues with their sales teams all at once. At Hubpot, we focus on one improvement at a time. We have a metrics-driven sales coaching culture that starts at the top and cascades down through the sales staff. We use data in our system to target the specific improvements that our staff can make in our selling process.
