Podcasts about HubSpot

Keith Peiris, Co-Founder and CEO of Lightfield, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to talk about building an agentic CRM that launched in November 2025, has been adopted by more than 5,000 customers, and just raised a $47 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz. Topics include why every system of record was really a forecasting tool, how to get reliable output from non-deterministic models, and the two reasons companies actually rip out Salesforce or HubSpot. Plus, a spirited debate on whether the SaaS partner ecosystem is dead, why AI-native deal sizes at 200-person companies can rival enterprise contracts, and how Lightfield landed on a mix of seat-based and consumption pricing.   Key Takeaways:   - Plan for models that will always make some mistakes. Keith builds Lightfield on the assumption that models stay non-deterministic, and calls reliability "a harness problem" that they're making fantastic progress against. - Use LLMs for insight and plain code for arithmetic. When Asad asked whether auditing AI forecasts saves anyone any time, Keith described a one-time implementation where Lightfield's head of finance checked every formula: "We converted some things from prompts to real code, right? I don't want LLMs doing math. I want real code doing math." That got the dashboards 95% of the way there, leaving the models to flag which deals were on the cusp because of missing features or competition. - Slightly better AI output won't justify replacing a CRM. After several rip-and-replace projects off Salesforce and HubSpot, Keith said marginally better agentic emails are "not a good enough reason to change a system of record." The two reasons that do move customers are believing one model of the business improves every stage of the revenue funnel, with SDRs pulling real-time case studies from customer success, and higher-level scenario planning, where "the modeling really matters. The data completion really matters." - Put predictable work in the seat price and meter the work with visible ROI. Lightfield tried both extremes, and pure consumption backfired: "It's like going to a store where everything's really expensive, that our customers didn't touch anything." The seat and platform fee now covers the core CRM, call recording, and the data model, while pipeline generation, AI workflow automations, and scenario planning run on consumption, because "most revenue leaders, CEOs… have an uncapped budget for business intelligence."   Connect with the Hosts & Guests:   Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at STA - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Keith Peiris, Co-Founder & CEO at Lightfield - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithpeiris/   Topline is more than a Podcast:   Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Check us out on YouTube for the #1 video podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack

AI is changing sales fast. But is it actually replacing salespeople, or is it exposing the sellers who never developed real strategy skills? That's the question I explore in this conversation with John Stopper.John and I get into the difference between sales tactics and sales strategy, why AI can sometimes give sellers the wrong picture of a buyer, and why getting closer to the people involved in a deal can make the difference between winning and losing. We also talk about how sales teams can use AI to identify deal risks instead of simply using it to write more emails.Why AI Makes Sales Strategy More ImportantAI can teach people sales tactics, but strategy requires a deeper understanding of the situation.Tactics focus on how to sell, while strategy focuses on who, what, when, where, and why.AI can help sellers execute many tactical tasks, but sellers still need to decide which approach fits the buyer and the situation.Strong sales strategy starts with understanding customers and what will actually compel them to buy.The goal is to choose the right strategy based on the conditions of the deal.Tactics vs. Strategy: The Baseball Analogy — 03:38Knowing how to throw every pitch does not mean you know which pitch to throw.A baseball pitcher may have four or five pitches available.The right pitch depends on the batter, pitch count, runners on base, and inning.Sales works the same way. The skill is not just knowing the sales playbook but knowing which strategy to use in the moment.Choosing the right strategy can improve your position, accelerate velocity, and compress time.The Principle of Reality: Don't Trust Every AI Answer AI can give both buyers and sellers information that does not accurately reflect the current situation.Buyers can use AI to research a salesperson or company before the first conversation.Sellers can also build their account research around outdated or incomplete information.A polished AI summary can create false confidence if it does not reflect what is actually happening.Sellers should verify their assumptions instead of treating AI research as unquestionable fact.How to Surface Reality With Better Questions The first sales conversation is an opportunity to check whether both sides are working from the right information.Ask the buyer what their AI research has shown them about your company, product, or you.Share what your research has shown you about their company and ask whether you have it right.Use the conversation to identify what is missing from your research.Verify the situation before choosing your sales strategy.Different Buyers Require Different StrategiesThe right message depends on the person you are selling to.End users often care about doing their jobs faster, better, or cheaper.Managers may care more about how a solution affects their team and the risks involved.Executives are more likely to focus on strategic growth and business outcomes.Sellers need to understand the buyer's role before deciding what value to emphasize.The Principle of Proximity: Get Closer to the Buyer “Proximity sells” because sellers need to understand the buyer's world deeply enough to bring useful insight.Proximity is not about becoming the buyer's friend.It means understanding the buyer's business and seeing things from both inside and outside perspectives.Sellers should get close to the people who can influence the deal, not only the person who can approve it.Outside experience can help sellers bring insights the buyer may not have considered.Find the People Who Can Say No A deal can have strong champions and still fail because someone else inside the organization has the power to stop it.Identify the people who may resist the purchase.Ask your champion who in the organization could have concerns about the solution.Reach out to those people directly instead of waiting for their objections to appear later.Address potential resistance before it becomes a deal-ending problem.Use AI to Identify Deal Risk AI can be useful when it helps sellers think through what could go wrong.Ask AI to research the people and roles that may resist a purchase.Identify possible objections and resistance points before they appear.Continue updating the research as the deal progresses because new risks can emerge.Use AI to help build a deal strategy around what could prevent the deal from closing.Bridging Strategy: Build Relationships Across the Account One salesperson should not have to carry every relationship in a complex B2B deal.Sales managers can connect with the buyer's manager.Product leaders can connect with the buyer's technical leaders.CEOs can connect with other executives when the situation calls for it.Each person can carry a message that matches their role and expertise.Multiple relationships can help both companies become more familiar with each other.Why Executives Still Have a Role in Selling Executive involvement can be part of the sales process, especially when selling complex solutions.Executives have revenue responsibilities too.A salesperson can prepare an executive with the person's profile, the situation, the message to communicate, and the information to bring back.AI can take more operational work off the team's plate.That creates more room for leaders to spend time with customers and support revenue-generating conversations.Salespeople Need to Become Strategists As AI makes more sales information and tactics available, the ability to create useful insight becomes more important.AI has reduced the advantage that once came from simply knowing sales tactics.Sellers need to know how to use information, not just access it.The goal is to tell buyers something they do not already know.Strategy determines what insight to deliver, when to deliver it, and who should deliver it.Human-to-Human Selling Still Matters AI and digital tools should not replace direct conversations with buyers.At minimum, sellers should use video calls when meeting in person is not possible.Direct conversations can help uncover what digital research misses.Meeting a buyer in person can build trust and show a willingness to make an effort.Sales still depends on human relationships, especially when decisions are complex.Key Quote from the Episode“AI has commoditized a lot of that advantage. So now to me, selling and strategy is about how can I tell them something they don't know?” — John StopperResources:John Stopper: johnstopper.comJohn's website also offers a free, no-obligation deal strategy report. Submit a company you are trying to sell to, and he will run it through his COMPASS system and provide a deal strategy report.Email: J Stopper at Northstore.com LinkedIn: John StopperSponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast,

Joe and Robert kick off the show with a question that's getting harder to ignore: when the CEOs building the world's most powerful AI systems start saying development may need to slow down, how concerned should everyone else be? New warnings from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman bring the AI safety debate back to the forefront. Then the guys dig into some troubling new content marketing research from Andy Crestodina and Orbit Media. Of 1,042 marketers surveyed, just 14% say their blogs deliver strong results. AI may be making content faster and easier to produce, but the strategies most closely associated with strong performance, including original research, expert collaboration and human editing, are actually being used less often. Meanwhile, Perplexity is going big on creators, working with hundreds of influencers and running campaigns involving more than 100 creators and multi-million-dollar budgets. Is this further proof that as AI makes content creation cheaper, trusted human voices become even more valuable? Joe's marketing winner is Meta and its work showing how Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses can help blind and low-vision users gain more independence. Robert's marketing loser is Nike, which is being removed from the S&P 100 after 18 years as the company struggles with a dramatic decline in market value. Robert raves about HBO's new DC series Lanterns, while Joe recommends Harlan Coben's new book, Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft, part memoir and part practical look at the realities of the writing process. Episode Links: AI CEOs revive debate over risks to humanity Andy Crestodina's content marketing research Perplexity is betting big on creators Meta AI glasses for blind veterans Nike's S&P 100 removal and Dow concerns Lanterns on HBO Harlan Coben's Plot Twist Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor:Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Alexis Fink joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how AI is changing work, why org design needs to move beyond boxes and lines, and how curiosity, influence, courage, and better systems thinking can help people leaders design for the future.----  Sponsor Links:

Kevin demonstrates ways you can adopt AI in the next 100 daysSummary of the PodcastOverviewEpisode 2 of a mini-series within The Next 100 Days Podcast where Kevin Appleby and Graham Arrowsmith discuss how AI is influencing their workPre-recording conversation touched on football transfers (Nick Pope, James Trafford) before the formal recording beganKevin identified four or five distinct areas of AI usage he wanted to coverClaude as a Personal AI Assistant (Pre-Call Preparation)Kevin's primary personal AI tool is Claude Cowork, which he connects to email, Notion, HubSpot, calendar, Dropbox, and Google DriveUse case: 10 minutes before a client call, ask Claude to summarise all recent interactions across those sources — it surfaces outstanding promises, discussion topics, and what to raiseClaude can also draft emails into Gmail drafts (not sent), giving a ~90% ready version the user can refineGraham noted concern about integrating a Synology server; Kevin noted most personal data lives in Dropbox or Google Drive and Claude can connect to bothAI Agents Running AutomaticallyKevin runs two scheduled agents without manual triggeringAgent 1 (daily): Scans calendar 30 days out and checks whether each diary entry has a corresponding task in Notion; creates missing tasks automatically, including a Notion page for notesAgent 2 (weekly): Scans upcoming 30 days for GrowCFO Show or Next 100 Days podcast recordings, researches the guest online, and appends notes (bio, website links, suggested questions) to the relevant Notion taskKevin deliberately ignores AI-suggested questions to preserve natural curiosity in conversation, but acknowledges suggested questions are useful for solo-host formatsThe same agent concept applies to client/partner meetings: an agent could automatically pull last interaction notes before any key meetingAdopt AI in Finance Operations (GrowCFO Context)GrowCFO's current quarterly theme is Intelligent Finance Operations — covering the end-to-end finance cycle from purchase orders to final accountsThree-way matching: AI can match purchase orders, goods receipt notes, and invoices automatically; if all match, the invoice is paid without human interventionFraud detection: AI spots anomalies far more effectively than manual reviewReporting: AI can generate board reports and dashboards from accounting systems; demonstrated in a GrowCFO webinar with tech partner Round Treasury using ClaudeKey value: AI removes grunt work so finance professionals can focus on what the numbers mean, not just crunching themAI's Impact on Finance JobsSignificant job displacement expected in transactional/lower-level finance roles; less so for senior finance business partners whose work is relationship-basedChallenge: AI often saves portions of multiple people's jobs rather than eliminating whole roles, making headcount reduction difficult — a pattern observed in shared services projects long before AISupply of finance professionals is falling, particularly FP&A specialists in the US; AI may initially ease recruitment pressure rather than cut headcountMost finance teams are still at the "chatting with ChatGPT" stage, not yet using agentic or Cowork-style toolsA live example of a fully agentic debt-chasing system: an AI agent that checks the debtors ledger, identifies overdue accounts, calls customers, and holds an intelligent conversation about outstanding invoicesAI Connectivity LimitationsClaude's current integration with Xero is poor — only capable of producing basic debtor reports rather than actionable overdue listsCopilot and Gemini do not support Dropbox connectivity, limiting their use in Kevin's personal setupHallucination risk is reduced when AI operates within a well-defined, high-quality data "cocoon" — the importance of a single source of truthFaster Close and Rolling Forecasts"Faster close" — producing monthly accounts quickly rather than 10–15 days after month-end — has been a finance aspiration for 20+ years and AI now makes it achievableRolling forecasts with multiple scenarios (e.g., 0%, 25%, 50% tariff scenarios) can be modelled and run instantly by AI rather than taking weeks to buildAI Governance in FinanceSegregation of duties must be replicated in AI workflows: different agents or human approvers for setting up suppliers, authorising accounts, and making paymentsA single "super AI agent" handling everything end-to-end is not yet appropriate or auditableUsing AI for Research & White PapersKevin used ChatGPT Deep Research to read ~30 published documents from major consultancies (PwC, Deloitte, EY, Accenture, BCG, Forrester, etc.) on AI in finance ops in 15–20 minutes — work that previously would have taken two graduate trainees a fortnightHe gave both ChatGPT and Claude the same prompt and found ChatGPT produced a better overall result, though Claude surfaced some content ChatGPT missed; he combined bothAI is excellent at generating and researching text but structuring the final document, choosing diagrams, and making it consumable remains a human taskVirtual Board / AI AvatarsA GrowCFO partner CFO used AI avatars of their board members to anticipate board reactions to finance reports before presentingKevin tested a "virtual advisory board" in AI, including public figures like Michael Heppell, and received useful diverse perspectivesThe deeper goal: frame board materials to open up discussion rather than trigger defensive reactionsKAIOS — Kevin's AI Operating System (Personal Project)Started from a ChatGPT conversation: "What if everything you've been taught about time management is a lie?" — leading to the insight that most productivity systems just create more tasks rather than freedomEvolved into KAIOS (Kevin's AI Operating System): a Dropbox-based knowledge structure containing Kevin's values, StrengthsFinder profile, career history, stories, and frameworks — accessible by any AI model via instructions stored within the structureA book outline, introduction, and chapter frameworks have been drafted with ChatGPT's help; the project paused in favour of building KAIOS first so the book has genuine personal stories and IP embeddedGraham suggested this could be Kevin's biggest career opportunity — analogous to how MeclabsAI has built a multi-million pound business around systematised marketing knowledgeKevin noted he prefers positioning himself as an expert using AI in finance rather than as an AI expert per se, given how fast the field movesCareer Reflection & Future DirectionBoth hosts reflected on the retirement vs. continued work question; Kevin expressed enthusiasm for staying engaged with AI developments and not wanting to reach the point where technology no longer makes senseKevin acknowledged competitors in the AI-for-finance space (e.g., Nicholas Boucher's AI Finance Club) but sees his differentiation in applying deep finance and personal IP rather than competing directlyGrowCFO Show is approaching episodeThe Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham is an inCruises Independent Partner, and is building up interest from people around the world in the World's Largest Travel Membership - inCruises. You can sign up and access 21,000+ cruises, hotels and tours by clicking HEREKevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com

