Latest / Budget Your Business / Revenue Planning with Hubspot

Transcript

Revenue Planning with Hubspot · Budget Your Business

0:00
Scott: Hello, and welcome to Budget Your Business, the podcast for small business owners who want to learn financially to plan for every aspect of their business.
0:11
Scott: I'm your host, Scott Geller.
0:14
Scott: Today I'm joined by Christina Whitmer of the Whitmer Group to talk about revenue planning using HubSpot.
0:21
Scott: Thanks for joining me today, Christina.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to be here.
0:26
Scott: Great.
0:27
Scott: For folks who are just meeting you for the first time, could you share a little bit about who you are and what you do?
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Share a thing.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So I have owned a Whitmer Group for about a little over 13 years, and we specialize in marketing a lot of content-based approaches to building your pipeline, creating personas for your audience, building campaigns, which may include social media, blogs, website, landing pages, all that kind of stuff.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: So we are essentially a content-based strategic marketing agency for partners, and most of our business is B2B.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, I worked in advertising agencies and did all kinds of stuff from early print advertising days to the early website stuff.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And then social media comes on the scene, and every company's afraid of what's going to happen.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: So and then, you know, for the last couple of years, we've been HubSpot partners, and that is pretty much our primary tool for uh implementing most of the things we do.
1:37
Scott: Interesting.
1:38
Scott: So I I am um familiar with HubSpot, but I'm not really familiar with what a HubSpot partner means.
1:45
Scott: Maybe you could just share what exactly does that mean, or what did you have to do to become a partner?
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Um so myself and several members of the team, in order to be a partner, there's a there's a process.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: First of all, you have to use the tools, um, and then you also have to be certified in a certain amount of things, um, specifically a lot of the onboarding tools.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So one of the key financial benefits for a company, if if you're starting a pro tool in HubSpot, if you work with a partner agency, you won't have to pay the onboarding fees to HubSpot.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: You would the assumption is that you're going to work with a partner to do the onboarding, and then basically those costs just go to the agency instead.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: But typically with an agency, you'll get more hands-on approach with uh HubSpot, which I'm a big fan, but it usually is task-based.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: So they'll say, hey, go do this, go do this, go do this, which can be fine.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes with onboarding, you need someone to help you understand, you know, what does your deal pipeline look like?
2:47
SPEAKER_00: What is a contact record?
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Should it look like?
2:50
SPEAKER_00: All that kind of stuff.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: So we'll get involved and do that.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then most of our clients have HubSpot.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're already using it.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: So we just get in and start working on it.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: So a partner is just someone who is uses the tool, is certified appropriately, and part of that partner program with them.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then any the costs are the same essentially.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Any any incentives would come straight from HubSpot.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of it is just from being a partner, whether I sell the tool to you or not.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
3:21
Scott: Okay, great.
3:22
Scott: So I could so theoretically, I could go to the Whitmarker group, I could come to you, say I want to use HubSpot.
3:30
Scott: And because I know this is how a lot of accountants work, they'll go through the accounting firm and and tag onto their QuickBooks subscription.
3:40
Scott: So could I do something similar where I go through Whitmork Group and I tag on your HubSpot like subscription?
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and a lot of times they can help you assess, you know, what you know, where the price points are, like some of the ways that you spend more with HubSpot is contact, marketing contacts or number of e-signatures per month in a sale.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: So there's just quick things you can get to to figure out can you afford this or what can you afford?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know, kind of I'm sure we're going to talk about this, but that's one of the best things is you can start off with the free, the starter, the pro or enterprise.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: So it really does grow with you and your business.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of my favorite things about it.
4:23
Scott: It is, and and I I uh personally I use HubSpot myself.
4:28
Scott: Uh I started and still on the free, uh, but I started off with you know clicking the button to the next thing to set up, the next thing to set up, and and definitely could appreciate the value of somebody telling me, hey Scott, do it this way, or let's figure out what makes sense for the business.
4:43
Scott: I've uh had to limp along a little bit by myself, but I will say it's it's a slick tool.
4:49
Scott: And even and even the free version, there's you know, for a very for a small, you know, like I'm an independent consultant.
4:56
Scott: Um yeah, there's some really slick tools that are included.
