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What a whirlwind it was! Mark, Tabitha, Erin, Aaron and I spent last week in Boston at the annual INBOUND conference by HubSpot. This is a solid four days of inspiration, ideas, new product announcements, networking, food truck lunch selections, and miles and miles of walking. We'd like to share with you some of the biggest takeaways and how you and put them into action for your business. As a quick overview, here are the biggest themes and takeaways:

1. Video, video, video.
2. 1 to 1 messaging for the win.
3. Stop disrupting. Cause less friction.
4. Customer service as part of your sales & marketing team
5. Culture matters.

Which of these two terms better describes the impact that customers have on your business: outcomes or drivers?

Sales people and marketers from 20 or 30 years ago would likely say "outcomes" without a second thought. After all, their jobs revolved around moving prospective customers down the sales funnel, until the company finally acquired them as actual customers. And that's a great outcome, right?

Whether you have a big marketing budget or a small one, it's always good to hear the word "free."  But are free marketing services really and truly free? Or are they stripped of most of their features so you pretty much have to upgrade? Those are the questions that run through a marketer's mind because, well, we've all been there. 

But, free online marketing tools really exist and they're pretty useful. Fair warning: Since they're not made by a charity there are additional things you can add on and pay for. But the basic tool is very functional for certain purposes, free, and you could stay on the free version for as long as you'd like. There are many options out there, but there are three free marketing tools that we recommend to get you started.

Using a CRM (customer relationship management) system for managing leads and customers is something that just about every business needs. With all of the advances of the free HubSpot CRM, we're often asked if it can be a good alternative to Salesforce.

When HubSpot introduced the first version of its free CRM in 2014, it was a solid product, but there were some features, especially those used by larger sales teams, that weren't available yet. As of 2019, the HubSpot CRM has added these advanced features and now offers capabilities that make the choice of the HubSpot CRM over Salesforce seem obvious. Here are five features that make it easy for us to recommend the HubSpot CRM over Salesforce for just about any organization.

Earlier this year I was selected to attend a sales skills training program at HubSpot. It was a mind-melting experience with great information coming at us from HubSpot's best-of-the-best sales trainers – David Weinhaus and Dan Tyre. As I reflected on all that we learned I realized that closing sales boils down to something really basic. And it's not about our services or the technology we use. This was my aha moment.