Hey everyone! Today’s episode is with Mark Roberge, Chief Revenue Officer of the HubSpot Inbound Sales Division. He is also the author of The Sales Acceleration Formula, a book on how to build a winning sales organization.
Today we’ll be talking about how Mark helped grow HubSpot from zero to $100 million in revenue by coining the term inbound marketing, how he successfully applied his data background to sales, and why you should start blogging before you build your product.
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How HubSpot Skyrocketed from $0 to $200M By Combining Inbound Marketing + World Class Sales Training TRANSCRIPT
Episode highlights:
- [3:31] – HubSpot created the term inbound marketing, which is now a mainstay of marketing. They built software and a company around the idea of inbound marketing.
- [3:39] – They have diversified the term to be more about sales and doing business, and they have created a free CRM to complement their marketing software.
- [5:29] – Inbound marketing is effective to influence and get eyeballs and get a conversation going. Inbound can be very effective for leads.
- [6:16] – Inbound brings a lot of credibility to a story as well. Thought provoking articles and educations can take someone further down the buying journey.
- [6:58] – HubSpot is approaching $200 million and growth is about at 50%
- [00:07:11] Their first customers came from their networks, then they started generating leads from content.
- [8:05] – When should you start a blog? For HubSpot, they started blogging before they built their product.
- [8:44] – They build a product about the pain they were trying to resolve, and they learned this first hand through their blogging and comments.
- [9:28] – It’s not that expensive to get some content going.
- [10:11] – The second hire they made for their marketing team was a reporter from the world of journalism to help with content creation.
- [11:14] – HubSpot produces over 50 good pieces of content a week.
- [11:29] – As a starting point to sales, think about it from the buyers perspective. How do they become aware of the problem you solve. What solutions do they consider? What is your unique advantage? How do they evaluate their buying position?
- [13:56] – 100% of the proceeds from “The Sales Acceleration Formula” goes to build.org
- [15:48] – The strategies of Mark’s book have been pushing methods of sales forward.
- [16:30] – The sales tool industry is one of the hottest industries in the last nine years. Now there are startups and established companies that help capture sales data. HubSpot also has a free CRM and a product called SideKick.
- [17:38] – A forced referral is a passive recruiting strategy, that asks employees about specific connections they have, and if they would be a good fit for a hire.
- [20:38] – The value added reseller program, is building out a channel program to reach new customers.
- [23:05] – With conversion there needs to be a context of awareness of the buyer and engage on the content that the customer in interested in. Build trust.
- [25:27] – Take the big risks early and don’t swim with the masses.
Resources from this interview:
- HubSpot
- Free HubSpot CRM
- Twitter @MarkRoberge
- LinkedIn @MarkRoberge
- The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge
- Build.org
- Must-read books:
- Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- Spin Selling by Neil Rackham
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