Every year HubSpot runs a pretty serious research into the state of inbound marketing. This year is no exception but we also added sales not just marketing as a research topic. 

The major finding in our 8th annual survey is not just that things are changing, they always do (and they better), but that things are changing at an insanely rapid pace. And most importantly we think that they are changing in the right direction. 

In five years only, marketing and the way we do business are going to be completely different. Why? Because the world is adopting inbound. It's becoming more authentic and less interruptive. 

As Brian Halligan says, 

Inbound means transforming how we do business to be more helpful, more human, more empathetic. It ... is about matching the way you market and sell with the way people actually want to shop and buy.

So it's not just about marketing, it's about everything we do as a business that needs to be is 100% customer-focused rather than marketer or seller-focused. 

By far the best book I read this summer was The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.

Obviously, this book is about focus. It's about asking a powerful question: What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

You see, I don't have an issue focusing. When I need to finalise a task, I'm pretty good at hammering it.

But I do have an issue with doing too many things and wanting to be part of very many things. It's hard for me to say no when others come to invite me to be a part of their projects which often have very little to do with what my priorities are at the moment. As the authors explain, when you say yes to something you are inevitably saying no to something else (often what matters most to you) in order to find time for the former. 

So this book got me thinking a lot about focusing only on the right things at a given time and prioritising my energy for those. It also made me realise that I need to be more vigorous about how and when I should be utilising this energy best. That includes my own time management and planning as well as my surroundings because according to research we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness and on top of that, we get interrupted every 11 minutes and then spend almost a third of our day recovering from these distractions. 

Let me ask you a question: Is PR a management discipline? 

I'm guessing many of you would react to this saying "Hmm no, I don't think so."

You'd be right. PR is not considered a management discipline. At least not yet.

Many PR professionals strive to get the industry there. It's not an easy task, though. Why? Because it requires a complete mind shift change and a new perception of PR's reputation. That, on the other hand, requires a lot of re-education and then appropriate practical application combined with results. It requires that PR professionals change the way they work, learn, grow and service the bottom line. 

That's super hard to do on a mass level which is why I love #FuturePRoof. It's exactly the type of an initiative that can reach a mass PR audience and teach PR people how to be better, how to work in a way so that they can contribute to the PR industry finally being considered a management discipline.

If you remember, the first #FuturePRoof was a crowd-sourced book designed as the go-to guide for managers of PR agencies and communications teams. I was honoured then to be invited as one of the contributors (among some huge names in PR!) and wrote chapter 27 on Inbound PR and how comms teams should practice what they preach. 

Less than a year later, the second edition of FuturePRoof launched last week. And it's just as strong. 

We speak a lot about storytelling nowadays.

It's become an important part of any marketing or communications initiative because we struggle to reach our audiences and keep their attention. There's way too much noise out there so standing out is almost impossible. 

Being able to tell good stories is what allows you to be seen and read, it's how you show up in the newsfeed. 

But telling a good story isn't easy. It's an art in itself. An art that when backed by a bit of science and practice can be mastered. 

So today I want to dig a little deeper into what actually makes a good story. What is that science-backed essence we need so that our storytelling stands out?

As it turns out, there are seven key things your story needs: 

I run a webinar a while ago for a group of my HubSpot customers on how to get more conversions with inbound marketing. 

It's a difficult topic but an important one because everyone who's doing inbound marketing wants to generate leads. 

A lot of companies create content and put landing pages out there hoping to get some good conversions out. But publishing just something and hoping for the best doesn't work. You need a proper strategy behind this. 

Another common challenge is staying up-to-date with everything new in the world of marketing and digital and keeping up with your customers and their constant change in behaviour. 

So today, I want to share with you those slides that will offer you both strategic and tactical tips on how to increase your inbound marketing conversions. 

But before I get to the deck, I want to summarise the key points for you.