5:00
Scott: But I see the my limits every now and then when I try something else and I get them, hey, pay for this.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, honestly, even the book a meeting tool is nice because that is something some people pay with other tools like Calendly and things like that.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: That's I think included in the free version, uh, at least one version.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, the integrations with the calendar stuff.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of uh great things in the free tool.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I really do recommend it.
5:28
Scott: So um how how do I get started with HubSpot?
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, very broad question, but yes, I've got the answer.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So um obviously, you know, you it's it's nice that you can start with the free, and then you can start to get, you know, a baseline of what's in there.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Because you like you said, you will start to see um, like as if you're using the sales tools, you'll start to see I can do this.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: But you know, if you've heard of sequences, that's where an email or very tasks start to happen automatically over a time period.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't get that till you get to the pro level.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, but fortunately, their sales seats now.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like you can get a single sales seat for a hundred a month now.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: They it used to be they their pricing just changed, so it's it's much more, it's even better, I think, to get in at earlier levels.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: But so I would recommend is just understanding your sales process and your marketing process and what gaps you might have.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the CRM generally, right?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna hold your contact records, but until you know what you want to do with them, you it's kind of like sometimes you can have a platform, but I bet you most people are only using just a fraction of the resources.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So either is there marketing stuff you want to automate?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you want to have a landing page with someone downloading a checklist that's appropriate for your business, and then you want to have an automatic something that goes out to thank them, and then you want to put them in a newsletter.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Like I like to identify needs and then try to figure out what's the best route to solve it.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And I would say with HubSpot, and probably is true for a lot of things like Salesforce, there's it does so much, the overwhelm factor is real can really be dangerous, and then you end up not really using it.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: So I would always recommend you know, marketing, sales, and service.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: What do you need, right?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And and prioritize because then you can start to knock them down, and especially then you look at, oh, can I do this in free and starter?
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe once I reach a certain revenue point, we'll go to this, and so that you know, needs and budget, right?
7:44
SPEAKER_00: For a lot of things, right?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: So that's what that's what I would say, and then get the you know, the free resources like blog posting, which is very trackable and integrated.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: You can host videos on there, like academy things, there's a lot of training in there that's really good.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And I would recommend I don't know if clients probably always love this, but for junior sales and marketing people, there's so many great certifications you can get from there.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: It's very good for just professional development overall.
8:18
unknown: Right.
8:19
Scott: Interesting.
8:20
Scott: So if I were to let's let's say I needed to bring you in as as a business owner, and I want to kind of get I got a little bit in the pipeline, I'm using, I'm using it to a point.
8:37
Scott: Um what maybe walk me through the process of what do I need to be thinking about beforehand before I bring you on board?
8:45
Scott: I know you mentioned kind of thinking about, you know, what do you need, but if I'm not sure what I need, are you able to come in and help me figure out what I need, help me what to prioritize and help me through that process?
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of two ways to approach it.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: One is if you're using HubSpot in some way, you can do an audit, right?
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And and we can do an audit for you and say, it looks like you're not using this, or this hasn't been set up where it could give you more benefits.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's sort of one piece of it, is just auditing the tool for usage and maybe some best practices.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And did you know it will do this?
9:26
SPEAKER_00: The other piece to me is auditing for um things that you might be doing that you would love to automate or make easier, you know.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's more of the what are you doing outside of it that you could actually solve those problems internally.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for example, this is simple, but you know, life cycle stages.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: If you've seen that, a contact record has a life cycle stage, and that's kind of like is it a customer?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Is it a lead?
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Is it an evangelist, like somebody that would refer you?
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Like you can, you know, reduce some of those fields or change them up so that they fit you.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, so to me, I went through and I went, you know, I've done this with a couple people is to look at the life cycles and say, okay, what does that mean?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: What does a lead mean?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: What is an opportunity if you want to keep that?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: What is a marketing qualified lead if you want to keep that one?
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, does it mean they get the newsletter?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Does it mean they get something else?
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Like, what happens to those people?
10:28
SPEAKER_00: So a quick Excel to understand what it means because that's I just find with platform people like to put the information in there, and then suddenly you're like, oh, there's so like it's you can filter it a million ways, you can change it, but then you just really need to step back and think, how does that data work?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like auditing the data in the system and out is a nice way to to start that that conversation.
