Chapter 4
Inbound Assessment and the MSPOT

Many organizational leaders and business owners buy into the inbound philosophy. To become an inbound organization, leaders must first commit to being an inbound organization, live the values, set the direction, and translate these ideas into an actual plan that is implemented, managed, and supported by everyone.

A cohesive leadership team that intends to become an inbound organization should follow the steps outlined in the next six chapters.

  1. Assess your current capabilities and build your MSPOT (Chapter 4)
  2. Start with your mission (Chapter 5)
  3. Build a culture that reflects inbound values (Chapter 6)
  4. Adopt inbound decision making (Chapter 7)
  5. Create an inbound operating system (Chapter 8)
  6. Find inbound people (Chapter 9)

Inbound Organization Assessment

Step one is to make a comprehensive assessment of your entire organization. Using the questions and statements in Table 4.1, review how your company and management team conducts business today. This assessment is a quick tool that will help you identify strengths and weaknesses within your organization in relation to inbound principles. It provides a SWOT-like analysis to pinpoint the fundamental building blocks you will need to put in place to evolve into an inbound organization.

Table 4.1 Inbound Organization Assessment

Does your company have a customer-focused mission that employees can rally around?
1 2 3 4 5
We are in business solely to make money. We have a mission statement printed in our policy manual. We have created a mission statement that is reflective of our goals. We have a mission statement that reflects our goals, values, and principles. We have a relevant, vibrant mission statement that reflects the values of our culture and explains how we help our clients.
Do you have a documented strategy to accomplish your business goals?
1 2 3 4 5
Strategy is overrated. Our business strategy is to be a good company. Our business strategy is focused on the effective operation of the company. We have a well-documented strategy that supports our operating process and guides employee behavior. We review our strategies annually and implement a plan that reinforces our culture, values, and employee behavior while solving for the customer.
Do you have the right organizational structure to deliver on the plan?
1 2 3 4 5
Kind of. There is an ad hoc structure of owner, executive, manager, and individual contributor. We have a hierarchical organizational structure to deliver on the plan. Our flattened organizational structure serves us today to deliver on our vision and mission. Our organizational structure allows our people to make decisions closest to the customer, empowering our workforce to fulfill our mission.
Do you spend time cultivating a corporate culture that inspires employees to do their best work?
1 2 3 4 5
We pay our employees, so they should be happy. Creating a consistent corporate culture has not been easy for us. We are known for having a quality corporate culture, and we are a good place to work. Employees feel empowered to do their best work and are active and excited about building on our corporate culture. We are consistently recognized as one of the best places to work in our location/s and vertical market.
Do you communicate decisions effectively to everyone in the organization?
1 2 3 4 5
If managers get around to telling their direct reports, then we are happy. Leaders make decisions and explain them on a need-to-know basis. We have staff meetings where we share decisions and expect the managers to explain details to their team. Our leaders are visible and available to answer any employee questions and we have regular company-wide events to update everyone. We have formal and informal channels to communicate decisions, including shared digital spaces, company-wide meetings, and team gatherings to share information to make sure everyone is informed.
Do you share essential information throughout your organization as a matter of course?
1 2 3 4 5
We share information on a need-to-know basis. Critical information is shared with the executive level, and they are responsible for distributing it. We try to share as much information as we can to our employees. Essential information is posted and shared in a central repository and feedback is encouraged. Company information is created and posted in a central repository, reviewed on a regular basis, and feedback and ideas are actively encouraged.
Does the company currently have domain knowledge or experience that provides a true competitive advantage?
1 2 3 4 5
We work in a commodity business with little differentiation. Our people are our competitive advantage. We have an easily understood, competitive advantage. We have an easy-to-understand, easy-to-explain competitive advantage that helps us attract customers. We have a verifiable, definable, measurable competitive advantage and three years of data to prove it.
Does your business culture align with the recent changes in buyer behavior?
1 2 3 4 5
No, we do business the way we have always done it. We have made a few changes to react to an online world. We have a plan to implement changes to our culture that reflect the recent changes in buyer behavior. Yes, we understand that culture must reflect our intentions to help our customers first. We have defined an inbound culture as the most tangible way of helping our employees solve our clients' problems.
Is it hard to identify and recruit good people to work for your company?
1 2 3 4 5
It is a struggle to find good people. We would like to improve our ability to attract the right type of employee. We spend a lot of time and effort to recruit good fit employees that understand our mission and values. It is not hard to find good people because of our reputation in the market. We have a strong recruiting funnel and onboarding process, and attract the best candidates.
Can you easily collect accurate data to ensure you are tracking against plan?
1 2 3 4 5
We have limited access to data. We have difficulty getting accurate information because of old data sources and systems. We have a good foundation of measuring the right information. We have all the information we need daily to analyze and evaluate our decisions and effectiveness. Our data capture and analysis is a competitive advantage and allows us to drill into everything we need to make good business decisions in real time.
Do you practice inbound marketing to generate leads and customers?
1 2 3 4 5
We are an outbound marketing organization and use ads and mailings, and buy lists. We are 75% outbound and starting to practice inbound. We have adopted the inbound philosophy and are posting content to help educate prospective customers. We are actively funding more inbound activities as a foundation for new business development. We have practiced inbound marketing over the last three years to help our prospects and customers and create a competitive advantage.
Does your sales organization practice inbound sales to close more deals?
1 2 3 4 5
What is inbound sales? We are aware of inbound sales but not sure it fits our industry. We have started to teach our sales organization about inbound ideas. Our sales organization understands how to engage, help, and consult, as opposed to qualify and close. We have trained our sales organization and adopted an inbound sales process to ensure that our customer sales experience is a competitive advantage.
Do you identify, document, and use a specific ideal buyer persona to focus everyone on a targeted customer?
1 2 3 4 5
No, we sell to everyone. We have outlined some demographic data about our customers. We research demographic information about our best customers and use it to make marketing decisions. We understand where our product works best and where it does not and understand our ideal buyer persona. We understand the buyer persona process and track every step in the buyer journey.
Do your back-office business processes align with the changes in buyer behavior?
1 2 3 4 5
No. We are aware that back-office processes should align with changes in buyer behavior. Some back-office departments are aligned with changes in buyer behavior. Most back office departments are aligned with changes in buyer behavior. Our back office solves for the customer and knows their role in supporting the customer success journey.
Do you proactively help customers achieve success with your product or service?
1 2 3 4 5
Not sure what that means. We only provide service when customers ask for it. Our customers see success with our products and we have a service team available if they need help. We proactively help our best customers get more value from our products and services. We monitor our clients' activity very closely and proactively help all our customers get the most value from our products and services.
Do you have a co-marketing or partner network to help you build a community around your ideas?
1 2 3 4 5
We go it alone. We have a few partners that help us in certain areas. Yes, we have invested in a partner program to grow our business. We have made significant investments in a partner program to bring our message to market. Our partner program is one of the key market differentiators for our clients and incredibly important to our mission and vision.
Column Scores
Final Score
Where do you rank on the inbound organization scale?
16 to 32: There is a lot of work to do to transition to an inbound organization.
33 to 56: Leadership should focus on the core areas needing improvement.
57 to 80: You are on your way to becoming an inbound organization.

