Why I Joined Infusionsoft

May 12th, 2011 by Greg Head | 4 Comments

After 20 years working on the inside of fast-growing software companies, I have been a full-time marketing strategy consultant for the last two years.  I worked with some incredible software companies whose killer young CEOs are successfully creating new markets and building scalable growth machines.  It has been great fun and very rewarding.

And now…after four months of consulting with Phoenix-based Infusionsoft, I have decided to join the company as Chief Marketing Officer.

That’s a big step for me, and it’s news to my friends and former clients, so allow me to introduce Infusionsoft and explain why I’m hanging up my consulting spurs and getting back into the game with Infusionsoft.

What is Infusionsoft?
Infusionsoft is the leading marketing automation software for small businesses that are growing fast using automated and personalized lead nurture marketing.

The web-based software combines everything small businesses need — CRM, email marketing and ecommerce (online shopping cart) and automated follow-up marketing — into one efficient system that convert leads to grow sales. The fastest growing businesses in the new economy are mastering Internet marketing with automated and personalized marketing that is the strength of Infusionsoft.

Based in Gilbert, Arizona, Infusionsoft has 6000 customers, 140 passionate employees, venture funding, and a quality board that includes marketing luminary Geoffrey Moore. Co-founders Clate Mask and Scott Martineau are successful entrepreneurs (and NY Times best-selling authors) who led the creation of the Infusionsoft product in 2003 – the first marketing automation software.

Growing Up
Infusionsoft has experienced some big successes — and some challenging growing pains — in the last few years.  They are learning fast and major changes are underway. The product, brand, website, services and partner programs are all in the process of growing up. Infusionsoft products and marketing will drastically improve in the next 6-12 months.

Yes, there’s a lot to be done. And I believe there is a big, big opportunity too.

I have a little history with contact management and CRM, and small business marketing is my passion, so this is a natural fit for me.  No, it’s not a replay of ACT! or SalesLogix – it’s a different product for a different time and a different customer.  The old product and marketing tactics just don’t apply the same way, and that’s an exciting challenge for me.

So here we go – another wild ride to change the world and build a big brand!

4 Comments POSTED in Marketing Strategies

CEOs Need to Know Digital Marketing Basics

October 1st, 2010 by Greg Head | 1 Comment

Remember the old days when marketing resulted in printed material you could touch and feel? Just 10 years ago, the majority of marketing artifacts included printed brochures, product packaging, magazine advertisements and direct mail letters. Stuff you could hold in your hands. Those were the days when most CEOs and senior executives felt compelled to comment on minutiae of decisions about marketing execution, whether they were marketing experts or not.

“Could we see that in a darker blue.” “I don’t like the feel of that paper.” “Why don’t we say this on the front of the envelope?” Business leaders chimed in and happily drove designers and copywriters crazy with their feedback. On the whole, though, executive involvement in the design details helped more than it hurt. At least leaders were passionately involved.

Now that marketing has gone digital, many CEOs of small businesses, non-profits and  tech startups are completely abdicating any involvement in marketing execution. “I’m not a technical person.” “I don’t understand SEO and website analytics.” “All this social media stuff is complicated. Don’t we have someone to do that?”

This is both ironic and scary. You can’t lead a business if you don’t know how your market engages to buy products and services. The tactics of marketing have changed drastically in the last 10 years — digital marketing has overtaken “traditional marketing” in most industries. (Most of my clients have NO physical marketing deliverables other than business cards. They are all digital.)

Marketing is also more content-driven, measurable, and modifiable than ever now that digital tactics dominate. This should be great news for business leaders, but many senior executives and founders have left the marketing discussion completely now that it’s “technical.” It’s not simply an “generation gap” issue either. I see just as many younger CEOs with this problem as older ones.

The sad fact is that many business owners and leaders have still not learned even the basics of digital marketing. They are getting left behind quickly, as did the sorry politicians who ignored bloggers and social media in the last few years.