10:55
Scott: And if I were to think about if I'm looking at doing this and I there's all I know this can probably depend, but if I wanted someone to come and say, I wanted you to come in and I'm gonna focus on on the sales pipeline site uh to come in and help me with that, do you provide or or what what kind of timing should I think about?
11:18
Scott: So I I know a lot of businesses they they they want to achieve a you know a clean pipeline, right?
11:24
Scott: And you know, people ask me and I say, well, it kind of depends on how much of a mess it is.
11:29
Scott: But if I'm planning for having this done, and I'm using HubSpot, I'm planning for having this done, how long should I should I should I account for or or should I put in place for for that for for you to be able to accomplish helping me?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: To to basically like in like home the the deal pipeline process and make sure it's functioning and serving you best.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, honestly, you can do like in a week or two, you can if you're focused on something like that, you can knock it out, you know, let's just say in you know six hours, if you think about it.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Like hours are funny when you look at them because you know, it might take two weeks to get the back and forth of everything, but you know, like focus time.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm a big I'm all into focus time right now.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: So um, like you know, you could do a lot.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: So basically show the pipelines if it's in a you know like a lot of people have lead generation resources they use that are external or otherwise.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: So obviously everybody they're approaching is not a lead.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: So what is a lead to you?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And then you have that lead category in your pipeline.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: You put people there at some point, they can get there from someplace, or they can, you know, the thing about HubSpot and booking a meeting links that people don't think about it, but you just filled out a form to book a meeting with me, therefore you are in my database, your contact record exists, and people don't consider it a form, but it's a form, right?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: You filled out the form and therefore you're in the system.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: And if I have a specific book a qualification call link, that could mean it creates a deal because you booked that type of call.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: So once you start thinking about what the pipeline, and sorry to get off track, but the pipeline is, then you start thinking about how you can make it easier for things to get into the pipeline without you having to go create a new deal.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: But regardless of that, you want to look at the deal pipelines and keep it as simple as possible.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, um lead uh discovery.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: I think mine's like qualification, discovery, um, proposal presented out for signature, and then won or lost.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I think that's what mine is.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And once you have that, you know what that means, you know that you or salespeople will move it along.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Then you start adding automatic things, automatic triggers along it.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: When I move it from lead to qualification call or qualification to discovery, you can force the thing.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: What's the likelihood you think this will convert?
14:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just a you know a question, but okay, 50%.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know this person, 90%.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: And then next one you have to say, what do you, you know, the next time you're forcing a what do you think this is the value of this uh deal is?
14:26
SPEAKER_00: So you can force some questions so you know you're getting the right information all the way to the end.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And then the best thing later is one and lost.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: You can start to fork, like, look at how much time did I spend on lost business?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And was there any trends?
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Did they stay in a certain space longer, you know, than than the others?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, you start to look for trends so you can improve.
14:52
Scott: Okay.
14:53
Scott: Yeah, that that's that leads me into an area with uh of of the pipeline where I'm always interested in when I'm working with my clients, and that is quantifying what's sitting in that pipeline.
15:09
Scott: Uh obviously there's there's you know other purposes of having in the pipeline tracking, you know, who's who's looking at it and and uh who's where last time you talked to them, but for for planning purposes, and anyway, for budgeting and planning purposes, I when for when I work with the clients, I always ask them, what does your pipeline look like?
15:34
Scott: Because that's the best to me.
15:37
Scott: That's that's well usually depending on how good their pipeline, how realistic their pipeline is, that's the best indicator of what their revenue is going to be.
15:45
Scott: Probably better than I want to grow five percent.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:50
Scott: So when you look at at the deal at the pipelines, um what kind of information do you recommend putting into that pipeline so that somebody can use it and kind of quantify on the on the on the other end of it an actual revenue?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: No, and I I'll just say up front that this is where I definitely appreciate your perspective because you definitely have the mindset that would balance myself out for this because you know this is still an area personally, and and as in my conversations, I struggle with the sort of reality of sales and how that works and forecasting and things like that.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: I know how the tool works and how you can make it work for you, but that initial conversation of okay, what are we, what are our goals, what are we trying to measure?
