INBOUND 2022: Day 1 Recap
Day 1
There were so many awesome speakers on day 1 of INBOUND 2022, but some of the highlights included:
Virtual Selling: 5 Sales Techniques You Need to Change Now | Kim Orlesky
Kim Orlesky kicked off INBOUND 2022 with a keynote on the future of sales. In her presentation, she described how virtual selling is different from traditional in-person sales methods.
Instead of conducting a 90-minute sales pitch, Orlesky recommends that virtual sellers break up the entire process into three parts: connect, meet, and present.
The connection part is crucial because it allows you to establish trust and rapport with potential clients. Orlesky emphasizes this point by saying that she only looks at the resumes of job applicants who reach out to her personally on LinkedIn instead of just clicking “Apply.” In a digital world, people crave human connection, so it’s important to find ways to establish that relationship before getting into the nitty-gritty details of your product or service.
Orlesky proposes that the first meeting should involve lead qualification and creating value. Then, she suggests immediately sending a calendar invite for the next meeting instead of simply following up with an email. A calendar invite elicits a response faster than an email, which gives you a better chance of getting in front of your potential client.
Next, Orlesky talks about the importance of continuing the sales cycle by booking subsequent meetings until the client closes. The goal is to keep the client engaged throughout the entire process so that they don’t get cold feet or lose interest. The moment the client says “we’ll get back to you on this,” the sales cycle is over.
“I never, ever, ever leave a meeting until the next meeting is booked,” she says.
Marketing Rules of Thumb: "Trust It" or "Bust It" | Nancy Harhut, Tom Shapiro, and Jen Wiese
How CEOs, Founders, and Revenue Leaders Go-To-Market and Become Industry Leaders | Sangram Vajre
In this presentation, Sangram Vajre talks about how many CEOs, founders, and revenue leaders want to become industry leaders, but only a small percentage of them achieve the level of growth they desire.
Vajre describes the inefficiencies in a company’s go-to-market (GTM) team as the primary reason why most businesses fail to scale.
The product, customer success, marketing, and sales teams must all communicate and work together to achieve success. However, many companies silo these teams, which leads to a lack of coordination and collaboration.
According to Vajre, net revenue retention (NRR) defines today’s GTM success. The goal should be to increase NRR, not just customer acquisition.
To become an industry leader, Vajre says that CEOs, founders, and revenue leaders must focus on their GTM strategy. They need to continuously experiment and test different approaches to find the right mix of tactics that will help them achieve their desired growth.
Take Your Webinars From Boring to Buzz-Worthy | Alyssa Peltier and Emily Dick
Webinars have been around for (what seems like) ages. So, how can you make your webinars more interesting and engaging? In this talk, Alyssa Peltier and Emily Dick share their tips for taking your webinars from boring to buzz-worthy.
Peltier and Dick start by talking about how “webinar fatigue” is a real phenomenon. People are bombarded with so many webinars that they start to tune them out. To combat this, you need to make your webinar stand out from the rest.
The first tip Peltier and Dick offer is to clearly define your audience and the value proposition of your webinar. If you can’t explain why someone should attend your webinar, then they probably won’t—and if they can’t see why the webinar would be valuable to them, they’re even less likely to attend.
We liked the tip Peltier offered about “branding your space.” This is crucial so people can easily identify your webinar, know exactly who is speaking to them, and remember the experience. Branding can include a logo in the corner of the screen, on-brand lower thirds, and slides that reflect your company’s colors and style.
Peltier and Dick also suggest using engaging visuals, mixing up the format, and adding interactivity to keep people engaged. They stress that you should have a plan for what happens after the webinar ends.
To sum it up, Peltier and Dick say that webinars need to be engaging, valuable, and branded in order to be successful and memorable.
The Insights From Day 2 Are Too Good to Miss
Read our key takeaways from the second day of INBOUND 2022.