This episode features Liam Sunstrum, owner of Yard Dawgs in Western Canada, discussing his company's rapid growth and marketing strategies. Liam tells Dan and Donnie how his company tripled from 4,000 to 12,000 customers over the past year by expanding to five new markets and implementing an advanced tech stack—including HubSpot, Claude AI, and RealGreen—and he details his Facebook and SMS marketing efforts.   Guest: Liam Sunstrum, Owner, Yard Dawgs Hosts: Dan Gordon, PCO Bookkeepers & M&A Specialists: https://pcobookkeepers.com/ Donnie Shelton, Triangle Home Services: https://trianglehomeservices.com/ Sponsors: Coalmarch: https://www.coalmarch.com/podcast PestSure: https://www.pestsure.com/ Voice for Pest: https://www.voiceforpest.com/podcast Forshaw: https://www.forshaw.com/ PestPac by WorkWave: https://www.pestpac.com/pmpindustryinsiders Peer Groups: https://www.pmpindustryinsider.com/peergroups Insiders Conference:  https://www.pmpindustryinsider.com/conference

Dean Carter (Best-Selling Author, 4x CHRO, & CEO of Instill)  joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about the career pivots that shaped his life, what Patagonia taught him about purpose and play, and why trusting your gut, taking big swings, and doing the right thing can lead you somewhere better than the plan you originally had.----  Sponsor Links:

To Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupMost ecommerce brands are paying for every contact in the database, including the tens of thousands they have not mailed in a year. Then they mail them anyway, because they are paying for them. Channing Ferrer argues both halves of that are costing you money, and he has his own company's data to back the second half.Brevo studied its customer base and found the brands sending the least email posted the highest conversion and click-through rates. The heaviest senders were worse on conversion, worse on click-through and worse on opens. Brevo bills by the message sent, so telling customers to send less costs them revenue. They say it anyway.For a retention lead, a lifecycle marketer, or a founder still building the sends themselves, this is a conversation about where the money actually goes in a retention program. Channing spent six years at HubSpot running sales strategy through the run from $200 million to $1.5 billion in revenue, then ran sales at Semrush and led Brandwatch back to growth.Discover More: https://www.brevo.com/solutions/enterprise/?utm_medium=partnership&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_term=enterprise&utm_content=dtc-podcast-0926 What you get in 38 minutes:What changes when you stop paying for stored contacts and start paying for messages sentThe mobile wallet as a retention channel, including how a loyalty card gets pushed a new offer and changes appearance on the lock screenSalomon's use of a wallet pass, and how the same mechanic works for a brand with no physical storesWhat Channing puts on a dashboard for a $20M ecommerce brand, and why send volume belongs near the bottom of itHow Brevo customers run campaigns through Claude and ChatGPT over an MCP connection without opening Brevo at allThe three ways a customer outgrows a pricing tier, and how Brevo handles each oneWhy loyalty points should reward a social post and not only a repeat purchaseWho this is for: retention leads, ecommerce founders, lifecycle marketers, and anyone weighing a move off Klaviyo or Mailchimp.What to steal: pull volume off your primary dashboard and replace it with open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate and revenue per send. Then look at what your platform charges you for and ask whether it is charging for the list or for the work.Timestamps:00:00 Why personalized messaging converts better05:00 How Brevo is using AI agents07:00 Turning mobile wallets into a loyalty channel14:00 Why sending fewer emails can drive better results25:00 Building loyalty through customer advocacySubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouseFollow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

What happens when a CMO brings the discipline of P&G, private equity and fintech together?Vineet Mehra, CMO of Chime, joins Jon to explain how the challenger bank has disrupted one of the most established industries in the world - and why modern marketing leaders need to become more fluent in the language of commercial value.Vineet shares what marketers can learn from private equity, how to position investment with a CFO, and the financial metrics he watches most closely. He also unpacks the constant balancing act between long-term brand building and short-term performance: not treating them as opposing forces, but connecting both to sustainable growth. They also discuss where AI is genuinely creating return, how marketers can avoid becoming commoditised, and the skills CMOs will need as AI reshapes the profession.Timestamps00:00 - Start01:21 - Vineet's background at P&G04:51 - What marketers can learn from working in Private Equity07:50 - What is Chime Bank?09:02 - The strategies that Chime used to disrupt the banking industry13:46 - Advice on how to position marketing to the CFO17:00 - What financial metrics is Vineet most focused on?19:40 - How Vineet combines long term and short term marketing23:59 - Are we in a golden age for marketing?26:59 - How Vineet is getting the biggest return on his AI investment31:13 - How to stop AI commoditising marketers36:09 - What skills will a CMO need in an AI-first future38:58 - How to see AI as an opportunity not a threat40:13 - Why Vineet is on the Effie's board42:15 - Why Vineet spends time building his personal brand on LinkedIn46:00 - What's the bst advice Vineet has ever received? ---Thank you to our sponsors System1 and HubSpotDownload System1's creator effectiveness report here:https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbookFind about more about HubSpot's AEO product here:https://www.hubspot.com/products/aeo

► kostenloses Startgespräch buchen: ⁠⁠⁠https://linkly.link/24kPi⁠⁠⁠ ► Kickscale Extended Free Version: ⁠⁠⁠https://2ly.link/1zdl4⁠⁠Champion, Discovery und Pipeline im Software Sales: Warum die meisten B2B-Deals nicht am Pitch scheitern, sondern an oberflächlicher Discovery, falschen Champions und fehlendem Outbound. Darius Lohmann, ehemaliger Account Executive bei JobTeaser, HubSpot und Cognism und 2025 Nummer-eins-Seller in DACH, zeigt, wie du Pain Level bis zum Business Impact runterfragst und nach der Demo die Kontrolle über den Entscheidungsprozess behältst.► Darius auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darius-lohmann/ So kann ich dir im Sales helfen:zur Software Sales Formula: ⁠⁠https://www.softwaresalesformula.com⁠⁠zum Sales Gym: ⁠⁠https://www.sales-gym.io⁠⁠Timestamps:(0:00) Vom Cold-Call-Anfänger zum #1 Seller in DACH(1:05) Erste Cold Calls: Ablehnung und Know your Numbers(4:20) Happy Ears: Wenn dein Champion kein Champion ist(8:30) Pain Level: Discovery-Fragen aus dem Cognism-Training(13:45) Oberflächliche Discovery: Angst oder fehlende Methodik?(18:40) Kundenzentriert heißt nicht nett: Seller auf Augenhöhe(22:20) Sales as a Service: Darius als externer Account (Executive(26:00) Warum AEs keine Cold Calls mehr machen(34:30) Einwand „Haben wir schon": Die 1-bis-10-Frage(39:15) Ghosting vermeiden: Momentum bis zur Unterschrift(42:45) Deal-Map nach der Demo: Kontrolle behalten(46:50) Es gibt keinen Deal ohne …Infos:⁠⁠jiri@softwaresalesformula.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.softwaresalesformula.com⁠⁠  ⁠⁠https://www.sales.gym.io⁠⁠ 

In this solo episode, Andy Storch shares ten lessons pulled from The Artificial Intelligence Show's new AI Transformations series, which interviews leaders at companies that have gone through real AI transformations — Good Karma Brands, Zapier, HubSpot, and Peapack Private Bank. Andy connects each lesson back to what it means for talent development and L&D professionals specifically, and shares where his own AI Kickstarter and AI leadership work fits into addressing the people side of transformation.In This Episode, You'll Hear:Why AI adoption is an organizational and behavioral challenge, not just a technology one (Dan Slagen, Zapier)Why leadership — not the CIO — has to be the engine of transformation, and how Good Karma Brands' founder and HubSpot's CEO modeled that (Ty Boczek, Good Karma Brands; John Dick, HubSpot)Why individual speed gained from AI doesn't move the business unless the work itself gets redesigned — and how HubSpot's agents now book 10,000 meetings a quarterWhy structure beats enthusiasm: Good Karma's 50-person pilot and seven straight Tuesdays of onboarding, with each cohort teaching the nextWhy AI champion networks matter, including Peapack Bank's 29 embedded champions and Good Karma's full-time innovation specialist roleWhy the "curious generalist" may out-adapt the 20-year workflow veteranHow the bar is moving from using AI to building with it (Zapier's shift to apps, dashboards, and digital twins)Why re-engineering the workflow beats laying AI on top of a broken one — "don't pave the cow path" (Peapack Bank)Why every company in the series measures and publicizes adoption, not just tracks itWhy guardrails are the unlock, not the brake, in a regulated industry (Peapack Bank)Work With Andy:Andy is running AI Kickstarter programs to help organizations address the people side of AI adoption, plus a new AI leadership offering to help leaders build cultures of psychological safety around AI. He's also launching an AI for Career Acceleration program in October — join the waitlist at andystorch.com/ai-for-career-ownership. For corporate AI transformation or adoption workshops, reach out directly.Connect with Andy:Website: andystorch.comEmail: andy@andystorch.comReferenced in this episode:The Artificial Intelligence Show with Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput (Marketing AI Institute / SmarterX) — specifically their new AI Transformations series, featuring Ty Boczek (Good Karma Brands), Dan Slagen (Zapier), John Dick (HubSpot), and John Kowal (Peapack Private Bank)

Today I can share in a meaningful way what is going on in Google. Why all these "Crawled, not indexed" pages??Here's why.There is a split in the pipeline between googlebot and googleother and I break it all down based on the server log studies I run every week.P.S. September 22, 2026 is when we are having a pre-Mastery training that starts on October 7, 2026. Mentioned in the show:Registration is open for the next cohort of the AI Visibility Mastery 12-month course. We are committed to the success of our members.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://vizzex.ai/ai-visibility-mastery/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wordpress registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HubSpot registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry vs Asymmetry Single Variable Test⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPi-J54bow⁠⁠⁠⁠Test #2 - Is passing Symmetry alone without schema sufficient? ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkwfboMpiQ⁠⁠⁠⁠Last week's episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.confessionsofanseo.com/podcast/the-short-term-memory-issue-and-how-it-will-impact-digital-marketing/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry Gate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - check the "cost" of your content for AI models to extract informationSubscribe to Confessions of an SEO™ wherever you get your podcasts. Your subscribing and download sends the message that you appreciate what is being shared and helping others find Confessions of an SEO™An easy place to leave a review ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find me on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carolyn Holzman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠American Way Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Directly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AmericanWayMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Consulting AgencyNeed Help With an Issue? - reach out Text me here - 512-222-3132Music from Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/doug-organ/fugue-stateLicense code: HESHAZ4ZOAUMWTUA

The following article of the AI Cloud & Data industry is: “2026: The Year When Data Will Redefine the Value of Sales” by Shelley Pursell, Director of Marketing for Latam and Iberia, Hubspot. (AA2619)

Connection rates have dropped roughly five times since before COVID.If ten percent of your calls used to turn into a conversation, you're probably closer to two now.David Zeff, CEO of Whistle, runs an agency that makes cold outreach work for 350-plus B2B clients, and he broke down exactly what's changed, what hasn't, and the parts of outbound most people are too embarrassed to actually do.Why Connection Rates Have Collapsed Since COVIDDavid's headline stat: connection rates have dropped roughly five times since the early 2010s. If a rep used to get a conversation on ten percent of calls, that number is closer to two percent now.That drops compounds. Fewer conversations means fewer meetings booked from the same amount of effort, cutting a rep's effective output roughly in half even before factoring anything else in.He points out that most investors and boards setting revenue benchmarks don't actually understand how much this single number has shifted, which means the targets built on top of it are often unrealistic from the start.The Four Things Whistle Screens For Before Taking a ClientWhistle turns away clients the way a lawyer might turn down a case they can't win. David treats a signed client as the start of the real work, not the finish line.First: does the founder actually know their ICP? If they're still deciding between multiple very different buyer types, that's a major warning sign.Second: is the total addressable market big enough to support a real sales motion, since a market of a few hundred accounts with multi-year sales cycles isn't a fit for most outbound efforts.Third and fourth: is there real marketing support behind the sales effort, and does the product have any real moat, since neither one used to be a dealbreaker a decade ago the way they are now.The New Risk: Can Your Prospect Just Build It Themselves?David's newest red flag: prospects increasingly ask themselves whether they could just build a simple version of the product using AI tools instead of buying it.His own team has looked at some clients' products recently and had the same reaction: this looks like something built quickly with AI, which means the prospect is likely to think the same thing.Sellers need a clear, early answer to that question, since it's showing up at the very top of the funnel now, not just at the negotiation stage.Why Cold Email Copy Isn't the Real StoryProspects often ask David to see a sample of Whistle's email copy, expecting the wording itself to explain the results.His answer is always the same: seeing the email is like seeing the cheese and asking how that made the pizza. The copy alone leaves out everything that actually got the message opened and read in the first place.Highly personalized details, like referencing someone's favorite sports team, used to work well on their own. David is direct that this stopped being enough years ago, even though it still gets attention on LinkedIn as a screenshot-worthy tactic.Stop Separating the Brand From the PeopleDavid points to Gong as the company that got this right early: during the shift to remote work, they made individual employees visible instead of hiding behind the company logo, including putting reps on billboards.B2C brands have leaned on individual personalities for a long time. B2B is only catching up to that now, and companies that keep everything behind a logo are giving up a real advantage.Donald shared a reference point from a past guest at Chili Piper, who said roughly half the deals in their pipeline had some connection to her personal LinkedIn activity, not because she was directly involved in every deal, but because buyers had engaged with her content somewhere along the way.Build Community Before You Need ItDavid's third layer, beyond the basics and personal branding: building some form of community or network around your business, even a small one.A simple example from one of his own clients: a marketing VP asked if Whistle could bring their clients together to trade notes, which turned into a referral network of consultants and adjacent service providers.It doesn't have to be a massive branded community. Even something as basic as a small referral relationship, a shared cause you donate to together, or a network of people adjacent to your buyer who can talk about your space, counts and compounds over time.The Free Tactic Nobody Will Actually DoDavid's final, deceptively simple tip: export your personal contacts from WhatsApp or your phone, write one honest message explaining what you do and asking for a referral, and send it to twenty people a day.His prediction is that most people won't actually do this, precisely because it's free, easy, and has no clever trick to hide behind if it doesn't work.He's currently running an open deal that came directly from this exact method, reaching out to a personal contact who referred him to someone else who's now moving through the sales process."We're in sales. You're always desperate. That's the job." — David ZeffResourcesConnect with David Zeff on LinkedIn.Visit Whistle to learn more about their outsourced sales development services.Join our LinkedIn cohort and learn to prospect the right way.Visit Blue Mango Studios for help creating podcast production content.Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

