De-Clunk Your Nonprofit by Streamlining Software

By David Mills
on July 17, 2023

How to approach communication and development software to improve growth outcomes and reduce frustration and time waste.

Credible estimates tell us that sales reps spend only one-third of their time selling with the rest of their time spent on administrative tasks or data entry - is it any better for nonprofit development teams?

It’s a safe bet that your communications and development team is spending at least 5 hours or more each week just managing the technology they need to communicate.

That’s more than half of a day, wasted every week.

But that’s not all, how much time is spent each day in data entry?

There went another half day.

Microsoft Dynamics vs HubSpot: Three Myths and Four Differences

By Chad Alexander
on June 27, 2023

Who will win in the fight between Microsoft Dynamics vs HubSpot? We marketers will!

When comparing Microsoft Dynamics vs HubSpot, there are several key differences that set them apart.

Before we dive into the differences, I'm going to address three myths about the platforms.

Then, I'll talk about the four key differences between the two platforms.

Let's get started!

Why Small Business Marketing Consultants Need to Attend These Events

By Chad Alexander
on June 26, 2023

This is a shameless plug for our upcoming series, "HubSpot Bootstrappers of NoVA". This is an open invite to any business or small business marketing consultant in the Northern Virginia area. Over the course of four months we're going to cover how to:

1. Unleash a Single Sales + Marketing System
2. Unghost Sales Leads
3. Build a Landing Page That Works
4. Write Emails that Get Opened
   
   P.S. We will be live at these events at Reclaim Arcade in Fredericksburg, VA.

The Top Five Things You Should Know About HubSpot Onboarding

By Chad Alexander
on June 15, 2023

Your HubSpot onboarding will become even more effective if you know these five things

If you are in the position to start thinking about HubSpot onboarding or you are about to go through the process-- congratulations! We at Story Collaborative love HubSpot. Yes, in full transparency, they do pay us for the amount of HubSpot accounts we manage, but this is by no means a paid advertisement. We honestly just like talking about HubSpot and how great of a CRM/CMS it is!

Where will your company land in the new digital divide

By David Mills
on June 14, 2023

AI is moving fast, picking new winners and losers.

The pace of AI development has been remarkable, often surpassing the speed at which the internet evolved. While the internet took several years to reach significant milestones, such as reaching 100 million users, AI technologies have achieved similar feats in much shorter timeframes. For example, large language models like ChatGPT have gained widespread attention and usage in just a matter of months. This rapid progress can be attributed to advancements in computing power, increased availability of data, and the continuous refinement of AI algorithms.

How to grow more with less tech

By David Mills
on June 09, 2023

Most companies are guilty of it. They continue adding to the tech stack until it's like a giant Jenga puzzle that just falls over of its own weight. Collecting every shiny thing that comes along with the promise of a better X, Y, or Z can be pretty tempting. And the options are almost endless with 8,000 different marketing technology (MarTech) solutions in the mix as of 2020.

Grow more with less may even seem daunting as a concept, but here's the rub: more isn't always better, and with technology, the hidden cost of lost time in learning, switching back and forth, and licensing and maintenance makes it even dicier. 

Shortchanged by your CRM

By David Mills
on June 08, 2023

When sales teams underutilize a CRM, it shortchanges the sales team and the company management of the real value that a modern CRM should provide to a growing organization. If you'd say that your team "barely uses the CRM" or that it operates like a big address book, then you're missing out on the real impact of a CRM that delivers as it supports sales enablement.

Why the StoryBrand BrandScript Fails to Take in the Big Picture

By Chad Alexander
on June 06, 2023

Is your business adopting some of these Story Brand flaws?

If you’re familiar with Donald Miller and his book, Building a Story Brand, you obviously are familiar with the Storybrand Brandscript, a distillation of the key points made throughout the book in one nice, handy .pdf file.

This is a broad overview of the main character, the struggles they face, and the mentor figure that takes them under their wing (think Gandalf or Morpheus or even us if you want a growth agency on your side) that will symbolically guide your buyers through their own magical and wonderful buyer journey.

Here’s the problem: Real people and their real-life journeys are complicated and messy. We know because we do buyer journeys for businesses a LOT. And we discover things late in the process that neither us nor the client saw coming, because humans are unpredictable at times.

And to think that you can distill their decision processes down to anything simplistic is, well...

…to borrow a quote from Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park: “That is one big pile of s#!+”

And just like his chaos theory, we're about to introduce some chaos into the Story Brand framework.

When the team just won't use the CRM

By David Mills
on June 05, 2023

It might not be them, it might be the CRM. The average salesperson has to use 10 tools to close a sale. If your CRM is adding value to the sales process, then getting salespeople to use it isn't a problem. It's when the CRM is just another chore that it becomes a drag - not only psychologically but on sales outcomes too.