Podcasts about smartbug

In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, I explore how understanding human behavior can enhance the effectiveness of your HubSpot system. Joined by Sam Saint-Maur, an expert in marketing operations, we discuss the often-overlooked impact of aligning people and processes with your CRM platform. We delve into why beautifully built systems can falter in practice and how misalignment between tools and team dynamics can cause breakdowns. Sam shares insights on the importance of allowing sufficient runway time for CRM transitions and the pitfalls of overbuilding without considering user needs. We also discuss the value of human-centered design and the importance of starting simple to build a flexible, user-friendly system. Tune in to learn how to make your HubSpot implementation not just a technical success, but a human one too.

In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, “From Guesswork to Greatness: Paid Media in the AI Era,” we dive into how AI is transforming digital advertising—and what marketers need to know to stay competitive. Join Paul Schmidt, VP of Marketing at SmartBug, and Louis-Claude Martin, a seasoned paid media expert at SmartBug, as they unpack the real impact of AI on campaign strategy, targeting, and performance. From the power of first-party data to the evolving role of media managers, this episode reveals how to shift from manual guesswork to data-backed greatness in the age of AI.

Creating messaging that resonates with older adults, care partners, and influencers is a critical yet often overlooked factor in the success of senior-focused technology. In this episode, SmartBug's Paul Schmidt is joined by AgeTech expert Tonia Speir and Senior Director of Copy Erin Hardy to explore the branding and messaging strategies that drive engagement and adoption in the AgeTech space.

Take a deep dive into how private equity firms are streamlining reporting, reducing inefficiencies, and driving portfolio-wide growth using HubSpot. This episode features an insightful conversation between Paul Schmidt, SmartBug's VP of Marketing, and Casey Peddicord, Senior Director of Channel Sales, breaking down how private equity firms are overcoming fragmented tech stacks, manual reporting, and siloed data by using HubSpot as a single source of truth.

Join us as we unpack one of the most common questions new HubSpot users ask: Do you begin with Marketing Hub or Sales Hub? This episode features a tactical discussion between Tonia Speir, Senior Sales Executive at SmartBug, and John Suarez, Director of HubSpot Strategy at SmartBug, diving into how to make the right first move in HubSpot based on your business model, team structure, and long-term goals.

In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, titled "Setting Up HubSpot for AgeTech Organizations," I delve into the intricacies of configuring HubSpot to meet the unique needs of AgeTech companies. Joined by John Suarez, SmartBug's Director of HubSpot Strategy, we explore the importance of setting up HubSpot correctly from the start to ensure data integrity and operational efficiency. John shares insights on managing parent-child company relationships, handling multiple buyer personas, and maintaining clean data. We also discuss how to leverage HubSpot's features for tracking referrals and managing operations across multiple locations. Tune in to learn how to create a robust HubSpot foundation that supports your business goals and enhances trust with your audience.

Dive into how AgeTech companies can build effective, ROI-driven paid media campaigns—even with a lean marketing budget. SmartBug's Senior Sales Executive, Tonia Speir, sits down with Briana Greer, Director of Paid Media at SmartBug, to explore how to prioritize platforms, optimize spend, and avoid common pitfalls in early go-to-market (GTM) efforts. Whether you're targeting adult children, seniors, caregivers, or B2B buyers such as healthcare professionals or senior living execs, this conversation offers a blueprint for smarter advertising decisions.

Today we're tackling one of the biggest questions B2B companies face: Should you keep both HubSpot and Salesforce connected—or is it time to fully switch? Join Casey Peddicord, Senior Director of Channel Sales at SmartBug, and Alex Bisaillon (a.k.a. “Biz”), Solution Architect at SmartBug, as they break down how to decide between integrating and migrating, based on real-world experience helping companies align their revenue tech stacks.

Click here to try Databox free, or learn more.Jen Spencer (CEO of SmartBug) shares how they've grown by serving the right clients, with the right services, managed by the right team. Learn how this segmentation has been a huge factor in their success, and get insights you can use at your company.Links Explore Databox Benchmarks Follow Jen Learn more about SmartBug If you liked the episode, let us know on LinkedIn!