Business leaders need to understand the basics of digital marketing

The main areas of modern digital marketing that business leaders need to understand are these:

  • Web search – How does the mechanism of web search affect how interested buyers find your products and services?
  • Social media – How is the growing conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and other social websites driving the discussion about your products and your business?
  • Websites – What story are you telling your customers in the content and design of your website? Is your content useful, clear and complete?
  • Blogs – How are blogs and review sites changing the way industry experts communicate deliver news and information to your market?
  • Web analytics – What information is getting tracked in every area of digital marketing that can help you understand what’s happening and improve your marketing?
  • Email marketing – How can you offer timely and relevant email content to prospects and customers that creates action?
  • Mobile – How are smartphones and the iPad changing how people get information and interact with your company? Is location important to your business?
  • Content – What useful content and information do you offer to attract and engage your customers?

There are many ways to learn about these topics so you can make informed decisions. Go online (it’s all there), hire an expert, go to local digital marketing conferences or have your website manager explain it to you.  You don’t have to be an expert, but you do need to know enough to make sound business decisions, including which digital marketing expert to hire and when you should hire them.

I know hundreds of CEOs and startup entrepreneurs. The winners among them have already learned Internet marketing fundamentals and are well-versed in the advanced tactics most important to their businesses. The struggling CEOs think digital marketing is someone else’s job.

Times have changed. Marketing has already gone digital. CEOs need to get on board before it’s too late.

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POSTED in Marketing Tactics that Work

Rule #1 – Make a Great Freaking Product

July 2nd, 2010 by Greg Head | 6 Comments

Imagine a world where people don’t listen to what your business says about your new product: they only listen to what other people say. A world where there are hundreds (or thousands) of choices for almost every product. Where every buyer has free and instant access to perfect information about features, prices, customer feedback and alternatives. Where buyers count their pennies and do their homework before buying anything, and in the end they choose just the right product for them at the cheapest price.

We are closer to this situation than most business leaders realize. This new reality applies to everything we buy: consumer products, business software, tech gadgets, services, shoes at retail stories, meals at restaurants, or employees we hire. This brutal scenario is especially important for startups that are trying to create new markets or break into existing ones.

great freaking productWhen you are creating a new product (or service) in the early stages of your company, your first priority should be to make a great freaking product. Make an outstanding product your customers says, “This is freaking great!” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it’s only great when customers says it’s great. If you don’t hear that from your early customers, you had better keep improving your products or lower your lofty growth expectations.

Your product has to be great to somebody

If your product isn’t great for somebody – really remarkable – no amount of marketing effort or price reductions or sales flogging will help you get really big and bring new buyers to your door without effort. Seth Godin reminds us that products that aren’t remarkably great won’t get talked about. And if it isn’t talked about in the new world, people won’t hear about it, let alone perceive it as the obvious choice.

I’ve been pretty grumpy about the state of many early startups and the perceptions of many entrepreneurs and big company innovators who don’t get it. You can’t market your way to the top without a great freaking product that somebody thinks is incredible and wants to talk about. I have been using the less politically correct version of “great freaking product” in frustration when I see a company that doesn’t get it.

Greatness is relative

Not every new product that takes off is perfect. Twitter has had its fail whale problems, but Twitter is still valuable and noteworthy and far better than the alternatives despite the problems. Guy Kawasaki calls this the 10X rule. Your new product doesn’t need to be perfect (bug free, feature complete, etc.), it just needs to be 10X better than the alternative for people to switch and buy your new new thing.  Great freaking products create change in the world.

Do people line up for the new iPhone just because of Apple’s snazzy TV ads? Nope. Apple makes great freaking products first — then they market them like crazy. Does the team at TechCrunch want to write about mediocre products that don’t have raving customer fans or remarkable news? Never — TechCrunch readers wouldn’t think it’s such a great news source any more if they lowered their high standards.

Yes, there are many ways to sell mediocre products to certain parts of the market where buyers buy for some other reason — your product is cheapest or you have built a personal relationship with the buyer. Just don’t expect your business to be well known and attract customers easily. Companies with mediocre products almost never grow to be big companies, and most won’t last very long.

Still trying to be great to everyone? I call this the Target Market Trap. Remember, single men and women only have to be perceived as great by one other person to find Mr. or Ms. Right and get married.  Narrowing your target market focus helps you get to “great” faster for somebody, which means you’re going to grow and can attack larger markets later.

I’m not saying you can just “build it and they will come” or “product is everything.” Having a great freaking product is just the first thing. You can do great marketing to help spread the word — but only after there is a remarkable story that can be spread.