For each question, circle the number of the answer that best describes your organization and then total the score at the end to see where you stand.

This assessment guides leaders to ask the right questions about their ability to manage their business with an inbound philosophy. The goal of the assessment is to understand the areas that present the most risk and opportunity during the transition. This assessment should provide insights into your organization's leadership, strategy, culture, operations, and structure to determine how well they align with the inbound philosophy.

Creating an MSPOT

After completing the inbound organization assessment, the next step is to gather your leadership team and begin the process of addressing the gaps and areas for improvement. Leaders need a clear, simple, and concise method of organizing and communicating the ideas discovered in the assessment.

One tool that works well is an MSPOT. This format defines the mission, strategy, plays, omissions, and performance targets in one distinct chart so that leaders can structure, distribute, and communicate this information throughout the organization.

HubSpot developed the MSPOT format as a simple way to take complex organizational, operational, and financial goals and make them accessible to everyone in the organization. There are a variety of different ways to organize this information, but a one-page visual representation works well because it is easy to construct, share, and absorb. A corporate MSPOT builds a common vocabulary, defines priorities, documents key information about the primary components of your company philosophy and values, and ensures that everyone stays on the same page.

The components of an MSPOT are:

  1. M—Mission is a brief statement that defines an organization's vision so that employees, prospects, and customers understand what the company is trying to accomplish. The company mission rarely changes.
  2. S—Strategies outline how the organization is going to deliver on the mission. Strategies define the categories of buyers that the organization is serving and how the company expects to meet their needs. Divisions and departments model this format to create subsets of this information. Strategies are set yearly and adjusted as needed.
  3. P—Plays, or Projects, define the four or five organization-wide initiatives that the company will implement that support the overall company mission and strategy. Each division and team then develop their specific plays to support these corporate plays.
  4. O—Omissions are strategies, plans, and programs that are not priorities for the company in the current year. Focus is frequently an issue for growing companies and listing initiatives the company will avoid in the near term helps people stay centered on the mission. By including omissions in an MSPOT, employees understand which plans have been evaluated and which have been greenlighted.
  5. T—Targets are the specific metrics that will determine how the company is tracking toward the goal. Targets in an MSPOT are color coded (green, yellow, red) to indicate the progress of the initiative, and also include specific numerical goals and results.

MSPOTs consolidate the critical information needed to lead an inbound organization in a clear, easy-to-track format. By putting the vision, direction, plans, and results in one slide, it becomes easier for everyone to share, absorb, and use.

Figure 4.1 shows an example of an MSPOT from Bell Performance, located in Orlando, Florida. Bell Performance formulates, manufactures, and sells fuel additives to both B2B and B2C customers.

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Figure 4.1 Bell Performance MSPOT.

Forge is a startup software company located in San Francisco and offers a software-as-a-service application that automates employee scheduling for part-time and hourly employees in the retail, hotel, and hospitality industries. Figure 4.2 shows their MSPOT.

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Figure 4.2 JoinForge.com MSPOT.

HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan talks about the importance of the MSPOT: “The MSPOT document is useful for lots of things. For example, we look at this document at our management team meeting and use red/yellow/green to mark the numbers. Any targets that are red or yellow, we spend time and resources trying to get them green in the next couple of meetings. We have all our leaders create their departmental MSPOTs and make sure they fit with the company's.”1

MSPOTs reduce uncertainty, deliver clarity, and drive alignment for everyone in the organization.

The components of the MSPOT tool are discussed in later chapters. An inbound organization has a strong tie between mission and culture. Culture is the energy and motivating force that drives an inbound organization.

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