You are one of forty partners on your platform, and every website, every LinkedIn profile, and every pitch says the same three lines: Salesforce implementation, Zoho work, Monday builds, HubSpot onboarding. In this episode, I break down the WHO decision that separates the partner who owns a vertical from the forty who blend into the directory. I share how one Monday partner became the only name listed under nonprofits, then did the part almost nobody does: she rewrote the product's own language for that buyer, renaming the CRM as a DRM so donors, donations, and households replaced leads, opportunities, and pipeline. Sales slowed while she made the pivot and two verticals stopped feeding her, but she held the line, and now the platform sends her the nonprofit deals. If you are tired of competing against partners who sound exactly like you, this one shows you the two moves that let the right buyer find you first.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 703 - You Can Beat Them At Everything And Still LoseCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Sometimes the best way to close more deals isn't by adding new people to your pipeline (though that's always a good thing.) Instead, the best thing is to address the issues that make a deal fail before they fail.In today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, I joined the CEO of Challenger, Andee Harris, to get her take on failed deals and how to address those issues directly with our prospects.Challenger is a sales training company:The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson explains many of the principles Challenger uses in their training.Early sellers might be timid, which usually leads to a failure to recognize when a deal isn't moving in the right direction.In Andee's experience, continuous feedback is a great way to course-correct throughout the sales process to tailor the experience and selling strategy to the specific prospect.Passive selling isn't the best form of selling for either party. Taking control of the purchase and helping the buyer buy the product is your job.Three ways to notify deals before they go south:Integrate an avenue for continuous feedback. If a buyer likes you as a sales rep, they'll want to share methods to improve their experience.Realize that one size doesn't fit all. What works for one client might not work for another.Constantly be learning. Be curious, and look to understand and be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses.Andee's final takeaway? Understand that we're in a complex selling environment. Multiple factors influence the selling process, but it isn't impossible to create wins and do phenomenally well. To get in touch with Andee, visit challengerinc.com or connect with Andee on LinkedIn.Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Joe and Robert kick off the show with a look at the coming explosion of video creators and what happens when AI makes video creation essentially unlimited. Then they dig into OpenAI's new Astra model, the debate over whether we've reached AGI, and the uncomfortable timing of Anthropic insiders warning that increasingly powerful AI could pose an existential risk. Finally, it's prediction time. Joe and Robert make their 2026 NFL picks and pit their football knowledge against OpenAI and Claude. Who wins the Super Bowl? Who completely embarrasses themselves? We'll find out. Articles from the show: Billion New Video Creators Coming Soon OpenAI GPT-6 Astra Review: Shockingly Good Anthropic Insiders Warn AI Could Kill All Humans Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor:Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

D.V. Williams, Chief People Officer from Match Group joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why Match is betting on Gen Z talent, how skills are replacing titles as the new currency of work, and how Match is thinking about flexible mentorship and early-career programs.----  Sponsor Links:

Most distributors are using CRM wrong — and many don't even know it.In this episode, Karthik Chidambaram sits down with Kevin Brown, CEO of LeadSmart Technologies, to talk about why traditional CRM for Distributors has failed them, and what a smarter approach looks like. Kevin breaks down the four customer journeys every distributor needs to unify — ERP data, marketing, e-commerce, and interpersonal data — and explains how bringing them together into a single platform is where the real revenue opportunity lives.They also cover why industry-specific CRM outperforms off-the-shelf solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot for distributors, how AI-powered smart alerts are replacing manual data entry, and what it actually means to give salespeople more out of a system than they put in.Plus, Kevin shares the story behind his own podcast, “Around the Horn” in Wholesale Distribution & Manufacturing, which is approaching its 200th consecutive weekly episode.

