Investments in humans are essential while we are adopting AI and advanced technology. Here are some of the reasons why:
Have you ever been excited about a new technology or team project, only to find yourself waiting months to see any real benefits? That frustrating delay between starting something new and actually getting value from it is what experts call "time to value." The longer this takes, the more risk builds up in your project.
Let's face it—selling cleaning services is tough. Your customers don't wake up excited about hiring someone to clean their offices. They just want the dirt gone. They want empty trash cans, shiny floors, and dust-free surfaces without having to think about it.
In today’s crowded digital world, your most valuable branding opportunity might surprise you. While ads and social media compete for attention, decision-makers still prioritize their inboxes. For service providers in facility maintenance, this creates a golden chance to stand out.
Discover how easy-to-use cleaning business software can transform customer management and drive new business growth.
A local approach to being found online is the key for independent cleaning companies
Have you ever wondered why some cleaning companies show up first in Google searches while yours is hiding on page five? The secret isn't magic—it's local SEO! When someone spills red wine on their carpet or needs their office cleaned ASAP, they grab their phone and search for "cleaning services near me." If your business doesn't appear at the top of those results, you're missing out on customers who are ready to hire you right now.
You can grow smart without the big enterprise costs
Running an independent cleaning business is tough. You're juggling client calls, managing your team, handling schedules, and trying to find new customers—all at the same time! The big cleaning franchises have fancy software systems and teams of people to handle all this. But what about you?
Good news! You don't need to spend a fortune on enterprise software. HubSpot offers tools that can transform your cleaning business without the enterprise price tag. Let's look at how HubSpot, especially its Sales Pro and CRM features, can help your cleaning company compete with the big players.
What Is HubSpot and Why Should You Care?
HubSpot is like a Swiss Army knife for small businesses. It combines customer management, marketing, sales, and service tools all in one place. The best part? They offer a free CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that you can start using today!
Think of HubSpot as your digital business assistant that works 24/7 to keep your cleaning business organized and growing.
The Free CRM: Your Business Foundation
HubSpot's free CRM is a game-changer for cleaning businesses. Here's what you can do with it:
- Keep all your customer information in one place: No more scattered notes or lost phone numbers! Store all your client details including addresses, cleaning preferences, and special instructions.
- Never forget a follow-up: The system reminds you when it's time to check in with clients about their next cleaning appointment.
- See your business at a glance: Simple dashboards show you how your business is doing without complicated reports.
- Track every conversation: Every email, call, or message with a client is recorded, so any team member can pick up where another left off.
Even with just the free version, you'll be more organized than many franchise operations!
HubSpot Sales Pro: Your Secret Weapon
While the free CRM is great, upgrading to Sales Pro (starting at $45/month) gives your cleaning business serious advantages:
- Email tracking and notifications: Know exactly when clients open your quotes or cleaning proposals, so you can follow up at the perfect time.
- Meeting scheduler: Clients can book cleaning consultations directly on your calendar without the back-and-forth emails.
- Quotes and proposals: Create professional-looking cleaning service quotes with just a few clicks.
- Sales sequences: Set up automatic email follow-ups for potential clients who inquired but haven't booked yet.
- Call tracking and recording: Record your calls with client permission to train your team on handling inquiries better.
Real Benefits for Your Cleaning Business
How does this technology actually help your day-to-day operations? Here's how other cleaning businesses are using HubSpot:
1. Never Miss a Cleaning Opportunity
When someone calls about your services, you add them to HubSpot in seconds. The system reminds you to follow up if they don't book right away. Many cleaning businesses report booking 25% more jobs just by having a system that prevents leads from falling through the cracks.
2. Turn One-Time Cleanings Into Regular Clients
After a one-time cleaning, HubSpot can automatically send follow-up emails offering recurring service packages. One cleaning company owner said: "We converted 40% of our one-time clients into monthly contracts using HubSpot's follow-up sequences."
3. Remember Every Client's Preferences
Your clients love it when you remember their preferences (like "don't use strong-smelling products" or "pay extra attention to the kitchen"). HubSpot stores all these details so any cleaner can provide personalized service—just like the big franchises promise.
4. Make Scheduling Easier
The meeting scheduler tool lets clients book consultations or cleanings based on your actual availability. No more double-bookings or phone tag!
5. Grow Your Referrals
Set up automatic emails that go out after each cleaning asking for referrals. One independent cleaner reported: "I get 3-4 new referrals each week now that HubSpot automatically asks for them."
Starting Small and Growing
The beauty of HubSpot for cleaning businesses is that you can start with the free CRM, then add features as you grow:
- Start with the free CRM to organize your client information
- Add Sales Pro when you're ready to boost your sales process
- Consider Marketing Hub when you want to attract more clients automatically
- Add Service Hub when your team grows and you need help desk features
This step-by-step approach means you're never paying for more than you need.
The Bottom Line
You don't need the resources of a big franchise to have professional systems. HubSpot gives independent cleaning businesses the technology to compete with bigger companies at a fraction of the cost.
With better client management, automated follow-ups, and professional proposals, you'll not only match the big franchises—you might even outshine them!
Why not give the free HubSpot CRM a try today? You've got nothing to lose but the sticky notes and spreadsheets that are currently running your business!
Running a business today feels like navigating a storm without a compass. (Or maybe navigating a magnetic story with a compass). Social media posts vanish into feeds. Email campaigns collect digital dust. You’re left guessing which efforts actually connect with customers – and which drain your budget.
HubSpot Agents are Revolutionizing Content, Customer Support, CRM, and Sales
Imagine a world where your business tools handle repetitive tasks, fill knowledge gaps, and adapt to new challenges on their own. That’s no longer a futuristic dream—it’s here. Four intelligent systems, designed to work seamlessly within a popular platform, are reshaping how companies engage customers, manage relationships, and close deals.
1. Not So Micro After All: The Surprising Scale of Small
Don't let the "micro" fool you. In many countries, microenterprises make up over 90% of all businesses. That's not just a market; it's an ocean of opportunity. With digital ventures lowering entry barriers, this sector is set for explosive growth.Consider this: In the EU, microenterprises account for 93% of all businesses. In the US, businesses with fewer than 10 employees make up 79.4% of all firms. The sheer volume presents a massive addressable market for B2B services tailored to their needs.
Understanding the Shifting Landscape of Young Adult Financial Needs
Recent research by ZenBusiness has unveiled a significant trend among Generation Z that financial professionals should take note of: an unprecedented surge in entrepreneurial aspirations. This shift in career outlook and financial priorities presents both challenges and opportunities for accountants, financial planners, and insurance agents seeking to serve this emerging market.
