15: Discover the secret ingredient HubSpot Diamond Partner IMPACT uses to deliver consistently outstanding results for clients with Bob Ruffolo

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Bob Ruffolo is the founder and CEO of IMPACT, an agency he formed in 2009 to help people and their organizations succeed by changing the way they market themselves online. Since its founding, IMPACT has achieved its status as one of HubSpot’s Diamond Partner Agencies and secured its place as one of the top inbound marketing agencies in the country. Today we’re chatting with Bob about how he has built IMPACT to deliver results for customers like increasing qualified lead generation between 84% within 5 months and 380%!

[spp-tweet tweet=”@BobRuffolo discloses one of their secrets re how to get the best people to IMPACT”]

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Time Stamped Show Notes

(click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.)

  • [05:35] – Samantha asks Bob about his journey as an agency to a ‘Diamond Partner’ status with HubSpot. Bob says that before working with HubSpot, they serviced a number of marketing retainer accounts.  A member of the Partner team from HubSpot reached out to him and gave him the value proposition of how he can grow his business. He was convinced and signed up for HubSpot.
  • [06:35] – Bob says that he split his 8-person company in half. Half of the team ran the business for existing clients while the other half did their best to learn all the tools and resources in HubSpot.  He adds that all they did on the whole month of December 2011 was to learn inbound marketing and how to use HubSpot.
  • [8:30] – Bob shares his biggest success in inbound marketing which is their infographic that was featured on HubSpot’s blog and went viral. It reached thousands of shares and that marked the introduction of IMPACT as an agency.
  • [10:48] – “As long as you’re creating content that is extremely valuable, answers the question, solves the problem, and helps people along their journey, you will be successsful.”
  • [11:08] – Samantha asks Bob about their journey of growth as an agency. Bob says that after the viral infographic, they acquired 5 new clients for the next 2-3 months. They started hiring interns and gave everyone a shot. IMPACT went through a lot of people but that’s where the early employees started. Later that year, Bob was asked to speak at INBOUND. They also won the award for ‘Best Content’ and became a Gold Partner within a timeframe of 10 months.
  • [13:25] – Samantha asks how IMPACT provides consistent quality when it comes to inbound marketing. Bob says that if you want to be successful specifically as an agency, you have to have the best people. It sounds so easy but that’s the difference between the best agencies and the ones who can’t get traction. He also says that it is also about developing and having a career path to the best people you have so that they will stay on your company. They also have to be in a role where they will succeed and must have the necessary tools and resources that amplifies their success.
  • [16:45] – Samantha asks how IMPACT find and keep the best talents. Bob says that Natalie Davis (Director of Talent) enforces the company culture and manages the hiring pipeline. They have a rule that they will not poach from any HubSpot partner agency. It is also part of their strategy to look for talents who once worked for top tier agencies, but no longer work with partners.
  • [18:45] – Bob says that they have core values for their company that everyone knows which are: Passion, Health, and Dependability.
[spp-tweet tweet=”@BobRuffolo You cant have any B players. You need to have all A players”] [spp-tweet tweet=”@BobRuffolo We will do whatever it takes to make our clients successful”]
  • [21:05] – Bob discloses that part of their secret sauce is they do role playing in job interviews where Bob pretends to be the client and the applicant pretends to be an IMPACT consultant. He/she will be given 5 scenarios and Bob will score the applicant.
  • [24:15] – Bob says that IMPACT offers website redesign, content creation, social media, everything HubSpot.
  • [25:38] – Samantha asks Bob about their process of content creation if the subject matter is so niche or deals with specific disciplines.
  • [30:20] – Bob says that marketing programs need to get faster and one of the best ways to do that is to implement agile methodology. They hired an expert consultant (Mark Long from Limbr) to help them implement Scrum and it worked wonders for their company.
  • [34:55] – Samantha asks about their inbound marketing generally and what they do to achieve results. Bob says that the key is companies must have their own internal inbound/digital marketing team.
  • [40:00] – Samantha asks about how Bob achieves results for clients starting from scratch and is there a consistent process they go through with clients, as well as how they grew their own business through inbound marketing. Bob talks about how they packaged up a series of pages, templates, a process for getting it all done, building out the right value propositions and offers to put in front of prospects.  It’s called IMPACT’s Blog Optimization Package and is priced at only $799US.
  • [44:20] – Samantha asks Bob about the one thing he is most excited about today. Bob says that he is excited about the team that he has right now and the opportunities ahead because of his team of smart and talented people.
  • [45:44] – The Lightning Round
    • This content is available to The Daily Hub Subscribers.  If you’d like to see Bob’s answers to the lightening round questions below, subscribe now and you’ll receive access to the full interview and lightening round answers right in your inbox. Questions covered here are:
        • What was holding you back from growing your business? 
        • What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? 
        • Share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success? 
        • Share a resource or tool that you’re using right now? 
        • What book would you recommend to Hub Nation and why?
        • Imagine you are starting a new role on a new industry tomorrow morning and you know no-one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have, your food and shelter are taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $1,000 dollars. The business owner tells you that things are incredibly tight and you need to achieve results quickly. What would you do in the next 7 days?
  • Note: If you are a subscriber to The Daily Hub and can’t see the answers above you need to login to view the answers.

Parting piece of guidance

      • “People people people. Focus on the people of your organization”

3 Key Points:

      1. As long as you’re creating content that is extremely valuable, answers the question, solves the problem, and helps people along their journey, you will be successful
      2. Having the best people is the greatest differentiation between the best agencies and the ones who can’t get traction
      3. Marketing programs need to get faster and one of the best ways to do that is to implement agile methodology

Resources Mentioned:

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