This DAT podcast episode is a fan favorite! Danny with Swell is on the pod! In this episode, Kiera chats with Danny about Google reviews, Google reviews, Google reviews — a very necessary part of having a practice. Danny shares what practices can do to get their name out in front of potential patients; what not to say in your review responses; why bad reviews are actually good; how to get patients to leave the best kind of review; and a ton more! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time. on the Dental A Team podcast. speaker-0 (00:32) and you guys, I am so pumped for today's podcast. I have one of my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite companies. I met them when they very first started. We were just starting, so I think we kind of have a little like duo friendship that way. But these people are amazing. And if you aren't utilizing them, if you haven't figured out how to boost your Google reviews, you are in for the best treat. So I'm so pumped to bring on Danny. Danny works with Swell. If you guys haven't heard about Swell, You need to. because in my opinion, the reason they're the best is because they do it so well. That's how I remember swell. they're just the best at getting Google reviews and I'm excited. Danny's got some cool things to kind of help practices, even if you are utilizing swell, even boost those Google reviews more. So Danny, welcome to the show. How are you today? speaker-1 (01:14) Thank you kindly. I'm doing well, just here in snowy Utah, living the dream. speaker-0 (01:19) I love it. I love it. We actually pre-show connected on the fact that Danny may have gone to school with my husband. So we're waiting till post show to see if they know each other. I feel like it's like who's behind the door? My husband wasn't free. but it's kind of fun that you're in Utah. But Danny, kind of for those who don't know about Swell, Zeke and I I literally remember being in an office. I was in Alabama consulting a practice and they needed help with Google reviews. So I looked up, I had been told About swell. I was on a flight and somebody had mentioned swell. And so, and you guys were like early, early, early on. I was early on in my career and I remember I like just picked up the phone. This is when you guys used to not have a great branding. It was like a well. And I'm like, I don't understand what this is about. And I called and Zeke answered and I said, Hey, I'm Kiera Dent with the Dental A Team. I heard you guys are great. I want to utilize you in a practice and see if you're good. What do I need to do? And that's honestly how Zeke and I got connected. And Zeke has just been awesome. and the practices that I put you guys in, no joke, I think the best one the worst one did thirty Google reviews in one month. The best one did eighty five Google reviews in one month. And so it was super fun for me to have immediate social proof and great testimonial. And since then, Zeke has told me many times, Kiera, any event you go to, please tell me we will be there because you're a little walking advertisement for us, which I am because you guys do it so well. So that's kind of how I met you guys, how I got introduced. But kinda tell us like what the scope of swell is and how you guys even got started. speaker-1 (02:50) Yeah, so Swell actually kind of fell backward into dentistry, initially was hoping to help small pharmacy groups survive against the big boys, but then stumbled into dentistry and realized that there was a great fit in that a there were many systems that were currently attempting to help practices get reviews. A lot of them was just the five digit short code. less branded or personalized messages just with a link and then a few different steps that they had to do in order to leave a review. But Swell just said, well, we need to make it super easy, super convenient, and with as few steps as possible for patients to leave a review. So went out and integrated with all of the practice management softwares, stayed hyper focused on driving the most reviews possible for practices. And really swell as we know it today with without the whale that you're talking about, new branding. We think we're a little bit sexier and agree. And you know, our our design and and the aesthetic of our product, our branding, all of that is really great. But most importantly, we're just super effective at getting practices, reviews to the sites that matter, mostly Google and then Facebook, Healthgrades, other sites as well. Totally. yeah, that's that's swell in a nutshell. Primarily we know reviews are the tip of the spear, but then Swell built a little bit out and said, hey, reviews help you stand out online, but then you need to connect conveniently and convert these patients. And so we've built out some tools like web chat and and different things after the fact, but it all starts with the reviews. speaker-0 (04:27) For sure. And I will say, I am a swell, we have been a swell user. So swell, up until we joined with HubSpot, we've actually utilized Swell's chat on our website and it was awesome. We loved it. It was so easy and it actually started building so much traction. And literally the only reason we don't have swell on ours is because HubSpot integrates and it just pulls all the information. But guys, if I didn't have HubSpot, I would still be Wispwell. You guys were fantastic. You helped with our Google reviews. We still utilize you guys for Google reviews. but kind of like so offices, obviously. I hope if you don't know, we are in 2022. You've got to have a presence on Google. Like, no ifs, ands, or buts. Everybody finds you on the website. That is to me your website, and being on Google is your resume to the world. And if it's not there, you're not going to be found these days unless you are attracting a different clientele than the current millennials, Gen X, Gen Z. Whome coming in, like that's what they're looking for. So, Danny, kind of walk us through. You were telling me some crazy cool algorithms. I also love that you guys have always only been with Google because I was never a huge fan of some other platforms. and so I love that you guys have just stayed primarily, primarily Google because Google doesn't take away reviews unlike some other platforms. but kind of just tell us some of the algorithms you guys have come up with because you guys, that's honestly why I think you do it so well, is because you've stayed very niche, you've stayed very focused. And you guys crank Google reviews. So kind of just walk us through some of the things you guys do differently that practices can do to increase those Google reviews. speaker-1 (05:58) Yeah. Well, just I think one thing that's really important for practices to understand is that Google reviews to the Google My Business page affect local and broader searches. So, like you were saying, Kiera, it all starts with an online search. Dentist near me, affordable dentist, cosmetic dentists, all on for, whatever the case. And if practices aren't showing up in that initial Google search, it's referred to as the Map Pack. then They're being overlooked and potentially missing out on a patient that could have searched them online through social proof, read through very positive reviews, and said, Great, this'll do. I'll I'll make an appointment. so Google is tracking several different things. one is the location of the searcher, that's pretty intuitive. It's just how far away is the business from where that patient is searching. there's proximity, and then there's something that's called authority. So that's how well. Are they known online? Are they do they have SEO? Is their website getting lots of hits? this is less important for the review side. but the two important things that we like to focus on is number one, Google is constantly tracking the star rating of the practice and then the frequency or the recency that they're receiving reviews to the Google My Business page. So Essentially, we think that if you can raise your star rating or maintain a high rating and have fresh recent reviews coming to the page with responses as well, because responses are factored into that freshness or recency, those pages are more, excuse me, those practices are more likely to show up front and center when a patient within proximity searches for a dentist or or anything of that nature, they'll they'll pop up. One other thing you and I spoke about were the keywords. This is something that practices. Those of you who are already using Swell, I want you to listen closely because this is a great way to increase in terms of keywords and boost your chances of being front and center on Google. If a patient, when when you're sending out your review request, you could actually in the verbiage say, please describe your experience with us. Now the patient is able to say whatever they want based on HIPAA. They can say, I went in. To Dr. Lenary, I got an implant, an all-on-forecase, you know, they they changed my life. And then when I respond to that as the practice, I know I can't say the patient's name or or anything tying specifically to their actual appointment, but I can say we love to do all on four cases, we love to place implants, we love to do veneers, we love Invisalign and those keywords. So that will be the patient saying it. And the practice saying it and those keywords, those are that's a big deal with Google and their rankings as far as the current algorithm goes. And so that's something I'm always telling practices to do is ask patients to be as descriptive as possible. And then within HIPAA, you can't, you know, you have to walk a fine line, but you can say, we love placing implants, we love doing Invisalign. And now when patients are searching Invisalign Dentists or All On Four or Implant Dentists near me. they're they're much more likely to be ranking higher than other practices who are just saying, thanks for your review, or the patient just said, love the practice, would will come back for life. They can use those keywords to start ranking much higher now as Google has factored that in. speaker-0 (09:28) Interesting. So Danny, you talked about this a lot and I actually don't know. So I'm gonna ask you since you're the guru on it, when people do respond, because I do have a lot of practices who don't respond. So that was really helpful to hear that that keeps you more relevant. Also, podcast listeners, this is why I'm telling you guys to please go leave us go like reviews on the podcast because just like Danny said, yes, we have quite a few reviews from you guys. Thank you, but we have to stay relevant. So if we're not getting reviews every single month. The podcast doesn't actually stay as relevant. It's not ranked as high. So, guys, if you haven't left Dental A Team a five-star review, because hello, he just said reviews and star statuses. So it's the same thing within the podcast world as well. So, guys, that's why I'm always asking, like, please, if you haven't done so, because it makes our podcast relevant. Same thing with your practices. So that's how you can help the Dental A Team out that gives so much value to you. And also what you guys can do for your practices. Unfortunately for me on the podcast, I can't actually respond to any of the reviews. The way they have it set up, you can't respond to podcast reviews. but Danny, when you talked about responding on the Google reviews for your practice, it does keep you relevant, but you also mentioned HIPAA. So what are some of the things not to do on those reviews so people can remain HIPAA compliant on their review responses? speaker-1 (10:41) Yeah, well and I I I have to say that in terms of HIPAA compliance, this is something that I don't know all the ins and outs. speaker-0 (10:50) Agreed. So go check with your coup your HR people guys. So we'll tell you like the basics, but go confirm this is correct. speaker-1 (10:57) Yeah, for sure. It really just comes down to acknowledging a patient in the practice. You know, you you can't say, we loved placing for you, or we love having you as a patient in the practice. it's it needs to be a little bit more generic, like, thank you so much for that feedback. We love, we always strive to deliver a wonderful experience and we love placing implants as opposed to. Thank you for being our patient. And we loved placing that implant, and the results have been phenomenal. follow up with us if there's any problems. You know, it it's really just it's basically taking it a layer removed and just being a little bit more general in terms of you can say the services that you like to offer, the experience that you like to provide, but you can't actually make it so that. The public knows that that patient is a patient of record and that you treated X, Y, and Z in their mouth. speaker-0 (12:01) Got it. So can can you do one, not the other? You can there's no way you can say that this patient, like, thank you so much for coming in. We love you as a patient. That's like a hard pass no, because it'd be acknowledging that that patient's coming to your practice. Is that correct? speaker-1 (12:15) That is my understanding. Yeah, that people have gotten in trouble or practices have gotten in trouble by being, you know, just trying to be personal, but they were a little too personal and there are certain things that you can't acknowledge through the the Google response. speaker-0 (12:31) Sure. Which makes sense. So I think like guys just err on the side of safety. But what Danny was saying is like thank you so much for this feedback. We absolutely love treating every patient with the greatest experience possible. Like those things you can say. And if they do talk about a service that you did, it sounds like Danny, what you're trying to say on this with the keywords is to reemphasize basically the exact same thing that they said with that keyword. So implants, new patient experience, sleep apnea, ortho, Anything like that, because I'm trying to think of what people would be would be searching or those keywords that would be coming up. But be clever and creative on those responses to capitalize on what they said and then what you're responding back with to get a double. It sounds like it's like a two for one deal. Like they gave you the review. You can actually maximize those keywords with your response. Is that correct? speaker-1 (13:19) Yeah, absolutely. And once again, just encouraging those descriptive responses. I've had practices and and even close dental friends that have come to me and said, How can we avoid people just going and leaving us a five star and not saying anything? And I just say, Ask, you know, make it clear in your text message that should be highly personalized to begin with, because Swell is sending a branded it's either the logo, it's a photo of your team. It's it's even we can even scrape the schedule of the provider, the operatory. And if there were 30 hygiene appointments, four extractions, and three implants, we can take every individual provider and intuitively swap in a photo of the person that they met with. Clever. Calling them by name, the the provider by name. And then in that text request, you could say, please click the link, take the 30 seconds to leave us feedback, be as descriptive as possible, as this helps. the general public know about our practice and this is how we gain new patients. You know, that's not necessarily an invite that you're going to send, but you can find a way to craft a message like that and people will start leaving you a lot of feedback and then you can mirror those responses. Or even if they're not being descriptive about specific procedures, you could find a way to thread that in. Experience certain procedures, Invisalign implants all on four. I mean Lots of practices really harp on this and and they're ranking higher and seeing a lot of new patient influx because of it. speaker-0 (14:48) Is so brilliant, Danny. And I hope offices are listening to this because to me, I feel like that text message you send out to your patients is the bait you're sending out. And if they're not giving you back what you want, change it up. Like try different things. Danny, is there a way? Like my marketing brain's clicking on me. Can you A B test different responses? Or would I just have to try like one month of this type of a text the next month with another type of text verbiage to try and A B test which one will give me better response rates? speaker-1 (15:17) Yeah, well that's that's a great question. So we actually that's absolutely possible through Swell. we actually keep the click data on every individual template. So how many sends, how many clicks, how many opens, how many responses. So essentially, like you're saying, and it's not always you just plug this in and it's it's magic, but we we love that to be the case. But if not, the fine-tuning is absolutely there because we have the click data on every individual response. We can track these reviews all the way from invite sent to landed on Google because of our integration with Google. So we we can really give them some intel in terms of what photos, what logo, what verbiage, when to send it, all of all of the which sites are performing the best. It's it's all there in the swell dash. Cool. speaker-0 (16:06) And then and guys I think it's to me I feel like somebody listening to this, you're probably one of two people. One's like, Wow, that's way too much information, I'm not going to do that. The other person's like, That's so cool, I'm totally going to do this And what I would hope is like swell is insanely affordable. Like so ridiculously inexpensive, especially Dental A Team like Guys, Zeke and I got together at the beginning of this whole thing. So you better believe he has taken care of Dental A Team clients and still continues to do so. So anytime Dental A Team people come through, guys, you are taking care of with white glove and you get the like, I don't think there's any other company that gets as low of pricing as we do. And Zeke has been so amazing to maintain that. So guys, like definitely say you heard from on the podcast. But what I think is so cool is like to me, that marketing budget is so inexpensive for it. And we get so many Google reviews for it. And if you'll get your team and you'll change up just these text message responses and to see what response you get back. So I guess the text message verbiage to see the responses coming in. To me, I feel like it's almost like almost not quite there, free new patient marketing. Like it's very expensive to bring on a new patient. But if like you were saying, you can rank higher in Google, you can capitalize on those keywords, you can get more people to respond, more people are going to find you. just by Google searching. So to me, I feel like this would be a high priority project that I would definitely try and work on over the next couple of months to see if I can get our rankings to come higher. Again, it's not like an immediate instantaneous thing. It will take a little bit of time to grow in those rankings. But gosh, Danny, I heard from somebody and I'm not going to quote it because I could be totally off, but do you guys kind of have an average of based on the number of patients you see on average, how many Google reviews you guys tend to see? with that information, just so people can kind of see if they did utilize swell, how many average reviews they should be getting per month based on the patient numbers they see. speaker-1 (17:57) Yeah, well, just like you said with two the two example practices, you put this in one was 30 and one was 80. So funny enough, we we do think that based on all of the accounts that we've activated, that around 30 percent of the active patient base that they're seeing, which is usually trumping whatever they have going on. but then on the high end, you know, like I've got a friend in Dallas, Chad Duplanus. I I think you know Chad Duplanus, I'm not sure. but we plug, I I searched Chad on Google last year and he had 10 reviews on his Google My Business page. And I was like, Chad, people know you all over the country in dentistry. You're you're a speaker well renowned. I'm sure the experience in your practice is great. What's going on? He had a system. Funny enough, it was a company that I used to be with that was soliciting his reviews. And I said, do me a favor, plug in swell and Now, after a year of using us, he's over 450 on Google. I mean, it it was he was texting me on the weekend saying, I got seven, seven, five star reviews last night. High five, you know, and he's responding to all of them personally through our mobile app. So obviously, in his case, it it's a much larger percentage, but we typically think that we can we can convert around 30 percent of their active patient base if they're seeing. You know, it doesn't matter the number of patients. If they have a patient flow, we can take a certain percentage and convert those into online reviews, which will lead to new patients and just higher rankings. speaker-0 (19:32) It's so cool. Because at the end of the day, like what's so cool about this is guys, like, again, I see this as like, I don't know. I'm I must be really lazy, guys. I'm a Taurus, like by nature, I'm more of a lazy individual, I think. but I I prefer the term efficient. To me, I'm like, okay, if I exert just a little bit of effort on these Google reviews, utilize a great software, I can get so many more new patients in easier than having to build newsletters and flyers and social media campaigns, like that stuff takes freaking work. Yet alone, like I could literally implement swell, change up my text message and send it out to my patients and then check the data that's coming back to me and respond to these reviews. Like to me, that I guess this is just like my ROI on my time. How much how much ROI will I get for it like I to me, honestly, I've I've done swell, I've worked in practices. I'm talking less than an hour a month. Like it takes no time to respond to these reviews. It's so easy to do. You guys have such a great software for it that I'm like, okay, so I do an hour of input of time and I'm getting so many new patients back from it. Why would I not want to exert my time there? Even if I was at five hours a month, to me, that's way like I have done social media campaigns. That sucker takes me a good like solid five hours minimum to just like write posts for can like social media posts and then you've got to do your story and then you've got to respond to people and those people don't always convert. So just thinking of like ROI on time, I feel like it's a no brainer for practices to do it. So I am curious because I know I hear this a lot with Swell, and I want to know your guys' take on it. Some people have told me, Kiera, I'm nervous to use Swell because they don't let me filter the reviews that come through. They won't let me. So if I have a patient who's bad, they're gonna post about me and there's no way for me to control it. Whereas other review softwares will allow me to control those reviews coming through. So Danny. Please like respond. I you guys get this, I'm sure, for lots of people. I think it's great that you don't let them filter them because one, I think it forces the practice to actually be a great practice because you should always have a five star experience. But what's your what's your response to that as to like being able to filter the reviews? speaker-1 (21:41) Well, so the first response is that that is actually to stay in alignment with Google, number one, in that you cannot gate reviews. If you gate reviews, meaning if you're saying, how was your experience one to five? And then they go four and five-star reviews are then asked to leave a review, and one, two, and three-star responses are then taken for internal feedback. If Google finds out about that, they flag that and they pull those down. Because Google is trying to have the most authentic real experience or a real depiction of the practice. But then to, you know, if we have notoriously grumpy patients, we've actually made a great effort to make sure that it's simple and easy for practices to avoid even sending that patient a request. So with three different practice management softwares, Dentrix, EagleSoft, and Open Dental, you can write pound DND, do not disturb, into the chart notes for that patient, and it will not. When we sync with the software, it won't send that patient a response. Or because we're syncing with all of the practice management data, you can go through and and see all of your patients in a list form and just click a simple box that says block and they won't receive a review request. So we know that there are individuals who will gripe, but really even one of our other comments to this is that negative reviews are not the end of the world. Agreed. It's one, they come in, you're notified through SWEL in real time, you respond to that review. Once again, with HIPAA, don't get into an online argument, but just say, so sorry, there's a misunderstanding. Thank you for your feedback. We'll reach out to you privately. Now the general public, we have to remember we're not these reviews aren't for the practice. They're for the public to get an idea of what it's like to do business with the practice. So when they see a negative review or response from the owner, it was handled well. That can actually turn into a plus, but then they don't need to really worry about that because with the freshness and the re frequency that reviews are coming in, that negative review will be buried in no time. speaker-0 (23:48) For sure. And I think like to your point, I've actually had a lot of luckily I haven't had a lot of them. So I should like quantify this. but when I have had negative reviews, I have contacted those patients. I call them. I don't respond. Some people are afraid to call them. Guys, even in the Dental A Team, I had somebody give us some negative feedback. I was so freaking thankful for I called those people and I like wanted to hug them and high five them and I told them thank you so much. two of them became clients. So it's crazy that you can like That is the best feedback. And also, like you said, Danny, guys, if you're getting negative reviews, please do an internal check on your practice. Like I think that that is one of the best things that could ever happen to you because it can show you where your systems are low, where your patient experience is low, maybe where your dentistry needs to be improved. Like please thank those people. I I think a good life-changing book for me was Raving Fans. And it talked about like the worst thing that can ever happen to a business is for that customer not to give you feedback. Because if they don't give you feedback, they have no confidence that you will ever change. If they are willing to complain to you, tell you how you can improve, they have trust and confidence in you that something can be done to make this better, which is why they're willing to be vulnerable and share. So yes, the five stars feed our dopamine ego and they want us to be great. But gosh, those like one and two stars, please, please utilize a software that allows them to come through. Please, like allow your practice to get better because I think it's so hard in today's day and age. To actually get honest feedback, to find out how we can improve. So that's why I'm always pro. I'm like, no, I love that swell doesn't let you sift through and only choose the positives. Cause one, it's false and you're having a false impression of your practice. And two, you're not able to give yourself an opportunity to be better. When your neck is on the line and you know every person that's can leave you a review is going to, yes, of course, there's a few people that no matter what you do will never be happy. So please don't send them a review link, like save yourself that headache. But like when every single patient you know could get a review link, you actually are gonna act as a a more elite practice. You'll raise the standards of you'll raise the standards of your whole practice and you're going to raise the experience as well. So I think like I love that you guys do that. I'm such a huge proponent of what you guys do. I love that you gave some tips of how they can utilize those keywords in their responses. So Danny, I've just like been the biggest fan of you guys. Not only are you amazing with your technology, you've stayed niche. I told Danny pre-show, I'm like, I'm so glad you stayed niche because some companies are awesome and they take off and they're great at the beginning and then they go downhill when they become bigger and more popular. And swell has not, you guys have stayed consistent, you've maintained and you've only branched out in areas where you genuinely are making a bigger impact versus like trying to detour. So I love that about you. So Danny, if people are interested, they want to boost those Google reviews, try you guys out. I love that you're month to month as well. How can they connect with you? What's the best way for them to get swell in their practice? speaker-1 (26:45) Well, I believe given our relationship with Dental A Team, we have a link that will go out in the show notes. so they're we'd love to have you click and take 10, 15, 20 minutes. It's you know, it's not a long-winded demo. We think that seeing is believing. Let us show you how we differ from other systems. We're not trying to rip and replace other other systems in your practice, but we're a hyper focused bolt-on that plays nicely with others. We sit side by side. So click the link, or you can go to Sales@SwellCx.com. Excuse me, send an email to Sales@SwellCx.com, or you can visit our website, SwellCx.com. But the most important thing, like Kiera said, she's she's been with Swell from the beginning, and the pricing really is phenomenal for Dental A Team members and podcast listeners. So make sure to mention Kiera, Dental A Team, and we will take care of you with the discount. And they can also reach out to me personally if they want. I won't necessarily do the demo, but I can put you in touch. Danny Danny@SwellCx.com. I'd love to hear from you and get you in touch with our team. speaker-0 (27:56) Cool. I love it. And guys, I'm not kidding. Like when we say like this pricing doesn't exist at all anymore. And Zeke has been so awesome to just like maintain the relationship he and I set up. I think we're like pushing almost three, four years in a relationship together. So I just adore Swell. Danny, I appreciate you so much. You guys are fantastic. You're gonna be at our Dental A Team Summit. I'm excited for you guys to be there. Literally, I feel like Swell and Dental A Team were a good peanut butter jelly, and we like duo around the world together because I think what you guys do is just awesome. I love who you guys are as a company. I love what you guys stand for. And I love that you get results. I'm all about results. Like any person I work with, I want them to ensure results. So guys, just try it out. Even if you're with a review company, like test it out, see. I like to compare and they're month to month. So you could try it with some of your patients going through swell, some of your patients going through another one and just see. But at the end of the day, I don't care what you do, who you use, two things I hope you take away from this is one. Boost those Google reviews because it's the easiest way and the way of the future for you to be noticed and seen. And number two, make sure your practice is truly five star worthy. I think that's the biggest takeaway I have from today. So Danny, thank you for being on here. Thanks for being part of Swell. Super appreciate you guys and all that you do. speaker-1 (29:07) Yeah. Well, thanks so much. We love you and the team and look forward to the summit here shortly. Kiera Dent (29:11) I hope you all loved today's episode as much as I did. It is crazy to think that this many episodes have been released since we started the Dental A Team Podcast. And I started looking to say, my goodness, our listeners need to be reminded of some of the things they may have learned a year ago or two years ago or five years ago, because so many things in our practices weren't relevant back then when we heard them, but they are relevant today. And I would be doing you a huge disservice if I didn't re-release some of these episodes for you to remember, to refine. to optimize and really truly if you ever need a topic or you're like, my gosh, I wonder if the Dental A Team has anything like this, go onto our website, TheDentalATeam.com, click on our podcast tab and you can literally search any topic. So whether it's overhead or hiring or firing or team morale or engagement or case acceptance or hygiene or associate onboarding or whatever it is, we have so many episodes for you. And so I am going to intentionally be re-releasing some of the top best episodes for you, pulling back some of the ones that I needed to remember, some of the things that I feel for you to really, really relearn right now and to re-remember, or if it's the first time, welcome. I'm so happy you're listening to it, but I hope you truly enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you share this with somebody. I hope that you go and implement today because we only have one day. We only get today. And so making today the best that it possibly can be. If we can help you in any way, shape or form, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Kicking Off Year 10 In IT services, everyone says the same thing. We’ll handle your tech. We’ll keep you safe. We’ll be there when you need us. So how do you build a brand that actually means something when your product is invisible and your buyer never wants to think about you? We’re kicking off Year 10 of He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ with exactly that question. Ten years in, we’re still asking the same core thing this podcast has always been built on – what makes a brand actually work – and Loree Faucett gives us one of the sharpest answers we’ve heard in a while. In this episode, Jaci and Michael sit down with Loree, VP of Marketing at ITS (Intelligent Technical Solutions), a national managed IT and cybersecurity services provider. Loree came up through Apple and HubSpot, has marketed everything from interior design to oil and gas software to winches, and now leads a 13-person global team navigating one of the most crowded, undifferentiated industries in B2B. They get into what it looks like to walk into a company as a regime change – replacing a founder-led marketing function without breaking what’s already working. Loree talks about building regional presence for a national brand, why trust and referrals are beating digital campaigns right now, and how LLM-driven search is changing the way qualified buyers show up – and why you can’t always see them coming. If you’re a B2B marketer trying to differentiate a service nobody wants to think about, make the case for human-led creative in an AI-first world, or lead through organizational change without losing your team – this one’s for you. And if you’ve been with us since year one, thank you for ten years of conversations – here’s to the next one.