The Rise of Zoomerpreneurs: A New Market Emerges
Recent research by ZenBusiness reveals a significant shift in the business landscape, one that B2B companies serving micro-enterprises cannot afford to ignore. An astounding 93% of Generation Z individuals (aged 18-25) have taken steps towards business ownership, signaling a boom in the micro-enterprise sector.
You may have noticed that it’s getting harder to get in front of new customers. They’ve walled themselves off with email, ad, and interruption blockers and filters. They’re disconnected.
As companies (and nonprofits) grow, the products and services and the customer support required to deliver them can race out ahead of the sales operation.
With all of the elements of the sales environment that we cannot control, it's vital to streamline what is within reach.
There's a lot about the sales environment that sales leaders cannot control. The list includes the economic cycle, the growing size of the buying committee, a lengthening decision cycle, rising costs of doing business, and the behavior of the competition. Proof of this reality is the fact that 71% of the Fortune 400 missed their sales goals in Q1 of 2023- and the normal rate is about 40% globally. Focusing on what you can't control is a sure path to frustration.
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.
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!
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:
- Unleash a Single Sales + Marketing System
- Unghost Sales Leads
- Build a Landing Page That Works
- Write Emails that Get Opened
P.S. We will be live at these events at Reclaim Arcade in Fredericksburg, VA.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
HubSpot and Pipedrive are both easy to administer and easy to use. Both HubSpot and Pipedrive offer sales teams powerful tools for lead organization, pipeline management, and deal tracking. However, HubSpot distinguishes itself from Pipedrive in several key ways that could significantly impact your business. To help you determine which platform is the best fit for your needs, we've provided a brief overview of their respective features and differences.
While both HubSpot and Zoho are popular CRM solutions, they offer distinct approaches to customer engagement. It's crucial to understand these differences as they can significantly impact your organization's growth and evolving needs.
So, is it Zoho or HubSpot?
In the past, companies that needed to grow simply added more staff or increased productivity per employee to scale their operations. However, with tighter budgets and a focus on sustainable growth, improving productivity per representative has become even more critical. To set your team up for success, it's essential to identify ways to avoid tactics that will lead to delays or escalating costs.
What used to be our stand-by approaches have changed. If you’re relying on old-school sales tactics like spreadsheets, cold visits, and cold telephone calls, you may be burning out your salespeople and your reputation at the same time. Every time you get one of those vendor cold calls, there is a salesperson on the other end who feels just like you do about how much making these calls sucks.
How to approach sales and marketing software to improve sales 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.
It’s a safe bet that your sales 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, 72% of salespeople spend another hour a day in data entry.
There went another half day.
Refreshing face-to-face sales skills
Remember when sales were mostly in person or on the phone? While many people relied upon the personal interaction of tradeshows and vendor visits, it all got shut down during COVID. Is it possible that some of those in-person skills have gotten a little rusty? If you have salespeople who are new to the team or industry, they may have skipped the hard-won lessons of your veteran salespeople and might need a refresher on the skills of in-person meetings.
Here are a couple of ways to refresh those in-person skills. First is a quick refresher on the essential skills for in-person sales. Following that are four classic sales books that can spark fresh insights into the skills for effective sales.
As buyers navigate their way through the purchasing journey, they will research many brands and solutions for their problems. And, in such a noisy marketplace, it can feel almost impossible to set your brand apart. The good news? Brand storytelling can provide a powerful solution for engaging customers and enabling a truly differentiated brand. The little-known reality is that every brand (whether or not you're a media or marketing company) should include video as a core activity of enabling their buyers in the journey. And, it doesn't have to be as hard as you think!
Does all of your effort on search engine optimization, help or hurt your brand? It’s easy to miss the brand impacts of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) while you are working to ensure that customers can find you online. Search strategy is deeply interwoven with the experience that potential customers have with your brand.
Outsourced marketing is a reality for small, medium, and even large companies. We know this. It can't be helped. Whether it's niche digital advertising, rebranding, or website redesigns... even large organizations have to outsource niche expertise. But, have we considered the cost... the major disadvantages of perpetually outsourcing our marketing? Could serial, outsourced marketing be damaging our brand story in a way we never took the time to realize?
We've got ringside seats, except we've got a stake in this game because AI for business is going to change everything
Sports fans love a good fight, and there's one going on right now in the online search world. It all started on November 30, 2022, when Open AI made their service ChatGPT public. Over the holiday season, Google's top leaders had to wake up from their long winter's nap to a widely reported code red, because they realized the dramatic impact this was already having.
Value propositions are elusive. Even top companies present themselves as "different" using the same concepts and terms as their competitors. They forget to actually differentiate when they present their value to their customers. Common value proposition mistakes leave customers lukewarm about brand loyalty, and unclear about why they should look at anything more than a price-point.
The lack of effective email is a growth barrier
Deliver better customer experiences with email tied to a CRM (and don't ditch good customers)
It is frustrating! I know they have my email address and my phone, but my house hasn't been pressure washed for more than a year. I think the power washing company has abandoned me. I think I know why.
It's not because I was a bad customer. I had plenty of dirt on my vinyl siding, and I paid promptly. The technician was only here for a couple of hours and I said thank you, even though some of the spray fluid came through the kitchen door and ruined the tablecloth.
I was stunned when I heard him say it. In just a few short words, Andy Crouch, speaking at the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Conference 2022, captured what we've been working to explain for the entire life of our company. It was as if we'd finally found the words that describe our purpose. Clarity about the "why" fuels the work.
Growth teams have been only a big company strategy. It’s the magic bullet they pull out to overcome barriers, push out new products and seize new opportunities. While big companies can reach into their large staff pool to assemble a team, small and medium-sized businesses and even nonprofits can take advantage of this strategy if they understand how it works.
It's not a secret that inbound marketing is changing. There was a day when inbound marketing was new—a time when mainstream marketing wasn't writing content to bring inbound leads.
Avoid these time wasters in your search for a small business marketing consultant.
People who run small businesses don't think of the work they do as small - nor should they. They are the primary drivers of employment, and they pay the taxes that allow cities to operate. Small businesses create the environments that make communities great. The truth is a $10 to $40 million dollar company isn't small.
When looking for help, knowing what kind of consulting will move the ball forward can also help you to spot a marketing consultant that won't get the job done. Here's how you can sort through some of the noise to get the right kind of help.
The way that buyers engage has changed, and it is having a big impact on sales. Your digital buyer and your sales performance discussed in this webinar.