What is up PartnerUp!Today's episode is a crossover episode from the Marketing Together podcast hosted by Logan Lyles. Jen Spencer is the CEO of SmartBug, a full-service revenue-driving digital agency. She shares essential tips for partner marketing. She touches on things like balancing multiple partners and analyzing the reasons for success or failure of a partner marketing campaign.Hope you enjoy!Never miss an episode of the world's number 1 podcast on partnerships by subscribing to PartnerUp on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a visual person, sub to our YouTube, and see the full recording of us learning out loud.Share the episode with your commentary on LinkedIn or Twitter and we'll highlight your commentary. We love to hear your thoughts on each episode, and always comment back or respond to emails/dms. Hey! We're real people. You can check out all past and future PartnerUp episodes and subscribe to the world's number 1 partnerships newsletter, PartnerHacker Daily (PhD) at https://partnerhacker.com/.

In this podcast today, I will discuss the company SmartBug! Listen to the podcast for details! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thressa-sweat/support

Hannah Shain, SmartBug's former VP of Marketing, is talking too loud about her big move to France. Move over Emily, here comes Hannah in Paris!Robert Chatwani, the Chief Marketing Officer at Atlassian, is talking too loud about the college application process. His daughter is going through it, which means that Robert is also going through it. And it's tough! The choices, the essays, the tours, OH MY!Links to learn more about Robert and Hannah:Robert's LinkedIn Hannah's LinkedIn Follow us:twitter.com/wistiaSubscribe:wistia.com/series/talking-too-loudLove what you heard? Leave us a review!We want to hear from you!Write in and let us know what you think about the show, who you'd want us to interview on future episodes, and any feedback you have for our team.

With Daniel Graff-Radford, CEO of Allbound On this episode of the Intelligent Inbound Podcast, Jen and Daniel talk about how businesses can build better customer relationships by asking the right questions up front. As a former founding member of Allbound, Jen opens the conversation with a full circle moment. She's once again leveraging Allbound's software solutions, but this time, from the vantage point of SmartBug's CEO. Since those early days, as Allbound's CEO explains, a lot has changed within the industry, yet the company has managed to stay on top of the trends, all while retaining top-tier talent. For businesses to remain competitive, especially as rumors of economic uncertainty loom, they'll also need to invest in real, tangible solutions to their customers' most pressing challenges. As both Daniel and Jen point out, it's about posing the right questions, to the right stakeholders, at the right time. And in order to truly measure the success of those initial inquiries and proposed solutions, companies must deliver reliable, relevant, and pointed metrics so that customers and executive boards alike can make data-informed decisions to end the year on a high note and enter 2023 with confidence. Jen and Daniel discuss: Facing economic uncertainty with poise and agility (07:08) Nurturing partner relationships (12:24) Thriving in a digital world with a remote workforce (16:20) Asking your customers the right questions (22:36) Measuring your organization's health (25:42) Investing in content that connects with your customers (31:31) What should Saas CEOs invest in next? (36:34)

On this very special episode of The Intelligent Inbound® Podcast, recorded at INBOUND 2022, Jen talks with Stephanie, Chief Revenue Officer of SmartBug, about what it's like to be a woman in a C-suite executive leadership role today. The path to success hasn't been easy for either of these women, from first launching their careers, to working their way up the corporate ladder. But with equal parts grit, gumption, and determination, they've learned how to take big risks and make big moves without letting adversity get in the way of their next great audacious goals. Listen in as Jen and Stephanie chat: Gender and racial disparities at the C-Suite level (02:48 ) Stephanie's early days as a working mom (04:08) Jen's first career ambitions in the non-profit sector (11:26) “Can I pull up a chair?” Learning as you go (12:56) Client > CRO > President > SmartBug's CEO (16:30) Navigating male-dominated workspaces (19:29) Overcoming imposter syndrome (23:58) “You've got to take a risk.” (27:57)

On the season finale of SmartBug on Tap, Hannah Shain shares some useful tips on how to get started with TikTok as a B2B marketer. If you're thinking TikTok is just for teens and gen z-ers, think again. Brands are growing, recruiting is flourishing, and more leads than ever are being generated from this platform. So if you haven't started yet - it's time to jump in! 

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Hannah Shain shares what's on her marketing dashboard and what metrics and data we should be digging into on a weekly basis. Data is the lifeblood of your organization. And putting that data into actionable, goal-oriented reporting is critical for us as marketing leaders as we guide the ship, and make decisions on the next investment or game plan. 

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Jen Spencer.   Jen Spencer is the CEO of SmartBug Media®, a leading Intelligent Inbound® marketing agency that assists both B2B and B2C e-commerce businesses in growing revenue by generating leads, scaling revenue operations, and building market awareness through digital content, design, and web development. Jen is an influential thought leader in the sales, marketing, and revenue operations space, regularly speaking at B2B conferences as well as serving as a mentor for revenue leaders through Pavilion's Rising Executives Program. She also started and hosted a weekly podcast called SmartBug on Tap for several years before launching the new Intelligent Inbound Podcast® aimed at challenging the status quo for inbound marketing with inspiring stories from some of marketing's most innovative and successful players. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we're all in this together,” and great communication leads to a great partnership. She loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch. Some of the topics that we covered are:   At what stage of your business should you consider hiring a Marketing Agency? What is the importance of having sales-minded marketing people or marketing-minded salespeople? What can you do as a startup in terms of marketing; if you are not ready to hire a marketing agency as yet?  What are the signals to know it's time to hire a marketing agency?  Links & Resources:    Website: https://www.smartbugmedia.com/   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenspencer/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenspencer   The Intelligent Inbound® Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1MV0CnkTDtCupFnPJzJLFG?si=2452443647174d73 Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:   BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia   Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you're listening to the show.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Hannah Shain talks trending campaigns, specifically QR codes, and how you can bring QR codes into your B2B marketing. Stay tuned as we go beyond the infamous Super Bowl ad to explore actionable insights. 

On this episode of The Intelligent Inbound® Podcast, Jen talks with Jignesh Shah, Head of Integrated Incentives at Rybbon, a Blackhawk Network business.  Rybbon is the leading digital rewards management platform used by 1,000+ companies like Lyft, Pandora, RedHat, and SmartBug to boost customer acquisition and lead generation programs. Jignesh has been building and marketing products for 20 years at start-ups and enterprises and was previously the CMO at Metalogix and Vice President at Software AG. Jen and Jignesh discuss how to use digital rewards to drive better marketing performance across the customer journey and more.

Dean Dutro is the Co-founder of Worth eCommerce, a company helping e-commerce stores drive new and repeat sales with email and SMS marketing. Dean is a Klaviyo and e-commerce expert with over six years of experience in the industry.  Before co-founding Worth eCommerce, Dean founded many email marketing-focused companies, including Emailgrowthtraining.com, Instant Email Copy, and GobySavvy UX Reviews. In this episode… How can you be sure you're getting acquired by the right company? What happens after a business acquisition? Why is email marketing for e-commerce businesses so profitable? Dean Dutro is here to tell you. Co-founder of Worth eCommerce, Dean Dutro, talks about his recent acquisition by SmartBug. Along with host, Todd Taskey, Dean discusses how to execute a successful acquisition, increasing valuation, the benefits of email marketing, and much more.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how SmartBug® worked with Longview to optimize its Marketo investment, boosting lead generation and qualification, and maximizing its marketing ROI.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how SmartBug worked with 1st United Credit Union to overcome a reporting challenge with the institution's third-party software.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how SmartBug worked with a cosmetic surgery practice to build a new website, improve its premium content, and serve its patients better, and ultimately thrive during a pandemic.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how SmartBug worked with Southern Nazarene University to maximize HubSpot and increase the number of applications to the College of Professional and Graduate Studies programs.

Smartbug’s Chief Revenue Officer and RevOps analyst Jen Spencer talks about her recent benchmarking report on the convergence of inbound marketing and revenue operations (RevOps): a survey of 200-plus revenue leaders that includes a RevOps framework for how best to adapt to these trends. Rev Ops — or the alignment of technology and processes to… The post Tech Stacks for RevOps with Jen Spencer appeared first on Eric Schwartzman.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares three strategies to maintain consistent revenue growth in your business. Jen discusses how to: 1. Maintain a consistent marketing strategy 2. Leverage marketing automation 3. Personalize your marketing approach  

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how to get the most out of account-based marketing without ditching inbound.  Jen shares how inbound and ABM are made for each other and how to get started by:  1. Focusing on the right goals 2. Ungating your content 3. Exploring different verticals Links Mentioned  LIVE DEBATE: Gated vs. Ungated Content Debate

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares four effective sales enablement strategies to help reps meet their quotas. Jen discusses the following strategies: 1. Redefine Sales Leadership 2. Treat Sales Enablement as a Marketing-Driven Role with Sales 3. Use Customer Personas to Serve Better Customers 4. Set Up More Meaningful Benchmarks

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares six strategies to turn your blog into a lead generation engine. Jen discusses the following tips: 1. Buyer Personas  2. Blog Subscribers 3. Using CTAs 4. Quality Content 5. Topic Clusters 6. Pop-Up Forms  

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares a simple five phase approach to setting up a successful tech stack integration project. If you are planning to integrate your sales, marketing, or ERP systems and need to know how to best structure the project, this episode is for you.    

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares tips for running a fully remote quarterly planning session.  Jen discusses the following: Establishing goals Laying out an agenda Creating working agreements Building a virtual parking lot And more! Links Mentioned Agile Planning for Remote Teams Template        

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how to successfully measure sales and marketing attribution in HubSpot. Jen discusses the following tips: 1. Ensure your data is clean.2. Determine what the C-suite cares about.3. Set a baseline of metrics.4. Start with the sample reports.5. Optimize and double down on the metrics that are working.

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares some of our recent encounters with HubSpot's Service Hub. Jen discusses the following updates: Custom Feedback Surveys Multi-Language Knowledge Base Identify Logged-In Visitors in Chat

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares the most popular HubSpot integrations that advanced HubSpot users take advantage of on a daily basis, and how these integrations simplify their lives as a marketer and/or sales leader.   Jen shares the following integrations: Salesforce Microsoft Dynamics Vidyard CallRail WordPress Links Mentioned The Most Popular HubSpot Integrations for Advanced Users

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how your business can leverage CMS Hub. Jen shares the following recent HubSpot CMS enhancements: Adaptive testing for Enterprise customers Built-in SEO tools Serverless functions And more! Links Mentioned Live Debate: Build Your Website on HubSpot CMS vs. WordPress

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares the best Marketo add-ons for mid-sized business. Jen shares add-ons that will help: Your sales team see Marketo data without leaving your CRM Your reps easily send and track template emails You with your Account-Based Marketing efforts And more! Links Mentioned Marketo Sales Connect Ad Network Integrations Retargeting Website Personalization Predictive Content

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares three tips for analyzing HubSpot’s multi-touch attribution reporting. Jen will discuss:
 1. How to choose the data dimension that suits your reporting needs. 2. The four main conversion points used for attribution models. 3. How to understand the different attribution models available Links Mentioned How to Analyze HubSpot’s Multi-Touch Attribution Reporting

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares some of HubSpot's recent enhancements that impact contextual marketing. Jen will share a few recent updates including: Two-Way Contact Syncing with HubSpot and Shopify Adaptive Testing "Wait Until” Delays in Workflows

On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares some recommendations on how to migrate a Marketo instance. Jen will share: A few questions to work through with your team to help determine your goals. A short list of people who should know their roles in advance. How to deep clean your CRM to prepare for your migration How to organize your current marketing platform And more! Links Mentioned Your Complete Marketo Migration List Marketo's Setup Checklist

In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares why SmartBug Media® decided to become HubSpot Advanced CMS Certified.

In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer talks about the pros and cons of migrating from WordPress to the new iteration of HubSpot’s content management system, named CMS Hub.

Sales enablement, in its most simple application, is the holistic process of providing your sales team with the information, collateral, and processes they need to seal more deals. In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares how to build your sales enablement strategy in three easy steps.

The senior living is an industry where building authentic and relational trust with the customer is paramount. You just can’t get that kind of authenticity from a blog. Video finds a way to make the experience feel more real and personal.  In this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer shares four types of videos senior living teams can start using now.

Most inbound marketing professionals want to make the world a better place. But, no matter how idealistic and well-meaning we are, most of us have lead numbers and sales quotas to hit.  One way inbound marketers generate leads is to gate content. On this episode of SmartBug on Tap, Jen Spencer discusses why we gate content (and when we shouldn't).

Welcome to Season Two of SmartBug on Tap. We’re back after a summer hiatus, and on today’s episode Jen Spencer is chatting about mergers and acquisitions—and their impact on Search Engine Optimization.  

What if marketing didn't help sales? Jen Spencer believes marketing works for sales and along with lead generation marketing needs to be practicing sales enablement.  What's that mean? In this episode of the If you Market Podcast Jen gives us the steps and steps and processes to maximize marketing's impact on sales.  As Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Jen Spencer leads SmartBug’s sales, marketing, and brand strategy. Over her career, Jen has built several demand generation and sales enablement programs from the ground up and has experience working within tech startups, publicly traded companies, mid-market organizations, and the not-for-profit space.

This week's EYE ON NPI is buggin' out - with TDK Invensense's SmartBug Multi-Sensor Wireless Module! (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/i/invensense/smartbug-multi-sensor-wireless-module) Much like our recent product, the Adafruit CLUE (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4500) we're seeing more and more chip companies create 'showcase' hardware boards with a large number of sensors, and a wireless setup for quick demos. TDK did a particularly nice job on this one, its both adorable and powerful! From the product description page: (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/i/invensense/smartbug-multi-sensor-wireless-module) This module combines six sensors, a powerful wireless (BLE) MCU, seven algorithm-driven features, and a rechargeable battery all in a small ladybug enclosure. It also comes with the option of an add-on board that includes a Wi-Fi module, an SD card slot, and an ultrasonic sensor from TDK. It is the go-to module for quick and easy access to reliable and smart sensor data. The data from each sensor and algorithm can be accessed out-of-box without the need for any programming, soldering, or extra modifications. This makes it a perfect catalyst for IoT product developers, algorithm developers, and sensor data enthusiasts to better understand real application signatures, environment variations, and multi-sensor/algorithm behaviors. I like that they went with a cute shape for this board, its a plastic ladybug, but is easy to open up with only 3 simple screws. Inside is a custom PCB with micro USB power/data, a Nordic nRF52840, 290mAh battery, and a whole mess-load of sensors. There's also an expansion port on the side, which you can use to plug in more sensors like a ToF range finder, two buttons, SD card storage and an ESP32 WiFi module. (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tdk-invensense/MD-42688-P-XB/1428-MD-42688-P-XB-ND/12525334) The nRF52840 is the main processor, and provides the sensor connectivity, USB interface and of course Bluetooth LE - its one of our favorite processors, and hey it could be reprogrammed to run CircuitPython which would be super cool if someone made a board definition..hint, hint. In the SmartBug is 5 sensors that cover motion and environment: ICM-42688 triple axis accelerometer plus gyroscope (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tdk-invensense/ICM-42688-P/1428-ICM-42688-PCT-ND/11679713) ICP-10101 barometric pressure (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tdk-invensense/ICP-10101/1428-1143-1-ND/9555755) AK09940 triple-axis magnetometer (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/akm-semiconductor-inc/AK09940/974-1191-1-ND/10231690) SHTC3 humidity + temperature sensor (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sensirion-ag/SHTC3/1649-1100-1-ND/8628149), The real star quality of this product is the surprisingly well-done Windows 10 application. As you may know, Windows 10 added native BLE support, so it's possible to write desktop apps to communicate with sensors. You can find the app in the app store, so there's no popups warning you about running unknown apps. Once installed, you can run it, select BLE as the transport and connect in a jiffy. The app has many nice features. The plotter is the first one we tried. It's exactly how you'd imagine, with selectable data rates - you can have multiple sensors at once. Next we tried the activity monitor - this one implements tap detection, plus pedometer/activity sensing using the IMU. What's nice is that since this board is wireless you can put it in your pocket to test the pedometer! Finally, we looked at the HVAC demo that uses the pressure sensor to detect when filters in an AC unit need replacing. I liked the realistic product demos here, for example I didn't realize that was a use case for pressure sensors. TDK / InvenSense is famous for their IMU's - they're used in a wide range of motion-activated video game systems and VR such as the Nintendo Wii and Oculus Rift. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InvenSense) So it's no surprise they have a really sweet IMU demo showing of their fusion algorithms. These are now often built into the chips themselves, running a proprietary Kalman-like filter that will spit out quaternions or Euler angles. Again, this is a great demonstration of the wireless connectivity - you can pick up the ladybug and twist and twirl it around to see the rock-stable fusion output. All in all, it's a nice bit of kit, at a good price! You can pick up a SmartBug at Digi-Key today, they have plenty of stock, and will ship it to you same day (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tdk-invensense/MD-42688-P/1428-MD-42688-P-ND/12525336) ------------------------------------- Visit the Adafruit shop online - http://www.adafruit.com LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit Subscribe to Adafruit on YouTube: http://adafru.it/subscribe New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System: http://learn.adafruit.com/

It can be intimidating to shift from 100% inbound marketing to ABM. You're probably not entirely positive on how you'll prove to leadership that ABM works for your organization. Lucky for you, we recently discussed ABM metrics with two industry experts. Jen Spencer, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at SmartBug, and Todd McCormick, CRO right here at Terminus give us some industry-leading advice on measuring ABM success Here's what we cover: Setting KPIs that matter Mixing inbound and ABM Finding the best SaaS product Testing different verticals To listen to this episode and more like it, you can subscribe to #FlipMyFunnel on Apple Podcasts or tune in on our website.

Ryan Malone, Founder and CEO of SmartBug Media, an inbound marketing agency, HubSpot Diamond Partner, and winner of more than 100 awards, founded his company on this premise:  That clients would be best served by providing them with marketing strategists who had in-the-trenches P&L, product launch, skin-in-the-game experience and an understanding of the impacts of wrong decisions. Ryan started his career leading marketing teams for publicly traded and early-stage technology companies. He saw agencies that threw any available talent at the strategic function – using interns, copywriters, and graphic designers to develop marketing plans, then blaming poor performance on his company's failure to provide the correct inputs for the marketing agencies' “whiz-bang” strategic processes. Ryan wanted to build his agency with the best veteran marketers he could find. But, how could he do that in Orange County, CA, where local talent would be limited to those who would be willing to drive in community that ranks first nationally in stressful (nightmarish) commutes? Ryan decided to hire the best-fit marketers for his agency, regardless of location, and to put his strategists front row with clients, instead of interjecting “account managers” into the company-client relationship. Today, his company has almost 60 employees, all completely remote . . .located in 25 states and 2 provinces. He warns that the idea that companies will save money by hiring remote employees is a misconception – the cost savings of not having physical facilities is more than offset by the added costs of building a strong team and company culture. Every year, SmartBug brings all the employees and their families together at a top West Coast resort for a training, team-building, quality-time event, SmartBugaplooza. Ryan believes the quality of talent he has been able to acquire through hiring remote is a strategic advantage – but, focusing on culture is critical to making the long distance relationships work. Another practice that Ryan has found to be effective is that he interviews prospective new employees ahead of need (SmartBug is always hiring) and queues up candidates with scheduled onboarding. Again, his hiring field is not local . . . it's all of North America . . .and having potential hires “ready” means he is not forced into making potentially risky “emergency hires.” Ryan also explains why it is important to establish corporate policies when a company is small. Ryan talked about growing his agency and covered some of what is in this interview in more depth when he presented “Building a Remote Agency at Scale: The Big Decisions You Will Face and Must Conquer” at Hubspot's Inbound 2018 conference. Ryan can be reached on his company website at: smartbugmedia.com, by email at: ryan@smartbugmedia.com, and on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmalone

Don't miss this week's guest, Jen Spencer, VP of Sales & Marketing at SmartBug Media.  We'll be live at 11:30 PST Thurs. 1/4.  Check back here for the recording no later than 1/8/18 and read the transcript on the Heinz Marketing blog on Mon. 1/15/18.   We'll talk about:  How to enable your entire go-to-market team: Best practices and advice to increase conversion rates and sales success Some Highlights: Intelligent Inbound - Data-oriented - Not just blogs and whitepapers -- web design, PR, sales enablement, creative working together to grow revenue and marketing ROI - Importance of the marketing to sales handoff with inbound - Evolution of public relations; how to use it to enhance inbound strategy MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST:  Jen Spencer is Vice President, Sales & Marketing for SmartBug Media, a leading intelligent inbound marketing agency that assists businesses in generating leads; increasing awareness; and building brand loyalty through inbound marketing, digital strategy, design, marketing automation, and PR. Prior to her role at SmartBug, Jen was the VP of Sales and Marketing at Allbound, a partner sales acceleration software-as-a-service solution provider. She was responsible for developing and executing an inbound demand generation strategy, raising brand and market awareness for Allbound, and channel sales and marketing. She helped the company reach 50 percent growth in year-over-year traffic and a 363 percent increase in sales leads. While serving as Director of Marketing at nettime solutions, acquired by Paychex in June 2014, Jen developed and executed an inbound lead generation and content marketing strategy while supporting a channel of referral, reseller, co-branded, and white-labeled partners. Through her role, the company saw a 103 percent increase in website traffic, a 415 percent increase in direct sales leads, and an 89 percent increase in revenue. Whether she's writing a blog, delivering a speech, interviewing clients or managing agency relationships, aligning with her audience is always at the forefront of her mind. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we're all in this together,” and great communication leads to great partnership.  In her free time, Jen serves on the Board of Girls in Tech - Phoenix, a local chapter of the global non-profit focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of girls and women who are passionate about technology.  If you get to know Jen, you'll discover she loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch. She's also the mother of twin teenage boys which means there's likely a lone dirty sock in every room of her house.