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.

HubSpot Vs. Pipedrive

By David Mills
on June 01, 2023

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.  

Zoho or HubSpot The Real Story

By David Mills
on June 01, 2023

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?

How to increase sales without adding more hires

By David Mills
on June 01, 2023

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. 

How Cold Visits and Calls Burn Out Salespeople

By David Mills
on May 23, 2023

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.

De-Clunk Your Sales by Streamlining Your Software

By David Mills
on May 22, 2023

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.