AI is rapidly changing how people search, shop and discover new brands. So what does that mean for marketers?Sophie Neary has spent the past few years inside Google, giving her a front-row seat to some of the biggest shifts in consumer behaviour and advertising. In this episode, she joins Jon to explore what she's learned, the assumptions marketers still get wrong about Google, and the surprising ways consumers are already using AI.They discuss how brands can show up in AI-powered search, the evolving relationship between advertisers and creators, how to make the most of the crucial golden quarter, and what AI commerce could mean for the future of shopping.Plus, as AI becomes capable of doing more of the work, Sophie and Jon ask a bigger question: which uniquely human skills will become even more valuable to marketers?This episode is an advertisement feature brought to you by Google.Timestamps00:00 - Start01:12 - What has Sophie learned in the past few years at Google?03:07 - CMO lessons from being inside Google05:11 - What assumption marketers have about Google would Sophie challenge08:07 - A surprising consumer pattern with AI11:17 - How brands can show up in AI searches18:56 - How advertisers can collaborate with creators?22:09 - How Sophie uses her Google Fitbit Air24:18 - How to optimise the golden quarter28:08 - How important will AI commerce be in the future?30:36 - get them to check this section34:01 - The most uncensored question for Sophie Neary37:44 - Where will human skills count in the age of AI?45:26 - The best advice Sophie has ever been given ---Thank you to our sponsors System1 and HubSpotDownload System1's creator effectiveness report here:https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbookFind about more about HubSpot's AEO product here:https://www.hubspot.com/products/aeo

Mike Kaput, Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute, joins Greg Kihlström to unpack the gap between an AI pilot that demos well and an AI capability the enterprise can actually run on."AI strategy" describes very different things at different companies. Kaput on what he finds underneath the phrase once you start asking what the systems actually do, and who is accountable when they do it wrong.The pilot-to-production gap is an operating problem, not a technology one. What changes about marketing operations, decision ownership, and oversight when execution moves to machines and the team's job shifts toward judgment.Hours saved is not a business case. How more mature organizations connect AI work to outcomes a CFO recognizes — and how a marketing leader spots a brand becoming faster and less consistent at the same time.About Mike KaputMike Kaput is a recognized expert on marketing, content, and artificial intelligence. He is also a writer, speaker, and author. Mike currently serves as Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute, where he uses marketing, content, and AI to grow traffic, leads, and revenue. Mike previously served in a marketing leadership role at HubSpot's first-ever partner agency.Mike Kaput on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekaput/---------- Resources ----------: marketingaiinstitute.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fEnjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Christy Lake, Chief Administrative Officer at Twilio, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how AI is changing work, why skills, governance, and human judgment matter more than ever, and how Twilio is thinking about remote-first work, employee experience, and curiosity in the AI era.----  Sponsor Links:

William McKee didn't set out to become an entrepreneur. His path moved through engineering, technology, philosophy, travel, teaching, and eventually into building Knowmad Digital Marketing. In this episode of Anything But Typical, William McKee joins Gary Frey and Ben to share how curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to keep evolving helped shape both his life and his business. The conversation explores William's early exposure to technology, the unconventional journey that led him into entrepreneurship, and what it has taken to keep Knowmad relevant through decades of change. From the early days of the internet to SEO, digital marketing, and now AI, William explains why staying curious has become one of his greatest advantages. He also opens up about the realities of business growth, including costly pivots, finding the right support system, working alongside another visionary, building stronger processes, and learning when to step back and let the team operate in their strengths.   Resources Mentioned Knowmad Digital Marketing, EO Accelerator, HubSpot, Marketing AI Institute / SmarterX, Charlotte Business Exchange, and EOS. Connect With William McKee Learn more about Knowmad Digital Marketing at www.knowmad.com. You can also find William McKee on LinkedIn by searching for William McKee in Charlotte. About Anything But Typical Anything But Typical shares real stories from entrepreneurs—not just the wins. Subscribe and share for more conversations about entrepreneurship, leadership, growth, and everything that happens along the way.

Hey CX Nation,In this week's CXWeekly Update episode I walk through some ideas, goals & CTAs that me & the team at CXC have been focused on.Full candor, we're in a full blown sales sprint to the end of the year to close 2026 with a bang & tee up the best year yet in 2027.We're also working on a ton of new customer focused business content -- including my 2nd book "Make Happiness A Habit" that we are launching in the New Year. Don't worry we have a ton of amazing guest interviews coming down the pipeline over the next couple of weeks.Part of our goal at CXC is to create some of the best customer focused business leader content, including short episodes like these CXWeekly updates that are digestible, actionable & most importantly entertaining for all of you.Huge thanks for all of you who helped to celebrate our 6th year anniversary of building CXChronicles, it's been a hell of a journey. This is our by far our best year yet as we continue to grow our business & community.Soon we will be celebrating 300+ episodes of customer focused business content.We've had the pleasure of working with 200+ companies/agencies across the world helping make customer & employee happiness a habitPartnered with the biggest players in AI/software & technology including Google, Salesforce, Hubspot, Intercom, Zendesk, & Freshworks.We're looking for early feedback on our Ask CXChronicles Intelligence Platform, see how your company's CX stacks up to the rest across Team, Tools, Process, Feedback & AI. For all of our friends interested in seeing how their company's HubSpot Utilization performance is shaping up today, click here for our FREE HubSpot Utilization Scorecard Assessment.If you enjoy The CXChronicles Podcast, please do me a favor and stop by your favorite podcast player and leave us a review today.You know what would be even better?Go tell one of your friends or teammates about CXC's content, CX/CS/RevOps services, our customer & employee focused community & invite them to join the CX Nation!For you non-readers, go check out the CXChronicles Youtube channel to see our customer & employee focused video content & short-reel CTAs to improve your CX/CS/RevOps performance today (politely go smash that subscribe button).Contact us anytime to learn more about CXC at INFO@cxchronicles.com and ask us about how we can help your business & team make customer happiness a habit now!Reach Out To CXC Today!Support the showContact CXChronicles TodayTweet us @cxchroniclesCheck out our Instagram @cxchroniclesClick here to checkout the CXC websiteEmail us at info@cxchronicles.com Remember To Make Happiness A Habit!!

This week I heard some fabulous AI news. I promise you'll understand the good news.Context-to-Weights (C2W) Compilation, turning massive, expensive prompts into a tiny, static weight matrix, dropping the heavy KV cache entirely, and never paying the compute tax to re-read that context again.P.S. September 22, 2026 is when we are having a pre-Mastery training that starts on October 7, 2026. Mentioned in the show:Significant Breakthrough - C2WRegistration is open for the next cohort of the AI Visibility Mastery 12-month course. We are committed to the success of our members.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://vizzex.ai/ai-visibility-mastery/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wordpress registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HubSpot registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry vs Asymmetry Single Variable Test⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPi-J54bow⁠⁠⁠Test #2 - Is passing Symmetry alone without schema sufficient? ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkwfboMpiQ⁠⁠⁠Last week's episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠The SEO Identity Crisis: Doing The Same Thing Expecting Sam Results⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry Gate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - check the "cost" of your content for AI models to extract informationSubscribe to Confessions of an SEO™ wherever you get your podcasts. Your subscribing and download sends the message that you appreciate what is being shared and helping others find Confessions of an SEO™An easy place to leave a review ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find me on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carolyn Holzman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠American Way Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Directly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AmericanWayMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Consulting AgencyNeed Help With an Issue? - reach out Text me here - 512-222-3132Music from Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/doug-organ/fugue-stateLicense code: HESHAZ4ZOAUMWTUA

A former Marine who did eight combat deployments in eight years now spends his time teaching people to stop pitching and start asking better questions.Keith Gillispie, founder of REI Automated, left the Marines in 2020 to build a real estate investing and coaching business that's helped more than 1,200 people, with close to 580 of them closing their very first deal. He broke down exactly how he qualifies, questions, and consults his way to the close.Why "Selling" Is the Wrong Mindset (Stop Being House Horny)Keith's blunt term for pushy sellers: house horny, chasing the deal so hard that they force the wrong solution onto someone just to close it.His fix is simple: stop selling, and start asking great questions that guide the prospect to the answer on their own.He reviews sales calls with his own team every week, and the biggest issue he catches with newer reps is a used-car-salesman energy that shows up the moment they stop asking and start pitching.Qualify for the Right Industry FirstKeith gets over a hundred Facebook messages a day, and his team has to pre-qualify people before he ever gets on a call.A recent example: a rep flagged someone as "qualified" who actually wanted coaching on commercial real estate, which Keith doesn't teach at all. Same broad label, completely wrong fit.Even inside a niche that sounds close enough, being in the wrong specific industry wastes everyone's time.Qualify for the Right Problem: Your Core Competency Must Match Their Core ConstraintKeith's rule: everyone has problems, but that alone doesn't make someone a fit. What he's good at has to be exactly what the prospect is bad at.He calls this matching your core competency to their core constraint. If there's no real gap for him to fill, there's no real reason for the two of them to work together.This is what separates a win-win engagement from a sale that shouldn't have happened in the first place.Qualify for the Right Money (Or Every Call Becomes Charity)Even with the right industry and the right problem, a prospect still has to be able to afford the solution, or the call turns into free coaching.Keith shared a recent example of two prospects who badly wanted to join his program but couldn't spend even $300, when his coaching runs into the thousands.He's direct with his own team about this: sending him financially unqualified leads turns every call into charity work, which isn't sustainable as a business, even though he's genuinely happy to hand out free value when it makes sense.Diagnose Before You PrescribeKeith estimates that more than half of the people who come to him think they know what they need, and they're wrong.His example: prospects ask for automation when they don't even have leads coming in yet, or don't know how to structure a deal. Automating a broken process just scales the chaos faster.He compares it to a patient self-diagnosing before seeing a doctor. The seller's job, like a doctor's, is to ask enough questions to find the real issue before recommending anything.Get Comfortable Asking Uncomfortable Financial QuestionsKeith walks straight into questions like current income, whether that number is gross or net, and total debt, early in a call, because he can't build a plan without knowing where someone actually stands.He compares it to Google Maps: you need a point of origin and a point of destination before you can build the route in between.Roughly one in twenty-five or thirty people push back on how direct these questions are. Keith's response is straightforward: if they can't handle these basic questions now, the program itself is going to be a rough fit.Build Yes Momentum With Small AsksKeith structures his qualifying questions to build what he calls yes momentum: each small, reasonable question makes the next one easier to answer.He starts broad, what do you do, how long have you done it, before narrowing into income, debt, and financial specifics, so the conversation earns its way to the harder questions instead of opening with them.That same sequence doubles as training. The financial questions he asks on a discovery call mirror the exact questions his students will later need to ask sellers and private lenders.Ask Questions, Don't Make StatementsKeith's rule for himself: don't make a statement for the first 60 percent of any sales call, aside from short softening statements like "I'm glad you asked that."The only exception is a brief acknowledgment before turning right back around and asking another question.Whoever is asking the questions is steering the conversation, and Keith treats that as true for the entire first half of every call he runs.Never Fully Answer a Question Without Asking One BackKeith borrows from Socratic questioning: when a prospect asks a direct question, like how fast he can close on a house, answering too quickly and too specifically can blow up the deal in either direction.Instead, he gives a partial, honest answer, then asks a question that uncovers the real reason behind their question, like whether they need to move fast or need more time.That extra step means his eventual answer is actually calibrated to what the person needs, instead of a generic response that might scare them off or fail to meet an urgent situation.Become a Lifelong Student of Your CraftKeith has taken more than ten thousand sales calls over eleven years and still says the more he learns about sales psychology, the more he realizes he doesn't know.His advice for anyone serious about improving: invest in a coach or mentor who can review real calls and point out specific gaps, rather than trying to learn everything for free through trial and error.His framing: you'll pay for the lesson either way, either in money to a mentor, or in wasted time and missed opportunity learning the hard way."People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." — Keith GillispieResourcesConnect with Keith Gillispie on LinkedIn.Visit REI Automated to learn more about Keith's education, software, and coaching community for real estate investors.Join our LinkedIn cohort and learn to prospect the right way.Visit Blue Mango Studios for help creating podcast production content.Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

You can beat the biggest partner in your ecosystem on content, on volume, on quality, and still finish the year at a quarter of their revenue with price as the only lever anyone hands you. In this episode I break down why that happens and what to do about it, starting with the rule Jack Welch laid down in a 1981 speech that almost nobody quotes correctly. Your platform, whether it is Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, or Microsoft, is a product, not a market, so the moment a buyer arrives the only question they can ask you is how much and how fast. I walk through the four moves that get you out of that queue, from reading back through your last 10 clients to find the industry where the scope held and you never bled hours, to packaging the fix as a priced outcome instead of billable time. If you are about to spend another year becoming a better version of a competitor you cannot beat, this one is for you.Resources and LinksNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 702 - Firing Your Agency Won't Get You More LeadsCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

37 reps who got the least recognition on one 153-person sales team averaged 62 percent quota attainment. The team average was 107 percent. That gap is the whole argument Sindre Haaland, CEO and founder of SalesScreen, makes for why comp plans alone don't explain sales performance.Why Identical Comp Plans Produce Wildly Different ResultsSindre's core observation: two reps can work under the exact same comp plan and produce completely different results, which means money alone isn't the daily driver of performance.Comp plans set the structure and tell a rep what they need to do to get paid, but engagement is what determines whether they actually do it consistently.An engaged rep will outperform a disengaged one with the identical incentive on the table, every time.Know Your Sales MathSindre's first question to any rep: have you actually broken your quota down into what you need to do today, not just what you need to hit by year end?Reps who treat sales as a series of repeatable, data-driven daily activities have a far more predictable path to their number than those relying on charisma alone.Even with a full pipeline of data, the numbers only matter if a rep has the motivation to actually execute the plan. That's the gap gamification is built to close.The Four Player Types on Every Sales TeamSindre borrows a framework from game theory to describe four types of sales reps: killers, achievers, explorers, and socialites.Killers are driven by being number one and seeing their name at the top of the leaderboard. Achievers care about personal bests, regardless of where they rank against everyone else.Explorers enjoy the process itself, testing new tools and new angles. Socialites, the majority of most sales teams, are driven by recognition, visibility, and feeling like their effort is seen.The TV and Music Moment That Changed Sindre's CareerSindre described watching a sales floor the first time his team replaced a whiteboard with TVs that played music and visuals every time a rep closed a deal.People were jumping on their desks. That reaction is what convinced him sales motivation itself, not another feature, was the real business to build.A rep's win becoming a shared, visible, celebrated moment does something a quiet bank deposit never will.Three Rules for Running a Contest That Moves the NeedleTiming matters more than most leaders assume. Contests started on a Wednesday consistently outperform ones started on a Monday, since early-week motivation has usually faded by midweek.Shorter is better. Month-long contests tend to create a "valley of disengagement," with excitement in week one, a dead middle, and a scramble at the end. One-day sprints create urgency without the letdown.Change the format so more than the top performer has a real shot. A lottery-style contest, where every meeting booked or deal closed earns a ticket, gives the middle of the pack a genuine "I might actually win this time" feeling.Get Creative: Pairing, Envelopes, and the White Elephant GamePairing a high performer with a lower performer on a team-based contest naturally creates coaching and mentorship, without ever calling it that.Simple physical mechanics work too: envelopes on a wall that reps can pick from after hitting an activity, some holding a dollar, some holding a bigger prize.Sindre's favorite: a white elephant style game where prizes range from real rewards to silly forfeits, and reps can steal from each other until the contest ends, creating genuinely memorable moments on the floor.The Recognition Stat That Proves the PointSindre shared data from a 153-person sales team where they measured how often each rep received recognition in a month.The 37 reps who received the least recognition averaged 62 percent quota attainment. The team average was 107 percent.Recognition and quota attainment move together closely enough that Sindre treats recognition frequency as a leading indicator, not just a nice-to-have.Where to Start as a New Sales LeaderSindre's starting point for anyone new to this: interview your top performers and find out what they actually do every day, not just what the official process says they should do.Frequently, top performers are doing things nobody explicitly asked them to do, or doing an already-known behavior far more consistently than everyone else.Cross-check those behaviors against the rest of the team. Wherever the gap is real, that's where a leader's next contest or incentive should be aimed."A motivated person will do better than a disengaged one, even with the same comp plan." — Sindre HaalandResourcesConnect with Sindre Haaland on LinkedIn.Visit SalesScreen, the world's leading sales gamification platform.Join our LinkedIn cohort and learn to prospect the right way.Visit Blue Mango Studios for help creating podcast production content.Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