Differentiation doesn't just come from having unique products or services, it also comes from offering a different experience
If I could just get one-millionth of a bitcoin for each time someone promotes how they have better service, better experience, or a bigger commitment to my satisfaction - I wouldn't just be rich, I could stop caring about good service.
Some websites are essentially online brochures. Others have grown into proven growth machines that consistently deliver great sales leads. The distance between them is bridged when you decide to begin a website update process with some very specific elements that allow a website to do more than just present static business or product information. These websites are reaching real buyers and engaging them in ways that exceed the competition.
The number one rule for sales is being broken
For most people that love barbecue, the number one rule of barbecue is, "It's My Grill!" That means hands off and keep your spatula to yourself. A challenging situation is cropping up for lots of people who are used to cooking up their own leads as salespeople, and someone (marketing) has swiped the spatula.
The shift to working from home has big impacts on B2B sales.
You've heard of the tiny house, now we have the couch office. What's the impact on B2B sales?
Over the last two years, the demands placed on customer service have created a pressure cooker for companies. For many companies, it was a significant customer service stress test, with extended wait times, dropped calls, and slow or non-existent follow-up.
The NY Times calls it the "age of anger", in which otherwise calm adults devolve into fits of rage over customer service problems. Industry leaders call it "a different level of mean." This challenge can seriously damage a brand.
As the world has changed, the hybrid sales model has emerged- how can salespeople master it?
Salespeople are the guardians of industry and customer insight - and that insight and focus is invaluable. But don't just picture those nearing retirement who are seasoned sales veterans. Salespeople age more quickly in their trade and often get their wisdom faster than other employees.
It comes from the push and pull of sales interactions, the pressure of quotas, and crafting winning deals, so it creates "old dogs" at a pretty young age. An experienced, veteran salesperson can be any age - we're really talking about people that learned to sell before the digital space took over.
How sales enablement can support hybrid sales.
In 2021, almost one-third of outside salespeople transitioned to inside sales - permanently. But as the pandemic restrictions ease, a new kind of sales is emerging. It's the hybrid sales model in which sales teams use the best of virtual and in-person skills to become more efficient and meet new customer expectations of speed and convenience.
The missing ingredient? Sales enablement fueled by Sales and Marketing Alignment - a big part of which is driven by shifting priorities in the marketing focus.
Get the benefits of sales and marketing alignment without surprise costs
Alignment is a critical part of building revenue, that's why sales and marketing leaders, along with CFOs and RevOps teams, include an alignment system in their plan. While the benefits are appealing (reports of 30% revenue growth are pretty common following an effective alignment), they simply have to outweigh the costs, so you've got to nail them both down.
The bigger question should focus on whether the effort is really worth the cost.
The questions your website answers shows the status of your sales and marketing alignment
Your prospects have questions that either move them forward toward a "yes", or hold them back. Some of those questions are posed directly to sales, but others lie under the surface or are only shared inside the buying committee. The way you address those questions tells the whole story about the status of your marketing and sales alignment - are you still living in a world of isolated silos or is the team working together for growth?
How do you know if poor marketing and sales alignment is the root of slower sales, weaker revenues, and missed growth goals?
It's easy to place blame on sales or marketing teams when things don't go as planned. But more often than not, it's not a personality or performance problem- it's the lack of alignment.
A disconnect with sales leads to marketing failures
Marketing and advertising have changed. Ads are blocked, Google is removing third-party cookies, and iOS is restricting email. But those aren't the biggest challenges faced by marketing, because they need something that only the sales team can provide: a real understanding of customer problems.
Lip service marketing and sales alignment can lead to reduced growth
They do make strange companions. One is seasoned by thousands of customer conversations, while the other is focused on the latest digital communication tools. Alignment pairs the marketer who is just now mastering the details of the product or service, and the salesperson who knows every way to slice the product and solve a long list of customer challenges. The idea that they need to be aligned in the same workplace when they have different goals, different levels of experience, a language unique to each group, and even distinct pipelines can raise some eyebrows or lead to lip-service alignment.
The honeymoon period is an important initial period for new growth managers, marketing directors, chief marketing officers, RevOps leaders, and nonprofit executive directors, along with all the others who step into a new role to lead growth for their organizations. It’s an important first phase of work, because team members are more forgiving, expect that you’ll need to be brought up to speed, and no milestones have yet come due. It’s a time in which you can understand the context and the challenges that you now own.
Achieving a growth pathway takes momentum that can overcome the odds.
Like hungry soldiers at Valley Forge, they are all tugging on our attention -more than 8,000 different marketing software systems, plus a small army of one-person bands that decided one day to keep working from home and use some of that software. Is that the army that you need?
The rapid pace of change since 2020 has thrust many leaders into the role of growth leader for their organization. For some it is recovery, and for others it is a response to big new opportunities. Growth leaders can be found in almost every industry and with a variety of job titles. Some have a growth title like "growth manager, while others are working in RevOps. Most don't have a special title at all because they've added the growth leader job to their existing position. Whether they are an owner, a partner, a C-suite leader, or a department head, a growth leader's job has a single central characteristic: their desk is where the buck stops for company growth.
There are lots of choices about how and where websites are built and hosted. Normally, that's less a management decision and more something for marketing and IT to work out.
But a number of big factors are moving decisions about whether to use WordPress or HubSpot, or Apple or Microsoft onto the manager's list of concerns. One is security, and the other is the central role that websites now play in sustainable growth.
We rely on our websites, now more than ever. Whether you are recruiting employees, nurturing donors or looking for more customers, the digital journey is a must-have, but hacking can stop all of that.
When Godaddy announced that it had allowed 1.2 million WordPress users to be compromised, it added fuel to the already significant fire of security concerns around this much-loved open-source website software.
Here's a tale of 3 hacks and 3 WordPress Websites
Guess what the websites for a local coffee shop, a digital communications company, and a national training company have in common? They all thought that hackers would have little interest in their websites.
The heavy load of custom WordPress development, code updates, and time-consuming marketing with cobbled-together resources can strip away a marketer's biggest advantage - speed.
If you have the average number of plugins needed to just run your website, plus additional marketing services that have been cobbled together to support all the channels and target audiences you're trying to reach, then you probably don't have an effective website. You instead have a FrankenPress, a sum of parts that doesn't lead to an effective whole. Even if your website looks good, cobbled-together resources from both the website and the marketing tools add-ons is slowing you down and keeping you from effective marketing.
Why review the top staffing agencies' digital candidate journey?
Staffing agencies and staffing intensive businesses like homecare, healthcare, and skilled trades deliver one primary value to their customers - skilled people. For most, attracting and winning that talent is their greatest challenge (75%+), with the candidate journey almost always starting and then progressing online. The quality of that experience is one critical part of what sets winning staffing agencies apart from those who are struggling with enough candidates to keep up with placement opportunities.
