Sales People: Inbound Marketing Will Not Replace You


Inbound Marketing, Website

If you’re in sales you likely hear I could never sell from family and friends often. It’s no secret most people don't desire to subject themselves to rejection, especially as a career. In fact, most people can't withstand the repetitiveness of hearing no, after no, after no. When a sales person hears no after no and then truly does solve a problem for a customer or client (aka makes a sale), everyone knows about it because it's screamed from a mountaintop. That goes like this:


Image of businessman in jump against sketch background.jpeg

Friend: Hi what’s new?

You: Nothing much ... well, I did just land a huge deal! Yeah, it was a tough one. They didn’t think they needed our stuff but after I called on them constantly, they realized it. Really worked at it. Here’s how it all went down ...

If you’ve been in the trenches of a sales department, I know you've got a win and couldn’t help but let people know about it. You need to focus on the positive feeling and live off of that for a while. You also might want to let your company leaders know that you're a damn rainmaker, and if things ever get tough or you have a dry spell, they should remember what you're capable of.

 

Inbound What?

So now your company has invested in inbound marketing. The promise of fully-qualified and nurtured leads are being thrown around like they are so easy to get. These almost closed deals will be waiting on the doorstep of your company’s website with a bow on ‘em. Plus, these marketing people say the website will find and qualify leads? Whoa. You receive a lot of gratification and compensation from prospecting, targeting, nurturing and working potential customers through your sales cycle.

That's partially wrong. You get compensation for closing deals.

No need to worry, there’s still a lot of work to do for an inbound lead. It takes steady hands like a surgeon, and can be a different kind of sales work, but still requires a level of expertise that you will get a lot of credit for.

In fact, the salespeople who embrace inbound marketing begin to use the lead data to find more qualified people to talk to and crush their sales goals. The sales people who combine proven and smart old-school sales approaches with new-school methods and tools are beating their sales numbers right now.

 

The Best of Both Worlds

Don’t get sucked into the tyranny of “or.” As in, you’re either traditional or new age. Embrace the power of “and.” Use the tried and true methods of the past in concert with the innovative technology of today.

Dan Tyre, Sales Director at HubSpot and speaker at ONE2, realized this many years ago when he coined the term “smarketing.” Sales and marketing combined = Smarketing. He correctly pronounces it “shmarketing” of course!

If you're curious how to make the shift to the inbound marketing way of selling, check out HubSpot’s robust resources on the topic and get Inbound Sales Certified.

Good luck!

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