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I always appreciate um someone like you that can help balance that conversation.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: With that said, um, you know, like I said, like assigning a likelihood to close is really good, right?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and learning from that over time, right?
16:59
SPEAKER_00: So you, you know, if you find that you're you said things were likely and and all most of those did not close, then you have to realize that you something's off, right?
17:10
SPEAKER_00: So really doing it and then looking at it after the fact of to see, you know, why was that off?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: In addition, um, you know, at each stage, like you like once you have some data in there of deals to track, you start to look at, you know, how fast did it move through.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, I actually really am a fan of having shorter close dates unless you really know.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Like if someone doesn't move in four weeks or something, I realize that they're just kicking the tires, they're really not ready to invest in marketing to build their business.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're scared, or something's just hanging out there that I may or may not be able to control.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So um I feel like you know, tightening the measurements is the best thing.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I also have um goals um that can be shared with the team or yourself on a monthly or when you reach the basis.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And these can be different, whatever you set up.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: But for me, I as I learn my metrics, which I did a lot of work last year, I know how many qualification calls I think I need to get in order to move something further to a closed one state.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: So I can set a monthly goal of qualification calls, and then I can get an email weekly that says here's how close you are to that goal.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: So I can set up the push, the reminders to say, hey, you don't really have enough qualification calls to this month, you're unlikely to meet your goals.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And this is all over, you know, from everybody's got different goals there.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: So the other one is, you know, whether it's closed or revenue increase.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: So the so I just started using those in the last like four to six months, but I really do like that, especially as I plan to grow more of a team in this approach, really will help me measure because you know, we all get busy and we have other things and thinking about clients, thinking about everything else.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I like that part.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: So, does that give some sense of it?
19:11
SPEAKER_00: So speed, what wins, what loses, and just those reminders.
19:17
Scott: It does, absolutely, absolutely.
19:19
Scott: And so if you don't mind me kind of picking a little bit more in this area, um, so you you can get the likelihood per stage, right?
19:28
Scott: That that that's a big piece.
19:30
Scott: And you know, and then the speed uh it takes on average 30 days or or let's say 10 days from one stage to the next stage, right?
19:42
Scott: Um and then you know, so the so the the third piece that uh I is important as well to me is like the revenue amount.
19:53
Scott: Like what do you how do you advise um clients to put in for a revenue, estimated revenue revenue amount for the client?
20:03
Scott: Or or sorry, for the prospect, excuse me.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: I you know, I um well in the deals and and the quotes and things like that that are in HubSpot, you have your your library of products and services.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: So you so it depends on the business, right?
20:18
SPEAKER_00: But for me, I have sort of these three levels of marketing services that are pretty standard based on where the company's at, what the value of a client is for them, like how aggressively and fast they want to move.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So I typically know early on where what level they probably will be at based on my early calls.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Because I do think a qualification call should help you understand.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Can they afford you?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Are they what do they know what how what it costs to bring on a new client?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: And some people don't know that, but you want to at least have someone thinking in that direction, at least for me, in order for us to have a really successful relationship.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: So um I feel like I think I got off track, but I feel like that's you know, kind of a piece of it.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you know, you can add all of these mandates, you can add at any stage of the thing, you know, to say, hey, do you think this is likely to happen?
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then also for me, and this is more personally, just for me at my stage, I'm looking for revenue growth, uh, like a percentage, like, and I'm hoping to reach these month by month.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, maybe in six months or so we'll talk again.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, hey Scott, I need help because I need to forecast better.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: But for me, I I have this like growth uh thought of where we're headed.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
21:42
Scott: Yeah, so so though those are absolutely the areas that I like to look at and I like to put them all out.
21:47
Scott: And then it's okay, if I have 30 prospects in that early stage, and then to your point, if you're putting in how much time it's gonna take, so let's say say it takes 10.
22:00
Scott: Days in that first stage, five days in the next stage, or 15 days in the next stage, and then until it gets to the end of the pipeline takes on average 25 days.