Emotional decision-making influences the way you reach families. Here's how:
Did you know that 95% of decision-making is unconscious?
More isn't a strategy. It's just how you turn on an endless budget-draining spicket of costs, often without a benefit you can track. Learn more about websites that don't suck, and marketing that elevates you above invisibility.
The Lord of the Rings has one ring to rule them all, but finding that one plugin has been a big challenge for WordPress users who rely on way too many plugins. Recent changes have presented an opportunity, and a single WordPress plugin can now cut down your reliance on the code-heavy, website slowing, high maintenance parade of plugins you might currently be using.
Marketers and sales teams have to be free to make a website update quickly and effectively
For lots of businesses and nonprofits, a website update is a painful and challenging process. They have to reach out to their developer and designer, or find one, create a scope of work, and then get the project into the development queue. Unless of course, they have a developer and a designer on standby with nothing else to do.
How the WordPress HubSpot integration can supercharge your website performance
Have you ever noticed a button in your car or on your computer that you've never really used? Unless you actually read the manual , it's easy to miss some of the best features that technology can deliver. It works that way when you have added the WordPress HubSpot integration to your WordPress website, too. There are lots of features that may have never explored. With the right approach, you can turn the WordPress HubSpot integration into an effective growth engine for your business or nonprofit.
Speed up WordPress and Reduce Upkeep with the HubSpot Plugin
With Google's Core Web Vitals making an impact on search rankings, website page load speed for WordPress has become a primary concern for people that want their website to show up on the top of search rankings. The HubSpot plugin is a key part of the solution for this challenge.
A buyer's journey is something we normally use in marketing to customers, but it also has a lot to do with how well we can recruit quality caregivers and healthcare workers, and keep them. In the highly competitive world of healthcare and home care recruiting, it's an advantage that you don't want to miss. Adding an employee journey to your marketing can be a powerful way to build a competitive advantage in recruiting.
Your marketing plans probably need an answer - "how long does it take to build a website?"
If you haven't had a website redesigned recently, you may not have a good handle on how long it might take. The time required certainly varies, and the one answer you may hear, that really isn't helpful is,
"It depends."
A better grasp of the likely timeline is helpful when you're working on marketing plans and marketing budgets.
Knowing how to evaluate small business website design packages is an important key to growth
No one wants a website design package that reduces their visibility, damages their brand, or frustrates their customers. What's worse is making the investment in a small business website, and having almost no improvements in business as a result. Shopping for a website package is not the same as looking for a TV, buying a car or shopping for a new washer and dryer. Why? Because all of these things have standard measurements of volume, size, speed and they come with warranties. Almost none of those things are true of website design (👎 bummer).
Stronger recruiting has become a make-or-break issue, with both B2E Marketing and B2E websites now an essential focus.
Home care agencies are already business-to-business companies (B2B) if they work with institutions to receive referrals. They are also business to consumer (B2C) since they market directly to consumers who need care for themselves or their loved ones. B2E websites and B2E marketing is a critical focus for growth.
But what is B2E?
For staffing intensive businesses, passive candidates represent a big growth opportunity in 2021. Following the disruptions of 2020, the number of job changers has risen. According to a Harris Poll, 52% of U.S. workers are considering a job change this year, and as many as 44% have actual plans in place to make the leap.
Three ways you maximize job listings on the best job posting sites.
Job postings are a critical part of recruiting, but the way they work can devalue the jobs you need to fill. Understanding the ways that your job posts lose their value, and taking steps to stand out, can help you attract and win more great employees.
I have. And I didn’t like the answer.
Have you ever seen the price of litigation if someone with a disability decides to file a complaint with the federal government under ADA Title III?
Learn how digital marketing recruitment can give you a competitive advantage in hiring
The focus of recruitment marketing and hiring has always been on managing the process. In the world of the big job boards where large numbers of resumes are delivered quickly, the challenge used to be sorting through all the resumes to filter out the ones that didn't fit to find the gem in the list.
But that has all changed in a scarce labor market. Now instead of relying on an ATS to manage the crowd, the need for filtering has been replaced by the need for better recruitment marketing.
How Email and More Referrals Go Together for Home Care Marketing
The value of referrals for home care agencies is a proven way to build the business and a primary goal of all home care marketing. Your former customers along with their family members and the professionals that you interact with are a great source for new business. The challenge is finding ways to stay “top of mind” with all of these people and the time required.
We're honored to make this distinction, and we relish what this means for the company this year and beyond!
Part of the reason we were chosen for this distinction is because of a belief that we hold. And we aren't the most outstanding growth marketing consultancy because of what we do, but what other agencies do, or rather, don't do:
We believe that the current marketing agency model is unfair, and we believe there is a different way.
And here's where we stop talking about us, and start talking about the problems we have encountered with traditional agencies and even inbound agencies.
Understanding digital marketing agency cost drivers
Cost is almost always a question when you are thinking about finding digital marketing help, whether you're just thinking about it or actually having conversations with prospective agencies. And the answers vary. Understanding what goes into those costs can help you to make a better decision.
Learning from the Best Career Pages in Homecare
In a tight job market, staffing agencies like those in homecare recruiting and healthcare recruiting have to shift their focus from just filtering out applicants to winning them. That's the job of a career pages on websites- to engage prospects by helping them experience the culture and the unique value that the company offers. It has to reach beyond the mechanics of presenting the open positions and receiving applications. These pages fill a critical role in supporting company growth. There's lots to learn from those who are doing it well. Here are our picks for best career pages in homecare.
Whether you are in healthcare staffing, homecare, skilled trades staffing, or have another recruiting focus, your ability to recruit effectively in a scarce labor market determines whether you’ve got the talent to fuel your growth or a lack of new hires that stops it cold. You need your system - your recruitment pipeline - to give you a competitive edge. Some call it a hiring pipeline or a candidate pipeline, but no matter the label, it’s the way you win and nuture opportunities with new hires.
Missing elements in the recruitment pipeline
Recruitment pipelines come from the same concept as marketing funnels - they are designed to take a large number of people and filter them down to just the right few. The right few to hire, or the right few to sell.
Updated January, 2023
You might be surprised to hear that Coca-Cola, among other major brands like Nextdoor and Oregon State, have built attractive websites on HubSpot CMS. Even more, they are tapping into important parts of their brand story. If you’re looking into this solution for your own company, or want to take branding cues from big names, it can be helpful to explore these 7 examples.
