It's data. Data is king. Data is knowledge. Without data, how can you move your company forward?

Let's first take a look at the 'buyer's journey' and how it's changing right in front of us.

The way we engage with our buyers online needs to change. Currently, the foodservice equipment industry is disregarding two very important phases of the buyer's journey, which hinders our ability to sell. We must engage with buyers well before they are ready for a quote, but how?

How much sales intel are you collecting before speaking with a lead? How is that information getting into your salespeople's hands? What are they doing with it?

Foodservice manufacturers rely on their reps and distribution networks to sell. But when reps and distributors are responsible for selling 20-30+ different brands, if not hundreds or even thousands, how does your factory ensure your products and solutions stay top-of-mind in this über competitive foodservice industry? 

I’m on my flight home right now after spending two days at HubSpot headquarters in Cambridge with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, along with THE BEST inbound marketing agency leadership in the world.  BTW, did you know there are 156,000 marketing agencies out there?  Good lord.  To put it into perspective, I was one of only 300 people to be fortunate enough to attend HubSpot’s Partner Day 2017 in Cambridge.  

How do you connect with your foodservice leads to determine which ones are qualified? If you use legacy tactics including cold, un-customized emails and voicemails, your response rates are probably in the low single digits. It’s spam at the end of the day. If you do get the F&B director on the phone, you have to spend time qualifying them to determine if it's the right time to talk.  You are disrupting them.  Better make it count.

I imagine this happens to you too, right? So how does today's inbound salesperson truly connect with today's empowered buyers? Let's take a look.