One of the critical steps in my role as an inbound growth strategist at Flawless Inbound? It’s asking questions to determine if a company is actually ready for inbound. We’re (obviously) big proponents of the method — but if you want a shift to inbound to be successful, you do have to approach it from an effective angle.
Is Management Onboard?
If management isn’t onboard, it’s going to be hard to move forward. You have to undergo a shift in mindset and be committed to growth beyond buying lists, word of mouth, and referrals — from the top.
This is a big step because it involves adding something new onto a process that seems to have been working fine. But often, you reach a limit with these approaches and you start to see the numbers dwindle.
That’s where inbound steps in to not replace but augment your sales process — not only can it pull in totally new people, but it can help you make a better case to those leads you’re already getting.
What are your growth goals?
Do you have growth goals in place? Are the metrics you’re going after well-defined? And are these goals wishful thinking?
It’s fine to just want to grow by 400%, but is that being actually achievable supported by data? Set realistic growth goals that your company can actually hit and that are in line with your needs, and you’ll be better ready to apply inbound properly — and inbound will be better positioned to actually succeed.
What’s your strategy to achieve the growth goals?
You have to have a strategy if you want to actually achieve your goals! What campaigns do you expect to launch? What offers can you make to your potential customers? What’s really going to get their attention?
And then technically, how do you support all that? Appropriately supported inbound means a lot of content and a lot of SEO work to make it all happen — and of course, the campaign management to keep it all on track.
How are you going to execute?
The big question when you’re looking at a shift to inbound is whether you’re going to do it in-house or with external expertise.
As with anything, going internal does give you more direct control over the work. But it comes with the risk of the project running awry if you don’t have the right people in place.
Going external means you’re getting proven teams who already work together on similar projects and keep up to date with the latest in the industry. If you’re looking at a platform like HubSpot for instance, it means they’re already certified and have deep experience with the platform.
They can get straight to work and start delivering results while your internal team is still finding its footing.
Check us out!
We’ve filled that external marketing and sales expertise role for more than 80 companies across Canada and the US. If you’d like to know how we can do it for you too, just get in touch.
Otherwise, check below for more information about what we do to help companies boost their sales process with the inbound methodology.