See How Coke and 6 Other Big Brands Utilize HubSpot CMS to Tell Their Brand Story
The market is like a basket of crabs. Whenever a home care agency tries the climb out and be different, the other crabs in the basket grab hold with their pincers and drag it back down. It's another version of the blue ocean vs. red ocean strategy - differentiation is what makes you stand out, and the market will work against you.
Waiting on the vaccine: How home care should prepare for post COVID caregiver hiring & client demand
The effects of COVID-19 reduced demand for in-home care due to fears about the disease and increase of care being provided by family members, while at the same time sidelining scores of caregivers due to the lack of demand, and the alternative - getting paid more by taking unemployment. These twin impacts have created a down-turn for many home care providers that most want to overcome in 2021.
The impacts of COVID-19 and 2020 have disrupted almost every sector, and nonprofits haven't been spared. Current research available early in 2021 shows that about 70% of nonprofits lost revenue in 2020, with one-quarter losing between 26-50% of their revenue.
Those who work for and support nonprofits of all different types know all too well the impacts of forced program closures, distracted or economically challenged donors, and the loss of fundraising events as a staple for funding.
Retail, especially it's local expression, has been one of the last to get relief from COVID shutdowns. Almost every town and city now has boarded up or vacant retail. We know from news and our own conversations that many of those stores aren't coming back. While big box stores have continued in-person and added lots of delivery and pick-up options, the smaller stores that give personality and social context to our communities have been shuttered.
The way customers view your organization determines everything. From your reputation to their price sensitivity, length of the buying cycle, and willingness to commit to you as a business, employer, school, nonprofit, or church. That lens (the one that customers used in 2019 to search, consider, and commit) has been swapped out for a new vision of the world. What they see today is completely different than the vision that moved them to respond to your old messaging and brand story.
Making the right pivot at the right time is what allows companies to thrive in the midst of big market disruption. Elisabeth Sanders-Park shares insights from her journey in this video interview.
Story Collaborative was named one of the top "30 Most Reputable Companies of the Year 2021" by The Silicon Review. We're honored to have this distinction and excited for what it means this year and moving forward. Part of the reason we were chosen for this distinction is because we believe that the current marketing agency model is unfair.
Many businesses that are still open have been living in crisis response mode since March of 2020. By making rapid adjustments to product or service delivery, they have been able to track with the massive buyer shifts that have been occurring. Moving from responding to crisis to making intentional and strategic changes allows the organization to shift from simply staying afloat to seizing opportunities that create strength and growth.
Mission, vision, and values are standard fair for organizations that want a strategic focus. These are important elements that should guide a mission-minded organization.
Renting online traffic by purchasing ads is one way to acquire new customers. However, the cost of ads in the online bidding used by digital ad markets is being influenced by something you can control -- your website. Your website plays a major role in how much you will have to spend in order to bring in the right flow of reliable, quality leads. In most cases, websites aren't doing their job to keep ad costs down, and usually do the opposite by driving up your ad budget. It's a much better investment to use low cost website data and update strategies, than to continue being dependent upon ads.
We seem to be back in the soup again. Different states and cities are experiencing different levels of restriction. It's exhausting for everyone, and those who came through the first wave of COVID-19 successfully are now looking at renewed restrictions square in the eye. Here are some tips to avoid allowing the ongoing COVID saga from creating long-term damage to your brand story.
We're hearing about story selling, why stories, and story-based marketing. A brand story is more than the application of story telling to your brand. Here's the difference. The use of stories is a technique or an approach in sales, marketing and communication that is certainly effective. But without a careful process, it won't ever rise to a brand defining level.
Story branding is a shared adventure between you and the people that you serve. Your story brand will always be found in the place where your passions and values overlap with the passions and values of your audience. This alignment is what takes a simple brand offering a product or service, and elevates it into the status of a brand story. Instead of a commodity to be price-shopped, your offering is celebrated, shared and recommended. As a result, your cost of reaching customers goes down, your sales cycles become shorter and customer retention goes up.
With all the pressures on health care, to which COVID-19 added, it seems like piling on to raise the issue of cyber security. But in part because of COVID, it's on the rise in a significant way. Health care is a primary target because of the amount of patient data and the financial value of operational records.
You've seen the headlines, but you probably aren't aware of the unintentional insider threat that healthcare providers, hospitals, home care providers and others have left open for the hacker- poorly secured websites.
It's always a shock to see yourself on public display, especially on the cover (here's the magazine so you can be shocked too). It raises obvious and immediate self-doubt about needing better photos and the ongoing battle for the receding hairline. While it's much better than being put up on the post office wall, it's still a pretty humbling experience. But if you're working to build a company, a little boost always helps. Here are some lessons about being on a magazine cover:
It's a famous story- George Parker used to sell NYC landmarks from a fake office. He sold the Statue of Liberty, Madison Square Garden and reportedly the Brooklyn Bridge (about twice a week). The buyers would then discover that for some reason the police wouldn't let them set up a toll booth in the middle of the bridge! It all ended after his third conviction for running these cons in 1928.
Your home care website is an essential part of your marketing. It's the place that seniors and their families first experience the difference that you offer. Like a salesperson that's available 24/7, your website is the hub around which you should be building both marketing and caregiver recruiting. If that critical online resource becomes a risk for seniors, it threatens their security and your business.
The massive number of details that you're managing to launch a new service line or office location can crowd out one important area - marketing. Great healthcare offerings need great patients. Starting the marketing process early and ensuring that you cover the essential elements will make the investment in clinic space, and time pay off earlier.
Attracting the right number of caregivers to meet client demand is challenging. Your growth is limited by not having great caregivers available when the client is ready. And, keeping those caregivers requires that you've got a job they want when they're ready. Growing agencies are figuring out how to keep the right supply of caregivers to meet client opportunities. An insight from the 2020 Benchmarking Study points out a critical way to boost your effectiveness.
I imagine you have heard of arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) or claustrophobia (fear of confined or crowded spaces). But have you ever heard of a pseudo phobia, called Ostrich Complex?
The question: What would you tell your boss if they asked you, “Why aren’t our videos working?”
The answer:
"That’s a great question, boss lady!
The question: What to tell your boss when they walk in and say: “how much is it going to cost us to get our website ADA compliant?"
The question: When someone asks in a coaching session: “What’s your favorite sales hack of all time?”
No Leads To Your WEbsite, AKA: No-Date-For-Prom-Itis
Does your website lack any return visitors, or have your site visits fallen off? Is it failing to get any lead conversions from real people? Has it been more than 3 years since you have had real work done on it? Has it been built by a do-it-yourself solution, or did Jonas in your uncle’s basement design it for you?