Your product or service has to be remarkably valuable and feel like the best in class for your business to take off. There really is no other way to make company that will grow fast and be very valuable.

Do you have a great freaking product?

6 Comments POSTED in Marketing Strategies, Marketing Tactics that Work

The Freak Show is Never in the Main Tent

June 25th, 2010 by Greg Head | 2 Comments

Even though I am 46 years old and live 1500 miles away from my Dad, not a week goes by when I don’t hear his voice in my head telling one of his many stories about business, marketing or management. We still talk weekly, but I am most often reminded of these stories when I’m working with clients or reading the news. My family knows these stories by their headlines; he can say just a few words and get a big laugh.

Jim Head is my Dad. Apparently, he gained a lot of wisdom in his 30 years as an advertising executive in Chicago. When I was younger, I thought his stories were just funny and interesting. The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in the punch lines (after I stop laughing).

Here are a few of his best one-liners that make me smile the most:

The freak show is never in the main tent

In the circus, the main attractions play in the big top to the big crowds. The obscure and unworthy attractions, like the freak show, will never make it to the main tent no matter how hard they try. This one-line zinger applies to the politician who thinks that being unusual is going to help her win an election and to the chronic entrepreneur who keeps dreaming up new ideas that will never fit their core business.

Most organizations have one core and important “main tent” for their business — and plenty of freak shows. Are you playing in the main tent?  I certainly hope so.

There’s always someone who doesn’t get the message

Experienced CEOs and marketers know how hard it is to get your message across to everyone in a large group. This is never accomplished with just single press release, advertisement or blog post.

This one is also known in my family as, “not everyone gets the memo.” In big companies, getting the message across to the front lines (and back again) is often one of the top challenges — sometimes harder than communicating with customers. No matter what you do, there are always 10% of the people who never get the message. Jay Leno’s man on the street interviews are closer to reality than most leaders know.

Don’t be the last to get the message. People will make fun of you.

Nobody ever explained it to me like that before

As the story goes, Dad took over responsibility for a problem employee – a salesman who hadn’t made his numbers for a long time, but nobody had done anything about it. At their first meeting, he explained politely to the salesman that if he didn’t make his numbers this quarter he would have to let him go. The salesman appreciated the clarity and responded, “Nobody ever explained it to me like that before.”

Maybe the expectations you have for your employees or children are not as clearly “explained” as you think. And sometimes the message is clear but not really received. It takes two people to communicate. Just ask my wife – sometimes I need to be “’splained” for me to really get it.

Thanks for the witty advice, Dad. I remembered at least a few of your useful one-liners. :)

2 Comments POSTED in Marketing Messaging

The Target Market Trap

June 18th, 2010 by Greg Head | 1 Comment

Ambitious entrepreneurs naturally aim to create large companies in large markets. They make their plans, build their newfangled products, assemble scrappy teams and then set out on their holy quests to be big winners.

But most startups don’t make it very far — most fail pretty fast. So what was the key problem? Was it their team, market, plan, “timing” or “not enough capital?”

From what I see, capable startup teams chasing big markets fail most often because they don’t narrow their target market focus enough in the early stages of their companies. They try to serve “everyone” in a potential big market rather than focus on a well-defined customer group where they can execute and win.

I call this the target market trap. How can you grow big unless you aim broadly from the start? It’s an easy trap for an ambitious entrepreneur to fall into, and it’s a common cause of startup distress.

When you are a small company, you should be focused on a small segment of the market that you can reach and serve with your meager resources — to the exclusion of the rest of the market. Laser focus is more likely to create early success that can then lead you to larger markets and eventually to your dream of “everyone” in the big market.

This is a strange idea to big-thinking startup leaders, but it’s really how the world works. You have to start small to get big, conquering consecutively larger markets as you grow. You just can’t do it all at once – even if you have lots of investment capital.

Surprise! Big companies started in smaller markets

All the big guys started small before they eventually conquered a big market. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, HP, IBM, Google, Facebook, Walmart. Pick any big player these days. They may broadly serve big markets now, but all of them were laser focused on a specific small segment of their market in their early days.

  • Microsoft – Microsoft is the ultimate large, successful company that servers “everyone” with a variety of products. However, while their ambitious long term goal was “a computer on every desk and every home,” they started in 1975 as provider of BASIC programming tools for the first personal computers, then made operating systems for IBM PCs, then more development tools, then Windows, then Microsoft Office, then Windows Servers, xBox and others. Check out the Microsoft history timeline to see their progression.
  • Facebook – Facebook has quickly become a mainstream social website and is now used by over 500 million people. But Facebook didn’t start out targeting the masses. Far from it. At first, Facebook was only for Harvard students. Once that quickly caught on, they expanded to Ivy League schools, then to all university students, then to high school students, then everyone over 13.  Now parents and grandparents are signing up and Facebook is expanding internationally, but they didn’t start by serving “everyone.” It’s true – a business with a massive impact started to serve just the students on one campus. Facebook timeline
  • Amazon – Yes, Amazon sells everything that you can buy with one click on the Web, but in the beginning in 1996 they only targeted serious book buyers who had an Internet connection and were comfortable shopping online. This was a relatively small group in the beginning — compared to large market they serve today. Amazon timeline
  • Apple – Apple leads many exciting broad markets in digital media, personal computing and mobile consumer devices now, but they started out with products for computer hobbyists, families with kids and elementary schools. And Apple computers (Apple IIC, Macintosh) always addressed smaller niche markets in the PC world – for 30 years. Apple timeline
  • Walmart – In their first 10 years, Walmart existed only as a no-frills discount retailer in rural Arkansas with 15 stores, because Sears or Kmart would never go there. Now are the largest retailer in the world. Walmart timeline video

You get the idea. Try this with any big company you know. Where did they start? Pretty small and narrow at first, then they grew very fast as they expanded their focus.

The journey to being big starts by starting small and winning consecutively larger markets over time, rather than by getting 1% of a broad mass market, then 2% (often called “Chinese math“). Aim too broadly and you won’t have the traction, credibility or cash to stay alive long enough to win at any level.

Investors already know how this works. So do successful entrepreneurs and marketers.

I have found that most startups almost can’t focus narrowly enough, especially bootstrapping companies without outside investors. But this focus doesn’t mean you can’t grow extremely fast. All the companies listed above were growth superstars even though they started by serving narrowly defined markets.

You have to narrow focus so you can execute efficiently to succeed at something, knowing that bigger markets can be attacked once you’ve proven yourself and have more resources as you grow.

Dream big, but start smaller.

1 Comment Tags: , , ,
POSTED in Growth Strategies

Basic Elements of the Angel Investor Pitch

June 11th, 2010 by Greg Head | 2 Comments

Angel investors regularly hear pitches from local entrepreneurs who need money for their growing startups. Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs don’t succeed in their first meeting with potential investors.

How can you be more successful with your fundraising efforts?

Forget your fancy PowerPoint slides, dynamite demo and tremendous track record. If you can’t tell a simple and compelling story about your business, you won’t get past first base with an investor.

Surprisingly, many entrepreneurs don’t tell a story that includes the simple answers the key questions that investors need to answer first. And most startup CEOs don’t do this well — even though the basic elements of a compelling investor pitch are freely available and have been common practice for years. (Several investor pitch resources listed below.)

Every angel investor (or VC) needs to hear your answer to these basic questions to consider investing in your company. Miss one of these key elements and your story is incomplete.

The basic angel investor pitch



1. Introduction

  • What exactly does your company do?
  • What is the key value proposition?

2. Team

  • What is the background and story of the CEO?
  • Who are the key employees and advisors?

3. Problem/Opportunity

  • What is the problem you are going to solve?
  • For whom will you solve this problem?
  • How big and urgent is this problem for this market?

4. Product/Solution

  • What specifically is the product or service?
  • How does it address the market problem?
  • What is the current stage of development?

5. Technology

  • What the secret sauce technology or unique delivery approach?
  • How is this defensible?

6. Competitive Advantage

  • What are the key market segments and current competitors?
  • How are you different and better than competitors?

7. Business Model

  • How do you make money?
  • Is this a common or new model in your industry?

8. Go To Market

  • How will you build awareness and grow sales?
  • What traction do you have so far with customers?

