The Collaborative Growth Blog

LiveBlogging about Blogging at the Worcester Business Journal Sales Summit

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How recursive is this?

As this gets published, I'm speaking on a panel at the WBJ Sales Summit w/ Mark Roberge and Dave Hurlbrink. Mark is speaking about SEO. Dave is speaking about sales workstyle management. Together, we're doing our best to spell out important pieces of an inbound marketing strategy that will help the attendees improve online lead generation and lead nurturing activities within their organizations.

Here's my presentation on why blogging is an important component of that.

I'll also be referencing a few links during the presentation.

Blogging as SEO Machine.
Check the results on google for "a search for Central New England Sales Summit". Also, take a look at how well my article about blogging and sales ranks for a keyword search of "improve your sales process".

Blogging as the Host of the Conversation
Take a look at Dave Kurlan's article where he asked people what their best sales advice is. Take a look at this article and how my clients endorse us in public in our comments, where our prospects read it. Noel Huelsenbeck:

"John is right on one account when he says "learn how to market your business on the web yourself" I would add, and do it using a proven methodology and experts, then add the hard work. Why John is out searching the web trying to find the short cuts and getting "free" info I've already designed my site, ranked my keywords, gotten leads, made sales and taken my $250 investment and made thousands."

Blogging as Networking Central
This blog post about the best internet marketing blogs led to many new relationships for me and HubSpot. I also make a habit of answering questions on LinkedIn where I can leave links to relevant blog posts. After the sale, I also frequently highlight my clients as I've done in this series of posts where I asked individual clients to share their internet marketing advice.

Blogging as Lead Nurturer and Lead Capture Tool
I'll be referencing this quote from Rick Roberge's blog (who's speaking now in the other room, btw):

I've had conversations with peers about whether salespeople should generate their own leads.

I've even gone so far as to say that the stronger your lead generation program(s), the weaker you are encouraging your salespeople to be and vice versa. The weaker your lead generation is, the stronger your salespeople need to be.

I'm constantly getting pushback. Salespeople want fancy websites, big advertising, more mailings, marketing support, yada, yada, yada. Anything for more leads so they don't have to work so hard.

In summary, blogging is an extension of what I do as a salesperson. It helps me generate leads, nurture prospects and sometimes it's the thing that seals the deal.