Lindsay Kelley
Lindsay Kelley recalls that she began her career in the office products industry at Advance – The Document Specialists in Baltimore, MD as an eleventh-hour candidate for the newly created marketing position.
“I don’t think I would have gotten the job if it weren’t for the head of sales at the time, Bill Sciciliano,” she muses. “A friend of mine put in a good word for me with Bill and he relentlessly pestered the guy until I wiggled my way in for an interview, then scooped up the job.”
Today Kelley is the respected president and co-founder of Prospect Builder, an inbound marketing services agency described as a “new kind of marketing services provider.” She points out that since her work is 100 percent virtual, her commute consists of a stroll to her home office, the kitchen table, outside by the pool, or perhaps a short drive to Starbucks.
But before any of that happens, the day starts with snuggle time with her 7-year-old daughter, Eleanor. “After her alarm goes off, she climbs into bed with me for an extra five minutes, which just sets the stage for each day,” she says. “After the morning school routine, I get to work.”
As the point person for clients, Kelley generally starts the work day in the kitchen with coffee and email. “I run through analytics and reports in [the customers’] HubSpot portals and look for trends and opportunities for improvement in their digital sales funnels – spot-checking website visitors and looking at where they go on the website, what they might download, blogs they read, and what their lead scores are,” she explains.
She says that based on those stats and glimpses into real-world data, she works with her team on potential content that sales reps can use to help move those people through the funnel. She does all the buyer persona research and build-outs, which allows her to chat with their client’s ideal customers and build a fictional persona based on the research and the interviews.
“This helps us focus on how to attract prospects and get them in the sales funnel with online content,” she says. “Some days, I’ll spend some time on building out the inbound campaigns for the different personas with our VP of Content Strategy so we have the digital buyer’s journey mapped out in a document that our clients can see.”
When it’s time to blog, she usually heads out to her backyard. “I like to feel more open and the space in the backyard helps me focus on writing,” she says. “Being in South Florida, I can do that all year. I only blog for Prospect Builder’s blog — I leave the client blogging to our Content Ninjas. I dedicate at least five minutes a day to sharing on different social platforms – LinkedIn and Twitter primarily. It’s important to keep up with our office technology industry as well as the inbound marketing world, so I read a lot of blogs and articles, which I can then share socially.”
Kelley says she spends a lot of time learning new tools and technologies for her clients. She works with partners like the video hosting platform, Wistia, to find additional ways to position her clients online as industry experts. “I love chatting with people and learning more about how to be more human in a digital age,” she says. “At the end of the day, we’re still selling to humans, it’s simply that those humans have tools like Google to get answers, so I’m always learning and discovering new ways to humanize our clients’ brands online.”
Finally, Kelley is a podcaster. She chats with other inbound marketing agencies on their podcasts, and co-hosts The Funnel. “I’m actually building out a concept for an Office Technology specific podcast, so I’m on the prowl for a co-host in the industry,” she says. “It’s an exciting new adventure! And, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ve also started a vHUG [virtual HubSpot Users Group] for the office technology industry to exchange marketing ideas.”
Kelley says that she was shocked and even a little choked up when she realized she had been recognized as a Difference Maker. “I’ve spent so much time in the industry, learning from and following the real industry experts and amazing folks in this industry — and marketing — that I still feel like a beginner,” she says. “It’s truly an honor and I am so thankful to be in this fun and evolving industry.”
As for the people who’ve made a difference in her professional life, Kelley cites her former manager at the The Baltimore Sun, Satonya Fair. “She was a strong woman in a male-dominated workplace,” she recalls. “She was inspirational on a business and personal level, always teaching me how to work well with others and be an independent, fair, and effective leader. Those lessons have made me who I am today as a leader and mentor in my own right.”
She also acknowledges Darrell Amy, her Prospect Builder co-founder and friend. “His philosophy in business and life is like nothing I have ever experienced,” she declares. “He operates with a level of ethics that I hadn’t encountered until I started working with him. He set the stage for the cultural and moral fiber of Prospect Builder. We’re a family and we can honestly say that each client we work with is a part of that family.”
Adds Kelley, “I’m truly thankful to have been lucky enough to have had these two people as mentors, co-workers, and genuine friends.”
Throughout 2016 Kelley hopes to take a step back from “working in the business to working on the business.” She says that for the past 18 months she has collaborated with some amazing teammates who keep her going every day.
“We have a close team, incredible clients, and we all feel so lucky to be able to work together,” she says. “In 2016, I need to work on our brand, culture, and processes. Now that we’re getting into a solid rhythm with client work, I want to embrace and implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System program the right way. Having all the members of our team now working in harmony with time freed up to focus on building the business will allow me the time to get all of that working properly.”
She adds, “I have seen other inbound sales and marketing agencies execute this with great success inside their agencies, and I think that will be what helps us differentiate our company from other marketing agencies in our space.”