9. Company Status

  • Current number of customers, employees
  • History, accomplishments and status

10. Financials

  • Expected (pro forma) revenues, expenses, profits/losses for 5 years
  • What are the key factors that drive this business?

11. Investment

  • How much money are you raising at what valuation?
  • How are you planning to spend this money?
  • What are some likely exit scenarios?

This isn’t a revolutionary approach. This is the simple form of the standard investor pitch that has been been used for years.

Is there just one way to tell the story? Of course not. Only eleven slides allowed? Every investor and every startup is different, so make the adjustments that make sense. Also, a great presentation won’t make up make up for a mediocre CEO.

Your basic startup story gets you in the game with investors. Your selling skills, your knowledge of the business and several other factors get across the finish line to raise money.

It isn’t easy, so don’t avoid the fundamentals of your startup pitch.

Popular investor pitch resources

What investor pitch resources or suggestions are most valuable to you?

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POSTED in Angel Funding

Modern Marketing Requires More Effort, Less Spending

June 4th, 2010 by Greg Head | 2 Comments

Any business that is succeeding in the marketing game is relentless about executing their focused strategy. Owning a valuable position in the market is not easy. It takes focus, creativity and discipline. The discipline to communicate your focused message every day for years to the best of your abilities.

Technology entrepreneurs typically underestimate the marketing execution effort required to succeed – and overestimate the marketing investment.

Big budgets are no longer the magic pill that moves markets. The game has changed.

Execution is always harder than it looks

Like losing weight or getting fit, it’s easier to develop your plan than to actually give up sweets or exercise before the sun comes up every day. Billions of dollars are spent on diet plans, health clubs, and low fat foods, but more Americans are getting bigger each year. Most dieters have a decent plan, but they lack the discipline to do the hard things every day (forever) that are required to be healthier.

Unfortunately, modern marketing is more work and effort than “quick fix” spending on advertising and direct mail campaigns. It’s difficult to continually make your product or service great, write useful content for the Web, participate in the social conversation, develop partner relationships, test and retest new approaches, refine your strategy and all the other things required to grow fast and build a valuable reputation.

The bad news is most marketing activities these days require painstaking labor and detailed savvy about a wide variety of tactics. The good news that most marketing tactics don’t require significant budget any more.

Winning without big budgets

One fast-growing business that is succeeding in the marketing game is FireHost. FireHost delivers truly secure hosting for small and medium-sized businesses that have critically important websites but not big budgets. (FireHost has been a client of New Avenue and I’m an investor, too.)

Yes, FireHost offers much-needed service that is very disruptive to old dedicated hosting business (that costs too much and isn’t very secure). But the FireHost team is winning because they execute like crazy in every part of their business, including marketing.

During an important strategy discussion early last year, we decided that “secure hosting” was an available position in the big hosting market and FireHost was uniquely positioned to go after it. After this meeting, the FireHost team made a long list of the hundreds of additional things they would have to deliver and communicate to be known as the most secure hosting available.

Within months they delivered almost all the items on the list, including changes to their services, infrastructure, website, branding, marketing activities, messaging and content, search keywords, and on and on. When they finished that list they made a new long list. They have done this each quarter for a year. And each quarter they are more laser-focused than before.

Now FireHost is an acclaimed hosting company that is growing twice as fast as the industry and has successfully raised $2 million in capital to help them grow faster.

Lucky? Nope. Great product and terrific support? Yep. But that’s not enough.

The FireHost team executes 10X more marketing activity each month than any other company their size that I have ever seen. They have grown fast without a big budget. It is extremely hard work — and they do it better than most companies of any size.

Here’s another example: How did Marty Zwilling of Startup Professionals get over 200,000 loyal followers on Twitter and build hugely popular website for entrepreneurs?  Without a marketing budget?  Well, Marty has posted a useful article on his blog every day for the past two years. Every day.

This is how the fastest growing companies are doing it now. Modern marketing is mostly about work: consistent effort and constant improvement.  Not big budgets.

To win in the marketing game, be prepared to put in the extraordinary effort every day that is required.

