Nick Sal's HubSpot Inbound Marketing and Consulting Blog

If I've learned anything from the last 10 years in the industry, it's that everybody struggles with implementing inbound marketing at first. I say that not to discourage you, but the opposite. If you’re having trouble making HubSpot work for your business, you’re not alone! There is a whole world of fellow HubSpot users out there to learn from.

How did two guys with no particular background in sales lead a movement that doubled their firm’s revenue from one year to the next? How did they — with invaluable assistance from a team of like-minded sales reps that were recruited to join them — go about the daunting challenge of devising a repeatable, customer-centric process for converting inbound leads into new paying customers?

And most importantly, how can you get the same results (or better) at your business?

April marked the 6th month leading up my first inbound agency, Innovative Marketing Resources. I'm still reeling.  So much happened to move our agency in one direction in April, only to have us break apart that plan/direction (including the team) and head off in a new one in May.  You'll see what I mean in a moment.  Let's begin:

March marked my 5th month of my journey into agency life as a HubSpot Partner.  I felt we had gotten things stablized and on track for growth through the end and February into March.  We still had a long road ahead of us on our journey to building a model inbound agency....

February marked my 4th month of my journey into agency life as a HubSpot Partner.  It was also my first full month working at the agency since finishing up paternity leave.  It was by far my most challenging month since finishing my nearly 5 years working as a HubSpot employee.  

This month began with uncovering client issues, billing problems, and staff inefficiency.  The middle of the month consisted of reorganization, emergency content production sessions and pulling off an abrupt pivot into a more stable retainer/business model.  By the end of the month, thanks to the team pulling together and a ton of extra hours and hustle, it felt like I was in the pilot's seat of a plane that began to pull out of it's nose dive and we were starting to soar back up to a promising future (for ourselves as well as our work with our clients and partners in the inbound community.)  

Nobody had illusions that this new role would be easy for me, I just had no idea running an inbound agency could be this hard.  As I think you're hear and see blow, I've done my best to embrace the challenges and rally our team and our clients to the cause...  

This 2nd "monthly" update on my life and times as the new leader of Hubspot Agency Partner, Innovative Marketing Resources is a special "combined issue" covering both months 2+3.  Why?  Because I was out the 2nd half of December and half of January.  WHY?! Because I write this post as a new father!  That's right. My wife Victoria and I had our first child on Dec 20th. That's the biggest update for me in the days since my last post - and it brings new meaning and motivation to my work.

It's been just over a month since I transitioned from my role helping to lead up HubSpot's Agency Partner Certification and training program at HubSpot Inc and joined one of my favorite HubSpot Agency Partners here in Boston, Innovative Marketing Resources. 

[ME AND SOME MEMBERS OF THE IMR CORP CREW HANGING OUT AT THE OFFICE DURING MY FIRST WEEK ON THE JOB - NOTE ONE OF THE NEW PLANTS WE ADDED TO GREEN UP THE PLACE, TOO]

Innovative Marketing Resources, or IMR Corp for short - had risen to become one of the better known Certified Platinum Providers in HubSpot's growing network of Agency Partners.  As someone who spent their entire career at HubSpot supporting our partners in the marketing industry, I had known and worked with the team at IMR and we had "grown up" in the program together for years.  But, times change, and if the agency was to continue to thrive in 2016, they needed new leadership.  Meanwhile, I was ready for a change as well.  I was looking for a chance to apply all I had learned from 4.5 years working at HubSpot - particularly the management and leadership systems that we pioneered on the HubSpot Academy Team (lead by Mark Kilens, one of the best managers I've ever worked for).  And with IMR hiring a senior manager to help lead up the entire agency, an opportunity presented itself.  So, with 2015 drawing to a close (and with my wife and I expecting our first child) this was a perfect point in my career to take a chance, strike out and see what I could do if I joined forces with of the leading HubSpot Agency Partners that I admired so much.

Driving fast, taking chances:

In short, it was a fast moving first month for me at IMR.  I'm used to that pace from my experience starting as the 250th HubSpot employee supporting around 4,000 customers to and then riding the orange rocket ship as the company went public, grew to  15,000+ customers and 1000+ employees on 3 continents - all within a few short years.  I told Kevin Jorgensen and Joe Petterossi (IMR's co-founders and my new business partners), I intended to come into the agency "like a big orange hurricane" and try to "make it rain inbound" all over the place.  As their new business partner and joining in the role of agency team leader, I would have a hand in improving all aspects of the agency - client services management, marketing/sales, as well as culture and team development.  

Well, it's networking season (again).  With autumn finally here, people going back to school, back to work from vacation, things are really ramping up (check out #INBOUND if you're not coming already).  And if you're in marketing / business development, it's time to crank back up your live networking game.  This was a topic of some recent interviews I've done and I thought I'd share some of my notes here for you all: