Money, Marketing & Management with HubSpot Founders- Webinar
Hubspot.com – Webinar
Information for small business entrepreneurs to help you get started
"Money, Marketing & Management with HubSpot Founders".
On Wednesday morning as I was sipping on my hot mocha coffee, by Organo Gold, I logged onto the webinar hosted by Brian Halligan, the CEO & Founder of HubSpot. The webinar was an hour long, followed by a half hour of open questions and answers. I took notes of the session and have provided them for you to review, in the event that you were unable to attend at the required time. The information was helpful and shed some light on basic elements to focus on as an entreprener looking to start your own business. So, grab a warm beverage and read the highlights of the webinar.. on your own time 
* Hubspot has marketing software for small businesses
* They used 'VCall' for the Webinar
* Watch your competition, and then do not follow them
* New, interesting business models are winning these days.
* Think about who your competition is, and then be different.
Don’t burn time on extensive business plans. There are 3 keys to focus on:
- You can create a Power Point document
- Do an Executive Summary
- Create a 3 year proforma document (projecting expected revenue, capital, expenses etc.)
‘The Start-Up journey is long and windy’. Quote
Blog about your business ideas and get feedback from people to help you get started. Don’t try to figure it out on your own, instead ask people what they want and build your business ideas around that.
Create a team to help you; it’s lonely at the top all by yourself.
Start with one founder in a business, rather than 3, 4 etc.; otherwise you divide your profit pie right up front. 2 co-founders are good, and use two people with very different strengths 
When starting a new business, ensure that each department of your business is balanced.
The Specialist VS The Generalist
To start with, you are better off hiring a generalist, until you know exactly what it is you need. Generalist employees are people who have a variety of skills and that can do several different functions, rather then someone who specializes and does very specific job tasks. Hire people as each department of the business demands it.
‘Convince really smart people to do irrational things.’ -Quote
With new employees, you will want to offer some sort of incentive for them, other than money, in order for them to want to come over to your business and help you grow and develop it. You can offer incentives such as opportunities for them to grow within the business, learn and grow and be a part of an exciting new journey!
Inexperienced employees are great for a start up business. Hire younger employees, people who are ‘hungry’, go getters, people with great ideas and the desire to learn and grow within the business.
The CEO’s Priorities in a new business:
#1. Don’t run out of cash! Ensure that you have enough cash flow to keep the business running, pay employees, fixed costs, marketing, office supplies, utilities and so on.
Convertible Debt- Take a loan from investors, and the loan then converts into shares. (Angel Investors)
- Talk to a lawyer about this option. There are different benefits to this option.
Venture Capitalists- Are large firms, with partners that invest money in businesses in exchange for shares. They put a good chunk of money into and business and they ‘swing for the fences.’ These firms are known as Venture Capital Firms.
- Venture capital is much harder to raise. It is time consuming to convince VC’s to put money into your business. It usually involves a lot of meeting etc.
- Do not syndicate your deal. Syndicating means that you are allowing more than one VC to invest in your company. This will dilute your profit right up front. Make the VC firms compete with each other, rather then have them bring in their own VC firms.
- Make it clear up front that you are not interested in syndicating your deal.
Management:
‘Don’t wear rose-colored glasses.’ Quote
- Keep your eye on the prize and stay pumped up about your business and stay focused.
- ‘In God we Trust. All others bring data.’ Quote
- Use data to help you make decisions in your business. Graphs are great, stats etc.
Helpful Books to get you started in a small business-
* Founders at Work
* Inbound Marketing- Social Media, Blogs, Websites etc.
* The Art of the Start
* The Innovators Dilemma
* Blue Ocean Strategy
Make sure that each department of your business is well balanced and well developed. Example: Marketing, Sales, Administration. Avoid ‘traffic jams in your business, by having each department flowing well and managed efficiently. Hire people who have strengths where you have weaknesses and so on.