This week, Joe and Robert look at Big Tech power, unexpected brand comebacks and the growing tension between AI efficiency and human trust. Meta agreed to an enormous teen-safety settlement, including new limits around young users. But the most interesting part may be that billions of dollars are tied to competitors adopting similar protections. Is Meta turning a regulatory loss into a competitive advantage? Google was found to have illegally monopolized key parts of the digital ad market, yet a federal judge declined to force the company to sell its ad exchange business. If the monopoly remains intact, what exactly did the antitrust case accomplish? MapQuest suddenly became the No. 1 app in the U.S. after refusing to follow Google and Apple in renaming Lake Ontario. Is the lesson that brands should take more stands, or simply know the few things worth taking a stand on? Joe's rant looks at New York City public schools placing a one-year moratorium on generative AI through eighth grade. The concern is understandable, but banning AI is easier than doing the harder work of creating guardrails and teaching students how to use it responsibly. Joe's marketing loser is the growing use of AI-generated food images in restaurant menus and promotions, sometimes depicting food that looks nothing like the real product. AI should help market the product, not invent it. Robert's marketing loser takes aim at the marketing industry's need to turn everything, including Dolly Parton's legacy, into a list of brand lessons. And Robert's commentary looks at Jason Isbell and other musicians suing AI music company Suno over technology that allegedly imitates their voices and musical identities, potentially opening another major front in the battle between generative AI and human creators. Articles from the show: Meta teen-safety settlement · Google ad-tech ruling · MapQuest comeback · NYC schools AI ban · AI food slop · Dolly Parton brand lessons · Jason Isbell vs. Suno, The New York Times Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor:Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Becks Port, Chief People Officer at Okta, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why AI agents should be treated like digital coworkers, how Okta is thinking about agents on the org chart, and what the future of HR, career development, security, and team design could look like as humans work alongside machines.----  Sponsor Links:

Clare Bonham (Chief Product Officer) and Sébastien Baehni (CTO) from beqom joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how managers can make better pay and performance decisions, why AI should support but not replace human judgment, and what intentional AI looks like in compensation.----  Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode326 Sponsor Links:

Why are brilliant marketers choosing to watch their organic traffic slowly bleed out rather than learn how a LLM actually thinks?I think the main reason is Legacy SEO is no longer just a technical skill set; it has become a personal and professional identity. To tell a 20-year veteran that Google is no longer measuring their traditional "user signals" or "backlink hubs," but is instead performing raw, server-side Flash Extraction based on strict semantic hierarchy, is to threaten their entire career's relevance.I get it. That was my first thought when I saw things no longer worked like they had been. Once you get beyond the denial, anger, bargaining and depression, you'll find the acceptance in what is truly the greatest single advantage in digital marketing.P.S. September 22, 2026 is when we are having a pre-Mastery training that starts on October 7, 2026. Mentioned in the show:Registration is open for the next cohort of the AI Visibility Mastery 12-month course. We are committed to the success of our members.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://vizzex.ai/ai-visibility-mastery/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wordpress registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HubSpot registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry vs Asymmetry Single Variable Test⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPi-J54bow⁠⁠Test #2 - Is passing Symmetry alone without schema sufficient? ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkwfboMpiQ⁠⁠Last week's episode:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YvOIOO0sh1Psm4i1rq0d8⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry Gate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - check the "cost" of your content for AI models to extract informationSubscribe to Confessions of an SEO™ wherever you get your podcasts. Your subscribing and download sends the message that you appreciate what is being shared and helping others find Confessions of an SEO™An easy place to leave a review ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find me on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carolyn Holzman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠American Way Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Directly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AmericanWayMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Consulting AgencyNeed Help With an Issue? - reach out Text me here - 512-222-3132Music from Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/doug-organ/fugue-stateLicense code: HESHAZ4ZOAUMWTUA

Dr Margaret Heffernan is one of the world's leading thinkers on uncertainty, leadership and creativity. A bestselling author, entrepreneur and former CEO, her latest book, Embracing Uncertainty, challenges one of the biggest assumptions in business that the future can, and should, be predicted.In this episode, Margaret explains why forecasting often fails, where great ideas really come from, and why spending more time with uncertainty can actually make us better leaders and marketers. We discuss the dangers of relying too heavily on data, the surprising habits of highly creative people, and why walking might be one of the best things you can do for your thinking.Timestamps00:00 - Trailer01:09 - Why pick uncertainty as a topic05:31 - Why some companies shouldn't forecast09:04 - Why smart people are wasting time on forecasting14:41 - The problem with having too much data19:07 - Predictability only happens at scale24:41 - Where do ideas come from?27:19 - Why the Chief Economist of the Bank of England goes on walks30:29 - Are we becoming too left brain dominant?32:32 - The problem with AI36:10 - Is AI killing our ability to think?41:17 - How to make good ideas happen44:11 - The power of surprise46:15 - The improvisers paradox49:31 - The correlation between the artists mind and the entrepreneur's mind51:57 - What human skills do we need to survive?58:43 - The best advice Margaret has ever been given ---Thank you to our sponsors System1 and HubSpotDownload System1's creator effectiveness report here:https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbookFind about more about HubSpot's AEO product here:https://www.hubspot.com/products/aeo

Connecting core data to your marketing and sales platforms can unlock huge opportunities, but only if the foundation is built correctly. In this episode of the Hit Record Podcast, Meredith Olmstead talks with Austin Wentzlaff, CEO and Founder of Nook, about what banks and credit unions should consider before tackling a data integration, from security and scalability to choosing the right data and avoiding costly mistakes.Key Takeaways:1.  Build your data foundation for the long term. An integration that works today may not work as your use cases grow. Plan for how marketing, lending, and sales may eventually use the data.2. Security should be part of the decision from day one.  Financial institutions need to understand where their data lives, how it moves, and how sensitive information is protected.3. Start small and prove the value.  Begin with the data and users you actually need, create some early wins, and expand from there instead of trying to integrate everything at once.

Lindsay Rosenthal has 50,000 followers on LinkedIn and makes content alongside OpenAI, HubSpot, Atlassian, Descript, and LinkedIn itself. So when she told us she currently uses zero AI for her ideas... and stopped using it for her scripts and copy entirely... we stopped the conversation and made her explain. What she said next is the whole episode. There's a specific reason AI can make you competent and almost never makes you the best, and once you hear it you can't unhear it. We also got into the exact 30-day plan for someone sitting at 500 followers right now, why commenting is the most underrated sales activity on the internet, whether you should tell people you used AI, and the story of a guy who built a business on AI avatars and shut it down after a conference. Oh, and Fonzie's back. He brought the Waffle House rule.

AI is about to replace bloated SaaS, and most businesses are still only playing with chatbotsSean G Muller says the next wave of AI is not about better prompts or prettier copilots. It is about rebuilding business around context, agents, and what actually creates value - before your software stack becomes the expensive middleman.Mark Smth and Sean unpack why the last six months have been a genuine shift: agentic loops are now good enough to handle real business work, not just experiments. Sean explains how he moved from traditional technical architecture into building full application pipelines, MCP servers, and background agents that review email, track social signals, draft responses, and keep business moving without adding more human overhead.You'll discover why context is the missing ingredient in almost every failed AI project, how Sean uses a simple meal-planning example to explain it, and why companies that scatter knowledge across laptops, SharePoint, Google Cloud, and people's heads are sitting on hidden risk. Sean also breaks down the difference between AI as a feature and AI as a business transformation engine, including the mistake many firms make when they bolt chat onto old workflows and call it progress.We also get into the coming SaaS pocalypse - the idea that tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Xero, Slack, and Atlassian may face a serious reckoning as businesses realize they can build leaner, custom, agent-first systems for less than the cost of endless licenses and modules. Sean shares how he built a headless, agent-driven CRM and why he thinks greenfield builds will replace expensive transformation projects much sooner than most executives expect. This conversation matters if you lead a business, run operations, own a small or mid-sized company, or simply suspect your current software is forcing you to work the wrong way. If you want to understand where AI is actually delivering leverage right now - and how to avoid wasting money on shallow pilots - this episode is essential listening.Mark Smth hosts the conversation and brings the enterprise and product lens, pushing Sean to get specific about what success looks like for real businesses in New Zealand.Sean G Muller is an AI and enterprise architecture specialist based in New Zealand, known for helping organizations build practical AI systems, implement agentic workflows, and rethink business process from the ground up.Resources1. The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/0385249462?ref_=mr_referred_us_au_nz2. Gemini: A Family of Highly Capable Multimodal Models — 2312.11805.pdf ⁠https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.118053. On the Measure of Intelligence — 1911.01547.pdf - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.01547Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening

Imagine doubling your close rate and cutting your sales cycle in half. That's not a hypothetical. It's exactly what Pieter Leenhouts and his team did at Tax Guard, a Cogency Global company that sells to banks and financial institutions. Pieter walked me through exactly how they pulled it off, and it wasn't magic. It was math, structure, and a relentless focus on the front end of the pipeline.Why Their Sales Cycle Was So Long To Begin WithTax Guard's solution was new to the financial institutions they sold to, so reps had to spend real time educating buyers before those buyers even understood why they needed it.That education requirement, combined with deals that stalled out with the wrong contacts, created a long sales cycle and a lower close rate.Fixing it started with the pipeline itself, not with pushing reps to work harder.Give Every Rep the Right Size Pipeline, Not Just More DealsPieter's team found that around 120 opportunities was the right pipeline size for most of their account executives, though the number flexes based on how efficient a rep is.Instead of leaving reps to self source every opportunity, the team loads a portion of that pipeline for them, so reps spend more time working real opportunities and less time hunting for net new business.Their market of five to ten thousand financial institutions is well defined, which makes it possible to plan pipeline size with real precision instead of guessing.Split the Pipeline: 70 Percent Pre-Handraiser, 30 Percent Post-HandraiserOf those 120 opportunities, about 70 percent sit in the pre-handraiser stage, where reps are still working to connect with people.The remaining 30 percent sit in the post-handraiser stage, where there's already an active, ongoing conversation with the customer.That split keeps reps focused on outreach without starving the deals that are already moving.Marketing and Sales Load the Pipeline TogetherPieter is careful to point out that loading the pipeline isn't a sales-only effort. It's a collaboration between sales leadership and marketing leadership.Marketing helps identify and prioritize which accounts and departments actually fit where Tax Guard's solution applies.That partnership is part of why the team can hand reps a healthier mix of fast cycle and slow cycle opportunities instead of leaving it to chance.Why They Kept AEs on the Full Buyer Journey Instead of Handing Off to BDRsBecause their solution requires ongoing education, Pieter's team decided against using BDRs or SDRs to book appointments and hand off to AEs.The same person a buyer starts talking to needs to stay with them as a trusted advisor through the entire education process.Pieter is clear that this only makes sense because of how complex and unfamiliar their solution is. A more transactional sale can absolutely work with a BDR handoff.The Cadence: 17 Touches Over 70 DaysEach opportunity in the pipeline follows a defined cadence, roughly 17 touches over 70 days, with three to five contacts tied to each account.That structure turns follow-up into a math exercise. Once you know the number of opportunities, steps, and contacts, you know almost exactly how many activities a rep needs to complete each day.The cadence isn't automated. Reps still show up and do the work themselves, which keeps the process personal instead of robotic.Personalization Is What Makes the Math WorkPieter gets five to six hundred pitches a day himself, so he knows exactly what gets ignored: generic, unpersonalized outreach.His team uses AI to gather background information quickly, but the personal touch, referencing where someone went to school or what they care about, still has to come from the rep.That combination of structure and personalization is what actually breaks through the noise instead of just adding to it.How They Catch Reps Who Are Gaming Activity NumbersTo catch reps who rack up huge activity numbers without real substance, like hanging up before voicemail or blasting the same email to everyone, Pieter's team looks past raw activity totals.They review call recordings and email engagement to see whether real conversations are actually happening, not just whether the activity got logged.The goal isn't to catch people doing something wrong. It's to find the reps who are getting real engagement and figure out what they're doing differently so the whole team can replicate it.Weekly and Monthly Rhythms Keep the Team AccountableEvery rep gets a weekly one on one that covers both big strategic issues, like what's happening in the market or with competitors, and specific opportunities that need a plan to close.Once a month, Pieter's team reviews the front end metrics as a group: how many people are in cadence, how many emails are opening, how many real conversations are happening.They also track Net Promoter Score to measure how the sales experience actually felt to the buyer, not just whether a deal closed.Their Tech Stack: Salesforce, Gong, Gong Flows, and DelightedSalesforce is their core CRM, and Pieter says most of what makes it powerful is what gets plugged into it.Gong records and analyzes sales conversations, which lets the team track things like how often pricing objections come up and coach reps faster than they could otherwise.Gong Flows adds structured outreach sequences with AI built in, and Delighted measures NPS so the team can see how the buying experience felt from the customer's side.The Numbers Pieter's Team Watches Every WeekClose rate and pipeline velocity are the two headline numbers Pieter checks first, since they show whether the whole system is working.Underneath those, his team tracks how long deals sit in each of their seven pipeline stages, with alerts when something sits too long.They also watch the quality of the opportunities reps are given and how well each rep prospects into the right people, since strong activity numbers mean nothing if they aren't pointed at the right accounts."Activities create opportunities, opportunities create sales. The only thing we control is our activity level." — Pieter LeenhoutsResourcesConnect with Pieter Leenhouts on LinkedIn.Learn more about Tax Guard, a Cogency Global company.Keep track of your sales activity and boost your results with the Prospect Pro sales tool.Step up your sales game with Sales Mastermind. Get accountability, stay motivated, and tackle the blockers keeping you from hitting your goals.Visit Blue Mango Studios for help creating podcast production content.Join our LinkedIn cohort and learn to prospect the right way.Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast,

AI is already changing what students believe they should study, but maybe we're asking the wrong question. Joe and Robert discuss whether college should be less about choosing the perfect major and more about giving young people four years to think critically, read widely, write, speak, create, debate and become better prepared for whatever comes next. The guys also look at the rush of major brands into Hollywood and entertainment. As traditional media struggles, companies including Gap, Toyota and Kraft Heinz are moving beyond sponsorships and building entertainment properties of their own.  Winner and Loser Joe's winner is Raising Cane's, a company that turned extreme focus around one product into a remarkable brand, community and culture. Robert's loser is Harvard Business School, which is using AI avatars of actual faculty members in its $699 HBS Foundry startup bootcamp. The avatars help founders rehearse pitches and board meetings while the program still includes live human sessions, raising a bigger question about what we're actually paying educators for in the age of AI. Rants and Raves Robert raves about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's new college curriculum.  Joe's commentary is on Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson. What can we learn from his latest press disaster? Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor:Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Heather Dunn, Chief People Officer at Brex, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Brex's rapid acquisition by Capital One and how Heather led through diligence, communication, and integration.----  Sponsor Links:

Inbound marketing is changing as AI, answer engines, and declining organic search traffic reshape how customers discover and evaluate businesses. HubSpot's Kipp Bodnar explains why the traditional marketing funnel is losing effectiveness and how the Loop Marketing framework offers a new approach built around expressing ideas, tailoring experiences, amplifying distribution, and evolving through continuous learning. He also explains answer engine optimization, AI buyer simulations, taste profiles, and why original data, customer stories, and distinctive points of view are becoming essential to effective content marketing. For marketers and small business owners, the shift means moving beyond traffic and content volume toward relevance, differentiation, transparency, and faster learning. 00:00 Introduction 01:19 Why HubSpot Lost 140 Million Visits 06:04 Build an AI Taste Profile for Better Results 08:24 Can AI Predict Customer Reactions? 09:49 How to Make AI Content Actually Original 12:01 How to Get Your Brand Cited by AI 15:33 Why AI Is Replacing Inbound Marketing Rate, Review, & Follow If you liked this episode, please rate and review the show. Let us know what you loved most about the episode. Struggling with strategy? Unlock your free AI-powered prompts now and start building a winning strategy today!