The question: What to tell your ceo when they ask: "why do we have a blog? Isn't that a bunch of musings from one of our staff?"
The question: how do you respond to a client when they ask: "What's the best video editing tool?"
The answer:
"for high-end editing, it's DaVinci Resolve. But, there are some other great choices, too. You need to discover the best video editing tool for you and your needs. Here's how..."
I'll admit it. I'm a recovering DIY addict. Some of the most humorous words spoken in our home are, "I can do that." The DIY resulted in my purchase of a 1960's Triumph Spitfire which broke more clutches than it got oil changes, and too many other projects to name, all completed with low to moderate success. But does the duct tape and baling wire (you know, the wire for hay bales) approach work in 2020 for marketing?
Have you noticed a strange pattern of inappropriate, rude or vulgar language in random places on your website? Are you seeing strange tics like popup messages or changes that you did not make?
What is choice paralysis?
Choice paralysis is the inability to choose, or being frozen in the process because of mental or emotional overload. This can impact your website, the services or products that you sell, and all of your marketing. The last thing we want our marketing to do is to paralyze decisions! We want to help people make good ones!
an ad strategy based on tigers
Since 2018, Cheetos has been the target of a new major competitor: PeaTos. These pea-filled copy-cats have one goal: be moderately more healthy than Cheetos. They've stripped out the common junk-food culprits, like artificial flavors and genetically modified ingredients, and they've replaced corn with peas. Their ad strategy -- rubbing it in Frito-Lays' face -- is nothing short of hilarious.
The question: how to help your boss feel at-ease in front of the camera, when they say: "I'm terrible at this!"
The question: What is your answer when a client asks: “How can I get more good content on my website?”
The answer:
Gary Vaynerchuck is famous for having said: “Every one of you is a media company.”
The question: what to say to your intern when they ask: "what's the first thing I can do to seo my articles?"
The answer:
"Oh hey intern, thanks for asking about optimizing your content!
The question: what to tell your boss during a rebrand, when they ask: "how can we choose the best logo?"
The answer:
“So glad you asked! When looking at comps, ask yourself:
The question: How to respond when asked: "what's better? YouTube or Vimeo?"
The answer:
Well, one isn’t better -- they’re just different! In general, YouTube is the place that the average business can build an audience, gain SEO value (since it’s owned by Google), and expect consumer interaction. Vimeo is really the filmmaker’s platform. This is a place you can host videos that are embedded on your website, or share edits with clients. Vimeo provides unique control of your content that YouTube is not designed for. But, don’t forget! Platforms like Facebook typically require you to upload your video there as well for the best shareability and visibility.”
The question: How to respond when your CFO walks in and says: "We're going to cut your marketing budget, unless you can prove that your methods are working."
The answer:
You can't say: “Yikes! I need a rain check."
Personalization vs. de-personalization
Understanding Personalization
In order to understand de-personalization we have to understand personalization. This is the use of data to deliver messages and information to the right person at the right time. This can put the right kind of data in front of the right person at the right time.
Since recruiting and retaining caregivers is the lifeblood of homecare recruiting, healthcare recruiting, and other industries facing a shortage, finding the right approach to the recruitment funnel is critical. With in-person events off the table right now, job listing services might seem like the only viable option. The 2020 Benchmarking Study highlights an important recruiting difference between agencies that are growing and those that struggle to grow.
You need people to find you online, but somehow you got voted off the island called the internet.
We've all seen that tribal reality TV moment when all the contestants meet by torchlight and vote to exile others with their votes written on a piece of bark, and put it into the giant tiki head. Someone is always getting voted off the island - does that apply to your website too?
Best Kept Secret-itus is a tricky website illness. You or other leaders in your organization might think or say, “I feel like we’re a best kept secret.” This is the first sign that you may in fact have this website illness. To know for sure if your website has this illness, you must be able to define your target audience, because the disease occurs when too few people in that audience know that you exist.
What happens when an ad campaign goes totally wrong? I mean, the ad campaign actually sends their potential customers running for the hills, wanting to jump off a cliff or even better: “climb Mount Everest in flippers,” as one commenter put it.
Rebranding? Relaunching? New the the scene? Likely, you're going to sort through logo comps from a designer, but you'll do so without any really idea about how to choose the right thing. You'll look with your feelings or with your gut response. But, you won't inherently use logic or business sense in choosing the right logo.
This is a common question for many marketers. You look at your site, and it's been a few months (or a few years) since it was revamped. You start to wonder... "Do I need a new website?" Sometimes, it's not a question you're asking. In some cases, your boss walked into your office in the middle of a busy day and asked, "Hey, do we need a new website?"
Here’s the thing guys. We understand that COVID-19 has changed the way we interact and conduct meetings. With companies like Amazon allowing remote work until next year, and Uber even extending that period until at least June of 2021, being on a video call is here to stay. But there are some rules of engagement for video. And you could be breaking them.
Story-based marketing is a growing, dramatic change in the way that brands are connecting and building loyal relationships with their customers. This approach is more powerful than you might think. It's developed beyond simply including stories in the engagement process. Four characteristics help define the difference between traditional and story-based marketing.
A common (but outdated) definition of story-based marketing goes something like this:
Single Point of Failure: this is a concept in IT, business, and manufacturing planning that says: there are some things in our business that can shut us down. If they fail, we fail... As marketers, we are often subject to these single points of failure that stop us from getting things done. We get stuck, because of a single point of failure. Our marketing relies upon a single resource that is either expensive, hard to get, or slow to respond (this is a bottleneck point of failure).
I don't know if you've noticed, but... your consumers are at home. You know this because you're at home, too! But, it's easy to forget that everyone across the globe is at home in a way they were not previously. The continued behavioral changes of people on YouTube actually hold unique insights into how people are feeling, what they are needing, and how their life is changing. These 8 YouTube stats will remind you of the needs of your consumer. They might even launch your marketing team toward an empathetic strategy that hits a home run (no pun intended).
The recent 2020 Benchmarking Study demonstrated the dramatic revenue difference between those who use a CRM and those who do not (if you didn't know, CRM stands for customer relationship management). For those who have feelings of dread about trying out a CRM, or memories of CRMs before the modern email and mobile integrated versions, it's easy to have completely the wrong idea about the about why am I doing this?
As people begin the long road toward whatever their new post-COVID, at-home, foundationally-digital life will become, new research has emerged about consumer behavior. Ketchum's research, which surveyed consumers in mid-June, tells us a lot about how people will move forward in their buying habits.
Let's talk about the power of the value proposition - as it's that one powerful statement that clearly defines the benefit of a product or service.