Depending on the type of business you have, it is a great idea to have a weekly meeting in order to keep everyone updated with current issues, changes, news etc. If the business has several different CEO’s and management, then having a board meeting every 2 months for 3 hours is a great idea to keep ideas flowing and the business growing. A lot can come from collaborating ideas with each other.
Business Model
‘Old’ Model ‘New’ Model
-Pyramid Organization Chart - Flat Organization
-Open door policy - No door policy
- Vacation policies - We trust you
- Command-And-Control - Agile Scrum
- Knowledge is power - Transparency
- Scripted - Authentic
- Business Casual - Up to you
Business Model description:
The business model descriptions are in my own words and interpretations and are not necessarily those of Hubspot.com.. I just sounded like a lawyer 
Pyramid Organization Chart- This business model was designed with the concept that CEO’s of the business were at the top of the pyramid, followed by managers, employees etc. The new model recognizes that everyone is equal in the business and plays and important role to the success of the company.
Open door policy- This concept has each individual placed within their own office space in the business, which is still quite common today. The no door policy is a business that has a large open space, where everyone sits out in the open. The idea is to have the staff rotate throughout the office space every 3 months. This concept may or may not work even in today’s businesses depending on privacy issues and the nature of the business.
Vacation Policies- In the ‘old’ model, vacation time is aloted to an employee based on how long they have worked for the company and is often scheduled according to the businesses structure. The new model leaves flexibility for employees to choose their vacation time wisely and how much and how often is up to the employee to decide. It’s a ‘we trust you’ concept, saying ‘hay, we trust that you will choose your vacation time wisely.”
Command-And-Control- When it comes to handling projects or tasks, this structure is made up of team members such as a project sponsor, project manager, analysts, designer etc. Each team member has specific duties which normally do not over lap. The Agile Scrum model is different in that the project is made up of self-organized teams, with collaborate together to get the task done and that hold each other accountable for their actions.
Knowledge is Power- The old model has the idea that the people within the organization with the most knowledge are the most powerful. Often, their ideas are not shared, instead they are kept a secret in order for that person to up hold a higher standard or authority to others. The new model of transparency means that all information, ideas, tips etc. are shared with everyone within the business. People collaborate with each other and recognize that everyone has ways of contributing to each others success and the business.
Scripted- The old model of business had people using scripts to make phone calls etc. Often, employees would spend countless hours memorizing ‘come backs’ or answers to objections. Authentic, is the idea of each individual being themselves, creating natural flowing conversation, and trusting that what they say in that moment will better serve a customer than some scripted material.
Business Casual- The old model would allow employees to dress in casual cloths, let’s say every Friday. The new model says, ‘hay, as long the attire is appropriate if customers are seeing you, then you choose what you would like to wear and when…no casual Friday’s in this model!
** Do things as modern as you can!
Marketing-
- Direct mailing, cold calls, radio, T.V, newspaper ads, these techniques are all the ‘old’ way of doing business marketing. With everyone having caller I.D, people are blocking calls in the hopes to eliminate telemarketing. Quite often, people are interrupted at the time of a call, and quickly become annoyed with the caller. Rather than bringing the marketing to people, let them come to the information on their own.
- People are referring to Blogs and online information to find what they are looking for. More and more people are using social media sites and search engines such as Google and Bing to find their information. Pull people from these tools, and your business will spread like wild fire!
- Use the internet and turn your website into a hub, and draw people into your website through links, social media, blogs etc. Make your website like New York city, which has a variety of different ways that connect people to one location.
- Create remarkable content on your website and Blogs. Make it interesting, authentic and informative and people will keep coming back for more!
- The width of your brain VS The Width of your wallet : With the internet as a fantastic marketing tool, businesses can now market to hundreds of thousands of different people, all over the world, night and day and not break their bank account doing it. Put you’re marketing dollars into internet marketing rather than mail outs etc. and you will achieve better results for much less!
This concludes my personal notes about the webinar. I sure hope that you found it helpful and gained at least one piece of useful information!
On the internet; nobody knows you're a dog! Cute cartoon post