2 Comments Tags: , , , ,
POSTED in Growth Strategies, Marketing Tactics that Work

Mastering the Pomodoro Technique in 5 Minutes – Ignite Phoenix Video

March 30th, 2010 by Greg Head | 2 Comments

Earlier tonight I presented a five-minute speech to 500 people at the Ignite Phoenix event. The topic of my talk was “Mastering the Pomodoro Technique in 5 Minutes.” The Pomodoro Technique is a very simple method that can help anyone enable concentration and focus amidst their busy, distracted and multitasking lives.

Ignite Phoenix is a quarterly event that brings together 18 new presenters who each give a brief talk on a particular topic they are passionate about. Every speech is just 5 minutes long with 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 seconds. It’s is a fun format which allows for an exchange that is both entertaining and educational.

Here’s the 5-minute video:

(This video was featured on Lifehacker and has been viewed on YouTube over 20,000 times.)

The Pomodoro Technique

I’ve always been pretty disciplined about managing my time, writing down my goals and using various systems to stay organized. There’s just a lot to do every day. But we all face an ever-expanding flow of little things that sap our attention — emails, calls, texts, tweets, meetings, news, and more. And now these digital distractions follow us everywhere.

How can busy people make time to get the harder deep thinking work done that creates the most value in our workday? That’s what the Pomodoro Technique does best.

The Pomodoro Technique uses a simple system developed in the 1990’s by an Italian graduate student to help him be more productive in his studies. It uses a simple kitchen timer – his was shaped like a tomato. In Italian, the word for tomato is pomodoro.

Four simple steps

  1. Choose an important task you need to work on and write it down
  2. Set a kitchen timer for 25 minutes
  3. Work on that task without stopping for 25 minutes (really)
  4. When the bell rings, stop for 5 min and take a quick break

That’s it. It’s not a big fancy system that requires you to buy a book or attend a class, but it really works. I started using this method about six months ago to help me get more valuable “thinking work” accomplished during my busy workday.

This system helps our brains to focus quickly; it’s the opposite of multi-tasking. Twenty-five minutes is long enough to make progress on any task, but not so long that it feels like a major time commitment or a big ordeal.

The Pomodoro Technique can be used by any busy person who needs to develop a concentration habit, including business executives, consultants, creatives, programmers, students, writers, teachers. It’s a great procrastination fighter, too.

Take the 25-minute challenge

Take a look again at these simple steps of the Pomodoro Technique. I challenge you to grab a kitchen timer (or Pomodoro software timer app) and pick an important task that your brain thinks is hard.

Then do just one 25-minute Pomodoro in the middle of a busy day. I guarantee the results will surprise you.

The Pomodoro Technique has helped me. Has it helped you?

2 Comments Tags: , ,
POSTED in Marketing Tactics that Work

CEO Selling Doesn’t Scale

March 4th, 2010 by Greg Head | Comments Off

What’s the biggest difference I see between a $1 million technology company and a $10 million technology company?  You might think it’s something like the quality of their products or the size of their management team, but it’s not.

The key difference is that the $10 million company is completely committed to being known as being the best at something important in their market.

Yes, you actually have to deliver on your promise of being the best, but that’s not enough to grow past the wall most tech startups hit at about $2 million in revenues.

In the early days, the CEO and the executive team can sell all the customers personally. The sales relationship and trust developed by the founders are required to sell the first customers and create revenue as startup. But at some point as you grow, the CEO can’t be involved in the sales relationship with new customers.

Frontline CEO selling is important, but it doesn’t scale.

As you grow, the next customer won’t be buying from the trusted CEO – they are buying the best known solution available in the market.

Being known as the leader of your category is the only way to grow big.

Comments Off POSTED in Growth Strategies

A Few Predictions for Year Ahead

January 8th, 2010 by Greg Head | 1 Comment

This week, the folks at Vertical Measures posted a short video of me offering a few predictions for the new year.  Vertical Measures is an Internet marketing company that provides SEO and link building services that drive qualified traffic to their clients’ websites.

Click here to see the video on the Vertical Measures website.

In the video, I share some answers to these questions:

  1. What are your predictions for the internet marketing in general for the year ahead?
  2. How about investments and startups — where do you see that heading?
  3. What one critical issue should those in the Internet entrepreneurial space be concerned about or focused on in 2010?

Hope you enjoy it.

1 Comment POSTED in Marketing Strategies

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