The reports from home care agencies make it clear - agencies that put a CRM to work are driving more revenue. The 2020 Benchmarking Study shows that Agencies that use a customer relationship management system (CRM) enjoy a strong financial and practical advantage because they market more effectively, get more done in less time and ensure that prospects don't slip through the cracks.
Managed service providers, or MSPs, are trusted partners for millions of organizations. They hold the keys to almost everything of value within a business from access to banking and client records, to eCommerce and personal information. Since nailing down security issues is an important role for most MSPs, the potential that an MSP could become an insider threat is a potential reputation wrecker for these businesses.
There are many occasions as a marketing professional that call for pulling out your iPhone and capturing something. It could be your product, your customer having an awesome experience, or even in internal team challenge that has potential create amazing recruiting footage. For the next occasion, here are the top three things you can do (or tell you underling to do) to capture the best possible footage.
If you need a recruiting advantage, borrow the inbound marketing approach that works with customers and apply it to employee recruiting.
What is inbound marketing? Inbound marketing has become a powerful tool in the effort to win customers. At its heart, inbound marketing is the delivery of value through content that builds trust and leads to a loyal buyer. Valuable content helps the customer throughout their entire journey from exploring a need all the way to making a buying decision. This approach is highly effective with home care marketing because it addresses the whole customer journey as well as the what's required for for search engine optimization (SEO). Those that find you through SEO are often the most qualified customers and employees.
Hungry, hungry, hungry...
Did you ever notice that the ads you experience on vacation affect you differently than in every day life? That's the experience you might have when you are super hungry and see commercials for food! With a lot of stay-cationing going on and people choosing to travel by car instead of plane, this canned soup commercial couldn't be more timely - it will actually make you feel hungry after a long day's travel, or if you are thinking about meal prep for your stay at home crew.
How Microsites are Delivering a Competitive Advantage Across Industries
Microsites are becoming a competitive strategy in a number of industries. Put simply, a microsite is a focused group of pages that provide information that is designed to serve a unique audience, location or product/service. It wraps the sales and value message up in a focused package, along with critical information and answers to questions so that when a prospect visits the microsite, they are able to learn what they need to and move to the next level of the buyer's journey.
In 2020, I think it's clear that "everyone" is on Facebook. But, even so... the question remains: who is actively using Facebook and what are they doing while they scroll? These insights can help us better target our ads, and develop more relevant organic content.
It's an early childhood lesson - share your toys and play nicely with others. Amidst all of the valuable information available to every consumer online, there are some who haven't learned to share. They will provide a paragraph of the information that you wanted, but after that...
The Type A personality is legendary - hard-driving, focused and competitive. But, Type A's are known to be impatient and even aggressive. What does that have to do with your website's personality? It's all about the experience that your website delivers to the visitor.
Website evaluations give us insight into the performance we are getting in return for our marketing investments
With the whole population shifting their communication, shopping, and sharing to online, your website is more important than it's ever been. And while most websites have a large banner that speaks to immediate COVID-19 measures, that won't be enough to keep up with the pace of change that is occurring online. Taking stock of your website anytime there is a major market disruption is a good practice, with digital change fueling social change at such a rapid pace.
The Champion Website Personalty has grown past all of the dysfunctional website personality issues that stop others from performing. This is truly a high-performing website in the making, and the business or nonprofit that benefits has a real asset in place.
Most websites are carrying a heavy burden. It's not just the need for high-performing lead conversion, it's the massive amount of dead-weight content that simply doesn't perform. If you run a page count on your website, and compare it to pages or articles that people never visit, you'll see just how much content falls into the category of "no visitors."
Is your website someone you'd like to go to a party with? How about on vacation? You may not think of a website as having a personality - but your customers and prospects see your website as an extension of your brand. If the website is friendly, personal and efficient, that's what they think of you too.
Have you ever been in a used book store that has books everywhere? They are on shelves, stacked on tables and in boxes on the floor. Everyone is pretty sure there is some good stuff in there, but finding it? That's almost impossible. Is that a good description of your website?
The Intimidator Website Personalty tends to develop in two scenarios: First, it happens to people who are in very serious business settings. They provide services or products that are no laughing matter, and their websites let you know that. Second, it happens when people use old website technology and out of date graphics that make their sites look like cold-war relics.
The Dreamer website personality is big on dreams, but a little low on application. Even the most inspiring website can have a very high bounce rate and low conversion rates (i.e., it doesn't accomplish much).
Almost every business and nonprofit has experienced some level of market disruption. And it’s lasted longer than anyone thought. What comes along with these market disruptions is something that every leader has to pay attention to - change.
Among all of the important technology tools for getting online is the Content Management System (CMS). You might think of it as simply your website, but it is part of what should be "under the hood" of an effective online presence. Your CMS is what allows prospective customers to discover online the experience, talent and value that you offer.
We tend to think of our websites in the singular. You may think that you “have a website” (i.e., one) and that one site is where everything has to fit. It’s easy to think that one business or organizational website is the single container for all of your online presence, but that’s not the reality for effective web marketing. Effective web marketing includes multiple landing pages, sub-sites or micro-sites for specific purposes all with the goal of giving people the exact information and opportunities that they need to become our customers.
How your sales activity can help seniors during the restrictions imposed by COVID-19.
No other group in our society has been affected as deeply as seniors during COVID-19. In addition to the associated health risks, seniors are experiencing the greatest amounts of social isolation and will remain isolated for a longer period of time. Social isolation, whether it is a result of physicial limitations, or the shelter in place requirements, is strongly linked to depression and anxiety in seniors. A large percentage of those who are sheltering in place (47%) are reporting that they are experiencing anxiety and depression - that's a jump of 30% over those who aren't stuck at home.
While there are many challenges that organizations are facing as a result of COVID-19, there are also opportunities to come out of the other side as a stronger business. Resilience as a business means reaching deep to rely upon existing and newly acquired competencies to move through a season of challenge. One important area is accelerating as a result: virtualization and Revops.
If you are in senior sales, in order continue closing sales right now, you have to find new ways to walk seniors through their decision journey. The salespeople that we talk with report that using the phone to navigate the details of complex and emotional decisions is difficult. Understanding the value of moving to video vs. phone is vital for senior salespeople that want to retain and build their closing rate.
When we hear from our clients that some marketing information needs some input, we often record a live video. (Check out S+Marketing LIVE's "3 Marketing Things" Series). Our latest Marketing Roundup includes advice from all of our super talented team members on the topic of email. Yes, email still has value!
People used to believe that seniors couldn't really be reached online. That's one reason that funeral preplanning and senior living still relies upon postal mail and expensive mass media. Along with everything else, times have changed. Now it's easier than ever to reach seniors online.
