After inbound produces the lead, then what?

Let’s assume inbound drives enough leads to you that you should be able to generate the revenue, then what?

• Do you know how to qualify those leads, ensuring that you are spending your time with the prospects for whom you can create massive value and who are willing to pay for that value?
• Do you have a process that allows you to understand where the buyer is in their buying journey and how to create value where they are now?
• Can you differentiate you and your offering from all of the people who sell what you sell?
• Do you know how to gain the commitments you need to move your prospective client forward and create an opportunity?
• Do you have a sales process that helps you move your client from target to close?
• Do you know how to close? Are you supremely comfortable and confident asking for your client’s business?
• How well do you do defending your price and the value you create?

Inbound marketing is an important part of a client acquisition strategy. It is an above the funnel activity that can supplement–not replace–your prospecting efforts. But it doesn’t replace the ability to sell well.

If you are effective at inbound without having the sales chops, processes, and methodologies to create opportunities and win new clients, then being effective at inbound produces the same result as not being effective at inbound.

If you are only okay at inbound but have extraordinary sales chops, you will produce better sales results than you would by just being good at inbound.

If you are a pure salesperson, you may not need inbound at all. If you can pick up the phone, gain commitments, and know how to sell, you are always going to do well. But if you are the entrepreneurial type with the ability to create content, adding inbound to your mix is going to blow up your results.

No matter how good you are at inbound, you better have something after inbound.