Blog | A Working Guide to Sales & Marketing Operations

The Digital Marketing Mindset: An Essential Guide for Online Growth

Adopting This Mindset is Essential If You Want to Grow Online Digital marketing is a big game. I've been doing it for a career for ~6 years now while testing and experimenting on the side with my businesses and blog. Truth is, it's always changing. Think of it like investing. It's not about if or...

InCompany Updates

New on YouTube: Blog Origins, CRMs, & Our First 10 Subscribers

Entering the Stratosphere Our long-awaited entry into video has finally come. Through a mixed bag of emotions, we are overcoming our fear of being on camera, our comfort of sticking with blogging, and the judgement that comes along with making and sharing videos online. We do this for you. Building a business isn't an easy...

InSmall Business Branding

A Practical Guide to Small Business Branding (Minimal Viable Branding)

Branding is a broad topic that many people have different opinions on. At the onset of writing this article, I wanted to include external research but there are just too many answers. Instead, I draw from experience. This is my personal guide to small business branding and I hope it helps you on your journey....

InCompany Updates

Pivoting Our Consultancy to Online Learning

Full Disclosure The part I love most about Marketing Qualified is documenting my journey through sales and marketing. I will never sit back and say consulting is amazing, but the truth is it's a revenue stream. That being said, the things consulting HAS done for me are: It gave me temporary access to other industries,...

InSEO

Search SEO is a Red Ocean (and This Won’t Rank)

What the hell is a Red Ocean? One of my favorite business books is Blue Ocean Shift by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne. It's a book that builds off its predecessor, Blue Ocean Strategy -- a book about strategy and how to select the right niche and adjacent niches to intercept. Here's the stitch....

InInfluencer Marketing

Australia’s Felix Kramer Shares Tips for Early Influencer Success

Felix Kramer, Strawberry Socials, and $7,000 MRR During a recent tour on Indie Hackers, I came across a young Australian entrepreneur named Felix Kramer. Felix operates an influencer marketing company called Strawberry Socials - they've recently hit $7,000 monthly recurring revenue (MRR). That's quite the milestone for a young business. $7,000 per month is that...

InMarketing Operations

Press Pause on Marketing and Ask the Right Questions

Marketing in a Pandemic and Getting the Same Boring Results In all seriousness, is your conversion rate really something to 'wow' over? Is your strategy to couple your blog, social media, and ebooks with a "YouTube strategy" working? Or are you still just doing an occasional email blast? This is my flaw as a marketer....

InProjects

A New Therapeutic Project Focused on Men’s Lifestyle

Changing Tides for Men's Lifestyle It's an interesting time to watch the men's lifestyle market. Millennial men and Gen Z boys are becoming far more interested in their style, fashion, health, and fitness. They're buying skincare products, adjusting their sleep schedule, and choosing outfits to wear. All the while, they're consuming more content on how...

InCrowdsourcing

Griffin Macaulay Raises $900k on a $15k Kickstarter Campaign

Wow - $900,000 on a $15,000 Kickstarter Goal As some of you know, I'm quite active on Kickstarter where I back projects to help people with amazing passions turn their creations into full-time businesses. Obviously I'm not backing the full amount of their projects, but I'm making my contribution. One Kickstarter I backed absolutely amazed...

InSelf Reflection

Revelations on Growth and Capitalism

A Brief Word on Personal Evolution & The Requirement for Failure I believe we all experience life-changing moments (both positive and negative). Negative moments could be that a friend committed suicide, the love of your life left you, or you started down a new path that your friends/family weren't ready to support. Whatever the case,...

InEntrepreneurship

Let’s Make VR Classrooms

The world is still silent. Every channel, every newscast, every website screaming "COVID-19". The hardest part for me is being inside and away from my friends, family, and coworkers. I'm extroverted and gain energy when around other people. Sure there's video chat, but it's not the same. I want to physically stand up, move, and...

InEntrepreneurship

Click2Order, COVID-19, & Crossing the Chasm

COVID-19 has the world in a pandemic. We're isolated from each other, our elders, our friends, and our collegaues. Meanwhile companies are laying off employees and the Canadian government is putting billions into the economy each week to ensure the health and safety of our citizens. But with all the stress, panic, and fear circling...

InSelf Reflection

Thinking About Investing

I'm drawn to the idea of becoming an investor for startups and small businesses. Part of the appeal likely stems from my startup days. There's a sort of coolness factor among the VC world. But this is probably the wrong reason to get into it. From what I understand about venture capital, it's about building...

