It’s not just marketing that has been transformed by the inbound approach. The sales process has also changed significantly over time as well due to the changing of the buyer’s journey. As an inbound marketing company, aligning your sales practices with the inbound methodology is key to making sure your marketing efforts convert into sales.

One of the biggest obstacles businesses can face is a poor relationship between the marketing and sales teams. Historically, the two sides have had little nice to say about each other; in fact, 87 percent of marketers and salespeople describe the others negatively.

Understanding your customer base is important. Here at Half a Bubble Out, we provide inbound marketing services and talk a lot about them. If you’re unfamiliar, the quick description is that we think it is best to attract your audience naturally, and this is primarily done through helpful content. If you want a more in depth description, check out this blog on inbound marketing.

If your business offers services that require you to give out bids or estimates to customers, there is one thing you can do to dramatically improve your marketing. By setting up a system where you are measuring not just how many requests you get, but measure how many quotes you gave and the dollar amount of those quotes, you will improve your marketing as a small business.

Selling a product or a service to someone can often be a tough feat as a small business. People have so many options when it comes to purchasing something in our marketplace anymore. What if I told you that certain words you use in your content and sales pitch can help you sell more products and/or services?

Have you ever felt like your sales team and marketing team were so disconnected they aren’t even in the same building, let alone working for the same company? Imagine a small business environment where the marketing team and the sales team are not just in the same stadium, wearing the same uniform, but like a track and field 4x100 relay team, they are also running in the same lane and can perform a smooth hand-off of the baton! The baton must not be dropped and the smoothness of the hand-off can make or break your team reaching company goals.

For many companies, the sales department and the marketing department are often set worlds apart in both goals and structure. Sales often thinks of marketing as the arts and crafts department while marketing feels that the sales department is all about numbers and no creativity. If this sounds familiar, than your business isn’t meeting its full potential and your numbers may be lower than they should be.