Hiten Shah, Co-Founder of Quick Sprout, KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg, is a proven sales and growth expert. His years of experience founding, advising, investing in or working with startups have crystallized into a wealth of knowledge about how to grow a successful company.
If you have the time, watch the video below to hear Hiten reflect on how he thinks about sales funnels. To help you out, we’ve outlined the major points below for your easy perusal, as well as provided some foundational information about sales funnels to further illuminate Hiten’s point of view.
Hiten explains that essentially, a sales funnel is the “step-by-step process of things your user or customer does to accomplish a goal.” You may not think that your customers go th...
Startups.com marketing technology stack
First up, what even is Martech? This is an abbreviation of “marketing technology.” It’s the tools and software you use in your day-to-day sales and marketing.
The reference to the “stack” has been used by developers for years, in reference to the technology and codebases they use within the products they build. Martech Stack references the marketing technologies and tools you use within your marketing infrastructure set-up.
By stacking these tools together and integrating them you create a consistent, automated flow of data between your tools.
The likelihood is that you already have some form of Martech Stack in place, even without...
Let’s be real with each other: your brand might suck. But creative director, writer, artist and fire-starter Lalita Ballesteros is here to help you out, with five tips for improving your brand.
Lalita is a firm believer in always being authentic, so it is no surprise that the first step of her process is to get in tune with the inner you. In order to upgrade your brand, you first need to realize what what wisdom you can share with the world. This may stem from your passion, or even something that drives you nuts that you want to change.
So you’ve figured out what you’re meant to teach the world, and now you need to get it out there. In order to do this, you ne...
I believe passion is infectious, and when you get likeminded individuals in a room together, discussing real change and impact for not only a company or organization, but also an entire city, it creates a real sense of dedication.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, is not the first place that people think of when they think of startups — but that’s going to change if Lisa Besserman has anything to say about it.
Lisa’s organization, Startup Buenos Aires (SUBA), has been working tirelessly for the past few years to harness and unite the massive amounts of creative energy and technical knowledge that are floating around South America’s most dynamic city.
In just three years, Lisa and her team have not only created a resource hub for entrepreneurs in Bue...
The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
While you may be an excellent programmer, what are some other areas of programming where you can improve your skills? Being good in a few core areas doesn’t mean there isn’t additional learning to do.
— Nicole Munoz
Start Ranking Now
Core competency is a ...
In my last blog post, I spoke about siloed content caused by silos within an enterprise. Moreover, about the guy who is on the hook to drive the business, generate leads and protect the brand. In most organizations they call him the Chief Marketing Officer or CMO. He is focused on the connected, consistent customer journey.
Yeah, this feels like herding cats — an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic.
Because in a larger organizations, everyone creates content. Sometimes people do not even know that this content ends up being customer facing. Some folks in Support writing some messages in support systems — but is it necessarily on brand and on target?
Let’s break down the customer journey — ...
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult. — Rainer Maria Rilke
In 1929 a collection of ten letters was published under the title “Letters to a Young Poet”, written by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old officer cadet. The young officer had written Rilke a letter asking for guidance and they corresponded — the two never met in person. In this piece are “double-quoted” extracts from Rilke’s letters.
When the great business thinker Peter Drucker wrote that the “CEO” title was “an American invention”, he was referring to this label in the organizational charts of large corporations. What’s odd about this title in start...
Social media is an area where many .orgs come up short. In fact, it’s common for a lot of businesses to stumble with social media outreach. A new organization might have a handle on its social media campaigns, but as its audience grows, social media transforms into something that requires more time and attention.
Organizations often make the mistake of assigning social media to a volunteer or staff member already burdened with other tasks, and they don’t take the time to make posts geared toward the right audience..
Another common mistake is to split the duties across multiple volunteers. This can be effective, but only if you have a very precise and defined workflow, and a team with strong internal communication.
Finding the people with t...
Before we even dive into what a “B corp” is, we need to talk about terminology. Like a C corps or an S corps, people are often referring to a “benefit corporation” when they say “B corp.” But B corp is actually different from a benefit corporation, although they’re related.
A benefit corporation is a type of formal legal business structure, like a C corp or S corp. In addition to making a profit, shareholders hold benefit corporations responsible to contributing in some way to the public good. In some states, benefit corporations are required to produce proof that they’re contributing to the public good. They’re taxed the same way as C corps, which means they’re subject to double taxation.
Benefit...
The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs.
We’ve chosen to pay for any continuing education, no maximum, that adds immediate value to our client roster. If it’s a service or skill set that will improve our client’s experience with our company, expand our service set or improve the quality of the campaigns we run, then it is quickly approved. We also provide a free book library of management and self-development for al...