22:10
Scott: And then I like how you you mentioned you you can tag it to a product or a service.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:15
Scott: And I'm as I'm, I believe you can put so this product on average cost, make my math easy, a thousand dollars a month.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:24
Scott: And then if you take those 10 clients that are in the the um, let me see if I get this right.
22:31
Scott: Um, the um what was the first stage you mentioned you threw out there again?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the qualification.
22:36
Scott: The qualification, thank you.
22:37
Scott: So if you have 10 clients in that qualification, then you know in 25 days, you're gonna have 10, sorry, 10 prospects, you have 10 prospects in that qualification phase, the max you're probably gonna have in 25 days is ten thousand dollars.
22:54
Scott: So that's a thousand dollars per prospect.
22:57
Scott: However, if you're tracking that percentage per each stage, then you can say that 10 is gonna fall to eight, and then that eight is gonna fall to four.
23:08
Scott: And then that can help uh a business owner plan out what that revenue is gonna look like in the future, right?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'll add this too, Scott.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Like we do work, so personas are who you're talking to, right?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: In all of your content, like it's a CFO, CEO, or marketing person, whatever it is, the buyer's journey for us, it's more challenging to lock that down.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: But as I look at laying that over top of my deal stages, like you have the you know, consideration, and there's I can't remember the grid right now, but you have these stages and you have a sense of it takes people two and a half months to go through the whole journey.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: What's kind of cool is that I can automate validation things in here too.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: So maybe I move something from qualification to discovery.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, automatically I could actually send this person a case study.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I appreciate your time.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to our next call.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Because if this if I go to discovery, that means there's a next call in my mind, if that's the case.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Then I, you know, I'm looking forward to our next call.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Just here's a here's a here's how we did blank for someone.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: I thought you would appreciate it.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I can completely automate that because that whole buyers, that's where you start to look at maybe I'm only getting one out of the 10 to convert.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe there's just too much, you know, fear along the way, and I can start to help that too.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's nice too is looking at improving your conversion rates, perhaps.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
24:39
Scott: Yeah, that that is.
24:40
Scott: I've I've I wasn't aware of that kind of I knew you could automate some of it, but wasn't aware that you could go to that extent.
24:47
Scott: That's that's really neat.
24:49
Scott: Um well this is the so this has been great.
24:52
Scott: I feel like there's been a little bit of a even of a workshop of kind of piecing together how how you can use the the Hubspot pipeline.
24:59
Scott: Right.
25:00
Scott: Um and I I like to I like to wrap up all my shows with one to three immediate takeaways that our listeners could, you know, as soon as they get off this podcast, they you know take a note of it or or you know make a mental note or or a physical note for themselves, but it's something that they can put into action as soon as they they walk away.
25:24
Scott: So maybe you already mentioned one of these, and it's fine to bring it back up.
25:28
Scott: But what could you share with us today uh for for kind of immediate action for clients that that maybe have a HubSpot pipeline that are using?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so short of like signing up and trying out the tool at any level, uh if you have something you're working with, one is I would recommend that like it's the basics.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: So one is um set up the book a meeting tool, integrate it with your calendar, and get that in your auto signature, get it, use it, right?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: So every time you are booking something with someone, you're sending them links or you're sending them uh the predefined times that you are available.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Both of those features are really nice.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Hey, here are three times that work for me.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Click on the one you want.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: All of that gets people into your system so that you can do more with that.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So get the data in there as best as possible.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I would reevaluate your life cycle stages and maybe delete some.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Like the problem is it's too much sometimes, but if you have a lead, um, right now there's lead marketing qualified and sales qualified lead, those are three different stages.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: You may not like don't like get rid of them, like like consolidate so it's not so overwhelming.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then figure out does that mean these people get a newsletter?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Does it just mean you go through them once a week as a salesperson and see if you can call, like, or you know, comment on LinkedIn, like have have actions for what that means.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the other thing is a little side, and this is probably more about what we do, is you know, have something downloadable.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: We call it lead magnet.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: It's downloadable content, could be a checklist, could be an ebook, could be a guide to do something.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Get something downloadable for people that is helpful before they're ready to work with you.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: So think about one month before someone's even ready to work with you.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Are they trying to figure out a partner?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Are they trying to set up something?