The trends toward online participation among seniors have been consistently growing for a number of years, but along with the rest of the population, they've gone more digital in 2020 that anyone could have imagined.
We're starting to hear the whispers of going back to work. It's a welcome discussion. Leaders at all levels of government are starting to work through how we will start to recover. Have you started thinking about your bounce-back?
We are in a moment right now, that presents a unique opportunity to your business or nonprofit. Whether you are a school, a healthcare practice, a senior living facility, retailer or service provider, there are things that you can do right now which you may never be able to do again.
When lots of things are shut down, inaction can be the greatest frustration. Here are steps you can take as a nonprofit or business right now to make the most of a challenging season.
Values.
For many organizations, this is a concept passed around during high-level board meetings, or developed in the strategic planning or story brand process, but quickly forgotten. Even in a workplace that has their values displayed and posted for frequent employee review, company values still often feel dusty and inanimate -- not active verbs as much as required reading once or twice a year.
But now, more than ever, your corporate values are on display.
COVID-19 is boiling your Brand Story down to values.
Once they get past the health-concerns and medical response, leaders are beginning to wrestle with the immediate and short-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on their organizations. Protecting, closing, canceling and postponing is just the first step. Beyond the first, somewhat shocking and challenging parts of the process, it’s critical to get a handle on ways that you can approach the large scale changes that are occurring in and around your business or nonprofit.
The use of all types of video has increased consistently dramatically year over year for the past decade. In 2015, marketers reported that 78% felt that video was important and in 2020 that number is 92% (Wzowl 2020). Many businesses, schools, and nonprofits have incorporated video to a limited degree in their sales and marketing, but much of that adoption is falling far behind the way that both consumers and business buyers behave.
It's the stealth applicant season when those who aren't on your radar submit an application without warning. It's always great to get an unexpected application, but there's a downside to these surprises, too.
The challenges that the stealth applicant brings are important to consider. You can't get a handle on what enrollment "might look like," if you have a large number of people who don't give you advance signals. You also don't know if they are just submitting a safety application, or if they are a good mission fit at all.
A Story about Stories that Aren't (Only) Told in Words
Leisure reading is at an all-time low. Did you know that? Even Steve Jobs pointed out back in 2008 that people are reading less than one book per year. But this article is not going to be about leisure reading or the decline in our literary culture.
Millennials have a nose for what’s authentic, how is your brand story doing?
Millennials are the emerging consumer powerhouse - $600 million in 2019. Their values come through loud and clear in how they shop and what they buy. One value you need to know about is their strong preference for authenticity. It impacts the way they see your business.
90% of millennials say that brand authenticity is important to them. They prefer the “real and organic” over the “perfect and packaged.” They are seeing your business or nonprofit brand through that unique lense - and it creates a bigger impact than you might think. Their reaction can range from mild-distaste all the way to “this is obviously not for me,” and immediate departure from the website or other collateral. We've interviewed millennials who took one look at a website and concluded they'd never return.
A three-part series: How to own your brand story, align your team, and multiply your impact
Part 1: Own Your Brand Story
Anyone who works in a service-related industry knows the challenges of serving people, satisfying budgets and regulations, and doing all of that with a team of humans. Our experience often lines up with the title of the great book by Charles Swindoll about personal perseverance, Three Steps Forward and Two Steps Back. Sometimes it seems that just about the time we start to see our numbers climbing, we face a set-back due to customer service, a staffing issue, or even both. When you own your brand story it can help propel you to stronger growth, better staff retention and customer service.
In 2020, we’re convinced that taking three steps forward and no steps back, revolves around learning how to own your brand story, align your team, and multiplying your effort. We’re seeing these outcomes in the clients we work with and want to share them in this three-part article that will introduce the kinds of change that will create momentum that you can sustain.
It's easy to get excited about the latest "shiny object." We're excited about robotics, machine learning and creating computers that will be doing a variety of human tasks. We're even making quantum particles work for us in computing, and hopefully, they'll deliver value in the future. Software is making it possible for us to take what was available previously only to the mega-corporation into even the smallest start-up or to the individual home.
It's happening again. Your ability to finish a sentence has become difficult, it doesn't seem like you are getting anywhere on completing one simple task, and you are becoming easily distracted. Did you guess it yet? That's right... these are the symptoms of burnout!
The truth is it's not the first - or the last - time that this will happen. But your project isn't done, and you have to keep going.
Sometimes, clients want to know if we’ll work on spec. Or in other words: do we have enough faith in our product to bring a finished marketing program to the table before anyone agrees to pay for it? The quick and short answer is: no. Our team doesn’t work on spec.
In some ways, this question comes down to trust. As a prospective buyer of marketing services, if you’re asking this question then you do not trust us or another agency enough to pay for unseen results. And, we can understand that feeling.
The truth is, marketing has become the car salesman of B2B careers. We make big claims about growth, but many times don’t come through. And business owners feel as if they’ve been manipulated into wasting money.
So, let’s dive into the meat of this question, and explain why we don’t work this way.
(5 Minute Read)
What do Disney+ streaming, robotic automation and desktop video communication all have in common? We’re in an age of digital disruption. Entrepreneurs and savvy business owners alike are looking for competitive advantages and often find them in digital solutions. Your industry is no different with lots of disruption occurring now with even more to come in 2020.
What is Digital Disruption?
This is the effect of technology that changes the basic expectations and behaviors throughout our culture. Market disruption can cause whole industries to radically change and long-standing companies to disappear in very short periods of time.
For a funeral home owner, there is probably not an asset that is more valuable than the funeral home’s reputation. Yet, the emergence of social media has changed the way that people evaluate the businesses that they should trust for important family needs.
85% of Americans report that they trust online reviews more than what their friends or family say about a business. (Brightlocal)
The longstanding tension between marketing and sales is no secret. One side (marketing) runs great campaigns and is disappointed by the way sales teams put those leads to use. The other side (sales) doesn’t think the quality of leads is high enough and responds to marketing generated leads with a less than enthusiastic attitude. Story Collaborative recently joined the elite group of “Sales Lions” after completing the transformative Pipeline Generation Bootcamp provided by our partner, HubSpot. We learned better sales-marketing alignment through smarketing.
Who is your number 1 sales person? Your website.
A lot is riding on your website. What used to be an online support to sales has now shifted to become our number #1 sales person. How so? Consumers spend at least half of their time online before they talk with anyone in your business. The wrong choices on how you approach your website can have the same affect as firing your best salesperson, or closing your most profitable storefront.