Why you should listenSarah McDevitt, a HubSpot leader and first-time author, breaks relational intelligence into five practical signals (Awareness, Presence, Empathetic Structuring, Connection Capital, and Human Differentiation) you can use to become the partner a client cannot swap out for a tool.Learn how to be a "context miner" in every meeting: the way sharp partners use full presence to extract how a business actually makes decisions, then feed that context into their AI agents to get outputs generic prompts cannot match.Get Sarah's read on where the retainer money moves next as AI creates a wave of "vibe coded" messes, plus the governance and platform cohesion work partners can charge for when customers realize they need one person to own the whole stack.You have spent years getting deep on the platform, and now AI can do a slice of that build work in minutes, so a quiet question sits at the back of your mind: what is a partner actually for now? In this episode, I talk with Sarah McDevitt, a HubSpot leader and first-time author of The Round Table, about relational intelligence, which she defines as the ability to build, sustain, and grow trust-based relationships that AI cannot replicate. We get into why the skills AI makes less scarce do not make you less useful, and why so many partners have their identity wrapped up in the exact technical work that is now being handed to agents. Sarah has spent years watching what separates the partners who stay in the room from the ones who get swapped out, and almost none of it is technical. If your value has always lived in the build, and you can feel that ground shifting under you, this conversation is about where your value goes next.About Sarah McDevittSarah McDevitt is the Senior Director of Partner Strategy at HubSpot, where she leads a global community of more than 7,000 partners through AI transformation. A native of Sligo and now based in Dublin, Sarah is the creator of the Relational Intelligence framework and the author of her first book, The Round Table: How Relational Intelligence Will Become Your Human Advantage in the AI Age. Her core thesis, "RI + AI = Trust," argues that the smartest organizations use AI to strengthen human relationships rather than replace them. A TEDx speaker and advocate whose work spans hybrid team leadership and responsible AI adoption, Sarah helps partners see that as technical skills become less scarce, the ability to build trust becomes their most valuable and defensible asset.Resources and LinksSarah McDevitt on The Paul Higgins Podcast: Episode 642 - Stop Being a Platform Expert - Why Business Growth Advisors Win in the AI Era with Sarah McDevittHubspot.comSarah McDevitt on LinkedIn20VC podcastNeed help with your WHO and WHAT decisions? Apply for a FREE Multiplier CallBook a Decision Session herePrevious episode: 694 - The 60% ShiftCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resources

Carlos Corredor, Co-Founder and CEO of Condor Digital Marketing, is driven by a passion for interpreting data and helping marketing leaders Generate and Measure Your Pipeline with greater accuracy. ith a background in sports analytics and journalism, Carlos helps B2B companies identify which marketing activities generate qualified leads, clients, and revenue so they can invest confidently in what works.  In this conversation, Carlos introduces The Condor Pipeline Generation Framework—Understand Current Pipeline Generation, Map the Process, Move Budgets to Their Highest and Best Use, Fix Measurement Gaps, and Rinse and Repeat. He explains why marketers should begin with clients and revenue instead of clicks and impressions, how the Pipeline X-Ray exposes attribution gaps, and why budgets should move toward channels with proven returns. Carlos also discusses using BANT to diagnose conversion problems and why client champions, paid media, and events drive growth in high-ticket B2B markets. — Generate and Measure Your Pipeline with Carlos Corredor  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint, and today my guest is Carlos Corredor, Co-Founder and CEO of Condor Digital Marketing, a pipeline generation and measurement firm. Carlos, welcome to the show.  Hey, Steve. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.  It's exciting to have you and to learn about your secrets of how you generate a measurable pipeline. But before we get into it, I'm curious: What is your personal why, and how are you manifesting it through your company?  Yeah. So I've always been passionate about sports and the data behind sports, and I actually worked in sports data analysis and journalism. But ultimately, I've been passionate about interpreting data to have an advantage, whether that's playing tennis or doing analysis for baseball teams. And then I eventually started working in marketing, doing sports websites, and I saw the opportunity. In marketing in general, especially with digital, to use data to your advantage. So I would say that's really what I'm passionate about in terms of my professional life and why I enjoy what I do so much and why I get up in the morning and I really look forward to the day and even to Monday. Because obviously, it's not all fun. But ultimately, I think it comes from that passion of liking what you're doing, and the time flies when you work and you like what you do and you see that you're good at what you're doing and it's making an impact. So I would say that's why.  And have you always been a data person? Are you analytical and like to look at the numbers behind things?  Yeah, yeah. It started with sports. That's where I realized that I had, let's say, that passion at the beginning and ultimately that skill. With baseball at the beginning, it was reading the back of baseball cards and then fantasy baseball in high school, and then actually working in that. In kind of like sabermetrics and Moneyball-type analysis in college.  Because I saw, just like it happens in marketing, how back in the old days, even professionals, they were using the wrong type of data or a very antiquated way of looking at things. So it's like understanding really what has an impact and what is responsible for outcomes. That's, I think, the part that I've always thought was what's important and what I had a knack for, a talent to do that better than others. So that's why I went deep into that.  Okay. So how do you do that? So this podcast is a podcast of frameworks. So I wonder if you have a framework of how to create pipeline generation based on data, and perhaps you can share a simplified version of that with our listeners, something that can be explained in three to five steps.  Yeah, definitely. And I'll give you first the kind of like the philosophy or the mental model, and then I'll give you those steps because one comes from the other. So in marketing, with all of the data that's available, especially today, a lot of people start at the bottom. At clicks, impressions, and then they try to build a bottoms-up report to then prove what's generating leads and clients and revenue. But that is always inexact, takes forever.  What I propose is doing it the opposite: a top-down approach where you start with clients and revenue, and then start figuring out where those leads in your pipeline or clients and the closed revenue is coming from. And you will know all of that at the beginning. So that's, I think, how it starts, that framework. So the first step of the framework is to understand, which sounds really basic, but you'd be surprised today how many marketing leaders, marketing VPs, CMOs of especially mid-market, definitely smaller mid-market, and even some enterprise companies, don't have that data readily available to understand how much pipeline did we, as a marketing department, generate, let's say, last year. So that's, I think, the first step, is understanding that. It's asking your team for a report that says that. Now your team's going to come back and say they won't know the full picture. Maybe they know 10%, maybe they know 90%. But they're going to show you something. So then is the second step. You're going to start adjusting your investments to what you're seeing there, and at the same time, you're going to start fixing the dark holes or what you can't see.  And then simply step number three is rinse and repeat every, let's say, quarter at the beginning. And obviously, there's nuances of how exactly you should adjust and what exactly you can fix. But ultimately, that would be the three-step approach that you asked about.  That's fascinating. So the understand piece is understanding your pipeline or how you're generating the pipeline? What is it? Understanding what?  Yeah. So actually we have a name for that first step. We call it the Pipeline X-Ray. So let's say you start a new job as a CMO of a new company. Or simply you've been in the job for a while and you're listening to this and you say, “Okay, actually, I've never thought about it that way.  Let's sit tomorrow with my team and ask the question: How many qualified leads and closed clients have we, as marketing, generated so far this year and, let's say, last year?” That is understanding that. Now, I'll tell you, I'd be very surprised if the marketing person or the marketing team or the leader has that data in a way that they can say with 100% certainty what the answer is. In terms of, “We've closed these four clients, and we've had 72 qualified leads.  And out of the 72, 50 have come from our paid search campaigns, 10 have come from events, and then the others have come from organic.” In an ideal world, that's the type of answer that you want. But in the real world, again, very rarely do you have that clear understanding right then and there. So that's when step number two becomes, okay, let's close the gaps to be able to have an understanding.  Okay. So essentially, when you say adjust and fix, then are you talking about adjusting and fixing the process of generating clients, or actually mapping the gaps in the pipeline first?  Yeah, so that's a great question. The adjust, I mean move budget around. Not necessarily increase budget. You have to prove what's working. And obviously, if you don't have the full picture and understanding, you cannot just go to your CEO and say, “I need more budget.” So with the same budget that you have, what can you pause and move around towards the things that step number one told you with certainty are working. So if, let's say, out of the 50 qualified leads that you generated, you saw that half of them came from your paid search campaigns, then you say, “Oh, okay.” And then you don't see anything, let's say, for conferences, and now you're going to 10 conferences a year and you're spending a million dollars on conferences, and you're only spending $200,000 a year on your paid media spend. Then you say, “You know what? I'm going to stop. I'm going to pause. We're not going to go to these two conferences this year, and I'm going to move those $200,000, and we're going to double our spend in Google Ads,” for example. That's what I mean with the adjust piece. It could be the opposite. It could be pause paid search and then be more aggressive on our conference strategy. It could be, let's start a paid social campaign, whether that's LinkedIn or programmatic ads, or let's be more aggressive on our PR because right now our leads have come from interviews that our subject matter experts have done in certain types of podcasts or YouTube channels.  But that's what step number one is. But adjust is move budget around. Put your stocks where the returns are positive and where you can expect a better return almost immediately, or at least in the next upcoming months. And then the fix is particularly around the measurement gaps. The fix is what you can't see, right, on step number one. Step number one is understanding. And a report with all of that. When the person that does the reporting for you came back, or when you did it yourself or whatever, probably a lot of leads are like, “Ah, now it says direct traffic. What is that?” Obviously, they didn't just come and wake up one day and say, “Oh, I'm just going to go to condoragency.com.” No, they heard you somewhere, but you're still not sure. You won the client, you know you won the client, the client's paying you money, but you're not sure. So maybe, okay, what needs to improve in our measurement framework.  Usually, you can start with your CRM, your HubSpot, Salesforce, for instance, or whatever you use. There's some web analytics that might need to happen. You need to connect your advertising platforms. You're probably going to need to start talking to your sales team so they ask the right questions when they have discovery calls with prospects. I mean, there's a few things you can do, but I'm talking specifically about measurement gaps so you can have the full picture.  So when you talk to new prospects or clients, can they answer one most of the time?  They can partially answer one. I would go a step beyond because, I mean, that's not the sexiest answer. I would say it's usually, let's just say, around 50% of their leads and clients, they can know who was responsible. And then there's a couple of parts there. First and foremost, not only for your sake, but for the sake of your alignment with the C-suite and with the CEO and the CFO and even the sales team. You want to know, is marketing responsible for this? Number one. Because then that's very important.  Because that's what's going to justify the existence of the marketing team. Then later, if it came from a paid search campaign or a paid social or a conference, if those all are in the marketing budget, that's secondary. But most importantly, you want to make sure that, number one, you're bringing pipeline as a marketing department, and number two, you know exactly what pipeline you're bringing. Not only you, but then also your CEO and your CFO. So then it's like a luxury, let's say, to see if it comes from, the tough part is that you won't know that it comes from marketing unless you're tracking paid search and you're tracking conferences in the CRM the right way. So obviously, they are related in that way.  Okay. Love it. So understand your pipeline generation, and then adjust the budget to make sure you're supporting the ones that generate the most, and fix those that are not optimized. So maybe optimize them or replace them or come up with a new one. How else do you fix other than your measurement gaps?  Okay, you fixed the measurement gaps. Now you can measure it. You have a full picture. Then you have a slate of options, and how do you know what to choose if you're not doing enough?  Yeah. So I think there’s a couple of things there. One is understanding if you… Because, obviously, you always want to generate more pipeline. So you have to then say, “Okay, is my problem that I'm not generating any interest in the first place at all?” Like, there's nobody visiting my website. Or even downloading some pieces of content, what traditionally is called conversions or marketing-qualified leads. Obviously, that's not the goal.  The goal is that they turn into clients. But you have to know that if people are not visiting your website and you're not seeing marketing-qualified leads coming into your CRM, then you have to do certain things. Whereas if the problem is, “Okay, no, that's not the problem, Carlos,” and this is actually more common, which is a little counterintuitive, but the more and more that we work with mid-market clients, we realize this is the case.They are generating marketing-qualified leads. There is activity in the CRM. There are companies, new companies, that you see are visiting your website, downloading and consuming content. But then, for some reason, they are not becoming clients. So that's where we have to dig in and understand. Maybe they downloaded a white paper that was very educational in nature. And they're not ready to buy. Which is fine, and I'm not saying you have to not show that white paper, but you know that white paper is not going to bring you ready-to-buy customers.  So that's when we have the concept of what sales and marketing people call a BANT-type of lead, which is a lead that has the budget, the authority, the need, and the timing. You want, obviously, a lead that has the four things. Now you start, you measure. Okay, we had 10 leads, and they had, let's say, the budget and the authority. They were the CTO. The lead of the technology department in the company that we know has the budget. But they just downloaded this and didn't convert. They didn't have, let's say, the timing or the need.  Then maybe you rely more on, for example, paid search, which is a channel that, by searching the right keywords, the bottom-of-funnel keywords, for example, we are a pipeline generation firm. If somebody is looking for, “What is Google Ads?” That's educational. Now, if somebody's searching for “experienced agencies in B2B managing Google Ads.” Now, that's somebody that's ready to hire an agency to manage their Google Ads. So that's why, for example, in this case, if the component that's lacking is the need and the timing, paid search could be a way to do it. Or intent data, which is now something that is out there not only via paid search, but you identify certain signals and you can target them on programmatic ads or YouTube or whatever. That's another alternative. So that's something that you could do, for example, if you have a pain in moving leads down the funnel and closing clients, and you also realize that you're talking to the right people, but then they're simply not converting.  And the opposite. You get a lot of people that need your service. But they may be too small, or they may be just a manager and they don't have the authority to approve a high-ticket service. Then you go towards maybe LinkedIn targeting, or you do a campaign that is based more on account-based marketing, or ABM. Where you know you're talking to the right people. So again, that's another adjustment that you can make. So I don't know if I… Sorry if I deviated a little bit from the question, Steve, but hopefully that's still—  No, it makes sense. It makes sense. So first you want to measure, and then you diagnose. If you've got some activity but it's not converting, why is it not converting? Maybe it's not the right approach to build trust. Maybe there's another approach.  And then you look at the different elements: budget, authority, need, timing. That makes sense. So let me turn it back to you. So what drives growth in your business?  So for us, I would say if we do that, let's say, Pipeline X-Ray. And we actually did. We've been in business for almost 10 years now. And if you would do a Pipeline X-Ray, the number one driver of leads and new clients are, let's just call it, Condor champions that switch jobs. And not switch jobs that were working with us, but they were working with one of our clients.  And they worked with us, and they saw the work that we did, and they ended up moving to another agency within the same space, for example, or in B2B services, or even if it's something a little more niche like tech services, which is an area that we also specialize in. And then they say, “I already worked with Condor for either measurement or paid search campaigns or demand generation in general, and I like working with them, so they're going to call us.” And then some people, they switch multiple jobs. So embracing that and obviously using that to fuel and to focus even more on doing a great job and maintaining relationships with people, obviously most importantly while they're a client, but even if they switch, not forgetting about them. That has been the main driver. Obviously, we don't want to only rely on that. And then more recently, we've given more structure to our own sales and marketing department for that. And, for example, we closed a client that came via a paid search campaign. But that's still… We haven't scaled those yet.  We're still making sure. We're still in that measurement phase where, yeah, we're putting budget behind a few things and some of them seem to be working better, but not yet at the point of truly scaling that. We're ultimately also a relatively small firm, which obviously makes decisions differently than if you are, let's say, a mid-market or enterprise. But those, I would say, in order of importance, have been our three main drivers of growth: the champions that switch jobs, number one, and then I would say secondarily, paid media and events.  Yeah. So these are the three things. And what about the events? Why do you put events as a third? I'm just thinking that you're a B2B company and trust-based. Would events not be better than paid media?  I would say they're not mutually exclusive. Actually, they rely a lot on each other. And honestly, for us, I just put number two and three, but I would say they're tied for second, and then the other ones are four and below. And the reason why I think events are important, what we're seeing not only for us but for our clients, the outbound activity is really saturated.  I think cold email or cold outreach in general, because it used to be via email, now it's on LinkedIn as well, it's really, really saturated. It's really hard to be heard or to get a reply with cold outreach in general. Paid media, you can be a little bit more creative because you have visuals. Whether that's video that hopefully you can leverage. So I'm a believer in paid media more than the actual cold outreach via email or LinkedIn. But then the events are also great precisely because of that.  People are saturated and tired of being bombarded with messages from people they don't know. Whereas especially after COVID, people started going back to both the office and simply going out there. It doesn't have to be a big yearly conference. It can be just a dinner where you invite four or five people and talk about certain topics or any in-person activity. Well, I mean, a webinar can even be considered an event. Where you're educating your audience on certain things. And especially if your target audience is more on the manager side or below, or director and below, webinars can be an avenue.  But to answer your question, I think that personal connection is really, really powerful. And people forgot about it with, let's say, the boom of cold outreach and digital and now AI, and especially during COVID. But definitely in the last few years, we've seen not only that people are more willing or prefer to meet people in person, but we see that in the data as well, We see cold outreach campaigns that are bringing less and less results. And then when you connect in person.  Especially high-ticket. I also give this example. If you're selling B2B services, which are usually high-ticket. It's a project of either $50,000. It could be an engagement of $2 million over two years. Obviously, you want to know the company, but you also want to trust the human that is going to deliver on that promise. I always give the example: If you're selling an iPhone cover that costs $25, yeah, maybe you can get away with a pretty image on an Instagram ad. You click and you buy. Boom. Great. You can fully leverage digital for that.  But when you're selling a cloud migration project of a million dollars, you're going to want to talk to somebody, trust that person, dig in a little bit more, have a couple of meetings. So it's more complex. So in particular for those instances, that's why I think the personal connection, that it's even better if it starts at an event, or however you manage to do it, helps a lot.  So for Condor, do you make a distinction between B2B companies and B2C, and where you can help them the most?  Yeah. We have a couple of direct-to-consumer clients, but the majority of the work that we do is either for B2B or, if not B2B, it's lead generation. So e-commerce, for example, is a different world. E-commerce, as I mentioned, depending on what you buy, it's immediate. You track things. You have a platform like Shopify or something similar. It's a whole different world. Whereas that's immediate, and you can see everything, and it's all kind of automated and based on an inventory.  Whereas in either B2B services or lead generation, it's more about, okay, what happens after the initial action, after that initial either visit or conversion. Because a conversion is not a purchase. In e-commerce, in direct-to-consumer, in the example that I gave you, we made it. We sold the cover. That's our business. In here, it's like, okay, they downloaded a white paper. Or they signed up for a webinar, but that's only the first step of a long journey of closing, again, a $1 million service client.  So we specialize in that. In what needs to happen, not only to generate the initial raise of hand, but to make sure that the people that raise their hands are the right people, because otherwise they're not going to end up buying. And ultimately, the entire process of lead generated to client closed. Which is a big universe in itself. So that's where we want to focus.  So you basically help them not just to get the leads but to convert the leads and turn them into a client.  Right. Right.  So Carlos, if you had a magic wand and you could fix just one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would you use the magic wand for?  I would say accelerate. I would accelerate by five or 10 years the structure and how mature our sales and marketing team is. I would love to wake up tomorrow morning and have a team of five people in the marketing department and five people dedicated to sales, with SDRs and a sales leader, that is already generating, that we're closing 10 clients a month. So I would say that's… But that obviously takes time.  And you want to go one step at a time, otherwise, to prove ROI and to grow without, let's say, wasting unproven budget or wasting money. But I think a lot of owners—I don't know if it's a cheap answer—but I think a lot of owners would probably answer the same thing.  Yeah. So essentially what you need to do is you need to have scalable sales and marketing so that you can just add people and it's going to—it's like a coin-operated system, right?  Yeah. Yeah.  So if the listeners would like to go through that process and they would like to understand, okay, how do we map our leads, where they come from, evaluate it, and then adjust and fix and scale, where can they learn more and how can they connect with you? Yeah.  So if they go to our website, it's condoragency.com. Condor, like the bird. There are some options there on how to work with us or even some information, even if they want to try and do it by themselves, right? Again, what I mentioned earlier, the Pipeline X-Ray. It's a quick project that we do to get to that, where you can start seeing some valuable information to take action on fairly quickly.  We can get that done in a couple of weeks, the exercise of the Pipeline X-Ray, so then you know what to start adjusting and fixing. And obviously, you can contact me directly also on LinkedIn or via our website. I'm glad to obviously have a subsequent conversation and see if and how we can help.  Awesome. So if you are out there and you want to improve your sales and marketing, then you have to start with the Pipeline X-Ray because you are getting leads, you just don't know where they are from and how effective they are, and then how you tweak the process so that you're putting energy behind the more effective ones and readjusting your budget, and then fix the gaps.  So Carlos can help you with that, right? So make sure you reach out to Condor and get the X-Ray. So Carlos, thanks for coming. And if you enjoyed this conversation, then make sure you subscribe and follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, because every week I bring a couple of entrepreneurs who are sharing their frameworks with you. So Carlos, thanks for coming, and thanks for listening. Important Links: Carlos's LinkedIn Carlos's website