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Because then you can have landing page form, thank you.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a way to get the pipeline started earlier.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the biggest missed opportunities to is building that relationship earlier so that when people need you, it's a better, it's an easier conversation.
27:53
Scott: Interesting.
27:54
Scott: Yeah, where is where would I put that downloadable?
27:56
Scott: Like, is it on my website?
27:58
Scott: Is it LinkedIn?
27:59
Scott: Where do I kind of get people to to to access that download?
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: The the short is short answer of that is all this can be done in HubSpot.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: One is you just want to set up your subdomain, like info.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: or something like that.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: It's a quick process in the domain settings.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then create the landing page and a form, and then you upload that PDF to HubSpot and you just set it up so that when they fill out the form, it either takes them to the download or it opens the PDF or whatever.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So it's all built there.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's just I it's just one of those early sales.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: It's it's typically a marketing function, right?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: But if you have only sales or you're a solo owner, like I think that that's your marketing tool that you can start with.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great thing to talk about every month in social.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Hey, did you know I had this checklist?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: So when you're looking for you know a marketing agency, you know what questions to ask them.
29:02
Scott: So this is intended to be for other business owners, but I'm pretty positive that that's what I'm gonna be doing when I get off this podcast.
29:09
Scott: Setting that up.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I always have that, to be honest, when I talk to people for this some things I do.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I'm gonna make a note of that.
29:18
Scott: Absolutely.
29:18
Scott: That that's that's going in my learning for the day.
29:20
Scott: So thank you.
29:21
Scott: That's great.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nice.
29:23
Scott: Uh great.
29:23
Scott: Well, thank you.
29:24
Scott: That's all right.
29:25
Scott: So we've got signing up and using HubSpot.
29:28
Scott: Use the the needing integrating integrator calendar, which I've I I don't have HubSpot, but I have one, and God, that's been just amazing.
29:39
Scott: I love it.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes, agreed.
29:41
Scott: Um re-evaluate your life cycles and delete some, which I've needed, and then getting a downloadable document.
29:50
Scott: Yep.
29:50
Scott: Perfect.
29:51
Scott: That's great.
29:52
Scott: Um more question.
29:55
Scott: I I I'm a big podcaster, try to read a book whenever I can.
29:59
Scott: Do you have a favorite podcast or a book that you like to share?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, sure.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: I um so I had been acquiring books recently, and I'm like, they're just they're just stacking up.
30:14
Scott: But then I realized over there as well.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then I realized audiobooks, I can it works for me because I can do it if I'm just walking on the treadmill or like I have times where I can do it.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: So I do have audiobooks now that I'm into, and there's two, they kind of work hand in hand for me.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you've heard of them.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: One is 10x is easier than 2x, which is the concept of 10 times growth could be easier than two times, just based on this way you have to look at the growth and you have to step back because you can't get 10 times ahead by doing double the work.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Like it just won't work.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: The other one is kind of a after that, I'm in the middle of it, but it's called Buy Back Your Time.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: I think it's Dan Martell or something, but I'm loving that one.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: It's helped my like focus of when I do certain things because every time we jump from Slack to email to whatever, we are losing time.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: And and to for me, to be honest, I understand time, money, but energy.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, there's been times in the last couple of years I'm just like depleted.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to have the most energy and joy in a way of for what I'm doing.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, buy back your time.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: I love that one right now.
31:26
Scott: Okay, I'm gonna have to look into that one because I've been doing trying trying that myself lately.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me know if you get to it.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on the book if you want to.
31:36
Scott: We could, we may pull that off too.
31:40
Scott: Well, this this has been great.
31:41
Scott: Uh, some really actionable insights, uh, very interesting.
31:46
Scott: Where can people find out more about you?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: So um just the website's the easiest thing, Whitmergroup.com.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: It's W-I-T-M-E-R group.com.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: So either LinkedIn or the website.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can definitely check us out and follow some of our stuff.
32:04
Scott: Okay.
32:05
Scott: Perfect.
32:06
Scott: Thank you for joining me today, Christina.
32:08
Scott: Really enjoyed it.
32:10
Scott: All right, folks, that's it for today.
32:12
Scott: I'm Scott Geller, and I hope you join me next time for budget your business.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:21
Scott: Um, yeah.