What are your pointers for an import/export agency wanting to use HubSpot for lead generation and authority building?

How to sell to retailers? As a former Retail Buyer from Target, here's my suggestion. You need to first ready your sales communication and materials to explain how 1) You will drive sales at their stores (best told through sales traction and history in comparable or slightly smaller retailers than the one you are targeting 2) Demonstrate how you will support sales with a marketing plan. Marketing mitigates sales risk and that's a retailer's #1 concern and 3) Prove you will deliver flawless vendor execution. There are many hiccups that happen along the supply chain and it takes an experienced company to flawlessly deliver inventory to the right stores/DC's in the right quantity on the right day. The best way to prove this is by showing that you are currently working with retailers of the same magnitude. So in short, you have to scale up slowly - from small retailers to larger retailers - in order to manage risk, build sales traction, build brand awareness, and manage cash flow. How to contact them and sell to them? Use Linked In to find retail buyers. I have a short video on how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbfUMRHiq0 Trade shows are also effective; you can get the mailing address of retail buyers in attendance plus meet them face to face if they come to your booth. Also, network within your industry. You'll find your peers are wiling to trade buyer lists with you. But in short, don't bother reaching out to a retail buyer until you have talking points that address those 3 things I mentioned above all. I'm happy to do a clarity call if you have follow up questions.

It's a difficult one to answer because Hubspot is a continuously evolving platform. What isn't working so well today will be great tomorrow. The speed at which they are developing is mind blowing. I've been watching this now for 1.5 years and it's pretty amazing. They're doing some pretty cool stuff and constantly pushing the boundaries, I wouldn't want to single any one thing out, none that might not be 100% of the parts will remain so. I just don't know in which order they develop but I know they have a team behind every aspect and like I said keep evolving the product. So if the question comes of whether it'll be a problem because perhaps there is something that another software might be better in, it won't be long before that's no longer true. Buying into Hubspot means buying into constant change and evolution - that by itself could be a bit of an issue for some people but in my books that's their greatest plus, despite the constant learning curve.

Someone else creates the design and physical products, correct? In that case, your main challenges are (A) identifying customers (B) convincing them to give you a chance (C) keeping them happy with good customer service When it comes to (A), you should probably be knocking on a lot of doors. You'll experience plenty of rejection, but some people will say Yes. Do a good job, and they may remain ongoing customers or refer you to others. This doesn't require any formal study of marketing. It just takes practice and long hours. There's another way to handle (A). And you should probably be doing both in tandem. This involves studying the behavior of people you want as customers. Many people are searching online every day to find companies who provide exactly those products and services you offer. You can ensure they see you by running a pay-per-click advertising campaign in Google and other search engines. SEM professionals can help manage your expenses and ad placements. You'll also want to evaluate the written content on your website and think about SEO. The better your websites perform online "organically", the higher they rank for all the relevant online searches, the less you'll need to pay to advertise. I can't help you with customer service (C). But maybe I can help you think about (A) – finding customers online. And I can certainly help with (B) convincing the people you approach (or who find you on their own) that they ought to hire you. Practicing your sales pitch is important, since you'll be delivering it to a lot of different people. But much of your sales pitch is embedded within your website and brand name. So you ought to pay very close attention to the visual and verbal quality of all your promotional material, ranging from on-site text to graphic design, verbiage in brochures and ads, and (perhaps most crucially) the domain name you've chosen to be known by. That name / domain is everyone's first impression of you. Even before they click, they've judged you. When they arrive on the website, they see the visual layout and the written content. So even before they've tried your actual services, they've judged you again. Clearly, it's worthwhile to perfect these early stages in your sales funnel so that prospects make it all the way to the finish line – i.e. asking questions and hiring you. If you'd like help with naming, domain procurement, branded copy writing, or SEM strategy, perhaps I can assist.

#1) PROVE THE ASSUMPTION: Start with a dropshipper's existing products to figure out what sells best before you spend money on manufacturing and warehousing. Amazon is perfect for this - they will pay you 4%-10% to promote 253,000,000 products (http://bit.ly/1q2M85R) - you can sign up at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ Alternately, get very small amounts of the product (maybe even just buy some from a competitor) and try selling them on ebay and amazon. Nothing hurts more than having $50,000 of imported product gathering dust in your fulfillment warehouse while listening to a voicemail from a debt collector. #2) SOURCING There are several options here. Many people prefer Alibaba.com. Warning - if you use Alibaba, you are stepping into a tank of pirahnas. There are more scam "manufacturers" on Alibaba than real ones. Use Escrow or AliSecure Pay if you buy. If the supplier says they only take T/T, Western Union, Moneygram - just say no! I prefer American Made when possible. If you're like me, try Ariba's Discovery Service - http://bit.ly/1q2NFZu - which will allow you to find suppliers with a physical presence in the USA. Note: Many things can be made on demand (someone purchases, one gets made and shipped) instead of in 500+ manufacturing runs. Start there if you can - Books on CreateSpace.com, Clothes on CafePress.com, Playing Cards on MakePlayingCards.com, etc - to test out your exact product. #3) START YOUR SITE This is an entire topic in itself. One of the fastest ways I know for newbies to start in e-commerce is with a SquareSpace.com store. Other options include GoDaddy.com and BigCommerce.com. If you can stand to use the templates they provide instead of trying to customize them, you'll save yourself a lot of hassle and expense - customization usually looks terrible unless a designer/coder was hired to do the work. If you do customize, find someone on odesk.com or elance.com. #4) MARKET Figure out where your competition is advertising. Are they getting free, "organic" SEO results on Google? Using social media to drive billions of dollars of sales? (NOTE: That was a joke - don't count on social media as the nucleus of your marketing campaign. Please!) Are they paying for Google ads ("PPC"), buying email lists, using strategic partnerships for promotion, relying on shopping portals, using banner advertising, or something else entirely? There's probably a good reason - figure out what it will take to play in those waters. At the same time, try to find a small enough niche that you can win in it. #5) BEWARE Be careful about artsy things. If someone is attracted to something artistic, it's usually because there is a story behind the art for them, or because it's cheap. If you're going to try to sell artistic things, you may want to consider doing some serious research first about who has been successful in that area. Look at etsy.com to see handmade artsy items (very cool). #6) WORTH A LOOK Worth checking out as you start your journey: Art.com, yessy.com, Artfire.com, ArtPal.com #7) DEEP FOUNDATION If you need help, reach out for a 15 minute call and we'll discuss a go-to-market strategy specific to your goals.

Message me, I live in Shanghai, China.. If I understand better maybe I can assist you.