I'm SO excited about this week's episode of He Said, She Said! We've been hinting for weeks that we have big news about a guest and now I can tell you that our mystery guest is Brian Halligan, HubSpot Co-Founder and inbound marketing rockstar.  

We covered a LOT of ground in this week's episode, from the history of HubSpot, to the future of inbound marketing and sales. If you want some insight into where the world of marketing is going, this episode is for you.

Listen to the episode to hear it all, or read the show notes below.

This week, we're joined by HubSpot co-Founder Brian Halligan. Quintain is a certified HubSpot Partner Agency, and our partnership with HubSpot has really helped fuel our growth and transform our agency from a local marketing consultancy to a national inbound marketing agency.

Our conversation with Brian spanned a number of topics. He shared with us that he is an introvert who has to perform like an extrovert. His HubSpot co-Founder, Dharmesh Shah, is even more of an extrovert than he is, and this means he needs to step to the forefront as the face of the company. One of the ways he manages this and recharges his batteries is by working from home once a week and taking some time to himself. I love this story because it underscores what an accomplishment it is for two natural introverts to build such a successful company to the point that it went public last fall. 

There are a number of things that have contributed to HubSpot's growth since it was founded in 2006. In addition to great leadership on the part of Brian and Dharmesh, the company's success is also due to its constant innovation. The latest example of how HubSpot continues to innovate is the release of HubSpot CRM, which is now available free of charge to anyone who wants it.

We asked Brian about where he sees the CRM fitting in to HubSpot's long term strategy, and whether it will always remain free. Brian explained that underlying everything at HubSpot is a feeling that humans are really changing the way they live and work and shop and buy. That is really the premise on which HubSpot was founded:

• HubSpot "chapter one" was about helping businesses turning complete strangers into visitors to their website. To this end, they started in search and social and blogging and helping people turn their websites into magnets.
• Chapter two was about marketing automation, and once you've got a lead, how you manage and nurture that lead, and how you personalize the lead's experience through email and through your website.
• Chapter three is about continuing down the funnel and looking at how you turn leads into customers. The CRM is part of that process and so is Sidekick.

The way people evaluate, think about and shop for new products has changed, and so has the buying process. Recognizing this, HubSpot is trying to build a modern platform that helps businesses deal with how people shop and buy.

I love that Brian said he feels like we're in the second inning of the HubSpot baseball game, with lots more coming down the pike after the CRM.

There's certainly a lot of data to show that what HubSpot is doing is working, and inbound is very successful in helping companies to generate leads. The problem is that many companies don't know how to close the leads they're getting. We've seen this issue with some of our clients here at Quintain. John asked Brian if HubSpot is seeing this issue and how they plan to respond to it.

Brian explained that he started his career as a salesperson. Back then, he had a lot of power in the buying process and had control over providing quotes or granting meetings with executives. Now, that balance of power has shifted and buyers have more power because information is so readily available through the internet. 

When companies have trouble closing, it's usually because of one or more of these problems:

• The product doesn't deliver great value or there is bad product-market fit. Even the best marketing and sales organization in the world can't succeed with a poor product.
• The competitive environment is too fierce. It's easier and easier these days to build software, launch a new company or sell a new product, but gaining traction and building an audience is much harder than it used to be. You really have to have a good product that uniquely solves a problem for customers.
• Sales organizations waste too much time on cold calling and prospecting rather than working inbound leads. Today, sales reps have to be like "pain doctors" in the sense that they identify a prospect's pain and help them solve it.

In our last podcast, we talked about the new Forrester report, The Death of the B2B Salesperson, in which they projected more than 2 million salespeople will loose their jobs to ecommerce websites. Brian had seen the report and his take is that the role of the sales rep is going to change and new skills will be needed. The profile of a sales person today is to support what's on the website, help prospects solve problems, and engage in a much more meaningful way. 

He also shared an observation about another change he sees coming. It used to be that you bought something and incurred a large, upfront cost. For example, in the software industry, you would have a huge upfront sale of software and then a small revenue stream from maintenance. This "buyer beware" model led to skeptical buyers and pushy salespeople. Now we're in a "seller beware" world in which most purchases are subscription-based and paid for over time. If a buyer is unhappy with what they've purchased, they can simply stop paying. This requires a different type of salesperson and sales process. All in all, this change is a good thing for the economy because it means the best products and services should win.

In terms of how this applies to HubSpot, Brian believes that the most important document within HubSpot is the commission plan. This governs the company's 100+ sales reps and includes compensating sales reps for the level of customer happiness - not just the value of the initial sale. This shift in sales is similar to a shift that happened in marketing a few years ago.

In addition to discussing the future of inbound marketing and inbound sales, we talked about:

• HubSpot's recent acquisition of ReKindle
• How personalization of data can impact the effectiveness of an inbound marketing or sales strategy
• Where Brian sees HubSpot and inbound in five years

At the heart of it all is HubSpot's desire to build a new type of software platform for a new type of business, and to get those businesses using all of the features of the platform they are building. 

Do you love listening to us debate inbound marketing and sales? Want to learn how to improve sales and marketing alignment? Consider subscribing to He Said, She Said on iTunes or Stitcher (the links are up above). We'd also love if you would review the podcast. Your feedback is helpful and we're always looking to hear from you about what topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. If you have an idea, give us a shout out on Twitter using the hashtag "#hesaidshesaidpocast" and make sure to tag @Quintain.

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