InEntrepreneurship

Harsh Advice on Growth, Integrity, & Venture Financing

About this Post This post is for those of you who are sitting at home, isolating, and pondering on new business ideas. This post is also for existing business owners who need to either (1) bring their business online, or (2) bring things back to the basics. Table of Contents Growth & Turnover Achieving Early-Stage...

InMarketing Operations

The 4 Dimensions of Marketing Operations

A Better Way to Manage Marketing Operations The term marketing operations has a variety of different meanings. To some it means activities like advertising, email, and social, while to others it means content, the customer journey, branding, etc. In my experience, the practice of marketing operations involves planning, strategizing, and performing activities that achieve the...

InSales & Marketing Technology

Hubspot vs Salesforce – An Admin’s Perspective

To start, I'm certified in both Salesforce and Hubspot. Trust me when I say this is not a biased review. I've been an active user and consultant for many instances of Salesforce and Hubspot. My career with CRMs first began with Hubspot, but later evolved into Salesforce, then Hubspot, then Salesforce. It's been back and...

InSales Operations

Terminology for Sales Operations

Terminology for Sales Operations Great salespeople know their sales terminology. The following list of terms are often heard on salesfloors of B2B enterprises. If there are terms we missed or you don't understand our definitions, please contact us. We'd love to help you demystify the world of sales operations. 1. Commonly Used Terms for Sales...

InSales Operations

A B2B Sales Model that Achieves Long-Term Revenue

What is a Sales Model? The sales model is the top-level view of how your organization is structured for sales operations. A sales model shows managers which departments are involved in the sales process and how people make their way to customer success. A sales model does not include tactics the salespeople use to do...

InSales Operations

How to Work an Opportunity

What is an Opportunity? An Opportunity is a CRM term used to describe a deal-record. Opportunity records are created when there's a real deal with real sales potential being discussed (to buy products or services). An Opportunity differs from a Lead because a lead is a person-record while an opportunity is a deal-record. A lead's...

InSales Operations

How to Work a Lead

What is a Lead? A Lead is someone who has shown some level of interest to your organization, products, or services. Your organization might have collected a lead from a workshop event, conference, or ebook via your website. A newly created lead is not a sales opportunity (but could become one). New to sales terminology?...

InSales Operations

How to Build a Sales Process

What is a Sales Process? A sales process is a series of activities designed to identify customer needs, align their needs to the services your business sells, and to finalize a purchase; increasing your organization's revenue. In B2C environments, the sales process typically consists of a shopping cart and cash register. Customers are expected to...

InSales Operations

How to Create an Effective Sales Proposal

What is a Sales Proposal? A sales proposal is a formal document used in B2B sales environments. They often come in the form of a PDF file and outline the terms and services involved in a project. Great sales proposals are well-designed and follow a company's branding guidelines (fonts, colors, etc.). For this reason, we...

InSales Operations

How to Create and Use a Pricebook

What is a Pricebook? A pricebook is a document holding information about the products and services your business sells. It lists every product and service, their descriptions, prices, and discounts your business offers. If your business requires personal contact in order to sell its product/service (a demo, a proposal, or a phone call), you'll likely...

InCompany Updates

Year in Review: 2019

Year in Review: The 4th Entry I started the Year in Review series in 2016. At the time, I was feeling conflicted about decisions I made about school, my career, and lifestyle -- I had no idea where life was taking me. In December of 2016, I wrote a summary of my year. Welcome back...

InIndustries

Rocket League is the Best Example of Product Marketing I’ve Ever Seen

Hi Psyonix, it’s Colin MacInnis. I've been a huge fan of Rocket League for years and am also an avid digital marketer. The things you've accomplished with Rocket League over the last 4 years absolutely thrills me. I decided to write this article as a tribute to you, your team, and the amazing lengths you've...

InIndustries

Marketing Analysis for Cape Breton University – Opportunities & Ideas

Hi CBU, it’s Colin MacInnis. I’ve noticed a great wave of energy in your brand over the last few months and thought I’d lean in and offer an outside perspective to your marketing operations (hope you don’t mind). Short and simple, I used some tools to collect data from your website and promotions. The data...

InMarketing Operations

How to Attract Quality Leads at Events

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash. Are you getting 4+ inbound leads per day? If yes, bravo. However, the reality is most small businesses and startups struggle to build their inbound lead machine. Inbound strategies take a long time to develop. They require constant creation of content, online engagement, advertising, and tireless writing, SEO, and guest blogging....

InMarketing Operations

How to Get More Natural Inbound Leads for Your Business or Startup

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash. Every business wants more leads. Lead Generation is one of the hottest topics in marketing and sales, yet Google is flooded with misleading directions on how to actually achieve inbound leads. Take a look for yourself. Almost all the results point to list-based blog posts (“7 Ways”, “5 Tactics”, etc.). In this...

InMarketing Operations

The Complete Guide to Creating a Marketing Campaign

Are you having a website traffic problem? Could the quality of your traffic be improved? Website traffic is often a pain point for many marketing managers. They want more traffic so they can yield more sales. Using technology, tools, and systems, website traffic is the piece that fuels it all. I have good news: Marketing...

InMarketing Operations

How to Submit Blog Posts to Google Search Console

Photo by Michael Mroczek on Unsplash The Importance of Time, Relevancy, and SEO Let’s talk about the search engine game. Most bloggers and marketers don’t submit their fresh content to Google. Google bots will eventually, automatically, crawl your website and index your pages, but it could be days, weeks, or months down the road. This would be a...

InMarketing Operations

[Podcast] Social Proofing for New Brands & Professionals

Episode Introduction How do you build a great brand that people talk about and love? We hear about great companies like Disney and Amazon, but how did they come to be? What strategies did they use? And how can we adopt their methodologies to improve our marketing operations? I’m your host Colin MacInnis, and THIS...

InMarketing Operations

How to Promote Your Blog Post on Facebook

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash Let’s Get Traffic to Your Blog Post You’ve finished writing your blog post - congrats! Now let’s promote your blog post to get more traffic to your website. This article will show you how to promote your blog post in many practical ways. Feel free to use some, or all, of these...

InMarketing Operations

[Podcast] Part 3: Brand Awareness for Local Businesses

Episode Introduction How do you build a great brand that people talk about and love? We hear about great companies like Disney and Amazon, but how did they come to be? What strategies did they use? And how can we adopt their methodologies to improve our marketing operations? I’m your host Colin MacInnis, and THIS...

InMarketing Operations

[Podcast] Part 2: Clever Ways to Do Outbound Awareness

Episode Introduction How do you build a great brand that people talk about and love? We hear about great companies like Disney and Amazon, but how did they come to be? What strategies did they use? And how can we adopt their methodologies to improve our marketing operations? I’m your host Colin MacInnis, and THIS...

InMarketing Operations

[Podcast] Part 1: Simple Tactics for Inbound Brand Awareness

Episode Introduction How do you build a great brand that people talk about and love? We hear about great companies like Disney and Amazon, but how did they come to be? What strategies did they use? And how can we adopt their methodologies to improve our marketing operations? I’m your host Colin MacInnis, and THIS...

InMarketing Operations

How to Build Social Proof for Your Brand

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash Fake Reviews = Brand Damage People don’t talk about brand damage enough. If you or your brand ever come off as fake or unauthentic, your ability to build loyalty dies. Even if you’re a brand new company setting out with a new website and no customers, there are processes...

InMarketing Operations

How to Grow Your Facebook Page Fast (and Ethically)

Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash. It’s Pretty Easy to Tell When Someone Buys Likes Our filter for false clicks and bots is strong. Fake reviews on Amazon products. One-off comments on Instagram posts. Even the whole hashtag game. It’s pretty sad. In all the Facebook Page strategies I’ve read, many sing praises to services...

InMarketing Operations

15 Brand Awareness Campaign Ideas

Cut Through the Noise & Get Attention Ever feel like you're operating in a sea of noise? That other brands are yelling and screaming for attention, leaving you with no exposure? You're not alone. In my experience, there are 2 ways sure-fire ways to cut through the noise and earn attention: Bizarre controversial content Consistency...

InCompany Updates

Year in Review: 2018

Welcome Back to Another Year in Review In this blog post we’re outlining the top achievements, setbacks, and takeaways earned in 2018 (because nothing comes for free). Table of ContentsOverview of Goals Set for 20181. Registered MacInnis Consulting as a Business in Nova Scotia2. Participated in the Techstars Accelerator Program in Boston3. Regularly Published New...

InCompany Updates

Year in Review: 2017

Welcome back to another Year in Review In 2017 I made strides towards my goals set in last year’s review. As a recap those goals were: Become Google Adwords Certified (Video Marketing Specialization) – Complete Google Analytics Certified – Complete Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certified – Complete ConvertedU Conversion Marketing Certification – Abandoned I abandoned ship on ConvertedU’s conversion marketing certification as...

InCompany Updates

Year in Review: 2016

Welcome to the first Year in Review "Year in Review" is a blog post series that was started in 2016. Given it was the holiday season, I started reflecting on where I was in life, where I was going, and where I wanted to be. Without a clear sense of direction, I felt overwhelmed with...

A Working Guide to Sales & Marketing

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