TONTOS... morelos ya llego ya esta aqui. Después de la muerte de Miguel Hidalgo, la Independencia de México estaba lejos de terminar. En este episodio de Historia para Tontos seguimos la lucha insurgente desde 1811: la caída de los primeros líderes, la llegada de José María Morelos, sus grandes campañas militares, el Congreso de Chilpancingo, el nacimiento de la Constitución de Apatzingán y el momento en que los insurgentes estuvieron más cerca de construir un nuevo país. ✨️

This episode is a re-air of one of our most popular conversations, featuring insights worth revisiting. This week on The Data Stack Show, Eric and welcomes back Ruben Burdin, Founder and CEO of Stacksync as they together dismantle the myths surrounding zero-copy ETL and traditional data integration methods. Ruben reveals the complex challenges of two-way syncing between enterprise systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and NetSuite, highlighting how existing tools often create more problems than solutions. He also introduces Stacksync's innovative approach, which uses real-time SQL-based synchronization to simplify data integration, reduce maintenance overhead, and enable more efficient operational workflows. The conversation exposes the limitations of current data transfer techniques and offers a glimpse into a more declarative, flexible approach to managing enterprise data across multiple systems. You won't want to miss it.  Highlights from this week's conversation include: The Pain of Two-Way Sync and Early Integration Challenges (2:01) Zero Copy ETL: Hype vs. Reality (3:50) Data Definitions and System Complexity (7:39) Limitations of Out-of-the-Box Integrations (9:35) The CSV File: The Original Two-Way Sync (11:18) Stacksync's Approach and Capabilities (12:21) Zero Copy ETL: Technical and Business Barriers (14:22) Data Sharing, Clean Rooms, and Marketing Myths (18:40) The Reliable Loop: ETL, Transform, Reverse ETL (27:08) Business Logic Fragmentation and Maintenance (33:43) Simplifying Architecture with Real-Time Two-Way Sync (35:14) Operational Use Case: HubSpot, Salesforce, and Snowflake (39:10) Filtering, Triggers, and Real-Time Workflows (45:38) Complex Use Case: Salesforce to NetSuite with Data Discrepancies (48:56) Declarative Logic and Debugging with SQL (54:54) Connecting with Ruben and Parting Thoughts (57:58) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, customer data infrastructure that enables you to deliver real-time customer event data everywhere it's needed to power smarter decisions and better customer experiences. Each week, we'll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data. RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Patsy Mangan joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Scribd Flex, why flexibility only works when it is paired with clarity and accountability, and why Scribd needed the GRIT Performance framework.----  Sponsor Links:

OK, August was fun. Watching the Spam Update start to line up a couple of week's before it was officially rolled out. So I thought given the pattern, it would be fun if I recorded this episode on Friday August 21, 2026 tell you what was going to happen NEXT Tuesday and waited until Tuesday to tell you.Mentioned in the show:VizzEx plugin is in the Wordpress Plugin Directory⁠⁠https://wordpress.org/plugins/vizzex/⁠⁠AI doesn't work like Google. Even Google doesn't anymore.⁠⁠https://vizzex.ai/ai-visibility-mastery/⁠⁠Symmetry vs Asymmetry Single Variable Test⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPi-J54bow⁠Test #2 - Is passing Symmetry alone without schema sufficient? ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkwfboMpiQ⁠Last week's episode:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.pandora.com/podcast/confessions-of-an-seo-r/the-summer-of-geo-season-6-ep-33/PE:1325384440Registration is open for the next cohort of the AI Visibility Mastery 12-month course. We are committed to the success of our members.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://vizzex.ai/ai-visibility-mastery/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wordpress registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HubSpot registration⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Symmetry Gate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - check the "cost" of your content for AI models to extract informationSubscribe to Confessions of an SEO™ wherever you get your podcasts. Your subscribing and download sends the message that you appreciate what is being shared and helping others find Confessions of an SEO™An easy place to leave a review ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find me on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carolyn Holzman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠American Way Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Directly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AmericanWayMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Consulting AgencyNeed Help With an Issue? - reach out Text me here - 512-222-3132Music from Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/doug-organ/fugue-stateLicense code: HESHAZ4ZOAUMWTUA

The Unwritten Rules of CRO Survival | Rick Smolen, CRO @ ShipHero Rick Smolen, CRO of ShipHero and sales advisor to Riverwood Capital's portfolio of more than 2 dozen enterprise software companies, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to argue that AI is leverage rather than a shortcut. Topics include why AI note-takers quietly degrade seller performance, why ShipHero has not raised a single quota despite real AI investment, and why the leading AI companies keep hiring classic enterprise CROs. Plus Rick's scorecard for judging revenue leadership beyond the number, an honest conversation about getting fired, and a bull case for HubSpot. In short... big episode! Key Takeaways: - AI widens the gap between the best and worst sellers instead of lifting everyone, and Rick Smolen, CRO at ShipHero, frames it in financial terms: "It's like debt... debt is leverage. It can make performance exceptionally good, or it can bankrupt you." His prediction is that the strongest performers get 10x better while the weakest become "unmistakable and hard to hide." - Outsourcing note-taking to an AI tool costs sellers the exact signal that closes enterprise deals. As Rick put it: "the computer can't capture the tone, can't capture the nuance, can't capture the content." His warning to any rep who treats it as time saved: "when a seller is going to say, oh cool, I don't have to do note-taking anymore, like their performance is going to go backwards." - The 3-to-5x rep productivity story does not survive contact with an enterprise sales cycle. Despite meaningful AI investment and measurable conversion-rate gains, Rick reports that at ShipHero "we have not raised quotas on anybody on the team," adding that "I don't believe that if I was to double somebody's quota that I give them any chance to be successful." - The AI-native companies scaling fastest are staffing go-to-market with the most traditional enterprise leaders available. Asad Zaman, CEO at STA, walks through the CRO hires at OpenAI, Cursor, Factory, and Anthropic and lands on the pattern: "we're back to like, let's just hire John McMahon's disciples and let them run at the market." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at STA - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Rick Smolen, CRO at ShipHero - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricksmolen/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters:  00:00 Introducing Rick Smolen 02:37 AI Is Not Good Or Bad 05:19 The AI Slop Email Mystery 08:25 AI Note-Takers And Lost Nuance 12:01 The Best Get Better, The Rest Worse 15:24 The Soft Part Of Enterprise Sales 18:24 Can Reps Be 5x More Productive? 23:09 Have Quotas Gone Up At ShipHero? 26:48 Why AI Firms Hire Classic CROs 30:48 What Is Driving Pipeline Now 49:37 Leadership In A Confused World 56:44 Should A CRO Jump Ship? 59:35 Have A Plan, Not Excuses 1:06:08 Bulls And Bears: HubSpot 1:09:32 Vibe-Coded Demos And FDE Teams

As Meta faces a massive lawsuit over allegedly addictive design, the guys discuss what implications there are for the future of Meta and for marketers and consumers. They also look at ABC's lawsuit against the FCC and the bigger lesson for every marketer and creator: know who your landlord is. If someone else controls your access to the audience, they can always change the rules. Joe's winner: Puck, and its model of building human-led content franchises instead of traditional brand-centered content. Robert's winner/loser: Reddit and marketers. Joe raves about Niu Lai, the wildly imperfect Chinese animated movie finding an audience partly because it is unmistakably human. Robert raves about the TV series Blue Lights. Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor:Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork