What are the steps of IMPACT’s sales process?

The reality of modern B2B sales is that no two sales proceed in exactly the same way. However, at IMPACT we have designed our sales process to be efficient, linear, and educational for our prospects, and we move forward only when they understand our unique approach to their success.

We are a digital sales and marketing education agency. We train businesses that want to take ownership of their marketing and optimize their sales process. To do so, we offer a rigorous program of leadership coaching, strategic planning, and training sessions that focus on SEO, content strategy, video production, HubSpot expertise, and sales techniques. 

When a business first reaches out to us, it’s usually for one of two reasons. First, people at that business have engaged with our content. It could be that they’ve read some of the thousands of articles we’ve published on digital sales and marketing news and best practices. Or maybe they’ve listened to our podcasts, watched our videos, or attended one of our events. Increasingly, these are professionals who have signed up for IMPACT+, our online educational community, and have taken some of our free courses. 

The second group of people who come to us finds IMPACT because we are an Elite tier HubSpot partner. 

No matter the path they take, business leaders who want to learn more about IMPACT’s service offerings follow the same sales process, which can take as short as two weeks or quite a bit longer, depending on how much education our sales team has to do.

These are the steps of the process.

The IMPACT sales process: Education first

When any prospect enters our sales pipeline, our primary goal is to educate them. This guarantees that future clients are well-versed in IMPACT’s philosophy — and it helps weed out bad-fit prospects who will either eat up the time of the sales team or turn into unhappy customers. As such, each stage of the process is carefully designed with the goal of prospect education front and center. 

Step 1: Discovery call

Who’s there: An IMPACT account executive and your team members

Duration: 30-45 minutes

What to expect: Before you even talk to IMPACT for the first time, you can expect a bit of homework. We want to make sure that we all have a shared foundation of expectations before we move forward. IMPACT is not a marketing agency. We’re teachers, coaches, and trainers. We’re not going to write your content and film your videos. We’re going to train you how to do it, and make sure those efforts fit into a larger business strategy. 

Before the first call you can expect to receive a video from our account executive (like the one below), as well as two articles to review.

Reading and digesting these pieces of content is imperative, and our account executives will not move forward to have an actual call until you confirm that you have done so. David Little, our manager of demand generation, explains it this way: “We give you resources beforehand to address 90% of the top-level questions you have. That way, our conversations are going to be deeper and more impactful.”

Remember, our sales process is really an education process. We don’t want to move forward until we’re all aligned. 

During the course of the first call, expect a healthy back and forth in which we learn about you and you learn more about IMPACT. We want to guarantee that our team knows as much about your business and your needs as we can. That way, we can begin planning the right course of training for your needs. 

Step 2: Explore call

Who’s there: Your IMPACT account executive and your team members

Timeframe: 45 minutes, within three days of your first call

What to expect: The second call is the explore call. Once again, you can expect some homework beforehand.

If the discovery call determined that we could be a good fit to work together, the explore call is a much deeper dive into your company, your goals, and your challenges. 

This time around, expect to do most of the talking as your account executive takes notes. These notes will get stored and shared with other IMPACT team members who may eventually work with you. This way, we have a shared resource and you don’t have to repeat yourself. 

We want to get deeper into your goals and challenges, but also talk about your timeline, budget, company culture, and more.

Step 3: Meet your coach

Who’s there: Your IMPACT account executive and coach, and decision-makers from your team

Time frame: 30-45 minutes, within three days of your previous call

What to expect: Once we all agree this is a good fit, we will introduce you to your coach who will be the expert that guides your whole experience. Our coaches have deep business acumen, exceptional leadership experience, and the ability to guide meaningful, rich conversations.

Here's one of our coaches, Will Schultz, introducing himself.

Your coach will soon be leading your in-depth planning sessions, so building the coach’s familiarity with your business is critical to getting started effectively. 

In this meeting, expect the coach to lead things. Your account executive will be present, too, but this is the coach’s meeting. Expect to cover both strategy and logistics.

You will leave this meeting with a very clear idea of what to expect from IMPACT — and who you’ll be working with.

Step 4: Agreement review and kickoff planning

Who’s there: Your IMPACT account executive and decision-makers from your team

Duration: 10-20 minutes

What to expect: This meeting occurs once we've all verbally agreed to move forward, you know your team is willing to do the work to get the results, and IMPACT is confident we can help you get there. At this point, we will review the details of the agreement together and we can celebrate the start of our partnership.

Once the contract has been signed and your initial payment submitted, your Account Manager will reach out within 48 hours to schedule your first set of coaching calls. 

The process, start to finish

“A sales process is a lot like dating,” says David. “No one is ready to get married on the first date.” Instead, there’s a good deal of getting to know you that happens first, where both parties have to figure out if the other is right for them.

IMPACT stands opposed to the typical relationship between inbound agency and client. We believe you should not be forever dependent on an agency to write your content, film your videos, organize your HubSpot portal, and schedule your emails. You can learn to do these things (and more!) at mastery-level, ensuring true marketing and sales freedom. As such, our sales process focuses heavily on education to make sure our clients are clear about what they’re getting into. 

IMPACT believes in teaching you to take ownership. In our sales process, we’ll start you down that path towards independence and excellence. Each step forward represents an investment in the future of your business, so we build these steps deliberately to get you ready.